The Pilgrims were a small band of people who came to North America for religious freedom. Their beginnings came when the Bible was translated into English from Latin between 1557 and 1560. Early in 1557 they began to hold religious services on their own, instead of with the Church of England, and they be came known as Separatists or Brownists. Later they became known as the Pilgrims. Laws were passed to imprison anyone who did not attend the Church of England, with the requirement that they conform within three months following their imprisonment or leave the country. Refusal to conform was to result in death. This caused some of the Pilgrims to move to Holland but they remained loyal to England. They became concerned that their children were losing the ability to speak English and were marrying into Dutch families so the group requested permission from King James of England to settle in the Virginia Colony and, although they were refused the protection of the English flag, the King agreed not to molest them.

On September 16, 1620 the Mayflower sailed from Plymouth for Virginia with 104 passengers, including our ancestors Edward and Ann Fuller and their eight year old son Samuel (who is also our ancestor). On November 11th the ship anchored in Cape Cod Harbor at Long Point off the present site of Provincetown. On November 21st the members of the Company met in the cabin of the Mayflower and drew up the document known as the Mayflower Compact. This document has become famous as the document that established the foundations of civil and religious liberty for the United States of America. The Mayflower Compactestablished the first government formed by the consent of those governed and 150 years later it formed the foundation of Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence as well as the Constitution of the United States. It was signed by our ancestor Edward Fuller.

Edward and Ann were among the original Pilgrims who died during the horrible first winter of 1620-1621. Twelve of the sixteen mothers and thirteen of the twenty five fathers who arrived on the Mayflower died that winter. They were probably buried in the unmarked mound that the Pilgrims made so that the Indians would not know how many had died. Many of these remains were later removed to the Pilgrim Sarcophagus in Plymouth, Massachusetts and it is likely that Edward and Ann's remains are among them. The marble sarcophagus now sits in a hilltop park overlooking Plymouth Harbor. Edward Fuller's name is engraved on the tomb.

After his parents died, Samuel Fuller was raised by his Uncle, Dr. Samuel Fuller, at Plymouth. One account says that Captain Miles Standish performed his marriage to Jane Lothrop in 1635.

Our ancestor is their son Little John Fuller who was born about 1656 in Barnstable, Massachusetts. When John's father, the Mayflower Pilgrim Samuel, died his will left John "4 acres of marsh, 3 year old horse running in woods, dwellinghouse, orchyard, and all out housing, the indian Jaell, a cart, plow, tooles, one fatt cow, my bald faced horse, my great bible, and one third of the other cattle."

Our ancestor is Little John's daughter Thankful.

Thankful Fuller married Jabez Crippen in 1701. Jabez was the son of Pilgrims Thomas and Frances Crippen, who immigrated from England to the Plymouth Colony before 1665. Around 1680 they helped found East Haddam, Connecticut. Jabez became the original proprietor of the town of Sharon, Connecticut. In 1752 he took his five sons and founded Crippentown just across the present state line near Amenia, New York. For unknown reasons, the town failed and they returned to Sharon within a few years. Jabez lived to be 105, thus becoming the oldest of our known ancestors.

Our ancestor is Jabez and Thankful's son Samuel Crippen who was born in 1724. He was a carpenter and he married Keziah Alger when he was only 18 or 19 years old. During 1759 and 1760 Samuel and his son Samuel were British irregulars who were involved in the conquest of Quebec. He later moved to Vermont.

His son Darius Crippen was born in 1749 and was a British Loyalist his entire life. He married Abigail Stevens in 1776 when both families were fighting for the British against the rebels who were attempting to break away to start the United States of America. After the war the revolutionaries began to persecute those who had supported the British, so Darius and Abigail had to move to Lower Canada (now known as Ontario). When Darius drowned in 1808 Abigail went to New York to live with one of her sons.

Darius and Abigail's son Samuel Crippen (of Hope) was born in 1782. He was a British Loyalist who joined the British Army from 1812-1814 for the War of 1812 against the United States.

Samuel and Ruth's son Jacob Crippen was born in 1815 in New York. He took his family to Wheat field, Michigan, then Ohio, then Havana, Illinois by 1851, then near Osceola, Iowa, then around 1870 to Junction City, Kansas, and finally near Council Grove, Kansas.

