Plymouth Colony: Its History & People, 1620-1691

By Eugene Aubrey Stratton

This is the first truly complete treatment of the history and genealogy of Plymouth Colony. It includes a concise history of the colony, both chronologically and topically, and more than 300 biographical sketches of its inhabitants. Richly documented and illustrated with maps and photographs, the three-dimensional Plymouth Colony: Its History & People, 1620-1691 was written for historians and genealogists alike and provides and in-depth view of this important epoch in American history. The researcher will find the verbatim transcriptions of important contemporary documents in the eleven appendices invaluable, and the annotated bibliography clearly describes the abundance of primary and secondary literature on Plymouth Colony. Mr. Stratton's work set a new standard worthy of emulation by all serious scholars.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ancestry.com
• Release date: Apr 1, 1986
• ISBN: 9781618589323

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Plymouth Colony: Its History and People 1620-1691

by Eugene Aubrey Stratton

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 86-72003

9781618589323

Copyright © 1986

The Generations Network, Inc.

Published by

Ancestry Publishing,

a division of The Generations Network, Inc.

360 West 4800 North

Provo, Utah 84604

All rights reserved.

All brand and product names are trademarks or

registered trademarks of their respective companies.

No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form

without written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer,

who may quote brief passages for review.

First priting 1986

20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11

Printed in the United States of America.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Table of Figures

Foreword

Acknowledgement

Introduction

PART ONE - Chronological Histories

CHAPTER 1 - The Old Comers (1620-1627)

CHAPTER 2 - Bringing Over Their Friends (1627-1633)

CHAPTER 3 - The Founding of Towns (1633-1643)

CHAPTER 4 - A Loss of Leaders (1643-1657)

CHAPTER 5 - Quaker Ranters, Baptist Schismatics, and Indians with Tongues Running Out (1657-1675)

CHAPTER 6 - King Philip’s War (1675-1676)

CHAPTER 7 - The End of a Colony (1676-1691)

PART TWO - Topical Narratives

CHAPTER 8 - Political Structure and Government

CHAPTER 9 - Law and Order

CHAPTER 10 - Land and Inheritance

CHAPTER 11 - Man and Master

CHAPTER 12 - Morality and Sex

CHAPTER 13 - Everyday Life and Manners

CHAPTER 14 - Writers and Records

PART THREE - Biographical Sketches

Biographical Sketches

Bibliography

List of Appendices

APPENDIX A - The 1621 Peirce Patent

APPENDIX B - The 1629/30 Bradford Patent

APPENDIX C - Bradford’s Mayflower Passenger List

APPENDIX D - The Mayflower Compact

APPENDIX E - The 1623 Division of Land

APPENDIX F - The 1626 Purchasers

APPENDIX G - The 1627 Division of the Cattle

APPENDIX H - The 1633 and 1634 Tax Lists

APPENDIX I - The 1627-1634 Arrivals

APPENDIX J - The 1643 Able to Bear Arms (ATBA) List

APPENDIX K - The Will and Inventory of John Barnes

Index

Table of Figures

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

Foreword

Genealogy and history interact in many ways, and early in this century J. Horace Round addressed this question in a lecture entitled Historical Genealogy [in Family Origins (reprint Baltimore 1970) pp. 1-12]. He defined three connections between the two disciplines as follows: Genealogy as a branch of historical study, Genealogy based on the same principles as those of historical research, Genealogy in its own historical development.

Genealogy as a branch of historical study encompasses those instances in which the results of genealogical investigation support or enhance the work of the historian. Round describes the ways in which genealogy assists in the investigation of Domesday Book. In the United States, and in more recent years, one could point to the exploitation of genealogical literature by the social demographers.

Genealogy based on the same principles as those of historical research is nothing more than the pursuit of genealogy itself by modern, critical methodology, as opposed to the older, more romantic and intuitive approach so consistently excoriated by Round. In this country we would obviously point to the work of Jacobus and his colleagues and followers for the practice of this approach to genealogical research.

Genealogy in its own historical development comprises the history of genealogy itself-the growth and development of genealogical societies; biographies of individual genealogists; historiographical studies of certain genres of genealogical writing; and so on. Both here and in Great Britain this aspect of the interactions between genealogy and history is virtually untouched.

There exists, I would contend, yet a fourth point of contact between these two disciplines, in which the history of a given time and place is written from a genealogical perspective. The author of such a work would look at a small slice of society and tell us how the structure of that society, its customs, its religious beliefs, its economic activities, and all its other facets impinge upon the genealogical networks generated in that society. Why do first marriages take place at a certain age? What distance is a person likely to travel in his lifetime, and how does this affect the choice of marriage partner? The number of questions of this sort is endless, and all are of importance to the genealogist.

A second aspect of writing history from a genealogical perspective would be the exposition of the categories and forms of records generated by a given society, and how these might help the genealogist. In the field of religion, how did the beliefs of the Baptists, the Congregationalists, and the Quakers influence the information included in their denominational records, and how easy or difficult, therefore, will it be for the genealogist to study a family from one or another of these church groups?

This field of history written from a genealogical perspective has been explored even less than the other three areas of common interest between genealogy and history. In the present work, then, Eugene A. Stratton has undertaken a pioneering work in attempting to present Plymouth Colony history from a genealogical viewpoint.

Stratton first covers the seven decades of the existence of the colony in the usual chronological presentation, but with emphasis on the arrival of settlers, both from Holland and England, and also on the movement of those settlers once they had arrived in New England. In the second part of the volume the author then covers the same ground, but this time in topical fashion, showing us how the courts worked, how land was apportioned, how master and servant interacted, and in general explicating the operations of this small society in a way designed to assist the genealogist in his labors.

The third part of the book, while more straightforwardly genealogical, has some special surprises. This section, of biographical sketches of hundreds of the earliest settlers, draws largely on material in print, both primary and secondary, and as such serves principally as a guide to the literature. But salted throughout the pages of this section are some interesting new discoveries, and some even more interesting new suggestions for solutions to some of the most important outstanding genealogical problems of Plymouth Colony.

