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First Blacks at Plymouth

Black history in the continental US had its beginnings in Virginia, yet Plymouth appears to have been first in having blacks as freemen.  In 1622, Thomas Weston, a merchant capitalist who had led the Pilgrims’ Mayflower financial group, organized a group of adventurers and fortune seekers to create a startup settlement just north of Plymouth.

Juan (sometimes John) Pedro came to Plymouth Colony with this group. “Juan Pedro deserves the distinction of being Plymouth’s first black Pilgrim.” (Gauquier, Cad Cod Times)   Let’s look back …

Early African Slave Trade

In the 15th century, Portugal became the first European nation to take significant part in African slave trading.  (College of Charleston)  By the 1480s, Portuguese ships were already transporting Africans for use as slaves on the sugar plantations in the Cape Verde and Madeira islands in the eastern Atlantic.  (Britannica)

By the 16th century, the Portuguese dominated the early trans-Atlantic slave trade on the African coast.  As a result, other European nations first gained access to enslaved Africans through privateering during wars with the Portuguese, rather than through direct trade.

When English, Dutch or French privateers captured Portuguese ships during Atlantic maritime conflicts, they often found enslaved Africans on these ships, as well as Atlantic trade goods, and they sent these captives to work in their own colonies. (LDHI, College of Charleston)

The Portuguese developed a trading relationship with the Kingdom of Kongo, which existed from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries in what is now Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Civil War within Kongo during the trans-Atlantic slave trade would lead to many of its subjects becoming captives traded to the Portuguese. (LDHI, College of Charleston)

Angola is a country on the west coast of southern Africa.  Like other areas there, portions had been colonized by the Portuguese.  The Portuguese established several settlements, forts and trading posts along the coast.  Despite Portugal’s territorial claims in Angola, its control over much of the country’s vast interior was minimal. (Hashaw)

During the era of the Atlantic slave trade, Angola was the leading exporter of slaves.  Starting in the early 1500s to the mid-1800s, nearly six million captives were embarked for the Americas from West Central African ports.  (Slave Societies)

The Catholic Church has a long history in Angola.  Catholic missionaries had been active in Angola an entire century before 1619 and had won thousands of voluntary converts.

In 1621, the Portuguese campaigns went deep into Kongo, and thousands were captured at the battle of Mbumbi at the very end of the year. These would all have been Christian, indeed, probably third or fourth generation Christian.  (Hashaw)

Angolans Were the First Africans to English America

The first Africans in Virginia in the 17th century came from the Kongo/Angola regions of West Central Africa. They were part of a large system established by the Portuguese in Africa to capture and supply slaves to the Spanish colonies in Central and South America.  (Marks)

The Spanish slave frigate São João Bautista (‘Baptist’), captained by Manuel Mendes da Cunha, left Africa with 350 slaves.  At the end of June, one month into the voyage, they ‘had many sick aboard, and many had already died.’

Before the frigate crossed the Atlantic and reached the West Indies a few weeks later, more than one hundred Africans on the Bautista had died of sickness. And Vera Cruz, her intended destination, was still nearly one thousand miles away.

Fearing the entire shipment would be dead before reaching Mexico, they paused briefly in the Caribbean for medicine and supplies that he paid for with twenty-four ‘slave boys he was forced to sell in Jamaica where he had to refresh.’  (Hashaw)

Of the original 350 Angolans who crossed on the Bautista in the summer of 1619, only 147 would finish the voyage to Vera Cruz in August. However, not all of the slaver’s losses were due to sickness.

The Bautista was captured in the Gulf of Mexico in the summer of 1619 by two English pirate ships – the Treasurer (the same ship that in 1616 had delivered Pocahontas to England) and the White Lion.

The 140-ton White Lion, that sailed out of Plymouth, England, and Flushing, in the Netherlands, was captained by a Calvinist minister, thirty-nine-year-old Reverend John Colyn Jope.  The White Lion carried Dutch letters of marque (this paperwork allowed Jope, as a civilian, to attack and plunder Spanish ships). 

The Bautista was destroyed in that attack before she could reach her intended destination of Vera Cruz, Mexico.  Figuring ship capacity, food, water, and the distance to Jamestown, they selected sixty or so of the healthiest Bantu men, women, and children and transferred them to their vessels – about thirty or so for the White Lion and the same number for the Treasurer. (Hashaw)

The first Africans in English North America were those pirated in 1619 by the White Lion and the Treasurer from the Spanish frigate San Juan Bautista in July, and delivered to Jamestown six weeks later at the latter end of August. (NPS, Historic Jamestowne)

The Angolans arrived in Virginia in 1619 when Jamestown still teetered on the brink and seemed about to disappear like the many doomed Spanish and English colonies before it. Their arrival coincided with the Virginia Company’s decision to change its course from seeking treasure to building communities.

