Degory Priest was a signer of the Mayflower Compact

Mayflower Compact

The Mayflower Compact was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony. It was written by the colonists, later together known to history as the Pilgrims, who crossed the Atlantic aboard the Mayflower...

, and one of the original 102 Pilgrims who arrived on the Mayflower

Mayflower

The Mayflower was the ship that transported the English Separatists, better known as the Pilgrims, from a site near the Mayflower Steps in Plymouth, England, to Plymouth, Massachusetts, , in 1620...

to Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. Alternate spellings of his name were: "Digory" "Gregory", "Degorie", or "Digorie" Priest.

Little information remains regarding Degory Priest's lineage and his activities as a Mayflower passenger. Priest was allegedly born between 1579 and 1582 in London, England, and his wife, Sarah Allerton, was born in London in 1588. She was the sister of Isaac Allerton

Isaac Allerton

Isaac Allerton was one of the original Pilgrim fathers who came on the Mayflower to settle the Plymouth Colony in 1620. Allerton is an ancestor to Presidents of the United States Zachary Taylor and Franklin D. Roosevelt....

 (another passenger on the Mayflower). Priest and Allerton were married in 1611 when Allerton was twenty-three years old. Degory Priest died in Plymouth in January, 1621, two months after the Mayflower landed in America. Sarah Allerton, and children, Mary and Sarah, stayed behind in Leyden, the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

, where some of the Pilgrims had moved to escape religious persecution in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. However, they came to North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

on the Anne almost two years after the death of Priest in 1623.