NOTES: Henry Rolfe's father (John
Rolfe, b. ca. 1650) was the brother of Honor Rolfe's maternal grandfather
(believe it or not), as Honor's mother Agnes
also married a Rolfe (Richard,
b. ca. 1567) who may or may not have been directly related to her.
Henry and family are said to have emigrated
to New England with Henry's brother John and a sister, though
apparently
not on the very same ship. John and family (described differently
in two published transcriptions I'm looking at presently) sailed on the
Confidence
in
1638. There is no mention of Henry in either of the
transcriptions;
presumably he and his family came earlier, since son Benjamin was born
on this side in that year. Henry is listed as owning land in
Newbury
in 1642.
Through the kindness of distant cousin
Jonathan Rolfe, descendant of Henry's brother John, I have two more
transcriptions for the Confidence voyage
of 1638, indicating that John (aged 50) sailed with his wife "Ann" and
their daughter Hester, plus an 18-year-old servant named Whittle or
Thomas Wittle. The ship sailed from Southampton on April 24,
1638, arriving in Boston, under Master John Gibson (or Jobson),
carrying 200 tons.
Another distant cousin, Marie Thurman-Vann,
adds interesting side-notes to this story. She points out
that servant Thomas Wittle is part of a long-standing family
relationship with the Rolfes. Honor Rolfe's great grandfather Henry Rolfe, in his 1558 will,
leaves items to "Alis Whytehere, my servant," while her husband's
father, John Rolfe, in his 1625
will, leaves money to "Richard Whiteer," who was actually married
to Mary Rolfe, sister of the Henry and John in this generation.
(Marrying a servant was not at all uncommon in Shakespeare's time, and
of course did not alter Thomas Wittle's servant status, who--according
to Marie--was the son of Richard and Mary and thus servant to his own
uncle. The coincidence of the same servant family on both sides
of the Henry-Honor marriage confirms that their two Rolfe lines are
fairly closely related.) Marie continues: "Thomas
[Wittle]'s descendant was John Greenleaf Whittier, who wrote a poem ["Pentucket"] about his kinsman,
Samuel Rolfe, who went to Harvard and became a minister and was killed
with an axe thrown to his head standing in front of his home in
Massachusetts." (According to Whittier's own notes on the poem,
it was Benjamin Rolfe, and he was killed by a shot through his front
door.)