General Notes

Name Suffix:<NSFX> Sr.
I'm writing from David Lindsay's (descendant of Richard Mor
e) literary agency to help spread the word about his new bo
ok, 'Mayflower Bastard: A Stranger Among the Pilgrims', whi
ch is the story of one of Salem's earliest residents an
d a recent book of the month selection by the History Boo
k Club.
Richard More was born in England, the product of an adulter
ous affair between his mother and a local rake. When he wa
s six years old, his mother's lawful husband could no longe
r bear the disgrace of his four children having a very stro
ng resemblance to this unsavory local character. As a solut
ion, he shipped the children to the colonies on the Mayflow
er. All of Richard's siblings died of the diseases that pla
gued the early settlers; he alone survived to become one o
f the original Plymouth settlers.
Richard was raised through young adulthood as a foster chil
d in the home of William Brewster. He then apprenticed hims
elf as a shipboy to Isaac Allerton and spent the rest of hi
s life as a mariner and ship captain. In 1637 young Richar
d married and left Plymouth for Salem, which is where he sp
ent the rest of his life. Richard's life spans a fascinatin
g era is Salem's history. More sat on the jury during Quake
r trials, was supply ship commander during Cromwell's war a
gainst the French, owned a tavern where John Proctor and Gi
les Corey shared drinks at the end of the day, and playe
d a role in maritime smuggling and tax-evasion schemes. Ric
hard was married to two different women - one on each sid
e of the Atlantic - and spent his life in constant fear o
f having his bigamous marriage discovered by the Salem comm
unity. He survived to see his friends and neighbors gettin
g arrested on charges of witchcraft during the famous Sale
m Witch Trials and died shortly thereafter.
More information about the book, the author, and an excerp
t can be found on the book's web site at http://www.idealog
.com/books/mayflowerbastard.html
MAYFLOWER BASTARD: ONLINE INTRODUCTION, by David Lindsay
As the 1600s drew to a close, Captain More was a common sig
ht around Salem: grizzled gray beard, knife thrust into hi
s belt, the loping gait of a man more accustomed to a dec
k than a floor. A veteran of the Ancient Beginning, he ha
d seen New England grow from a single tenuous village int
o a sprawl of thriving colonies – seen indeed the whole spa
n of the Atlantic coast, once solely the province of Indian
s, grow thick with English settlements.
What did this old man know? What had he learned in his man
y travels? If we could talk to him today, what yarns woul
d he tell?
Certainly they would not include the standard story of th
e Thanksgiving dinner we know from textbooks. Like many sin
ce, More was drawn into the American dream before he knew w
hat it meant or where it might lead. In so doing, he manage
d to be present for many of the high points of the 17th Cen
tury. From Mayflower passage to Salem witch trials, he wa
s witness to the first stirrings of a nation. Yet because o
f his ignoble origins, he often found himself cast in the r
ole of the outsider. And in cultivating his beginnings int
o a secret life of his own, he ultimately came to embod
y a conflict at the heart of the Puritan experiment.
Born into Shropshire gentry, Richard no doubt would have as
sumed a life of ease had his legal father, Samuel More, no
t discovered that his wife, Katharine, was begetting her ch
ildren by a local laborer named Jacob Blakeway. The Mores h
ad been wed by arranged marriage, already an arcane practic
e by the early 1600s, and as time went by, there were fewe
r and fewer reasons to keep their union intact. Katharine c
ontinued to meet with Jacob while her husband was off in Lo
ndon, seeking advancement in the court of King James I. Whe
n at last Samuel inherited their combined estates, he waite
d for Katharine to give birth to her fourth child, Mary, th
en rep