Humility Cooper

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Humility Cooper (c. 1619 – before 1651) was a passenger on the ship Mayflower in 1620. She was born in Holland to Robert and Joan (Gresham) Cooper of Henlow, Bedfordshire, England about 1619.

Cooper sailed to the New World with her uncle and aunt, Edward and Ann (Cooper) Tilley.[1] The Tilleys died during their first winter in the New World.[2]

Humility, and her aunt and uncle left Plymouth, England on 16 September 1620. On 19 November 1620, the Mayflower reached land at Cape Cod. They landed on November 21. The group wrote the Mayflower Compact, which made rules on how they would live and treat each other. John Tilley was a signer.[3][4] The Mayflower was supposed to land in Virginia Colony, but the ship was too damaged and they were forced to land at Cape Cod, at a place now called Provincetown Harbor.[3][5][6][7]

In Plymouth Colony and back in England[change | change source]

Cooper received one acre of land when land was divided among the Pilgrims in 1623[8] She was included in the Edward Winslow family. She was also included in the Brewster family when the livestock were divided in 1627 so she lived with them for a time.[8][9][10] In 1651 William Bradford wrote about her saying she "was sent for into England and there died".[1] She was baptized in London on 17 March 1638 when she was aged 19.[1] It is unknown whether she married or had children. Cooper died before 1651.[2]

References[change | change source]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 Caleb H Johnson, The Mayflower and Her Passengers (Philadelphia, PA: Xlibris Corporation, 2006), p. 129
  2. 2.0 2.1 "Pilgrim Village Families Sketch: Humility Cooper". Archived from the original on 2013-09-04. Retrieved 2013-06-04.
  3. 3.0 3.1 Eugene Aubrey Stratton, Plymouth Colony: Its History and People, 1620-1691, (Salt Lake City: Ancestry Publishing, 1986), p. 413
  4. George Ernest Bowman, The Mayflower Compact and its signers, (Boston: Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1920). Photocopies of the 1622, 1646 and 1669 versions of the document pp. 7–19.
  5. Stratton, 20.
  6. George Ernest Bowman, The Mayflower Compact and its signers (Boston: Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1920). Photocopies of the 1622, 1646 and 1669 versions of the document pp. 7-19.
  7. Eugene Aubrey Stratton, Plymouth Colony: Its History and People, 1620-1691, (Salt Lake City: Ancestry Publishing, 1986), pp. 411-413
  8. 8.0 8.1 Humility Cooper in 17th Century Records, Pilgrim Hall Museum Archived 2014-03-28 at the Wayback Machine
  9. Eugene Aubrey Stratton, Plymouth Colony: Its History and People, 1620–1691, (Salt Lake City: Ancestry Publishing, 1986), pp. 362, 416, 420, 423
  10. Charles Edward Banks, The English Ancestry and Homes of the Pilgrim Fathers: who came to Plymouth on the "Mayflower" in 1620, the "Fortune" in 1621 and the "Anne" and "The Little James" in 1623 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing 1965), p. 49