The White Lion did not stay long at Point Comfort (Virginia), probably sailing to Jamestown before the arrival of the Treasurer a few days later.

The colony’s officials saw the Africans as valuable commodities and their labor as profitable; food supplies were scarce in Virginia between 1618 and 1624, and the Africans from the White Lion were desirable enough that the Governor and Cape Merchant parted with the Company’s dwindling stores.

Three or four days later, the Treasurer arrived at Point Comfort with additional enslaved Africans from the San Juan Bautista. The Treasurer did not stay long, departing quickly to avoid an ensuing scandal and potential seizure. Before departing, “two or three negroes they caste at Virginia,” and the remaining 25-27 Africans were taken to Bermuda, where a friendly governor allowed the Treasurer to trade. (Austin, Hampton History Museum)

Juan Pedro

Juan Pedro was one of the Bautista slaves that landed in Bermuda. Born in Angola in 1593, Juan Pedro, the baptized son of Bantu Christians, was taken prisoner of war at the age of twenty-five when the Imbangala forces under Governor Vasconcelos overran the Ndongo army of soba Kaita ka Balanga in 1619.

Butler assigned Juan Pedro and the two dozen or so other Treasurer Africans to work on both his and Lord Rich’s plantations at Bermuda. Butler also seized an additional fourteen Africans that Kendall had recently acquired from the White Lion, claiming that Kendall had ”stolen” them. These he set to work on the company’s general lands.

Over the next four years, a half dozen of these Africans were sent back to Jamestown. Names of Bautista Africans first appear in the 1625 Jamestown census, and from the faceless anonymity of Rolfe’s 1619 general description of “Negroes” emerge John Pedro, Antonio and Maria Johnson, and Antonio and Isabell Tucker and their young child, William, along with John Graweere, Margaret Cornish, and others.  (Hashaw)

Bermuda’s Governor Butler acknowledged he had three Africans in his possession (Juan Pedro, Anthonio (Anthony) Johnson and Maria (Mary Johnson).  In 1621, Governor Butler put all three of them aboard the James, and they sailed to the port of Bristol to testify in cases related to the piracy of the Bautista – through that, the Treasurer was implicated.

John Pedro, also known as Juan Pedro, returned to Virginia in 1623 on the Swan with one of the Earl of Warwick’s allies, Francis West, and resided at West’s plantation.  (1619 Genealogy)

Pedro lived in Plymouth, and during his time there, he marched with Myles Standish to explore Massachusetts. Onboard the Sparrow, he fished along the New England coast. He met the famous Squanto. He was there during Plymouth’s own terrible ‘starving time’ and shared hardships with the Pilgrims. He joined the Pilgrims in cutting trees for pales (pickets) to ring the tiny Plymouth settlement in defense against hostile attack.  (Hashaw)

He would remain in Plymouth for about a year and a half. But the New England colony was not to be his home. Given the Pilgrims’ evangelistic urge, there is little reason to believe that the Catholic Juan Pedro in Plymouth was not once more targeted for Protestant conversion. Once again, he refused.

In 1623, Juan Pedro went on to the colony of Jamestown. The 1625 Jamestown census identified ‘John Pedro, a Neger aged 30’ in the muster of Captain Francis West at his plantation in Elizabeth City on the Hampton River but revealed little else than that he had arrived two years earlier on the Swan. Whether Juan Pedro was regarded as a temporary or permanent servant is not clear, since the unfinished contracts of indentured servants could be inherited, .bought, traded, and, turned over for debt. (Hashaw)

It would be decades before Jamestown forbade Africans from carrying guns. John Pedro, listed in West’s muster, served as a soldier at Fort Algernon. Since West, as both a Virginia captain and the New England admiral, seems to have paid more attention to military and civic duties than to raising tobacco, it is also probable that Pedro accompanied him on various military expeditions both at sea and on land.

Whether Juan Pedro was regarded as a slave, an indentured servant, or a professional soldier by Captain West, he was a free man by the early 1650s when he was clearing land for his own plantation and purchasing servants, white and black, to extend his holdings through headrights. Land records show him progressing from Isle of Wight County to adjoining Surry County and to Lancaster County as newer shires were carved from older counties.

Juan Pedro’s patent for land in the Lancaster, later Middlesex, area of Virginia places him on the Dragon Run Swamp just before he mysteriously disappeared from colonial records in 1653. Before this time he had reunited with fellow Angolans who had crossed the Atlantic with him on the Bautista, including John Graweere in Surry County, and Anthony and Mary Johnson at Bennett’s Welcome, which was next door to West’s plantation.

