September 1620
The voyage
The Mayflower set sail from Plymouth, England, after a false start with the Speedwell, which proved unseaworthy. The crossing took sixty-six days. The Pilgrims sighted Cape Cod on the 9th of November, 1620 — later than they had hoped, farther north than they had intended.
11 November 1620
The Compact
On the 11th of November, with the ship anchored off Cape Cod and before they came ashore, forty-one of the men aboard signed the Mayflower Compact — a brief covenant of self-government that would set the pattern for the colony.
21 December 1620
Plymouth
After scouting the Cape coast, the Pilgrims sailed across the bay to a place they named Plymouth, after the port they had left in England. They came ashore on the 21st of December, 1620, in the worst weather of the new world.
The first winter
Half their number lost.
The winter of 1620–21 cost the colony fifty souls. Among the dead were William and Mary Brewster’s children, William Bradford’s wife Dorothy, and dozens more. Of the eighteen adult women who had sailed, only four survived to the harvest.
Spring 1621
After the planting
In the spring of 1621, the survivors planted corn with the help of Squanto and others of the Wampanoag. The harvest that fall, shared with their neighbors, has been remembered as the first Thanksgiving. From that company of fifty, the line we keep descends.
They knew they were pilgrims, & looked not much on those things, but lift up their eyes to the heavens, their dearest country.
— William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation
Further reading
Books & repositories.
In Maryland
From Plymouth, to here.
From the fifty Plymouth survivors, the Maryland Chapter descends. Read about our founding and the line of officers who have kept it.