The year after the House of Burgesses (Jamestown, Virginia) met for the first time, the Pilgrims of the Mayflower founded the second permanent English settlement in America. Their arrival in 1620 has always been presented as another of history's lucky accidents. But was it?

Had captain Christopher Jones of the Mayflower, turned the ship when he was supposed to, the little band would have gone to its intended destination, the mouth of the Hudson, future site of New York, and a settlement within the bounds of the Virginia Company's charter and authority. Instead, the ship kept a westerly route - the result of a bribe to Jones and his men - and in November 1620, the band of pioneers found safe harbor in Cape Cod Bay, coming ashore at the site of present day Provincetown. Of the 102 men, women, and children aboard the small ship, fifty were so-called pilgrims.

The pilgrims were separatists who felt that the Church of England was not far enough away from the Roman Catholic Church. They wanted to "purify" the church (and were thus called Puritans); obviously not a popular notion in Queen Elizabeth I's time.

Among the crew of the Mayflower, (and staunch Church of England members) where Christopher Jones, Ships Captain; Miles Standish, an army captain; and John Alden, the ships cooper, or barrel maker. These men were involved in the so-called bribe to move the puritan pilgrims from the Virginia Company lands. Payment to these men for signing on for the voyage was the promise of land ownership in the New World.

The non-Pilgrims or "strangers", as they have become known, announced that they would be free from any commands. The Pilgrim leaders and Captain Jones composed a short statement of self-government and required all men on board to sign it. This agreement, the MAYFLOWER COMPACT, is considered the first written constitution in North America.

John Alden settled in Plymouth, called Patuxet by the Indians, when the Pilgrims arrived there in 1620. He married Pricilla Mullens there in 1622. He was widowed in 1685 and did not remarry.

John Alden was from Harwich, Essex, England. A member of the Church of England, he converted to the Pilgrim faith after arriving in the New World. He became one of the colony leaders. He served as an assistant governor most of the time from about 1631 until he died. He also served as treasurer from 1656 until 1658. In 1634 he was held on a charge of murder because he had favored defending a Plymouth outpost against attack, which resulted in the death of two men. He was acquitted of the charges. A stern, unyielding man, he led the persecution of Quakers and Baptists. About 1632 he moved his family to Duxbury, Massachusetts. His homestead has been preserved.

His offspring include Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Cullen Bryant, and John Adams, and John Quincy Adams. ____________

JOHN ALDEN AND PRISCILLA MULLINS

John Alden and Priscilla Mullins (var: Mullens, Molines), were immigrant passengers on the ship "Mayflower", landing in New England in 1620. John is recorded as " a hopeful young man", and had been hired on at Southampton, England. He was not a member of the Pilgrim group that had left Holland for the voyage to America, but was hired on just before departure to make barrels and perform other duties. He was "left to his owne liking to go or stay when he came here; but he stayed, and maryed here" : from chronicles of William Bradford.

John Alden became successful as a cooper and farmer and in business, enough so to become one of eight bondsmen in Plymouth who assumed responsibility for the Colonial debt. Later, he moved to Duxbury and took over a farm near his friend Miles Standish. For many years John was assistant to the governor of Plymouth Colony. He died on September 12, 1687, in Duxbury, and was buried near Standish.

Priscilla was the daughter of William Mullins and his wife, and had one brother, Joseph. Father, mother, and Joseph all died in the first winter. Their servant, Robert Carter, also died the first winter. The spelling of their surname varies from entry to entry, although MULLINS is the most common. Variations include Mullens, Molien, Moline, Molines, and Molens. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow made John Alden and Priscilla Mullins famous in his poem "The Courtship of Miles Standish". It tells how Alden courted Priscilla Mullins (or Molines) for Standish until she asked, "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?". Originally to be titled "Priscilla", midway through he changed the title to that which the poem now bears. The incident of Priscilla's reply, on which the story turns, was a tradition. John Alden was a maternal ancestor of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: his mother's maiden name was Zilpah Wadsworth and descended from Elizabeth Alden, daughter of John and Priscilla. Elizabeth was an older sister of Joseph Alden, from whom the VanGelder line descends.

THE SHIP 'MAYFLOWER'

The Mayflower was a small, typical, merchant vessel which made a storm-tossed voyage across the wintry Atlantic Ocean in the year 1620. The 66 day trip carried the ship into an honored place in American history. Crowded on board were the men, women, and children who founded Plymouth, the first permanent colony in North America founded by families. These people, now called Pilgrims, were the first colonists who came to gain religious liberty. They were also the first to draw up a written agreement providing for "such a government and governors as we should by commonn consent agree to make and choose". This historic document was made and signed while still on board ship, and is known as the MAYFLOWER COMPACT.

