Plymouth Colony (sometimes Plimouth) was an English colonial venture in America from 1620 to 1691 at a location that had previously been surveyed and named by Captain John Smith. The settlement served as the capital of the colony and developed as the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts. At its height, Plymouth Colony occupied most of the southeastern portion of Massachusetts. Plymouth Colony was founded by a group of Puritan Separatists initially known as the Brownist Emigration, who came to be known as the Pilgrims. It was the second successful colony to be founded by the English in America after Jamestown in Virginia, and it was the first permanent English settlement in the New England region.
Introduction
Plymouth Colony
Plymouth Colony | Introduction
Captain John Smith Captain John Smith Captain John Smith. Sorry. I cannot find the answer based on the context.
which group of english immigrants first settled in plymouth in 1620
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Puritan Separatists
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when did they start their journey to this place?
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End of July 1620
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what was the name of the ship they traveled on?
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"Mayflower"
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was there a company formed?
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Sorry. I cannot find the answer based on the context.
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who was the first person to explore this place?
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Explorations resumed on December 6/16. The shallop party headed south along the cape, consisting of seven colonists from Leiden, three from London, and seven crew; they chose to land at the area inhabited by the Nauset people (the area around Brewster, Chatham, Eastham, Harwich, and Orleans) where they saw some people on the shore who fled when they approached. Inland they found more mounds, one containing acorns which they exhumed, and more graves, which they decided not to dig. They remained ashore overnight and heard cries near the encampment. The following morning, they were attacked by Indians who shot at them with arrows.
Pilgrims (Plymouth Colony) | First contact
A winter storm nearly sank their boat as they approached the bay, but they managed to land on Clark's Island, suffering from severe exposure to the cold and waves. During the ensuing days, they explored the bay and found a suitable place for settlement, now the site of downtown Plymouth, Massachusetts. The location featured a prominent hill ideal for a defensive fort. There were numerous brooks providing fresh water, and it had been the location of an Indian village known as Patuxet; therefore, much of the area had already been cleared for planting crops. The Patuxet tribe had been wiped out by plagues between 1616 and 1619, possibly as a result of contact with English fishermen or from contact with the French to the north.
William Bradford (governor) | Anchored and first explorations at Plymouth Colony
The first Plymouth Company ship, "Richard", sailed in August 1606, but the Spanish intercepted and captured it near Florida in November. The next attempt was more successful. The expedition's mission was to find gold, the Northwest Passage, a river passage to China, to fish and hunt beaver for fur and to sell and prove that New World forests could build English ships. About 120 colonists (all men and boys) left Plymouth on May 31, 1607, in two ships. They intended to trade precious metals, spices, furs, and show that the local forests could be used to build English ships. George Popham was president of the colony and captain of "Gift of God".
Popham Colony | Colonists
The Pilgrim settlers realized that they did not have a patent to settle in the region, so they signed the Mayflower Compact prior to disembarking. They explored various parts of Cape Cod and eventually sought a suitable location for a permanent settlement to the westward in Cape Cod Bay. They discovered the sheltered waters of Plymouth Harbor on December 17, and the protected bay led to a site for the new settlement after three days of surveying. The settlers officially disembarked on December 21, 1620. It is traditionally said that the Pilgrims first set foot in America at the site of Plymouth Rock, though no historical evidence can prove this claim.
Plymouth, Massachusetts | Colonial era
The Plymouth Company ships arrived at the mouth of the Kennebec River (then called the Sagadahoc River) in August 1607 where they established a settlement named Sagadahoc Colony, better known as Popham Colony (see symbol "Po" on map to right) to honor financial backer Sir John Popham. The colonists faced a harsh winter, the loss of supplies following a storehouse fire, and mixed relations with the local Native tribes. Colony leader Captain George Popham died, and Raleigh Gilbert decided to return to England to take up an inheritance left by an older brother—at which point, all of the colonists decided to return to England.
New England Colonies | Arriving in America
Plymouth Colony (sometimes Plimouth) was an English colonial venture in America from 1620 to 1691 at a location that had previously been surveyed and named by Captain John Smith. The settlement served as the capital of the colony and developed as the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts. At its height, Plymouth Colony occupied most of the southeastern portion of Massachusetts. Plymouth Colony was founded by a group of Puritan Separatists initially known as the Brownist Emigration, who came to be known as the Pilgrims. It was the second successful colony to be founded by the English in America after Jamestown in Virginia, and it was the first permanent English settlement in the New England region.
Plymouth Colony | Introduction
The Plymouth Company had 40 patentees at that point, and established the Council for New England to oversee their efforts, but it stopped operating in 1624; that was when these former plantations were dissolved and became Royal Colonies.
Plymouth Company | Introduction
During their earlier exploration of the Cape, the Pilgrims had come upon a Native American burial site which contained corn, and they had taken the corn for future planting. On another occasion, they found an unoccupied house and had taken corn and beans, for which they made restitution with the occupants about six months later. Even greater assistance came from Samoset and Tisquantum (known as Squanto by the pilgrims), a Native American sent by Wampanoag Tribe Chief Massasoit as an ambassador and technical adviser. Squanto had been kidnapped in 1614 by an English slave raider and sold in Málaga, Spain.
Plymouth, Massachusetts | First Winter
On May 31, 1607, about 100 men and boys left England for what is now Maine. Approximately three months later, the group landed on a wooded peninsula where the Kennebec River meets the Atlantic Ocean and began building Fort St. George. By the end of the year, due to limited resources, half of the colonists returned to England. Late the next year, the remaining 45 sailed home, and the Plymouth company fell dormant.
Colony of Virginia | Popham colony and Plymouth company
Founded by a group of Separatists and Anglicans, who together later came to be known as the Pilgrims, Plymouth Colony (in Massachusetts) was founded in 1620 by those who sailed aboard the Mayflower. The colony was one of the earliest successful colonies to be founded by the English in North America, and the first sizeable permanent English settlement in what is now the New England region. Soon other colonies were established in New England. A Puritan minister named John Davenport led his flock from exile in the Netherlands back to England and finally to America in the spring of 1637.
Thomas Powell (1641–1722) | Historical background
Samoset (also Somerset, c. 1590–1653) was an Abenaki sagamore and the first American Indian to make contact with the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony. He startled the colonists on March 16, 1621 by walking into Plymouth Colony and greeting them in English, which he had begun to learn from fishermen frequenting the waters of Maine. Supposedly, he greeted them then asked if they had beer.
