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Written by John M. Hunt, Jr., PhD
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On this website we have a list of distinguished people descended from Mayflower passengers, such as John Adams, Franklin Roosevelt, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Grandma" Moses, Alan Shepherd, and George W. Bush. It is tempting to expand the list. Whom would you add? What qualities does your suggested descendant possess in common with his or her Pilgrim ancestor? |
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Written by Stacy B. C. Wood, Jr.
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 “Pilgrim 400” celebrates “one of Immingham’s proudest moments in1608 as members of a separatist congregation, refusing to comply with religious discrimination in their native England, boarded a Dutch ship moored in a quiet haven near the hamlet of Immingham and sailed for a new life in the Netherlands” writes Shona McIsaac, member of the British Parliament representing that Lincolnshire, England town.
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Written by John M. Hunt, Jr., PhD
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 John Trumbull, aide-de-camp of George Washington, father of American historical painting, the man through whose eyes generations of school children have seen the Revolutionary War, had Mayflower heritage. His mother Faith Robinson, born in Duxbury, MA, was related to Mayflower passengers John Alden and William Mullins: Faith5 Robinson, Hannah4 Wiswall, Priscilla3 Pabody, Elizabeth2 Alden, John1 Alden. What is more, John Trumbull emphatically valued the Pilgrims. "The whole world," he wrote, "is deeply indebted to those venerable men for the great example of fortitude and perseverance which they gave" (letter to James Thacher, 1 May 1835, New York, now in Pilgrim Hall). |
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Written by Stacy B.C. Wood, Jr.
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 Ask "the man (or woman) on the street" what he (or she) knows about the Pilgrims, and you will probably be told that they (1) celebrated the First Thanksgiving with the Indians, (2) came to America on the Mayflower in 1620 to find religious freedom, (3) landed on Plymouth Rock. Some may even know that half of them died the first winter. Few will know that the majority of them had spent at least a dozen years in Holland. As descendants and members, hopefully we know a little more. |
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Written by Rev. Dr. Robert Merrill Bartlett, MSMD
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 Memorial Address at the Sarcophagus, Cole's Hill, Plymouth, Massachusetts, September 11, 1966 by the Rev. Dr. Robert Merrill Bartlett, Elder, Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants. Published in the February 1967 issue of The Mayflower Quarterly. We are grateful to Lois B. Masterson, coincidentally, the 1999 recipient of this State Society's Most Distinguished Pilgrim Award, an award of which Dr. Bartlett was the first recipient in 1990, for suggesting that the article be included on our website, and to Alice C. Teal, Mayflower Quarterly Editor, for permission to do so.
Dr. Bartlett died in 1995.
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Written by Robert Jennings Heinsohn, Ph.D.
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The activities of Isaac Allerton in Leiden and Plymouth are well known. Well known also are the circumstances concerning his dismissal as Plymouth's London agent. The purpose of this article is to piece together information describing his activities after he left Plymouth in 1631 until his death in 1659. To appreciate Allerton's activities it is useful to summarize developments in the English, Dutch and Swedish colonies during the time he pursued his trading activities. |
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Written by Robert Jennings Heinsohn, PhD
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Mayflower passengers John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley were married in 1623/4. John was about thirty-one and Elizabeth was about sixteen. They spent their entire lives in Plymouth, and between them participated in every aspect of the Pilgrim experience from its beginning in Leiden up to the merger of the Bay and Plymouth colonies. This article is a retrospective summary of their lives and their contribution to Plymouth. |
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Written by Duane A. Cline, GSMD
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Modern history easily confuses the Mayflower Pilgrims with the Puritans who followed later in the 17th Century. |
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Written by Robert Jennings Heinsohn, PhD
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Isaac Allerton and his sister Sarah were members of John Robinson's congregation in Leiden in 1609. As time passed the congregation recognized the extraordinary organizational abilities of Isaac Allerton. By the time the congregation left Holland Isaac had become one of its prominent members. In 1620 Isaac, his wife Mary (Norris), and children Bartholomew, Remember and Mary arrived in Plymouth. Allerton's wife died during the first winter. When Governor John Carver died, Isaac was elected Assistant Governor to William Bradford. For several years Isaac was second only to Bradford. In 1623 Allerton married Fear Brewster, daughter of Ruling Elder William Brewster. They had a son Isaac in 1627. In 1625 Robert Cushman, the colony's London agent, died and Bradford appointed Allerton as the London agent.
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Written by John M. Hunt, Jr., PhD
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Pilgrim Richard More, whose gravestone is pictured on this page, was one of two male children on the Mayflower who started family lines in America and yet were too young to sign the Mayflower Compact. (The other was Henry Samson.) Richard is further interesting as the Pilgrim who, landing with the Separatists in Plymouth on the South Shore, went on to become a genuine Puritan, an inhabitant of Salem on the North Shore. He is also the only Mayflower passenger whose place of burial is marked by a gravestone laid at the exact time of burial. |
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The Mayflower, for which the ship of the Pilgrims is named, is Epigea repens. It is better known as Trailing Arbutus. It is a trailing evergreen belonging to the Heath Family with a white flower with a pink center. Although it is said to be one of the choicest wild flowers of the Eastern United States, it is not a common plant in cultivation despite the many attempts to establish it in gardens. It requires an acid, peaty soil in a shady place, and seems to like association with Hemlock. It is said that the dried leaves are slightly astringent and are used as a tonic and diuretic in much the same way as 'Uva ursi' and 'Chimaphila' are used. 