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'Captain Myles Standish' Kt. (c. 1584 – October 3, 1656), (sometimes spelled ''Miles'' Standish) was an English-born professional soldier hired by the Pilgrims as military advisor for Plymouth colony. Arriving on the ''Mayflower'', he worked on colonial defense. On February 17, 1621, he was appointed the first commander of Plymouth colony. Later, he served as Plymouth's representative in England, and served as assistant governor and as the colony's treasurer. He was also one of the founders of the town of Duxbury, Massachusetts (named after his ancestoral seat at Duxbury Woods, Chorley) in 1632.
Standish is often remembered for his bravery in battle and his reputation as the military captain of the Pilgrims, as well as a character in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's fictitious poem ''The Courtship of Miles Standish''.
The former Fort Standish, located on Lovell's Island, Massachusetts, was named in his honor, as well as the town of Standish, Maine.

Contents

Early life

In America

Plymouth Colony

Duxbury

Notable descendants

External links

Early life

Standish was born about 1584 (though some put his birth later around 1587, [add] according to his age 37 and the date on the only known portrait, painted on his return visit to England in 1625). According to Nathaniel Morton writing in ''New Englands Memorial'' (1669) and records from the town of Chorley, Myles was from Chorley, Lancashire, Great Britain. In the 20th century, researchers attempted to place his birth at Ellanbane, Isle of Man, rather than in Lancashire. This issue has been widely debated, even becoming the subject of a ''Wall Street Journal'' article in the Thanksgiving 2004 issue.
The Standish name was well-known throughout North West England and there are many buildings still standing there today named for the Standish family. His alleged birth home, Standish Hall, was auctioned at the Empress Hall, Wigan, in March 1921, failing to make a reserve price of £4,800. The remaining part of the Hall was finally demolished in 1982. No historian has ever claimed Standish Hall as his birth home; it was, however, the home of his "great-grandfather Standish of Standish", as named in his will. The Tudor part of Standish Hall was bought for shipping to America; it disappeared. The top floor of the Hall was used to build a house lower down the hill. The Hall was demolished by the Coal Board. The other ancestral seat of the Standishes was Duxbury Hall, in Chorley, which still stands today in the form of the old barn. Duxbury Hall, built in the early 1600s, therefore too late for Myles's birth, was demolished in the 1950s; the barn probably predated the Hall and was just that - a barn. The 17th century hall was demolished but the coachhouse and lodge on Bolton road such as the ancient barn and walls of the fortress still exists today in Duxbury Park on the south side of the town.
The township of Standish was of importance during the Roman occupation of Britain, and the Standish family is known to have been there since the Norman Conquest. The first to take the name "de Standish" married an heiress in the 12th century. A Sir Ralph de Standish protected King Richard II during 1381 in London during the Peasants Revolt when a one of the leaders by the name of Wat Tyler tried to kill the King so the story goes, thus he was knighted into the Order of the Garter by the King. Another Standish, Sir Rowland Standish, fought at Agincourt and brought back to Chorley the skull of Saint Lawrence in 1442. Two Standishes of Duxbury were at Agincourt, Sir Hugh knighted on the field and Sir Rowland knighted in 1427. The latter was killed at Gerberoy in 1435. He had previously brought back a relic of St Laurence, which was presented to the local church in 1442 by his brother James; hence the name of St Laurence's Church, Chorley, which became the family church of the Standishes of Duxbury.
Around the time of Myles' birth, the two principal branches of the Standish family became divided by religion. The senior branch, the Standishes of Standish, remained Catholics, while the Standishes of Duxbury embraced Protestantism. It is not known from which branch of the family Myles descended. While presumably a Protestant, he alone among the Pilgrim leaders never joined the separatist church at Plymouth.
In his will, Standish claimed to have been wrongfully deprived of his inheritance as a scion of the Standishes of Standish. Recent research by Helen Moorwood (''Lancashire History Quarterly'') suggests that he in fact descended from both the Standish and Duxbury branches of the family, and that his claims to various properties had been passed over in favor of a more powerful cousin who fought on the parliamentary side during the English Civil War, and who eventually succeeded to the Duxbury estate. The loss of Myles's lands was not malicious, but just one of the aftermaths of sequestrations during the Civil War. Moorwood's research, however, failed to establish the missing links in Myles' chain of descent. The confusion over Mylses' lineage comes in part from the reference to the Isle of Mann in his will, which is now widely thought to represent a farm called the the Isle of Mann Farm, in Croston, Chorley, Lancashire. There are plans to name a new road in the vicinity of Duxbury Hall the "Myles Standish Road" in honor of their famous son in 2008 by the town of Chorley.
However, the confusion continues further as there is a third line of the Standish family that did in fact own property on the Isle of Man; speculation remains that Myles was a descendant of the Standish, Isle of Mann and Duxbury Standishes. Speculation among historians in Chorley has ceased. He had nothing to do with the Manx Standishes.
Although an enemy claimed that Myles started his military career as a drummer, other evidence suggests that he was commissioned as a lieutenant in 1602, while presumably still in his teens. He is known to have served in the Low Countries, where English troops under Sir Francis Vere had been stationed to help the Dutch in their war with Spain. It was certainly there that he made acquaintance with the Pilgrims at Leyden, and came into good standing with the Pilgrims' pastor John Robinson. Standish was eventually hired by them to be their Military Captain in preference to John Smith, of Pocahontas fame.

