On 25 April 1629 he, his wife and 8 children sailed from
Gravesend to New England in the Talbot. This
vessel was of 300 tons, 19 guns, and 30 men, commanded by
Thomas Beecher, She "carried about 100 planters, 6 goats, 5
pieces of ordinance, with meal, oatmeal, peas and all manner of
munition of provision for the plantation for a twelve month."
She was one of 3 ships, fitted out at the same time with
emigrants and supplies for the colony. She reached no further
than Cowes by the 5th of May. Mr. Higginson remarked in his
diary that he, his wife and children and 2 maids and some
others obtained leave of the master to go ashore and refresh
us, and wash out linens. On the 6th in the morning a shallop
was sent from the ship to take them to Yarmouth, 8 miles from
Cowes. Since the water was rough the women wanted to be set
ashore about 3 miles short of Yarmouth and so they went by land
to stay in Yarmouth for the night. On the 10th, a Sunday, he
preached on the ship and then was asked to preach in the
afternoon in the town.
Francis Higginson kept a journal of the transatlantic trip in
1629.
"This day [17 May 1629] my 2 children Samuel and Mary began to
be sick of the smallpox and purples together, which was brought
into the ship by one Mr. Browne, who was sick of the same at
Gravesend, whom it pleased God to make the first occasion of
bringing that contagious sickness among us, wherewith many were
after afflicted. . Tuesday [19th]. . . this day toward night my
daughter grew sicker, and many blue spots were seen upon her
breast, which affrighted us. At the first we thought they had
been the plague tokens, but we found afterwards that it was
only a high measure of the infection of the pox, which were
struck again in the child, and so it was God's will the child
died about 5 o'clock of the night, being the first in our ship
that was buried in the bowels of the great Atlantic sea; which,
as it was grief to us her parents and a sorrow to all the rest,
as being the beginning of a contagious disease and mortality,
so in the same judgment it pleased God to remember mercy in the
child, in freeing it from a world of misery wherein otherwise
she had lived all her days, For being about 4 years old a year
since, we know not by what means, swayed in the back, so that
it was broken and grew back crooked, pitiful to see. Since
which she hath had a most lamentable pain in her belly, and
would oft times cry out in the day and in her sleep also, "my
belly!" which declared some extraordinary distemper. So that
in respect of her we had cause to take her death as a blessing
from the Lord to shorten her misery."
In a letter to his wife dated 9 September 1630, Governor
Winthrop included "good Mr. Higginson' in his list of those who
had died "about the beginning of September". 1630 Dudley has
"Mr Higginson, one of the ministers of Salem, a zealous and a
profitable preacher. . . of a fever."
Rev. Francis Higginson was the first pastor at Salem, Mass. Rev. Higginson
was an Anglican clergyman. He drafted the confession of faith and covenant
for the church at Salem, Massachusetts in 1629. Several of his papers
exist today, and the Publication "The Anals of America" published by
Encyclopedia Britannica Inc. 1968 has an article written by Rev. Higginson
on Page 95.