Clement Bates, an English Emigrant

A memorial stone for Clement and Anna Bates.

In honor of an extended family reunion this summer, I am going to focus on the Aderman/Bates line of the family tree for the next few months. Today, I am celebrating one of my 10th great grandfathers, Clement Bates. The son of James and Mary (Martine) Bates, he was baptized on 22 January 1594 in Lydd, Shepway District, Kent, England. Presumably, he was born within a day or so of that, maybe the same day.

As an adult, according to the ship’s manifest, Clement was a tailor by profession. In 1620, he married Anna Dalrymple. To this union would be born six known surviving children.

When Clement was 40 years old, he and Anna left England to emigrate to “New England”, to the town of Hingham in the Massachusetts Bay Colony with their children. According to “Genealogy: A Journal of American Ancestry” (Volume Three, 1913):

S.G. Drake in the founders of New England, says “6 Apriles 1635, Theis p’ties imbarqued in ye Elizabeth Mr. Wm Stagg [the ship’s captain] bound for New England p’r cert from the Justices and Ministers of ye p’ish, Signed, Clement Bate 40 Ann Bate his wife 40 also five children and two servants.” In New England he acquired “my house lott contayning five acres, my planting lott, tenn acres, and my nowe dwelling house,” all in “Hingham towne.”

 The five children who emigrated with their parents were James (b. 1621), Clement (b. 1623), Rachel (b. 1628), my 9th great grandfather Joseph (b. 1630), and Benjamin (b. 1632). Their youngest child, Samuel, was born in the town of Hingham in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1638. According to the same article, Joseph was born in Lydd, England, so presumably the other English-born children were as well.

The family names on the Elizabeth’s manifest of April 1635 are also listed on the Wintrop Society page and includes the names of their two servants, Jo: Wynchester (age 19) and Jervice Gold (age 30). The abbreviation “Jo:” can mean either John or Joseph.

Clement and his family were part of The Great Migration. On the website for the study of the several thousand emigrants from England to New England, Clement is listed as one of the men who took the oath of the Freemen on March 3, 1635/36. The original oath was too restrictive for some of them, so a second oath was created and was the one in effect when Clement made his commitment:

The Oath of Freeman agreed upon at the General Court, May 14, 1634.

I, A&B, being by God’s providence an inhabitant and freeman within the jurisdiction of this common weale, do freely acknowledge myself to be subject to the government thereof, and therefore do hereby swear by the great and dreadful name of the ever-living God that I will be true and faithful to the same, and will accordingly yield assistance and support thereunto, with my person and estate, as in equity I am bound, and will also truly endeavor to maintain and preserve all the privileges and liberties thereunto, submitting myself to the wholesome laws made and established by the same. And further, that I will not plot nor practise any evil against it, nor consent to any that shall be so done, but will timely discover and reveal the same to lawful authority now here established for the speedy preventing thereof. Moreover, I do solemnly bind myself in the sight of God that when I shall be called to give my voice touching any such matter of this State, wherein Freemen are to deal, I will give my vote and suffrage as I shall in my own conscience judge best to produce and tend to the public weale of the body, without respect of persons or respect of any man. So help me God in the Lord Jesus Christ. (Source: http://winthropsociety.com/doc_freemen.php.)

Clement lived in Hingham for the rest of his life, dying on 17 September, 1671. It has been 380 years since Clement and Anna boarded the Elizabeth to come to New England. I honor them both for their courage and wherewithal to make such a grand journey and be part of establishing the new nation.