Edward Doty, "Mayflower" Passenger

Edward Doty, "Mayflower" Passenger

• Also Known As: "Edward Dotey", "Mayflower Passenger"
• Birthdate: seen as May 14, 1598 of Lincolnshire, England with no supporting evidence. The estimate is for 1598/1599.
• Death: August 23, 1655 (57)
• Plymouth, Plymouth Colony
• Place of Burial: Plymouth, Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States
• Immediate Family:
• Husband of Edward Doty's 1st wife and Faith Phillips
• Father of Edward Doty, II; John Doty; Thomas Doty; Capt. Samuel Doty, of Piscataway; Desire Standish and 4 others
• Occupation: Indentured Servant, Planter

About Edward Doty, "Mayflower" Passenger

"The first of the family in America was Edward Doty, who came when but a youth in the Mayflower in 1620. He joined the Pilgrims at London and came with them to Plymouth, Mass. He married Faith Clark in 1635 and their children were William, Faith, Edward, John, Thomas, Samuel, Desire, Mary Elizabeth, Isaac and Joseph."

Edward Dotey "of London" was a "Mayflower" passenger as apprentice to Stephen Hopkins, and signed the Mayflower Compact.

His alleged baptisms - 1599, Shropshire, England; 14 May 1598, St Mary le Strand, Thurburton Hills, England - were exposed as fictional by Neil D. Thompson, The American Genealogist 66 (1988), p. 215.

According to Gov. Bradford's "increasings and gleanings," he was married in England to a woman whose name is not known. He married in Plymouth to Faith Clarke (about 1617-1675), daughter of Thurston & Faith Clarke. They had 9 children.

He fought New England's first duel with fellow servant Edward Leister in 1621; both were sentenced to 24 hours of punishment by having head and feet tied together for 24 hours, fasting. With the help of their master, Governor Bradford released them within an hour.

Notes

•  "The first of the family in America was Edward Doty, who came when but a youth in the Mayflower in 1620. He joined the Pilgrims at London and came with them to Plymouth, Mass. He married Faith Clark in 1635 and their children were William, Faith, Edward, John, Thomas, Samuel, Desire, Mary Elizabeth, Isaac and Joseph."
•  Edward Dotey "of London" was a "Mayflower" passenger as apprentice to Stephen Hopkins, and signed the Mayflower Compact.  
•  His alleged baptisms  -  1599, Shropshire, England; 14 May 1598, St Mary le Strand, Thurburton Hills, England - were exposed as fictional by Neil D. Thompson, The American Genealogist 66 (1988), p. 215.
•  According to Gov. Bradford's "increasings and gleanings," he was married in England to a woman whose name is not known.  He married in Plymouth to Faith Clarke (about 1617-1675), daughter of Thurston & Faith Clarke.  They had 9 children.
•  He fought New England's  first duel with fellow servant Edward Leister in 1621; both were sentenced to 24 hours of punishment by having head and feet tied together for 24 hours, fasting.  With the help of their master, Governor Bradford released them within an hour.  

Family

• Parents: unknown (see ancestral summary, below)

Married

1. to an unknown woman; no children.
2. January 06, 1633/34, Plymouth Colony to Faith Clark, daughter of Thurston Clark and Faith.  

9 children Children of Edward Doty and Faith Clark: 

1. Desire Doty, b. Abt. 1646, Plymouth, Mass, d. January 22, 1729/30, Marshfield, Plymouth, Mass.
2. Edward Doty, b. Bef. 1637, Plymouth, Mass, d. February 08, 1689/90, Plymouth Harbor (drowned).
3. John Doty, b. Abt. 1640, Plymouth, Mass, d. May 08, 1701, Plymouth, Mass.
4. Thomas Doty, b. Abt. 1642, Plymouth, Mass., d. Abt. December 04, 1678, Plymouth, Mass..
5. Samuel Doty, b. Abt. 1644, Plymouth, Mass, d. 1715, Piscataway, N. J..
6. Elizabeth Doty, b. Abt. 1647, Plymouth, Mass, d. April 07, 1742, Marshfield, Mass.
7. Isaac Doty, b. February 08, 1648/49, Plymouth, Mass, d. Aft. January 07, 1727/28, Oyster Bay, New York.
8. Joseph Doty, b. April 30, 1651, Plymouth, Mass, d. Abt. 1732, Rochester, Mass.
9. Mary Doty, b. Abt. 1653, Plymouth, Mass, d. Bef. June 13, 1728.

