Thomas Pope and Sarah Jenney

I have always found the idea of journeying across the ocean in a ship with multitudes of people, a minimum of space and the little knowledge of what you might face a daunting prospect.  Perhaps that is why I have a fascination with my ancestors who made that trip in the early 1600's.

Thomas Pope was born in England around 1608 around Kent, England to John Pope and Mary Haisnoth.  He traveled to the New World during the great migration arriving sometime around 1630.  I have read that he and his father, John, might have been passengers on the Mary and John, but I have never seen proof of that.  He married on 28 Jan 1637 to Ann Fallowell and I know that they had at least once child together, Hannah Pope b. 17 Aug 1739 in Plymouth, MA d. 12 Mar 1710 in Plymouth, MA m. to Joseph Bartlett.  However, Ann must have died sometime before 29 May 1646, because Thomas Pope married Sarah Jenney at that time.   Thomas Pope was a cooper by profession which is something that probably doesn't make a lot of sense to us today.  However, during the early colonial days, a man who could make a barrel to store food or other produces was a valuable commodity.  Most entries about Thomas Pope concern the buying and selling of land.  During his lifetime, he served during the Pequot War, surveyed highways and served as a constable in Plymouth.  He died sometime before between 9 Jul 1683 when his will was dated and 4 Aug 1683 when an inventory of his estate was taken.

Sarah Jenney was the daughter of John Jenney and Sarah Carey.  She truly was from true Puritan stock.  Her parents married in Leyden, Holland on 1 Nov 1614.  They made the decision to travel to the New World and sailed on the Little James in 1623.  Sarah was born in July 1623 on the ship during its passage across the ocean.  It seems to be bad enough to make that trip on your own or with children - but to be pregnant and near giving birth, that was certainly a courageous undertaking. (Her mother, Sarah Carey, lived to be about 66 years old)  On 29 May 1646, the 22 year old, Sarah married the 38 year old widower, Thomas Pope.   Between the years 1647 and 1665, Sarah and Thomas Pope had eleven children.  I would imagine that Sarah Jenney's family was probably well thought of in Plymouth.  Her father was one of the early Puritan separatists who moved to Leyden Holland and when he came to the Plymouth colony, he was granted the permission to build a grist mill that would produce enough meal and flour for the community.  The Pilgrims had been taught by the Indians to plant, harvest corn but their methods to mill the corn wasn't productive enough, so John Jenney build a grist mill in 1636 that remained in services until it was destroyed by a fire in 1847.  A replica was built and serves as a museum that demonstrates the milling of corn from the time of the Puritans.

Sarah Jenney outlived her husband by a few decades and died on 12 March 1709 in Dartmouth, Bristol Co., MA.  Sarah Jenney and Thomas Pope are my 8th great grandparents through my great grandmother, Shirley Louisa Pope.  Most of the eleven children of Thomas Pope and Sarah Jenney lived to adulthood and here is a list of their known children:

• Seth Pope b. 13 Jan 1647 d. 17 Mar 1726 m. Deborah Perry (7th Great Grandparents) - Their son married his 1st cousin, Margaret Pope.
• Susannah Pope b. 1649 d. Jul 1675 m. Jacob Mitchell
• Thomas Pope b. 25 Mar 1651 d. bef 1700
• Sarah Pope b. 14 Feb 1652 d. 1727 m. Samuel Hinckley
• John Pope b. 15 Mar 1653 d. Jul 1675 (He and his sister, Susannah and husband were killed by Phillip's warriors while they were fleeing the Dartmouth garrison)
• Mary Pope b. 1654 d. 1730 m. Stephen Peckham
• Patience Pope b. 1655 d. 1675
• Deborah Pope b. 1658 d. 1658
• Joanna Pope b. 1660 d. 1695 m. John Hathaway
• Isaac Pope b. 1663 d. 1733 m. Alice Freeman (7th Great Grandparents) - Their daughter, Margaret, married her first cousin, Elnathan. 
• Jacob Pope b. 1665 d. 17 Dec 1751

Presidential Trivia

One of my curious activities a few years ago was writing an article for the Pennington Pedigrees on Presidential genealogy.  I have to say that it was a fun article for me to write.  If you are interested in Presidential genealogy, the first and best resource that you should look at is the work of Gary Boyd Roberts.    I believe that he is the expert on all things genealogy related to our Presidents.

Here are some interesting facts to consider…there are two presidents who share more lines in common than any other with 18 lines.  It is no surprise that it is George Herbert Walker Bush and his son George W. Bush.  They probably share genealogy with a lot of people.  I share several ancestors with the two of them including: John Gallup & Hannah Lake, John Howland & Elizabeth Tilley, Thomas Pope and Sarah Jenney.  When you throw Barbara Pierce Bush into the mix, I also share the ancestors of Fernando Thayer and Huldah Hayward. 

Calvin Coolidge, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Gerald R. Ford share 17 ancestral lines in common.   I share a common line of Edmund Rice and Thomasine Frost with Calvin Coolidge.  It is no surprise that many share lines with Franklin Delano Roosevelt – I have the following: John Howland & Elizabeth Tilley.  I also share a line with Gerald R. Ford (aka Leslie Lynch King) of William Wilbore and Martha Holmes.

