| 2 | 6th John Howland |
| | Born: 1592 Fenstanton, Huntington England |
| | Landed: 1620 on Mayflower |
| | Job: Assistant Gevenor 1633-1635 |
| | Married: About 1624 Elizabeth Tilley |
| | Died: Feb 23/24,1673 (or 1672) Rocky Nook, Kingston MA |
| | The following note and all children (except Lydia) were taken from the
web at:http://members.aol.com/calebj/mayflower.html
which has a list of passengers on the Mayflower. |
| | The traditional date that has been ascribed to John Howland's birth is
"about 1592", and this has never really been questioned. However, a
birth about 1599 is clearly a better estimate for the following reasons: |
| | John Howland is called a "manservant" in William Bradford's passenger list.
Servants were contracted out until the age of 25. Thus, Howland must have
been under 25 in 1620, meaning he had to have been born after 1595. |
| | Since Howland signed the Mayflower Compact, he must have been born sometime
before 1600 to have been legally old enough to sign. |
| | John Howland's wife was born in 1607, and it is most unlikely that he,
at the age of 32, married a 17 year old girl as his first wife. Most
men married about age 25, and since his marriage occurred about 1624, this
would place his likely birth at 1599. |
| | John Howland's last child was born in 1649. If the 1592 date were accepted,
he would have fathered a child at the age of 57, a most unlikely
circumstance. |
| | William Bradford writes in that John Howland was a "lusty young man" in
1620. It is unlikely that Bradford would call a 28-year old a "young man".
The only other person Bradford called a "young man" in 1620 was John Alden,
who was born in 1599. |
| | ANCESTRAL SUMMARY |
| | BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY |
| | John Howland came on the Mayflower as a servant to John Carver. He is best
remembered for having fallen off the Mayflower during a mighty storm,
as recorded by Bradford: |
| | In sundry of these storms the winds were so fierce and the seas so high, as
they could not bear a know of sail, but were forced to hull for divers days
together. And in one of them, as they thus lay at hull in a mighty storm,
a lusty young man called John Howland, coming upon some occasion above the
gratings was, with a seele of the ship, thrown into the sea; but it pleased
God that he caught hold of the topsail halyards which hung overboard and
ran out at length. Yet he held his hold (though he was sundry fathoms under
water) till he was hauled up by the same rope to the brim of the water,
and then with boat hook and other means got into the ship again 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 commonwealth. |
| | SOURCES: |
| | Elizabeth Pearson White, "John Howland of the Mayflower through Desire
Howland for Five Generations", vol. 1 (Camden: Picton Press, 1990). |
| | Robert Charles Anderson, "The Great Migration Begins" 2:1020-1024 (Boston:
New England Historical and Genealogical Society, 1995). |
| | Eugene Aubrey Stratton, "Plymouth Colony, Its History and Its People,
1620-1691" (Ancestor Publishers: Salt Lake City, 1986). |
| | William Bradford, "Of Plymouth Plantation",
ed. Samuel Morison (New York: Random House, 1952).
Gary Boyd Roberts, "The Mayflower Decendents of President George Herbert
Walker Bush, First Lady Barbara Pierce Bush, and Vice President James
Danforth Quayle," Mayflower Descendant, 41:1-8.
Gary Boyd Roberts, "Ancestors of American Presidents"
(Carl Boyer, 3d: Santa Clarita, 1995). |
