Richard Lyman

• General Notes
  • At what time Richard began to institute measures for his removal to America does not appear; but in the 5th Charles I, A.D. 16 29, he sold to one John Gower two messuages, a garden, orchard and divers lands arable; also a meadow and pasture, all at Norton Mandeville, in the parish of Ongar, county of Essex, and about the middle of August, 1631, embarked with his wife and children in the ship Lyon, William Pierce, master, for New England, taking their departure from the port of Bristol. We are informed, that there went in the same ship, Martha Winthrop, the third wife of John Winthrop, at that time governor of New England, the governor's eldest son and his wife and their children; also Eliot, the celebrated apostle of the Massachusetts Indians; and that the ship's passengers consisted of about sixty persons all told, and, after being ten weeks at sea, arrived at Natascot, having lost none of their company but two children; and that as the wind was contrary, the ship stayed at Long Island, but the governor's son went on shore, and that night the governor went on board the ship, and remained on board over night. The next morning, November, 2d, the wind being fair, the ship made anchor before Boston, and on the 4th of November all the passengers landed, the ship giving them a salute from six or seven cannon.
    
    What sought they thus afar?
    Bright jewels of the mine?
    The wealth of seas? the spoils of war?
    They sought a faith's pure shrine.
    Aye, call it holy ground,
    The soil where first they trod;
    They have left unstained what there they found,
    Freedom to worship God.
    
    The Lyon departed London about August 23, 1631, with "about" 60 passengers and arrived at Nantasket November 2, 1631.