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The Mayflower’s Passengers

All Aboard

A record of the names of the passengers ... (by Society of Mayflower descendants. New Jersey)
The Mayflower Descendant : A Quarterly M... (by Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants)
The women who came in the Mayflower (by Marble, Annie Russell)
The Mayflower and Her Log (by Ames, Azel)
A record of the names of the passengers ... (by Society of Mayflower descendants. New Jersey)
The Mayflower Compact

In 1620, English Puritans set sail from Plymouth, England to the New World on the Mayflower. Commonly known today as the Pilgrims, they were part of a group of English Protestants who separated from the Church of England to seek a new home where they would be free from religious persecution.

Navigational errors and stormy weather blew the ship off course from its original destination in Virginia. After landing in what we know as Cape Cod, Massachusetts, the Pilgrims established a colony.

Before going ashore, 41 male passengers signed the Mayflower Compact in which they all agreed to a government chosen by common consent. Their signatures also meant that they would obey all laws for the benefit of the colony.

The Mayflower had one 102 passengers on board and a crew of approximately 30. Many history experts believe that the ship was 90 feet long and weighed 180 tons. It’s not known where the Mayflower was built, but late records specify London.

In The Women Who Came in the Mayflower, Annie Russell Marble writes,

One hundred and two in number when they sailed,—of whom twenty-nine were women,—they had been crowded for ten weeks into a vessel that was intended to carry about half the number of passengers. (p. 3)

Furthermore, Marble added, “Wild winds carried away some clothes and cooking-dishes from the ship; there was a birth and a death, and occasional illness, besides the dire seasickness.” (p. 5)

Oceanus Hopkins was the only child born during the voyage. Peregrine White was born on the Mayflower while it was docked at Cape Cod and later became active in military and government affairs. The passing of passenger William Butten marked the only death that occurred during the voyage. Mary Allerton Cushman, who died in 1699, was the last surviving passenger.

On the introductory page of The Mayflower and her Log, Azel Ames writes,

O civilized humanity, world-wide, and especially to the descendants of the Pilgrims who, in 1620, laid on New England shores the foundations of that civil and religious freedom upon which has been built a refuge for the oppressed of every land, the story of the Pilgrim “Exodus” has an ever−increasing value and zest. The little we know of the inception, development, and vicissitudes of their bold scheme of colonization in the American wilderness only serves to sharpen the appetite for more.

The opening page of A Record of the Names of the Passengers on the Good Ship Mayflower in December, 1620 by the Society of Mayflower Descendants in the State of New Jersey, states,

The lists following have been compiled to show the extent to which the children of the Mayflower company intermarried with other early Colonial families. The migratory spirit was prevalent in the earliest days.”There’s a long list of notable Mayflower descendants. It includes former U.S. Presidents John Adams, Quincy John Adams, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, as well as Katharine Hepburn, Georgia O’Keeffe, Marilyn Monroe, and beyond.

By Regina Molaro