He also became reacquainted with Antonio and Isabel, living with their young son, William, at Captain William Tucker’s farm at Elizabeth City. They were all Angolan Christians like himself.

In 1648, there were three hundred Africans in Jamestown among the fifteen thousand European settlers; and by then the first  malungu communities of Angolan Christian free men, many of whom had arrived via the Black Mayflower, were beginning to pop up in half a dozen places in Tidewater Virginia.

But in addition to his community, Juan Pedro had another loyalty – to his faith. His business dealings as a freeman show him involved with an emigrant from the English country gentry named William Eltonhead who was a Catholic and a friend of Lord Calvert, Baron of Baltimore.

The Eltonheads had an enslaved Angolan man named Francisco, who would later become the freedman Francis Payne. By this time Juan Pedro had married a woman (not yet identified), and they had at least one child, Matthew, who married into the Mayo family and from whom many descendants survive in Virginia to this day, though the Pedro surname has now been anglicized in a variety of forms.

It should be noted that Juan Pedro, John Graweere, Francis Payne, and Anthony and Mary Johnson became the earliest, freed blacks in Jamestown and, with other Angolans then living in Dutch New York, also the earliest free black property owners in all of North America. (Hashaw)

Slavery was not the inevitable fate of all the Africans who arrived in Virginia in the 17th century. By the middle of the century about a third of all Africans in the colony were free persons.

Most had been either slaves or indentured servants at some time in their lives, although a few had come as free persons or had been born there to free parents. Until the late 17th century there were no restrictions on free Africans in Virginia, and they lived similar lives to those of their English neighbors. (Marks)

Click the following link to a general summary about the First Blacks at Plymouth:

https://imagesofoldhawaii.com/wp-content/uploads/Blacks-in-Plymouth.pdf

© 2022 Hoʻokuleana LLC

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Changing Time

Then, they used the Julian Calendar; today, we use the Gregorian Calendar – it is different by 10-days.

Dates matter – and we need to keep in mind that how we measure time, particularly how we note specific dates, changed between the time of the Mayflower and today.

The Pilgrims were using the Julian Calendar, which is 10 days behind the Gregorian Calendar that we use today.  So, when they wrote a date down it related to the Julian Calendar, which are not the same dates that we use today (under the Gregorian Calendar).

As an example, the Mayflower Compact was signed on November 11, 1620 under the Julian Calendar (their time), which is now referenced as November 21, 1620 under the Gregorian calendar (our time.)

Calendars

Throughout history there have been numerous attempts to convey time in relation to the sun and moon.  Even now the Chinese and Islamic calendars are based on the motion of the moon around the earth, rather than the motion of the earth in relation to the sun, and the Jewish calendar links years to the cycle of the sun and months to the cycle of the moon.

Today, Americans are used to a calendar with a “year” based the earth’s rotation around the sun, with “months” having no relationship to the cycles of the moon and New Year’s Day falling on January 1.  However, that system was not adopted in England and its colonies until 1752. 

The changes implemented that year have created challenges for historians and genealogists working with early colonial records, since it is sometimes hard to determine whether information was entered according to the then-current English calendar or the “New Style” calendar we use today.

Julian Calendar

In 45 B.C., Julius Caesar ordered a calendar consisting of twelve months based on a solar year.  This calendar employed a cycle of three years of 365 days, followed by a year of 366 days (leap year). When first implemented, the ‘Julian Calendar’ also moved the beginning of the year from March 1 to January 1.

However, following the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century, the new year was gradually realigned to coincide with Christian festivals until by the seventh century, Christmas Day marked the beginning of the new year in many countries.

By the ninth century, parts of southern Europe began observing first day of the new year on March 25 to coincide with Annunciation Day (the church holiday nine months prior to Christmas celebrating the Angel Gabriel’s revelation to the Virgin Mary that she was to be the mother of the Messiah). The last day of the year was March 24. However, England did not adopt this change in the beginning of the new year until late in the twelfth century.

Because the year began in March, records referring to the “first month” pertain to March; to the second month pertain to April, etc., so that “the 19th of the 12th month” would be February 19.

In fact, in Latin, September means seventh month, October means eighth month, November means ninth month, and December means tenth month.  Use of numbers, rather than names, of months was especially prevalent in Quaker records.

Gregorian Calendar

During the Middle Ages, it became apparent that the Julian leap year formula had overcompensated for the actual length of a solar year, having added an extra day every 128 years.  However, no adjustments were made to compensate.

By 1582, seasonal equinoxes were falling 10 days “too early,” and some church holidays, such as Easter, did not always fall in the proper seasons.  In that year, Pope Gregory XIII authorized, and most Roman Catholic countries adopted, the “Gregorian” or “New Style” Calendar.

