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From: <>
Subject: [BRADFORD-L] Re: William "the" Bradford
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 1998 15:17:52 EDT

Follows information about the Mayflower's William Bradford for your
information and enjoyment. This was copied and pasted from the Mayflower
online site, and all credit goes to the person named at the end.

Have fun!
Karen Foster Montgomery

William Bradford
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BAPTIZED: 19 March 1589/90, Austerfield, York, England, son of William and
Alice (Hanson) Bradford
DIED: 9 May 1657, Plymouth

MARRIED:

Dorothy May, 10 December 1613, Amsterdam, Holland, probably daughter of Henry
May Alice (Carpenter) Southworth, 14 August 1623, Plymouth, daughter of
Alexander Carpenter, widow of Edward Southworth.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

CHILDREN by DOROTHY:
NAME BIRTH DEATH
MARRIAGE
John c1618, Leyden, Holland bef. 21 Sept. 1676, Norwich, CT Martha
Bourne, bef 1650

CHILDREN by ALICE:
NAME BIRTH DEATH
MARRIAGE
William 17 June 1624, Plymouth 20 February 1703/4, Plymouth 1:
Alice Richards, aft. 23 April 1650
2: name unknown
3: Mary (Wood) Holmes, c1676

NAME BIRTH DEATH
MARRIAGE
Mercy bef 22 May 1627, Plymouth bef 9 May 1657 Benjamin
Vermayes, 21 December 1648, Plymouth

NAME BIRTH DEATH
MARRIAGE
Joseph c1630, Plymouth 10 July 1715, Plymouth Jael
Hobart, 25 May 1664, Hingham
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ANCESTRAL SUMMARY:

(6) Robert? Bradfourth, b. c1435, taxed 1522, d. prob. 1523.

(5) Peter Bradfourth, of Bentley, Arksey, York, England; b. c1460, d. 1542/3;
married at least twice, names unknown.

(4) Robert Bradfourth, of Wellingley, Tickhill, York, England; b. c1487; d.
1552 or 1553; m1. (---)(---); m2. Elizabeth (---)

(3) William Bradford, bur. Austerfield, York, England 10 January 1595/6; m.
bef. 1552, (---)(----); m2. Margaret Fox, 19 October 1567, Harworth,
Nottingham, England.

(2) William Bradford, b. c1560, bur. 15 July 1591, m. Alice Hanson on 21 July
1584, Austerfield, York, England. Alice Hanson, bp. 8 December 1562, m2.
Robert Briggs, 23 February 1593. She the daughter of John Hanson and Margaret
Gressam.

(1) William Bradford, Mayflower passenger.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY:

The early years of Bradford's life are described by Cotton Mather in his book
Magnalia Christi Americana first published in 1702:

Among those Devout People was our William Bradford, who was Born Anno 1588. in
an obscure Village call'd Austerfield, where the People were as unacquainted
with the Bible, as the Jews do seem to have been with part of it in the Days
of Josiah; a most Ignorant and Licentious People, and like unto their Priest.
Here, and in some other Places, he had a Comfortable Inheritance left him of
his Honest Parents, who died while he was yet a Child, and cast him on the
Education, first of his Grand Parents, and then of his Uncles, who devoted
him, like his Ancestors, unto the Affairs of Husbandry. Soon and long Sickness
kept him, as he would afterwards thankfully say, from the Vanities of Youth,
and made him the fitter for what he was afterwards to undergo. When he was
about a Dozen Years Old, the Reading of the Scriptures began to cause great
Impressions upon him; and those Impressions were much assisted and improved,
when he came to enjoy Mr. Richard Clifton's Illuminating Ministry, not far
from his Abode; he was then also further befriended, by being brought into the
Company and Fellowship of such as were then called Professors; though the
Young Man that brought him into it, did after become a Prophane and Wicked
Apostate. Nor could the Wrath of his Uncles, nor the Scoff of his Neighbours
now turn'd upon him, as one of the Puritans, divert him from his Pious
Inclinations.

