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The Final Resting Place of Mayflower Passenger Mary Chilton

The King’s Chapel Burying Ground in Boston is the final resting place of the Mayflower passenger who, legend has it, was the first woman to step ashore at Plymouth Rock.

Mary Chilton was born in 1607 in Sandwich, Kent, England, and was the daughter of James Chilton and his wife (whose name has not been discovered).

In 1620, at the age of 13, Mary came with her parents on the Mayflower and is known for being the first European female to step ashore at Plymouth Rock. She was one of the nine minor girls who were present at the time of the famous First Thanksgiving in 1621. In contrast, out of the 14 adult women who came over on the Mayflower, only four survived that first year.

Mary received a division of land in 1623 and married John Winslow of the Fortune, brother of Pilgrim Edward Winslow, around 1626. They had 10 children and moved to Boston in 1653, where John Winslow prospered as a merchant. Mary Chilton Winslow died before May 1, 1679 in Boston, and is buried in the Winslow Family Tomb in King’s Chapel Burying Ground.

Founded in 1630 at the time of the settlement of Boston, King's Chapel is Boston Proper's oldest burying place. Aside from the Winslow family, notable burials include: Massachusetts' first governor, John Winthrop; William Dawes, Paul Revere's compatriot on his ride to Lexington in 1775; and the Reverend John Cotton, a powerful religious leader in 17th century Boston.

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Valentine's Day Tea and Talk at the Alden House

Love is in the air at the Alden House – with a tea and talk on early New England courtship traditions and tea etiquette, taking place this Valentine's Day in Duxbury!

Read on to learn more about the real life love story of Mayflower passengers John Alden and Priscilla Mullins... 

Curious about early New England Valentine’s Day traditions? The Alden Kindred of America – a GSMD-endorsed family society – is hosting a tea and talk this Thursday, Feb. 14th on the etiquette of the tea table and courtship traditions, followed by tea and treats made from historic recipes.

The program will be presented by Leslie Evans, director of the Avery-Copp Museum. Admission is $10 ($8 for members). The event takes place in the barn of the Alden House Historic Site in Duxbury, MA from 2-4 pm. Reservations are recommended; email director@alden.org or call 781-934-9092 to reserve your spot!

The Alden House is a fitting setting for a Valentine’s event, considering it was the homestead of two Pilgrims with a very famous courtship. Most people don’t think of romance when they picture the Pilgrims, but the story of Mayflowerpassengers John Alden and Priscilla Mullins has been romanticized for centuries. And if you choose to believe the 1858 poem “The Courtship of Miles Standish,” (composed by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a descendant of John and Priscilla who said that he based his writing on oral family tradition), John, Priscilla, and Captain Myles Standish were embroiled in a love triangle that could rival any Hollywood movie plot!

It’s not farfetched to speculate that John and Priscilla could have fallen in love during their time on the Mayflower. She was 17, the oldest minor girl passenger, while John was around 21 years old. He was hired in Southampton as the cooper (barrel-maker) for the ship and was due to return to England, but for some reason, he chose to stay in Plymouth… We can certainly speculate why!

John married Priscilla (after, legend has it, unsuccessfully trying to convince her to marry his friend, Captain Standish) and the two had 10 children together, from which there were many notable descendants, including Presidents John Quincy and John Quincy Adams, Orson Wells, Marilyn Monroe, and Dick Van Dyke.

For more on John Alden and Priscilla Mullins, visit the Alden Kindred of America.

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Family Society Friday: The Pilgrim Isaac Allerton Society

GSMD is excited to welcome David A. Furlow, editor of the Pilgrim Isaac Allerton Society Journal, as our special guest blogger for this week's Family Society Friday... which features the Pilgrim Isaac Allerton Society!

The Pilgrim Isaac Allerton Society is the most recent Mayflower Family Society, holding its Inaugural Meeting and Banquet on September 6, 2014. Yet it has helped members of the Allerton, Brewster, and Cushman families reconnect with ancestors and assemble proof of their eligibility for membership in it and in GSMD. Most importantly, it has sponsored and shared literally groundbreaking historical, archaeological, and genealogical research about Isaac Allerton and the Allerton family that sheds new light on this Pilgrim family’s important role in the 17th century birth of America.

