Brown and King.

The Legend of my Mayflower Heritage and a Native American Princess

            I live in San Francisco and since retiring, I have become a volunteer guide, giving tours of historic Coit Tower and its Depression-era fresco murals. I begin each tour with a short history about the construction of the tower and a brief biography of Lily Hitchcock Coit, the namesake of the observatory that sits at the top of Telegraph Hill. I warn the audience that what I am about to tell them is the “legend” of Lily Hitchcock Coit, not the definitive life story since many contradictory and embellished versions of her active life have been portrayed in books and periodicals. It is oftentimes difficult to tell where the truth ends, and the fairy tale begins. And that is what brings me to the tales my great grandmother told me of her family history.

            Grace Edna Brown, my great grandmother, was born 22 February 1882 and her birth was registered in Versailles, Connecticut, a very small community that is now part of the town of Sprague in New London County. There is very little information on her birth certificate, but she did claim to have been born in the community of Scotland which is in neighboring Windham County. At the age of 19, she married my great grandfather Robert Kimberly King. I remember them well, though my memories of Grace are more defined since I was nearly 16 when she died. As a child, I spent a great deal of time with her. She oftentimes would visit our home on Sundays for the traditional New England early afternoon dinner.

            She was a very proud woman; someone who perhaps believed she deserved a better life than the one she lived, especially during the difficult years of the Great Depression. Grace would tell my brother and me stories of her childhood and the various games she would play, including “Who’s Got the Thimble?” and teach us simple little childhood songs. Boastfully, she also claimed that one of her great, great, greats was an American Indian Princess. On hearing this story, which my mother had also heard numerous times during her youth, I became intrigued to think that part of me was perhaps something more, somehow different from the other white kids in town. That would mean that I was part Native American, or Indian as we said in the 1960s. This would not only have meant I had Native American heritage, but it also meant I was part royalty, being descended from a “princess.” Grace provided no more details, but after further thought, I did find it difficult to comprehend how Grace had such pale white skin and was part Native American. But I chose to believe it anyway and foolishly did not ask for any more specific explanation about this heritage.

            Years after Grace died, my mother decided to conduct family history research of her own, mostly in a quest to identify the family tree branch that would confirm Grace’s other notable claim, that of descendance from a Mayflower passenger. As I recall, my mother stated that Grace said she descended from William Bradford himself. Although my mother was successful in identifying ancestors who were early New England pioneers, including many immigrants during the years of the Great Migration (1629 to 1640), she was unsuccessful in identifying a connection to William Bradford or any other Mayflower passenger for that matter.

            As the years passed, I became interested in family history and genealogy, mostly driven by a passionate interest in famous people’s lives I read about in biographies. As a starting point I took advantage of the family history research my mother conducted herself and by a professional genealogist she had engaged in the 1980s. I cataloged the information and entered it into my genealogy database, but I only casually added to the information she had identified. Instead, for the past 30 years, I focused my part-time genealogical research on other branches of my family tree which were largely virgin territory for me explore.

            The year 2020, and the activities underway to recognize the 400th anniversary of the voyage of the Mayflower, piqued my interest in the story of the Mayflower passengers. And since retirement I have been spending the summer months each year on Cape Cod, with its proximity to the first landing site of the pilgrims. As a break from my typical family research, I started to casually review branches of Grace Brown and Robert King’s family trees. Much to my surprise, I quickly found a direct Mayflower line in my great grandfather Robert King’s family tree. It was straightforward research, leveraging some resources I had previously identified for his family line, coupled with a review of the Mayflower Families through Five Generations books, also known as the Silver Books. Various family names in those books were very familiar to me, and I found a very clear connection to John Howland and his wife Elizabeth Tilley. Since John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley probably have more descendants than any other Mayflower passengers, this is the first family that nearly anyone would suspect as forefathers. My great grandfather* was clearly a Tenth Generation Mayflower Descendant, making me a Thirteenth Generation Mayflower Descendant.

