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The '''Mayflower''' was the famous ship that transported the Pilgrims from Plymouth, England, to Plymouth, Massachusetts (which would become the capital of Plymouth Colony) in 1620.

"The Pilgrim-Fathers’ Voyage with the 'Mayflower'" (history),
Bjoern Moritz, 2003, ''ShipsOnStamps.org'' webpage:
SoS-Pilgrim:
states, "The 'Mayflower' was employed bringing wine from the Mediterranean to England and outward bound, she carried furs and bales of cloth to France"
and "anchored off today's Provincetown in the Bay of Cape Cod"
and "December 15 the 'Mayflower' sailed to this place...called Plymouth"
and "throughout the winter the passengers remained on board"
and "contagious disease...mixture of scurvy, pneumonia & tuberculosis"
and "53 persons still alive, half of the Pilgrims, half of the crew"
and "March 21, 1621, the surviving passengers left the 'Mayflower'"
and "on April 5 Captain Jones sailed back to England with an empty ship"
and "November 11, 1621, the ship 'Fortune' arrived...with 35 settlers."

The vessel left England on September 6, and after a gruelling journey marked by disease, the ship dropped anchor inside the hook tip of Cape Cod (Provincetown Harbor) on November 11 (dates in Old Style, Julian Calendar). The ''Mayflower'' originally was destined for the Hudson River, north of the 1607 Jamestown Settlement.
^[1]
However, the ''Mayflower'' went severely off-course as the winter approached and remained in Cape Cod Bay (mapped in 1602 by Gosnold).
On March 21, 1621, all surviving passengers, who had inhabited the ship during the winter, moved ashore as Plymouth Colony, and on April 5, the ''Mayflower,'' a privately commissioned vessel, returned to England (details below).
In 1623, a year after the death of captain Christopher Jones, the ''Mayflower'' was most likely dismantled for scrap lumber in Rotherhithe, London, England.^[2]

''Mayflower'' arrived inside the tip of Cape Cod fishhook, 11 November 1620

Contents

Ship

Replica

Pilgrims' voyage

Passengers

Second Mayflower

Mayflower II

Popular culture

Notes

See also

External links

Ship

The ''Mayflower'' was used primarily as a cargo ship, involved in active trade of goods (often wine) between England and other European countries,

"The Mayflower's Crew" (biographies),
MayflowerHistory.com, 2007, webpage:
[1].

(principally France, but also Norway, Germany, and Spain). At least between 1609 and 1622, it was mastered by Christopher Jones, who would command the ship on the famous transatlantic voyage, and based in Rotherhithe, London, England. After the famous voyage of the Mayflower, the ship returned to England, likely dismantled for scrap lumber in Rotherhithe in 1623, only a year after Jones's death in March 1622. The Mayflower Barn, just outside the Quaker village of Jordans, in Buckinghamshire, England, is said to be built from these timbers.
Details of 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 an estimated length of 90–110 feet (27.4–33.5 m) and a width of about 25 feet (7.6 m). The ship was manned by a crew of 25-30.

Replica

Careful research went into designing a replica, the ''Mayflower II'' (launched September 22, 1956), to resemble its namesake in every detail. This vessel is now part of the Plimoth Plantation living museum, near Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Pilgrims' voyage

The Mayflower Memorial in Southampton.

Initially, the plan was for the voyage to be made in two vessels, the other being the smaller ''Speedwell''.
The first voyage of the ships departed Southampton, England,

"Press Kit - Mayflower II" (with history of the ''Mayflower''),
Plimouth Plantation Museum, 2004, ''Plimouth.org'' webpage:
PlimouthOrg-MayflowerBG.

on August 5, 1620; but the ''Speedwell'' developed a leak, and had to be refitted at Dartmouth.
On the second attempt, the ships reached the Atlantic Ocean but again were forced to return to Dartmouth because of the ''Speedwell's leak.
It would later be revealed that there was in fact nothing wrong with the ''Speedwell''. The crew had sabotaged it in order to escape the year long commitment of their contract.
After reorganisation, the final sixty-six day voyage was made by the ''Mayflower'' alone, leaving Plymouth, England on September 6. With 102 passengers plus crew, each family was allotted a very confined amount of space for personal belongings.
The ship probably had a crew of twenty-five to thirty, along with other hired personnel; however, only the names of five are known, including John Alden.[2] William Bradford, who penned our only account of the ''Mayflower'' voyage, wrote that John Alden (archaic spellings) "''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.''"
^[3]
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 till 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.
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, in what is now Provincetown Harbor.
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 had stored corn while others were burial sites. The settlers stole the corn, sparking friction with the locals.^[4] They explored the area of Cape Cod for several weeks and decided to relocate after a difficult encounter with the local native Americans, the Nausets.
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. When it ended, there were only 53 persons still alive, half of the passengers and half of the crew. In spring, they built huts ashore, and on March 21, 1621, the surviving passengers left the 'Mayflower'.
On April 5, 1621, the ''Mayflower'' set sail from Plymouth to return to England, where she arrived on May 6, 1621.^[5]

Passengers

The 102 passengers on the ''Mayflower'' were the earliest permanent European settlers in New England (remember that the Jamestown settlers were the first permanent English settlement in what would become the United States); some of their descendants have taken great interest in tracing their ancestry back to one or more of these Pilgrims. (See The Society of Mayflower Descendants, "List of passengers on the ''Mayflower''" for a complete accounting. See also "List of ''Mayflower'' passengers who died in the winter of 1620–1621".) Throughout the winter, the passengers spent time ashore preparing homesites and searching for food but partly remained based aboard the ''Mayflower''. Only about half of the settlers would still be alive when the ''Mayflower'' left in the spring. Governor Bradford noted that about half the sailors died as well.

