Roger Conant (Salem)

Roger Conant (c. 1592 – November 19, 1679) arrived in Plymouth Colony from London early in 1623/24 with the profession of salter. Early in his colonial life, he became associated with those opposed to the Puritan authorities in Plymouth and led the settlement to outlying areas, particularly in the Salem area, which he is credited with founding. He was the first governor of English settlers in Salem from 1626 to 1628.

Roger Conant was baptized at East Budleigh, Devonshire on April 9, 1592. He was the son of Richard and Agnes (Clarke) Conant. He later moved to London and became a salter.

Contrary to some accounts that Roger Conant and his family arrived in 1623 in the ship Anne, per Banks, only Roger's brother Christopher Conant is listed as being on the Anne in 1623. In Bradford's history, in addition to letters to him by the London Adventurers, mention is made of an unnamed master or journeyman salter who may have arrived in Plymouth in the Charity in March 1623/24. It is thought that Bradford may have been describing Conant, and that he arrived in Plymouth in 1624.

In 1625, Bradford learned that the long-time minister of their Leiden congregation, John Robinson, had died. Robinson had been the driving force behind all their efforts to find a better place than England to live their lives and it was he who cared for the many left at the Leiden congregation after the Mayflower's departure. After the dispiriting news of Robinson's death, those in Plymouth began to lose the fervor that helped them survive the grim early years there and began to fear that all they had gained might eventually be destroyed. These dark thoughts turned into mean-spirited fanaticism. At about that time, John Lyford, a minister who had been sent over by the London Adventurers, was expelled from Plymouth for secretly meeting with settlers who wished to return to the type of worship that they had back in England. One of Lyford's supporters, John Oldham, was forced to run a gauntlet while Pilgrims beat him with the butt-ends of their muskets. This punishment received the approval of Pilgrim leader Edward Winslow. The Adventurers were quite displeased over what had happened to one of their men and criticized the Pilgrims as “contentious, cruel and hard hearted, among your neighbors…”. Bradford later in his writings wrote that he thought that Lyford and Oldham deserved their punishments. These actions against the rebellion of Lyford and Oldham were possibly the reason Roger Conant left Plymouth for other locations where he would later continue to be in association with them against the Plymouth authorities.

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