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The Mayflower Pilgrims
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The Pilgrims were English Separatists who founded (1620) Plymouth Colony in New England. In the first years of the 17th century, small numbers of English Puritans broke away from the Church of England because they felt that it had not completed the work of the Reformation. They committed themselves to a life based on the Bible. Most of these Separatists were farmers, poorly educated and without social or political standing. One of the Separatist congregations was led by William Brewster and the Rev. Richard Clifton in the village of Scrooby in Nottinghamshire. The Scrooby group emigrated to Amsterdam in 1608 to escape harassment and religious persecution. The next year they moved to Leiden, where, enjoying full religious freedom, they remained for almost 12 years. In 1617, discouraged by economic difficulties, the pervasive Dutch influence on their children, and their inability to secure civil autonomy, the congregation voted to emigrate to America. Through the Brewster family's friendship with Sir Edwin Sandys, treasurer of the London Company, the congregation secured two patents authorizing them to settle in the northern part of the company's jurisdiction. Unable to finance the costs of the emigration with their own meager resources, they negotiated a financial agreement with Thomas Weston, a prominent London iron merchant. Fewer than half of the group's members elected to leave Leiden. A small ship, the Speedwell, carried them to Southampton, England, where they were to join another group of Separatists and pick up a second ship. After some delays (the Speedwell was leaking) and disputes, the voyagers regrouped at Plymouth aboard the 180-ton Mayflower. It began its historic voyage on Sept. 16, 1620, with about 102 passengers--fewer than half of them from Leiden. After a 65-day journey, the Pilgrims sighted Cape Cod on November 19. Unable to reach the land they had contracted for, they anchored (November 21) at the site of Provincetown. Because they had no legal right to settle in the region, they drew up the Mayflower Compact, creating their own government. The settlers soon discovered Plymouth Harbor, on the western side of Cape Cod Bay and made their historic landing on December 21. The term Pilgrim was first used by William Bradford to describe himself and the Leiden Separatists who were leaving Holland. The Mayflower's passengers were first described as the Pilgrim Fathers in 1799.
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THE FIRST THANKSGIVING
Richard Howland Maxwell, Governor General
General Society of Mayflower Descendants
On the fourth Thursday of November each year, Americans recall a moment in Pilgrim history which is usually termed the first Thanksgiving. Two of those who lived that occasion have described it in writing. The better known description comes from Governor William Bradford’s journal:
"They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to fit up their houses and dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health and strength and had all things in good plenty. For as some were thus employed in affairs abroad, others were exercised in fishing, about cod and bass and other fish, of which they took good store, of which every family had their portion. All the summer there was no want; and now began to come in store of fowl, as winter approached, of which this place did abound when they came first (but afterward decreased by degrees). And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides they had about a peck a meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to that proportion. Which made many afterwards write so largely of their plenty here to their friends in England, which were not feigned but true reports."
Another description was written by Pilgrim Edward Winslow in a letter to a friend dated 11 December 1621:
"Our harvest being gotten in, our Governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a more special manner rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruit of our labours. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the Company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king, Massasoit with some 90 men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted. And they went out and killed five deer which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our Governor and upon the Captain and others."
On the occasion described by these Pilgrim leaders, the English immigrants enjoyed friendship with their nearest native neighbors: the Wampanoags. Much has happened in the intervening centuries to divide us immigrants from those whose ancestors were here long before ours. We pray each Thanksgiving Day that God might lead all of our peoples back to friendship and peace.
