The Mayflower and The Pilgrims
My Pilgrim ancestors who
arrived on the Mayflower, and those who later arrived in Plymouth Colony a few
years later, were very ordinary people. They came to America to escape religious
persecution. In England during the early 1600's, the government and the Church
of England were virtually the same. Anyone who argued against, or broke any of
the laws of the church were punished severely by the state. Any land they owned
could be taken away. They could be thrown into jail, or even put to death...and
more than a few were.
The Pilgrims, or Separatists, as
they preferred to be called, separated from the Church of England because they
objected to the way that church was organized and the way that it demanded
people should worship. The Pilgrims wanted to do away with bishops and set
rituals. They wanted each church to be independent of the next and to have its
ministers chosen by the people. Their service would consist of a reading from
the Bible, a sermon, and a new prayer each Sunday. Because of their beliefs,
they were persecuted in England and some of them fled to Leyden in The
The Chilton and Furner Branches
Separatist, James Chilton, was
born in Canterbury, Kent County, England in 1556. He was a fairly well-to-do
tailor. He inherited two tenaments in Canterbury from his father and was listed
as a Freeman there in 1583. His wife, Susanna Furner was the daughter of his
Seven of their children were
baptized in Canterbury. About 1600, the family moved to Sandwich, where three
more children were baptized, including the youngest daughter, Mary, who was
baptized at St. Peter's in 1607. As far as can be determined, only Mary and one
other daughter lived to adulthood and had children.
In Sandwich, James met Moses
Fletcher, who was destined to be a fellow passenger on The Mayflower, and was
drawn into the Pilgrim movement. The family moved to Leyden in the Netherlands
(possibly as early as 1615), to escape persecution for their religious beliefs.
But, the Pilgrims continued to be persecuted in the Netherlands. James (at age
63) and one of his daughters (probably Mary) were returning to their house in
Leyden when about 20 boys began throwing rocks at them. This assault has been
interpreted as one of the reasons that led the Pilgrims to believe they were
becoming less welcome in Leiden, and was a factor in their decision to leave for
New England. (See notes in, The Great Migration Begins by Robert Charles
Many of the Pilgrims were
afraid of sailing across the Atlantic Ocean to America and of the Indians who
lived there. One hundred and thirty settlers bound for the New World had
recently perished at sea. My distant uncle, Edward Winslow, was a leader of the
Pilgrims in Leyden. He and the other leaders convinced a small group of the
Pilgrims that the chance to settle "a land unstained by sin" was worth the risk.
James was already an old
man, probably the oldest passenger on the Mayflower. It's hard to comprehend why
at his age, he decided to make an extremely dangerous voyage to an unknown
world. Mary was their only child that accompanied James and Susanna on the trip.
After many difficulties, 102
people sailed on the Mayflower. Thirty-four of them were children. They left
Plymouth, England on September 6, 1620, much later in the year than originally
planned. It took them 66 days to cross the Atlantic. The plan was to land in
Virginia, but violent storms carried the Mayflower further North. It was
November 9th when they finally saw land at Cape Cod.
The Pilgrim leaders realized that
they needed to make some kind of agreement with each other about how they would
be ruled. Forty-one men signed the famous Mayflower Compact that set forth their
laws that established majority rule. This is considered an important document
because it established a precedent about how other colonies in North America
would be governed. The Pilgrims did what few men before them had dared to
do...they had decided to govern themselves.
My ancestor, James Chilton was one
of those that signed the document. He was 64 years old at the time and the long,
rough crossing had drained him. He died December 6, 1620 and was buried near
what is now called Provincetown at the very tip of Cape Cod in Massachusetts. As
far as we can determine, James was the first Pilgrim to die in America. (William
Bradford's wife, Dorothy fell overboard and drown a few days later. It's
possible that Dorothy took her own life out of despair.)
The Pilgrims wasted
precious time arguing about whether they should stay on Cape Cod or look for a
better harbor. Finally, a boatload of men went in search of a better place, and
on December 11th, they found Plymouth Harbor, where they decided to establish
On December 16, 1620, the Pilgrims moved
the Mayflower to Plymouth Harbor, and according to a book entitled, Mary
Chilton's Title to Celebrity by Charles Thornton Libby (printed in Boston in
1926), Mary leaped onto Plymouth Rock on December 21st and became the first
Pilgrim to do so. She was 13 years old at the time. Whether the Pilgrims
actually landed on Plymouth Rock is not known, but they established the first
permanent settlement in New England.
The Pilgrims could not have
landed at a worse time, however. Winters in New England are cold, harsh, and
long. The land looked bleak and unfriendly. As one Pilgrim wrote, it was a,
"hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wilde beests and wilde men."
A little over a month later,
on January 21th, 1620/21, Mary's mother, Susanna Furner died at age 56 and was
one of the first Pilgrims to be buried at Plymouth. She probably died of
pneumonia or tuberculosis, diseases which began to overcome many of the
Pilgrims. Mary was left an orphan. In 1650, Governor Bradford wrote, "James
Chilton and his wife also died in the first infection, but their daughter Mary
is still living and hath nine children..."
At age 13, Mary
Chilton was left an orphan. No record reveals with whom she spent the next few
years, but perhaps for at least a part of the time she was a member of either
the Alden or the Standish households, for in the 1623 land division, "Marie"
Chilton received her share...three acres between the shares of John Alden and
Myles Standish. Mary probably received one acre for herself and one for each of
her deceased parents.
The dead were
buried at night in unmarked graves to hide their losses from any Indians that
might be watching them. Of the 102 Pilgrims, only fifty lived through the first
winter. At one time only six or seven of the Pilgrims could stand up and tend to
The Winslow Branch and More About Mary Chilton
The surviving Pilgrims made it
through the first year and on November 11th, 1621, they sighted a ship coming
into Plymouth harbor. It was the Fortune, carrying 35 additional Pilgrims. John
Winslow, a Yeoman, was one of
John was unmarried, so
consequently he had but one acre of land assigned to him. At age 16, Mary
Chilton was probably considered well-to-do, having inherited her parents estate
and acres. On May 22, 1625, John married Mary. They drew shares during the
cattle division in May 1627 and were included with John Shaw's group. John was
listed as a Freeman in 1633 and became active in the government of the colony,
setting off and appraising land. He served jury duty and in 1653 became a member
of "a counsell of warr".
John and Mary moved to
Boston, Massachusetts in 1655 and bought the mansion of Antipas Boice, on
September 19, 1671. They had ten children, although all of them did not live to
adulthood and have children of their own. They lived into their 70's and died in
Boston as relatively wealthy people. Mary did extremely well for a 13 year old
orphan girl who arrived hungry and sick in the New World. Her descendants
probably now number in the millions.
The Latham Branch
There was another ancestor
that came to America on the Mayflower in 1620. William Latham was 11 years old.
He was a servant boy in the family of John Carver, who was elected as the first
Govenor of Plymouth Colony. When William grew up, he had two sons, Robert and
Cary. They also probably worked as servants in Cambridge, Massachusetts while
they were boys. We don't know the name of William's wife. Later in life, he
returned to England and then went to the Bahama Islands.