You may have never heard of Mary, but she was a brave strong girl with an important place in history. Mary was a passenger on the ship Mayflower.
When the Mayflower arrived in Plymouth 9 November 1620, it had been on the water for sixty-six days.There were 102 passengers on this ship which normally carried cargo like wine and cloth. There were also about 30 crew members on board as well
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| Plymouth Rock |
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| Just so you can see how big the rock is |
Of the passengers about one third were Puritan separatist.The separatists wanted to break away from the Church of England. They wanted to be able to worship and live the way they believed. In order to accomplish this they left England to live in the more tolerant atmosphere of Leiden, Netherlands. Although they could worship freely, the separatists were only able to get the lowest paying jobs in this land so their children were also put to work to make ends meet. Another concern they had was that they noticed their children were assimilating and absorbing the culture around them, and thus losing their identity. They saw potential for freedom and economic improvement in the the Virginia Colony.
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Besides the delays in departure, crashing waves and breaking ships, the separatists also dealt with food shortages and illnesses like coughs, colds, fever, pneumonia and scurvy.
The rough seas also kept them from getting to the area of land near the Hudson River in what was then part of the Virginia Colony. They were forced to stay near Plymouth in Cape Cod.
Mary was just 13 years old when she, her father James Chilton, and mother Susanna arrived in the new world. She was the youngest of eight children and the only one to come with her parents.
Mary's father, James, was probably the oldest person on the Mayflower voyage. On 11 Nov 1620, James and others signed the Mayflower Compact.
On 8 Dec 1620 just a few weeks after signing the Compact, James died, still on board the Mayflower, which was anchored off Provincetown Harbor. Mary's mother also died a short time later, probably in January 1621, leaving Mary orphaned in a strange, cold, and hostile new land.
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| The Landing of the Pilgrims, painted in 1877 by Henry Bacon and showing Mary Chilton landing on Plymouth Rock, is on exhibit at Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth Massachusetts |
As a side note, only 4 out of the 14 adult women survived the first year.
The young and healthy people of the colony were probably the caregivers to all the people who suffered and died that first winter at Plymouth. Mary dealt with many difficult things in her first months alone in New England.
A year after the Pilgrims arrived a second ship came to Plymouth. It was the called the Fortune and was much smaller than the previous ship. On it was a brother of Mayflower passenger and future governor Edward Winslow. The new arrival's name was John Winslow. He would become Mary's husband sometime in the years between July 1623 and May 1627. Mary would have been 16 - 20 years old.
Three years later after arriving in Plymouth, Mary received her parents share of land between the Alden and Standish plots. She had most likely been living in one of these two households, prior to marrying John Winslow.
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| Plimoth Plantation living museum, Plymouth, Massachusetts |
John and Mary Chilton Winslow had ten children; John, Susanna, Mary, Edward, Sarah, Samuel, Joseph, Isaac, an unnamed child who died young, and Benjamin.
Benjamin was born in 12 August,1653. Sometime after that event, the John Winslow family moved to Boston. Mary was one of the first women, if not the very first woman, to live in Boston.
On 16 Jun 1671, they had their church membership transferred from Plymouth to Boston's third Church (Old South Church).
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| Old South Church, Stenograph circa 1875, Boston Public Library |
No one knows where they first lived when they came to Boston, but in 1671 John bought for 500 pounds in New England silver money "the Mansion or dwelling-house of the Late Antipas Voice with the gardens wood-yard and Backside as it is scituate lying and being in Boston aforesaid as it is nowe fenced in And is fronting & Facing to the Lane going to mr John Jolliffes."
John Winslow became one of the wealthiest merchants in Boston. He and Mary lived in the house in Boston until their deaths.This house on Spring Lane is gone now.
John died in the spring of 1674 and bequeathed Mary their dwelling house, gardens, yards, all household goods and £400 sterling.
Mary died before 11 July 1674, when her will was proved. She and Elizabeth Tilley are the only two female Mayflower passengers who made out wills.
She made a life for herself in Plymouth and Boston, but not before she endured many trials and heartbreaks. I am proud of the courage and strength of this female ancestor.
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| John and Mary are buried here at Kings Chapel in Boston. There are many other notable figures buried here |
My family line:
James Chilton m. Susanna Last Name Unknown, had Mary
Mary Chilton m. John Winslow, had Susan
Susan Winslow m. Robert Latham, had Hannah
Hannah Lathan m. Joseph Washburn Jr., had Rebecca
Rebecca Washburn m. David Johnson, had David Johnson Jr.
David Johnson Jr. m. Parnell Packard, had Mary Johnson
Mary Johnson m. Isaac George, had Orpha George
Orpha George m. Daniel Green, had Horace Green
Horace Green m. Drusilla Hopkins, had Frances Ada Green
Frances Ada Green m. Allen Miles Hopkins, had Lucina Ada Hopkins
Lucina Ada Hopkins m. Fremont Floyd Utter, had Earl Howard Utter
Earl Howard Utter m. Dorothy May DeArmond, had my father
1 The Mayflower and Her Passengers By Caleb H. Johnson, Page 115
2 Chilton's Title to Celebrity by Charles Thornton Libby
