The Women Who Came in the MayflowerMarble, Annie Russell
History
The Women Who Came in the Mayflower
Marble, Annie Russell
Massachusetts -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775; Mayflower (Ship); Women -- Massachusetts
Probably Priscilla also bestowed some of her treasures upon her children
before she died. Some of her spoons, pewter and candle-sticks have been
traced by inheritance. It is not likely that she was “rich in this
world’s goods” through her marriage, but she had a husband whose
fidelity to state and religion have ever been respected. To his memory
Rev. John Cotton wrote some elegiac verses; Justin Winsor has emphasized
the honor which is still paid to the name of John Alden in Duxbury and
Plymouth:[75] “He was possessed of a sound judgment and of talents
which, though not brilliant, were by no means ordinary—decided, ardent,
resolute, and persevering, indifferent to danger, a bold and hardy man,
stern, austere and unyielding and of incorruptible integrity.”
The name of Mary Chilton is pleasant to the ear and imagination. Chilton
Street and Chiltonville in Plymouth, and the Chilton Club in Boston,
keep alive memories of this girl who was, by persistent tradition, the
first woman who stepped upon the rock of landing at Plymouth harbor.
This tradition was given in writing, in 1773, by Ann Taylor, the
grandchild of Mary Chilton and John Winslow.[76] Her father, James
Chilton, sometimes with the Dutch spelling, Tgiltron, was a man of
influence among the early leaders, but he died at Cape Cod, December 8,
1620. He came from Canterbury, England, to Holland. By the records on
the Roll of Freemen of the City of Canterbury,[77] he is named as James
Chylton, tailor, “Freeman by Gift, 1583.” Earlier Chiltons,—William,
spicer, and Nicholas, clerk,—are classified as “Freemen by Redemption.”
Three children were baptized in St. Paul’s Church, Canterbury,—Isabella,
1586; Jane, 1589; and Ingle, 1599. Isabella was married in Leyden to
Roger Chandler five years before _The Mayflower_ sailed. Evidently, Mary
bore the same name as an older sister whose burial is recorded at St.
Martin’s, Canterbury, in 1593. Isaac Chilton, a glass-maker, may have
been brother or cousin of James. Of Mary’s mother almost nothing has
been found except mention of her death during the infection of 1621.[78]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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