Ancestry of W. H. Merklee
10G Grandparents (Continued)

5735 Judith MAJOR.  Died on 10 Oct 1646 in Charlestown, MA.

5840 Simon HUNTINGTON.  Born on 7 Aug 1583 in England. Died in 1633 in at sea.

He married Margaret BARRETT, on 11 May 1623 in Norwich, Norfolk, England.

They had the following children:
2920 i. Christopher (1629-1691)
ii. William
iii. Simon (1629-1708)
iv. Thomas
v. Ann

5841 Margaret BARRETT.  Born in England.

5842 William ROCKWELL.  Baptized on 6 Feb 1590/1 in Fitzhead, Somersetshire, England. Died in 1640. Buried on 15 May 1640 in Windsor, Hartford, CT.

He married Susanna CAPEN, on 14 Apr 1624 in Dorchester, Dorsetshire, England.

They had the following children:
i. Joan (1625-)
ii. John (1627-1673)
iii. Samuel (1631-)
2921 iv. Ruth (~1633-1728)
v. Sarah (~1639-)

5843 Susanna CAPEN.  Born on 11 Apr 1602. Died on 13 Nov 1666 in Windsor, Hartford, CT.

5848 Capt. Myles STANDISH.  Born abt 1584 in Duxbury, Lancashire, England. Died on 3 Oct 1656 in Duxbury, Plymouth, MA.

The ancestry of Myles Standish is still a subject of considerable debate and research. In 1914 Thomas Cruddas Porteus published "Some Recent Investigations Concerning the Ancestry of Capt. Myles Standish" [NEHGR 68:339-69]. He transcribed many estate documents, and came to the tentative conclusion that Myles Standish descended from a certain Huan Standish of the Isle of Man.

In 1933 Merton Taylor Goodrich prepared a study of "The Children and Grandchildren of Capt. Myles Standish" [NEHGR 87:149-60]. Goodrich touches only briefly on the matter of the Standish ancestry; the most important part of his article is a careful study of both wives and each of the children of Myles Standish, dealing in detail with a number of matters of chronology and proof. This article is the bedrock on which all later work is based.

More recently, G.V.C. Young has tackled the problem of the ancestry of Myles Standish and has advanced our knowledge greatly. In 1984 he presented an extended argument that Myles Standish was born on the Isle of Man, and that he was the son of a John Standish of Ellanbane on the Isle of Man [Myles Standish: First Manx American (Isle of Man 1984)]. This John Standish was son of another John Standish, who was son of a Huan Standish of Ellanbane, the very man proposed by Porteus in 1914. Although this conclusion is very well argued, the proof is not yet complete, though Young's identification seems probable.

Young has published two brief supplements to this work: More About Pilgrim Myles Standish (Isle of Man 1987) and Ellanbane Was the Birthplace of Myles Standish (Isle of Man 1988).

Research by Helen Moorwood published in Lancashire History Quarterly beginning in 1999 shakes up things considerably. For one, she states that the reference in Myles' will to the Isle of Man (the starting point for the belief in Myles' Manx origins) was in fact a different (and much smaller) Isle of Man located in Lancashire County. And while there is a curious dearth of documentation concerning Myles' father and paternal grandfather (which Moorwood suspects is due to the conspiracy to keep Myles from his rightful inheritance as mentioned in Myles' will), she shows that there can be little doubt as to the identity of Myles' great-grandfather (Alexander Standish) and, subsequently, his descent from both the Standishes of Duxbury and the Standishes of Standish.

The ancestry for Myles given here is based upon Ms. Moorwood's work (back to Hugh de Standish, d. 1356) as well as information from the Standish History web site (http://www.standish-history.org.uk). The site's sources include The Standish Family 1189-1920 by Eleanor Johnson and Gentlemen of Courage Forward by Lawrence Hill.

***

Myles Standish started his military career as a drummer, and eventually worked his way up and into the Low Countries (Holland), where English troops under Heratio Vere had been stationed to help the Dutch in their war with Spain. It was certainly here that he made acquaintance with the Pilgrims at Leyden, and came into good standing with the Pilgrims' pastor John Robinson. Standish was eventually hired by them to be their military captain.

Captain Standish lead most of the first exploring missions into the wintery surroundings at Cape Cod looking for a place to settle. He was elected military captain, and organized the Pilgrims defenses against the Indians, as well as protect the Colony from the French, Spanish, and Dutch. In 1622 he led an expedition to save the remaining members of the Wessagusett Colony and killed several Indians who had led the plot to kill all the Englishmen at that Colony.

