The Mayflower

by Rebecca Fraser

  Roger Williams described land as one of ‘the gods of New England’. In such an atmosphere it was natural for Penelope to take a keen interest in her father’s and grandfather’s property. In her own way she succumbed to the lure of the American land she had known since she was a little girl. She had seen it all planted, burnt and replanted. This was her land, which her husband had fought for. Penelope’s actions also speak of a desire for recognition for herself and her children. Part of that was being her grandfather’s heir in New England. It was a quest that was as much psychological as financial. Cut off from her birth family in England, she had become stronger and created her own small tribe.

  Penelope Winslow died in December 1703. Her daughter Elizabeth moved to Pembroke, Massachusetts, where her son Thomas became the town clerk and schoolmaster. She supported herself by selling her land in Rhode Island.

  Mistress Bellingham’s good friend Samuel Sewall had marked her death in May 1702 in his diary, writing that she had been a ‘vertuous gentlewoman antiquis moribus, prisca fide [of ancient customs, of ancient faith]’. Sewall had been the sole judge in the Salem witchcraft trials publicly to repent. In 1700 his conscience had again pricked him at the increasingly widespread practice of slavery. His pamphlet deploring this custom, The Selling of Joseph, may not have found many buyers amongst later Winslows. There were a series of black servants at Careswell. An eighteenth-century sampler shows a small black slave in attendance on a young lady. One of Isaac’s sons, Edward Winslow (1713–84), was a Loyalist general in the Revolutionary Wars and had to flee to Nova Scotia in 1783, arriving with three black servants.

  By the end of the eighteenth century historians note that references to slaves cease and there was sympathy for the anti-slavery movement. Careswell was inherited by another of Isaac’s sons, John Winslow (1703–74), who was a general in the British army. Although he had to effect the removal of the French, now known as Cajuns, from Acadia, he personally settled two French families of refugees in Plymouth because he felt sorry for them. His son Dr Isaac Winslow inherited Careswell. He was a Loyalist but so popular for his selfless work as a medical man that his house was not seized, as most Loyalists’ were. He was the last of the family to occupy the house. Although a kind physician, he was not especially good with money. He died in debt and the house passed out of the family. Many of the 1,000 acres were bought by neighbours, and for a brief time the gifted orator Senator Daniel Webster made Careswell his summer retreat.

  Today the Winslows and all the other people in the Mayflower story are so long gone that it is almost as if they never lived. What they felt and thought frequently has to be imagined or put together from the tiniest pieces of evidence. Penelope and Josiah lie beneath a tomb devised by their son Isaac with a coat of arms. Where the mutilated body of the Indian King Philip lies, no one knows.

  The spot where Philip died has never been built over, being too marshy. The hill of Mount Hope where Wampanoag chiefs used to look out is still there. What was once the swamp is covered with ornamental garden shrubs, part of the elegant grounds of Brown University.

  Notoriously in history, success is about choosing the winning side. The Mohawks and Iroquois who chose to be on the English side flourished in the eighteenth century. Nevertheless the nineteenth century saw southern Indians forced off their hereditary territory by the 1830 Removal Act. Under President Andrew Jackson huge numbers were sent west of the Mississippi. Thousands died on the journey, today known as the Trail of Tears. But nowadays the concept of Indian sovereignty is recognised. Three hundred and more years after King Philip’s War, coexistence is the predominant theme. There are still Wampanoags on Cape Cod. Many of the Mashpee Wampanoags were Christian and did not join Philip. In 1685 Plymouth Court confirmed the Mashpee title to their lands. In 2014 the Mashpee participated in the city of Taunton’s 375th anniversary parade. Their tribal chairman, Cedric Cromwell, is at the time of writing a member of Harvard Provost’s Advisory Council, designed to increase opportunities for Native Americans, as was intended at Harvard’s founding. The Algonquian language had more or less died out by the mid-eighteenth century but recent years have seen a strong revival of interest in Indian languages and history. When asked if Thanksgiving is ‘a time of celebration or mourning’, Cedric says, ‘It’s both. Historically, Thanksgiving represents our first encounter with the eventual erosion of our sovereignty and there is nothing wrong with mourning that loss. In fact, as long as we don’t wallow in regret and resentment, it’s healthy to mourn. It is a necessary part of the healing process.’

