Thomas Besbeech

"A list of all such persons as embarked themselves in the good ship Hercules of Sandwich of the burden of 200 tonnes or thereabouts whereof next under God, John Witherly was Master and therein transported from this town and part of Sandwich to the Plantacion called New England in America together with a brief note of the certificates from the ministers where they have dwelt, of their conversation and conformity to the orders and discipline of the Church and that they have taken the Oath of Allegiance and Supremecy according to the order of the L'ds of His M'ats most Noble Prince Counsill of the last of Dec. 1634 videlt."

For a history of the passenger list, click here.

The following is a short history of the Hercules passenger list, taken from a great website, "English-America," that is now sadly defunct.

The list has a history of numerous updates, each published, some reprinted, and separately corrected in various publications. One list, copied from the original records of Sandwich, co. Kent, England, was found later to be partial (in that the numbers of children and servants were given, rather than names). A copy of the list was made by William Boys (in his "History of Sandwich," 1786.) James Savage included a copy of Boys' list in an article ("Gleanings for New England History," 1843.) The Boys' list was also printed in Samuel Drake's "Founders of New England" (1860) and in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register (NEGHR, 1861.) The "Somerby Manuscripts" contain a copy made from Boys' "History of Sandwich." These sources were duplicated in other various publications, including Drake's version in John C. Hotten's book (1874.) A copy was finally made from the original list at Sandwich, England by J. A. Jacobs, a curator there. That list contained some differences in names and numbers of people, and included the names missing from the other lists. The "complete" Sandwich list was provided to the NEHGR by Eben Putnam for publication (1921), with the note that Hotten had not included it in his book. Then an additional article by Elizabeth Bartlett, who had copied them from the Sandwich original in 1911, was printed in the NEHGR providing many corrections to the Putnam list (and noting that Hotten had included the other list.)