As noted above, Plymouth Colony is a pioneering work, being one of the first attempts to combine history and genealogy in this particular way. As such, it immediately becomes a standard against which future compositions of a similar nature must be judged.

Robert Charles Anderson, F.A.S.G.

Acknowledgement

This is to acknowledge, with deep gratitude, the contribution to this book made by Mr. Robert S. Wakefield, F.A.S.G., who worked as coauthor on Part One and furnished significant material to support many of the biographical sketches in Part Three. Mr. Wakefield is one of the foremost Plymouth Colony scholars in the country, and this book could not have been written within given time constraints without his active participation. His most valued help is highly appreciated.

Introduction

Samuel Eliot Morison once observed that many historians are content to write in detail about the adventures of the Mayflower passengers in getting here and then leave them sitting high and dry on Plymouth Rock. He wrote: Historians seem to lose interest in the Pilgrims as soon as they were able to have three square meals daily, and own a cow.

That rather sad situation has been corrected somewhat in recent decades. John Demos, in A Little Commonwealth-Family Life in Plymouth Colony, has given us an excellent specialized study of some aspects of family life in Plymouth, and in it he also comments that There was, for example, no full-length history of Plymouth Colony, conforming to accepted criteria of professional research, until very recently. It is almost as if the aura of legend surrounding the Pilgrim settlers makes them difficult to recover as live human beings. Notice Mr. Demos’s qualification conforming to accepted criteria of professional research. He undoubtedly had in mind George E. Willison’s 1945 popular book Saints and Strangers, which was written by a Rhodes scholar who could and did do a considerable amount of good research to write his book, and then vitiated it by throwing it together in an undocumented hodgepodge of fact and fiction so intermixed that it would be difficult for even a trained scholar to extricate the one from the other.

The recent exception noted by Mr. Demos was George D. Langdon’s Pilgrim Colony: A History of New Plymouth, 1620-1691, about which Demos says, This careful, admirably sound and sensible study should remain ‘definitive’ for a long time to come. I have myself leaned heavily upon it at several points. In the present text, too, I must acknowledge a debt to this fine book, which, at times, I also have leaned heavily upon. But that of course gives rise to the question, if definitive, then why the need for another book covering the same time and place? The answer in part is hinted at by Sumner Chilton Powell in his Pulitzer Prize-winning Puritan Village-The Formation of a New England Town, in which he observes "Any young historian would do well to appreciate the precision and careful handling of documents, which are the sine qua non of any professional geneatogist."

Mr. Demos in his book relies considerably, too, on the techniques of the genealogist, even though genealogy is not held in high regard in academic circles. Elizabeth Shown Mills, a superb genealogist, illustrates this point by writing in an article, A young Southern historian began his teaching career on the university level and simultaneously showed an interest in family history. Superiors promptly cautioned him not to get involved in genealogy or his career would be ruined. (However, that young Southern historian continued his interest in genealogy, and now is highly respected by both professional genealogists and academic historians.) Genealogy has deserved its ill fame for a number of reasons, but mostly for the barbarities committed by well-intentioned, but untrained practitioners. Anyone interested in learning a bit about just how bad genealogy can be may read my article on the subject, The Validity of Genealogical Evidence in the December 1984 issue of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly.

All this obscures the fact that genealogy has been coming of age. It took some time. The late G. Andrews Moriarty and Donald Lines Jacobus have not received the attention and appreciation they deserved other than in genealogical circles. The work of some of the senior genealogists in the field today-for example, John Coddington and Milton Rubincam-is certainly on an academic level. Some of the best genealogical writers of today, Neil D. Thompson, Elizabeth Shown Mills, Robert Charles Anderson, Henry B. Hoff, and David L. Greene, just to name a few (and I feel guilty leaving out a good number of others), fully conform to accepted criteria of professional research.

The paradox is that both historians and genealogists have plied their respective trades in that well-visited market of Plymouth Colony for years and in great, if not always comprehensive, detail. But they have plied their trades separately. There never has been a history of Plymouth Colony written from the genealogical point of view. History is made by individuals living their lives amidst other individuals. Without the trees there can be no forest. The human history of Plymouth Colony is so rich, so interesting, so pertinent to an understanding of the development of our nation, that it is a shame it has been subordinated to fairy tales such as Speak for yourself, John Alden. There is a need for something new on the subject.

This book is intended to give a well-rounded comprehensive overview of the life of Plymouth Colony by stressing the interaction of people with history. It is not complete, in that greater detail can be found for this or that aspect in some other sources, but many of such sources are named in this book in case the reader should want to plunge deeper. A three-dimensional approach is used to tell the story. The horizontal is a chronological history, divided in chapters according to successive time periods (which has the advantage of ensuring that there will be coverage of those many years of the existence of Plymouth Colony that are usually ignored). The vertical approach slices through time to give the reader considerable detail on a given topic, such as politics, law, morality, and others. A third part adds depth by giving short sketches of several hundred colony residents between 1620 and 1691, mostly heads of families, with a short biographical sketch to show each person’s contribution to the colony’s history or genealogy, together with a considerable number of bibliographic references to where more information may be found in published sources, including the most recent journal articles.

Additionally, this work is intended to serve as a reference book for Plymouth Colony scholars and fans of all types. To further this goal, a general bibliography has been included, together with various appendices containing original source material of interest to historian and genealogist alike. Some such material consists of Plymouth Colony documents selected because they show who was where at different points in time. These documents are of course available individually in other publications, but they have not previously been obtainable within the covers of a single book. Further, one of the annoying facts in the lives of history scholars is that the literature of the field abounds with conclusions so repeated from book to book that they are just taken for granted as absolute fact-and in many cases they are fact—but the original source of the information remains obscure. For example, many people seriously interested in the history of Plymouth Colony have heard that Capt. Myles Standish never joined the Plymouth Church, and that William Bradford’s wife committed suicide, but what are the original sources, and how reliable are they? This book attempts to go back to the original source for many of these time-hallowed traditions (the source for the statement on Standish seems quite reliable, but that for Bradford’s wife is indisputably false).

