Richard More

• Christian Hunt(er), 20 October 1636, Plymouth.
• Mrs. Jane Crumpton, after 1675, Salem.

Biographical Summary

Richard More had one of the most bizarre and interesting lives of any of the Mayflower passengers.  He was baptized in 1614 in Shipton, Shropshire, England, to Katherine More.  Researchers have traced Katherine More's ancestry back to royalty, making Richard More and his siblings the only Mayflower passengers to have a documented royal ancestry.  His father was either Katherine's husband Samuel More, or it was Jacob Blakeway, with whom she was having an extramarital affair.  When the affair was discovered, Samuel questions whether the children were his (since they seemed to look more like Blakeway).  Divorce proceedings were begun, and Samuel More would eventually receive custody of the children.  He paid to have his children shipped off to America with some "honest and religious people", where they could avoid the "great blots and blemishes" that would fall on them if they remained in England.  Richard More and sister Mary ended up in the household of Elder William Brewster; older sister Ellen went to the Edward Winslow family, and older brother Jasper went to the John Carver family.  Richard's three siblings all died the first winter: Jasper died even before the Pilgrims were finished exploring Cape Cod.

Richard More was still living with the Brewsters in 1627, and married Christian Hunter in 1636 in Plymouth, and moved very shortly thereafter to Salem.  Richard More became a seaman and ship captain, and made trips to England, Nova Scotia, West Indies, Manhattan, and Virginia.  In February and March 1642/3, he joined the church at Salem and had two children baptized there; all the rest of his children would be baptized there as well, through his last child Christian, baptized in 1652.

His wife Christian died on 18 March 1676, at the age of 60.  Richard More then married to Mrs. Jane Crumpton; she died in October 1686 at Salem, aged 55.  In 1688, the Salem Church recorded: "Old Captain More having been for many years under suspicion and common fame of lasciviousness, and some degree at least of inconstancy ... but for want of proof we could go no further.  He was at last left to himself so far as that he was convicted before justices of peace by three witnesses of gross unchastity with another man's wife and was censured by them."

Richard More died sometime between 1693 and 1696 at Salem, living just long enough to have witnessed the Salem Witchcraft paranoia of 1692.

Additional Resources

Mayflower Families: James Chilton and Richard More for Five Generations, contains the best, most thorough and completely researched genealogy on Richard More.  It covers every descendant of his for the first five generations, to the birth of the sixth generation.  It's packed full of well documented genealogical research.  Published by the General Society of Mayflower Descendants.
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