  The Mashpee Wampanoags live by Provincetown on their own land as they did in 1620. They are descendants of the people who saw a ship called the Mayflower appear over the horizon, and watched the Pilgrims, including Edward Winslow, alight.

  On 20 July 1704, Josiah’s half-brother Peregrine White died at the age of eighty-three. His iconic birth on the Mayflower meant that his death marked the end of a heroic generation. His land included the 200 acres granted to him as the first New Englander to be born in the New World. Peregrine’s final thoughts make moving reading. ‘Being aged,’ he wrote, ‘and under many weaknesses and bodily infirmities but of sound disposing mind and memory’, yet in daily expectation of what he called ‘my great change’, he humbly committed ‘my soul to Almighty God that gave it and my body to decent burial when it shall please him to take me hence’. It was the final journey for the youngest pilgrim.

  The Pilgrims had their eyes fixed on their heavenly home, but they founded a new world. If you had asked Peregrine’s stepfather Edward Winslow where home was, he might have had difficulty responding. In his case, it was wherever the godly cause was. For his stepson Peregrine, it was here in Marshfield amidst gentle green hills.

  Washing Fleece and Sorting Wool, Isaac Claesz van Swanenburg

  Leiden Town Hall

  John Robinson’s home in Leiden, the Groeneporte or Green Gate on the Kloksteeg

  The Mayflower carrying the Pilgrim Fathers across the Atlantic to America in 1620, Marshall Johnson

  Illustration of the signatures of the Pilgrim Fathers, from Hutchinson’s Story of the British Nation

  The Signing of the Mayflower Compact, Edward Percy Moran

  Princess Pocahontas on her visit to England, Simon de Passe

  Powhatan’s Mantle

  Pine writing cabinet with mother-of-pearl inlay, believed to have been brought on the Mayflower by Pilgrim William White

  The Brewster chest

  Mary Chilton Winslow’s will

  Peregrine White’s cradle

  First American sampler, made by Loara Standish

  The Winslow joined chair

  ‘Inhabitants of Virginia’, from Admiranda Narratio, Theodore de Bry

  Plimoth Plantation

  Massasoit, Cyrus Dallin

  William Bradford, Cyrus Dallin

  Roger Williams Leaving Salem Under Obloquy, H. Brackner

  Beaver hat

  John Winthrop

  The attack on the Pequot Indian Fort or ‘palizado’

  Anne Hutchinson, Cyrus Dallin

  John Cotton, artist unknown

  Site of the original 1636 Governor Winslow house, Careswell

  Miantonomo Monument

  The Isaac Winslow House in winter

  Edward Winslow, artist unknown

  Josiah Winslow, artist unknown

  Penelope Pelham Winslow, artist unknown

  Penelope Pelham Winslow’s embroidered silk shoe

  Monument to Sir William Waldegrave, his wife Elizabeth and his ten children in St Mary's Church, Bures

  Smallbridge Hall, home of the Waldegrave family. It was visited twice by Queen Elizabeth I

  Penelope Winslow’s deposition about her Waldegrave grandfather

  Ferriers

  Philip, King of Mount Hope, Paul Revere

  Algonquian bowl of carved elm burl, known as King Philip’s bowl

  King Philip at Mount Hope

  The Bible in Algonqui
an, commissioned by John Eliot showing the first page of Genesis

  A Map of New England, John Foster

  Weetamoo, J. Andrews & C.A. Jewett

  The Captivity of Mrs Rowlandson

  Captain George Curwen

  Wheeler’s Surprise: Nipmuck Indians attack Brookfield, Van Ingen Snyder

  Benjamin Church, Paul Revere

  Elizabeth Paddy Wensley, artist unknown

  The death of King Philip

  King Philip’s Seat, Mount Hope, Bristol, Rhode Island

  The slate tombstone showing the Winslow and Pelham coat of arms made in Boston, commissioned by Isaac Winslow

  Acknowledgements, and a note about the book and its sources

  Personal records are few and far between about the courageous people of modest origin who founded New England. So often these heroes and heroines are mere names in the Calendar of State Papers Colonial. Yet the Winslows and their friends were actors in momentous events. Settling in America and getting to know the Indians, they created a new society where they were not ruled by a monarch, and where they agreed the laws between themselves. But they also lived through the horror of Indian war, as greater numbers of Europeans eroded the trust of the early days.

