The Mayflower: Deadly Crossing From England to Plymouth Rock

In a sea voyage originally planned for two ships, the Speedwell and the Mayflower, after a month-and-a-half of fixing leaks aboard the Speedwell, the pilgrims at last combined their numbers onto the Mayflower for a sail across the North Atlantic from England to Northern Virginia.

Not All Passengers Were Pilgrims

Originally built to haul cargos of lumber, fish and wine on short, coast-hugging trips between port cities in Europe, 37 crewmembers and 102 passengers—including 41 Pilgrims and 61 “strangers,” as the nonbelievers were known, set sail on September 6th, 1620, spending the next two months crossing 3,000 miles of open ocean. Measuring 100 feet in length with a 24-foot beam, the crew of sailors, carpenters, cooks, surgeons and officers were housed in small cabins above the main deck, while the Pilgrims were consigned to a suffocating, windowless space between the main deck and the cargo hold.

Crowded Accommodations

Sharing their space with a 30-foot sailboat known as a “shallop,” the Pilgrims jammed into a space measuring 58 by 24 feet, with a headroom just shy of five feet tall, where they erected small wooden dividers or hanging curtains to provide a modicum of privacy. Surviving on meager rations of hardtack, dried meat and beer, the constantly-pitching hold left most of them seasick, adding the acrid smell of vomit to the misery of their space.

Blown Off Course

After a month of calm seas and smooth sailing, the Mayflower encountered an unrelenting series of North Atlantic squalls, forcing the crew to repeatedly reef in sails, which left the small ship bobbing helplessly in towering seas.

Blown badly off their original course, on November 9th, 1620, after a 66-day ordeal that witnessed the birth of a baby boy, the Pilgrims made landfall at present-day Plymouth Massachusetts, prompting Pilgrim leader William Bradford to write, “Being thus arrived in a good harbor and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of heaven, who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof.”

Only One Fatality

Miraculously, the Mayflower suffered only one fatality under sail—a young indentured servant named William Butten. The Pilgrims fate, however, deteriorated badly when they remained aboard the Mayflower through a bitterly cold New England winter, emerging in the spring of 1621 with more than half their original number lost to disease and hypothermia.