It was 390 years ago today that the Mayflower set sail from Plymouth, England, bound for Virginia. As history shows, they ended up in New England. Of the 102 passengers, only 53 would survive the first winter. I can count eight direct ancestors on the passenger list:
- John Howland
- John Tilley
- Joan Hurst Tilley
- Elizabeth Tilley
- Isaac Allerton
- Mary Norris Allerton
- Mary Allerton
- Francis Cooke
Three of them — John Tilley, Joan Hurst Tilley, and Mary Norris Allerton did not see the first spring in the New World. John Howland nearly didn’t survive the voyage across the Atlantic. He fell overboard during a violent storm but was able to grasp a line and be pulled back aboard.
Robert Cushman, who was instrumental in organizing the voyage and came over on The Fortune in 1621, is also a direct ancestor. His son Thomas accompanied him on that voyage and later married Mary Allerton. When Mary died in 1699, she was the last survivor of the Mayflower voyage.
Filed under: genealogy, history | Tagged: Allerton, Cooke, Cushman, Howland, Mayflower, Tilley | 1 Comment »
