Click here The Mayflower’s journey across the Atlantic was not an easy one and she was harassed by numerous storms, which pushed her off her intended course 

During one of these storms a violent wave slammed against the ship sending it flying and crashing back into the waves.  The force cracked the main beam of the ship causing the upper deck to buckle.  Below the waters poured in on the overcrowded passengers who rightly feared for their lives as they were drenched. 

Fortunately, some of the men among the passengers had brought a “great iron screw” as part of their supplies to help build their new homes.  The great screw was a mechanical device also known as a jackscrew.  For hours the men worked in the storm with little to no light in extremely tight spaces securing the main beam and preventing it from cracking more; and so the Mayflower survived another tempest. to edit.

These scenes were built by James Pegrum as part of a series of models on the voyage of the Mayflower. Follow us on  Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to see them first.

When the Mayflower set sail from Plymouth in 1620, amongst the passengers were eight adult women, three who were at least six months into their pregnancies. These women were Susanna White, Mary Allerton and Elizabeth Hopkins.  Maybe it was expected that they would arrive in their new homeland before the time to give birth came, though history for these women is limited as at this time they had little rights and there are limited records of their courage and experiences. 

The journey was hampered by storms and the Mayflower was blown off course, making the voyage longer than expected. During the voyage Elizabeth Hopkins gave birth to a son who was named Oceanus, his exact date of birth is unknown. Having been born on the Atlantic Ocean he was named 'Oceanus’, Latin for ocean.

Oceanus arrive with his family, Stephen and Elizabeth Hopkins in America, surviving the first winter, but died aged 2.  His parents had married on February 19th 1617 or 18 at St Mary Matfelon Church in Whitechapel, London.  They had their first child, a daughter Damaris, shortly after in 1618.  They boarded the ship as part of a group of passengers known as the ‘Strangers’, which meant they were not part of the Separatist travellers but were aboard for different reasons. In the case of the Hopkins’ it was likely that they were aboard for their mercantile abilities as well as Stephen’s previous experience of travelling to the New World.

This scene was built by James Pegrum as part of a series of models on the voyage of the Mayflower. Follow us on  Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to see them first.

Howland came from Fenstanton, Huntingdonshire and was the son of Margaret and Henry Howland His brothers Henry and Arthur Howland, who were Quakers, emigrated later from England to Marshfield, Massachusetts.  When John boarded the Mayflower in Plymouth he was a servant of John Carvers sand held to the faith of the Separatist Pilgrims.

His determination to survive meant that he was able to complete the voyage with the rest of the ships crew and passengers and he was one of 41 men to have signed the Mayflower Compact in November.  After John Carvers death in 1621 he became a freeman and three years later married fellow Mayflower passenger Elizabeth Tilley. They had ten children who all survived into adulthood.

Over the last few weeks we've been looking at some of the events which lay behind The Mayflower leaving England for America on September 6th 1620.  We've been bringing  you a series of short biographies on some of the ship's crew members. We’ve already done blogs on Captain Christopher Jones and Master’s Mate and pilot John Clarke, both of who we know a reasonable amount about and in this blog we wrap things up with short biographies of some of the other members who we have information on. ​

These scenes were built by James Pegrum as part of a series of models on the voyage of the Mayflower. Follow us on  Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to see them first.
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Over the last few weeks we've been looking at some of the events which lay behind The Mayflower leaving England for America on September 6th 1620.  Over the next couple of weeks we are bringing  you a series of short biographies on some of the ship's crew members, beginning last week with Captain, Cristopher Jones. This week we will introduce you to the Mayflower's Master’s Mate and pilot, John Clarke.

​John Clarke was the Mayflower’s Master’s Mate / pilot, an important role that saw him responsible for overseeing ship operations, and navigation when the captain was not on duty. He was also responsible for steering ships in and out of berths, through hazardous conditions, and boat traffic.

Clarke remained around Jamestown for around forty days, making himself useful by piloting ships in the area carrying various stores. It was while engaged in this work however that he encountered a Spanish vessel and following a brief confrontation was taken prisoner and transported to Havana in Cuba. He would be held in Havana for around two years, then being transferred to Spain where he was in custody for five years. In 1616, he was finally freed in a prisoner exchange with England. In 1618 he was once more back on the other side of the Atlantic, piloting a ship called the Falcon, which was based in Jamestown. He returned to England in 1620 and was shortly after hired as the pilot of the Mayflower.
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The Mayflower reached North America in November 1620 and while the crew of the Mayflower had hoped to return to England straight away, sickness meant they had to stay moored off the coast until sufficient crew were fit again. In December, the passengers of the Mayflower were shuttling in and around the shoreline of Duxbury and Plymouth, using a small shallop as transportation. On one occasion a storm came up quickly and threatened the small boat, with Clarke serving as captain. The crew spotted a small island off the coast of Duxbury and rowed for it. Back on solid ground, the Pilgrims and crew paused to give thanks for their deliverance from the storm. For his part in saving those on board, the Pilgrims named the island Clark’s Island.

Soon Clarke decided to settle in America and headed south to Virginia where he would attempt to make a home in Jamestown. Jamestown was a vastly different society to the ones the Pilgrims were trying to create in New England and relations were approaching breaking point with the local Native American tribes. Matters came to a head in 1622 when Chief Opchanacanough and his Powhatan Confederacy attempted to eliminate the English colony once and for all. On the morning of March 22nd, they attacked outlying plantations and communities up and down the James River in what became known as the Indian Massacre of 1622. More than 300 settlers were killed in the attack, about a third of the colony's English-speaking population. Jamestown was spared only through a timely warning by a Virginia Indian employee. There was not enough time to spread the word to the outposts. Of the 6,000 or so people who came to the settlement between 1608 and 1624, only 3,400 survived. Clarke was among the dead.