Generation 1.                          John Howland                         and      Elizabeth Tilley

Generation 2.                          Hope Howland                        and      John Chipman

Generation 3.                          Hope Chipman                        and      John Huckens

Generation 4.                          Elizabeth Huckens                  and      John Lewes

Generation 5.                          Shubael Lewes                        and      Mary Hopkins

Generation 6.                          Samuel Lewis                          and      Mary Nichols

Generation 7.                          Azubah Lewis                          and      Amasa King

Generation 8.                          Austin King                              and      Sophia Gardner

Generation 9.                          William Hollis King                 and      Ella Frances Moulton

Generation 10.                        Robert Kimberly King*           and      Grace Edna Brown

Generation 11.                        Bernice Moulton King             and      Daniel Joseph Doherty

Generation 12.                        Muriel Louise Doherty            and      Douglas Dean

Generation 13.                        David Allen Dean

It is estimated that John Howland was born about 1599 in Fenstanton, Huntingdonshire, England. He was the son of Henry and Margaret Howland. He was traveling on the Mayflower as a servant to Governor John Carver. Howland is famously known for having fallen overboard during a treacherous storm that violently tossed the Mayflower. Fortunately for John, myself, and his millions of descendants, he managed to grab hold of the ship’s topsail halyards and hold on until the Mayflower’s crew was able to rescue him with a boat hook. (This story was related by William Bradford in his diaries.) Elizabeth Tilley and her parents John and Joan (Hurst) Tilley were also Mayflower passengers.

Upon closer examination of my family tree, I was struck by the presence of the surname Hopkins in “Generation 5” of the Howland line. I knew there were Hopkins who traveled on the Mayflower, so I decided to research who this Mary Hopkins was. Sure enough, my great grandfather* was also a Tenth Generation Mayflower Descendant of the Stephen Hopkins line.

Generation 1.                          Stephen Hopkins                    and      unknown

Generation 2.                          Giles Hopkins                          and      Catherine Whelden

Generation 3.                          Stephen Hopkins                    and      Mary Merrick

Generation 4.                          Stephen Hopkins                    and      Sarah Howes

Generation 5.                          Mary Hopkins                         and      Shubael Lewes

Generation 6.                          Samuel Lewis                          and      Mary Nichols

Generation 7.                          Azubah Lewis                          and      Amasa King

Generation 8.                          Austin King                              and      Sophia Gardner

Generation 9.                          William Hollis King                and      Ella Frances Moulton

Generation 10.                        Robert Kimberly King*          and      Grace Edna Brown

Generation 11.                        Bernice Moulton King           and      Daniel Joseph Doherty

Generation 12.                        Muriel Louise Doherty           and      Douglas Dean

Generation 13.                        David Allen Dean

Reviewing the Stephen Hopkins Silver Book, I also noted the surname Walker appeared in my great grandfather’s family line over several generations. I quick review of my own data led to the identification of a second line of descendancy from Stephen Hopkins.

Generation 1.                          Stephen Hopkins                    and      unknown

Generation 2.                          Constance Hopkins                and      Nicholas Snow

Generation 3.                          Sarah Snow                            and      William Walker

Generation 4.                          Jabez Walker                           and      Elizabeth

Generation 5.                          Jeremiah Walker                     and      Esther Tombling

Generation 6.                          Benjamin Walker                    and      Marsylvia Keith

Generation 7.                          Marshal Walker                      and      Hannah Dunbar

Generation 8.                          Dinah Walker                          and      Jonas Moulton

Generation 9.                          Franklin Warner Moulton     and      Elizabeth C. Brown

Generation 10.                        Ella Frances Moulton             and      William Hollis King

Generation 11.                        Robert Kimberly King*          and      Grace Edna Brown

Generation 12.                        Bernice Moulton King            and      Daniel Joseph Doherty

Generation 13.                        Muriel Louise Doherty           and      Douglas Dean

Generation 14.                        David Allen Dean

This placed my great grandfather* in Generation 11 and me in Generation 14 of Mayflower descendancy. Three lines of descendancy to the Mayflower passengers were quite unexpected, and through my great grandfather and not my great grandmother, the woman who had declared with such pride that she was a Mayflower descendant. Given the limited number of early European settlers in Massachusetts, a degree of intermarriage is not surprising. Finding myself descending from two passengers (in fact six, since Elizabeth Tilley and both of her parents were Mayflower passengers as were Stephen Hopkins’ children Constance and Giles) is not terribly surprising. What I found most entertaining though was that my great grandmother Grace Brown, who boasted of her own heritage, appeared not to be a Mayflower descendant.

Then my curiosity got the better of me and I decided to take a closer look at Grace Brown’s family history to see if I could put the matter to rest. I poked around several times but still was not finding a connection. I thought it would likely be through the Bates family line (my great grandmother’s mother’s maiden name), requiring me to do more formal genealogy research since I had not previously properly mined those branches of her family tree. Much to my surprise, there it was, my great grandmother** was an Eleventh-Generation descendant of Isaac Allerton and his wife Mary Norris, making me a Fourteenth Generation Descendant.