The ship set sail from Plymouth, England on September 16th, 1630 with Captain Christopher Jones in command. No authentic plans or dimensions of the Mayflower are known to exist. Naval architects, however, have made models based on designs of other merchant vessels of the day. The ship was a three-masted vessel of about 180 tons: in this day, it meant she could load 180 "tuns", or double hogsheads, of wine in her hold. She had been in the wine trade with France for at least twelve years before this charter, and was at least twenty years old when she sailed for America. Leakage from the wine casks over a space of years neutralized the garbage and other filth that sailors threw into the hold, and may explain why the Pilgrims lost only one of their members to sickness. She was a fast ship, relatively, since the return voyage to England took only thirty-one days; that would be a good run by a sailing vessel of her size even today.

Her overall length is estimated to have been 90 feet; beam (width) was about 26 feet (8 meters). The stern rose 27 feet above the waterline when fully loaded. The depth of her hold from the topdeck to the inside of the keel was 17 feet, and she drew, loaded, about two fathom (12 feet) of water. Two decks ran the length of the ship. Below the main deck was the gun deck, with about five feet head room. The forecastle rose from the main deck in the bow. It contained quarters for the crew of 30, and also the galley where the crew's food was prepared. At the stern the poop house and the poop deck sat above the half-deck. Here there were two fair-size cabins normally used as quarters for the ship's officers. Underneath was the 'steerage', where a sailor steered by a whipstaff attached to the tiller: Steering wheels and gear were not invented until the eighteenth century. The helmsman could not see where he was going, so had to be directed or "conned", as we still say, by the officer of the deck through an open hatch in the poop deck. The ship had three masts, and in all about seventy-five different lines in the running rigging. Every ship of that time was armed, and the Mayflower probably carried several long guns called "minions", which fired a four-pound cannonball, and some lighter pieces called "slakers". Some of the minions were later mounted on the fort at Plymouth. No live cattle or livestock were taken, but some passengers brought pets. They used a spaniel and a mastiff to hunt deer the first winter ashore.

The ship's master was Christopher Jones of Rotherhithe on the Thames. He had commanded the Mayflower for twelve years and owned a quarter-share of the ship. He has been depicted in several movies as a ruffian and untrustworthy, but that is historically nonsense: the Pilgrims spoke highly of him, and he stood by them well through their first winter. In fact, they named the Jones River after him. Two masters mates had been to America before. John Clarke had been kidnapped by a Spanish caravel at the Chesapeake in 1611, and kept in a Spanish prison for four years. Robert Coppin had also been to New England. Besides these, there were a boatswain, a surgeon, a gunner, and a cook. There were about twenty seamen, the usual rough sailors of the time, religious in a way but disliking the frequent prayers and psalm-singing of the passengers. One 'very profane' seaman who was always cursing the seasick passengers, and threatening to throw them overboard, became ill himself and died at sea.

Historians have wondered how more than 100 passengers found sleeping space. Some have guessed that if the officers gave up most of their space, perhaps 54 parents and children could sleep in tiers of double bunks there. Single men and boys could bed down on hammocks between decks. Nobody had privacy. There were no sanitary facilities. Fresh water was too scarce for washing, and the stench in the quarters must have been offensive.

They finally reached North America, although considerably north of Virginia where their patent called for settlement. Thus they were outside the jurisdiction of the London company. For this reason, they drew up the Compact. First mooring was made at Cape Cod on November 11, 1620, then mooring was made in Provincetown Harbor on November 21, 1620. Then the ship moved to a mooring offshore from Plymouth, the final choice for the colony to build. This was on December 11th. Because of the weather building did not commence until December 25th, and several months went by before the settlers could all permanently leave the ship. In the meantime many of the deaths occurred, mostly from sickness. One infant was born as the ship lay anchored at Cape Cod.

According to the history of the Plymouth Colony written by Mr. William Bradford, the second Governor of the Colony, of the Mayflower company he says: "These being about a hundred souls, came over in that ship....of the one hundred persons who came over together, the greatest half died in the general mortality, and most of them in two or three months time". Omitting the two hired sailors who returned after a year, and counting the one person that died and the child born during the passage, we have the exact number - one hundred - of the Pilgrim company, and fifty-one died the first season; this makes good the above words of Mr. Bradford, that " the greater half died in the general mortality".

Source: "The Original Lists of Persons of Quality", 1600 to 1700, from manuscripts preserved in State Paper Dept. of the Public Record Office, England, Edited by John Camden Hotten, Published by Chatto + Windus, London, 1874. Source: Compton's Family Encyclopedia Source: LDS Ancestral Files. Source: County, State records: CT, MA, NY. Source: Governor William Bradford "Of Plimouth Plantation": after 1630 but not printed in full until 1856.