James Rosier (1573–1609) was an English explorer, notable for his account of a 1605 expedition to America, in which he describes native peoples and fauna of northern
New England
New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...
. He describes a journey along a "great river", but the identity of the river is not known for certain.
Life
Rosier was born 1 June 1573 in
Winston, Suffolk
Winston is a village and civil parish in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern England. Located around east of Stowmarket, the 2011 Census showed that the population of the parish of Winston is 159. The parish also contains the settlem ...
, the son of James Rosier (d. 1581), a Church of England clergyman, and his wife, Dorothy Johnson. He was baptised 6 days after his birth. After his father's death in 1581, he was brought up in
Ipswich
Ipswich () is a port town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in Suffolk, England. It is the county town, and largest in Suffolk, followed by Lowestoft and Bury St Edmunds, and the third-largest population centre in East Anglia, ...
by Robert Wolfrestone, a relative of his mother's, and then in Sir Philip Parker's household. After graduating BA from
Pembroke College, Cambridge
Pembroke College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college is the third-oldest college of the university and has over 700 students and fellows. It is one of the university's larger colleges, with buildings from ...
in 1593 and MA in 1596, he entered the household of Sir Philip Woodhouse at Kimberley Hall in
Norfolk
Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...
where he became a Roman Catholic about 1602 under the influence of Lady Woodhouse, a member of the Catholic Yelverton family.
[.]
Rosier was among those who sailed to present-day Maine with
Bartholomew Gosnold in 1602. About that time he met
Thomas Arundell, who hoped to establish a colony in America for his fellow Catholics. Arundell joined with
Plymouth
Plymouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Devon, South West England. It is located on Devon's south coast between the rivers River Plym, Plym and River Tamar, Tamar, about southwest of Exeter and ...
merchants and perhaps his brother-in-law,
Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton
Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, (pronunciation uncertain: "Rezley", "Rizely" (archaic), (present-day) and have been suggested; 6 October 1573 – 10 November 1624) was the only son of Henry Wriothesley, 2nd Earl of Sou ...
, to set forth an expedition under Captain
George Weymouth
George Weymouth (c. 1585 – c. 1612) was an English explorer and colonist of the area now occupied by the state of Maine. George Weymouth was a native of Cockington, Devon, who spent his youth studying shipbuilding and mathematics. His travels ...
to explore the Maine coast. The voyage lasted from 5 March to 18 July 1605, with Rosier on board as
cape merchant and reporter.
According to
Quinn, there were three versions of Rosier's account of the voyage: a now-lost journal; a manuscript version obtained first by
Hakluyt and then by
Purchas, who abridged it in ''Purchas his Pilgrimes'' in 1624; and yet another manuscript, perhaps edited by Hakluyt, which was published as ''A True Relation of the most prosperous voyage made this present year by Captaine George Waymouth in the Discovery of the Land of Virginia: where he discovered 60 miles of a most excellent River; together with a most fertile land,'' (London, 1605).
The exact location of the "excellent river" is not specified, possibly because Rosier was being deliberately vague in order to preserve the expedition's knowledge to secure backing for a future expedition. David C. Morey argues that the expedition explored the
Penobscot River
The Penobscot River (Abenaki: ''Pαnawάhpskewtəkʷ'') is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed June 22, 2011 river in the U.S. state of Maine. Including the river's W ...
.
[David C. Morey, ''The voyage of Archangell: James Rosier's account of the Weymouth voyage of 1605, "a true relation"'', Tilbury House, 2005, p. 1] However, it has also been suggested that he travelled up the
Saint George River
The St. George River is a river in Maine with a watershed of in a unique and historic area of mountains, sea coast, lakes, tidal streams and inlets. The origin of the St. George River is the outflow of St. George Lake () in Liberty. The river ...
.
[''Handbook of North American Indians'', Eastern Algonquian Languages, Government Printing Office, p. 71] The native
Algonquian vocabulary he records has been identified as
Etchemin. More recently it has been argued that it is more likely to be Eastern
Abenaki
The Abenaki ( Abenaki: ''Wαpánahki'') are Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands of Canada and the United States. They are an Algonquian-speaking people and part of the Wabanaki Confederacy. The Eastern Abenaki language was pred ...
.
On 30 October 1605 Rosier, acting as Weymouth's agent, witnessed an agreement with
Sir John Zouche for a voyage to Virginia, which was abandoned as a result of the revelation of the
Gunpowder Plot
The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was an unsuccessful attempted regicide against James VI and I, King James VI of Scotland and I of England by a group of English ...
in November of that year, and the development of other plans for the colonization of Virginia. For the next two years Rosier was in the service of
Lord Buckhurst. On 7 May 1608 he left for Rome, where he was admitted into the
Jesuit
The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...
English College. The account he gave there of his life omits his involvement in the voyage of 1605. He was ordained on 18 April 1609, taking the name Philip James. He died at
Loreto later that year on his way back to England to participate in the Jesuits' English mission.
Cape Rosier on the
Penobscot River
The Penobscot River (Abenaki: ''Pαnawάhpskewtəkʷ'') is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed June 22, 2011 river in the U.S. state of Maine. Including the river's W ...
in
Brooksville, Maine
Brooksville is a town on Penobscot Bay in Hancock County, Maine, United States. As of the 2020 census, the town population was 935. It contains the villages of North Brooksville, South Brooksville (on Buck's Harbor), West Brooksville, Brooksvil ...
, is named after James Rosier. Journalist
Avery Yale Kamila
Avery Yale Kamila is an American journalist/ food writer and community organizer in the state of Maine. Kamila is ranked by polling firm YouGov as one of The Most Popular Columnists in America,
Biography
Kamila was born in Westminster, Massach ...
said "Rosier’s account is the first time a European recorded the Native American use of
nut milks and nut butters."
Footnotes
References
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External links
''True Relation of Waymouth’s Voyage'' (1605)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rosier, James
1573 births
1609 deaths
16th-century English explorers
17th-century American writers
17th-century English Jesuits
16th-century English Roman Catholic priests
17th-century English writers
17th-century English male writers
17th-century English explorers
Alumni of Pembroke College, Cambridge
English male writers
People from Mid Suffolk District