  When lives are poorly documented, lawsuits can be a means of getting information. Fortunately the Winslows married into the litigious Pelham family. Legal depositions at the National Archives in London, unseen for 300 years, shed rare light on the lives of the second generation of Winslows and their links to England.

  William Bradford’s history of Plymouth Plantation, Edward Winslow’s own writing, the John Winthrop letters and his journal have been important authorities, as have the records of Plymouth Colony and the correspondence of Roger Williams. John Demos’s A Little Commonwealth inspired this book. Jeremy Bangs’s archival work on the Pilgrims in Leiden and New England, George D. Langdon Jr’s Pilgrim Colony and the research of Cynthia Hagar Krusell on the Winslows have been essential.

  I have modernised all spellings for the reader’s convenience. Nowadays the terms Native American and American Indian are used interchangeably to describe the first inhabitants of North America. Native American has also come to mean Samoans and Micronesians, as well as Eskimos. I have elected to use the term ‘American Indian’ or the name of the tribe, as is preferred by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. For clarity I have used the name Massasoit throughout the text in preference to Osamequin. I have also used the English names Alexander and Philip, for Massasoit’s sons Wamsutta and Metacom.

  I am grateful to the following learned societies and institutions who permitted me to quote from the papers they hold: the Massachusetts Historical Society for Josiah Winslow’s letters in the Davis Papers; the Boston Athenaeum Library for letters from Nathaniel Morton to Penelope Winslow; the New England Historic Genealogical Society for John Easton’s letter describing the anxieties of Weetamoo, the Squaw Sachem of the Pocassets; the Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, for items in the Curwen Family Papers; the National Archives in London for the Pelham family lawsuits; Christ Church, Oxford for permission to quote from ‘The Original Autobiography and Journal of William Wake Archbishop of Canterbury’, MS 541A (Parts 1 and 2).

  I wish to thank the following individuals for their help: in America, especially Cynthia Hagar Krusell; the late Karin Goldstein; Craig Chartier; Aaron Dougherty of the Winslow House; Donna Curtin, Director of Pilgrim Hall Museum; Peggy M. Baker; Dr Walter V. Powell, Executive Director at the General Society of Mayflower Descendants; the late Alice Teal; Kathleen O’Connor; Betty Magoun Bates; Stephen C. O’Neill; Ann Young; Professor Francis J. Bremer; Cora Currier; Mrs Judy Smith. At the Massachusetts Historical Society: Anne E. Bentley, Curator of Art; Brenda Lawson; Elaine Grublin; Anna Clutterbuck-Cook; Sabina Beauchard; and Kim Nusco. At the Massachusetts State Archives: Jennifer Fauxsmith, Reference Archivist for tracking down the Winslow petitions. Elizabeth Bouvier, Head of Archives, Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. At the Boston Athenaeum Library: Mary Warnement, William D. Hacker Head of Reader Services; Stephen Z. Nonack; Stanley Cushing, Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts. At the New England Historic Genealogical Society: Timothy Salls; Alicia Crane Williams; Mary Chen. Roberta Zonghi, Keeper of Rare Books and Manuscripts, Boston Public Library. Drew Bartley; Patti Auld Johnson and Patsy Hale, Archives & Special Collections, Harriet Irving Library, University of New Brunswick. Andrew Smith at the Judicial Archives of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island for assistance with Freelove Pelham’s controversial will. Paul Royster at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. David Taylor; Laure de Gramont; Edward Jay Epstein; Alden Brewster; Michelle Marchetti Coughlin; Angus Trumble; Penelope Rowlands.