In America

After the Pilgrims hired Standish as Military Captain for the voyage to America, he was soon to be one of the members to sign the Mayflower Compact at Cape Cod November 11,1620. After the voyage, Standish was elected Military Captain of the colony by the leadership of the Pilgrims.

Plymouth Colony

Soon after arriving at Plymouth, the first illness struck the Pilgrims and this sickness took his wife Rose’s life, on January 29, 1621; In 1623, a woman named Barbara came to Plymouth on the ship ''Anne'', and Myles married her that same year. Myles and Barbara had seven children together. They were Charles (died young), Alexander (who married Sarah Alden, daughter of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins), John, Myles, Loara, Josiah, and Charles.
Through all the continued sickness, Standish was one of the seven that did not get sick; William Bradford quoted:
:But that was most sad and lamentable was, that in two or three months’ time half of their company died, especially in January and February.... So as their died some times two or three of a day in the foresaid time, that 100 and odd persons, scarce fifty remained. And of these, in the time of most distress, there was but six or seven sound persons who to their great commendation, be it spoken, spared no pains night or day, but with abundance of toil and hazard of their own health, fetched them wood, made them fires, dressed their meat, made their beds, washed their clothes clothed and unclothed them… Two of these seven were Mr. William Brewster, their reverend Elder, and Myles Standish, their captain and military commander, unto whom myself and many others were much beholden in our low and sick condition.
Standish was quick to make friends with the natives, including one named Hobomok.
In the second year at Plymouth, Standish led a force to Wessagusett to save the settlement from native attack. Responding to reports of a military threat to the colony, Myles Standish organized a militia to defend Wessagussett. However, while he found that there had been no attack, he did find evidence that one was planned. He therefore decided on a pre-emptive strike. Unfortunately, while Standish returned to Plymouth a hero after the raid, the impact of his attack had larger implications.
Edward Winslow quoted in ''Good News From New England'' about this incident:
:Also Pecksuot, being a man of great stature than the Captain, told him, though he were a great Captain, yet he was but a little man; and said he, thought I be no sachem, yet I am a man of great strength and courage. These things the Captain observed, yet bare with patience for the present. . . On the next day he began himself with Pecksuot, and snatching his [Pecksuot's] knife from his neck, though with much struggling, killed him therewith. . . Hobbamock stood by all this as a spectator, and meddled not observing how our men demeaned themselves in this action. All being here ended, smiling, he brake forth into these speeches to the Captain: Yesterday Pecksuot, bragging of his own strength and stature, said, though you were a great captain, yet you were but a little man; but today I see you are big enough to lay him on the ground.
Word quickly spread among the Native American tribes of Standish's attack; many Native Americans abandoned their villages and fled the area. Edward Winslow, in his 1624 memoirs Good News from New England, reports that "they forsook their houses, running to and fro like men distracted, living in swamps and other desert places, and so brought manifold diseases amongst themselves, whereof very many are dead". Now lacking the trade in furs provided by the local tribes, the Pilgrims lost their main source of income for paying off their debts to the Merchant Adventurers. Rather than strengthening their position, Standish's raid had disastrous consequences for the colony, a fact noted by William Bradford, who in a letter to the Merchant Adventurers noted "[W]e had much damaged our trade, for there where we had [the] most skins the Indians are run away from their habitations..." However, one positive effect of Standish's raid was the increased power of the Massasoit-led Wampanoag, the Pilgrims' closest ally in the region.

