Mary Wilder (c.1623-1658) (52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2020 Week 5) Theme: "So Far Away"

The distance was 3235 miles.

When young Mary Wilder left her home in Shiplake, Oxfordshire, England to migrate to America in 1638, it must have seemed to be "so far away"! Mary, my 8X great grandmother, is just one example of the dozens of my ancestors who crossed the Atlantic from Europe between 1620 and 1867. All no doubt shared a mixture of excitement and apprehension about what life would have in store for them so far away from their places of birth.

Mary was the daughter of Thomas and Martha Wilder of Shiplake, Oxfordshire. The Wilder family had owned Sulham House there for several generations ever since Nicholas Wilder had fought under the Earl of Richmond at the Battle of Bosworth during the War of the Roses; Nicholas was rewarded for his service with this property when the Earl became King Henry VII.

Wilder's Folly at Sulham
View from the south of Wilder's Folly (also known as Nunhide Tower), on Nunhide Hill, Sulham, Berkshire. Built by Henry Wilder in 1769. Sulham House is the white building in the exact centre of the arch.
Wikimedia Commons Photo by BabelStone under Creative Commons Licence. 

After Thomas died in the autumn of 1634, the remaining family made plans to move to America. No doubt they were Puritans who were being persecuted for their religious beliefs in England. Oldest son John who inherited the family estate remained in England, but sons Thomas and Edward and daughter Elizabeth made the journey to America in 1637 followed in 1638 by widow Martha and daughter Mary on the ship Confidence. 

Careful planning was required before making such a voyage. Mary no doubt helped her mother carefully assemble the goods that they packed with them aboard the Confidence.

"Before you come," wrote Rev. Francis Higginson, the first minister at Salem, "be careful to be strongly instructed what things are fittest to bring with you for your more comfortable passage at sea, as also for your husbandry occasions when you come to the land. For when you are once parted with England you shall meete neither markets nor fayres to buy what you want. Therefore be sure to furnish yourselves with things fitting to be had before you come: as meale for bread, malt for drinke, woolen and linnen cloath, and leather for shoes, and all manner of carpenters tools, and a great deale of iron and steele to make nails, and locks for houses, and furniture for ploughs and carts, and glasse for windows, and many other things which were better for you to think of there than to want them here." (Dow, below, p.3 quoting Rev. Francis Higginson, New-Englands Plantation, London, 1630.)

Even so, there were many ships going back and forth between Massachusetts Bay and England in the 1630s, enabling settlers like the Wilders to obtain necessary goods from Europe. 

Martha and Mary settled at Hingham near Edward who had already made his home there. Within a few years Mary married Joseph Underwood (who had arrived in Hingham, MA in 1637 as an indentured servant) and started a family with him in 1645. All of their children were born at Watertown in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. There were 4 daughters and 2 sons, the elder of whom is my 7X great grandfather Joseph Underwood.

Few records are available for female ancestors like Mary. Their lives centered on home, family and church. Homemaking skills were passed on from mothers to daughters. Gardening, food preparation and preservation, cleaning, spinning, weaving, knitting, quilting, sewing, and child rearing would have formed Mary's life in the same way as her peers. Producing a new baby almost predictably every two years meant that she spent much of her short adult life pregnant and breast-feeding her babies. Starting from her six children, the next generation included close to 20 grandchildren and would have expanded to many thousands of descendants over the years. She certainly did her part to populate the new settlement in New England so far from her old home.

Mary died shortly before Christmas in 1658. She was only 35 years of age.

Resources:

Cutter, William Richard, New England Families, General and Memorial, Volume I, Genealogical Publishing Co. 1996 accessed online at Google books.

Dow, George Francis, Every Day Life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, First Published in Boston, 1935 Reissued in 1967, by Benjamin Blom, Inc. Reprint Edition 1977 by Arno Press Inc. LC# 77-82079 ISBN 0-405-09125-7 Manufactured in the United States of America; accessed online at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/43970/43970-h/4397.

Turner, Mary Rose (Wilder) comp., Extracts from the Book of Wilders by Which the Lineage of the R. I. Wilders is Traced to Nicholas Wilder of England, 1485; Springfield, Ohio, 1927. Portions accessed through Ancestry.com and also accessible online at https://archive.org/details/extractsfrombook00turn.