Governor Dudley wrote to Gager in early 1630, "Sir, Being informed of your good inclination to the furtherance of this work which (through the Lord's good providence) we are in hand with for establishing of a church in N.E., and having sufficient assurance of your godliness and abilities in the art of surgery to be of much use to us in this work, being informed also, that the place where you live doth not afford you such sufficient and comfortable employment as your gifts do require, we have thought good to offer you a call to join with us, and become a member of our society; your entertainment shall be to your good content; if you like to accept this motion, we desire you would prepare to go with us this Spring. If you come up to London we shall be ready to treat further with you."
Gager accepted Dudley's offer, but by the time he was ready to sail, most of Winthrop's fleet had already departed. However he sailed with the last trickle of the fleet in May 1630 and set up residence in Charlestown. He soon moved to Boston with John Winthrop. On Aug 23 it was decided that Gager's "maintenance" should be that a house would be built for him before the following spring, a cow would be given him, and that he would receive twenty pounds the first year and thirty pounds annually thereafter.
He was admitted to the church in Boston as its eighth member and was named a deacon the same day. But illness swept the Gager family and he died on Sep 20 1630 and his wife and two youngest children were probably carried off at the same time. Certainly they were dead by the end of that November, when John Winthrop noted their deaths in a letter to his wife. He was married before 1618. Children were:
1890 i.
John Gager.
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