As part of the change, ten days were dropped from the month of October, and the formula for determining leap years was revised so that only years divisible by 400 (e.g., 1600, 2000) at the end of a century would be leap years.  January 1 was established as the first day of the new year. Protestant countries, including England and its colonies, not recognizing the authority of the Pope, continued to use the Julian Calendar.

Time of Two Calendars and Double Dating

Between 1582 and 1752, not only were two calendars in use in Europe (and in European colonies), but two different starts of the year were in use in England.  Although the “Legal” year began on March 25, the use of the Gregorian calendar by other European countries led to January 1 becoming commonly celebrated as “New Year’s Day” and given as the first day of the year in almanacs.

To avoid misinterpretation, both the “Old Style” and “New Style” year was often used in English and colonial records for dates falling between the new New Year (January 1) and old New Year (March 25), a system known as “double dating.”

Such dates are usually identified by a slash mark [/] breaking the “Old Style” and “New Style” year, for example, March 19, 1631/2.  Occasionally, writers would express the double date with a hyphen, for example, March 19, 1631-32.  In general, double dating was more common in civil than church and ecclesiastical records.

Changes of 1752

In accordance with a 1750 act of Parliament, England and its colonies changed calendars in 1752. By that time, the discrepancy between a solar year and the Julian Calendar had grown by an additional day, so that the calendar used in England and its colonies was 11 days out-of-sync with the Gregorian Calendar in use in most other parts of Europe.

England’s calendar change included three major components. The Julian Calendar was replaced by the Gregorian Calendar, changing the formula for calculating leap years.  The beginning of the legal new year was moved from March 25 to January 1.  Finally, 11 days were dropped from the month of September 1752.  The changeover involved a series of steps:

  • December 31, 1750 was followed by January 1, 1750 (under the “Old Style” calendar, December was the 10th month and January the 11th)
  • March 24, 1750 was followed by March 25, 1751 (March 25 was the first day of the “Old Style” year)
  • December 31, 1751 was followed by January 1, 1752 (the switch from March 25 to January 1 as the first day of the year)
  • September 2, 1752 was followed by September 14, 1752 (drop of 11 days to conform to the Gregorian calendar) (CT State Library)

Click the following link to a general summary about Changing Time:

https://imagesofoldhawaii.com/wp-content/uploads/Changing-Time.pdf

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Popham Colony

Long before the arrival of Europeans, the land which is now Maine was the home of the Wabanaki (translates to “People of the Dawn”).  The Wabanaki are made up of several Algonquin-speaking tribal nations. The five current tribes are the Mik’kmaq, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, Abenaki, and Penobscot, but there were others historically.

The Wabanaki lands include what are now the states of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, and the provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the eastern part of Quebec.  This is a land with a long coastline due to the many bays and islands.  Inland there are many rivers and lakes, and some high mountains.

Wabanaki  is the name used to describe these people as it is the preferred collective name.  However, most of these people would have known themselves as members of a tribe, village, and family rather than the larger collective.

The Wabanaki did not always live in peace and both fought wars and made alliances among the various tribes. The Wabanaki also faced incursions from outside such as from the Iroquois to the west.

The waters and marshes were full of fish, clams, oysters, and lobsters.  There were also seals and birds to hunt. The Wabanaki also harvested plants and hunted moose, deer, and beaver on the land. Rather than living in a single location, they followed the food seasonally, carrying their houses with them.

When the Europeans arrived, they found lush stands of fruits and nuts along the coasts and waterways, but more dense forest inland.  Although the Wabanaki lived within the natural world, they also made significant modifications to it.

The Wabanaki had little to no metallurgy technology and used stone tools. They were efficient hunters and gatherers.  The Europeans sometimes referred to them as lazy as they had a significant amount of free time after  providing for food and shelter.

The land of the Wabanaki was originally named Norumbega by the French, and later referred to as France Nouvelle (New France) or Acadia.  The easternmost peninsula was called New Scotland, a name it still maintains as Nova Scotia.

Popham Colony

The French had a colony on an island in the St. Croix River, between Maine and New Brunswick, in 1604. (Maine Encyclopedia)

On May 31, 1607, about 100 men and boys set sail on two ships for the northerly destination. Discharged soldiers made up most of the colonists’ ranks, but shipwrights, coopers, carpenters and a smattering of “gentlemen of quality” rounded them out. (Beckenstein, Smithsonian)

In late August 1607, a small band of English colonists landed at the mouth of the Kennebec River in Maine to establish the first English colony in New England.  (Brain)  They also returned a native, Skidwarres, who had been captured by George Weymouth in 1605.

