JOHN TILLEY and JOHN HOWLAND’s first contact with the Indigenous people was one of violence. Their first contact with clams was also violent. The natives shot at them with arrows, the clams made them violently sick.
The first winter, the Pilgrims struggled to build their settlement, find food and ward off sickness. Fifty of the original 102 Mayflower passengers died that winter including the parents of ELIZABETH TILLY. The Carvers took her in. The next spring Squanto and other Natives helped the Pilgrims triumph over tragedy. The natives showed the Pilgrims how to plant the first perpetual European garden for food. Before fall, the Carvers died declaring JOHN HOWLAND executor of their American estate. They also gave the stewardship of ELIZABETH TILLEY to JOHN HOWLAND. This may have been the first European estate transfer in North America.
Despite their first fall harvest being less than expected and insufficient for the coming winter they decided on a celebration. This harvest celebration is now known as the first Thanksgiving. The Pilgrims were pleased when shortly after the celebration the immigrant ship Fortune showed up with the first new arrivals. The FORD family and 30 others arrived. The family was traumatized when they learned about half the Mayflower passengers had died. JOHN HOWLAND and ELIZABETH TILLEY were shocked when they realized the Fortune did not bring any supplies or food. They would now have to share what meager food they had with the new arrivals.
The Pilgrim leaders executed a division of land and a division of cattle to triumph over the tragedy of disappointment. They saw that the communal way of living demanded by the investors was a miserable failure. They chose instead to accept individual accountability for growing food and raising livestock. JOHN COOPER was trying to set up the first practical civil system.
First Contact
Over the next month after landing at Provincetown Harbor, Cape Cod, the men colonists formed small scouting groups. It is nearly certain the groups included the strong young man JOHN HOWLAND and probably JOHN TILLEY. They went ashore to collect firewood and scout out a good place to build a settlement. Most scouting missions looked for a good landing spot for the entire party. One of the exploring groups saw people on the shore who fled when they approached. The group stayed ashore overnight and heard cries near the encampment. The following morning, the Indigenous people attacked them by shooting at them with arrows. The colonists retrieved their firearms and shot back, then chased them into the woods. They did not find them and there was no more contact with the Natives for months afterward.
First Food and Shelter
On another mission some of the men found clams on the shore. One report claims that “the unfortunate Pilgrims, who had never seen them before and did not know how to eat them, were so delighted to find the first fresh food they had tasted for over nine weeks that they made themselves sick.”
While exploring the region they came upon an old human made mound near the dunes. They partially uncovered it and found it to be an Indian grave. Inland, they found more old mounds, one containing Acorns which they exhumed. They discovered more graves, which they decided not to dig up. They also came across an old European-built house and iron kettle, left behind by an earlier ship’s crew.
Around December 10, one of these scouting groups found a harbor they liked to the west of Cape Cod Bay. They returned to the Mayflower to tell the other passengers, but bad weather prevented them from landing until December 18.
The Pilgrims settled near a cleared area previously occupied by members of a local Native American tribe, the Wampanoag. The area had small fields showing corn stubble that was previously cultivated.
The Wampanoag had abandoned the village years earlier, after an outbreak of European disease. After settling, the colonists found more recently made burial mounds, and they discovered that the mounds also held corn. The colonists took a reasonable amount of the corn, intending to use it as seed for planting, while they reburied the rest.
Quote:
William Bradford later recorded in his book Of Plymouth Plantation that:
“They also found two of the Indian’s houses covered with mats, and some of their implements in them; but the people had run away and could not be seen. Without permission they took more corn, and beans of various colors. These they brought away, intending to give them full satisfaction [payment] when they should meet with any of them, – as about six months afterwards they did.
And it is to be noted as a special providence of God, and a great mercy to this poor people, that they thus got seed to plant corn the next year, or they might have starved; for they had none, nor any likelihood of getting any, till too late for the planting season.”
The First Brutal Winter
The winter of 1620-1621 was brutal, as the Pilgrims struggled to build their settlement, find food and ward off sickness. By spring, 50 of the original 102 Mayflower passengers were dead.