. . . Having with a great Company of Christians Hired a Ship to Transport them
for Holland, the Master perfidiously betrayed them into the Hands of those
Persecutors; who Rifled and Ransack'd their Goods, and clapp'd their Persons
into Prison at Boston, where they lay for a Month together. But Mr. Bradford
being a Young Man of about Eighteen, was dismissed sooner than the rest, so
that within a while he had Opportunity with some others to get over to
Zealand, through Perils both by Land and Sea not inconsiderable; where he was
not long Ashore ere a Viper seized on his Hand, that is, an Officer, who
carried him Unto the Magistrates, unto whom an envious Passenger had accused
him as having fled out of England. When the Magistrates understood the True
Cause of his coming thither, they were well satisfied with him; and so he
repaired joyfully unto his Brethren at Amsterdam, where the Difficulties to
which he afterwards stooped in Learning and Serving of a Frenchman at the
Working of Silks, were abundantly Compensated by the Delight wherewith he sat
under the Shadow of our Lord in his purely dispensed Ordinances. At the end of
Two Years, he did, being of Age to do it, convert his Estate in England into
Money; but Setting up for himself, he found some of his Designs by the
Providence of God frowned upon, which he judged a Correction bestowed by God
upon him for certain Decays of Internal Piety, whereinto he had fallen; the
Consumption of his Estate he thought came to prevent a Consumption in his
Virtue. But after he had resided in Holland about half a Score Years, he was
one of those who bore a part in that Hazardous and Generous Enterprize of
removing into New England, with part of the English Church at Leyden, where at
their first Landing, his dearest Consort accidentally falling Overboard, was
drowned in the Harbour; and the rest of his Days were spent in the Services,
and the Temptations, of that American Wilderness.

William Bradford came on the Mayflower with his wife Dorothy (May), leaving
son John behind in Holland. Dorothy fell off the Mayflower and drowned on 7
December 1620, when it was anchored in Provincetown Harbor.

This was an accidental drowning. The story of the suicide, affair with
Captain Chrostopher Jones, etc. comes from a fictional "soap opera" story
published in a national women's magazine in 1869--a story published as truth
by the author, based on "family stories", but which the author later admitted
was an invention of her own imagination. For further information on this, see
Mayflower Descendant 29:97-102 , and especially 31:105.

After the death of John Carver in April 1621, Bradford was elected governor of
the Plymouth Colony, and continued in that capacity nearly all his life. In
1623 he married Alice (Carpenter) Southworth, widow of Edward Southworth. A
description of the marriage is found in a letter written by a visitor to
Plymouth Colony, Emmanuel Altham, in 1623:

Upon the occasion of the Governor's marriage, since I came, Massasoit was sent
for to the wedding, where came with him his wife, the queen, although he hath
five wives. With him came four other kings and about six score men with their
bows and arrows--where, when they came to our town, we saluted them with the
shooting off of many muskets and training our men. And so all the bows and
arrows was brought into the Governor's house, and he brought the Governor
three or four bucks and a turkey. And so we had very good pastime in seeing
them dance, which is in such manner, with such a noise that you would wonder.
. . . And now to say somewhat of the great cheer we had at the Governor's
marriage. We had about twelve pasty venisons, besides others, pieces of
roasted venison and other such good cheer in such quantity that I could wish
you some of our share. For here we have the best grapes that ever you
say--and the biggest, and divers sorts of plums and nuts which our business
will not suffer us to look for.

William Bradford died in 1657, having been governor of the Plymouth Colony for
almost the entire period since 1621. Cotton Mather in his Magnalia Christi
Americana wrote that William Bradford:

. . . was a Person for Study as well as Action; and hence, notwithstanding the
Difficulties through which he passed in his Youth, he attained unto a notable
Skill in Languages; the Dutch Tongue was become almost as Vernacular to him as
the English; the French Tongue he could also manage; the Latin and the Greek
he had Mastered; but the Hebrew he most of all studied, Because, he said, he
would see with his own Eyes the Ancient Oracles of God in their Native Beauty.
He was also well skill'd in History, in Antiquity, and in Philosophy; and for
Theology he became so versed in it, that he was an Irrefragable Disputant
against the Errors, especially those of Anabaptism, which with Trouble he saw
rising in his Colony; wherefore he wrote some Significant things for the
Confutation of those Errors. But the Crown of all was his Holy, Prayerful,
Watchful and Fruitful Walk with God, wherein he was very Exemplary. At length
he fell into an Indisposition of Body, which rendred him unhealthy for a whole
Winter; and as the Spring advanced, his Health yet more declined; yet he felt
himself not what he counted Sick, till one Day; in the Night after which, the
God of Heaven so fill'd his Mind with Ineffable Consolations, that he seemed
little short of Paul, rapt up unto the Unutterable Entertainments of Paradise.
The next Morning he told his Friends, That the good Spirit of God had given
him a Pledge of his Happiness in another World, and the First-fruits of his
Eternal Glory: And on the Day following he died, May 9, 1657 in the 68th Year
of his Age. Lamented by all the Colonies of New England, as a Common Blessing
and Father to them all.

