Early Harris Research

Research of Andrew Harris' birthplace focuses on Staplehurst, Kent, very near Tenterden and Ashford. Andrew's daughter Parnell was a passenger on the Ship Hercules. She joined her brothers William and Thomas in New England in 1635. Eventually her sisters Jane and Anne, along with their mother Jane migrated to New England. Many of the passengers on board the ship were close friends and relatives, bound together by a common bond of religious dissent. Research has shown many on board had close ties to John Lathrop (Lothropp), who was admitted in 1609 as the perpetual curate in charge of the Egerton Church, a parish a few miles from Staplehurst and Tenterden. In 1623, he left the Church of England and moved to London to head a dissenter church group meeting in Southwark. He was imprisoned for three years and then quickly left for New England in 1634. Many of his followers traveled with him or joined him in Scituate, MA. Many of the passengers on the Hercules were also connected to the earlier pilgrims who had lived in Holland after leaving England and then ventured forth to New England on the early Mayflower voyages in 1620. These connected families on board the Hercules were from Ashford, Tenterden, Sandwich and surrounding areas in Kent. Since individuals in Sandwich were relatives to those in the Ashford, Tenterden areas, it was very likely that Andrew Harris could have come from that same area before settling in Northbourne. Records show numerous Harris families throughout this central part of Kent.