A reading of all three parts of the text should give one a thorough understanding of what happened in Plymouth in colony years and who made it happen. The reader will find a greatly diversified assembly of residents. They will range from the aristocratic Edward Winslow to the theocratic William Bradford; from the introspective Roger Williams to the activist reformer William Vassall; and from the moderationist James Cudworth to the man who understood and liked the Indians so much that he could and did outfight them to the death, Benjamin Church. Others appearing are the town ne’er-do-well Webb Adey; the town drunk Thomas Lucas; the dignified widow Elizabeth Warren, who was honored by being made a Purchaser in the right of her late husband; those who were whipped and fined for fornication and adultery; those who were whipped and fined for being Quakers; the excommunicated popular leader John Cooke; the wards of Governor Bradford who rose to be leaders themselves; and many others. These were very human human beings.

This book will answer the question: What ever happened to those people who came over on the Mayflower? They will not be left high and dry on Plymouth Rock. We will follow them after they get three square meals daily and a cow, and then we will follow the ones who arrived after them, and we will follow their children, and sometimes their children’s children. To do this, the book relies mainly on contemporary records, the records left by the people themselves. Two references will predominate because they cover so much material, and because there is nothing else on their scale. The first of these is the history of Plymouth written by Gov. William Bradford, which goes into considerable depth to show the origins and the early years of the colony, and then gets sparser after some twenty years or so in Plymouth. The second reference consists of the court records of Plymouth Colony, starting sparsely in the 1620s and getting more detailed with time for the duration of the colony period. These two sources give tremendous detail and insight on the life of the colony, and they are the flesh and blood of any history ever written or to be written about Plymouth Colony. There are other documents of the times such as letters, diaries, narratives, church records, wills, deeds, and a surprising number of others. All of these add to the two main sources, fill them out, and sometimes help keep them in proper perspective.

This book, then, is written to let the people of the times speak for themselves. To help this appear as authentic as possible-to give the reader a real feel for the ambience of the times-words, spellings, and punctuation are often given as found in the records themselves. This could make reading some of the quotations a bit of effort, but the effort gives such rewards that it is far superior, for the purposes of this work, to any other method. The best way to tackle the quotations is to pronounce words phonetically. You will be surprised at how similar the language of the 1600s is to today’s language-e.g., Yea, he screwed up his poor old father-in-law’s account, though this will appear in the book as Yea, he scrued up his poore old father in laws accounte. It helps, too, to keep in mind that there were no dictionaries, as we know them, in those days, and no formal rules for spelling. There was no correct way, but if the spelling allowed the reader of the times to understand the message, it served its purpose. For the most part their spelling is helpful, in the sense of letting us understand better how they talked. When they wrote graunted for granted, it indicates that they spoke with a very broad a, and when we see goverment instead of government, it indicates to us that they dropped the n in their speech as well as their writing. It brings us a little closer to these people, which is one of the main purposes of the book.

They are not so far away from us. Millions of Americans have Plymouth Colony ancestry, usually being separated from these people by only some ten to fifteen generations. Technology changes tremendously, at least in modern times, in but a single generation, but human nature does not. A grandfather living today could have known his grandfather, and talked to him often. That grandfather could have talked often to his own grandfather. That grandfather could have known and engaged in conversations with Thomas Faunce, who was born in Plymouth Colony in 1647, knew personally many of the surviving Mayflower passengers, and died in 1746. Such a short span separates us from the people of Plymouth of the 1600s. They were much poorer than we are in material things, but they were modern people, much closer to us in mind than to those who lived before them in medieval or ancient times.

There are also millions of other Americans who are not descendants of the Plymouth colonists, though because of marriage between descendants and nondescendants, their children or grandchildren could be. But all people in this country today are the spiritual heirs of those who brought democracy to our shores centuries before it became established in the mother country. William Bradford wrote with foresight when he put down the words: As one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone to many, yea in some sorte to our whole nation.

It is easy to see far when one stands on the shoulders of giants. This book owes a great debt to the many Plymouth Colony scholars who have written earlier, for one always builds on antecedents. The greatest genealogical scholar of Plymouth Colony was George Ernest Bowman, and he must be especially acknowledged. He left a living legacy in the Mayflower Descendant, a timeless and unsurpassed collection of original records of the people of colonial Plymouth. Moreover, he left a methodology for precision in acquiring data that has been all too little appreciated in the past, but has been gaining recognition with time.

As shown in the acknowledgment page, some parts of this book were written in collaboration with my esteemed colleague, Robert S. Wakefield, F.A.S.G. I will only add here that I have learned much from this respected colonial Plymouth scholar in the realm of documentation. His constant reminder of the need to pin-point sources-Where did that come from? What specifically does this source say? How reliable is that reference? Are the sources in agreement?-has undoubtedly improved the accuracy of this book.

First among others who have been of great help to get this book out is Robert Charles Anderson, F.A.S.G., who saw drafts during various stages and offered much helpful advice. His extensive familiarity with the primary and secondary literature of New England history in all of its many facets has helped considerably to put the Plymouth Colony story in its broader New England context.

Many thanks are also due to Roger D. Joslyn, F.A.S.G., who saw a semi-final draft and gave it a thorough editing from the genealogical point of view, and to Linda Cunningham, who edited the book from the more conventional viewpoint. Among those most helpful in aiding me on specific aspects of the book were Ruth Wilder Sherman, F.A.S.G., editor of The American Genealogist; Barbara Lambert Merrick, Historian General of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants; Jane F. Fiske, F.A.S.G.; and Alicia C. Williams, editor of the Mayflower Descendant. I owe my wife, Ginger K. W. Stratton, a tremendous debt of gratitude not only for her patience with me while sequestering myself from my family, but also for her time and dedication in helping me with research and proofreading. I am also grateful to David Case, Richard L. Ehrlich, Carolyn Freeman Travers, and others of the staff of Plimoth Plantation for their helpful cooperation. Notwithstanding the help of others, though, I must of course take full responsibility for the final product.

