Roger Conant (Salem, Massachusetts founder)

Roger Conant (* 1592, † 1679 ) was the founder ( 1626 ) of the town of Salem in what is now the U.S. state of Massachusetts.

Curriculum vitae

Roger Conant was baptized on April 9, 1592 in East Budleigh ( Devonshire ) in England. He was the eighth and youngest child of Richard Conant and Agnes Clark.

He married in 1616 Sarah Horton in London. With his wife and his first son, he moved with the ship Anne to America and in the former Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts (then called Naumkeag ) above. Because bothered him the Puritan austerity in the colony, he moved in 1624 into the later Hull (former Indian name: Nantasket ).

In the fall of 1624 John White offered him the post of governor on a fishing colony on Cape Ann. But the project failed, whereupon most of the settlers returned to England. However, a smaller group followed him along the coast and founded the village in 1626 Salem. Here he served as first governor of the new branch, to the Massachusetts Bay Company replaced him with John Endicott.

He built the first Salem house at today's Essex Street, opposite the central market square of the city. The local archives his signature is obtained on an agreement on the extension of the village hall to the first church of Salem.

Conant retained throughout his life a high reputation and held various public offices in the community. After Salem was allowed to set up your own local court, Conant was appointed 16 years again and again to the jury. The demarcation of new churches was entrusted to him regularly, including Boston.

1636 Conant was used along with other pioneer settlers in a committee, sparked private land in Salem from public lands. For this work he received 200 acres of farmland in the neighboring Bass River.

From 1659, he initiated the construction of a church there, which was completed in 1667. A year later, in 1668, the settlement Bass River to the new independent city of Beverly was. Again practiced Conant from public office.

Conant died in 1679 at age 87.

Since 1913, the city of Salem commemorates its founder with a larger than life bronze statue opposite the town hall.

In a film adaptation of Peter Steffordshire establishing Salem from 1952 Frank Cagliari embodied the Conant.