Mayflower Pilgrims Page 1 - Foreword

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Mayflower Pilgrim Descendants in Cape May County, New Jersey

memorial of the three hundredth anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, 1620-1920; a record of the Pilgrim descendants who early in its history settled in Cape May County, and some of their children throughout the several states of the union at the present time (1921)

Copyright, 1921; ALBERT R. HAND, Publisher Cape May, N. J. May 7, 1921 Printed and Published by: ALBERT R. HAND, Cape May, N. J.

Preface Pages 1 — 3 extracted by: Laverne Tornow

Foreword

These Cape May County descendants of the Mayflower band have been, until Dr. Howe arrived, a "lost tribe," many of them uninformed of their illustrious origin, others informed but indifferent to the interest of the subject.

In common with the people in many other sections, the people of our County have never been sufficiently interested in perpetuating the record of the doings of their period, and much of local history that would be valuable to present and future generations has been lost ; for there have been stirring events and great deeds done in our section as in others and by our citizens in all of the great war crises which have visited the colonies and the nation since the first settlements.

It is fortunate for history, and equally fortunate for our "old families" that Dr. Howe has come among us and applied his enthusiasm, his ripe knowledge and trained skill to the unravelling of the tangled skein of descents, and establishing for all time the ancestry of the numerous families, the records of which he has investigated.

It has taken him many months and upon many journeys, for wherever there have been records apt to shed light upon his subject, there he has gone, and indefatigably probed, questioned and examined.

This book is the result of these arduous labors and is a lasting monument to his sincerity and interest in a subject of greatest importance. It is also a permanent and absolutely reliable record of incalculable value to this and all succeeding generations of the families discussed and a contribution to the general history of the nation, whose worth is beyond computation.

Dr. Howe, author of this volume, is the son of the Rev. Elbridge Gerry Howe, who was the former pastor of one of the first off-shoots of the Pilgrim Church, at Plymouth. His mother, Mary Soule Sturtevant, was descendant of fourteen of the Mayflower passengers, including Captain Mlyles Standish, whose son, Alexander, married Sarah, daughter of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins, and had Sarah Standish, who married Benjamin Soule, through which marriage the name Soule has been continued in Dr. Howe's family.

The author's early days were spent in Plymouth County, the successive generations of the family having remained within a few miles of the first landing place until the last generation. Early in life the author and afterward Trinity Academy at Cheshire, Connecticut, attended the Episcopal College and the University of New York - his education being completed by five years foreign travel in Europe, including two winters in Russia a year in the Holy Land, the Orient and Northern Africa. The degree of Doctor of Philosophy was conferred upon him in 1919 in recognition of credits obtained in special post graduate work and an extended thesis upon the Early History of the Colony of Plymouth, including the Laws of the Colony, and the Polity and Theology of the Pilgrim Church.

Upon his call to the rectorate of the Church of the Advent at Cape May, Dr. Howe found the descendants of the Pilgrims had long lived here, and that the older families and himself had a common ancestor in John Howland, the Pilgrim. This volume, the contribution of the author to the community, is the result of some three years investigation of the early history of the settlement of the county, and the history of the families to the present time. It is the most complete genealogical record, aside from its special investigation of the various lines of Mayflower descent, ever published upon the subject of Cape May ancestry, and corrects misleading statements of former writers. The genealogical tables are in the most condensed form, and no distinction has been made by Dr. Howe between the successful and the unsuccessful, the rich and the poor. No one has been denied a place in this book whose Pilgrim ancestry is clearly proved, and no consideration could bring into these lists the names of those who have not a proved claim to that much-envied ancestry.

For those who wish to know in brief of the early history of the Pilgrims, the Introduction includes the most condensed statement upon the subject, and the interesting period of the migration of the early whalers is outlined, with an account of the first years at Cape May. It is the wish of the publisher and author that the volume may be a permanent contribution to the history of our County and the people who have gone out from it.

AARON W. HAND,
County Superintendent of Public Schools
August 1, 1920

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