Mary and John was a 400-ton ship that is known to have sailed between England and the American colonies four times from 1607 to 1634. Named in tribute to John and Mary Winthrop[1] she was captained by Robert Davies and owned by Roger Ludlow (1590–1664), one of the assistants of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.[3] The ship's first two voyages to North America were to what is now Maine in June 1607 and September 1608, transporting emigrants to the colonies and back to England. In 1609, Samuel Argall also used the ship to navigate a shorter route to the Colony of Virginia via Bermuda. The third voyage to Maine was on March 20, 1630, bearing 130 colonists, and the fourth on March 26, 1634, to Nantaskut in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Map of Ft. St. George, constructed by the colonists.
The ships Gift of God captained by John Elliott and led by George Popham, and Mary and John, captained by Robert Davis and led by Raleigh Gilbert (son of Humphrey Gilbert), departed Falmouth, England, on June 1, 1607. They arrived on the coast of Maine on August 16, 1607.[4] They arrived with about 120 English colonists, who chose the mouth of the Sagadahoc River (now known as the Kennebec River) on a site known today as Sabino Head, Maine on August 13, 1607. The colonists were financially backed by Sir John Popham, Chief Justice of England, and led by his nephew George. They hoped to ship timber back to England, to find gold, silver, and other valuable minerals, and to establish a fur trade with the local eastern Abenaki people. Mary and John stayed until October 6, 1607, when it returned to Plymouth, England, arriving on December 1, 1607.[5][6][4]
The colonists built an admiral's house, a chapel, a storehouse, a cooperage, and a guardhouse. They also built a 30-ton ship they named Virginia. The ship Gift of God remained at the settlement until December 16 when it too sailed for England, carrying nearly half the colonists with it with the purpose of conserving the outpost's supplies. The Popham Colony, England's first attempt at a New England settlement, didn't prosper. During a harsh winter season, George Popham died on February 5, 1608, and Raleigh Gilbert assumed leadership. In the late summer, the relief ship Mary and John arrived carrying supplies. Captain Robert Davies of Mary and John also brought news that Raleigh Gilbert's brother Sir John Gilbert had also died leaving the colony's leader as his heir. Raleigh Gilbert elected to return to England, and the remainder of the colonists followed him aboard Virginia and Mary and John.[4] In mid-October 1608, after only 14 months, the colonists abandoned the colony.[6][7][8]
Ahead of this flotilla was Samuel Argall and the Mary and John.[10] According to records, this voyage was partially financed by a merchant of the name John Cornelis[11] (or "Cornelius") who desired a shipment of fish.[12] Captain Argall and shipmaster Robert Tyndall departed Portsmouth, England, with an additional mission to find a shorter route to the New World.[11] While a "southern passage" using the trade winds would take a few months, a more direct westerly route by the Mary and John proved the journey could be done in less than ten weeks.
Francisco Fernández de Écija, captain of the Spanish La Asunsión de Cristo (a small zabra, an inshore exploration vessel), was tasked with the "matter of Virginia", to gather information on the English colony's strength.[10] In Chesapeake Bay, the Mary and John intercepted the smaller ship and prevented it from entering the James River and discovering the status of Jamestown.
The Mary and John returned to England by October, 1609.[12]
In 1630, the Mary and John was captained by Thomas Chubb and the company was led by Roger Ludlow, one of the Assistants of the Massachusetts Bay Company, who was accompanied by Edward Rossiter, another Assistant to the Company.[13]
The ship had three decks for its passengers, livestock, and cargo. She became part of what was later known as the Great Migration. The colonists were recruited by the Reverend John White of Dorchester, Dorset. Nearly all of the passengers originated in the West Country counties of Somerset, Dorset, Devon, and the West Country towns of Dorchester, Bridport, Crewkerne, and Exeter.[14] The ship sailed on March 20, 1629/30, under the command of a Capt. Squeb or Squibb, from Plymouth, England, with 140 emigrants on board.
After an uneventful passage they arrived in Nantasket, near present-day Hull, Massachusetts, on May 30th.[15][16][17] They arrived two weeks before the first ships (Arbella and three escorts)[18] from the Winthrop Fleet, a group of 11 ships led by John Winthrop which carried about 1000 Puritans along with livestock and provisions from England to New England during the summer of 1630. While Mary and John were not formally part of the Winthrop Fleet, John Winthrop knew of their voyage. In a letter to his wife he sent before leaving Southampton, John Winthrop wrote about Mary and John's intended destination, which may have indicated approval of their voyage as fellow emigrants within his jurisdiction.[13]
While a contemporary passenger list has never been found, researchers from the "Mary and John Clearinghouse" have established a list of known, probable, and possible passengers.[19] A number of the passengers played significant roles in the founding of the nation. They include:
Richard Bidwell, and his son John Bidwell, originating possibly from County Devon in England, who left the Dorchester settlement in Boston to travel with the Connecticut party, eventually co-foundingHartford, CT[21]
Simon Mills I, Co-founder of Windsor, Connecticut. Crossed the Atlantic with his older brother John, who died during the journey. The Mills come from a military family known in England as early as the Crusaders in A.D.1080, as lineage is recorded from Domesday Book[citation needed]
Henry Wolcott and wife Elizabeth (Saunders), grandparents of Roger Wolcott, 13th governor of Connecticut.
William Thrall, One of the first settlers of Dorchester, Massachusetts.
1634 voyage
The second trip of Mary and John to colonial America began shortly after March 24, 1633/4, in Southampton. The master was Robert Sayres (or Sayers).[13] A number of the passengers played significant roles in the founding of the nation. They include:
1 2 Tabor, William H. "Maine's Popham Colony". Peopling of the Americas. 3 (2). Athena Review. Archived from the original on 20 July 2008. Retrieved 27 July 2016.