These scenes were built by James Pegrum and Simon Pickard as part of a series of models on the voyage of the Mayflower. Follow us on  Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to see them first.

Over the last few weeks we've been looking at some of the events which lay behind The Mayflower leaving England for America on September 6th 1620.  But who was responsible for sailing her?  The number of the crew is uncertain with estimates ranging between 30 and 50.  Best estimates suggest the crew was made up of around 14 Officers, and the remainder, however many they were, were seaman.  We know little about most of the crew but a few are known to us.  Therefore over the next couple of weeks we will bring you a series of short biographies on these crew members, beginning with the Captain, Cristopher Jones.

By his mid-thirties Jones had become a somewhat prominent citizen of the town and was named as a burgess of Harwich in a new town charter granted by King James. Jones was coming into his own about this time, and with an assist from a bounty, he built a 240-ton, larger than average ship of his own which he named after his second wife – Josian. Jones used the ship for trading voyages as far south as to Bordeaux in France.

It is not until August 1609 that Jones is first recorded as master and part owner of the Mayflower. At this time the ship was chartered for a voyage from London to Drontheim (Trondheim) in Norway, and back to London. Due to bad weather, on her return the ship lost an anchor and made short delivery of her cargo of herrings. Litigation was involved and was proceeding in 1612.

In about 1611 Jones decided to leave Harwich and moved south to London, where he made his home in Rotherhithe parish, a mile downstream on the Thames from the Tower of London. Records have the Mayflower in the Thames in London in 1613 – once in July and again in October and November. Records of 1616 again state Jones' ship was in the Thames and the noting of wine on board suggests the ship had recently been on a voyage to France, Spain, Portugal, the Canaries, or some other wine country. Indeed, up until Jones was commissioned by the Pilgrims to sail to North America, the Mayflower appears to have made many trips to transport wine back from Europe, which would be exchanged for goods such as wool.

In addition to wine and wool, with Jones as captain the Mayflower transported hats, hemp, Spanish salt, hops and vinegar to Norway and he may have taken the ship whaling in the North Atlantic in the Greenland area. Jones had traveled to Mediterranean Sea ports, being then part owner with Nichols, Robert Child, Thomas Short. In 1620 Capt. Jones and Robert Child still owned their quarter shares in the ship, and it was from them that Thomas Weston chartered her in the summer of 1620 to undertake the Pilgrim voyage.

Neither Jones nor the Mayflower had completed a transatlantic voyage previously and it may have been deterirating trade conditions in Europe that pushed him towards undertaking such a task. Of course we know the voyage was a success and Jones and his entire crew remained in North America over the winter of 1620/21. Originally he had planned to return to England as soon as the Pilgrims found a settlement site, but members of his ship's crew were ravaged by the same illnesses that overcame the Mayflower passengers, and so he had to remain in Plymouth Harbor "till he saw his men began to recover".

Having first attempted to make the crossing in August the Mayflower had been forced to dock due to her companionship, the Speedwell, repeatedly springing leaks. It was here that the Speedwell would be left, here condition too poor to make a successful voyage likely.

Now in September, western gales turned the North Atlantic into a dangerous place to sail, yet the Mayflower left port on what William Bradford called "a prosperous wind". They could ill afford to stay longer; provisions were already quite low when departing Southampton, and they became lower still by delays of more than a month.

Having left Dartmouth on August 22nd 1620 the Mayflower and the Speedwell once again took to the seas in an attempt to cross the North Atlantic.

Unfortunately, having made it little more than 200 miles (320 km) beyond Land's End at the southwestern tip of England, the Speedwell sprang a third leak. It was now early September, and they had no choice but to abandon Speedwell and make a determination on her passengers. This was a dire event, as vital funds had been wasted on the ship, which was considered very important to the future success of their settlement in America. Both ships returned to Plymouth, where twenty Speedwell passengers joined the now overcrowded Mayflower, while the others returned to Holland.

Find out what happened next in our next blog on the voyage!

​This scene was built by James Pegrum as part of a series of models on the voyage of the Mayflower. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to see them first.

Having left Southampton on August 5th 1620, the Mayflower and the Speedwell set out on their journey to North America. They would however not get very far with the Speedwell springing a leak early in the journey. This was the second time the Speedwell had suffered from such a problem, in fact leaks had been the cause of the delay in the ships’ departure. The leak forced the ships to return as far as Dartmouth where on August 13th they lay anchor so that the Speedwell could be repaired.
 
Find out what happened next in our next blog on the voyage!

​This scene was built by James Pegrum as part of a series of models on the voyage of the Mayflower. Follow us on  Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to see them first.

On this day in 1620 the Mayflower and her companion ship the Speedwell, left Southampton on their journey to North America. The Mayflower had left London in mid-July with the aim of rendezvousing with the Speedwell, which was coming from Holland with members of the Leiden congregation, at the Hampshire town on the 22nd. Although both ships planned to depart for America by the end of July, a leak was discovered on the Speedwell, which had to be repaired and so the voyage would be delayed until August.

Find out what happened next in our next blog on the voyage!

​This scene was built by James Pegrum as part of a series of models on the voyage of the Mayflower. Follow us on  Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to see them first.