Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor by William Halsall (1882) |
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| Career | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Mayflower |
| Owner: | Christopher Jones (¼ of the ship) |
| Operator: | Christopher Jones |
| Route: | numerous, but the most famous route is: Southampton to America |
| Acquired: | ca. 1607 |
| Maiden voyage: | Before 1607 |
| Out of service: | March 1622 |
| Fate: | Sold and taken apart in May 1624 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Dutch cargo fluyt |
| Tonnage: | 180 |
| Length: | ca. 100 ft. |
| Decks: | Around 4 |
| Propulsion: | Wind |
| Capacity: | Unknown, but carried ca. 135 people during the historical voyage to Plymouth |
| Crew: | 25–30 |
The Mayflower was the ship that transported the English Separatists, better known as the Pilgrims, from a site near the Mayflower Steps in Plymouth, England, to Plymouth, Massachusetts (which would become the capital of Plymouth Colony), in 1620.[1] There were 102 passengers and a crew of 25–30.
The vessel left England on September 6, 1620 (Old Style)/September 16 (New Style),[2] and after a grueling 66-day journey marked by disease, which claimed two lives, the ship dropped anchor inside the hook tip of Cape Cod (Provincetown Harbor) on November 11/November 21.[1][3] The Mayflower was originally destined for the mouth of the Hudson River, near present-day New York City, at the northern edge of England's Virginia colony, which itself was established with the 1607 Jamestown Settlement.[4] However, the Mayflower went off course as the winter approached, and remained in Cape Cod Bay. On March 21/31, 1621, all surviving passengers, who had inhabited the ship during the winter, moved ashore at Plymouth, and on April 5/15, the Mayflower, a privately commissioned vessel, returned to England.[1] In 1623, a year after the death of captain Christopher Jones, the Mayflower was most likely dismantled for scrap timber in Rotherhithe, London.[5]
The Mayflower has a famous place in American history as a symbol of early European colonization of the future United States. According to popular history, English Dissenters called Pilgrims undertook the voyage to escape religious persecution in England.[6]
The main record for the voyage of the Mayflower and the disposition of the Plymouth Colony comes from William Bradford, who was a guiding force and later the governor of the colony.
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The Mayflower was used mostly as a cargo ship in the trade of goods (often wine) between England and France, but also Norway, Germany and Spain.[7][8] Like many ships of the time (such as the Santa Maria) the Mayflower was most likely a carrack with three masts, square-rigged on the foremast and mainmast but lateen-rigged on the mizzenmast. The ship's dimensions are unknown but estimates based on its load weight and the typical size of 180-ton merchant ships of its day suggest a length of 90–110 feet (27.4–33.5 m) and a width of about 25 feet (7.6 m).[7]
At least between 1609 and 1622 it was based in Rotherhithe, London, England[1] and mastered by Christopher Jones, who commanded the ship on its famous transatlantic voyage. The Mayflower had a crew of twenty-five to thirty,[8] along with other hired personnel. The names of five are known, John Alden among them.[8] William Bradford, in the only known account of the Pilgrim voyage, wrote that Alden "was hired for a cooper [barrel-maker], at South-Hampton, where the ship victuled; and being a hopefull yong man, was much desired, but left to his owne liking to go or stay when he came here; but he stayed, and maryed here."[9]
After leaving the separatists at Plymouth the Mayflower sailed back to England and was perhaps broken up for scrap lumber in Rotherhithe in 1623, only a year after Jones's death in March 1622. Some sources have said the Mayflower Barn near Jordans in Buckinghamshire, England, a village with some Quaker history, was built from these timbers, but while the barn likely was built with wood drawn from some unknown ship, any link with lumber from the Mayflower has not been documented and moreover, the farm was named before the ship.[10]
Initially, the plan was for the voyage to be made in two vessels, the other being the smaller Speedwell, which had transported some of the Pilgrims embarking on the voyage from Delfshaven in the Netherlands to Southampton, England.
The first voyage of the ships departed Southampton,[11] on August 5/15, 1620, but the Speedwell developed a leak, and had to be refitted at Dartmouth on August 17/27.
