Francis Dane I

Our ancestor Francis Dane I was born in Hertfordshire, England-- probably in the hamlet of Little Berkhamsted. When he was in his late teens, his brother John Dane, older by about three years, already working as a tailor, was enthusiastic about joining the Puritan Great Migration, to set up a more godly dominion in the newly established Massachusetts Bay Colony. Here is John's own statement, made years later: "To return to the way and manner of my coming.... My father and mother showed themselves unwilling. I sat close by a table where there lay a Bible. I hastily took up the Bible, and told my father if, where I opened the Bible, there I met with anything either to encourage or discourage, that should settle me. I, opening of it, not knowing more than the child in the womb, the first I cast my eyes on was: 'come out from among them, touch no unclean thing, and I will be your God and you shall be my people.' My father and mother never more opposed me, but furthered me in the thing, and hastened after me as soon as they could." From that time forward, Dane reported, "[I] bent myself to come to New England, thinking that I should be more free here than there from temptations" Francis, his sister, and his parents followed John to the New World, probably before 1636 (the year Francis and John's mother died).

Francis, his parents, his stepmother, and his siblings were part of the idealistic, puritanical Righteous Generation. His stepsiblings and his three successive wives were part of the reactive, nomadic Cavalier Generation. His oldest child (and maybe the next two as well) were part of the last wave of Cavalier Generation; his other children and all his stepchildren were part of the heroic, civic-minded Glorious Generation.

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