Last, but not least, I want to thank John Sittner, publisher, Robert J. Welsh, managing editor, and the staff of Ancestry, Inc., for making it possible to satisfy my long-held dream of making this book a reality.

Eugene Aubrey Stratton

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Figure 1-Mayflower 11 in full sail

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Figure 2-Aerial View of Plimoth Plantation

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Figure 3-Jabez Howland House in Winter

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Figure 4-Interior View of Jabez Howland House

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Map 1-Map of Massachusetts showing Plymouth

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Map 2-Map of the Townships of Plymouth Colony

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Map 3-Map of Plymouth Today

PART ONE

Chronological Histories

CHAPTER 1

The Old Comers (1620-1627)

A TIME TO PLANT

The story of Plymouth Colony starts back in England in the early years of the seventeenth century. King Henry VIII had made the break from the Pope in the previous century, and both in England and on the continent religious reformers were asking questions and pronouncing new dogmas. Martin Luther in Germany, John Calvin in Switzerland, and John Knox in Scotland had made people more conscious of the nature of religion than ever before with the prime question: What form should organized religion take? King Henry chose a compromise answer-keeping the Catholic form, but substituting himself, instead of the Pope, as head of the Church of England. Henry was succeeded by a young sickly son, Edward VI, who died in 1553. Edward’s half-sister, Mary, by some called Bloody Mary, assumed the crown and restored Roman Catholicism as the official religion. She died in 1558 and was succeeded by her half-sister, Elizabeth, who restored her father’s compromise, and, as sovereign, became the head of the official Anglican Church.

When King James I succeeded Elizabeth in 1602/03, ¹ England was divided between old-time Catholics, conforming Anglicans, and a great variety of Protestants. There were Puritans, who constituted a movement within the Church of England (but were not a distinct sect or denomination), and Separatists, who had gone beyond Puritan thinking and wanted to be completely separate from the official church. Perry Miller and Thomas Johnson point out that No government in Europe at that epoch would have tolerated the existence of such a [Separatist] society, outside and independent of the established institution, and it is no wonder that the bishops and the sheriffs of England got after this congregation with vehemence. ² Thus the Separatists, who were of several unrelated groups, came under heavy persecution from the English government. Some groups of Separatists were in England’s northern counties, such as Lincolnshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Nottinghamshire, where they gathered their own individual churches under the control of the congregation, instead of some remote bishop.

Richard Clyfton became the pastor of one such group in Scrooby, Nottinghamshire, with John Robinson as his assistant minister. William Brewster, who was master of the post station at Scrooby Manor, joined this church, later becoming its Ruling Elder. William Bradford, too, from nearby Austerfield, Yorkshire, joined the separatist religion and became a life-long follower and friend to Elder Brewster. In Bradford’s own words, church members were hunted and persecuted on every side, so as their former afflictions were as flea-bitings in comparison with these that now came upon them. For some were taken and clapt up in prison, others had their houses besett and watcht night and day, and hardly escaped their hands; and the most were faine to flie and leave their howses and habitations, and the means of their livelihood. The congregation thus decided in 1607 to move to Holland, which allowed considerable freedom to religious dissenters, and where other English religious refugees had already fled. Because of difficulty with the English government in leaving England, including imprisonment for some, such as William Brewster, they did not complete their move to Holland until 1608.³

At first the Clyfton-Robinson congregation lived in Amsterdam; but after about one year they decided to move to Leiden because of much quarreling between the several English churches in Amsterdam. Mr. Clyfton continued as a member of the church when it was in Leiden, but being setled at Amsterdam and thus aged hee was loth to Remove any more, and so he remained in Amsterdam until he died in 1616. Some of the dates of events and elections in this church remain obscure, and John Robinson possibly became pastor in Amsterdam; it is certain that he held the position as soon as they moved to Leiden, and, not long after, William Brewster was known to be Ruling Elder and John Carver was a deacon.⁴

It must have been interesting to have been an Englishman living in Leiden at this time. William Brewster became a publisher of books, with Thomas Brewer as his partner, and young Edward Winslow became associated with them. John Robinson both studied and taught at Leiden’s famed university. Many of their congregation worked in some fashion in the clothing trade to support themselves-Isaac Allerton as a tailor, William Bradford and William Pontus as fustian makers, Cuthbert Cuthbertson as a hat maker, Richard Masterson as a wool carder, and others in the weaving, dying, and sewing trades. A good amount of research was done earlier this century on who of the English were in Leiden, what they did, their relationship with the Dutch community, and related questions. Though the studies of Dexter and of Plooij would seem to have exhausted the subject, in recent years newer students have been combing Leiden records again. Indeed, more is being and still remains to be discovered, including new identifications of the Separatists’ English origins and discoveries of colonists who had not previously been known to have lived in Leiden.⁵

Leiden was not, however, a paradise for the English. Bradford mentioned that no others would join them from England, for they would not have been able to endure that great labor and hard fare.... Some preferred, and chose the prisons in England, rather than this libertie in Holland, with these afflictions. In this he refers to economic conditions, for most of the English were not citizens of Leiden and did not enjoy the privileges of citizenship. Their employment possibilities were limited, and they had to work hard just to keep up a low standard of living. Further, that which was more lamentable...was that many of their children, by these occasions, and by the great licentiousnes of youth in that countrie, and the manifold temptations of the place, were drawne away by evill examples into extravagante and dangerous courses. And thus for both economic reasons and for the welfare of their children-not for religious freedom, which they already enjoyed in Holland-after they had lived in this citie about some 11 or 12 years, they decided to look for a new place.⁶

