Humility Cooper


BIRTH:  About 1619, probably in Leiden, Holland, the daughter of Robert Cooper.
BAPTISM:  17 March 1638/9 at Holy Trinity, London, at the age of 19.
MARRIAGE:  Did not marry.
DEATH:  Sometime between 1639 (her baptism) and 1651 (when Bradford writes that she had died in England).


Humility Cooper was the daughter of Robert Cooper, who was originally from Henlow, co. Bedford, England.  She was born about 1619 (based on her age at baptism), and came on the Mayflower in the custody of her uncle and aunt, Edward and Agnes (Cooper) Tilley.  This probably suggests her mother had died (perhaps a childbirth complication) and so her father Robert may have then turned his young daughter over to his sister Agnes for care.  Unfortunately, both Edward and Agnes Tilley died the first winter at Plymouth, and Humility was sent back to England or Holland, after 1627 when she was enumerated in the Division of Cattle at Plymouth in the William Brewster household.  By 1638, at the age of 19, she was living in the parish of Holy Trinity, London, and was baptized there, as an adult, on 17 March 1638/9.  No further record of her has been found, outside of the fact that William Bradford, writing in 1651, indicates she had died.

The baptism record of Humility Cooper from the parish registers of Holy Trinity Minorities, London.  It reads "Humilitie Cooper of xix yeeres of Age, daughter of Robert ~ Cooper borne in Holland was baptized this xviith day of Marche 1638."

The baptism record of Humility Cooper from the parish registers of Holy Trinity Minorities, London.  It reads "Humilitie Cooper of xix yeeres of Age, daughter of Robert ~ Cooper borne in Holland was baptized this xviith day of Marche 1638."