Samoset | Introduction
The Plymouth Company was an English joint-stock company founded in 1606 by James I of England. It was a company of Knights, merchants, adventurers, and planters of the cities of Bristol, Exeter and Plymouth. Its purpose was establishing settlements on the coast of North America, between 38 and 45 degrees north latitude, within 100 miles of the seaboard. The merchants agreed to finance the settlers’ trip in return for repayment of their expenses plus interest out of the profits made. In 1620, after years of disuse, the company was revived and reorganized as the Plymouth Council for New England. With a new charter, the New England Charter of 1620.
Plymouth Company | Introduction
They came upon an artificial mound near the dunes which they partially uncovered and found to be an Indian grave. Farther along, a similar mound was found, more recently made, and they discovered that some of the burial mounds also contained corn. The colonists took some of the corn, intending to use it as seed for planting, while they reburied the rest. William Bradford later recorded in his book "Of Plymouth Plantation" that, after the shallop had been repaired,
Pilgrims (Plymouth Colony) | First landings
Continuing westward, the shallop's mast and rudder were broken by storms and the sail was lost. They rowed for safety, encountering the harbor formed by Duxbury and Plymouth barrier beaches and stumbling on land in the darkness. They remained at this spot for two days to recuperate and repair equipment. They named it Clark's Island for a "Mayflower" mate who first set foot on it. They resumed exploration on Monday, December 11/21 when the party crossed over to the mainland and surveyed the area that ultimately became the settlement. The anniversary of this survey is observed in Massachusetts as Forefathers' Day and is traditionally associated with the Plymouth Rock landing tradition.
Pilgrims (Plymouth Colony) | Settlement
Plymouth faced many difficulties during its first winter, the most notable being the risk of starvation and the lack of suitable shelter. From the beginning, the assistance of Native Americans was vital. One colonist's journal reports: We marched to the place we called Cornhill, where we had found the corn before. At another place we had seen before, we dug and found some more corn, two or three baskets full, and a bag of beans. ... In all we had about ten bushels, which will be enough for seed. It is with God's help that we found this corn, for how else could we have done it, without meeting some Indians who might trouble us.
Plymouth, Massachusetts | First Winter
The London Company proceeded to establish Jamestown. The Plymouth Company under the guidance of Sir Ferdinando Gorges covered the more northern area, including New England, and established the Sagadahoc Colony in 1607 in Maine. The experience proved exceptionally difficult for the 120 settlers, however, and the surviving colonists abandoned the colony after only one year. Gorges noted that "there was no more speech of settling plantations in those parts" for a number of years. English ships continued to come to the New England area for fishing and trade with the Indigenous population.
Massachusetts Bay Colony | History
Bradford had yet to assume any significant leadership role in the colony by the time that he was 30. The "Mayflower" anchored in Provincetown Harbor and he volunteered to be a member of the exploration parties searching for a place for settlement. In November and December, these parties made three separate ventures from the "Mayflower" on foot and by boat, finally locating Plymouth Harbor in mid-December and selecting that site for settlement. During the first expedition on foot, Bradford got caught in a deer trap made by Indians and hauled nearly upside down. The third exploration departed from the "Mayflower" on December 6, 1620 when a group of men (including Bradford) located Plymouth Bay.
William Bradford (governor) | Anchored and first explorations at Plymouth Colony
Bradford wrote that bones of the dead were clearly evident in many places.
William Bradford (governor) | Anchored and first explorations at Plymouth Colony
The colonists retrieved their firearms and shot back, then chased them into the woods but did not find them. There was no more contact with Indians for several months. The local Indians were already familiar with the English, who had intermittently visited the area for fishing and trade before "Mayflower" arrived. In the Cape Cod area, relations were poor following a visit several years earlier by Thomas Hunt. Hunt kidnapped 20 people from Patuxet (the site of Plymouth Colony) and another seven from Nausett, and he attempted to sell them as slaves in Europe. One of the Patuxet abductees was Squanto, who became an ally of the Plymouth Colony.
Pilgrims (Plymouth Colony) | First contact
The Plymouth Company was permitted to establish settlements between the 38th and 45th parallels, roughly between the upper reaches of the Chesapeake Bay and the U.S.-Canada border. On August 13, 1607, the Plymouth Company established the Popham Colony along the Kennebec River in Maine. However, it was abandoned after about a year and the Plymouth Company became inactive. A successor company eventually established a permanent settlement in 1620 when the Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts, aboard the Mayflower.
Virginia Company | The Plymouth Company
In 1838 the New Zealand Company was formed in England with the purpose of facilitating and encouraging migration from overcrowded cities to New Zealand, selling land to settlers who would work as farmers and labourers. A separate enterprise, the Plymouth Company, was established in Plymouth in February 1840, where it was run under the guidance of agent Thomas Woolcombe. (Many streets in New Plymouth bear the names of the company's directors, including Woolcombe, the Earl of Devon, Thomas Gill, Sir Anthony Buller, Lord Eliot, George Leach, Sir Charles Lemon, Edward St Aubyn, E.W.W. Pendarvis, Lord Courtenay and Hussey Vivian.) The company merged with the New Zealand Company in April 1841 after suffering financial losses through the collapse of its bank.
History of New Plymouth | 1838-1840: New Zealand Company’s first land purchases
Thorough exploration of the area was delayed for more than two weeks because the shallop or pinnace (a smaller sailing vessel) which they brought had been partially dismantled to fit aboard the "Mayflower" and was further damaged in transit. Small parties, however, waded to the beach to fetch firewood and attend to long-deferred personal hygiene. Exploratory parties were undertaken while awaiting the shallop, led by Myles Standish (an English soldier whom the colonists had met while in Leiden) and Christopher Jones. They encountered an old European-built house and iron kettle, left behind by some ship's crew, and a few recently cultivated fields, showing corn stubble.
Pilgrims (Plymouth Colony) | First landings
Plymouth was the first colony in the region, but it was much smaller than Massachusetts Bay Colony by the time they merged.
Plymouth Colony | Growth of Plymouth
The first successful religious colonization of the New World occurred in 1620 with the establishment of the Plymouth Colony on the shores of Cape Cod Bay. Pastor John White led a short-lived effort to establish a colony at Cape Ann in 1624, also on the Massachusetts coast. In 1628, some of the investors in that effort joined with new investors to acquire a land grant for the territory roughly between the Charles and Merrimack Rivers. It was first styled the New England Company, then renamed the Massachusetts Bay Company in 1629 after it acquired a royal charter granting it permission to govern the territory.
John Winthrop | Decision to begin voyage and settlement in the American colonies
The site of Alden's first house in Plymouth was marked in 1930 with a boulder and bronze plaque placed by the Alden Kindred of America. A recreation of this house stands today at Plimoth Plantation, a living history museum which replicates the original Pilgrim settlement.
