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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

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1620 … 1820 … Today

The Mayflower left Plymouth, England on September 6, 1620 with 102 passengers and about 25 carefully selected crew, arriving in the New World 67 days later.

She was a ‘sweet’ ship in that she had been engaged in the wine trade in the Mediterranean since 1616. She had also been engaged in fur trade with Norway and had experienced the storms of the North Sea, a most treacherous body of water.

The dimensions of the Mayflower were 90 feet in length (12 Feet more than a tennis court), 26 feet in width, with a tonnage of 180. Small as she was she was larger than the Discovery, which landed at Virginia in 1607. (NCMayflower-org)

Most of the passengers were of English origin seeking a new home free from religious persecution where they might retain their English identity and customs.

Not all the Mayflower passengers were Separatists. The Merchant Adventurers recruited a number of colonists seeking financial opportunity in the New World.

Others, such as Myles Standish, had been hired by the Separatists specifically for their expertise in certain areas. Standish was an English military officer hired by the Pilgrims as a military advisor for Plymouth Colony for military professional; he did not travel for religious reasons.

The roots of Congregational churches in America go back to the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth in 1620 and founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

The Pilgrims came from England to the New World seeking religious freedom at the time of the 16th century Protestant Reformation. The churches they established in New England became known as Congregational churches. (First Congregational Church Nantucket)

The coming of Henry ʻŌpūkahaʻia and other young Hawaiians to the continent had awakened a deep Christian sympathy in the churches and moved the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) to establish a Foreign Mission School and a mission to the Hawaiian Islands.

Among the other Hawaiian students at the Foreign Mission School were four Hawaiians, Thomas Hopu, William Kanui, John Honoliʻi and Prince Humehume (son of Kauai’s King Kaumuali‘i.)

When asked “Who will return with these boys to their native land to teach the truths of salvation?” Hiram Bingham and his classmate, Asa Thurston, were the first to respond and offer their services to the Board. (Congregational Quarterly)

“It is for no private end, for no earthly object that you go. It is wholly for the good of others, and for the glory of God our Saviour. … Your mission is a mission of mercy, and your work is to be wholly a labor of love. … “

“Your views are not to be limited to a low, narrow scale, but you are to open your hearts wide, and set your marks high. You are to aim at nothing short of covering these islands with fruitful fields, and pleasant dwellings and schools and churches, and of Christian civilization.” (Instructions to the Pioneer Company)

On October 23, 1819, the Pioneer Company of American Protestant missionaries from the northeast US set sail from Boston on the Thaddeus for the Hawaiian Islands.

There were seven American couples sent by the ABCFM to convert the Hawaiians to Christianity in this Pioneer Company. These included two Ordained Preachers, Hiram Bingham and his wife Sybil and Asa Thurston and his wife Lucy; two Teachers, Mr. Samuel Whitney and his wife Mercy and Samuel Ruggles and his wife Mary; a Doctor, Thomas Holman and his wife Lucia; a Printer, Elisha Loomis and his wife Maria; and a Farmer, Daniel Chamberlain, his wife and five children.

With the missionaries were the four Hawaiians.

After about 160 days at sea, on March 30, 1820, the Pioneer Company of American Protestant missionaries first see the Islands. Later that day, they learned the kapu was abolished, Kamehameha died and Liholiho was now King. They landed at Kailua-Kona on April 4, 1820.

Bingham designed the Kawaiaha‘o Church in Honolulu; it was constructed between 1836 and 1842 in the New England style of the Hawaiian missionaries and is one of the oldest standing Christian places of worship in Hawaiʻi.

I am a direct descendant of Myles Standish from the Mayflower.

I am a direct descendant of Hiram Bingham from the Thaddeus.

So, now, another 200 years later … What’s up for today?

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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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