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Mayflower Passenger List
John Alden, Issac Allerton, Mary Allerton(wife), Bartholomew Allerton(son), Mary Allerton(daughter), Remember Allerton(daughter), Don Allerton(no relation to other Allertons), Don Billington, Eleanor Billington(wife), Frances Billington (relation unkown), John Billington(son), William Bradford, Dorothy May Bradford(wife), William Brewster, Mary Brewster(wife), Love Brewster(son), Wrestling Brewster(son), Richard Britteridge, Peter Brown, William Butten, Robert Cartier, John Carver, Katherine Carver(wife), James Chilton, Susanna Chilton(wife), Mary Chilton(unknown relation), Richard Clarke, Francis Cooke, John Cooke(son), Humility Cooper, John Crackston, John Crackston(son), Edward Doty, Francis Eaton, Sarah Eaton(wife), Samuel Eaton(son), (first name unkown)Ely (sailor), Thomas English, Moses Fletcher, Edward Fuller, Ann Fuller(wife), Samuel Fuller(son), Samuel Fuller(not related)(Physician), Richard Gardiner, John Goodman, William Holbeck, John Hooke, Steven Hopkins, Elizabeth Hopkins(wife), Giles Hopkins(son), Constance Hopkins(daughter), Damaris Hopkins(daughter), Oceanis Hopkins(son)(born during voyage), John Howland, John Langmore, William Latham, Edward Leister, Edmund Margeson, Christopher Martin, Marie Martin, Desire Minter, Elinor More, Jasper More, Richard More, Mary More, William Mullins, Alice Mullins(wife), Joseph Mullins(son), Priscilla Mullins(daughter), Degory Priest, Solomon Prower, John Rigdale, Alice Rigdale, Thomas Rogers, Joseph Rogers(son), Henry Sampson, George Soule, Miles Standish, Rose Standish(wife), Elias Story, Edward Thompson, Edward Tilley, Agnes Tilley(wife), John Tilley, Joan Tilley(John's wife), Elizabeth Tilley(daughter), Thomas Tinker, (The wife Thomas tinker, name unknown), (The son Thomas tinker, name unknown), William Trevore, John Turner, (two sons of john Turner, unkown), Master Richard Warren, William White, Susana White(wife), Peregrine White(son), Resolved White(son), Roger Wilder, Thomas Williams, Edward Winslow, Elizabeth Winslow(wife), Gilbert Winslow(Brother).
William Bradford was one of the leaders of the pilgrims who established Plymouth Colony. He was its governor for more than 30 years. His History of Plymouth Plantation, 1620-1647, first printed in full in 1856, is a minor classic, reflecting the unusual qualities of the man and the values of the small group of English separatists who became known as Pilgrims. Bradford was born March 19, 1590 in Austerfield, Yorkshire, the son of a yeoman farmer. He was self-taught. As a young man, he joined Puritan groups that met illegally in nearby Scrooby and was a member of that congregation when it separated from the Church of England in 1606. Bradford was among the 125 Scrooby Separatists who sought (1608) religious sanctuary in Holland. When the congregation decided (1617) to seek refuge in America, Bradford took major responsibility for arranging the details of the emigration. The term Pilgrim is derived from his description of himself and his coreligionists as they left Holland (July 22, 1620) for Southampton, where they joined another group of English Separatists on the Mayflower. Bradford was one of about a dozen original Scrooby church members who sailed for America on the Mayflower. When John Carver, Plymouth Colony's first governor, died suddenly in April 1621, Bradford was unanimously elected to replace him. He was reelected 30 times. In 1640, Bradford and the group of original settlers known as the "old comers" turned over to the colony the proprietary rights to its lands, which had been granted (1630) to him by the Warwick Patent and then shared by him with the old comers. During the period of his governorship, and especially during the first few years, Bradford provided the strong, steady leadership that kept the tiny community alive. He strove to sustain the religious ideals of the founders and to keep the colony's settlements compact and separate from the larger neighboring colonies. Bradford died on May 9 or 19, 1657.
William Brewster, b. 1567, d. Apr. 10, 1644, was a leader of the Pilgrims, who established Plymouth Colony. In England he studied briefly at Cambridge, the only Pilgrim Father to have some university training. A member of the local gentry in Scrooby, Yorkshire, he helped organize a Separatist Religious Congregation in 1606 and financed its move to Holland in 1608. His influence was instrumental in winning the approval of the Virginia Company for the proposal to resettle the congregation in America, and he was one of the few original Scrooby Separatists who sailed on the Mayflower in 1620. As the church's ruling elder in Leyden and then in Plymouth, Brewster shared with William Bradford and Edward Winslow in the leadership of the Pilgrim enterprise.
John Carver, b. c.1576, d. Apr. 5, 1621, one of the Pilgrim Fathers, was the first governor of Plymouth Colony. A wealthy merchant, he helped arrange the Pilgrims' emigration to America in 1620, chartering the Mayflower. He was governor for less than a year before his death.
Myles Standish, b. c.1584, d. Oct. 3, 1656, an English-born professional soldier, was hired by the Pilgrims as military advisor for their Plymouth colony in America; eventually he became a full member as well as a valued leader of the community. Arriving on the Mayflower with the first settlers, he initially concentrated on colonial defense and Indian relations. Later, Standish represented (1625-26) Plymouth in England; he also served for many years as one of the governor's assistants and as the colony's treasurer (1644-49). Standish was one of the founders (1632) of the town of Duxbury, Mass. Although one of the most influential figures in colonial New England, he is best remembered through US poet Henry Longfellow's 'The Courtship of Miles Standish' 1863.
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