John Alden | Establishing Plymouth Colony
Eleven months later, on 12 December 1840, Frederic Alonzo Carrington, the 32-year-old Chief Surveyor for the Plymouth Company, arrived in Wellington with the task of creating a 44 km² (11,000 acre) settlement in New Zealand for people of the West Country. Wakefield had already been informed that the Plymouth Company was to take over some of the New Zealand Company land. He urged Carrington to select a site at Ngamotu. The pressure on Carrington was intense: the first settlers’ ship had sailed from Plymouth on 19 November and was already en route to New Zealand. Carrington invited Barrett to join his team and about 9 January 1841, the pair arrived at Ngamotu with a party of assistant surveyors on the barque "Brougham", ready to choose a site for the new town.
History of New Plymouth | 1841: Selecting a site
The men of the settlement organized themselves into military orders in mid-February, after several tense encounters with local Indians, and Myles Standish was designated as the commanding officer. By the end of the month, five cannon had been defensively positioned on Fort Hill. John Carver was elected governor to replace Governor Martin.
Plymouth Colony | First winter
Some of the passengers who arrived on the "Anne" were either unprepared for frontier life or undesirable additions to the colony, and they returned to England the next year. According to Gleason Archer, "those who remained were not willing to join the colony under the terms of the agreement with the Merchant Adventurers. They had embarked for America upon an understanding with the Adventurers that they might settle in a community of their own, or at least be free from the bonds by which the Plymouth colonists were enslaved. A letter addressed to the colonists and signed by thirteen of the merchants recited these facts and urged acceptance of the new comers on the specified terms." The new arrivals were allotted land in the area of the Eel River known as Hobs Hole, which became Wellingsley, a mile south of Plymouth Rock.
Plymouth Colony | Growth of Plymouth
The Pilgrims were not the first Europeans in the area. John Cabot's discovery of Newfoundland in 1497 had laid the foundation for the extensive English claims over the east coast of North America. Cartographer Giacomo Gastaldi made one of the earliest maps of New England , but he erroneously identified Cape Breton with the Narragansett Bay and completely omitted most of the New England coast. European fishermen had also been plying the waters off the New England coast for much of the 16th and 17th centuries. Frenchman Samuel de Champlain had explored the area extensively in 1605. He had specifically explored Plymouth Harbor, which he called "Port St.
Plymouth Colony | Prior exploration and settlements
They had declined the opportunity to settle south of Cape Cod in New Netherland because of their desire to avoid the Dutch influence. This land patent allowed them to settle at the mouth of the Hudson River. They sought to finance their venture through the Merchant Adventurers, a group of businessmen who principally viewed the colony as a means of making a profit. Upon arriving in America, the Pilgrims began working to repay their debts.
Plymouth Colony | Origin
In February, Sanders petitioned Plymouth for a joint attack on the Indians, but Governor Bradford refused. Much of the story of the first Wessagusset colony is detailed in a 1662 account by company member Phineas Pratt.
Wessagusset Colony | First Wessagusset colony
In 1633 or 1634, Oldham led a group of ten men (which included Captain Robert Seeley) along the Old Connecticut Path to establish Wethersfield, Connecticut, the first English settlement on the Connecticut River.
John Oldham (colonist) | After Plymouth
The settlers built a fort, manor house and other buildings, some for fish processing, on Flake Hill at the mouth of the Piscataqua River, naming the settlement "Pannaway Plantation". In 1623 the English explorer Christopher Levett, an associate of Gorges and a member of the Council for New England, wrote of visiting Thompson at his Pannaway Plantation. Early historians believed the first native-born New Hampshirite, John Thompson, was born there; later he was found to have been baptized at St. Andrew's Parish in Plymouth, England, in 1619.
David Thompson (New Hampshire settler) | Background of founding the New Hampshire colony
The Pokanokets also lived nearby and had developed a particular dislike for the English after one group came in, captured numerous people, and shot them aboard their ship. By this time, there had already been reciprocal killings at Martha's Vineyard and Cape Cod. But during one of the captures by the English, Squanto escaped to England and there became a Christian. When he came back, he found that most of his tribe had died from plague.
Pilgrims (Plymouth Colony) | First contact
Here Gosnold, Brereton, and two others went ashore on "the white sands", the first spot in New England ever trodden by English feet. Doubling the Cape and passing Nantucket, they touched at Martha's Vineyard, and passing round Dover Cliff entered Buzzard's Bay, which they called Gosnold's Hope, reached the island of Cuttyhunk, which they named Elizabeth's Island. Here they determined to settle; in nineteen days they built a fort and storehouse in an islet in the centre of a lake of three miles compass, and began to trade with the natives in furs, skins, and the sassafras plant. They sowed wheat, barley, and peas, and in fourteen days the young plants had sprung nine inches and more.
John Brereton | The voyage and exploration of New England
In Leiden, the congregation gained the freedom to worship as they chose, but Dutch society was unfamiliar to them. And so they made preparations to settle a new colony in America. The first settlement of the Plymouth Colony was at New Plymouth, a location previously surveyed and named by Captain John Smith. The settlement served as the capital of the colony and developed as the modern town of Plymouth, Massachusetts. At its height, Plymouth Colony occupied most of the southeastern portion of the modern state of Massachusetts. It was one of the earliest successful colonies to be founded by the English in North America, along with Jamestown and other settlements in Virginia, and was the first sizable permanent English settlement in the New England region.
History of the Puritans under King James I | The Pilgrims and the Planting of Plymouth Colony, 1620
Popham Colony, also known as Fort St. George, was organized by the Plymouth Company (unrelated to Plymouth Colony) and founded in 1607. It was settled on the coast of Maine and was beset by internal political struggles, sickness, and weather problems. It was abandoned in 1608.
Plymouth Colony | Prior exploration and settlements
However, the settlers could not devote as much time as the Virginia Company would have liked to developing commodity products for export. They were too busy trying to survive. Within the three-sided fort erected on the banks of the James, the settlers quickly discovered that they were, first and foremost, employees of the Virginia Company of London, following instructions of the men appointed by the Company to rule them. In exchange, the laborers were armed, and received clothes and food from the common store. After seven years, they were to receive land of their own. The gentlemen, who provided their own armor and weapons, were to be paid in land, dividends or additional shares of stock.
London Company | First expedition
On December 21, 1620, the first landing party arrived at the site of Plymouth. Plans to build houses, however, were delayed by bad weather until December 23. As the building progressed, 20 men always remained ashore for security purposes while the rest of the work crews returned each night to the "Mayflower". Women, children, and the infirm remained on board the "Mayflower", and many had not left the ship for six months. The first structure was a common house of wattle and daub, and it took two weeks to complete in the harsh New England winter. In the following weeks, the rest of the settlement slowly took shape.
