A GENEALOGICAL SURPRISE
My Aunt Frances was our family genealogist. She was also a librarian, so searching for data was definitely her skillset. This was before there was Ancestry.com. That means she had to speak to relatives, visit libraries, write letters, check family Bibles, visit county courthouses, pour through birth and death certificates, and visit England. I admired her for her hard work and effort. She lived to be 103 and left behind a wonderful gift by passing down our family tree.
Aunt Frances traced our Cruver relatives back to my third great grandfather. I was doing some research for my historical fiction novel, so I checked her records. She was correct, but she wasn’t able to go beyond him. I logged into Ancestry.com and also hit a dead end. Then I kicked myself for not researching the ancestry of his wife, Rachel Doty, my third great grandmother. When I did, her descendants kept popping up generation after generation until to my surprise, a picture of the Mayflower flashed on the screen with “Descendant of the Mayflower.” According to the search, my third great grandmother is a descendant of Edward Doty, one of two servants to Stephen Hopkins on the Mayflower.
Now, I would have to jump through some hoops to prove that this information is legitimate, and I hope to do that sometime, but regardless, I am thrilled! I always enjoyed teaching my students about the Pilgrims and the first feast with the Native Americans of the Wampanoag tribe. I wish I had known I was a descendant when I was a teacher.
I recently visited Boston and the Plimoth Patuxet Living Museums (formerly the Plymouth Plantation) where I got to explore a native wigwam and step into the Hopkins family cabin, a home in which Indigenous people and colonists held meetings. I boarded the Mayflower ship in Plymouth Harbor where 102 passengers lived in an area below deck measuring roughly 58 by 24 feet. I saw Plymouth Rock, and to my delight, I located Edward’s grave on Burial Hill.
The Separatists, or as we call them, Pilgrims, sought religious separation from the Church of England where in 1559, it was illegal not to attend the official Church of England services. Anyone who missed a service or conducted unofficial church services could be fined, imprisoned or even executed. Edward Doty wasn’t a Separatist. As a servant of Hopkins, the Separatists would have called him “Stranger” and would have called themselves “Saints.” He wasn’t a saint, that’s for sure. In fact, there’s a lot of information on him because he was a bit of a rascal. His name is found in many court cases. It is said that he was hot headed and argumentative. In his service to Stephen Hopkins though, he accompanied Hopkins on several goodwill missions to neighboring Indigenous tribes. His signature is also on the Mayflower Compact.
Edward and the other servant to Hopkins, Edward Liester, actually have another distinction; they engaged in the first duel in Plymouth Colony! I don’t know what they were fighting over. I assume, being that they were both around 18 years old, that they fought over a girl. One stabbed the other in the thigh and the other in the hand. As befitting the punishment of the times, the two Edwards were tied together at the head and feet and left in the public courtyard. According to one account, Stephen Hopkins had compassion on them and untied them after just an hour. After serving Hopkins, Edward became a wealthy land owner. He and his wife, Faith, had nine children and left a legacy of 90,000 descendants, including President Calvin Coolidge, Raquel Welch, Warren Buffet, and Dick Van Dyke.
With Thanksgiving approaching, I am reminded of the hardship and the grit of these Saints and Strangers as they sought to make a better world for themselves in Plymouth Colony. For the 102 passengers on the Mayflower, coming to America and facing hardship, starvation, and death was deemed worth the risk. In the end, it cost half of them their lives within the first year. Miraculously, Edward and the whole Hopkins family survived. I’m sure glad of that or I wouldn’t be here to wish you and your family a very blessed and Happy Thanksgiving!
*Published in The Facts, Brazos Life on November 26, 2025
