Mayflower Memories

[madamesilverspurs]

We grew up hearing about our Mayflower ancestors. Dad's mother was big on that stuff, along with her ardent membership in the DAR. One of Dad's cousins eventually got around to putting a chart together for us. When Mom's brother decided to research the family tree on that side of the family and found some Mayflower connections, we got out Dad's chart for comparison. Uh frigging oh. Yep, seems that both sides of my immediate family claim a common ancestor. It took all of about 30 seconds for us to dissolve into laughter, deciding to accept that common link as 'splaining' some strange stuff in the family. And Mom wasn't thrilled with our delight in discovering a distant but distinct kinship to Sidney Biddle Barrows, the so-called "Mayflower Madam."

Years later I found myself in the university library reading the text of letters sent home by some of those pilgrims. It was a sobering experience. Tracing the lineage is interesting, but doing so without the whitewash imparts a far more honest view of history and my ancestors' parts in it, good and bad.

Anyway. For years, now, my personal Thanksgiving tradition has involved dusting off the turntable to play Flip Wilson's "Cowboys and Colored People" album (1967). The "Christopher Columbus" track is pure genius.

[Ian David]

1. My wife's grandmother on her father's side was descended from one of the Mayflower families. n/t

[amdezurik]

2. any Billingsley's in that tree?

if so, Hi Cousin :)

[JuniperLea]

3. We may be cousins...

Who were your Mayflower ancestors? Mine were Mary Chilton (passenger on the Mayflower), and John Winslow (passenger on the Fortune).

[Warpy]

4. There are a few things people need to know about the Mayflower

First, the boat was a very small one, about the size of the average corporate magnate's yacht. People were crammed aboard like sardines and the crossing must have been utterly miserable.

They arrived in a physically weakened state at exactly the wrong time, a New England fall. While fish and game were plentiful and the abandoned village of Patuxent still had livable structures and cleared fields, everything was unfamiliar to the new arrivals and they tended to keep trying to live on hardtack and spoiled salt pork and build their own structures. Half of them died that first winter.

Only about a third of them were religious. The rest were fast buck artists, indentured servants and a few convicts.

Written record in the form of correspondence from that period is extremely humbling, as are visits to the rebuilt Mayflower and Plimoth Plantation. If anyone is planning a visit to New England, those are the two things to see. The rest is negotiable.

(on edit: I have no personal stake in this. My earliest ancestor here was a Dutchman, one of those giving Mohawk land away to each other)

[madamesilverspurs]

5. Exactly.

Family history is interesting. I can't claim pride or shame for anything my ancestors did, I hoisted the Mayflower pennant just because it's Thanksgiving. After that episode, the next traceable ancestor came from Ireland rather involuntarily -- he was rendered unconscious and stuffed into an empty whiskey barrel and shipped to the British Colonies as punishment for being a Protestant.

[JuniperLea]

7. Pilgrim Separatist... ornery folk... I came by it honestly...

JAMES CHILTON


James Chilton was born in England around 1556. He was a resident of Canterbury.

James Chilton was part of the Pilgrim Separatist community in Leiden. In 1620, he journeyed to Plymouth on the Mayflower with his wife and daughter Mary. James Chilton died before the Mayflower reached Plymouth, on 8 December 1620, while the ship was anchored in Provincetown Harbor. His wife died shortly thereafter.

James Chilton's daughter Mary later married John Winslow.

[WolverineDG]

6. Hi Cousin!

I had distant uncles & cousins on the Mayflower; my direct ancestors came over on the next boat & my mother's family showed up with Reverend Maverick (yes THE REAL Mavericks) a few years after that.

dg

[Winterblues]

8. My wife's uncle lives on the last remaining Land Grant from King George

South of Plymouth by fourteen miles. The house he lives in was built 1784 and has a plaque on it attesting to that date. The family name was Sopworth and they actually came over on the second ship a couple weeks after the Mayflower..

[DFW]

9. An old friend of ours once put it in accessible form--for the French

His name was Art Buchwald. He was a colleague of my father's, and he wrote this
back in the 1950s when he was a correspondent in Paris. If you understand French
perfectly, it helps.........

ONE of the most important holidays is Thanksgiving Day, known in France as le Jour de Merci Donnant.

Le Jour de Merci Donnant was started by a group of pilgrims (Pèlerins) who fled from l'Angleterre before the McCarran Act to found a colony in the New World (le Nouveau Monde) where they could shoot Indians (les Peaux-Rouges) and eat turkey (dinde) to their hearts' content. They landed at a place called Plymouth (now a famous voiture Americaine) in a wooden sailing ship named the Mayflower, or Fleur de Mai, in 1620. But while the Pèlerins were killing the dindes, the Peaux-Rouges were killing the Pèlerins, and there were several hard winters ahead for both of them.

The only way the Peaux-Rouges helped the Pèlerins was when they taught them how to grow corn (mais). The reason they did this was because they liked corn with their Pèlerins.

In 1623, after another harsh year, the Pèlerins' crops were so good that they decided to have a celebration and give thanks because more mais was raised by the Pèlerins than Pèlerins were killed by the Peaux-Rouges.

Every year on le Jour de Merci Donnant, parents tell their children an amusing story about the first celebration.

It concerns a brave capitaine named Miles Standish (known in France as Kilomètres Deboutish) and a shy young lieutenant named Jean Alden. Both of them were in love with a flower of Plymouth named Priscilla Mullens (no translation). The vieux capitaine said to the jeune lieutenant:

"Go to the damsel Priscilla (Allez très vite chez Priscilla), the loveliest maiden of Plymouth (la plus jolie demoiselle de Plymouth). Say that a blunt old captain, a man not of words but of action (un vieux Fanfan la Tulipe), offers his hand and his heart — the hand and heart of a soldier. Not in these words, you understand, but this, in short, is my meaning.

"I am a maker of war (Je suis un fabricant de la guerre) and not a maker of phrases. You, bred as a scholar (Vous, qui êtes pain comme un étudiant), can say it in elegant language, such as you read in your books of the pleadings and wooings of lovers, such as you think best suited to win the heart of the maiden."

Although Jean was fit to be tied (convenable à être emballé), friendship prevailed over love and he went to his duty. But instead of using elegant language, he blurted out his mission. Priscilla was muted with amazement and sorrow (rendue muette par l'étonnement et la tristesse).

At length she exclaimed, breaking the ominous silence, "If the great captain of Plymouth is so very eager to wed me, why does he not come himself and take the trouble to woo me?" (Ou est-il, le vieux Kilomètres? Pourquoi ne vient-il pas auprès de moi pour tenter sa chance?)

Jean said that Kilomètres Deboutish was very busy and didn't have time for such things. He staggered on, telling her what a wonderful husband Kilomètres would make.

Finally, Priscilla arched her eyebrows and said in a tremulous voice, "Why don't you speak for yourself, Jean?" (Chacun à son gout.)

And so, on the fourth Thursday in November, American families sit down at a large table brimming with tasty dishes and for the only time during the year eat better than the French do.

No one can deny that le Jour de Merci Donnant is a grande fête, and no matter how well fed American families are, they never forget to give thanks to Kilomètres Deboutish, who made this great day possible.
-------------------------

More than 50 years after Art wrote this, it still cracks me up.

[tonycinla]

10. Miles Standish

Miles Standish who was hired to be a military advisor by the Pilgrims is my 18th great grandfather.

[1Hippiechick]

11. Well, let me formally welcome all of you to America. I am descenced from Native Americans. :) n/t

[madamesilverspurs]

12. Thank you!

And may I add that your ancestors extended a hospitality that is too often lacking in my ancestors' descendants...