Known as the Popham Colony, it was sister colony to Jamestown and was intended as the northern branch of a coordinated geopolitical effort by England to claim that part of North America lying between Spanish Florida and French Canada. (Brain)

The Popham Colony is named after Sir John Popham, the chief financial investor in the venture, and George Popham, the first president of the colony and Sir John’s nephew. Accompanying George to Virginia was his nephew, Edward Popham, Sir John’s great nephew.

It was founded about 20 years after Sir Walter Raleigh’s North Carolina colony disappeared in the 1580s, when, as the economic race with France and Spain heated up, England made another attempt to plant its flag in the New World.

In 1606, James I granted a charter to a joint stock company to establish two colonies, one, Jamestown, on the southern Atlantic Coast, and the other, Popham, on the northern. (Beckenstein, Smithsonian)

Both colonies were sent out by the Virginia Company – Virginia being the name applied to this entire coast by the English since the days of Sir Walter Raleigh – and were intended to be the initial beachheads of English domination.

As such, they were primarily military outposts designed to defend against attack from both local native inhabitants as well as European antagonists. Once defense had been established, the mandate of the colonists was to explore the new country for exploitable resources and also find the long-sought northwest passage through the continent to the Pacific Ocean.

Both colonies were similar in size and composition, consisting of just over 100 men the majority of whom were soldiers, and were comparably equipped. Both sailed forth in high hopes, confident that they possessed the best human and technological resources that England could muster for the challenge.

The first ocean-going English ship built in the Americas, the Virginia, was constructed there in 1607.  It was a shallow draft, decked vessel, with a rounded bow and square stern. This type of boat was designed to sail or row.

Unlike Jamestown, which just managed to survive after horrible trials and thus became the first permanent English colony in America, the Popham Colony has become a mere footnote, its place in history taken by the Pilgrims thirteen years later.

The Popham Colony, however, failed; in December, with winter coming and food scarce, half of the colonists returned to England. The next fall [1608], after erecting several buildings, the remaining 45 sailed home.

After making changes to meet the challenges of deep sea sailing, and accompanied by Mary and John, Virginia made her first Atlantic crossing.

In May 1609, carrying “sixteen proper men more,” the Virginia left England, joining a supply convoy headed to Jamestown. She completed her second Atlantic crossing in September. Although she is rumored to have made more crossings, no documentation has been found.

Most of the returned settlers disappeared into history; a few crossed the Atlantic again to try their hand at Jamestown. The Pilgrims who arrived 12 years later, landing at Plymouth, had obviously learned some lessons from Popham.

“They settled farther south in a milder climate that was more familiar to them and more conducive to agriculture,” says Brain. “They tried harder to work with the Indians. They also brought women and children.

“Luck had a lot to do with these early ventures,” Brain adds, explaining that Jamestown, too, almost failed. Hit hard by disease and starvation, the 50 or so remaining settlers abandoned the colony in the spring of 1610 and were sailing home when they encountered a relief fleet and a new governor, who ordered them back to Jamestown.   (Beckenstein, Smithsonian)

Click the following link to a general summary about Popham Colony:

https://imagesofoldhawaii.com/wp-content/uploads/Popham-Colony.pdf

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The First Church in Plymouth

The First Parish Church traces its history to a Separatist congregation that formed in Scrooby, England, in the early 17th century, members of which later sailed to Plymouth aboard the Mayflower.

Meetings of the Scrooby congregation first took place in a manor house owned by the Archbishop of York and occupied by William Brewster (ca. 1560-1644), a former diplomat who served as postmaster for the village and bailiff to the archbishop.

In 1606 and 1607, Brewster convened a series of meetings for those who were seeking to practice a more liberal expression of Protestantism, free from the creed and ritual of the Church of England.

They formed their own congregation with Richard Clyfton as its first minster and John Robinson (ca. 1576-1625) as their assistant pastor. Due to continued persecution in England, the congregation fled to Amsterdam in 1608 and from there to Leyden (Leiden) in southern Holland in 1609.

John Robinson was chosen to be their minister in Leyden (Clyfton had remained in England), and William Brewster was chosen to be their Elder.

William Bradford, who would later become the second Governor of the Plymouth Colony, was another prominent member of the Separatist congregation. Bradford is credited with giving them the name “Pilgrims,” although that term would not be commonly applied to the Separatist emigrants until the late 18th century.

After securing a patent from the London Company (later replaced by a charter from the Plymouth Council for New England), the Leyden Separatists (hereinafter referred to as the “Pilgrims”) were among the passengers aboard the Mayflower as it departed for the American colonies from Plymouth, England, on September 6, 1620. The arrived in America in November.