Their son Reuben Crippen was born in 1841 in Ohio or Illinois. In 1853 his family moved to Osceola, Iowa and he grew up there. He was tall, about 5' 10", with a sandy complexion, brown eyes, black hair, and he always had long reddish whiskers. He married Malinda Miler. They moved to LaPlatte, and then to Fort Crook, Nebraska. Around 1894 he contracted typhoid fever and moved to Missouri for his health. Hazel VanBuskirk Crippen recalls him telling that they traveled in five covered wagons with twelve horses, a cow, chickens, and all their furniture, using a tent for sleeping at night. They traveled for a few days, then camped, cooked, and repaired so that they could travel for a few more days. By 1912 Reuben and Malinda had returned from Missouri and were living just down the road from their youngest son Edward and his wife Hazel. They would drive up the road each day to visit in their black horse and buggy. On March 8, 1914, they drove up as usual and Reuben let Malinda out at the door and drove the horse to the shade of the tree. When he didn't come back to the house, Malinda went out to look and found him standing by the wheel of the buggy as if his coat was caught. He had a stroke and was unable to talk. Ed came in from the field back of the house where he was cultivating corn, and they got Reuben into the house and into bed. There was an Army doctor who went by each day about 11:00 and Hazel went out to the road to stop him. He came in and checked Reuben and said he would not live through the day. He died later that day. Both Reuben and Malinda are buried in LaPlatte on a hill overlooking the Platte River.

Their son James Edward Crippen or Ed, as he was always known, was born in 1886 in Nebraska. He was 5' 10" tall, with red hair and brown eyes. He married Hazel Van Buskirk. Around 1916 they moved to Wessington Springs, South Dakota. He was a butcher, and he installed the first freezer plant in the Wessington Springs meat market. In 1922 they moved to a farm near Alpena, where they spent the Great Depression, until 1938.

Their daughter Hazel is our ancestor.

Hazel Marie Crippen was born in 1916 in Bellevue, Nebraska. She married David Raleigh Carlton on March 11, 1944 in Woonsocket, South Dakota. She is our Crippen ancestor, my mother, and your grandmother and great grandmother.

MICHELLE CARLTON

KRISTOFER CARLTON

AERIK CARLTON

EDWARD CARLTON

MICHAEL CARLTON

In ye name of God, Amen. -- We whose names are underwrtittten, the loyall subjects of our dread and fovaraigne Lord, King James, by ye grade of God, of Great Britaine, France, & Yreland King, defender of ye faith. &c., haveing undertaken for ye glorie of God, and advancement of ye Christian faith, and honour to our king and countrie, a voyage to plant ye first colonie in ye Northerne parts of Virginia, doe by thefe prefents solemnly and mutually in ye prefense of God, and one of another, covenant and combine soufelves togeather into a civill body politick, for our better ordering & prefervation & furtherance of ye ends aforesaid; and by vertue hearof to enacte, conftitute, and frame fuch just & equall lawes, ordinances, Acts, conftitutions, & offices from time to time, as fhall be thought most meete & convenient for ye generall goode of ye Colonie, unto which we promife all due submiffion an obedience. Yn witnefs whereof we have hereunder subfcribed our names at Cap-Codd ye 11. of November, in e year of ye raigne of our soveraigne lord, King James, of England, France, & Yreland ye eighteenth, and Scotland ye fiftie fourth, Ano: Dom. 1620.

John Carver

William Bradford

Edward Winflow

William Brewfter

Ifaac Allerton

Myles Standifh

John Alden

Samuel Fuller

Chriftopher Martin

William Mullins

William White

Richard Warren

John Howland

Stephen Hopkins

Edward Tilley

John Tilley

Francif Cooke

Thomas Rogers

Thomas Tinker

John Rigdale

Edward Fuller

John Turner

Francis Eaton

James Chilton

John Cracfton

John Billington

Mofes Fletcher

John Goodman

Degory Prieft

Thomas Williams

Gilbert Winflow

Edmond Margefon

Peter Brown

Richard Britterige

George Soule

Richard Clark

Richard Gardiner

John Allerton

Thomas Englifh

Edward Doty

Edward Leifter

This page was updated on 2-21-98. If you have queries or comments, email rcarlton@arkansas.net