The Tilley Family
ELIZABETH TILLEY’s mother, father, aunt and uncle all died the first winter at Plymouth, leaving her orphaned at the age of 13 in the New World. ELIZABETH then lived in the Carver household, it is believed.
The First Spring and Summer
The Spring of 1621 was noteworthy. After the first brutal winter, the remaining settlers contacted returning members of the Wampanoag tribe. In March Governor John Carver signed a peace treaty with a tribal chief, Massasoit. Aided by the Wampanoag, especially the English-speaking Squanto, the Pilgrims were able to plant crops— mainly corn and beans—that were vital to their survival. The Mayflower and its crew left Plymouth to return to England.
That Spring, about the time the Mayflower left to return to England John Carver died. Later that summer John Carver’s wife Katherine died. JOHN HOWLAND inherited a part of the Carver estate after the death of the Carvers. JOHN HOWLAND also became the ward of ELIZABETH TILLEY.
The First Thanksgiving
The pilgrims did not think of the celebration that followed the first harvest as an observance of a holiday. It simply followed the Harvest. The 50 Mayflower passengers who survived the first winter, spring and summer, joined 90 Native Americans as their first guests. The feast was cooked by the surviving four adult Pilgrim women. The young daughters probably including ELIZABETH TILLEY and male and female servants joined them.
The Pilgrims did not have an oven so they cooked in the fireplace. They stood when they ate because they had few chairs. All of them used their fingers to eat because there were no forks.
The First Guests
The First Guests
According to accounts by Wampanoag descendants, the harvest was originally set up for the Pilgrims alone. The surviving natives heard gunfire and feared war. They sent a war party that cautiously watched from a distance. When they saw it was a feast, they came closer, and the pioneers warmly welcomed them. Some natives left and returned a short time later to join the celebration, contributing their own food to the meal.
The pilgrims learned from the Indians how to use native sources for a variety of good food. They ate corn, but they ate wild plants as well as garden produce. All of them ate fowl from the shore and game from the woods. A favorite food they were especially fond of was venison, which in England had been available only to the rich. Even though they did not use much shellfish, they did catch other fish they smoked. Eels they enjoyed, fried, boiled or pickled.
JOHN HOWLAND and ELIZABETH TILLEY were settling in for another long, cold winter and didn’t expect another boat until spring. They were concerned about surviving the winter because they had grossly overestimated their harvest. The Pilgrims agreed on weekly rations to stretch the short supply of food.
The Fortune
Back in England, it was nearly a year after the Mayflower abandoned the Speedwell at Plymouth, England. In the ensuing year the Merchant Adventurers, who financed the 1620 voyage invested in another ship, the Fortune to replace the Speedwell. The Fortune was1/3 the size of the Mayflower displacing 55 tons.
The Ford Family
The FORD family were among the passengers left behind at Plymouth because the Mayflower could not accommodate them. They returned to London where they heard the Merchant Adventurers were planning to send the Fortune to Plymouth Colony. In an astonishing display of determination, and courage, the FORD family arranged to sail on the Fortune to Plymouth Colony. The 1621 voyage of the Fortune was the second English ship sent out to Plymouth Colony by the Merchant Adventurers.
WILLIAM, MARTHA (unknown) FORD, and their two children including now 3-year-old MARTHA boarded the immigrant ship Fortune. Wife and mother MARTHA registers as one of only two women of the 35 adults on board. The Fortune left London in the fall of 1621 with Master Thomas Barton.
The Fortune’s long crossing of the Atlantic experienced similar issues as the Mayflower. It faced crowded conditions, wild turbulence, and unrelenting seasickness. The FORD family and the other passengers were delighted when they spotted the shoreline of America.
John Howland
At the same time, from the shore of Plymouth, the colonists saw a tall white mainsail off Cape Cod and became nervous. They thought it was a French raiding party that came down from Canada to make mischief. Governor William Bradford summoned a council of war. Defense chief, Miles Standish, mustered “every man, yea boy, that could handle a gun”. JOHN HOWLAND picked up his gun ready to defend the settlement. Standish ordered the 1,500-pound cannon on Fort Hill to thunder out a warning shot. “The little chimney easily fired”.
The sound of the cannon startled the FORD family and other passengers on the Fortune. The crew quickly raised the English flag up the main mast.
