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James Chilton (c. 15561620) was a Leiden Separatist passenger on the historic 1620 voyage of the ship ''Mayflower'' and was the oldest person on board. Upon arrival in the New World, he was a signer of the Mayflower Compact. James Chilton was one of the earliest to die that winter, perishing within the following month.〔Pilgrim Hall Museum ''()''〕 == Life in England == Chilton was born about 1556 (age 63 in 1619) probably in Canterbury. Kent, England. The Chilton surname is an ancient one that appears in records from at least 1339, when his ancestor Robert Chilton was a Canterbury parliamentary representative.〔''A genealogical profile of James Chilton,'' (a collaboration of Plimoth Plantation and New England Historic Genealogical Society accessed 2013) ()〕 His father was Lyonel Chilton.〔Eugene Aubrey Stratton, ''Plymouth Colony: Its History and People, 1620-1691'' (Salt Lake City: Ancestry Publishing, 1986), p. 262〕 James became a freeman in 1583 in Canterbury, and in a Canterbury Quarter Session in the next year, he was recorded as being a tailor.〔 Per Banks, in 1583 he was recorded as James "Chylton", citizen and tailor of Canterbury.〔Charles Edward Banks, ''The English Ancestry and Homes of the Pilgrim Fathers: who came to Plymouth on the ''Mayflower'' in 1620, the ''Fortune'' in 1621, and the ''Anne'' and the ''Little James'' in 1623'' (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2006), p. 45〕 James Chilton married about 1586 (date based on his first child’s baptism date). Research has not revealed the name of his wife, which was at one time thought to have been his stepsister, Susanna Furner, but recent research has found this not to be true. As far back as 1840 Nahum Mitchell’s History of Bridgewater provided the given name of James’ wife as “Susanna”, but there is no solid documentary evidence to this claim.〔 James Chilton and his wife had seven children who were baptized in Canterbury, Kent between 1587 and 1589. About 1600 the family moved to Sandwich, also in Kent, where three more children were baptized.〔 It is believed that here James met Moses Fletcher, who was also a Mayflower passenger, as well as other Separatists who later went to Holland, and so became part of the English Leiden religious company.〔 Sandwich was becoming a center of Separatist activity, and was home to several future members of John Robinson's Leiden church.〔''(A genealogical profile of James Chilton'' )''〕 The first evidence that the Chilton family had its own Separatist views appears in 1609. In late April, Chilton's wife was among four people who secretly buried a dead child, without having the Church of England perform its mandatory burial rites.〔 == Life in Leiden == After the excommunication, sometime between 1609 and 1615, James Chilton and his family left England and joined John Robinson’s congregation in Leiden, Holland. The first the family is heard from in Leiden is on July 2, 1615 when their eldest daughter Isabella married Roger Chandler. She is recorded as “Ysabel Tgiltron spinster from Canterbury.” James Chilton’s name was recorded for the first time in Leiden records on April 30, 1619 when he made a Leiden Remonstrant statement. An incident involving James and a daughter was recorded in Leiden on April 28, 1619, when it was reported that as they were returning to their home, about twenty boys began throwing rocks at them. When Chilton confronted the crowd, he was struck in the head by a large cobblestone, and was knocked unconscious.〔(in Dutch) 008 reg./ONA180fo. 239/30-4-1619 State of Facts, Leiden, The Netherlands: Leiden Pilgrim Archives, retrieved 2008-11-17〕〔Jeremy D. Bangs, ed. ''The Pilgrims in the Netherlands'', Recent Research Papers Presented at a Symposium held by The Leiden Pilgrim Documents Center and The Sir Thomas Browne Institute. Leiden Pilgrim Documents Center Leiden, The Netherlands〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「James Chilton」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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