Generation 1.                          Isaac Allerton                          and      Mary Norris

Generation 2.                          Mary Allerton                         and      Thomas Cushman

Generation 3.                          Thomas Cushman                  and      Abigail Titus

Generation 4.                          Samuel Cushman                   and      Fear Corser

Generation 5.                          Mary Cushman                       and      Noah Fuller

Generation 6.                          Chloe Fuller                             and      John Bates

Generation 7.                          Alanson Bates                         and      Comfort Robinson

Generation 8.                          Elhanan Winchester Bates  and      Polly Douglass

Generation 9.                          Joseph P. Bates                       and      Sarah Jane Phillips

Generation 10.                        Jenny (Mary Jane) Bates        and      Franklin Pierce Brown

Generation 11.                        Grace Edna Brown**              and      Robert Kimberly King

Generation 12.                        Bernice Moulton King            and      Daniel Joseph Doherty

Generation 13.                        Muriel Louise Doherty           and      Douglas Dean

Generation 14.                        David Allen Dean

Are there more Mayflower lines in my family tree? Perhaps. But if there are, I haven’t yet spent the time trying to uncover them. So far only two of these family lines have been reviewed and approved by the Society of Mayflower Descendants: The Hopkins line through Stephen Hopkins son Giles, the Howland line, and the Allerton line.

Somewhere in this process of searching for the Mayflower passengers, I started digging into the ancestors of my third great grandmother Sarah Jane Phillips and quite accidently discovered the source of the stories of the Native American heritage in my great grandmother’s family line. It surprised me to learn there was someone who might be considered a “princess” because legend has it that that she was the daughter of a “King,” that is “King Philip,” or more accurately Metacom, the second son of Massasoit, sachem of the Wampanoag. If I was to uncover a Native American linkage, the last thing I expected was to find a link to such a high-profile leader as Metacom. But to be clear, there remains much to doubt about the authenticity of this connection. Even the written histories state as much. Rather than start with Metacom, I’ve chosen to start with his equally famous father, Massasoit. In theory, this is the family line:

Generation 1.                          Massasoit                                and      Saunks Massasoit

Generation 2.                          Metacom “King Philip”        and      Wootonckuaske Potanoket

Generation 3.                          Ann                                          and      John Starkweather

Generation 4.                          Mary Starkweather               and      John Stanton

Generation 5.                          David Stanton                        and      Sarah Kimball

Generation 6.                          David Stanton                        and      Susanna Frink

Generation 7.                          Theophilus Stanton              and      Anna Pope

Generation 8.                          Sabra Stanton                         and      Palmer Phillips

Generation 9.                          Sarah Jane Phillips                 and      Joseph P. Bates

Generation 10.                        Jenny (Mary Jane) Bates       and      Franklin Pierce Brown

Generation 11.                        Grace Edna Brown**             and      Robert Kimberly King

Generation 12.                        Bernice Moulton King           and      Daniel Joseph Doherty

Generation 13.                        Muriel Louise Doherty          and      Douglas Dean

Generation 14.                        David Allen Dean

This story would make my great grandmother** the seventh great granddaughter of Metacom and me the 10th great grandson of Metacom and the 11th great grandson of Massasoit. The only record of the connection to Massasoit and Metacom I found is in the Starkweather Genealogy in the fourth section which describes the family’s second generation: “John Starkweather (1Robert) is the only son of Robert and Jeannette [Roberts] Starkweather of whom we can get any record. He was b. in Roxbury, Mass., and bapt. There 2 Aug., 1646; m. in -------- Ann [--------], who is said by a most improbable tradition to be a descendant of the old Narragansett, King Philip.” According to the same publication, “’Mrs. Anna Starkweather’ was received into full communion 14 April, 1706, by the church (Congregational) in the South Society of Preston (i.e. the now Preston City church). Said Anna, the church records show, was disciplined 5 Oct, 1709 ‘for her being faulty by lying and obstinate therein.’ She confesses 28 Feb’y, 1711, and is forgiven by the church.”

 And so it goes, as with most legends, it is difficult to tell where the truth diverges into fiction. I doubt I will ever know the whole truth about my connections to Metacom and Massasoit, or even the true linkage back to the Mayflower passengers. Perhaps one day DNA will help me or one of my descendants confirm the connections or identify where the linkages are broken. But one thing this has taught me is to listen closely to the stories of the old white-haired man or woman in your life, there just may be something to that fanciful tale they are weaving. It’s up to you to find the threads that connect the generations.