The Mayflower: Sixty-Six Days on a Merchant Ship

The ship that carried the Pilgrims was not a famous vessel before its famous voyage. The Mayflower was a working merchant ship that normally hauled wine and other goods between England and continental Europe. She was about one hundred six feet long, not particularly large, and in September of sixteen twenty she departed Plymouth, England, carrying one hundred two passengers and approximately thirty crew members on a voyage for which she was not ideally suited.

The passengers included two distinct groups. The Separatists had fled England for religious reasons and spent a decade in Holland before deciding to try the New World. The non-Separatists, hired by the investors funding the expedition, were simply colonists looking for opportunity.

The two groups were collectively called the Saints and the Strangers, and they did not always agree. The crossing took sixty-six days, which was extremely long. The ship was battered by storms, passengers were confined below decks for much of the journey, and a main beam cracked during a gale and had to be repaired with a large iron screw a passenger had brought from Holland.

One passenger died at sea. One baby was born during the voyage and named Oceanus. When the travelers finally sighted land in November of sixteen twenty, they were far north of their intended destination, off the tip of Cape Cod, and they had arrived dangerously late in the season.