Degory Priest

He was a hat maker from London who married Sarah, sister of Pilgrim Isaac Allerton in Leiden.

He became a citizen (burgess) of Leiden on November 16, 1615, with guarantors being future Mayflower compatriot Isaac Allerton and Roger Wilson.

[4][5] Several Leiden incidents in June 1617 are recorded regarding Degory Priest’s involvement in activities that border on assault in one case and adultery in another.

This, combined with a lack of proper rations and unsanitary conditions for several months, contributed to illness that would be fatal for many, especially the majority of women and children.

After several days of trying to get south to their planned destination of the Colony of Virginia, strong winter seas forced them to return to the harbor at Cape Cod hook, where they anchored on November 11/21.

[2][12] Sarah Priest married 2nd in Leiden on or shortly after November 13, 1621, Godbert Godbertson, whose name, per Banks, was also written as Cuthbert Cuthbertson.

[2][4][7] He was buried likely sometime in January 1621 in Cole's Hill Burial Ground in Plymouth, most probably in an unmarked grave, as was the custom that first winter.

After Priest’s death, his wife Sarah married another hat-maker, Godbert Godbertson (or Cuthbert Cuthbertson), on November 13, 1621, with whom she had one son, Samuel, born possibly about 1622.

They came, with their son Samuel Cuthbertson (later shortened to Cuthbert) and her daughters Mary and Sarah Priest, to Plymouth on the ship Anne in 1623.

Both Godbertson and his wife Sarah died in the Massachusetts smallpox epidemic of 1633 sometime that fall, with their estate inventories being taken on October 24, 1633.