The Pilgrim Isaac Allerton Society meets in Plymouth every three years, during Mayflower Congress, to honor the memory of Mayflower passenger and Mayflower Compact signer, Isaac Allerton, his first wife Mary (Norris) Allerton, second wife Fear (Brewster) Allerton, and widow Joanna Allerton, as well as their children Bartholomew Allerton, Remember Allerton Maverick, Mary Allerton Cushman, Sarah Allerton, and Isaac Allerton, Jr.

Isaac Allerton, a tailor born in Suffolk, England in 1586, during the Elizabethan Renaissance, shaped and reshaped American society. A Separatist from Suffolk County, England, in East Anglia, he made his way to London as a young man. Then, in search of religious liberty he could not find in England, he took his sister Sarah Allerton with him to Amsterdam, became a citizen of Leiden, Holland, and married Mary Norris. Isaac, Mary, and their small children crossed the vast Atlantic on the Mayflower voyage that Isaac helped plan in 1620.

Through his organization of the Mayflower voyage, signature (fifth) on the Mayflower Compact, and service as Plymouth Colony’s First Assistant to the Governor from 1621-1631 and from 1633-34, and negotiation of the leveraged buyout that won Plymouth’s settlers economic autonomy, Isaac Allerton helped weave representative government, popular elections, and the rule of law into the fabric of American society.

In his book about the Pilgrims’ migration to Plymouth Colony, New England historian and genealogist Robert C. Anderson described Allerton as “one of the busiest and most complicated men in early New England....” Isaac, his second wife Fear (Brewster) Allerton, and his daughters Remember and Mary began New England’s dairy industry on their farm in Kingston, Massachusetts, the site of one of Plimoth Plantation’s most important archaeological excavations. The Pilgrim Isaac Allerton Society has published photos and presented programs about the dig, its history, and its artifacts. 

A Renaissance man in the truest sense, Isaac acted as a merchant, lender, ship captain, agent, arbitrator, mediator, bail-bondsman, attorney, and appellate judge. After he left Plymouth, he created New England’s fishing industry in Marblehead, Massachusetts. Allerton pioneered the trans-Atlantic carrying-trade and coastal commerce along America’s coast, bartering, purchasing, and selling fish, grain, tobacco, and other staple commodities. He also was the bearer of many important messages and letters between the colonies and England, as well as home ports. Thomas Rutherford Trowbridge, in an 1877 paper presented to the New Haven Historical Society, saluted Isaac Allerton as the “The Father of New England Commerce.”

Isaac Allerton played critical roles in the histories of the Bay Colony, Maine, L’Acadie (French Acadia), Nieuw NederLandt (New Netherland), Nya Sverige (New Sweden), New Haven and Virginia. Elected by the common people of New Netherland to serve on the Acht Man, or Eight Man Board of Manhattan, he led a rebellion against Willem Kieft, a cowardly and corrupt West India Company governor. Isaac Allerton was second signer of the October 28, 1644 Remonstrance of the Eight Men of Manhattan, the first petition demanding the right of self-government for settlers in any Dutch colony. In New Netherland and New England, Allerton advanced the cause of conscience, self-government, and the rule of law in early America, and not just in Plymouth.

In addition to being the fifth signer of the Mayflower Compact, Isaac Allerton was the second signer of the October 28, 1644 Remonstrance of the Eight Men of Manhattan, the first demand for self-government by Dutch colonists anywhere in the world. 

The Pilgrim Isaac Allerton Society Journal solicits and publishes new research about Isaac Allerton and the Allerton family, as well as notices about society meetings and events. The society’s leaders present programs about Isaac Allerton and the Allerton family at historical, archaeological and genealogical conferences and at local Mayflower Societies across the U.S.

For more information about the Pilgrim Isaac Allerton Society, please visit http://www.isaacallerton.com/.

