I September 6. These troubles being blown over, and now all being compact together in one ship, they put to sea again with a prosperous wind, which continued divers days together, which was some encouragement unto them; yet according to the usual manner many were afflicted with sea sickness.
2 After leaving Plymouth, the first days of the voyage had passed with good winds and gently rolling seas. But now the black clouds to the North began to lumber heavily across the sky and the weather deteriorated rapidly. William Bradford described the event as follows:
''After they had enjoyed fair winds and weather for a season, they were encountered many times with cross winds........
3 Another disaster struck the storm tossed Mayflower in mid Atlantic. One of the passengers, a servant called John Howland, was swept overboard by a mountainous wave and then miraculously rescued. John Howland went on to be the thirteenth signatory of the Mayflower Compact and was present at the first Thanksgiving. He sired 10 children and had 82 grandchildren. Had he lost his hold and drowned on that fateful day, the two Presidents Bush, President Roosevelt and Humphrey Bogart would not have existed as they are all descendants of John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley.
Pilgrim William Bradford described the event as follows:
''in a mighty storme, a lustie yonge man (called John Howland) coming upon some occasion above the grattings, was, with a seele of the shipe throwne in the sea; but it pleased God that he caught hould of the top-saile halliards, which hunge over board, and rane out at length; yet he held his hould (though he was sundrie fathomes under water) till he was hald up by the same rope to the brime of the water, and then with a boat hooke and other means got into the shipe againe, and his life saved; and though he was something ill with it, yet he lived many years after, and became a profitable member both in church and commone wealthe''
4 Fierce Atlantic storms are pounding the tiny Mayflower. Captain Jones is forced to take in every stitch of canvas and leave the vessel to drift helplessly like a piece of flotsam. The passengers are in the depths of misery, having to endure the fetid overcrowded conditions below decks. Seawater has soaked their bedding and clothes for weeks on end. William Bradford described the event as follows:
........and met with many fierce storms, with which the ship was shroudly shaken, and her upper works made very leaky; and one of the main beams in the mid ships was bowed and cracked, which put them in some fear that the ship could not be able to perform the voyage. In sundry of these storms the winds were so fierce, and the seas so high, as they could not bear a knot of sail, but were forced to hull, for divers days together.
5 On November 9th ,1620, the Mayflower's crew sighted Cape Cod and attempted to sail south to the mouth of the Hudson's River, near modern-day Long Island, New York. Although the weather was fine, they were caught in a riptide and nearly shipwrecked on the shallow sand banks to the south of the Cape at Monomoy Point. Pilgrim William Bradford described the event as follows:
''After some deliberation had amongst them selves and with the master of the ship, they tacked aboute and resolved to stande for the southward (the wind and weather being faire) to finde some place aboute Hudson's River for their habitation. But after they had sailed that course aboute halfe the day, they fell amongst deangerous shoulds and roring breakers, and they were so farr intangled ther with as they conceived them selves in great danger; and the wind shrinking upon them withall, they resolved to bear up againe for the Cape, and thought themselves hapy to gett out of those dangers before night overtooke them, as by God's providence they did. ''
The Mayflower anchored off what is now Provincetown Harbor on November 11, and over the next month put out several expeditions to survey Cape Cod and the vicinity. The voyage from Plymouth, England to Plymouth Massachussetts is about 2,750 miles, and took the Mayflower 66 days to cover that distance. The Mayflower left England with 102 passengers, including three pregnant women, and a crew of unknown number (approximately 25 to 30). While the Mayflower was at sea, Elizabeth Hopkins gave birth to a son who she named Oceanus. After the Mayflower had arrived and was anchored in Provincetown Harbor, Susanna White gave birth to a son, who she named Peregrine (which means "one who has made a journey"). Only one passenger and one crewman died during the arduous voyage. Within 6 months of the landing, no fewer than 52 of the Mayflower passengers died in an epidemic, including 14 of the 18 wives and 13 of the 24 husbands. Surprisingly, the survivors resolved to remain.
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Dr Mike Haywood Fine Art Painter specializing in Maritime and Portrait Paintings
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