52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS 2018 WEEK 29: GEORGE MORTON OF PLYMOUTH, MA.

For many years when I worked in the bookstore one of the books I sold every Thanksgiving was Sarah Morton's Day, a picture book about a young girl living at Plimoth Plantation. So it came as a pleasant surprise when I found out Sarah Morton was my ancestress.

Her father was my 9x great grandfather George Morton. He was a merchant who  arrived in Plymouth from Leiden, Holland in 1623 on the ship Anne, but because he died only a year later he didn't have much of a chance to leave his mark. With him came his wife Julianna Carpenter (whom he had married in Leiden on 22July 1612) and their five children.

Julianna (Carpenter)Morton was related to many of the most prominent Pilgrims, one of whom was  Governor William Bradford.  He took in young Nathaniel Morton as secretary to himself and the colonial government and Nathaniel eventually wrote a history of early Plymouth. In it, he wrote this about his father George Morton:

The latter of the two forenamed, namely, Mr. George Morton, was a pious, gracious servant of God, and very faithful in whatsoever public employment he was betrusted withal, and an unfeigned well willer, and, according to his sphere and condition, a suitable promoter of the common good and growth of the plantation of New Plimouth ; laboring to still the discontents that sometimes would arise amongst some spirits, by occasion of the difficulties of these new beginnings ; but it pleased God to put a period to his days soon after his arrival in New England, not surviving a full year after his coming ashore. With much comfort and peace he fell asleep in the Lord, in the month of June, anno 1624. -p.65

New-England's Memorial   Congregational Board of Publication, Boston, Ma.,  1855

IN RELATION TO HISTORY

We're in November now and moving towards Thanksgiving. I've done posts
on my Mayflower ancestry but I was thinking of writing some on ny other
early Pilgrim and Puritan ancestors. Toward that end I startled googling
some of their names tonight. One of the family names I searched was
Morton.

Now when I was a bookseller I used to get a kick out of seeing a kid's
book about Plimoth Plantation, A Day in The Life of Sarah Morton. I'm
descended from Sarah's older sister Patience who married my 9x great
grandfather John Faunce. I knew that their father was George Morton
who came over to Plimouth on the ship Anne in 1623. What I didn't
know was that some historians think he may be one of the people behind one
of the early documents that helped spur more immigrants to New England,
Mourt's Relation. Most think Edmund Winslow and/or William Bradford
wrote the book, with a few thinking George Morton did instead. But most
believe that George was responsible for the book being printed in London
in 1622, a year before he himself emigrated to the New World.

I've read about Mourt's Relation and have intended to read it for some time,
and even seen reference to the Morton connection to it, but never made the
connection between George Morton the historical figure and George Morton
my ancestor. I guess I better finally get around to reading the book!

Now I'm wondering what other connections I've failed to see before between
my early New England ancestors and New England's history!

My descent from George Morton comes from my 2x great grandparents
Florilla Dunham and ASa F. Ellingwood. George's death date on this chart
is incorrect, it should be 1624