On the second attempt, the ships reached the Atlantic Ocean but again were forced to return to Plymouth because of the Speedwell's leak. It would later be revealed that there was in fact nothing wrong with the Speedwell. The Pilgrims believed that the crew had, through aspects of refitting the ship, and their behavior in operating it, sabotaged the voyage in order to escape the year-long commitment of their contract.[12]
After reorganization, the final sixty-six day voyage was made by the Mayflower alone, leaving from a site near to the Mayflower Steps in Plymouth, England on September 6/16.[11] With 102 passengers plus crew, each family was allotted a very confined amount of space for personal belongings. The Mayflower stopped off at Newlyn in Cornwall to take on water.[13]
The intended destination was an area near the Hudson River, in "North Virginia." However the ship was forced far off-course by inclement weather and drifted well north of the intended Virginia settlement. As a result of the delay, the settlers did not arrive in Cape Cod until after the onset of a harsh New England winter. The settlers ultimately failed to reach Virginia where they had already obtained permission from the London Company to settle, because of difficulties navigating the treacherous waters off the southeast corner of Cape Cod.[14]
To establish legal order and to quell increasing strife within the ranks, the settlers wrote and signed the Mayflower Compact after the ship dropped anchor at the tip of Cape Cod on November 11/21, in what is now Provincetown Harbor.[1]
The settlers, upon initially setting anchor, explored the snow-covered area and discovered an empty Native American village. The curious settlers dug up some artificially made mounds, some of which stored corn while others were burial sites. Nathaniel Philbrick claims that the settlers stole the corn and looted and desecrated the graves,[15] sparking friction with the locals.[16] Philbrick goes on to say that as they moved down the coast to what is now Eastham, they explored the area of Cape Cod for several weeks, looting and stealing native stores as they went.[17] He then writes about how they decided to relocate to Plymouth after a difficult encounter with the local native Americans, the Nausets, at First Encounter Beach, in December 1620.
However, Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation records that they took "some" of the corn to show the others back at the boat, leaving the rest. Then, later they took what they needed from another store of grain, paying the locals back in six months, which they gladly received.
Also there was found more of their corn and of their beans of various colors; the corn and beans they brought away, purposing to give them full satisfaction when they should meet with any of them as, about some six months afterward they did, to their good content.[4]
During the winter the passengers remained on board the Mayflower, suffering an outbreak of a contagious disease described as a mixture of scurvy, pneumonia and tuberculosis.[1] When it ended, there were only 53 passengers, just more than half, still alive. Likewise, half of the crew died as well.[1] In spring, they built huts ashore, and on March 21/31, 1621, the surviving passengers left the Mayflower.[1]
On April 5/15, 1621, the Mayflower set sail from Plymouth to return to England,[1] where she arrived on May 6/16, 1621.[18]
The Mayflower left England with 102 passengers plus crew. One baby was born en route, and a second was born during the winter of 1620-1621, when the company wintered aboard ship in Provincetown Harbor. One child died during the voyage, and there was one stillbirth during the construction of the colony. Many of the passengers were Pilgrims fleeing persistent religious persecution, but some were hired hands, servants, or farmers recruited by London merchants for the originally intended destination in Virginia. Four of this latter group of passengers were small children, given into the care of Mayflower pilgrims. Until relatively recently the children were thought to be orphans or foundlings, but in the 1990s it was conclusively shown[19] that the four More children were sent to America because they were illegitimate, and the source of great controversy in England. Three of the four children died in the first winter in the New World, but the survivor, Richard More, lived to be 81, dying in Salem, probably in 1695 or 1696.[19]
The Mayflower passengers were the earliest permanent European settlers in New England.
A second ship called the Mayflower made a voyage from London to Plymouth Colony in 1629 carrying 35 passengers, many from the Pilgrim congregation in Leiden that organized the first voyage. This was not the same ship that made the original voyage with the first settlers. This voyage began in May and reached Plymouth in August. This ship also made the crossing from England to America in 1630, 1633, 1634, and 1639. It attempted the trip again in 1641, departing London in October of that year under master John Cole, with 140 passengers bound for Virginia. It never arrived. On October 18, 1642 a deposition was made in England regarding the loss.[20]
After World War II, an effort began to reenact the voyage of the Mayflower. With cooperation between Project Mayflower and Plimoth Plantation, a speculative replica of the ship was designed by naval architect William A. Baker and launched September 22, 1956 from Devon, England, setting sail in the spring of 1957. Captained by Alan Villiers, the voyage ended in Plymouth Harbor, USA after 55 days, on June 13, 1957, to great acclaim.
The ship is moored to this day at State Pier in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and is open to visitors.[21]
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