On shore, JOHN HOWLAND and others were surprised and relieved when they saw the English flag on the main mast. It was the Fortune tacking into Plymouth harbor, weeks after the First Thanksgiving.
The FORD family came ashore with the other new settlers on Plymouth’s sturdy little shallop, a tiny fishing vessel. The FORDS had a bittersweet reunion with the colonists. They were happy to see their friends ELIZABETH TILLEY, JOHN HOWLAND and the other surviving colonists. However, they were sad and probably a little bit fearful that so many had perished during the year. They mourned for JOHN and JOAN TILLEY, the Carvers and the others. The day after arrival in Plymouth young MARTHA FORD became a sister for the second time when her mother MARTHA (UNKNOWN) FORD had another child.
The Reunion
The FORD family came ashore with the other new settlers on Plymouth’s sturdy little shallop, a tiny fishing vessel. The FORDS had a bittersweet reunion with the colonists. They were happy to see their friends ELIZABETH TILLEY, JOHN HOWLAND and the other surviving colonists. However, they were sad and probably a little bit fearful that so many had perished during the year. They mourned for JOHN and JOAN TILLEY, the Carvers and the others. The day after arrival in Plymouth young MARTHA FORD became a sister for the second time when her mother MARTHA (UNKNOWN) FORD had another child.
The First New Arrivals
Altogether, the immigrant ship Fortune delivered 35 new settlers, all in good health. This “which did not a little rejoyce them” when they found that the Fortune arrived with no provisions…”not so much as bisket cake or any victialls,” little bedding beyond “some sorry things” in their cabins, and neither “pot nor pan to dresse any meate in.” The Mayflower Pilgrims’ concerns about surviving the winter with meager food supplies just got worse. Now they were going to have to reduce the rations of food even further.
The welcome mat frayed a bit when it was learned that the penny-pinching Merchant Adventurers had sent the Fortune passengers empty-handed and poorly clothed; ill-equipped for the approaching winter. Bradford wrote, “They were lusty young men, and many of them wild enough, who little considered whither or about what they went. The Plantation was glad enough of this strength, but could have wished that many of them had been of better condition, and all of them better furnished with provisions.”
Edward Winslow, a Separatist who traveled on the Mayflower in 1620 wrote: “Our supply of men from you [the Fortune] came the ninth of November 1621. … these came all in health unto us, not any being sicke by the way (otherwise then by sea sickness) and so continue at this time, by the blessing of God, the good-wife Ford was delivered of a sonne the first night shee landed, and both of them are very well.” When the child died soon after, three-year old MARTHA probably became confused. When her father WILLIAM FORD (29) died shortly after the ship reached Plymouth, she likely became completely bewildered. Mother MARTHA became known as the widow of WILLIAM FORD. She then began raising young MARTHA and her sibling as a single mother.
The First Labor Strike
The Investors of the Plymouth Bay Company demanded communal stewardship of the land. Bradford reported that the attempt at a communal living arrangement led to widespread discontent. He reported an unwillingness to work, confusion, discontent, loss of mutual respect, and feelings of slavery and injustice. Bradford called this the “common course and condition”. And this among “godly and sober men.” In short, the arrangement of communal living was a failure that was endangering the health of the colony.
After two insufficient harvests, the Plymouth colonists planned to triumph over the tragedy of discontent. They separated the task of raising food for the settlers from that of earning profits for London.
The Division of Land
The 1623 Division of Land marked the end of the Pilgrims’ earliest system of land held in common by all. Governor Bradford explains it in this way: “And so assigned to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number, for that end, only for present use (but made no division for inheritance) and ranged all boys and youth under the same family. This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content”.
The widow MARTHA FORD received 4 acres “beyond the brooke” in the 1623 land division. She received an acre each for herself, her deceased husband, and two children. This supports the assertion that the child born shortly after her arrival was also deceased. About 3 years later the widow MARTHA (UNKNOWN) FORD married Mayflower passenger Peter Browne. Between 1623 and 1627 the couple had a daughter, Mary.
