Mary Chilton Winslow

Mary Chilton Winslow is my 9th great-grandmother. She was a pilgrim who came on the Mayflower and was at the first Thanksgiving. This is her story:

Mary Chilton was born May 31, 1607 in Sandwich, Kent, England, and was the daughter of James Chilton of Canterbury and his wife (possibly Susannah Furner).  When Mary was just two years old, excommunication proceedings began against her mother, who had attended the secret burial of a child of Andrew Sharpe.  The child was buried in secret because they opposed the "popish" burial ceremonies required by the Church of England.

Mary and family then came to Leiden, Holland, and joined with the Pilgrims' church there.  In 1619, when she was twelve, her father and oldest sister were caught in an anti-Arminian riot and her father was hit in the head with a stone--an injury for which he would have to seek out a surgeon.

By legend, Mary Chilton was the first female passenger to step ashore at Plymouth, reportedly so excited that she jumped out of the small boat and waded ashore onto Plymouth Rock.

Her father died on December 8, 1620 aboard the Mayflower and her mother died six weeks later on January 21, 1621, also aboard ship, both of "the first infection of the disease" according to a report by Governor William Bradford in 1650. Once orphaned, it is believed she became the ward of Myles Standish or John Alden. Mary's sister Isabella who married Roger Chandler, and who came over later, is the only of his other children known to have come to the colony. Mary was given three shares in the land division of 1623, one for herself and one each for her deceased parents. Her property was situated between those of Standish and John Howland.

She was one of eleven minor girls on the Mayflower. Of these, she was one of the nine to survive the first year at Plymouth and would have been present at the time of the famous First Thanksgiving in 1621. In contrast, only four of the fourteen adult women survived the first year.

She married John Winslow (possibly on October 12, 1624) and became the sister-in-law of Mayflower passenger Edward Winslow. They had ten children: John, Susannah (my 8th great grandmother), Mary, Edward, Sarah, Samuel, Joseph, Isaac, an un-named child who probably died in infancy, and Benjamin. All but Benjamin married, and Benjamin's birth is the only one listed in the records of Plymouth colony: "1653. Plymouth Regester of the Beirth of theire Children… Beniamine, the sonne of Mr John Winslow, born the 12th day of August."

Sometime after the birth of Benjamin, John and Mary moved to Boston. There John Winslow is said to have prospered as a merchant. The place of their first residence is not known.

On the 16th of June, 1671, John and Mary transferred their church membership from Plymouth to the Third Church in Boston (Third Church is now called the Old South Church; the present Old South Meeting House was built about 50 years after Mary’s death).

On the 19th of September, 1671,  John Winslow bought,  for the sum of L500 in New England silver money, "the Mansion or dwelling-house of the Late Antipas Voice with the gardens wood-yard and Backside as it is scituate lying and being in Boston aforesaid as it is nowe fenced in And is fronting & Facing to the Lane going to mr John Jolliffes." The house, on today’s Spring Lane, no longer exists.

John Winslow died in 1674. Mary made out a will on July 31, 1676 and died before May 1, 1679 in Boston.