William Bradford wrote Of Plymouth Plantation, chronicling the history of the
Plymouth Colony, and the events that led up to their leaving England for
Holland, and later to New England. William Bradford also wrote part of
Mourt's Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, and he recorded some
of the important letters he wrote and received in a letterbook which still
partially exists. Nathaniel Morton's 1669 book, New England's Memorial also
records a poem written by William Bradford on his deathbed. There are also
two elegy poems written in 1657 after Bradford's death--the first elegy poem
is anonymous, and the second elegy poem was written by Josias Winslow.

The Pilgrim Hall Museum has in its collection William Bradford's armchair, and
his Bible.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SOURCES:

Robert S. Wakefield,Mayflower Families in Progress: William Bradford for Four
Generations (Plymouth: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1994).

William Bradford and Edward Winslow. A Relation or Journal of the Beginning
and Proceedings of the English Plantation settled at Plymouth . . . (John
Bellamie: London, 1622).

William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Samuel Morison (New York: Random
House, 1952).

"Ancestry of the Bradfords of Austerfield," New England Historical and
Genealogical Register, 83:456-461, 84:5-11 .

Emmanuel Althem. Three Visitors to Early Plymouth, Sydney V. James ed.,
(Plymouth: Plimoth Plantation, 1963).

Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana (Boston, 1698).

Samuel Morison and Charles Banks, "Did William Bradford Leave Leyden Before
the Pilgrims?", Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society
61(1927):34-39,55-68.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mayflower Web Pages. Caleb Johnson 1998
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Will of William Bradford
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The last Will and Testament Nunckupative of Mr William Bradford senir:
Deceased May the Ninth 1657 and exhibited to the court held att Plymouth June
3d 1657

Mr William Bradford senir: being weake in body but in prfect memory haveing
Defered the forming of his Will in hopes of haveing the healp of Mr Thomas
Prence therin; feeling himselfe very weake and drawing on to the conclusion of
his mortall life spake as followeth; I could have Desired abler then myselfe
in the Desposing of that I have; how my estate is none knowes better then
youerselfe, said hee to Lieftenant Southworth; I have Desposed to John and
William alreddy theire proportions of land which they are possessed of;

My Will is that my son Josepth bee made in some sort equall to his brethern
out of my estate;

My further Will is that my Deare & loveing wife Allice Bradford shalbee the
sole Exequitrix of my estate; and for her future maintainance my Will is that
my Stocke in the Kennebecke Trad be reserved for her Comfortable Subsistence
as farr as it will extend and soe further in any such way as may bee Judged
best for her;

I further request and appoint my welbeloved Christian ffrinds Mr Thomas Prence
Captaine Thomas Willett and Lieftenant Thomas Southworth to be the
Suppervissors for the Desposing of my estate according to the prmises
Confiding much in theire faithfulnes

I comend unto youer Wisdome and Descretions some smale bookes written by my
owne hand to bee Improved as you shall see meet; In speciall I Comend to you a
little booke with a blacke cover wherin there is a word to Plymouth a word to
Boston and a word to New England with sundry usefull verses;

These pticulars were expressed by the said William Bradford Govr the 9th of
May 1657 in the prsence of us Thomas Cushman Thomas Southworth Nathaniell
Morton; whoe were Deposed before the court held att Plymouth the 3d of June
1657 to the truth of the abovesaid Will that it is the last Will and Testament
of the abovesaid Mr William Bradford senir.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mayflower Web Pages. Caleb Johnson 1997

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