Plymouth Colony | First winter
In 1606, King James I of England granted charters to both the Plymouth Company and the London Company for the purpose of establishing permanent settlements in America. The London Company established the Colony and Dominion of Virginia in 1607, the first permanently settled English colony on the continent. The Plymouth Company founded the Popham Colony on the Kennebec River, but it was short-lived. The Plymouth Council for New England sponsored several colonization projects, culminating with Plymouth Colony in 1620 which was settled by English Puritan separatists, known today as the Pilgrims. The Dutch, Swedish, and French also established successful American colonies at roughly the same time as the English, but they eventually came under the English crown.
Thirteen Colonies | British colonies
In 1840, Brown became a shareholder in the newly formed Plymouth Company, which aimed to colonise New Plymouth, New Zealand. Shortly afterwards, his finances were ruined when he was forced to repay a friend's loan having agreed to be guarantor. With what little fortune remained to him, Brown decided that they should emigrate to New Plymouth as a pioneer community to provide the best opportunities for his son Charles as a civil engineer. His son Charles emigrated on the "Amelia Thompson", the first settler ship of the Plymouth Company arriving in 1841 aged 17 years old. Brown followed on a second ship "Oriental" arriving three weeks later.
Charles Armitage Brown | Emigration to New Zealand
Robert Cushman and his son Thomas traveled to Plymouth Colony aboard the "Fortune" in 1621. Cushman carried with him a patent to the New Plymouth colony in the name of Mr John Pierce of London, one of the Merchant Adventurers. Robert Cushman remained but a few weeks. His mission was to convince the settlers to accept the terms of their contract imposed by Thomas Weston and the London investors. This contract had incurred the resentment and anger of the Leiden contingent and they had angrily rejected it on 5 August 1620, the date of departure from Portsmouth. But Cushman found at Plymouth that the settlers had finally come to realise their situation and their need for assistance from London.
Robert Cushman | Arrival in Plymouth in 1621
He was the chief promoter of a petition to James I for letters patent to colonize Virginia, which were granted to the London Company and Plymouth Company (referred to collectively as the Virginia Company) in 1606. The Hakluyt Society, which publishes scholarly editions of primary records of voyages and travels, was named after him in its 1846 formation.
Richard Hakluyt | Introduction
During 1606, each company organized expeditions to establish settlements within the area of their rights. The London company formed Jamestown in its exclusive territory, whilst the Plymouth company formed the Popham Colony in its exclusive territory near what is now Phippsburg, Maine.
Colony of Virginia | Charter of 1606 – creation of London and Plymouth companies
Interest by London merchants in establishing and managing colonial settlements in North America waned after the 1624 failure of the London Company and the subsequent conversion of the Colony of Virginia into a Crown colony. Cradock was a notable exception; a Puritan, in 1628 he made a major investment in the New England Company, formed by a group of Puritan religious and business leaders to take over the assets of the failed Dorchester Company and make new ventures in the colonisation of North America. Cradock was elected the company's first governor on 13 May 1628. Not long after, the company acquired a grant of land on Massachusetts Bay from the Plymouth Council for New England, and sent John Endecott with a small group of settlers to begin the process of establishing a colony at a place now called Salem, Massachusetts.
Matthew Cradock | Massachusetts Bay Company
The Plymouth colony had made excursions along the Massachusetts coast including north to Cape Ann. Some records report that Cushman and Winslow of Plymouth had received a patent for Cape Ann (1623/24). Other reports suggest that salting structures had been built in the Cape Ann area to support fishing efforts. The Gardner group, who were to settle the area, did succeed in maintaining themselves after their landing, though the commercial goals of the Dorchester Company were not met. There were also disagreement between the Plymouth colonists and the Dorchester Company settlers, due to patent conflicts. Roger Conant, having first been at Plymouth, was probably instrumental in working out a compromise, part of which resulted in the Dorchester group moving to the Naumkeag area.
Old Planters (Massachusetts) | Plymouth involvement
The incident took place in Eastham, Massachusetts, and came to be known as the "First Encounter". After further exploration, the Pilgrims chose a location in Plymouth Bay in late December 1620 as the site for their settlement. Standish provided important counsel on the placement of a small fort in which cannon were mounted, and on the layout of the first houses for maximum defensibility. They had built only one single-room house when illness struck. Only 50 survived the first winter out of the 100 or so who arrived on the "Mayflower". Standish's wife Rose died in January. Standish was one of the very few who did not fall ill, and William Bradford credited him with comforting many and being a source of strength to those who suffered.
Myles Standish | Establishment of Plymouth Colony
Plymouth was the home port for successful maritime traders, among them Sir John Hawkins, who led England's first foray into the Atlantic slave trade, as well as Sir Francis Drake, Mayor of Plymouth in 1581–2. Crews for the first English failed settlement attempt at Roanoke Colony in North America departed in 1587 under Sir Walter Raleigh's and Drake's leadership; returning bearing maize, tobacco and potatoes. In 1588, according to legend, Drake insisted on completing his game of bowls on the Hoe before engaging the Spanish Armada. In 1620 the Pilgrims set sail for the New World from Plymouth, establishing Plymouth Colony – the second English colony in what is now the United States of America.
Plymouth | Early defence and Renaissance
Thomas Weston (1584-c.1647) was a London merchant who first became involved with the Leiden Separatists who settled Plymouth colony in 1620 and became known as the Pilgrims.
Thomas Weston (merchant adventurer) | Introduction
The first Europeans to settle New England were Pilgrims from England, who landed in present-day Massachusetts in 1620. The Pilgrims arrived on the ship "Mayflower" and founded Plymouth Colony so they could practice religion freely. Ten years later, a larger group of Puritans settled north of Plymouth Colony in Boston to form Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1636, colonists established Connecticut Colony and Providence Plantations. Providence was founded by Roger Williams, who was banished by Massachusetts for his beliefs in freedom of religion, and it was the first colony to guarantee all citizens freedom of worship. Anne Hutchinson, who was also banished by Massachusetts, formed the town of Portsmouth.
Northeastern United States | New England
On April 10, 1606, King James I of England issued a charter for the Virginia Company, which comprised the London Company and the Plymouth Company. These two privately funded ventures were intended to claim land for England, to conduct trade, and to return a profit. In 1620, the Pilgrims arrived on the "Mayflower" and established Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts, beginning the history of permanent European colonization in New England. With the arrival of colonists, many Native Americans were kidnapped for enslavement. English sailors— like George Waymouth in 1605 and Harlow in 1611—captured and enslaved Native peoples. Up until 1700, Native American servitude comprised a majority of the nonwhite labor present in New England.