The First (and Subsequent) ‘Church’ Buildings

The first public building to be erected by the Pilgrims was a large house, twenty-feet square, which was used for storage and public worship; but shortly after its completion, it took fire, and The Common House was burnt to the ground.

In the month of April “whilst they were bussie with their seed,” Governor Carver was taken suddenly ill, and died, leaving a widow who soon followed him.

The death of the first Governor was a severe loss to the community. He was not only a deeply religious man, but had won their esteem and endeared himself to them, by long and patient service and sacrifice. He was sagacious, skilled in practical affairs, and upright in all his dealings. He was succeeded in office by William Bradford, with Isaac Allerton, as assistant.

In the month of November 1621, the depleted ranks of the colonists were partly filled up by the unexpected arrival of the Fortune, and thirty-five persons were added to the plantation.

The summer of 1622, saw the erection of the Fort. Here on the summit of Burial Hill, the Pilgrims perpetuated the church founded in England under the ministration of Elder Brewster. The ecclesiastical polity of the church was copied, with slight modifications, from that provided by Guillaume Farel and John Calvin, for the Reformed Churches of France.

For several years the Church at Plymouth was without a pastor. It lived upon the truths which John Robinson had taught, with such care and learning, and broke the bread of life in the way which exile had made so precious.

On the Lord’s day, the people gathered in the meeting-house, sang the psalms, had the Scriptures read and explained, and joined in prayers, which flowed spontaneously from grateful hearts, and were born in the depth of an experience, which had made the goodness and mercy of God, and the blessings of his daily providence, the most real and vital of all convictions.

They knew that they were the humble instruments of God for good, and that their successes and failures, joys and sorrows, losses and gains, were included in his immediate purpose, and were to be accepted without murmur or complaint.

The local scattering of the Colonists led to the founding of new churches in and around Plymouth.

In 1648 the first church was built. It was situated behind Bradford’s lot, and facing Leyden St and like every first church, however modest, was raised with becoming pride and joy.  (Cuckson)

All of the land between Burial Hill and Main Street, which included present-day Town Square, originally belonged to William Bradford and John Alden. The land on which the First Parish Church now stands was likely given up by John Alden when he left Plymouth in 1627, after which the land became known as the Town Commons. (NPS)

Seven years before, an ordinance had passed the General Court “that no injunction should be put on any church, or church member, as to doctrine, worship, or discipline, whether for substance or circumstance, besides the command of the Bible.”

It meant that although men met for worship under one roof, it was not to be expected that they should think or feel alike; but whether or not, they were to enjoy such freedom, as was not to be found in any other church of their time.  (Cuckson)

The second meetinghouse was built in 1683 on the site of the present First Parish Church, at the west end of Town Square. This building consisted of a two-story, side-gabled building with a center entrance and cupola.

Cuckson quotes an unnamed source who described this building as having an “unceiled Gothic roof, diamond glass, with a small cupola and bell.”

The third meetinghouse was constructed in 1744 on the same site, replacing the prior building that had fallen into disrepair.

The building was described as “an attempted copy of a Boston church building. A graceful structure, it was the first real church, architecturally speaking.”

In 1831, as membership grew at the First Parish Church, the congregation voted to replace the third meetinghouse with another that would be “larger and more in keeping with the improved taste and broader outlook of the times.”

The Gothic Revival-style fourth meetinghouse was a wood-frame building designed by George W. Brimmer of Boston and included a bell, cast by Paul Revere in 1801, which was controlled and used by the town to mark the time and as an alarm for emergencies. The fourth meetinghouse was destroyed by fire in 1892.

Other denominations in Plymouth offered the temporary use of their churches for worship by the First Parish members. The first service after the fire was held at the Universalist Church on December 4, 1892.

On December 19, 1892, a Parish Committee meeting of the First Parish Church was held, and the initial $5,000 was raised towards the building of a new church.

At that meeting, according to committee member Arthur Lord’s report, it was decided that they should “secure in the church to be built a fitting memorial to that spirit of religious liberty and tolerance which characterized the Pilgrims.” He went on to say that, “The subject cannot be treated as if the church was purely local or denominational.”

On April 4, 1896, the building committee voted to hire John Y. Mainland of Boston as the contractor for construction of the church. Mainland was born in Scotland in 1849, learned the building trade in Nova Scotia in 1866-1867, and moved to Boston in 1868.

The cornerstone was laid on Monday, June 29, 1896. Once again, the perceived importance of this church as a memorial to the Pilgrims was reflected in the address given by Arthur Lord, Parish Committee member and President of the Pilgrim Society.

The first service was held in Kendall Hall on April 25, 1897, before the sanctuary level had been completed, and continued to be held there until the church dedication on Thursday, December 21, 1899.