England had known of the North American coast for years. Bartholomew Gosnold had visited Cape Cod in 1602. Martin Pring was the first European to visit the site of Plymouth, spending six weeks exploring the bay of Massachusetts in 1603. Jamestown, Virginia, was founded in 1607, the first permanent English settlement in the New World. Captain John Smith was at Jamestown, but he also explored further north and made a detailed map of the New England coast in 1616. It was probably due to Smith’s writings that the Leiden Separatists knew of the area, and most likely when they sailed on the Mayflower in 1620 they had Captain Smith’s maps with them. Smith had offered his services to the people from Leiden, but instead they chose for their captain an English soldier living in Holland named Myles Standish. Perhaps the English Separatists were cautious of Smith’s reputation as a swashbuckling bragadoccio, or perhaps they declined his offer for some other reason, but Smith himself wrote that they turned him down to save money, saying my books and maps were much better cheape to teach them, than myself.⁷

Those who left were not known as Pilgrims at the time. The word was first applied to them by Bradford writing his history many years later. So they lefte that goodly and pleasante citie which had been ther resting place near 12 years; but they knew they were pilgrimes, and looked not much on those things, but lift up their eyes to the heavens, their dearest cuntrie, and quieted their spirits.⁸ Not all Separatists left Leiden in 1620. Some followed later, and some stayed forever in Holland where most likely their descendants live today. The majority of the congregation, in fact, remained in Leiden in 1620, and that is why Pastor John Robinson, who decided to stay with the majority, did not leave; though he planned to go later, he died on 1 March 1624/25.

Nor was it only Separatists from Holland who crossed the ocean in that 1620 voyage, for they were joined in England by other Separatists and by people Bradford called Strangers, who were not of their faith, but with whom they had to travel in order to get support for their venture. Support came from a group of businessmen called Adventurers, who ventured capital into this particular New World settlement in the hope of great profits. The settlers got one share in the company for each man and woman above the age of sixteen. The Adventurers, some of whom were undoubtedly of Separatist or at least Puritan persuasion themselves, were nonetheless hard-nosed entrepreneurs, and they obtained one share in the company for each £10 they invested to transport and provision the settlers. Captain John Smith identified the Adventurers as about seventy gentlemen, merchants, and craftsmen, venturing widely varying sums of money, some great and some small. ⁹

The Adventurers had obtained a patent in the name of one of their members, John Peirce, to colonize in the northern part of the Virginia territory. Though the settlers continued from England in two ships, the Speedwell had to return to England due to dangerous leaking, and the Mayflower continued alone. According to Capt. John Smith, writing in 1622, They left the coast of England the 23 of August, with about 120 persons, but the next day the lesser ship sprung a leake, that forced their return to Plimmoth, where discharging her and 20 passengers, with the great ship and a hundred persons besides sailers, they set saile againe the Sixt of September. Among the twenty who stayed behind were Robert Cushman, one of the Separatist leaders, and William Ring, of the Leiden congregation. Cushman wrote of the short but frightful voyage aboard the Speedwell, Poore William Ring and my selfe doe strive who shall be meate first for the fishes. The Mayflower, too, had its mishaps at sea, with a main beam splitting during a storm; a young servant, William Butten, dying; and John Howland falling overboard, but being rescued.¹⁰

Their destination in the northern Virginia territory was to have been roughly where Manhattan is today, but they sailed further north, outside the Virginia limits. Why they did this is not known for certain. Several theories have been advanced, including one that they deliberately avoided Virginia lands so as to be outside the jurisdiction of the Anglican Church, which was the established church in Virginia. However, Bradford and Winslow went to their graves maintaining that they arrived at New England either by accident or by the treachery of Capt. Christopher Jones. On 9 November 1620 We espied land which we deemed to be Cape Cod, and so afterward it proved. They continued to travel around the Cape, but the winds forced them to turn back. We put round againe for the Bay of Cape Cod: and upon the 11 of November, we came to an anchor in the Bay. They decided to look further, and on 11 December 1620 they started exploration of Plymouth Harbor. Within a few days they made the decision to settle at Plymouth, anchoring at a short distance from land, the harbor being quite shallow, and they used the shallop to go ashore. Plymouth, which had some years earlier been given its name by Capt. John Smith and had it confirmed by Prince (later King) Charles, was at that time a Wampanoag Indian village, deserted because of a disease which had killed many of the natives of southeastern New England.¹¹

In 1621 a second patent, also in John Pierce’s name, had to be obtained, since the colonists had settled outside the limits of their first patent. (More details on both patents are given in chapter 8.)

One hundred and two passengers sailed from England on the Mayflower. One died at sea (William Butten), four died at Provincetown Harbor (Dorothy Bradford, James Chilton, Jasper More, and Edward Thompson), one was born at sea (Oceanus Hopkins), and one was born at Provincetown Harbor (Peregrine White), and thus there arrived at Plymouth ninety-nine of those we say stayed. These included John Alden, a cooper who signed on the Mayflower at Southampton, and who accepted an offer to stay as part of the company, and four seamen. Two of the seamen (William Trevor and ______ Ely) were hired to stay for one year, and two others (John Allerton and Thomas English) were hired to be part of the company, but the latter two died before the Mayflower sailed again. The entire crew stayed throughout the severe winter of 1620/21, and about half died. The surviving crew members returned to England when the Mayflower set sail on 5 April 1621. Of the settlers, only fifty-two, including Trevor and Ely, were still alive when the Fortune, the next ship, arrived in November 1621.¹²

Most of the deaths occurred during the first few months of 1621, and only six more, including Gov. John Carver and his wife, died between the sailing of the Mayflower and the arrival of the Fortune. Thereafter the condition of the settlers improved, for in 1623 Governor Bradford told a visitor from Virginia that for the space of one whole year of the two wherein they had been there, died not one man, woman or child. Capt. John Smith wrote that the plantation in 1624 was so healthful that in these last three yeeres, notwithstanding their great want of most necessaries, there hath not one died of the first planters. Trevor and Ely probably returned on the Fortune in December 1621, for Robert Cushman wrote in March or April 1623 that William Trevore hath lavishly tould but what he knew or imagined about the surrounding area to some of the Adventurers.¹³