New England | Colonial period
Martin Pring (1580–1626) was an English explorer from Bristol, England who in 1603 at the age of 23 was captain of an expedition to North America to assess commercial potential; he explored areas of present-day Maine, New Hampshire, and Cape Cod in Massachusetts. In the process, he named what is now Plymouth Harbor 'Whitson Bay' and a nearby hill 'Mount Aldworth' after the two Bristol merchants who provided him with ships and supplies. The harbour was later renamed by the Pilgrim fathers. He and his crew were the first known Europeans to ascend the Piscataqua River. It is thought that Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano explored this part of the New England coast in 1524-25 looking for a route to the Far East but did not make landfall until he reached the St.
Martin Pring | Introduction
Plymouth was originally the site of an Abenaki village that was burned to the ground by Captain Thomas Baker in 1712. This was just one of the many British raids on American Indian settlements during Queen Anne's War. Part of a large plot of undivided land in the Pemigewasset Valley, the town was first named New Plymouth, after the original Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts. Colonial Governor Benning Wentworth granted Plymouth to settlers from Hollis, all of whom had been soldiers in the French and Indian War. Some had originally come from Plymouth, Massachusetts. The town was incorporated in 1763. Parts of Hebron and Campton were annexed in 1845 and 1860.
Plymouth, New Hampshire | History
The first of the town's settlers arrived on the "William Bryan", which anchored off the coast on 31 March 1841. In steerage were 21 married couples, 22 single adults and 70 children. George Cutfield, the head of the expedition, wrote a letter home, describing the settlement as "a fine country with a large quantity of flat land, but every part is covered with vegetation, fern, scrub and forest. The fern, on good land, is generally from four to six feet high. There are thousands of acres of this land which will require but a trifling outlay to bring into cultivation." Temporary housing sites had been provided on Mount Eliot (the present-day site of Puke Ariki museum), and frustrations mounted as settlers were forced to squat in homes built of rushes and sedges through winter, amid flourishing numbers of rats, dwindling food supplies and rising unease over the prospects of a repeat raid by Waikato Maori.
History of New Plymouth | 1841: The first settlers
Plymouth Colony was founded by a group of English Puritans who came to be known as the "Pilgrims". The core group (roughly 40% of the adults and 56% of the family groupings) were part of a congregation led by William Bradford. They began to feel the pressures of religious persecution while still in the English village of Scrooby, near East Retford, Nottinghamshire. In 1607, Archbishop Tobias Matthew raided homes and imprisoned several members of the congregation. The congregation left England in 1608 and emigrated to the Netherlands, settling first in Amsterdam and then in Leiden. In Leiden, the congregation gained the freedom to worship as they chose, but Dutch society was unfamiliar to them.
Plymouth Colony | Origin
Also connected to Massasoit was Samoset, a minor Abenakki sachem who hailed from the Muscongus Bay area of Maine. Samoset (a mispronunciation of Somerset) had learned English in England as a captive of the Merchant Tailors Guild. On Friday, March 16, the settlers were conducting military training when Samoset "boldly came alone" into the settlement. The colonists were initially alarmed, but he immediately set their fears at ease by asking for beer. He spent the day giving them intelligence of the surrounding tribes, then stayed for the night. The next day, Samoset returned with five men all bearing deer skins and one cat skin.
Squanto | Plymouth Colony
Furthermore, a group of Strangers founded the nearby settlement of Wessagussett and the Pilgrims were highly strained by their lack of discipline, both emotionally and in terms of resources. They looked at the eventual failure of the Wessagussett settlement as Divine Providence against a sinful people. The residents of Plymouth also used terms to distinguish between the earliest settlers of the colony and those who came later. The first generation of settlers called themselves the "Old Comers" or "Planters", those who arrived before 1627. Later generations of Plymouth residents referred to this group as the "Forefathers".
Plymouth Colony | English
A third expedition along Cape Cod left on December 6; it resulted in a skirmish with Indians known as the "First Encounter" near Eastham, Massachusetts. The colonists decided to look elsewhere, having failed to secure a proper site for their settlement, and fearing that they had angered the Indians by taking their corn and firing upon them. The "Mayflower" left Provincetown Harbor and set sail for Plymouth Harbor. The "Mayflower" dropped anchor in Plymouth Harbor on December 16 and spent three days looking for a settlement site. They rejected several sites, including one on Clark's Island and another at the mouth of the Jones River, in favor of the site of a recently abandoned settlement which had been occupied by the Patuxet tribe.
Plymouth Colony | Landings at Provincetown and Plymouth
The English Plymouth Colony was established at present-day Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620 by religious dissidents and English adventurers. In order to repay the investors in the colonization effort, the colonists engaged in a number of ventures, one of which was trading with the local Native American population for furs. Pursuant to this business, the colonists in 1628 established a trading post on the Kennebec River at the site of what is now Augusta, Maine, which the Plymouth colonists called "Cushnoc". The Plymouth colonists were not the only colonists trading on that river, and the Plymouth colonists are known to have operated at at least one other site in the area.
Cushnoc Archeological Site | Description and history
In 1607, the Plymouth Company was granted a coastal charter for all "coastal" territory up to a certain distance from the eastern shoreline of North America, from 38°N to 45°N. The northern boundary was thus slightly farther north than the current Maine–New Brunswick border, and the southern border intentionally overlapped with the Virginia Company of London ("London Company") from the 38th parallel (near the current Maryland–Virginia border) to the 41st (near the current Connecticut–New York border in Long Island Sound). Neither colony was allowed to settle within 100 miles of the other. The Plymouth Company's patent fell into disuse after the failure of the Popham Colony in what is now Maine.
History of Massachusetts | Founding grants
This caused about 10-12 armed men to search for them, in fear they were captured by Indians. As it happened, Browne and Goodman were eating lunch when their dogs starting chasing a deer and they were soon lost. According to records, "they wandered all that afternoon being wet, and at night it did freeze and snow, they were slenderly appareled and had no weapons but each one sickle." At night they thought they heard "lions" in the forest and climbed a tree for shelter. They stayed by the tree that night in case they had to escape to safety. The next day they finally climbed the highest hill they could find, were able to see their harbor and find their way back to the settlement.
Peter Browne (Mayflower passenger) | In Plymouth Colony
Meanwhile, the Plymouth Colony had settled outside the territory of the London company due to navigational difficulties. The Plymouth Company was reorganized as the Plymouth Council for New England, and given a new royal "sea-to-sea" charter for all North American territory from 40° North (just east between present-day Philadelphia and Trenton, New Jersey) and 48° N (thus including all of modern-day New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island). The Plymouth Colony was granted land patents between 1621 and 1630 from the Council to legitimize its settlement, though it maintained political independence under the Mayflower Compact. The Plymouth Council for New England made sub grants to various entities before it was surrendered to the crown in 1635 and ceased to operate as a corporate entity.