David A. Furlow is a First Amendment attorney, historian, writer, and editor of the Pilgrim Isaac Allerton Society Journal. He also serves on the Pilgrim Hall Board of Trustees and as a Fellow on the Texas Surpreme Court Historical Society and Executive Director of the Texas Supreme Court Historical Society Journal, and as President and Director of the Houston Philosophical Society. Follow David on Twitter @DavidAFurlow. 

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Family Society Friday: The Alden Kindred of America

Every Friday, we will be spotlighting a different GSMD-endorsed Family Society and the Mayflower passenger they honor! To kick things off, let’s start at the top of the alphabet – our first feature is the Alden Kindred of America (AKA).

Since 1906, AKA has helped thousands of people around the globe engage in their Pilgrim heritage through Mayflower passengers John Alden and Priscilla Mullins. Through its searchable database, those who suspect they may be a descendant of the Aldens can get one step closer to verifying their lineage. The Alden Kin Search Project is an ongoing collaborative effort to gather and share information on the descendants of John and Priscilla, and contains entries for over 54,000 descendants and their spouses through eight generations… all linked back to a single family!

It should be no surprise, then, that the Alden descendants comprise one of the largest groups of Mayflower descendants living today. But they just as easily might not have been, if a young man named John Alden had decided to return to his homeland instead of staying in America, signing the Mayflower Compact, and going on to become a prominent member of the Plymouth Colony.

Signing the Mayflower Compact 1620 by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (1899).

John Alden was born in England around 1599, and was 21 years old when he was hired in Southampton as the cooper (barrel-maker) for the Mayflower’s voyage to America. He chose to stay, and in 1623 married fellow Mayflower passenger Priscilla Mullins. The two had 10 children together.

GSMD member Jeff Ehren of Eugene, Oregon is a proud Alden descendant who is thrilled to help keep his family legacy alive.

“I am a direct descendant of two people who fell in love and traveled across the ocean 400 years ago to a new land,” he says. “Now that’s a story.”

Alden rose as a cooper and carpenter to hold various positions in the colony government, including treasurer and assistant to the governor, an appointment to which he was regularly reelected. He also served as deputy governor on more than one occasion. When he died at the age of 89, Alden was one of the last surviving signers of the Mayflower Compact.

Broadside of John Alden's obituary (mayflowerhistory.com).

Alden was also one of the founders of the town of Duxbury, and you can visit his home today. For more information on the Alden Kindred of America and the Alden House Historic Site, visit alden.org.

If you think you could be a descendant of Alden or another Mayflower pilgrim, contact one of our 53 member societies, and we can guide you through the application process: www.themayflowersoicety.org/join.

Stay tuned for our next #FamilySocietyFriday!

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Mayflower family: GSMD Research Library connects the dots for Chilton descendants

When sisters Kate Brendler, Jane Buchi and Elizabeth Sandri paid a visit to the GSMD library in Plymouth last week, they came to explore their family’s roots – a few possible connections to Mayflower passenger James Chilton, outlined on their great-grandfather’s hand-drawn family tree.

From left to right: Kate Brendler, Jane Buchi and Elizabeth Sandri.

Equipped with their great-grandfather's family tree and determination, these three sisters were hoping to learn more about their possible Mayflower roots.

What they didn’t know was that their great-grandfather was actually an early member of the Mayflower Society; GSMD Research Library staff confirmed that he joined 100 years ago, in 1919, on the eve of the 300th anniversary of the Mayflower voyage.

Now, 100 years later, his great-granddaughters came to Plymouth to see if they could confirm their Mayflower lineage – on the cusp of the 400th anniversary.

… Anybody have goosebumps?!

 Many families hold tradition that they are Mayflower descendants; does yours? If you think a relative of yours may already be a member of the Mayflower Society, contact Membership Services Manager Georgi Hess at membership@themayflowersociety.org.

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N.C. WYETH The Departure of the Mayflower Oil on Canvas 40" x 30"

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Mayflower II

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A Year of Progress - Thank you for a great 2018!

2018 has been a year of auspicious change for the General Society of Mayflower Descendants in preparation for the upcoming commemoration of the Mayflower voyage in 2020.

