Notes for Edward Tilley and Agnes Cooper

The Great Migration reports [1]:

Edward Tilley
Origin: Henlow, Bedfordshire
Migration: 1620 on the Mayflower
First Residence: Plymouth

Birth: Baptized Henlow, Bedfordshire, 27 May 1588 (as "Edmond"), son of Robert and Elizabeth (_____) Tilley [ TAG 52:203].
Death: Plymouth 1620.
Marriage: Henlow 20 June 1614 Agnes Cooper. She died at Plymouth about the same time as her husband [ Bradford 446].

Children: None recorded.
Associations: John Tilley of the Mayflower was Edward's brother.

Comments: Bradford names "Edward Tilley and Ann his wife, and two children that were their cousins, Henry Sampson and Humility Cooper" in his list of Mayflower passengers [ Bradford 442]. "Edward Tilley and his wife both died soon after their arrival, and the girl Humility, their cousin, was sent for into England and died there. But the youth Henry Sampson is still living and is married and hath seven children" [ Bradford 446].
On their first landing in November 1620, sixteen men were equipped with musket, sword and corslet, under the command of Capt. Miles Standish "unto whom was adjoined, for counsel and advice, William Bradford, Stephen Hopkins, and Edward Tilley" [ Young's Pilgrim Fathers 125-26]. On 6 December when another group of discoverers went out, both John Tilley and Edward Tilley were among the ten [Young's Pilgrim Fathers 149]. The voyage along the coast was bitterly cold and "Edward Tilley had like to have sounded with cold" [Young's Pilgrim Fathers 151]. He survived the seven-day trip, although the exposure probably did not help him when the little group was visited by sickness.

Bibliographic Note: In 1976 Robert Leigh Ward explored the English origin of the Tilley family at Henlow, Bedfordshire, and the close connections with Humility Cooper and Henry Samson [TAG 52:198-208]. In 1985 he further extended the ancestry of this group of immigrants [TAG 6:166-86].

Footnotes:

[1] Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633 (Boston, Massachusetts: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1995), 1819, [AmericanAncestors].