Biography

Edward Doty came on the Mayflower in 1620 as a servant to Stephen Hopkins and was apparently still a servant in 1623 when the Division of Land was held, indicating he was under the age of 25 during that time.  He signed the Mayflower Compact in November 1620, so he was likely over 21 at the time.  This narrows his likely birth date to around 1597-1599.  

Doty had a lot of spunk and energy. He made the decision to take the Mayflower voyage as a teenager. He was extremely independent, and wasn't afraid to take chances. He is said to have jumped off of a small boat used by exploring by the Mayflower captain and crew to claim an island in the Doty name. This was, of course, an unappreciated prank. The custom was that land was discovered, claimed and named by much older and established men who would be rowed to shore and allowed to plant a flag and say a few words.

Edward Doty is also recorded as a contentious man, and was often getting himself in minor trouble with the law. On 18 June 1621 he made history by fighting a duel with Edward Leister, which would become the Colony's first (and only) duel. A duel over honor. Luckily, neither were seriously injured, and both were subsequently punished by the elders by being sentenced to having their heels tied to their neck for a day. However, their punishment was cut very short as the two became friends during the ordeal.

Records show Edward Doty was in court on a number of occasions, mostly in civil disputes which now seem quite humorous. On 2 January 1632/3, Edward Doty was sued by three different people: John Washburn, Joseph Rogers, and William Bennett. It all appears to have been a disagreement about a trade of some hogs; John Washburn's case was thrown out, Joseph Rogers was awarded four bushels of corn. In William Bennett's case, Edward Doty was found guilty of slander, and fined 50 shillings. Two years later it seems Edward Doty started a boxing career, in March 1633/4, Edward Doty was fined 9 shillings and 11 pence for drawing blood in a fight with Josias Cooke. In January 1637/8, Doty was fined for punching George Clarke during a dispute. 

In 1639, Edward Doty posted "bail" for John Coombes, who was charged with giving out poisoned drinks. There were a number of other civil disputes and court matters that Edward Doty was involved with. And however strong in personality, Edward Doty was involved in simple civil disputes and was never in any serious official trouble. If you were a friend of Edward Doty you had a friend for life. But on the other hand, he was not a man to cross.

Edward Doty was a family man. He started a long line of descendants that were the first setttlers of this land that became the USA. Most all with the last name of Doty, Dotey, Doute, Doughty, Dotton and Dotten are descended from Edward Doty of the Mayflower. Perhaps it is the pride we have in our Pilgrim ancestors. They were a courageous group, with strong convictions and determination, ready to risk their lives to cross the Atlantic and land on unfamiliar soil, a wilderness. Our Pilgrims were people we can look up to, and they were our ancestors. Maybe we take pride in the accomplishments of the Pilgrims. It might be their faith in God that attracts us to honor them. There were Bible reading, praying Christians, not afraid to voice their faith. Perhaps unknowingly, the Pilgrims set the stage for religious freedom on this continent. Their goal was to worship God, as they thought right, following God's word, not the dictations of the established church. The Mayflower Compact, the first written declaration of self-government, was the genesis of the Constitution of the United States. And, that Plymouth Colony, except for Jamestown, is the oldest permanent European settlement on our East Coast. 

Origins

The ancestry of Edward Doty is unknown. He came on the Mayflower as an apprentice ("servant") to Stephen Hopkins. The Mormon's I.G.I. says Edward Doty was born in Shropshire, England on 14 May 1598, but this record is complete fiction. [For more information on this hoax, see The American Genealogist 63:215]. 

Some sources claim he was baptized on 14 May 1598 in either Dudlick, Shropshire or "Thurburton Hills", Suffolk.  I have investigated these in English records, and found both to be complete hoaxes.  

However, there is a real Edward Doty baptized on 3 November 1600 at East Halton, Lincolnshire, England, son of Thomas Doty.  The Doty families of East Halton are regularly using the names Thomas, Edward, and John: the first three names Mayflower passenger Edward Doty assigned to his first three children.  Even if this particular Edward Doty is not the Mayflower passenger himself, I strongly suspect the true Mayflower passenger will be found amongst this general Lincolnshire Doty family

Another entry, which is circulated widely on the internet and is also on the 1994 I.G.I. addendum is that he was baptized 14 May 1598 in St. Mary le Strand, Thurburton Hills, Suffolk, England, son of John. This is just a perversion of the fictional Shropshire origins, and this record is, again, completely mythical. To begin with, there is no such place as Thurburton Hills, Suffolk. Further, the parish of St. Mary le Strand is in London not Suffolk, and contains absolutely no baptismal entries for any Edward Doty's from 1595 to 1600. 