1 2 Horn, J. (2008). A Land As God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America. Ukraine: Basic Books.
1 2 Martha W. Hiden. “A Voyage of Fishing and Discovery, 1609.” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 65, no. 1, 1957, pp. 62–66. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4246280. Accessed 19 Aug. 2024.
1 2 Connor, Seymour V. “Sir Samuel Argall: A Biographical Sketch.” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 59, no. 2, 1951, pp. 162–75. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4245766. Accessed 19 Aug. 2024.
The Colony of Virginia was a British colonial settlement in North America between 1606 and 1776.
The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1628–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around the Massachusetts Bay, one of the several colonies later reorganized as the Province of Massachusetts Bay. The lands of the settlement were in southern New England, with initial settlements on two natural harbors and surrounding land about 15.4 miles (24.8 km) apart—the areas around Salem and Boston, north of the previously established Plymouth Colony. The territory nominally administered by the Massachusetts Bay Colony covered much of central New England, including portions of Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Connecticut.
The Virginia Company was an English trading company chartered by King James I on 10 April 1606 with the objective of colonizing the eastern coast of America. The coast was named Virginia, after Elizabeth I, and it stretched from present-day Maine to the Carolinas. The company's shareholders were Londoners, and it was distinguished from the Plymouth Company, which was chartered at the same time and composed largely of gentlemen from Plymouth, England.
The Popham Colony—also known as the Sagadahoc Colony—was a short-lived English colonial settlement in North America. It was established in 1607 by the proprietary Plymouth Company and was located in the present-day town of Phippsburg, Maine, near the mouth of the Kennebec River. It was founded a few months after its more successful rival, the colony at Jamestown.
The Plymouth Company, officially known as the Virginia Company of Plymouth, was a company chartered by King James in 1606 along with the Virginia Company of London with responsibility for colonizing the east coast of America between latitudes 38° and 45° N.
The Winthrop Fleet was a group of 11 ships led by John Winthrop out of a total of 16 funded by the Massachusetts Bay Company which together carried between 700 and 1,000 Puritans plus livestock and provisions from England to New England over the summer of 1630, during the first period of the Great Migration.
Sir Samuel Argall was an English sea captain, navigator, and Deputy-Governour of Virginia, an English colony.
The Jamestown supply missions were a series of fleets from 1607 to around 1611 that were dispatched from England by the London Company with the specific goal of initially establishing the company's presence and later specifically maintaining the English settlement of "James Fort" on present-day Jamestown Island. The supply missions also resulted in the colonization of Bermuda as a supply and way-point between the colony and England.
Discovery was a small 20-ton, 38-foot (12 m) long "fly-boat" of the British East India Company, launched before 1602. It was one of the three ships on the 1606–1607 voyage to the New World for the English Virginia Company of London. The journey resulted in the founding of Jamestown in the new Colony of Virginia.
Roger Ludlow (1590–1664) was an English lawyer, magistrate, military officer, and colonist. He was active in the founding of the Colony of Connecticut, and helped draft laws for it and the nearby Massachusetts Bay Colony. Under his and John Mason's direction, Boston's first fortification, later known as Castle William and then Fort Independence was built on Castle Island in Boston harbor. Frequently at odds with his peers, he eventually also founded Fairfield and Norwalk before leaving New England entirely.
James Davis was an English ship captain and author. He was part of the expedition of the Virginia Company of Plymouth which established the short-lived Popham Colony, also called "Northern Virginia."
Virginia was a pinnace built in 1607 and 1608 by English colonists at the Popham Colony. The ship was a project of the Plymouth Company, branch of the proprietary Virginia Company, on land England claimed as belonging to the Virginia Colony. She was the first English ocean-going vessel built in the New World, and a demonstration of the new colony's ability to build ships. The second and third "local" pinnaces were built soon afterwards in Bermuda following the loss of Sea Venture during the Third Supply.
The New England Colonies of British America included Connecticut Colony, the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Massachusetts Bay Colony, Plymouth Colony, and the Province of New Hampshire, as well as a few smaller short-lived colonies. The New England colonies were part of the Thirteen Colonies and eventually became five of the six states in New England, with Plymouth Colony absorbed into Massachusetts and Maine separating from it.
William Phelps, was a Puritan who emigrated from Crewkerne, England in 1630, one of the founders of both Dorchester, Boston Massachusetts and Windsor, Connecticut, and one of eight selected to lead the first democratic town government in the American colonies in 1637. He was foreman of the first grand jury in New England, served most of his life in early colonial government, and according to noted historian Henry Reed Stiles, Phelps "was one of the most prominent and highly respected men in the colony."
George Popham (1550–1608) was a pioneering colonist from Maine, born in the southwestern regions of England. He was an associate of English colonist Sir Ferdinando Gorges in a colonization scheme for a part of Maine.
The Old Planters of Massachusetts were settlers of lands on Massachusetts Bay that were not part of the two major settlements in the area, the Plymouth Colony (1620), and the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
William Powell, was an early Virginia colonist, landowner, militia officer and legislator. Considered an ancient planter for living in the Virginia colony during its first decade, he was one of two representatives from what became James City County, Virginia in the first Virginia House of Burgesses in 1619. His former plantation, now across the James River in Surry County, Virginia is now within Chippokes State Park.
The English overseas possessions comprised a variety of overseas territories that were colonised, conquered, or otherwise acquired by the Kingdom of England before 1707.
This is a timeline of events related to the settlement of Jamestown, in what today is the U.S. state of Virginia. Dates use the Old Style calendar.
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