In 1623 ELIZABETH TILLEY (16) married JOHN HOWLAND (25) and in the land division which took place in 1623, JOHN HOWLAND received a large tract of meadows and farmlands along the Jones River near what is now Kingston about 5 miles from Plymouth. The plots assigned to them permanently in 1624 became privately owned in 1627.
The Division of Land resulted in a life-saving idea shift. It proved to be a triumph over the tragedy that women working in the fields indicated men’s weakness and inability. To force women to work in the fields would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.” After the Division of Land women like MARTHA (FORD) BROWNE and ELIZABETH (TILLEY) HOWLAND went willingly into the field. They took their little ones like 6-year-old MARTHA (FORD) BROWNE with them to raise corn.
The First Cattle
The only animals known to have come on the Mayflower were two dogs, an English Mastiff and an English Spaniel. The Immigrant ship Jacob was one of the ships to arrive in Plymouth over the next few years. Onboard the Jacob that landed in Plymouth in 1624 Edward Winslow brought the first cattle, four black heifers. This represented a triumph over the tragedy that the Pilgrims did not bring any large livestock animals with them on the Mayflower. A heifer is a young female cow that has not yet had a calf.
The four black heifers were nicknamed “Least”, “Raghorn”, “Blind”, and “Smooth-Horned”. There was also a “Red Cow” that belonged to the poor of the colony. It gave birth to a red female calf around 1625, and a male calf in 1627. By May 1627, there were 16 head of cattle and at least 22 goats living in Plymouth. It seems likely that they had with them chickens, pigs, and goats. The exact arrival of the first sheep in the colony is likely some time before 1629. The first horses and oxen did not begin arriving until the 1630’s.
Like the distribution of land in 1623, in 1627 the Pilgrims divided their livestock cattle, goats, and sheep amongst the families. They divided their livestock into 12 separate ‘lots’ of 13 individuals each.
The Division of Cattle
Plymouth Colony Records, Deeds &c, tells of the 1627 Division of Cattle:
At a publique court held the 22th of May it was concluded by the whole Companie, that the cattell wch were the Companies, to wit, the Cowes & the Goates should be equally devided to all the psonts of the same company … & so the lotts fell as followeth, thirteene psonts being pportioned. It was farther agreed at the same Court: That if anie of the cattell should by acsident miscarie or be lost or Hurt: that the same should be taken knowledg of by Indifferent men: and Judged whether the losse came by the neglegence or default of those betrusted and if they were found faulty, that then such should be forced to make satisfaction for the companies, as also their partners damage.
It was farther agreed at the same Court: That if anie of the cattell should by acsident miscarie or be lost or Hurt: that the same should be taken knowledg of by Indifferent men: and Judged whether the losse came by the neglegence or default of those betrusted and if they were found faulty, that then such should be forced to make satisfaction for the companies, as also their partners damage. Peeter, Martha, land Mary Browne, John fford and Martha fford were assigned to the 8th of the 13 lots as part of Samuell ffuller & his company. This company consisted of two shee goats and the Red Heifer that belonged to the poor. In consideration of this it was agreed that Samuell ffuller & his company would receive half of any offspring. The other half, with the old stock, was to remain for the use of the poor.
The Tilley and Ford Families
JOHN AND ELIZABETH (TILLEY) HOWLAND had a son JOHN HOWLAND JR. who was born 24 Apr 1627 at Plymouth, MA.
The TILLEYS and the FORDS living conditions improved over time. After the “Jacob” brought cattle from England in 1624, they had milk and dairy products as well as beef. They brewed a kind of beer which they drank in preference to water. Their clothes were colorful with natural dyes. They were able to obtain maroons, browns, yellows and blues from the plants and lichens they found in the woods
The Cooper Family
The majority of the Pilgrims had to deal with everyday life in Plymouth. A few pilgrims were trying to set up a civil system to ensure their security. One of those was JOHN COOPER. JOHN COOPER (24) was from St. James, Dunwich near Southwold, Suffolk, England. He married ANN “LADY KINGSBURY” DOWNHAM (23) in 1593 in London. Their daughter, ANNE COOPER, was born in 1595. JOHN was widowed in 1614 in England. It is unknown on what ship JOHN COOPER arrived in New England. But, it is certain he arrived before 1628 because he died in 1628 at age 60 in Plymouth, MA.