History of Massachusetts | Founding grants
Plymouth /ˈplɪməθ/ (historically known as Plimouth and Plimoth) is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. Plymouth holds a place of great prominence in American history and is typically the most well known of the Northern Settlements. Plymouth was the site of the colony founded in 1620 by the Pilgrims, passengers of the famous ship the Mayflower. Before the arrival of the Mayflower earlier explorations killed between 90 and 95% of the local native inhabitants due to disease. The near disappearance of the tribe from the site not only left their cornfields and other cleared areas for the Pilgrims to take over, but also meant that the Indians were in no condition to disrupt the arrival of the colonists.
Indian commerce with early English colonists and the early United States | Plymouth and Northern Settlers
English Scientist Thomas Harriot recorded the sense of awe with which the Native Americans viewed European technology:
Roanoke Island | The first colony
The Canterbury Association sent Captain Joseph Thomas as chief surveyor and leader of the Association’s preliminary expedition. With his two assistants, Thomas Cass and Charles Torlesse (a nephew of Edward Wakefield), Thomas was sent to select, survey and prepare for the proposed settlement. They arrived at New Plymouth aboard "Bernicia" on 2 November 1848, destined for Wairarapa. "Bernicia" called at Nelson where Thomas was told by settlers of unexplored plains stretching north and west of Banks Peninsula. The surveyor's interest was aroused, so they proceeded to Wellington where Thomas wrote to Bishop George Selwyn saying he intended to head to Port Cooper (present-day Lyttelton) to inspect this area.
First Four Ships | Explorations
Captain John Smith noted it on his map of 1614, and at last the Pilgrims entered the "Cape Harbor" and – contrary to the popular myth of Plymouth Rock – made their first landing near present-day Provincetown on November 11, 1620. Nearby, in what is now Eastham, they had their first encounter with Native Americans.
Cape Cod | European exploration
He learned English, escaped slavery, and returned home in 1619. He taught the colonists how to farm corn, where and how to catch fish, and other helpful skills for the New World. He also was instrumental in the survival of the settlement for the first two years. Squanto and another guide sent by Massasoit in 1621 named Hobomok helped the colonists set up trading posts for furs. Chief Massasoit later formed a Peace Treaty with the Pilgrims. Upon growing a plentiful harvest in the fall of 1621, the Pilgrims gathered with Squanto, Samoset, Massasoit, and ninety other Wampanoag men in a celebration of thanksgiving to God for their plentiful harvest.
Plymouth, Massachusetts | First Winter
In 1623, the Plymouth Council for New England (successor to the Plymouth Company) established a small fishing village at Cape Ann under the supervision of the Dorchester Company. The first group of Puritans moved to a new town at nearby Naumkeag after the Dorchester Company dropped support, and fresh financial support was found by Rev. John White. Other settlements were started in nearby areas; however, the overall Puritan population remained small through the 1620s.
New England Colonies | Establishing the New England Colonies
An advance team of 60 settlers arrived at the Plymouth Colony in May 1622. They had voyaged to the New World on board the "Sparrow", an English fishing vessel which was sailing to the coast of Maine. The team traveled the final down the New England coast in a shallop with three members of the "Sparrow"'s crew. These colonists stayed only briefly in Plymouth before scouting the coast in their shallop to find a site for their colony. After finding one, they negotiated for the land with Chief Aberdecest and returned to Plymouth, sending the shallop back to the "Sparrow" and awaiting the remainder of the colonists.
Wessagusset Colony | First Wessagusset colony
The area where New Plymouth was founded had for centuries been the home for several Māori iwi (tribes). From about 1823 the Maori began having contact with European whalers as well as traders who arrived by schooner to buy flax. In 1828 Richard "Dicky" Barrett (1807–47) set up a trading post at Ngamotu after arriving on the trading vessel "Adventure". Barrett traded with the local Māori and helped negotiate the purchase of land from them on behalf of the New Zealand Company. Settlers were selected by the Plymouth Company, which was set up to attract emigrants from the West Country of England, and which took over land initially purchased by the New Zealand Company.
New Plymouth | History
The settlers of Plymouth Colony adopted the name that Smith gave to that area, and other place names on the map survive today, such as the Charles River (marked as The River Charles) and Cape Ann (Cape Anna). Smith made two attempts in 1614 and 1615 to return to the same coast. On the first trip, a storm dismasted his ship. In the second attempt, he was captured by French pirates off the coast of the Azores. He escaped after weeks of captivity and made his way back to England, where he published an account of his two voyages as "A Description of New England".
John Smith (explorer) | New England
Capt. Christopher Levett (15 April 1586 – 1630) was an English writer, explorer and naval captain, born at York, England. He explored the coast of New England and secured a grant from the King to settle present-day Portland, Maine, the first European to do so. Levett left behind a group of settlers at his Maine plantation in Casco Bay, but they were never heard from again. Their fate is unknown. As a member of the Plymouth Council for New England, Levett was named the Governor of Plymouth in 1623 and a close adviser to Capt. Robert Gorges in his attempt to found an early English colony at Weymouth, Massachusetts, which also failed.
Christopher Levett | Introduction
Philip Delano (c. 1603 – c. 1681-82) arrived in Plymouth Colony in November 1621 on the voyage of the ship "Fortune". He was about 18 years of age on arrival. "Mayflower" passenger Francis Cooke was his uncle with whom he may initially have resided. Philip Delano lived a long life in Plymouth Colony where he became a person of some note, being involved in numerous governmental activities such as civil commissions and juries. Among his early activities was in becoming a very young (investment) Purchaser in 1626 and making the first recorded land sale in Plymouth after the institution of private property.
Philip Delano | Introduction
After the failure of the Dorchester Company in founding a settlement on Cape Ann the settlers and shareholders of the company wished to form another colonial settlement this time further south. The colony was to be settled between the Charles River and the Merrimack River in New England. The Massachusetts Bay Company, like other colonial joint-stock companies, was to be a corporate entity as well as a governmental one. The first settlers of the colony were Puritans who sought to create a society based on their religious beliefs unfettered from the Royal Anglican government of the Kingdom of England. The settlers were to be shareholders, with all those wishing to emigrate to new England required to buy shares.
Charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company | History
After the departure of Massasoit and his men, Squanto remained in Plymouth to teach the Pilgrims how to survive in New England, such as using dead fish to fertilize the soil. For the first few years of colonial life, the fur trade was the dominant source of income beyond subsistence farming, buying furs from Natives and selling to Europeans. Governor Carver suddenly died shortly after the "Mayflower" returned to England. William Bradford was elected to replace him and went on to lead the colony through much of its formative years. As promised by Massasoit, numerous indigenous arrived at Plymouth throughout the middle of 1621 with pledges of peace.