  In England, Christopher Vane, Portcullis Pursuivant, for his superb detective work about the Wake family; also to Thomas Woodcock, Garter Principal King of Arms. Dr Nat Alcock, OBE gave vital help with the Pelham lawsuits; Hilary Marshall, Fellow of the Society of Genealogists, for her tireless transcriptions. Dr Stephen Roberts of the History of Parliament Trust for assistance with the MPs of the Interregnum; Dr Patrick Little; Professor Charles Mitchell. Sir Geoffrey Owen. The late Pamela Neville Sington for help with early American travel literature, and also Antony Payne.

  Etain Kabraji Todds and Lord Phillips of Sudbury; the late Judge Francis Petre for showing me Ferriers, the former home of Herbert Pelham. Local historian Alan Beales of Bures Online. Jeremy Hill and Ida McMaster. The Reverend Canon Robin King, former vicar of Bures St Mary Church; Suffolk historian Clive Paine.

  Dr Frances Willmoth, Archivist at Jesus College, Cambridge; Anna Reynolds of the Royal Collections; Karen Hearn, former Curator of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century painting at Tate Britain; Mrs Clare Brown, Archivist at Lambeth Palace Library; Professor Hugh Thomas; the late Professor Barry Coward. Laura Lindsay of Christie’s London; Sir Stephen Sedley; Sir Ian Bosville Macdonald of Sleat and Christopher Simon Sykes for their assistance with the Bosville family. Mr Alan Palmer; Lord Mair, former Master of Jesus College, Cambridge; Charles Glass. The Duke Humphrey Library at the Bodleian Library, in particular Mike Webb, Curator of Early Modern Archives and Manuscripts; Rhodes House in Oxford; the Guildhall Archives; the British Library; the London Library; Mia Hakl-Law; Quincy Whitaker; the Leicestershire Record Office; Lord Hazlerigg; the Lincolnshire Archives; Liz Street, the Staffordshire Record Office; Essex County Record Office; the Suffolk County Record Office; Dr John Adamson; Dr David Scott; Timothy Otty QC; Dr Mike Macnair. Judith Curthoys of Christ Church, Oxford. Peter Hayward; Michael James; Dr Tom Charlton; Professor Munro Price; Laurence Kelly; Sir Geoffrey Owen; Celia Pilkington, Archivist of the Inner Temple; Geoffrey Robertson QC; Lord Waldegrave; Colin Cohen; Alison Samuel; Heather Holden Brown.

  Clara Farmer at Penguin Random House and Charles Spicer at St Martin’s Press for all their help; Charlotte Humphery for her great assistance in the final stages, and Penelope Hoare for editorial suggestions.

  American relations helped to inspire this book – Mary Frediani and her family, and the memory of Cornelia Fitzgerald and Cornelia Ensign Claiborne. I thank the late Betty Pollock for her enthusiasm, and Claiborne Hancock. Also the late Coleman Saunders for continuous interest in this project.

  Especial gratitude to Ed Victor, and my family: my mother Antonia Fraser and stepfather the late Harold Pinter, my daughters Blanche, Atalanta and Honor, and my husband Edward Fitzgerald – without whom this book would not have been written.

  Notes

  References to authors by surname alone indicate that the work is listed in the Bibliography, where full details can be found.

  Prologue: 1676

  Benjamin Church’s eyewitness account of Philip’s death is published in Benjamin and Thomas Church’s Entertaining Passages Relating to Philip’s War (1716), ed. Henry Martyn Dexter (B. Green, 1865).

  Chapter I: Droitwich

  Bangs, Pilgrim Edward Winslow, is the definitive biography. Brandon Fradd summarises genealogical information about the Winslows, including
Edward Winslow senior’s expectations, in The Winslow Families of Worcestershire, 1400–1700 (New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2009). Thomas Habington describes the Winslow property in A Survey of Worcestershire and the eighteenth-century antiquarian Treadway Russell Nash mentions ‘another considerable freehold estate’ in Kempsey Parish. ‘The middle sort of people’: Keith Wrightson, English Society 1580–1680 (Routledge, 2003). For apprenticeships, see Patrick Wallis and Cliff Webb, The Education and Training of Gentry Sons in Early-modern England (Economic History Working Papers, 128/09, LSE). For extensive information on Beale and Bellamy, see Bunker. For the separatist church in Sandwich, Kent, which included the Chiltons, see Paulick, 407.