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| Mayflower History & Myth |
In 1620, some wealthy Englishmen hired the Mayflower and the Speedwell to make a trip to start a colony in Northern Virginia. The Speedwell turned out to be a leaky ship, and so was unable to make the famous voyage with the Mayflower.
Christopher Jones was the captain of the Mayflower when it took the Pilgrims to New England in 1620. They came to the tip of Cape Cod (Massachusetts) on November 11, 1620.
Mayflower was a very common ship name, and other ships called the Mayflower made trips to New England; but none of them were the same ship that brought the Pilgrims to America.
The Mayflower stayed in America that winter, and it suffered the effects of the first winter just as the Pilgrims did, with almost half dying. The Mayflower set sail for home on April 5, 1621, arriving back May sixth. The ship made a few more trading runs, to Spain, Ireland, and lastly to France. However, Captain Christopher Jones died shortly thereafter, and was buried in England.
The exact size of the Mayflower is unknown. No pictures, paintings, or detailed description of the Mayflower exist today. However it is estimated the size of the Mayflower was about 113 feet long from the back rail to the front. A duplicate of the Mayflower, called the Mayflower II, is in Plymouth, Mass. Today it is a tourist attraction, and available for touring.
The voyage from Plymouth, England to Plymouth Harbor is about 2,750 miles, and took the Mayflower 66 days. The Mayflower left England with 102 passengers, including three pregnant women, and a crew of unknown number. One child was born at sea. After the Mayflower had arrived and was anchored in Provincetown Harbor off the tip of Cape Cod, Susanna White gave birth to a son. The Mayflower then sailed across the bay to Plymouth Harbor.
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There, Mary Allerton gave birth to a stillborn son. One passenger died while the Mayflower was at sea--a young man named William
Butten, a servant-apprentice to Dr. Samuel Fuller. The death occurred just three days before land was sighted. One Mayflower crew member also died at sea, but his name is not known. The men of the Mayflower wrote "The Mayflower Compact", a set of laws for the new colony. This was the first time that immigrants to the new country had set down rule of the majority. It is still used today. The place they stayed was called the Plymouth Colony. |
The Mayflower's Voyage :
DEPARTURE: The Mayflower left Plymouth, England on September 6, 1620
ARRIVAL: The Mayflower crew sighted land off Cape Cod on November 9, 1620, and first landfall was made November 11, 1620.
DISTANCE AND TIME: The voyage from Plymouth, England to Plymouth Harbor is about 2,750 miles, and took the Mayflower 66 days.
NUMBER OF PASSENGERS: The Mayflower left England with 102 passengers, including three pregnant women, and a crew of unknown number. While the Mayflower was at sea, Elizabeth Hopkins gave birth to a son which she named Oceanus. After the Mayflower had arrived and was anchored in Provincetown Harbor off the tip of Cape Cod, Susanna White gave birth to a son, which she named Peregrine (which means "one who has made a journey"). The Mayflower then sailed across the bay and anchored in Plymouth Harbor. There, Mary Allerton gave birth to a stillborn son. One passenger died while the Mayflower was at sea--a youth named William Butten, a servant-apprentice to Dr. Samuel Fuller. The death occurred just three days before land was sighted. One Mayflower crew member also died at sea, but his name is not known.
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Mayflower
Myth
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MYTH: The first Thanksgiving was in 1621 and the pilgrims celebrated it every year thereafter.
FACT: The first feast wasn't repeated, so it wasn't the beginning of a tradition. In fact, the colonists didn't even call the day Thanksgiving. To them, a thanksgiving was a religious holiday in which they would go to church and thank God for a specific event, such as the winning of a battle. On such a religious day, the types of recreational activities that the pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians participated in during the 1621 harvest feast--dancing, singing secular songs, playing games--wouldn't have been allowed. The feast was a secular celebration, so it never would have been considered a thanksgiving in the pilgrims minds.
MYTH: The original Thanksgiving feast took place on the fourth Thursday of November.
FACT: The original feast in 1621 occurred sometime between September 21 and November 11. Unlike our modern holiday, it was three days long. The event was based on English harvest festivals, which traditionally occurred around the 29th of September. President Franklin D. Roosevelt set the date for Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday of November in 1939 (approved by Congress in 1941). Abraham Lincoln had previously designated it as the last Thursday in November, which may have correlated it with the November 21, 1621, anchoring of the Mayflower at Cape Cod.
MYTH: The pilgrims wore only black and white clothing. They had buckles on their hats, garments, and shoes.
FACT: Buckles did not come into fashion until later in the seventeenth century and black and white were commonly worn only on Sunday and formal occasions. Women typically dressed in red, earthy green, brown, blue, violet, and gray, while men wore clothing in white, beige, black, earthy green, and brown.
MYTH: The pilgrims brought furniture with them on the Mayflower.
FACT: The only furniture that the pilgrims brought on the Mayflower was chests and boxes. They constructed wooden furniture once they settled in Plymouth.
MYTH: The Mayflower was headed for Virginia, but due to a navigational mistake it ended up in Cape Cod Massachusetts.
FACT: The Pilgrims were in fact planning to settle in Virginia, but not the modern-day state of Virginia. They were part of the Virginia Company, which had the rights to most of the eastern seaboard of the U.S. The pilgrims had intended to go to the Hudson River region in New York State, which would have been considered "Northern Virginia," but they landed in Cape Cod instead. Treacherous seas prevented them from venturing further south
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