He Was
But Twenty Years And Fifteen Days Old When He Signed The Compact,
But Probably Was - From His Brother's Prominence And His Nearness To
His Majority - Counted As Eligible.
Bradford states that he returned
to England after "divers years" in New England, and died there.
It
has been suggested that he went very early to some of the other
"plantations."
John Alden was of Southampton, England, was hired as "a cooper," was
twenty-one years old in 1620, as determined by the year of his
birth, 1599 ("Alden Memorial," p. 1), and became the most prominent
and useful of any of the English contingent of the MAY FLOWER
company. Longfellow's delightful poem, "The Courtship of Miles
Standish," has given him and his bride, Priscilla Mullens,
world-wide celebrity, though it is to be feared that its historical
accuracy would hardly stand criticism. Why young Alden should have
been "hired for a cooper at Southampton," with liberty to "go or
stay" in the colony, as Bradford says he was (clearly indicating
that he went to perform some specific work and return, if he liked,
with the ship), has mystified many. The matter is clear, however,
when it is known, as Griffis shows, that part of a Parliamentary Act
of 1543 reads: "Whosoever shall carry Beer beyond Sea, shall find
Sureties to the Customers (?) of that Port, to bring in Clapboard
[staves] meet [sufficient] to make so much Vessel [barrel or
"kilderkin"] as he shall carry forth." As a considerable quantity of
beer was part of the MAY-FLOWER'S lading, and her consignors stood
bound to make good in quantity the stave-stock she carried away,
it was essential, in going to a wild country where it could not be
bought, but must be "got out" from the growing timber, to take along
a "cooper and cleaver" for that purpose. Moreover, the great demand
for beer-barrel stock made "clapboard" good and profitable return
lading. It constituted a large part of the FORTUNE'S return freight
(doubtless "gotten out" by Alden), as it would have undoubtedly of
the MAY-FLOWER'S, had the hardship of the colony's condition
permitted.
Peter Browne we know little concerning. That he was a man of early
middle age is inferable from the fact that he married the widow
Martha Ford, who came in the FORTUNE in 1621. As she then was the
mother of three children, it is improbable that she would have
married a very young man. He appears, from certain collateral
evidence, to have been a mechanic of some kind, but it is not clear
what his handicraft was or whence he came.
John Billington (Bradford sometimes spells it Billinton) and his family,
Bradford tells us, "were from London." They were evidently an
ill-conditioned lot, and unfit for the company of the planters, and
Bradford says, "I know not by what friend shuffled into their
Company." As he had a wife and two children, the elder of whom must
have been about sixteen years old, he was apparently over
thirty-five years of age.
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