Family member name: John Alden
Tree branch: Smith
Lifetime: 1598 - September 12, 1687
Relation: My 10x great-grandfather (my dad's mom's dad's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom's dad's mom's dad's dad)
John Alden was 21 years old when a group of families approached him to join the crew of the ship that would take them across the ocean. He met them in Southampton, England. Little did he know they were to be called the Pilgrims, and they were inviting him on a historic journey on the Mayflower that would change his life.
Why did the Pilgrims want him to come along? He was a cooper.
Colonial Coopers
coop·er
/ˈko͞opər,ˈko͝opər/
noun
- a maker or repairer of casks and barrels.
The cooper was a necessary position on any ship. He maintained all barreled supplies and provisions.
* Do you want your food to stay fresh and airtight, and therefore, not die of hunger?
* Do you want your precious beer to stay in the barrel and not leak out?
If the answer is yes, you need a qualified cooper. They made many different containers from small buckets to large barrels, or casks. The casks were made of wood planks and metal hoops that bound the planks together.
As a crew member of the Mayflower, and not a Pilgrim, he was expected to return to England when the ship went back in the spring. However my 10x great-grandfather decided to remain in Plymouth and on April 5, 1621 watched the boat sail away. He may have made his decision early on, since he was a signer of the Mayflower Compact, which was written when they arrived in November 1620.
The cooper would establish himself as a valuable member of Plymouth Colony. He and his wife Priscilla would have 10 children, of which I am one of tens of thousands of descendants.
Sources:
Wikipedia: John AldenColonial Coopers
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| Visiting the cemetery in Duxbury, MA with my dad. |
