Rev. Stephen Bachiler - Part 2
My 10th Great-Grandfather
Crossing the Atlantic
Theodate
Bachiler and Christopher Hussey
There are conflicting accounts of the circumstances under
which Stephen’s daughter Theodate and Christopher Hussey met, married and
emigrated to Massachusetts. This version was published in 1861.
Christopher Hussey was born in Darking [Dorking], in Surrey,
England, in 1598. He went to Holland, where he became enamored with Theodate,
daughter of Rev. Stephen Bachiler, who had resided there several years, but her
father would not consent to their union, unless Mr. Hussey would remove to New
England, whither he was preparing to go. Mr. Hussey came to Lynn [Massachusetts]
with his mother, widow Mary Hussey, and his wife, in 1630, and here, the same
year, his son Stephen was born, who was the second white child born in Lynn.[i]
1636 Map of England’s Southern Coast[ii]
Stephen spent most of his life in England in Hampshire. The
village of Wherwell was located a short distance to the northwest of
Winchester, shown near the center of the map. Ships in the Winthrop Fleet embarked
from London, located at the upper right on this map, and traveled down the
Thames River into the English Channel. They then followed the southern coast of
England, eventually reaching the Atlantic Ocean after passing “The Lizard” at
the lower left corner of the map.
Septuagenarian
at Sea
Stephen Bachiler began his journey to Massachusetts when he
was 71 years old. He sailed on the William and Francis with his third
wife Helena, daughter Deborah, seven grandsons*, and some of his Hampshire church
followers. The vessel set sail from London on 9 March 1632, with Captain Thomas
at the helm and about sixty passengers on board. His trunks contained “four
hogsheads of peas, twelve yards of cloth, two hundred yards of list [a type of
cloth] a contribution box and oaken furniture.”[iii]
Their voyage lasted 88 dreary days [3 months and 4 days], culminating with
their arrival at Boston settlement on the Mystic River on June 5; he was in the
“Company of Husbandmen,” the name given to members of the Plough Company.[iv]
Two other ships which carried cattle and passengers arrived the same week.
* Nathaniel,
son of Nathaniel Bachiler; John, Daniel and Stephen Wing, sons of widowed
daughter Deborah Bachiler Wing; John, William and Steven Sanborne, sons of
deceased daughter, Ann Bachiler Sanborne.
Drawing of the Needles Passage
between the English Coast and the Isle of Wright[v]
Drawing of a Ship Representative of
the Type Used by the Winthrop Fleet[vi]
No description of Stephen’s 1632 ocean crossing has been
recorded. However, ships in the Winthrop Fleet made numerous Atlantic crossings
and the William and Francis sailed behind the Arbella on the
first voyage to New England in 1630. John Winthrop wrote a detailed account of
the passengers’ accommodations, provisions, and discomforts during their trip. The William and Francis was likely a
smaller ship than the Arbella and carried proportionally fewer rations
for the passengers. Winthrop’s description of the food and beverage supplies
aboard the Arbella probably offered a fair representation of the limited
diet available to the Puritans while they were at sea in the 1630s.
Passenger travel across the North Atlantic Ocean, which is now
one of the great enterprises of maritime business, may with truth be said to
have started with the departure of the Winthrop Fleet. It carried … the largest
number of Englishmen sailing as passengers in one body across the Atlantic up
to that event… Ships were not built to accommodate travelers and those who
desired to visit foreign countries had to adjust themselves to the
inconveniences of a freight-carrying vessel.
… The eleven vessels secured for carrying the Great Migration were the ordinary freighters of the period. There were certain vessels engaged in the wine trade to the Mediterranean ports, which by reason of their occupation, were specially constructed and were known as ‘sweet ships,’ as they were unusually well caulked and always dry. The Mayflower was of this type and it is probable that the vessels of the Winthrop Fleet on which passengers were mainly carried were selected from this class of traders. A certain number of them carried only horses, cattle, and small stock.[vii] [Winthrop wrote that roughly half of the livestock in each ship survived the journey.]
The cost of transportation overseas for passengers was
somewhat of a new problem in maritime reckoning, as the length of the voyage
was always uncertain, sometimes ranging in length from six to twelve weeks. The
people emigrating in this Fleet were to be carried under an arrangement with
the Company ‘at the rate of 5 li. [pounds] a person’ … Every man have ship-provisions
allowed him for his five pounds a man, which is Salt Beefe, Porke, Salt Fish,
Butter, Cheese, Pease Pottage, Water-grewell, and such kind of Victuals, with
good Biskets, and sixe-shilling Beere.[viii]
Water could not be preserved sweet and potable on these long voyages. For this reason we find that in the list of provisions for the Arbella forty-two tuns [A tun held about 250 gallons.] of beer were provided for the passengers of that ship (about ten thousand gallons).” The beer was stored in casks which were maintained by a cooper on each ship. [For perspective, a 15’ X 30’ oval swimming pool with a depth of 4’ holds 10,000 gallons of water.] “The Arbella also carried fourteen tuns of drinking water (thirty-five hundred gallons), two hogsheads [holding about 63 gallons each] of ‘syder,’ and one hogshead of vinegar. This supply of fluids was their rations for twelve weeks.[ix]
For solid food this ship carried sixteen hogsheads of meat, of
which there was beef (eight thousand pounds), pork (twenty-eight hundred
pounds), and a quantity of beef tongues… Of course, this meat was prepared for
the voyage according to the art or ‘mystery’ of preserving meat practiced by
the Salters Company… In addition to this they had six hundred pounds of
‘haberdyne’ (salt codfish) and for good measure they had one barrel of salt and
one hundred pounds of suet, presumably for cooking purposes.