As the recognized leader in Pilgrim genealogy and research, the creation and perpetuity of GSMD has allowed for countless descendants to explore this unique heritage, cherish the sacred memory of our Pilgrim ancestors, and connect with a community of others seeking to advance the Mayflower story. As the year of 2018 draws to a close and we look towards the future, we are excited to share our past year of successes and experiences with you.

In 2018:

We changed the name of our Preliminary Review service to Mayflower Lineage Match and processed over 3,000 submissions, providing a robust stream of potential members to our Member Societies!

We welcomed four Family Societies to our partnership. 16 Family Societies are now endorsed by the General Society of Mayflower Descendants.

GSMD welcomed Vista Heights Middle School 8th graders this past summer and taught them about the history of Plymouth's Cole's Hill! Organized by their history teacher Aurelio Cortez, the 8th graders then placed a wreath in memoriam of the Mayflower Pilgrims.

Governor General George Garmany shared preview photos of the William Bradford ‘One Small Candle’ sculpture to be placed in the Mayflower Society House garden as part of the GSMD 400th Commemoration in 2020.

The Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants started holding regular book club meetings lead by local historian Peggy Baker at the Mayflower Society House. The next book discussion will be In Small Things Forgotten by James Deetz on January 9. More information here.

GSMD presented the fourth annual Pilgrim Academic Research Award to dedicated Mayflower author and researcher Susan E. Roser during the 1620 Club Banquet in September 2018.

Through a partnership with FamilySearch and AmericanAncestors (NEHGS), camera crew volunteers have been on site the past year digitizing and documenting the Society's member data acquired since 1897. Out of almost 95,000, FamilySearch volunteers have captured over 77,000 member files, applications and supporting documentation for preservation this past year. The Society extends a huge thank you to the wonderful volunteer help we’ve had for preparing the files - the crew removed staples and moved over 2,000 files a week!

Established a 2020 partnership with Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum and announced a collaboration between GSMD and Provincetown 400. In anticipation of the upcoming commemoration, the new partnership offers PMPM membership discounts to GSMD members!

Over 200 families went back in time and met with 16th-century privateers and Pilgrims during our annual Pirates Ashore weekend at the Spire Center for Performing Arts. The weekend kicked off with a free lecture Friday night by local historian and reenactor Joe Pereira.

Created and implemented an audio tour of the Mayflower Society House through UniGuide, a mobile app. Members can listen to the tour here. In 2018, Members were also offered free private tours and new art pieces were added to the Member Welcome Center.

GSMD extended support to the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe in its quest to pass the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Reservation Reaffirmation Act, now pending in Congress. More information here.

Not only was the Mayflower Gard established by Captain General Jeff Stark and Maryland Mayflower Governor Jim Battles, but the Dress Like a Pilgrim Initiative  was passed during GBOA 2018.

We debuted the Mayflower Society House float in America's Hometown Thanksgiving Parade! Find out how you can get involved through 2020  or check out our photo album.

The town of Plymouth took a major historic step on behalf of our project to restore the First Parish Church in Plymouth’s Town Square and voted YES on a Community Preservation Grant for $2,618,000. That will repair the exterior of the Meetinghouse. Now GSMD will raise $8 to $10 million more to restore and preserve the interior.

And finally, in December, the First Parish Meetinghouse congregation symbolically resigned from the National Pilgrim Memorial Meetinghouse Charitable Trust during an emotional service, thoughtfully titled "Forward Through the Ages" and led by Rev. Arthur Lavoie.  The General Society of Mayflower Descendants will become the sole owner of the deed upon approval by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

This list scratches the surface of the General Society's year of accomplishments, nevermind the tireless work GSMD Member Societies put in to further advance our ancestral legacy and expand GSMD's mission to educate using our ancestors' stories and values.

2018 was a formative time for our Society and we look forward to working with our growing membership, local and national organizations far and wide and the town of Plymouth as we prepare for the 400th Anniversary of the founding of Plimoth Colony in 2020.

Governor General George P. Garmany Jr., the Executive Committee and the staff in Plymouth wish you and your family a Happy New Year and thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your support.