[83]. Recollections of John Howland, etc. E. H. Stone, Providence, 1857.
[84]. The Mayflower Descendant, ii, 70.
Chapter IV
COMPANIONS WHO ARRIVED IN THE FORTUNE AND THE ANN
After the arrival of The Ann, in the summer of 1623, the women who came in The Mayflower had more companions of good breeding and efficiency. Elizabeth Warren, wife of Richard, came with her five daughters; it is safe to assume the latter were attractive for, in a few years, all were well married. Two sons were born after Elizabeth arrived at Plymouth, Nathaniel and Joseph. For forty-five years she survived her husband, who had been a man of strength of character and usefulness as well as some wealth. When she died at the age of ninety-three leaving seventy-five great grandchildren, the old Plymouth Colony Records paid her tribute,—“Mistress Elizabeth Warren, haveing lived a Godly life came to her Grave as a Shock of corn full Ripe. She was honourably buried on the 24th of October (1673).”
Evidently, Mistress Warren was a woman of independent means and efficiency,—else she would have remarried, as was the custom of the times. She became one of the “purchasers” of the colony and conveyed land, at different times, near Eel River and what is now Warren’s Cove, in Plymouth, to her sons-in-law. An interesting sidelight upon her character and home is found in the Court Records;[[85]] her servant, Thomas Williams, was prosecuted for “speaking profane and blasphemous speeches against ye majestie of God. There being some dissension between him and his dame she, after other things, exhorted him to fear God and doe his duty.”
Bridget Fuller followed her husband, Dr. Samuel, and came in The Ann. She also long survived her husband and did not remarry. She carried on his household and probably also his teaching for many years after he fell victim to the epidemic of infectious fever in 1633. She was his third wife, but only two children are known to have used the Fuller cradle, now preserved in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth. It has been stated that, in addition to these two, Samuel and Mercy, another young child came with its mother in The Ann, but did not live long.[[86]] The son, Samuel, born about 1625, was minister for many years at Middleboro; he married Elizabeth Brewster, thus preserving two friendly families in kinship.
Evidently, Bridget Fuller was very ill and not expected to recover when her husband was dying, for in his will, made at that time, he arranged for the education of his children by his brother-in-law, William Wright, unless it “shall please God to recover my wife out of her weake estate of sickness.” It is interesting also that, in this will, provision was made for the education of his daughter, Mercy, as well as his son, Samuel, by Mrs. Heeks or Hicks, the wife of Robert Hicks who came in The Ann.[[87]] Not alone for his own children did this good physician provide education, but also for others “put to him for schooling,”—with special mention of Sarah Converse “left to me by her sick father.” This kind, generous doctor left a considerable estate, in spite of the many “debts for physicke,” including that of “Mr. Roger Williams which was freely given.” One specific gift was for the good of the church and this forms the nucleus of a fund which is still known as the Fuller Ministerial Fund of the Plymouth Congregational Church. Its source was “the first cow calfe that his Brown Cow should have.”[[88]]
Mrs. Alice Morse Earle says that gloves were gifts of sentiment;[[89]] they were generously bestowed by this physician of old Plymouth. Money to buy gloves, or gloves, were bequeathed to Mistress Alice Bradford and Governor Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony; also to John Winslow, John Jenny and Rebecca Prence. The price allowed for a pair of gloves was from two to five shillings. Probably these may have been the fringed leather gloves or the knit gloves described by Mrs. Earle. Another bequest was his “best hat and band never worn to old Mr. William Brewster.” To his wife was left not alone two houses, “one at Smeltriver and another in town,” but also a fine supply of furnishings and clothes, including stuffe gown, red pettecoate, stomachers, aprons, shoes and kerchiefs. Mistress Fuller lived until after 1667, and exerted a strong influence upon the educational life of Plymouth.