There are no fewer than eight known genuine Edward Doty baptisms that occurred between 1585 and 1605, but none have been conclusively identified as the Edward Doty of the Mayflower. 

Edward was an apprentice (servant) to Stephen Hopkins, and apprentices could not generally get married until their contract term was up. William Bradford, in his journal Of Plymouth Plantation, states in early 1651 "But Edward Doty by a second wife hath seven children, and both he and they are living." Doty's first marriage must have occurred in Plymouth sometime after he was released from his contract with Hopkins (which apparently occurred between 1623 and 1627). 

Descendants

1. Edward, son of the immigrant Edward, married Sarah Faunce in 1663. Their children were, Edward, Sarah, John, Martha, Elizabeth, Patience, Mercy, Samuel, and Benjamin.
2. John, son of the immigrant Edward, was father of John, Edward, Jacob, Elizabeth, Isaac, Samuel, Elisha, Josiah, and Martha.
3. Thomas son of the immigrant Edward, resided in Middleton and was father of Hannah and Thomas.
4.  Samuel, son of the immigrant Edward , who moved to New Jersey, was father of Samuel, Sarah, Isaac, Edward, James, Jonathan, Benjamin, Elizabeth, Joseph, Daniel, Margaret, John, and Nathaniel, this Samuel and his descendents frequently spelled their name Doughty.
5. Isaac,son of the immigrant Edward, frequently used the Doughty form, moved to New York and was father of Isaac, Joseph, Jacob, Solomon, James, and Samuel.
6.  Joseph 1, youngest son of the immigrant Edward, resided at Rochester, Mass. His children were Theophilus, Elizabeth, Ellis, Joseph, Deborah, John, Mercy, Faith, and Mary.

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Biography

“Edward Doten was a London youth who came over in the Mayflower as an apprentice of Stephen Hopkins. The first account we have of Edward is in Cape Cod harbor where he signed the cabin contract. He was treated to all intents and purposes as one of the company. Stephen Hopkins was a tanner of London, and joined the Pilgrims at Southampton and did not go to the Low Countries. The Mayflower arrived at Cape Cod, November 11, 1620, and the first duty of the Pilgrims was to find a suitable landing-spot. The shallop they brought with them for shore explorations was out of commission, and a few hardy ones volunteered to make an inland journey. Sixteen in all went ashore, and they were the first Englishmen permanently to land in New England. In this party was Edward Doten. They started November 15, and were gone several days. A few Indians whom they met ran away from them, and they found some Indian corn, which they bore back to the ship, the first they had ever seen. On December 6th, the shallop being made ready, a party of ten set out by water, and of these Edward was one. The weather was extremely cold, the seas rough and boisterous, and they encountered much hardship. They beat off the Indians, discovered their stores of corn, their habitations, and graves. On Friday, December 8, in a terrible snowstorm, they reached a point of land now known as Clark’s island. Here they rendezvoused all day of the 9th, and Sunday, as became men of their profession. It is said that Edward Doten attempted to first leap on the island, but was checked, the master’s mate allowed to first land, after whom the island was named.

On Monday December 11 (our 21st, Forefather’s Day), they sounded the harbor, and sailed for the aminland, mooring at ∏lymouth Rock. It was a hard winter for the Pilgrims, that first winter at Plymouth. They were little prepared for such rigorous climate, and their suffering was consequently great. Disease attacked them; death thinned their numbers. Edward Doten bore his part of the inconveniences with the others, but, being young and strong of frame, hw was carried through safely.

The next allusion we find to Edward is when he fought a duel in single combat with sword and dagger with Edward Lister, both being wounded, the one in the hand, and the other in the thigh. They were adjudged by the whole community to have their head and feet tied together, and so to remain for twenty-four hours without meat and dring; bet after an hour, because ofr their great pains, tehy were released by the governor.This was the first duel fought in New England, and the first pardon ever issued by the hand of an American governor. It was also the second offense committed in the colony. Lister seems to have soon after, whether voluntarily or by compulsion, left the plantation, and died some years later in Virginia.

Edward, it must be remembered, was not of the ascetic race, like the Scrooby farmers and Notinghamshire sectarists who composed the bulk of the Mayflower list. He had seen London life in abundance, his blood ran quicker, he possessed a spryer temper than they, and thus got into escapades which were rendered venal through the effervescence of youth.

