William Bradford's Register of Some of the First Deaths at Plymouth
The information given below concerning the deaths of passengers on the Mayflower has been extracted from Thomas Prince's A Chronological History of New-England, in the Form of Annals (Boston, N.E., 1736; Edinburgh Private printing, 1887-1888), 5 vols. In volume 3, Prince lists at intervals extracts from "A Register of Governor Bradford's in his own hand, recording some of the first deaths, marriages and punishments at Plymouth." According to Robert Charles Anderson's three volume The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633 (New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1995), p. 1809, this register has subsequently been lost.
November & December, 1620
During the voyage . . .
While at anchor off Cape Cod between November 9 and December 8 . . .
After dropping anchor in Plymouth Harbor, 16 December, 1620 and through the departure of the Mayflower on April 5, 1621 . . .
January, 1621
Digory Priest: January 1, "the year begins with the death of Degory Priest," . . . .
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He was one of many who didn't make it to the first Thanksgiving. Still, today remains a good one for honoring our Mayflower ancestor. I'm aware of all sides of the story -- with the complexities of motivation, willfulness, greed, and generosity that make it such a human story. But I'm also always in awe of those people who took such entirely unknown risks out of a determination grounded in religious faith.
5 comments:
I'm grateful for you and for your blog, GG. You have brought me wisdom, compassion, and smiles this year!
GG, like Katherine, I am grateful for you. This was interesting. Thanks. Happy Thanksgiving!
Thank you for this lovely post.
I have documented records of my relatives who travelled here from England...one a pregnant woman (my ggggreat grandmother) with two other children in tow. Her husband remained in England working....really impressive, the bravery of these people.
Thanks GG...I hope your daughter made it home safely for Thanksgiving and that you had a good day.
Finally, I'm home. I was visiting my parents and on their computer, the black text on blue background (at least that is how your blog showed) was unreadable. I'm looking forward to catching up.
They sailed with faith but many, if not most, were fleeing religious persecution. When I read "Year of Wonder", the part of that portrait of the times which intrigued me most was the religious intolerance and abominable acts which resulted.
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