Budleigh Past and Present

  AROUND THE TOWN AND OVER THE POND A walk around Budleigh Salterton to interest transatlantic visitors. Every so often there’s a diversion which may inspire you to visit places like East Budleigh, Exeter, Sidmouth, Colyton or even places in the United States and Canada.        The walk is set out in parts. Here’s the eleventh part: Still at the Raleigh Wall. 11. PACIFIST FANTASIES MEET 'COLONIAL ASSOCIATIONS' AND 'A FEAR OF THE PAST'  I was moved   by the seemingly pacific character of Roger Conant.   It seems to stand out out in such stark contrast with some of his brutal contemporaries, and I felt that this peace loving Devonian deserved to be better known in his homeland. Could he even become a pacifist icon?   Not only had he intervened to avoid bloodshed in 1625, but he had cooperated in the peaceful transfer to power to Governor John Endecott. And then in his later years, as we read on the blue plaque in East Budleigh, he petitioned for Beverly to be renamed

AROUND THE TOWN AND OVER THE POND A walk around Budleigh Salterton to interest transatlantic visitors. Every so often there’s a diversion which may inspire you to visit places like East Budleigh, Exeter, Sidmouth, Colyton or even places in the United States and Canada.        The walk is set out in parts. Here’s the tenth part: Still at the Raleigh Wall. 10. AN AMERICAN PEACE LOVER  The First Church in Salem   Image credit:  www.firstchurchinsalem.org At the First Church in Salem Roger Conant is respected today not just as one of the founding members. ‘ We celebrate him regularly as the founder of Naumkeag, his relationship to the indigenous people of Cape Ann, and for his role in the peaceful transfer of power to John Endicott,’ writes Diane Smith.   Frontispiece of A History and Genealogy of the Conant Family in England and America by Frederick Odell Conant, Portland, 1887 In the rest of America Roger Conant is not as well known as Raleigh. Yet he founded one of the country’s