He sems later in life to have retrieved his somewhat lively character, and began to accumulate property. In January, 1631, he was rated at one pound seven shillings, and there were many lower ratings than this. He was made a freeman in 1633. He was a litigant, due, no doubt to his warm blood and a determination to stand up for his rights, January 1, 1632, John Washburne haled him into court for wrongfully taking his hog, but the jury brought in for Edward. In April, 1633, Will Bennet complained of Edward for divers injuries—that he sold him a flitch of bacon at the rate of three pounds, and that it was not worth above half that sum. This was referred to Robert Hecker and Francis Eaton, to decide as they should think meet between man and man. Edward called Bennet a rogue, whereat he brought him into court on a summons for slander, and Edward was fined fifty shillings. In 1634, at a general court, an apprentice of Edward’s (this shows he was getting up in the world, to keep an assistant), John Smith, asked the court to free him from his master Edward, to whom he had bound himself for ten years, as the master did not keep him properly. At a court of assistants held March 24, 1634, Edward and Jason Cook were finded six shillings for breaking the peace. The got into a fistic altercation, and Edward drew the first blood. March 7, 1636, at a court of assistants, George Clarke complained against Edward for damages in a land trade. The court ordered Edward to repay Clarke eight pounds. DAt the same session, Edward was convicted for assault and battery and assessed twelve pence, and in another action of the same kind, smae parties, ten shillings. Up to 1650 he was in court either as plaintiff or defendant in twelve other causes. In 1624 the people requested the governor to set off land, and Edward received his share on what is now [1910] Watson’s hill.

In 1627 there was another allotment ‘to heads of families, and to young men of prdence,’ and Edward was given a share under this designation, though unmarried, which shows him to have gained the confidence of the governor. At a general meeting, March 14, 1635, he was given hay ground on Jones river, on High Clifford or Skeat Hill, near the present border of Kingston. In 1627 he sold land to Russell Derby for one hundred and fifty pounds. To this deed he made his mark, as to all other documents. In 1637 he was allotted sixty acres on Mount Hill; also, he owned land in Yarmouth, Cohasset, Dartmouth, Lakenham and Punckquasett, now Tiverton, Rhode Island. In 1638 he went bail for Samuel Gaston for forty pounds; in 1639 for Richard Derby in the sum of twenty pounds; in 1642 for John Hassel, of Seakonk; in 1643 for John Smith, of Eele river. He was a privat in the militia, and lived in the town of Plymouth, High Cliff, Plain Dealing, which is the name Thodore Roosevelt adoped for his Virginia country place.”

Edward Doty’s alleged baptisms in Shropshire, England in 1599, and 14 May 1598 at St Mary le Strand, Thurburton Hills are fictional. See Neil D. Thompson’s article “A false account of the birth and parentage of Edward Doty, Mayflower passenger, exposed,” The American Genealogist 66 (1988), p. 215.

Sources

• Hill, Peter.  Mayflower Families for Five Generations: Edward Doty, volume 11, part 1 and 2 (Plymouth: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1996).
• Stratton, Eugene Aubrey. Plymouth Colony: Its History and Its People, 1620-1691 (Ancestor Publishers: Salt Lake City, 1986).
• Bradford, William. Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Samuel Morison (New York: Random House, 1952).
• Thompson, Neil D. "A False Account of the Birth and Parentage of Edward Doty exposed," The American Genealogist 63:215.
• Anderson, Robert Charles. The Great Migration Begins, 1:573-577 (Boston: New England Historical and Genealogical Society, 1995).
• Banks, Charles Edward.  English Ancestry and Homes of the Pilgrim Fathers (Baltiore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1929).
• [http://www.archive.org/details/dotydotenfamilyi00doty%C2%A0%C2%A0Doty, Ethan Allen. Doty-Doten Family in America: Descendants of Edward Doty, an Emigrant by the Mayflower, 1620. Brooklyn, N.Y.: [E.A. Doty], 1897.]
• The Record of the Family Doty
• Edward Doty Society
• MFIP Doty, 3rd ed., General Society of Mayflower Descendants, (1996).
• Pilgrim Hall Museum, (www.pilgrimhall.org).
• https://www.edwarddoty.org/tng/getperson.php?personID=P1&tree=DOTY
• Doty Descendants
• Families: Edward Doty Family
• Edward Doty
• http://aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/gen/report/rr01/rr01_397.html#P7447
• http://books.google.com/books?id=PR9KAAAAMAAJ&dq=prince%20doten&pg=...
• http://palmerhoward.net/getperson.php?personID=I368&tree=Ancestors

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Edward Doty came on the Mayflower in 1620 as a servant to Stephen Hopkins, and was apparently still a servant in 1623 when the Division of Land was held. This would indicate he was still under the age of 25 at that time. He signed the "Mayflower Compact" in November 1620, so he was likely over 18 or 21 at the time. This narrows his likely birth date to around 1597-1602.