MEET WILLIAM BRADFORD The account of Howland’s near-drowning is found in a journal entitled Of Plymouth Plantation by one of the Pilgrim leaders William Bradford We will find out a lot more about Bradford and about his history of the Pilgrims throughout this book The document is a primary source that gives us important information about what happened to the Pilgrims Below is a brief extract from Bradford’s description of Howland’s adventure To make it easier to understand some spellings have been changed from the original For example shipe has been changed to ship and yonge to young In a mighty storm a lusty young man called John Howland was with a heel of the ship thrown into the sea but it pleased God that he caught hold of the top-sail halliards ropes which hung over board He held his hold and then with a boat hook and other means got into the ship again and his life saved
WHAT WAS THE MAYFLOWER Where did the ship come from that carried the Pilgrims across the Atlantic Ocean In the 16th and 17th centuries Mayflower was a very common name for ships in fact at that time there were Mayflowers sailing out of almost every port in England Ireland and Scotland It took some detective work in the early 1900s by a naval historian named R G Marsden to uncover which of the many Mayflowers was the correct one The home of Christopher Jones master of the Mayflower still stands in the town of Harwich on England’s east coast
TO THE ARCHIVES There are a few clues from primary sources such as WilliamBradford’s journal about the size and the layout of the ship Bradford also tells us that the ship’s master was named Mr Jones but he does not give his first name Marsden went to the archives of the High Court of Admiralty in London the English court that has dealt with disputes and lawsuits about ships and cargoes since the 1300s He reduced the number of possible Mayflowers that could have set sail across the Atlantic in fall 1620 to a handful and then to just one This Mayflower was partly owned by its master Christopher Jones and it originally came from Harwich England From 1611 the Mayflower was based in Rotherhithe in London England This picture of the commercial docks at Rotherhithe dates from 1813 HERRING TROUBLES We know from records kept at busy ports that before the Mayflower carried its human cargo across the Atlantic its job was to carry all sorts of other goods around Europe In 1609 the
Mayflower was on the return leg of a voyage to Norway packed with tar pine planks and herring The ship ran into a storm and had to dump a large part of its cargo overboard to lighten its load A lawsuit followed recorded in the High Court of Admiralty because the Mayflower did not deliver the full amount of herring In 1620 the Mayflower was hired to take a group of colonists the Pilgrims to North America This was the ship’s and its master’s first transatlantic voyage as well as the first for most but not all of the crew HISTORY DETECTIVES PORT BOOKS We know about the movements of the Mayflower before its journey across the Atlantic from records now held in the National Archives of the United Kingdom called port books Merchants importing goods from overseas were required to pay duties taxes at the port of unloading From 1565 until 1799 all of these taxable cargoes were recorded in the port books About 20,000 survive today You can find out more about port books at www nationalarchives gov uk records research-guides port-books htm