Mayflower Society Given (and Restoring/Maintaining) First Parish Meeting House

The First Parish Church, completed in 1899, is the fifth meetinghouse built for its congregation, and the fourth built at the current location. (NPS)

When the General Society of Mayflower Descendants (GSMD) became aware that the congregation was having trouble with the increasing maintenance and restoration of the building, it approached the congregation about donating the Meetinghouse to GSMD as a place to fulfill its educational mission.

Since the General Society of Mayflower Descendants was founded in 1897, the same year the present structure was built at the top of Leyden Street, families of descendants – our families – have made regular pilgrimages to this spot.

To save the building they love, the First Parish Church congregation has agreed to donate it to GSMD upon the condition that funds be put in place to permanently maintain it, and that they be allowed to continue scheduling their services there.

The General Society of Mayflower Descendants and First Parish Church signed a Joint Venture Agreement, which led to the Charitable Trust, during Congress 2017.

Click the following link to a general summary about the First Church in Plymouth:

https://imagesofoldhawaii.com/wp-content/uploads/First-Church-in-Plymouth.pdf

© 2022 Hoʻokuleana LLC

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The Billingtons

“The Billingtons were not the kind of next-door neighbors you wanted in any century.”  (Boston Globe)

John Billington was born in England about 1582. In 1603, he married a woman named Elinor Lockwood and had two sons: John, who was born in 1604 and Francis, who was born about 1606. The Billington family lived in Lincolnshire. (Brooks)

In the summer of 1620, businessmen from London began recruiting families and individuals to help colonize northern Virginia. Billington decided to take the men up on their offer. The only catch was that the passage to America came with a price:

“In exchange for their passage, shipboard provisions, and a share of the profits, Billington signed a contract that bound himself, his wife, and their two sons to labor on behalf of the colony until 1627.”

“For the duration of their partnership with the investors, the Billingtons and their fellow colonists would work six days per week for ‘the Company.’ All profits from ‘trade, traffic, trucking, working, fishing, or any other means’ would remain in the common stock; even the houses and gardens ere to be included in the assets to be divided after seven years.”

“Some people considered the terms ‘fitter for thieves and bond slaves than honest men,’ but the prospect of a better life was sufficient inducement for the Billingtons to cast their lot with other hard-pressed families headed for America.” (Brooks, HistoryOfMassachusetts-org)

According to the book American Murder, Billington and his family began causing problems while aboard the Mayflower:

“Billington, his wife Ellen, and their sons Francis and John the younger were aboard when the Mayflower dropped anchor at Provincetown harbor. Straightaway, the Billingtons started causing trouble.”

“Even before the newly arrived immigrants could move on to Plymouth Rock, Francis almost sank the ship when he fired a gun near an uncovered barrel of gunpowder and set fire to a cabin.”

The Pilgrims had arrived in the area in December, 1620, on board the Mayflower. There were about one hundred of them altogether.

Most had come primarily for religious reasons. Some – collectively called the “Saints” – were Separatists who  decided that the only way they could be true to their conscience was to leave the established church and secretly worship.  These Separatists thought the English church too corrupt for salvage.

Another group of these early settlers was called the “Strangers,” a diverse number of people who did not share the radical Protestant views. Their primary motivation for resettlement was economic, not religious. They had been haphazardly selected in England by the sponsors of the trip to fill up the ship and insure a profitable voyage.

There is even some evidence to suggest that a few Catholics had come aboard as part of the “Stranger” group. Many more Anglicans or Church of England adherents were on board. One such person was a well-to-do Anglican named John Billington.

While all of the “Strangers” were seen as a threat, it was John Billington and his family who were singled out as responsible for some tensions on the Mayflower crossing the Atlantic. Of note,

  1. The ship was small causing considerable crowding. The Billingtons, however, had sufficient wealth to live in a private cabin angering the cramped and crabby anti-Catholic Pilgrims.
  2. When the ship was taken off course Billington was a member of a group threatening mutiny.
  3. While off shore expeditions set out to explore possible settlement areas in the New World one of the Billington children accidentally set off a small explosive charge almost destroying the ship.
  4. During one of these expeditions when her husband was gone, the wife of William Bradford mysteriously fell over board and drowned. It was never clear whether this was suicide or an accident.  While the Billingtons were not directly responsible, Bradford blamed the mischievous and inattentive behavior of the Billington boys for the incident.
  5. Due to illness and death at sea, by the time the Pilgrims landed the “Saints” were beginning to be outnumbered by the “Strangers.” Upon landing there were 32 “Saints” and 51 “Strangers.”  (History of Criminal Justice, Illinois State University)

John Billington

Billington and his family miraculously all survived the first harsh winter in Massachusetts which claimed the lives of so many who had boarded the ship in Plymouth on September 16, 1620.  He was even one of the 41 ‘true’ Pilgrims who signed the Mayflower Compact.