Duxbury

Standish was also the treasurer of the Colony of Duxbary from the year 1644 to 1649, which was named after the original Standish estate in Chorley, England. Standish had never joined the Plymouth church (though he attended every Sunday), and to his death supposedly never did. This was possibly because of the constant conflict over religious beliefs in his family.
Standish died in Duxbury Massachusetts on October 3, 1656. Nathaniel Morton wrote of his death:
:This year [1656] Captain Myles Standish expired his mortal life. . . .In his younger time he went over into the low countries, and was a soldier there, and came acquainted with the church at Leynden, and came over into New England, with such of them as at the first set out the plantation of New Plymouth, and bare a deep share of their first difficulties, and was always very faithful to their interest. He growing ancient, became sick of the stone, or stranguary, whereof, after his suffering of much dolorous pain, he fell asleep in the Lord, and was Honorably buried at Duxbury.
Standish’s last will and testimony states even though leaving his family in England that he had land in various parts of England. His will states: “9 I give unto my son & heir apparent Allexander Standish all my land as heire apparent by lawful Decent in Ormistick Borsconge Wrightington Maudsley Newburrow Crawston and the Ile of man (Isle of Man) and given to me as right heire by lawful Decent but Surruptuously Detained from my great Grandfather being a second or younger brother from the house of Standosh of Standish. March the 7th 1655 by me Standish.” These lands now make up the Lancashire towns of Chorley and Ormskirk.
Myles Standish was the deputy governor.

Notable descendants

★ James Danforth "Dan" Quayle, 44th Vice President of the United States.

★ Deborah Sampson, A female member of the Continental Army during the American Revolution.

★ Sir Laurence Olivier, British-born actor, producer,and director.

★ William Crapo Durant, Founder of General Motors and Chevrolet.

★ Thomas McKean,2nd Governor of Delaware, Signer of the Declaration of Independence.

★ Caesar Rodney,4th Governor of Delaware, Signer of the Declaration of Independence.

★ Frances Folsom Cleveland, First Lady of the United States-married to 22nd and 24th President Grover Cleveland.

★ Julia Child, American entrepreneur and chef of French and French-influenced cuisine.

★ Senator Lafayette Sabin Foster, US Senate President Pro-Tempore in 1865-considered Acting Vice President.

★ Barbara Pierce, First Lady of the United States-married to 41st President George H. W. Bush.

★ George W. Bush, 47th Governor of Texas, 43rd President of the United States.

★ Philo T. Farnsworth, Inventor of the electronic television and X-ray machine.

★ Arthur John Evans, British archaeologist.

★ Robert Boyle, Irish Chemist.

★ Lord William Lamb, Viscount Melbourne, British Prime Minister.

★ Senator Robert Morris, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and US Constitution.

★ Jane Austen, British Author.

★ Florence Nightingale, Pioneer of modern nursing.

External links

★ http://www.mylesstandish.org/

★ Myles Standish from MayflowerHistory.com

★ Myles Standish article by Helen Moorwood

★ http://www.standish-history.org.uk/history.php?year=1620

★ http://www.standish.org.uk/history.php?org=st_family

★ http://www.famousamericans.net/mylesstandish/

★ ''Myles Standish'' by Dr Jeremy Bangs, PhD.
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