Second Mayflower

In 1629, a ship called the ''Mayflower'' made a voyage from London to Plymouth Colony carrying thirty-five passengers, many from Leiden. 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.

Mayflower II

Main articles: Mayflower II

After World War II, an effort began to reenact the voyage of the Mayflower. With cooperation between Project Mayflower and Plimoth Plantation, an accurate replica of the original (designed by naval architect William A. Baker) was launched in 1956 from Devonshire, England, and set sail in the spring of 1957. Captained by Alan Villiers, the voyage ended in Plymouth Harbor after 55 days on June 13, 1957 to great acclaim.
The ship is moored to this day at State Pier in Plymouth, and is open to visitors.^[6]

Popular culture

The ''Mayflower'' voyage and the ship became famous as an icon of a perilous one-way trip to a new life, with many things named for it:

★ The Mayflower is the emblem of the English football club Plymouth Argyle F.C., who are known as "The Pilgrims" (nickname).

★ Songwriter Paul Simon mentions the ship in his "American Tune" (song).

★ Folk/Rock singer Bob Dylan mentions the ship in his song "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" on the album ''Bringing It All Back Home''.

★ The space-shuttle parody in the movie '' is called ''Mayflower One''.
Many Americans believe themselves to be descended from ''Mayflower'' passengers, e.g. that somebody's ancestors go "all the way back to the ''Mayflower''".
^[7]
While the Mayflower brought one early settlement, it can be compared to other settlements in North America:

★ The Mayflower sailed in 1620, but Virginia was settled in 1607 at Jamestown, 1610 at Hampton, 1611 at Henricus, 1613 at Newport News, 1613 at New Bermuda, and several other Virginia settlements which pre-date Plymouth. Virginia even had black indentured servants by 1619 and a population of about 4,500 in 1623.^[8] Also, Albany, New York, was settled by the Dutch in 1614, Santa Fe, New Mexico by the Spanish in 1610, and St. Augustine, Florida dates back to the 16th century.

★ Considering Puerto Rico, the towns of Caparra and Old San Juan would be the first European settlement in the USA, in 1508.^[9]

★ Centuries earlier, 500 years before the voyage of Christopher Columbus, the Vikings, from Scandinavia, had established a permanent settlement in Greenland (see: ''Western Settlement (Greenland)'') from 1000 A.D. until circa 1500 A.D. That settlement lasted 500 years, almost 100 years older than the entire colonial history of the United States. In addition, the archeological site at L'Anse aux Meadows, on the coast near the northern tip of Newfoundland in Canada, has also been identified as a 10th or 11th century Viking settlement site.
However, with the ''Mayflower'' voyage in 1620, more emphasis is placed on the so-called "First Thanksgiving" and the peaceful co-existence with the native Wampanoag tribe, as issues of civilized culture, among the 13 original colonies of the U.S.

Notes

1.
Bradford (original destination: Hudson River), webpage:
GTC-Brad.

2. Mayflower Ship Facts
3.
"JOHN ALDEN" (history),
Pilgrim Hall Museum, 1998-07-14, ''PilgrimHall.org'' webpage:
PilgrimHall-Alden-John:
was "hired for a cooper" at Southampton, England.

4.
A Relation or Journal of the Beginning and Proceeding of the English Plantation Settled at Plymouth, , Edward, Winslow, John Bellamie, ,

5.
"Saga Of The Pilgrims" (historical analysis),
John Harris, Globe Newspaper Co., 1983, webpages (no links between):
UCcom-saga1 and
UCcom-saga11:
states, "Mayflower reached London in roughly a month, May 6,
a quick passage."

6. http://www.plimoth.org/press/mayflowerBG.php
7.
"Stories in our December 2001 issue include" (on genealogy research),
''Family Tree Magazine'', 2001, ''FamilyTreeMagazine.com'' webpage:
FamilyTree-Dec2001:
contains expression in "Whether your New England roots go back to the Mayflower."

8.
"Virginia Records Timeline 1553-1743" (history),
The Thomas Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress, American Memories, webpage:
LOC-TJPapers:
in August 1619, the first African slaves were brought to Virginia by
Captain Jope in a Dutch ship. Governor Yeardley and the merchant Abraham Piersey
exchanged twenty slaves for supplies; however, these Africans became
indentured servants like white men trading passage for servitude.

9.
"Guaynabo -- Encyclopædia Britannica" (with history of Puerto Rico),
''Encyclopædia Britannica'', 2006, ''Britannica.com'' webpage:
EB-Guaynabo-Puerto-Rico:
names: Caparra, the first Spanish settlement of Puerto Rico (1508).

See also

★ Susan Constant

★ Godspeed (ship)

★ Discovery (1602 ship)

External links

★

★ Mayflower passengers from MayflowerHistory.com

★ Mayflower history from MayflowerHistory.com

★ Pilgrim Hall Museum of Plymouth, Massachusetts

★ General Society of Mayflower Descendants

★ The Mayflower And Her Log; Azel Ames, Project Gutenberg edition.

★ The Straight Dope: "Did the Pilgrims land on Plymouth Rock because they ran out of beer?"

★ Mayflower Descendants Chart.

★ Pilgrims and the Mayflower Mayflower Interior Pictured

★ Admiral MacBride Pub Built upon the original Mayflower Steps from where the pilgrim fathers set sail for America.

★ Mayflower shiplist and descendants.