Thomas Rogers (Mayflower Pilgrim)

Thomas Rogers (c.1571 – January 11, 1621) was a Leiden Separatist who traveled in 1620 with his eldest son Joseph as passengers on the historic voyage of the Pilgrim ship Mayflower.

Thomas Rogers was a signatory to the Mayflower Compact, but perished in the winter of 1620/21. His son Joseph, who traveled with Thomas on the Mayflower, but was too young, at age 17, to sign the Mayflower Compact, survived to live a long life.

Thomas Rogers was born in the area of the village of Watford, in Northamptonshire, England, which has extensive history from the Roman, Dane, Viking and Saxon eras. His birth year of approximately 1571 is based on his date of marriage. Thomas Rogers was a son of William Rogers and his wife Eleanor. He married Alice Cosford in Watford parish October 24, 1597, with their six children being baptized there between 1598 and 1613. The family went to Leiden from England sometime after their last child, Margaret, was baptized in 1613.

Thomas Rogers was a member of the English Separatist church and sometime after 1613, the last recorded baptism of his children, he, his wife, and children, moved to Leiden as members of the Separatist church there. The earliest Leiden record for Thomas Rogers notes that on February 14, 1614 he bought a house on Barabarasteeg from Jan Bloemsaer, a baker. Leiden records also notes that Rogers became a citizen of Leiden on June 25, 1618, guaranteed by Englishmen William Jepson from Worksop, Nottinghamshire and Roger Wilson of Sandwich, co. Kent. That record states that he was a merchant of camlet, a luxury Asian-type fabric made from a combination of silk and camel’s hair.

Other Leiden records for Thomas Rogers show that in 1619, when he was preparing to sell his house in preparation for his departure from Leiden for America, he found that his property still had an outstanding lien on it, forcing him to sue Jan Bloemsaer, from whom he originally purchased the home, and bondsman Gerrit Gerritsz. He was finally able to sell his home on April 1, 1620 to Mordecheus Colven for three hundred guilders.

Per author Eugene Stratton, the 1622 Leiden poll tax listed the family of Thomas Rogers residing there in poverty, but apparently without his wife Alice. Instead of Alice, this family included a possible second wife named Elizabeth – or the Dutch variant Elsgen, and with the children of Thomas Rogers – son John and daughters Lysbeth (Dutch for Elizabeth) and Grietgen (Dutch for Margaret).

Thomas Rogers traveled on the Mayflower with only his eldest son Joseph, leaving behind in Leiden his wife and their three other children – John, Elizabeth and Margaret. In the 1622 poll tax for Leiden, Rogers’ family were found among the poor of Leiden, residing at the rear of Anthony Clement’s home. His possible second wife, who author Eugene Stratton lists as Elizabeth (or Elsgen) in the 1622 poll tax, may have died in Leiden sometime between 1622 and when his son John and possibly his daughters came to Plymouth sometime after 1627.

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