While still in Provincetown Harbor, some of the group asserted that they had the right, since they had not gone as planned to Virginia territory, to live as they wished and take orders from no one. Bradford wrote of the Mayflower Compact that it was occasioned partly by the discontented and mutinous speeches that some of the strangers amongst them had let fall from them in the ship. Winslow confirms that some [were] not well affected to unitie and concord, but gave some appearances of faction [and thus] it was thought good...that we should combine together in one body, and to submit to such government and governours, as we should by common consent agree to make and choose. Thus all free adult males signed the Mayflower Compact, which stated essentially that the individual would subject himself to majority rule. After the signing, John Carver was chosen, or rather confirmed, their governor for that year, but he died in the spring of 1621. William Bradford was chosen to succeed him, governing first with one Assistant, Isaac Allerton, and later with as many as seven, who acted as magistrates and collectively were the Council, that is, the executive and judicial body. From the beginning, all important positions were elective, and even Capt. Myles Standish, who led not a regular army, but a citizens’ militia, had to be chosen for his position.¹⁴

The food supply in the early years was almost always critically low. Thanks to the Wampanoags, the settlers learned how to plant Indian crops, which ultimately helped them avoid starvation. Winslow described the process: We set the last spring [1621] some twentie Acres of Indian Corne, and sowed some six Acres of Barly and Pease, and according to the manner of the Indians, we manured our ground with Herings or rather Shadds. But the first crops were not sufficient. The next ship, the Fortune, arrived at Cape Cod 9 November 1621 (though it took several more weeks to find Plymouth), with thirty-five new colonists led by Mr. Robert Cushman. Cushman returned on the Fortune when it left for England on 13 December 1621, after having given a layman’s sermon on 9 December. The new colonists were ill provisioned, and Bradford wrote, So they were all landed, but ther was not so much as bisket-cake or any other victialls for them, and They were presently put to half alowance, one as well as an other, which begane to be hard, but they bore it patiently under hope of supply. Winslow, in May 1622, referred to the same: Our store of victuals was wholly spent, having lived long before with a bare and short allowance: The reason was, that supply of men before mentioned, which came so unprovided, not landing so much as a barrell of bread or meal for their whole company, but contrariwise received from us for their ships store homeward. Another ship, the Paragon, with sixty-seven passengers sent out by private mens purses in October 1622, had to return to England two weeks later, damaged by a storm and leaking. The Paragon made at least one other unsuccessful attempt in February 1622/23, but again was driven back, and never reached New Plymouth. By 1623 Bradford was writing about their lack of food, Yet they bore these wants with great patience and allacritie of spirite, and that for so long a time as for the most parte of 2 years. Even when new ships arrived in 1623, Bradford described how the new settlers found the old. They were in a very low condition.... But for food they were all alike, save some that had got a few pease of the ship that was last hear. The best dish they could present their friends with was a lobster, or a peece of fish without bread or anything els but a cupp of fair spring water, and he added, God fedd them out of the sea for the most parte.¹⁵

Relations with the Indians, at least the nearby Wampanoags under the supreme chief, Massasoit, were good. Samoset, who was not a Wampanoag, but came from Maine, had learned some English from fishing ships, and he walked in on the settlers shortly after their arrival at Plymouth and offered to help them. Through Samoset, they learned also of Squanto, who was a native of this place, but who had been taken by a ship to England. Samoset stayed his first night at Stephen Hopkins’s house, probably because Hopkins had had familiarity with Indians when he was in Virginia years earlier. Through Samoset, the colonists made initial contact with Massasoit and shortly after signed a peace treaty with him, which continued until after Massasoit’s death in 1662. One of Massasoit’s men, Hobbamock, came to live with the settlers in Plymouth, and, along with Samoset and Squanto, became of great assistance to them. The Narragansetts, who lived to the west of the Wampanoags and were their enemies, were more numerous and powerful. During the summer of 1621 Bradford and his men kept hearing rumors from friendly Indians of an impending Narragansett attack, and following the arrival of the Fortune, the Narragansetts sent the Plymouth settlers a warning in the form of a bundle of arrows wrapped up in the skin of a rattlesnake. After consultation with his advisers, Bradford answered the challenge by returning the skin to the Narragansetts full of powder and shot. Under Captain Standish, Plymouth took due military precautions, including dividing the men into four companies and assigning them defensive positions, and there was no attack.¹⁶

Though no new ships with settlers arrived until July 1623, Plymouth was not completely isolated. English fishing ships as well as ships engaged in other colonizing ventures called on the colony from time to time. Winslow wrote, for example, that "In the end of June, or beginning of July [1622], came into our harbour two ships of Master Westons aforesaid, the one called the Charitie, the other the Swan, having in them some fifty or sixty men sent over at his owne charge to plant for him." (Bradford said sixty men.) Mr. Thomas Weston had been one of the leaders of the London Adventurers, but had quarreled with the company, sold out his interests, and begun his own enterprises. He also sent out the Sparrow, and a shallop from this ship brought seven passengers to Plymouth who were destined for Weston’s planned colony. The settlers on the Charity and the Swan were rather rough and unruly men, and they stayed at Plymouth during the summer of 1622 until they left in September to colonize an area somewhat north of Plymouth called Wessagusset (present day Weymouth).¹⁷

Weston’s settlers did not fare well at Weymouth and blundered considerably in their relations with nearby Indians. On one occasion they were forced to hang one of their own men to pacify the Indians from whom the man had been stealing. Finally relations got so bad that Weston’s men feared for their lives. Captain Standish and some men were dispatched from Plymouth to rescue them, the Plymouth group killing several Indians in the process. Shortly afterwards Weston’s group abandoned the settlement and in turn was succeeded there by newer settlers who arrived on the Katherine, a ship sent out by Sir Ferdinando Gorges, which arrived at Plymouth in September 1623. This ship, too, first stayed a while at Plymouth, where its passengers became one more burden to the struggling colony. Bradford wrote that Gorges’s group arrived with sundrie pasengers and families...and pitched upon the place Mr. Weston’s group had forsaken. One of Weston’s settlers at Weymouth who had arrived on the Sparrow, Phineas Pratt, on the breakup of the Weston settlement, moved to Plymouth. He later married Mary Priest, a daughter of the then deceased Mayflower passenger, Degory Priest, and a niece of Plymouth Colony Assistant, Isaac Allerton.¹⁸