Billington was not known to the Pilgrim Separatists. However, the Billingtons became well-known as the troublemakers of the group, and Billington subsequently became the first person to commit a crime in America in 1621 when he refused to obey military orders.

He was regularly involved in disputes and civil disobedience, and was accused of secretly supporting local dissenters who were sending political letters back to England, written to undermine the colony.  (Mayflower400UK-org)

Francis Billington

The Mayflower was still riding at anchor off the tip of Cape Cod, when Francis was accused of nearly blowing the sturdy three-master sky high. (Mulligan, Daily News)

Later, in reckless disregard for his or the Colony’s safety, Francis went exploring.  Finding ‘Billington Sea’ is part of his legacy, today.

John Billington Jr – Lost and Found

There were children on the Mayflower — Oceanus Hopkins who was born at sea, Peregrine White who gave his first baby-cry soon after the Mayflower reached the New World, Francis Billington who almost blew up the Mayflower while trying to make fireworks, and John Billington.

John was a mischievous youngster, and so lively that the Pilgrim Fathers had to keep a stern eye upon him. That night when John did not come home, the Plymouth folk were worried.

Governor Bradford sent a party to look for him. They scoured the woods about, but there was no John.  Five days went by.

And John had not returned when a message came from the friendly Indian, King Massasoit, saying that the Nausets had the lad. The Nauset Indians were the same fierce savages who had attacked the Pilgrims at The Place of the First Encounter.

After sunset, they saw a long train of Nauset Indians come winding down to the beach. At their head, walked their haughty Chief Aspinet.

They began to wade out toward the shallop. And whom should the Pilgrims see sitting on the shoulders of a big Indian, but John himself, covered with strings of beads!

He had been visiting in the Nauset village, where his new friend the big Indian had feasted and entertained  him in his wigwam.

And while the Indian was giving John over to the Pilgrims, Aspinet announced that he and his people wished to make peace with the white men.

So the Pilgrims made peace with him, and presented him with a strong English knife.

 So the lost boy was found.  (Good Stories)

Elinor Billington

The mother did not seem to redeem the reputation of husband and sons; traditionally she was called “the scold.” She later married Gregory Armstrong. She had various controversies in court with her son and others.

In 1636, she was accused of slander by “Deacon” John Doane, she had charged him with unfairness in mowing her pasture lot, – and she was sentenced to a fine of five pounds and “to sit in the stocks and be publickly whipt.”

Her second husband died in 1650 and she lived several years longer, occupying a “tenement” granted to her in her son’s house at North Plymouth.  (Marple)

Back to John Sr …

In 1626, the colonists assumed full ownership of the plantation after a period of negotiation with the investors who were disgruntled because they had received very little profit from the project. The land and cattle were divided up among them but for Billington, it wasn’t quite what he was expecting.

Billington received the smallest per capita allotment in the colony, despite the fact that he was one of the first settlers of the colony. He received a house in the center of Plymouth, 63 acres of land, a share in the plantation’s livestock and rights in future distribution.

Billington didn’t have much of a social status in the colony either. He was not a member of the church, he had been excluded from all public office due to his bad reputation with Governor Bradford and he lacked the resources necessary to become one of the colony’s Undertakers, which were men who took on financial liability for the colony and controlled its trade with England. As a result of all this, Billington was frustrated and angry.

To make matters worse, sometime between 1627 and 1630, Billington’s son, John, died just before he turned 25 years old. The cause of death is unknown but Richard Warren also died in 1628 which indicates there may have been an illness in the Warren household.

Around the same time, Billington became involved in a dispute with his neighbor John Newcomen.

It is not known what the dispute was about but the after effects lingered until 1630 when Billington happened upon Newcomen in a field and shot him dead.

According to the book The Human Tradition in the Atlantic World, the murder was the result of Billington’s frustration after years of struggling to prosper in the colony. The book states that after the death of his son, Billington was angry about his bad fortune and was frustrated about a new wave of incoming colonists that would only increase their hardships.

Massachusetts Governor William Bradford wrote an account of Billington’s trial and hanging in his journal Of Plymouth Plantation, and stated that he sought the advice of the nearby Massachusetts Bay Colony on the matter.

John Billington was hanged in September of 1630. Billington’s burial location is unknown, although he was probably buried on his property as per social custom at the time. (Brooks)

Click the following link to a general summary about the Billingtons:

https://imagesofoldhawaii.com/wp-content/uploads/Billingtons.pdf

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