Plymouth Colony | Early relations with the Native Americans
They consisted primarily of settlers from New England, "Yankees" descended from the English Puritans who settled New England in the colonial era. They were mainly members of the Congregational church, although due to the Second Great Awakening many of them had converted to Methodism and some had become Baptists before coming to what is now Marshall County. As a result of this heritage, some place names in Marshall County are named after places in New England, such as Plymouth, which is named after Plymouth, Massachusetts, the site where the "Mayflower" landed in 1620. When these settlers arrived, there was nothing but a dense virgin forest and wild marshland, which would need to be cleared and drained before it could be farmed.
Plymouth, Indiana | First settlements
White himself never sailed to America. About 1623 he interested himself in sending out a colony of Dorset men to settle in Massachusetts, allowing nonconformists to enjoy liberty of conscience. The attempt by the Dorchester Company to plant a colony at Cape Ann with Thomas Gardner as Overseer, at what would become Gloucester, Massachusetts, did not prove at first successful; in the previous decade, only about 500 English colonists had established a foothold, and this Company was wound up by 1625. White then recruited emigrants from the western counties of Dorset, Somerset and Devon, who set sail a few years later as a better-supported expedition and organized church aboard the ship "Mary and John".
John White (colonist priest) | Massachusetts Bay Company
He emigrated on June 26, 1637, to Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony. John Brockett was the first Brockett in America when he arrived at Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony. He came on the ship "Hector" with Reverend John Davenport (Puritan). The passengers on board that ship were "gentlemen in wealth and character, with their servants and household effects." Most were from London and engaged as merchants and commercial businesses. Their arrival was joyously hailed at Boston for they were the wealthiest of immigrants to New England at that time. Shortly arriving, however, a small group led by Theophilus Eaton decided not to join Massachusetts Bay Colony, but to form a new colony.
John Brockett (American colonist) | 1630s
The earliest organised attempt to colonise New Zealand came in 1825, when the New Zealand Company was formed in London, headed by the wealthy John George Lambton, member of parliament. The company unsuccessfully petitioned the British Government for a 31-year term of exclusive trade and for command over a military force, anticipating that large profits could be made from New Zealand flax, kauri timber, whaling and sealing. Undeterred by the lack of government support for its plan to establish a settlement protected by a small military force, the company dispatched two ships to New Zealand the following year under the command of Captain James Herd, who was given the task of exploring trade prospects and potential settlement sites in New Zealand.
New Zealand Company | 1825 expedition
Thirty-nine colonists spent the winter of 1610–1611 in the colony. During his governorship the colonists built and fortified the settlement, explored the area and planted crops. Guy returned to England in 1611 leaving William Colston - one of his brothers-in-law, and distantly related to the family of Edward Colston, and his brother Philip to manage the colony, as the first two Lieutenant-Governors of the Colony. Back in England, he was elected to the Bristol Society of Merchant Venturers, and he was then elected as the treasurer of the merchant venturers from 1611 to 1612 and then returned the next year with more livestock and female settlers.
John Guy (colonial administrator) | Coloniser
Prior to the arrival of the Pilgrims, the location of Plymouth was a village of the Wampanoag tribe called Patuxet. The region was visited twice by European explorers prior to the establishment of Plymouth Colony. In 1605, Samuel de Champlain sailed to Plymouth Harbor, calling it Port St. Louis. Captain John Smith was a leader of the colony at Jamestown, Virginia, and he explored parts of Cape Cod Bay and is credited with naming the region "New Plimouth." Two plagues afflicted coastal New England in 1614 and 1617, killing between 90% and 95% of the local Wampanoag inhabitants. The near disappearance of the tribe from the site left their cornfields and cleared areas vacant for the Pilgrims to occupy.
Plymouth, Massachusetts | Pre-colonial era
After exploring the inner shoreline of Cape Cod, the colonists chose to settle in Plymouth. The site offered a good harbor, several fresh water springs, and a large hill overlooking the harbor (which they would later name Burial Hill) suitable for a fort. A tribe known as the Patuxet (part of the Wampanoag peoples) had settled the site and cleared a large area of land for planting corn. By the time the "Mayflower" arrived, the Patuxet tribe had been wiped out by plagues, likely as a result of contact with English fishermen. During their first winter in Plymouth, most of the settlers fell ill and half died of disease.
John Alden | Establishing Plymouth Colony
There, he erected the first English settlement in New England, Popham Colony. His first establishments included a storehouse and a historical fortification called St. Georges Fort
George Popham | Voyage to New England
The London Company hired Captain Christopher Newport to lead its expedition. On December 20, 1606, he set sail from England with his flagship, the "Susan Constant", and two smaller ships, the "Godspeed", and the "Discovery", with 105 men and boys, plus 39 sailors. After an unusually long voyage of 144 days, they arrived at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay and came ashore at the point where the southern side of the bay meets the Atlantic Ocean, an event that has come to be called the "First Landing". They erected a cross and named the point of land Cape Henry, in honor of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of King James.
Colony of Virginia | Jamestown and the London company
Winslow had established a friendship with native leader Massasoit, whose people were trading with the colonists. In January 1629 a new patent for land at Kennebec was approved which provided for a fishing and trading post at Pentagoet and a fortified trading post at Cushnoc on the Kennebec which opened the area to Plymouth colonists. At the same time, Isaac Allerton opened his own trading post on the Kenebec and thereby became a rival of Edward Winslow, setting a pattern for adversarial rivalry between them that would continue from that time on. In 1632, he made an exploratory tour up the Connecticut River for colonization.
Edward Winslow | Leadership at Plymouth Colony and with Cromwell in England
The London Company made landfall on 26 April 1607, at the southern edge of the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, which they named Cape Henry, near present-day Virginia Beach. Deciding to move the encampment, on 4 May 1607, they established the Jamestown Settlement on the James River about upstream from its mouth at the Chesapeake Bay. Later in 1607, the Plymouth Company established its Popham Colony in present-day Maine, but it was abandoned after about a year. By 1609, the Plymouth Company had dissolved. As a result, the charter for the London Company was adjusted with a new grant that extended from "sea to sea" of the previously-shared area between the 38th and 40th parallel.
London Company | Introduction
Some time prior to 1622, at around the age of 29, Phineas Pratt and his brother Joshua Pratt joined the company of Thomas Weston, a London Merchant involved with the Leiden Separatists and Pilgrims who settled Plymouth Colony in 1620. Known to the Pilgrims as the "Strangers", this group of adventurers arrived in New England in 1622 on three ships: the "Sparrow", "Charity" and "Swan". Phineas Pratt was a passenger on the "Sparrow", which was the first ship of the three to arrive. Poorly supplied, with inferior provisions and with many ill, Weston's total company comprised approximately 67 men, about ten of whom sailed on the "Sparrow" and (through some mis-navigation) put ashore in Damarill's Cove (Damariscove Islands), off the now State of Maine, to find a site for another plantation.