Other ships also called on Plymouth. One visiting ship, Discovery, sailing from Virginia to England in 1622, carried as a passenger John Pory, an official from Jamestown, Virginia, who later wrote letters in praise of the northern colony. The next ships with passengers intended for Plymouth were the Anne, which arrived in July 1623, and the Little James, which arrived a week or so later. With the arrival of the Anne, Bradford observed that the Adventurers were sending over some men on their Particular, meaning they would not have to work as the rest for the communal profit of the company. Bradford wrote that the two ships brought about 60 persons for the generall, some of them being very usefull persons, and became good members to the body; and some were the wives and children of shuch as were hear allready. And some were so bad, as they were faine to be at charge to send them home againe the next year. Also, besides these ther came a company that did not belong to the general body, but came [on] their perticuler and were to have lands assigned them and be for them selves, yet to be subject to the generall goverment; which caused some diferance and disturbance amongst them, as will after apeare. The Little James, which had been built by the Adventurers to stay in New England, could have been a great boon to the colonists, but it was plagued with bad fortune, a mutinous crew, a shipwreck, seizure by creditors in England (after it was salvaged), and finally capture by Barbary pirates.¹⁹

Since some sixty people were said to have arrived on the two ships for the General Body, and we can calculate from the number of acres allotted in the 1623 Division of Land that about ninety people must have arrived in all, it follows that some thirty of the newcomers must have been Particulars, who did not have to work or share with the others. In April 1624 the Charity arrived again with some passengers and goods, this time sent out by James Sherley, another of the Adventurers, and under the command of William Peirce, an Adventurer and frequent visitor to New England. Though a few more settlers arrived in various ships calling at Plymouth over the next few years, their numbers were limited by lack of support from the Merchant Adventurers.²⁰

All was not without cheer though. In the fall of 1621, prior to the arrival of the Fortune, the small group of survivors celebrated what has come to be known as the first Thanksgiving. This event was described by Edward Winslow:

Our harvest being gotten in, our Governour sent foure men on fowling, that so we might after a more speciall manner rejoyce together, after we had gathered the fruit of our labours; they foure in one day killed as much fowle, as with a little helpe beside, served the Company almost a weeke, at which time amongst other Recreations, we exercised our Armes, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest King Massasoyt, with some nintie men, whom for three dayes we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five Deere, which they brought to the Plantation and bestowed on our Governour, and upon the Captaine, and others. And although it be not alwayes so plentifull, as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodnesse of God, we are so farre from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plentie.²¹

Winslow was writing to attract new settlers, and he might have overstated the settlers’ being in general so farre from want. This is all we have from contemporary records about the first Thanksgiving, which was really more of a harvest festival. The word thanksgiving, which was not used in Winslow’s description, more commonly meant a day of fast and prayer.

Another early celebration was noted in a September 1623 letter from Emmanuel Altham, captain of the Little James, on the occasion of Governor William Bradford’s marriage to Alice (Carpenter) Southworth: And now to say somewhat of the great cheer we had at the Governor’s marriage. We had about twelve pasty venison, besides others, pieces of roasted venison and other such good cheer in such quantity that I could wish you some of our share. For here we have the best grapes that ever you [saw]—and the biggest, and divers sorts of plums and nuts which our business will not suffer us to look for. Bradford, whose first wife drowned in 1620 when the Mayflower anchored at Provincetown Harbor, took Alice Southworth for his second wife on 14 August 1623. She was the widow of Edward Southworth, a highly respected member of the Leiden group. Alice Southworth had just arrived in Plymouth on the Anne, and this was the fourth marriage in Plymouth, the first having been widower Edward Winslow’s on 12 May 1621 to Susanna, a Mayflower passenger recently widowed from William White. Bradford described how the colonists broke from the English tradition of marriage by clergy and adopted the laudable custome of the Low-cuntries, in which they had lived, [which] was thought most requisite to be performed by the magistrate, as being a civill thing, upon which many questions about inheritances doe depende.²²

In accordance with their agreement with the Adventurers, the settlers were to live virtually a socialistic life, sharing everything in common, for the first seven years. Then the profits of the company were to be totaled and divided according to the number of outstanding shares. But by 1623 many were complaining that the industrious ones were working to support the lazy ones. It was decided to give every man, woman, and child the use of one acre of land to be cultivated as they wished for their own crops, although they would still cultivate the greater common lands for the company. This is known as the Division of Land, and the records of it name all the heads of household who arrived on the Mayflower, Fortune, Anne, and Little James who were still living in Plymouth, plus the names of some of the wives who arrived on the Anne, and of others such as Phineas Pratt, together with the number of acres each received for self and dependents.²³

In 1624 two of the newer settlers, the Reverend John Lyford, who favored the Church of England and was an opportunist, and John Oldham, an adventurer in the modern sense of the word, brought to a head a number of complaints against the colony’s government. Lyford sent letters with passing ships to various people in England in an attempt to alienate influential supporters from the colony’s leaders. Bradford got word of this, and, going aboard one of the ships, he seized some letters and copied them, letting the originals go. Bradford then had a confrontation with Lyford and Oldham with the entire colony present. At first Lyford denied the accusations. When Bradford produced copies of his letters, Lyford excused himself by saying that he had merely been repeating what others were complaining about, mentioning John Billington, a rather undisciplined stranger who had come on the Mayflower, and some others whom Bradford did not identify. Billington and the others denied Lyford’s accusations, saying that they might sometimes have gone to Lyford’s meetings, but would not have consented to his proposals. Most likely Billington and the other dissidents had gone much further in supporting Lyford than they would admit, and many of the others are assumed to be among those who departed the colony in the next year or so. Bradford wrote to Robert Cushman on 9 June 1625, We have rid ourselves of the company of those, who have been so troublesome unto us. Oldham and Lyford were expelled from Plymouth; Oldham left immediately, but Lyford was allowed to stay for six months. Both later were involved in other adventures in New England. Billington remained at Plymouth, though, as will be told, he eventually came to a tragic end. Bradford’s decisive action undoubtedly strengthened the Separatist government for some time, but newer settlers were arriving at various times, and the population of Plymouth was becoming more diversified.²⁴

