Plymouth/Pilgrims Timeline [Emphasis on their dealings with the sea]
1609 – Seagoing troubles getting Pilgrims from Scrooby, England to Holland
1617 – Decision on part of Leyden Pilgrims to strike out for America
1620 – Arrange for two ships to effect passage from Leyden (Speedwell) and Southampton (Mayflower) to America south of 40N
1620 July 22 – Speedwell departs Holland to meet up with Mayflower at Southampton
August – Two attempts to get out of English Channel, both times thwarted by leaky Speedwell having to turn back, first to Dartmouth, second time to Plymouth
September 6 – Mayflower, with 102 passengers sets out alone on a fair ENE wind
November 9 – Sight land on north side of Cape Cod, 42 N November 10 – Failed in attempt to round Cape Cod and press on to New Netherland; obstructed by Pollack Rip November 11 – Anchor in Provincetown Harbor (see lots of whales) November 12/13 – Unshipped 35’shallop and started to put it back together -- 5 weeks anchored in Provincetown December 6 – Shallop, with 34 men, sailing west across the bay side of Cape in search of a habitation -- stopovers in Wellfleet Harbor and Barnstable Harbor December 8 – Enter Plymouth Harbor; same day as Bradford’s wife Dorothy drowned by slipping off the Mayflower back in Provincetown December 10 – Shallop crew comes ashore; decided to settle here; sends shallop back for Mayflower December 16 – Mayflower anchored in Plymouth Harbor – to winter here December 19 – Passengers come ashore
[Nearly half of the 102 original transplanters dead by spring of 1621]
1621 April – Mayflower sails back to England – empty June – shallop voyage to Nauset/Eastham in search of lost boy November 21 – Arrival of the Fortune, with 35 new colonists December – Fortune sailed for England with clapboard. Beaver, otter skins
1622 Spring – Edward Winslow dispatched to Maine coast to trade/buy provisions from fishing fleet Charity to Plymouth ; sailed home in October 1623 July/August – Arrival of Anne and Little James, with 60 more settlers – These, with the Mayflower and Fortune passengers “Old Comers”
June -- Plantation 1rrive in Plymouth
1624 Little James sent fishing to Damariscove, Maine Charity arrived in Plymouth with first cattle to colony – but not the wanted West Country fishermen
1626 Plymouth establishes a trading post on Buzzards Bay (Manomet/Aptuxent/Bourne), giving colony an opening on the south side of Cape Cod; soon visited by Dutch from new Netherland with wampum as medium of exchange
1627 May 22 -- Liquidation of agreement with Adventurers; 12 “Undertakers” to assume the colony’s debt of L1400 in exchange for monopoly on trade and exclusive use of shallop and fishing boat
1628 Plymouth establishes a trading post on Kennebec River
1629 Spring – Lyon reaches Salem with 35 Plymouth settlers from Leyden and lead group of Puritans Plymouth establishes a trading post on Penobscot River
1632 Duxbury (on north edge of Plymouth Harbor) released from Plymouth church and allowed to set up its own church Land also allotted to settlers that becomes Marshfield in 1640
1633 Trading post established on Connecticut River (Windsor/Matianuck)
1634-36 Plymouth loses all four of its trading posts: Kennebec and Penobscot to French; Aptucxet/Bourne hit by hurricane; Windsor post to Mass. Bay settlers
1634-1638 [Pequot War] Spring – Outbreak of Pequot War following death of Captain John Stone, West Indian trader/pirate 1636 – Body of John Oldham (a Plymouth refugee) discovered in his pinnace near Block Island; Mass. Bay contingent under John Endecott to Block Island to kill all Indian men and seze women and children. Soldiers burn cornfields on Block Island and in Saybrook, Ct, killing a Pequot there. Pequots renew war and attack Saybrook.
1637 – May/July – Connecticut militia under captain John Mason , and in company with Narragansett Indians, attack Pequot fort on Mystic River.
1638 – September – Treaty of Hartford ends war with Pequot Indians no longer existing as a people.
1635 – 1640 Scituate, Sandwich, Taunton, Barnstable, Saugus, Yarmouth all set up
1640 Purchasers get access to three large chunks of real estate -- 1. Cape Cod swath/”sea to sea” 2. Southwest of Plymouth Buzzards Bay 3. East/west swarth to Mount Hope on Narragansett Bay
End of “Great Migration” in to Massachusetts Bay Colony brings sharp drop in demand for Plymouth livestock.
1642 Settlement at Seekonk underway
1644 Settlement at Nuset/Eastham underway
1655 – Colony leader Edward Winslow dies at sea in West Indies
1656 – Quakers begin to settle in Plymouth; later in Sandwich and Sciuate; Plymouth resists their doing so Myles Standish dies
1657 – May 9 – William Bradford dies
1660 Massasoit dies
1670s Tensions between Plymouth and Wampanoag leader Philip over English encroachments 1675 Plymouth’s population was 7,500; covered 1,600 square miles; undivided acreage all gone
King Philip’s War January – John Sassamon, former secretary to Philip and English informant, found dead. Indians suspected; three convicted June – War breaks out when Philip attacks town of Swansea – later attacks on Taunton, Dartmouth and Middleboro
1676 March – Indian attack on Pawtucket; then Rehoboth burned August – General Court authorizes Wampanoag children into servitude; later agree to sell as slaves
August 12 – Philip surrounded on Mount Hope peninsula; Philip killed and body quartered; his 9-year-old son sold into slavery, along with 180 other Indians who were transported to the Caribbean on the Seaflower
1681 Plymouth secures a new charter Plymouth shipping horses to Boston for export to West Indies Also exporting cod, striped bass, mackerel, sturgeon, oysters – whale oil
1686 Governor Edmund Andros to Boston as Governor of the Dominion of New England
1687 Edw. Randolph put Plymouth’s export of whale oil to England at 200 tons.
1691 England combines Plymouth and Maine colonies with Massachusetts Bay; some thought to combining Plymouth to New York