The staff of life was represented by twenty thousand
biscuits, of which fifteen thousand were brown and five thousand white,
supplemented by one barrel of flour, thirty bushels of oatmeal, and eleven
firkins [A firkin
held 11 gallons.] of butter as a spread. The only vegetable in their table
of supplies was peas, of which they had forty bushels. These were dried peas.
To mike this unembellished diet palatable they provided the cook with a bushel
and a half of mustard seed to stimulate their jaded appetites after days and
weeks of ‘salthorse.’ [x]
In addition to the fares for passage the cost of shipping household goods increased the financial problem for the emigrant. It was necessary to carry these things as there was no way of obtaining them in an unsettled country. The rate for this service was fixed at ‘4 li a ton for goods.’ For the average Puritan family of eight persons, with a ton of freight, the cost of the trip would be about thirty pounds, or nearly a thousand dollars in our present money.” [$1000. was written in 1930. The cost would be about $15,592. in 2020.][xi]
The ship was not equipped with any sources of heat or artificial light for the passengers. “…only four ‘lanthornes’ and six dozen candles were provided, and as far as ascertainable, the only heat on the vessel was from the cooking-stove in the galley, for which eight thousand of ‘burneing wood’ was carried.[xii]
In addition to the poor accommodations and food, the travelers endured other trials during their passage. They were forced to wear their warmest clothes because spring weather in the North Atlantic was cold, windy and wet. Women and children were confined to the dark, cramped lower deck for safety when they encountered rough seas, storms, or threat of pirates and Spanish warships. In contrast, when conditions were favorable, everyone went upon the deck and moved about in the fresh air to attempt to overcome the effects of seasickness that occurred below deck.[xiii]
A physician was required to be on board each ship, in accordance with English maritime law. The medical service was purchased at an extra charge of 2 shilling 6 pence per person. The passengers probably kept the physician well occupied, as sickness, births, and deaths were recorded on all of the ships in the Winthrop Fleet.[xiv]
Winthrop and his companions did have the good fortune to see a whale at close range on a couple of occasions. He described one encounter in detail. “About four of the clock we saw a whale, who lay just in our ship’s way, (the hunch of his back about a yard above water). He would not shun us; so we passed within a stone’s cast of him, as he lay spouting up water.”[xv]
The journey across the Atlantic was a distance of nearly 3000
miles and only crude navigation instruments were available to the sailors. “Navigators
had only the cross-staff to ascertain the latitude [distance north or south
from the equator], but while the elevation of the sun could be measured with
practical accuracy by this instrument and the degrees of latitude figured out,
there was no way to determine longitude at sea… To overcome this difficulty,
the east or west positions at a given time were expressed in terms of dead
reckoning by estimating the marine leagues sailed from day to day.”[xvi]
The construction and model of these ships are shown in the … illustrations of a typical craft of the early seventeenth century. The bow with the high forecastle deck was occupied by the seamen before the mast, and the still higher poop deck on the stern which covered the cabin sheltered the quarters of the officers. The space between these two towering structures, and ‘between decks,’ which was open on small vessels or fitted with a deck and a hold in large craft, was used for the cargo, the ordnance [weapons and ammunition] and stowing of the long boats. In this part of the ship, as we learn from Winthrop’s story, ‘some cabins’ had been constructed, probably rough compartments of boards for women and children, while hammocks for the men were swung from every available point of vantage.[xvii]
Each ship carried cannon and muskets for protection and for
signaling to other ships. A crew of 25 landsmen manned the 28 guns on the
Arbella which were fired in code as salutes to show friendship or request help
from approaching vessels. A crew of 52 seamen manned the ship as it sailed down
the Thames from London to the English Channel, then stopped for passengers at
the Isle of Wright.[xviii]
[i] Lewis, Alonzo, & Newhall, James R., History of Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts, Including Lynnfield, Saugus, Swampscott, and Nahant, Boston, Massachusetts, J.L. Shorey, 1865, p. 125; accessed https://archive.org
[ii] Colbeck, Charles, England and Wales, Assessments to Ship-Money, 1636, The Public Schools Historical Atlas, 1911; accessed legacy.lib.utexas.edu/maps/
[iii] Batchelder, Charles E., Rev. Stephen Bachiler, The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 1892, Volume XLVI, page 157, New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, 1892; accessed https://archive.org
[iv] Savage, James, The History of New England from 1630-1649 by John Winthrop, Esq. First Governour of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay, Volume I, Boston, Massachusetts, Little, Brown and Company, 1853, pp. 80-81; accessed https://babel.hathitrust.org
[v] Banks, Charles Edward, The Winthrop Fleet of 1630, Boston, Massachusetts, The Riverside Press for Houghton Mifflin Company, 1930, p. 38; accessed https://archive.org
[vi] Banks, p. 24
[vii] Banks, p. 24
[viii] Banks, p. 26
[ix] Banks, pp. 29-30
[x] Banks, p. 30
[xi] Banks, p. 27
[xii] Banks, p. 32
[xiii] Savage, (Winthrop’s 1830 voyage), Volume 1, pp. 1-25
[xiv] Banks p. 28
[xv] Savage, p.19
[xvi] Banks, p. 41
[xvii] Banks, pp. 24-25
[xviii]
Banks, pp. 33-34
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