Captain John Smith wrote an excellent description of Plymouth in 1624:

At New Plimouth there is about 180 persons, some cattell and goats, but many swine and poultry, 32 dwelling houses, wherof 7 were burnt the last winter, and the value of five hundred pounds in other goods; the Towne is impailed about halfe a mile compasse. In the towne upon a high Mount they have a Fort well built with wood, lome, and stone, where is planted their Ordnance: Also a faire Watch-tower, partly framed for the Sentinell, the place it seemes is healthfull.... The most of them live together as one family or houshold, yet every man followeth his trade and profession both by sea and land, and all for a generall stocke, out of which they have all their maintenance, untill there be a divident betwixt the Planters and the Adventurers. Those Planters are not servants to the Adventurers here, but have only councells of directions from them...and all the master of families are partners in land or whatsoever, setting their labours against the stocke.... They have young men and boies for their Apprentises and servants, and some of them speciall families, as Ship-carpenters, Salt-makers, Fish-masters, yet as servants upon great wages.... There hath been a fishing this yeere upon the Coast about 50 English ships: and by Cape Anne, there is a Plantation a beginning by Dorchester men, which they hold of those of New-Plimouth, who also by them have set up a fishing worke.²⁵

The colonists’ relations with the Adventurers soon became considerably strained. Because of high interest rates, poor accounting, and perhaps some self-serving by Isaac Allerton and some of the Adventurers, the colony’s indebtedness to the Adventurers seemed to grow rather than decrease, in spite of some sizeable shipments of furs from Plymouth to England. For their part, many of the Adventurers were discouraged over lack of profits, and some sold out their interests to others at a loss. Since 1624 the Adventurers had been reluctant to finance more colonists, resulting in a slowing down of new immigrants, and also tending to strand those Separatists still in Leiden who wished to join their coreligionists or family. On one of his many trips to England, Isaac Allerton negotiated a new arrangement, and in late 1626 he obtained an agreement whereby the Adventurers sold for f1,800 all their interests in the colony to Allerton and the other Planters at Plymouth. These Old Planters, or Old Purchasers, were the heads of families of those then resident in Plymouth. They were later given privileges which allowed them advantageous grants of free land. The expression Old Comers was also used at this time, seemingly as a way of referring to those who had arrived prior to any given point in time; however, eventually this term came to encompass all who were resident in Plymouth by 1627.²⁶

In 1627 eight of Plymouth’s leading men, joined by four of the Adventurers in England who still wished to be associated with them, undertook the responsibility for payment of the entire debt to the Adventurers, in return for certain monopolies granted to them by their fellow colonists, such as the fur trade and other considerations. These men-called the Undertakers-were partly motivated by the knowledge that the debt rested mainly on their own credit and reputation anyway, and partly by a desire to bring more of their friends over from Holland. As Bradford wrote, Another reason which moved us to take this heavy burthen upon our shoulders was, our great desire to transport as many of our brethern of Leyden over on to us, as we could, but without this course we could never have done it, all here being (for peace and unity’s sake) made joint purchasers with us, and everyone thereby had as much interest as ourselves; and many were very opposite here against us in respect of the great charge. Bradford, Standish, and Allerton were apparently the initial Undertakers; being joined later by Winslow, Brewster, Howland, Alden, and Thomas Prence from Plymouth, and by James Sherley, John Beauchamp, Richard Andrews, and Timothy Hatherly from London. The agreement was signed on behalf of the Purchasers by twenty-seven men, Bradford noting that some would not subscribe, and some were from home.²⁷

In noting that many were very opposite, Bradford of course meant that many of the non-Separatists were opposed to having to pay for the transportation of the Separatists’ friends from Leiden. The balance between Separatist and non-Separatist was a delicate one. Though the Separatists and their supporters were in the majority and in control of the government, Bradford knew that he had to compromise at times to keep the colony together and to avoid a revolt. Bradford noted that they had some untowarde persons mixed amongst them from the first, and even though a number of them had left for Virginia and other places, yet diverse were still mingled amongst them, about whom Bradford and his council had serious discussions. In order to preserve peace and union, the government decided to take in all amongst them, that were either heads of families or single yonge men, that were of ability, and free [not servants], (and able to governe them selves with meete descretion, and their affairs, so as to be helpfull in the comone-welth,) into this partnership or purchass that Allerton had arranged with the Adventurers. As for servants, they had none, but what either their maisters should give them out of theirs, or their deservings should obtaine from the company afterwards.²⁸ Thus the Purchasers, Separatist and non-Separatist alike, became the favored ones for future Plymouth Colony land grants, but the formation of the Undertakers gave Bradford and his supporters the ability to bring over their friends without charging the costs to the entire colony. It is interesting to note that, although Myles Standish was not one of the Separatists, he played a prominent part as an Undertaker in realizing Separatist goals.

The demand for more privately-owned land was becoming quite pronounced by 1627, and probably as a by-product of the agreement between the Purchasers and the Undertakers, Bradford and the colony government agreed to give new land grants for private use to most of the settlers, excluding servants and perhaps some few not considered worthy. Each eligible single man received twenty acres, while heads of families received twenty acres per family member. Such an arrangement completely changed the original conditions of settlement.

The governor and four or five of the spetiall men amongst them were given the houses in which they lived, and the other houses were retained by their occupants on the basis of a valuation whereby those who had the better ones paid money for the benefit of those with the lesser ones.