Roger Garde was born in Bideford in about 1585, although his parents may have come from Alwington, and he married a Phillippa Gist on 4 July 1610. They had at least six children, though only two survived into adulthood. Roger was a woollen draper by trade. However, after twenty four years of marriage, his wife died (in about 1610), and some while after, in 1623, he left England, and settled in York, Maine, where he bought some land from the local proprietor, Thomas Gorges. He must have been a diligent and upright character, because Gorges made him his agent on his own return to England in 1643. Garde then served as Alderman, Town Clerk and Recorder of the York Court in the early 1640’s, eventually becoming Mayor of York in 1644-5, and, in doing so, became the first ever Mayor in New England, though it has to be said that at that time York, (then called Agamenticus) was little more than a village. In fact, it was granted a municipal charter in 1641, thus making it a city before it became a town!
However, in his capacity as Mayor, he presided over a famous trial, where a woman of ill repute, Catherine Cornish, was accused of murdering her husband, Richard, his body having been found floating in a nearby river. The trial was conducted in an apparently impartial manner, and she was eventually found guilty, and sentenced to death. Before the sentence was carried out, though, she accused Roger Garde and another townsman, Edward Johnson of having illicit affairs with her. Johnson admitted that he had had such an affair, but Garde denied any involvement with her. She maintained that his need to keep quiet about the affair, in those puritanical times, provided him with sufficient motive for wanting her executed, but he was adamant that no such affair had taken place, and she was duly hanged.
The townsfolk were never entirely convinced of his innocence. This weighed heavily upon him mentally and physically, and a year later, he was dead. Even the Governor of Massachusetts was not convinced of his innocence, and thought he might be lying, pointing out that “he was a carnal man and had no wife in the country”. As his death approached, Garde was reputed to have said, “The people have broken my heart”.
The authorities, however, did not take sides. In the end, he was exonerated by the people of any wrong- doing and he was treated after his death with the honour that a man of his status would normally receive.
A brother, John, seems to have followed him to America, where he became a trader on Rhode Island.
In spite of his unfortunate end, Roger Garde was one of the pioneers who founded America, becoming the first ever Mayor in New England. A surprisingly large number of other Devonians emigrated to New England at around this time, including others from North Devon, but whose lives have now been largely forgotten.
Chris Trigger
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