I could go on with several Presidents and common ancestral lines…but you will find if you have New England ancestry then you probably can connect to a President of the United States. Also of interest is that the fact that there are several who share no common lines with any other President.  These Presidents include:

• Thomas Jefferson
• James Monroe
• Andrew Jackson
• James K. Polk 
• James Buchanan
• Andrew Johnson
• Chester Arthur
• William McKinley
• Woodrow Wilson
• Dwight David Eisenhower
• John Fitzgerald Kennedy
• Ronald Reagan
• William Jefferson Clinton

You might find it interesting that our current President shares ancestral lines with seven other Presidents including:  James Madison, Harry Truman, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and both George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush.

Our Presidents have come from a lot of backgrounds and families both wealthy and poor.  They have been lawyers, Police Commissioners, Generals, tailors, and farmers.  You may like some better than others – but they are an interesting lot to look at.  You might find it curious that President Obama is not the first President to have his nation of birth questioned.  Chester Arthur was thought by some to have been born in Canada and not the United States.  Chester Arthur’s father owned a farm 15 miles across the border and some speculated that he was not a natural born citizen.  Chester Arthur went so far as to change his birth year to 1830, since his father was well established in Vermont at that time.  

It is also interesting to note that when Grover Cleveland first became President, he was bachelor.  He married a younger woman named Frances Folsom who was 21 years old and the youngest first lady we have ever had.  They had five children and four lived to be quite old, the last one died in 1995.   We know of the two sets of fathers and sons (Adams & Bushs) but there was also a grandfather and grandson – Benjamin Harrison was the grandson of William Henry Harrison.  

There was also one President who was administered the oath of office by his own father in a Vermont farmhouse.  Calvin Coolidge’s father was the local notary public and the oath was done early in the morning after hearing of Warren G. Harding’s death.  Everyone knows that John Fitzgerald Kennedy is buried at Arlington Cemetery, but did you know that William Howard Taft was as well.  Taft was also the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court after his term as President and he himself administered the oath of office to two Presidents.

So as many of us enjoy a day off on President’s day – you might look up one or two on your computer and learn something about them.  You might be surprised at what you find!

Early Pope Ancestors

You will never find one of my ancestors listed on the Ellis Island records or probably any immigrant records past 1810.  From what I have been able to discover, most of my ancestors arrived much earlier with a large group arriving in the 1700’s and many arrived much earlier including the group that arrived on the Mayflower and shortly thereafter.  One of these couples both arrived with their families shortly after the Mayflower’s arrival in 1620 and were my 8^th great grandparents

.

Thomas Pope was born about 1608 in England – as far as I know, his parents are unknown.  He arrived in America around 1632 and married Ann Fallowell in 1637 in Plymouth Co., MA and after her death married Sarah Jenney on 19 May 1646 in Dartmouth, Bristol Co., MA.  Thomas first appears on the 1633 tax list and is listed as a cooper by occupation.  He was chosen as a Constable in Plymouth in 1645 and a surveyor of highways in 1651 and 1652.  Thomas owned several lots of land including Plymouth and Dartmouth.  He died before Aug 1683 when his estate is inventoried.  Thomas would be counted as one of the more prominent men of the colony. 

Sarah Jenney, Thomas Pope’s second wife, was born in July 1623 on the “Little James” while crossing the ocean to her parents, John Jenney and Sarah Carey.  I have heard John Jenney described as a cooper and as a brewer.  However, he was most known as a miller and built a mill in 1636 that remained in continuous operation until it was destroyed by a fire in 1847.  The Jenney Grist mill was a center for commerce because John Jenney would usually trade goods and services for the milling of corn, wheat, and rye flours.  When Thomas Pope and Sarah Jenney married in 1646 it was after the death of her father who died in 1644.  They had 7 children.  I am descended from both their oldest son, Seth, and their youngest son, Isaac.  Seth’s son, Elnathan married Isaac’s daughter Margaret Pope.

 

While Thomas Pope and Sarah Jenney were probably considered to be a fairly successful family in the colony, they experienced one of the worst tragedies that any family could face.  Susannah Pope and her husband Jacob Mitchell and her younger brother, John were killed by King Phillip’s warriors as they were fleeing to the Dartmouth garrison in July 1675.  If you have never heard of “King Philip’s War” you can look at http://www.mayflowerfamilies.com/enquirer/king_philip.htm - King Philip aka Metacomet was the Chief of the Wampanoags who led a war against the Plymouth colony villages.  The whole situation was a disaster for both the Puritans and the Wampanoags.

 

If you are interested in further information on the Pope family – You can check out the “Genealogy of Thomas Pope (1608-1883) and his descendants” at http://books.google.com/books/about/Genealogy_of_Thomas_Pope_1608_1883_and_h.html?id=E3tIAAAAMAAJ

You can also visit www.findagrave.com and see some of the early Pope gravestones including that of Deborah Perry, wife of Seth Pope a the Acushnet Cemetery which is the oldest stone still in existence at http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=8233908