Standish befriended an Indian named Hobomok, just as Bradford befriended Squanto, and the two lived out their lives very close to one another. Hobomok was a warrior for Massasoit, and the two "military men" probably understood one another better than most.

So much could be written about Myles Standish. But here are a few selections from what contemporaries had to say about him, both the good and the bad.

William Bradford on Myles Standish:

But that which was most sad and lamentable was, that in two or three months' time half of their company died, especially in January and February . . . So as their died some times two or three of a day in the foresaid time, that of 100 and odd persons, scarce fifty remained.  And of these, in the time of most distress, there was but six or seven sound persons who to their great commendations, be it spoken, spared no pains night nor day, but with abundance of toil and hazard of their own health, fetched them wood, made them fires, dressed their meat, made their beds, washed their loathsome clothes, clothed and unclothed them. . . . Two of these seven were Mr. William Brewster, their reverend Elder, and Myles Standish, their captain and military commander, unto whom myself and many others were much beholden in our low and sick condition.

William Hubbard, c1650 in his The General History of New England, writes of Standish:

Capt. Standish had been bred a soldier in the Low Countries, and never entered the school of our Savior Christ, or of John Baptist, his harbinger; or, if he was ever there, had forgot his first lessens, to offer violence to no man, and to part with the cloak rather than needlessly contend for the coat, though taken away without order. A little chimney is soon fired; so was the Plymouth captain, a man of very little stature, yet of a very hot and angry temper. The fire of his passion soon kindled, and blown up into a flame by hot words, might easily have consumed all, had it not been seasonably quenched.

Thomas Morton of Merrymount, in his New England's Cannan describing Standish, and his own arrest which was carried out by Standish (1637):

. . . But mine Host [i.e. Thomas Morton] no sooner had set open the door, and issued out, but instantly Captain Shrimp and the rest of his worthies stepped to him, laid hold of his arms [guns], and had him down . . . Captain Shrimp, and the rest of the nine worthies, made themselves, (by this outrageous riot,) Masters of mine Host of Merrymount, and disposed of what he had at his plantation.

Nathaniel Morton in his New England's Memorial (1669) wrote of Myles Standish's death in 1656:

This year Captain Miles Standish expired his mortal life. . . . In his younger time he went over into the low countries, and was a soldier there, and came acquainted with the church at Leyden, and came over into New-England, with such of them as at the first set out for the planting of the plantation of New-Plimouth, and bare a deep share of their first difficulties, and was always very faithful to their interest.  He growing ancient, became sick of the stone, or stranguary, whereof, after his suffering of much dolorous pain, he fell asleep in the Lord, and was honourably buried at Duxbury.

Conspiratorial letter of John Oldham, intercepted by William Bradford:

Captain Standish looks like a silly boy and is in utter contempt.

Edward Winslow, in Good News From New England describing an retaliatory military expedition, relating to an Indian conspiracy Massasoit had alerted the Pilgrims to (1624):

Also Pecksuot, being a man of greater stature than the Captain, told him, though he were a great Captain, yet he was but a little man; and said he, though I be no sachem, yet I am a man of great strength and courage.  These things the Captain observed, yet bare with patience for the present. . . . On the next day he began himself with Pecksuot, and snatching his own knife from his neck, though with much struggling, killed him therewith . . . Hobbamock stood by all this time as a spectator, and meddled not, observing how our men demeaned themselves in this action. All being here ended, smiling, he brake forth into these speeches to the Captain: "Yesterday Pecksuot, bragging of his own strength and stature, said, though you were a great captain, yet you were but a little man; but today I see you are big enough to lay him on the ground."

A chair and a sword owned by Myles Standish are preserved in the Pilgrim Hall Museum, Plymouth, Massachusetts. The authenticity of the portrait of Myles Standish shown is not fully known. The inscription with the portrait reads "AEtatis Suae 38, Ao. 1625", and it is only by tradition that the portrait is of Myles Standish--a tradition, however, which dates back to at least 1812.

He married Barbara LEIGH, in 1623 in Plymouth, Plymouth, MA.

They had the following children:
i. Charles (~1624-~1630)
ii. Alexander (1625-1702)
iii. John (1627-)
iv. Myles (1629-)
2924 v. Josiah (1634-1689)
vi. Charles (~1635-)


5849 Barbara LEIGH. Died abt 1659 in Duxbury, Plymouth, MA.

5850 Samuel ALLEN.

He married Ann WHITMORE.

They had one child:
2925 i. Sarah (1639-~1690)

5851 Ann WHITMORE.


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