This weekend, I found an image of the church registry page which lists the marriage of my 10th great-grandparents, Anthony West and Anne Barlow Huffe, on March 11, 1633. Anthony is the relative who went to Jamestown in his late teens, spending a few years farming tobacco at George Sandys' plantation and working for Mr. Rowley, the barber-surgeon. He returned to England in the late 1620s, where he met and married Anne, returning to Virginia before 1649 with his wife and surviving children.
Today I noticed that just below the entry in the register for Anthony and Anne, there's an entry for a Tilbury Strange (waterman) and Mary Finicombe (widow) who were from the same neighborhood as A & A, and were married on the same day. I wonder if they knew each other? I wonder if they were friends? I wonder if they all went out together to celebrate after their weddings?
I decided to look up Tilbury Strange, on the off-chance that there was something out there about him. Such an unusual name. I found a page on him, and a link to another interesting person...John Taylor, "The Water-Poet", who was his neighbor. John Taylor was also a member of the guild of boatmen licensed to ferry people across the river, a vital service at this time when London Bridge was the only bridge crossing the Thames. Taylor and Tilbury were both members of the royal watermen, serving as leaders of this guild at various times. John Taylor produced more than 150 publications in his lifetime, and although his work was not sophisticated, it provided keen observations of people and pastimes during his lifetime, making it valuable to social historians.----which is why I need to find it and read it, to better understand the life and times of my relative, his neighbor ;-)
Tilbury was born in about 1588, John Taylor in 1578, so they were both considerably older than Anthony. Before Anthony, born in 1605, even left for Virginia, Tilbury and Taylor traveled through Europe together.
From RootsWeb:
'From "The World of John Taylor the Water-Poet, 1578-1653" by Bernard Capp, 1994 (Oxford University Press) ISBN.0198203756, page 24:
"TAYLOR ... left England on 4 August 1620, accompanied by a fellow waterman named TILBURY." They took ship to Rotterdam, went through Amsterdam and Brunswick to Leipzig; TAYLOR's brother joined them. They could find no transport in Leipzig except 'a fellow with a wheel barrow', who transported their 'cloaks, swords, guns, pistols, and other apparel and luggage'. They themselves carried all across the mountains and forests into Bohemia where they were welcomed. To return to England they bought a small boat and navigated 600 miles down the Elbe to Hamburg, then across the channel, arriving in London on 28 October. Footnote: "TILBURY is probably Tilbury STRANGE, a neighbour [of TAYLOR's] and royal waterman, often employed in the Lord Mayor's Pageants: 'A Calendar of Dramatic Records in the Books of the Livery Companies of London 1485-16_0' ed. J. Robertson and D. J. Gordon (Malone Soc. Collection__ iii, 1954)"'
I don't know if either of them ever traveled to Virginia, or if Anthony heard of their travels before he made his own. I don't even know if Anthony lived in Stepney before his voyage to Virginia, or if he really did know these men....but I like to think of the possibility.