Phineas Pratt | The ill-fated Wessagusset settlement
The country was fruitful in the extreme. It was decided, however, that so small a company would be useless for colonisation; their provisions, after division, would have lasted only six weeks. The whole company therefore sailed for England, making a very short voyage of five weeks, and landed at Exmouth on 23 July. Their freight realised a great profit, the sassafras alone selling for £336 a ton.
John Brereton | The voyage and exploration of New England
William, a Protestant, applied himself vigorously to England's interests, taking part the 1596 capture of Cadiz (Gādēs). He never earned the favour of Queen Elizabeth I, but the family title and lands were restored upon him by her Scottish heir King James I in 1604. In 1612 he became an "adventurer" of the Virginia Company. The Company had been created under Royal Charter to colonise North America as a merchant venture. It founded its first settlement, Jamestown, in 1607. That colony fared badly in its first years, and a fleet sent to relieve it in 1609 was broken up by a hurricane, with the Company's flagship, the Sea Venture, lost on the reefs of Bermuda.
William Paget, 4th Baron Paget | Life
Popham was a project of the Plymouth Company, which was one of the two competing parts of the proprietary Virginia Company that King James chartered in 1606 to raise private funds from investors in order to settle Virginia. At the time, the name "Virginia" applied to the entire east coast of North America from Spanish Florida to New France in modern-day Canada. That area was technically under the claim of the Spanish crown, but was not occupied by the Spanish. The Plymouth Company was granted a royal charter and the rights to the coast between 38° and 45° N; the rival London Company was granted the coast between 34° and 41° N.
Popham Colony | Founding
On Monday, , an exploring expedition was launched under the direction of Capt. Christopher Jones to search for a suitable settlement site. There were 34 persons in the open small boat: 24 passengers and 10 sailors. They were ill prepared for the bitter winter weather which they encountered on their reconnoiter, as the Puritans were not accustomed to winter weather which was much colder than back home. They were forced to spend the night ashore due to the bad weather they encountered, ill-clad in below-freezing temperatures with wet shoes and stockings that froze overnight. Bradford wrote, "Some of our people that are dead took the original of their death here" on the expedition.
Mayflower | First winter
The colony established a treaty with Wampanoag Chief Massasoit which helped to ensure its success; in this, they were aided by Squanto, a member of the Patuxet tribe. Plymouth played a central role in King Philip's War (1675–1678), one of several Indian Wars, but the colony was ultimately merged with the Massachusetts Bay Colony and other territories in 1691 to form the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Despite the colony's relatively short existence, Plymouth holds a special role in American history. Most of the citizens of Plymouth were fleeing religious persecution and searching for a place to worship as they saw fit, rather than being entrepreneurs like many of the settlers of Jamestown in Virginia.
Plymouth Colony | Introduction
In the several years after becoming a freeman, he served at various times as selectman, assistant and deputy governor, surveyor of highways, and as member of the fur committee. In 1626, he was asked to participate in assuming the colony's debt to its investors to enable the colony to pursue its own goals without the pressure to remit profits back to England. The "undertakers" paid the investors £1,800 to relinquish their claims on the land, and £2,400 for other debt. In return the group acquired a monopoly on the colony's fur trade for six years. Howland accompanied Edward Winslow in the exploration of Kennebec River (in current day Maine), looking for possible fur trading sites and natural resources that the colony could exploit.
John Howland | Plymouth Colony
The colonists were to plant first within their respective non-overlapping areas; the overlapping area between 38° and 41° would then go to the first company that proved "strong enough" to colonize it.
Popham Colony | Founding
A second ship arrived in November 1621 named the "Fortune", sent by the Merchant Adventurers one year after the Pilgrims first set foot in New England. It arrived with 37 new settlers for Plymouth. However, the ship had arrived unexpectedly and also without many supplies, so the additional settlers put a strain on the resources of the colony. Among the passengers of the "Fortune" were several of the original Leiden congregation, including William Brewster's son Jonathan, Edward Winslow's brother John, and Philip Delano (the family name was earlier "de la Noye") whose descendants include President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The "Fortune" also carried a letter from the Merchant Adventurers chastising the colony for failure to return goods with the "Mayflower" that had been promised in return for their support.
Plymouth Colony | Growth of Plymouth
https://vc.bridgew.edu/bmas/64/ Heath, Dwight B. “A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth: Mourt’s Relation”, A relation or journal of the English Plantation settled at Plymouth in New England, by certain English adventurers both merchants and others. Edited from the original printing of 1622. p. 7.
Wamsutta | References
They named their settlement "Plimouth" (sometimes spelled "Plimoth") after the major port city in Devon, England from which the "Mayflower" ultimately sailed.
Plymouth, Massachusetts | Colonial era
The first settlers in Massachusetts were the Pilgrims who established Plymouth Colony in 1620 and developed friendly relations with the Wampanoag people. This was the second permanent English colony in America following Jamestown Colony. The Pilgrims had migrated from England to Holland to escape religious persecution for rejecting England's official church. They were allowed religious liberty in Holland, but they gradually became concerned that the next generation would lose their distinct English heritage. They approached the Virginia Company and asked to settle "as a distinct body of themselves" in America. In the fall of 1620, they sailed to America on the "Mayflower", first landing near Provincetown at the tip of Cape Cod.
History of Massachusetts | Pilgrims and Puritans: 1620–1629
The Massachusetts Bay Colony had been founded by the owners of the Massachusetts Bay Company, which included investors in the failed Dorchester Company which had established a short-lived settlement on Cape Ann in 1623. The colony began in 1628 and was the company's second attempt at colonization. It was successful, with about 20,000 people migrating to New England in the 1630s. Atherton was part of this first wave of Puritan migration to New England (1620–1640), along with his wife Mary, and their three young children. Biographers agree that he and his family travelled from Lancashire to Bristol and then sailed on the James, in the company of the Reverend Richard Mather; a minister from his home town and his future father in law.
Humphrey Atherton | Emigration
Plymouth played a very important role in American colonial history. It was the final landing site of the first voyage of the "Mayflower" and the location of the original settlement of Plymouth Colony. Plymouth was established in December 1620 by English separatist Puritans who had broken away from the Church of England, believing that the Church had not completed the work of the Protestant Reformation. Today, these settlers are much better known as the "Pilgrims", a term coined by William Bradford. The Mayflower first anchored in the harbor of Provincetown, Massachusetts on November 11, 1620. The ship was headed for the mouth of the Hudson River near Manhattan, which was part of the Colony of Virginia at the time, but it did not go beyond Cape Cod.
Plymouth, Massachusetts | Colonial era