Mayflower Lives Quotes

“As he tumbled from the ship, he managed, through remarkable presence of mind, to seize hold of a rope. It was one of the topsail halyards that, good news for John, was trailing in the rolling seawater. Used to raise the upper sail, the trailing rope now provided the only chance of escaping catastrophe. It should have been carefully tied to a cleat, but it was not secured. And due to that piece of untidy seamanship, John Howland survived. In the desperate lunge that ended with him grabbing the twisted, slippery rope, he saved himself from drowning. He clung on even though he found himself, in Bradford’s words again, “sundry fathoms under water.” Back on the Mayflower there was a hurrying of men to the side of the pitching vessel. Many hands took up the shipward end of the rope and hauled him back towards safety. As the exhausted and drenched man was pulled from the waves and up against the rough timbers of the rolling Mayflower, someone grabbed a boat hook and, by catching it in his coat, helped pull him back on board.6 It had been a close call. Had the trailing rope not been there, had Howland failed to catch it, he would have been swept away by the white-crested waves and lost. As it was, he lived. It was an almost unbelievable event; an astonishing cheating of death. All of the godly who witnessed it or who heard of it would have felt convinced that it was possible only by the providential hand of God. Jonah-like, John Howland had been both thrown into the stormy deep and also rescued from it (though without the intervention of a great fish) by the will of God. His, clearly, was a life marked out for future importance in the story of the colony about to be founded. Heads would have nodded as word of the event spread among the godly passengers on the ship. Here, clearly, was a man in the hand of God. A man blessed and marked out by the action of the Almighty. The crew, though, probably winked and swore as they considered the naivete of a landsman taking the air in such a storm. For them it was just the latest evidence that these passengers were doomed to disaster; they lacked the edge and awareness needed to survive what lay ahead of them. And those less godly among the passengers might also have been less willing than some of those around them to assume the certainty of providence acting in the events. Which of these would be proved right—faithful Saints, profane seamen, uncertain Strangers—only time would tell. But one thing was certain: the name of John Howland was on everyone’s lips. And he himself was being written into history.”
― Martyn Whittock, Mayflower Lives: Pilgrims in a New World and the Early American Experience

“William Bradford, when recalling the event as he wrote Of Plymouth Plantation, remembered how on that particular day the wind and waves were so violent that the crew of the Mayflower had been forced to allow the ship “to lay at hull in a mighty storm.” This meant that they shortened sail and let the ship be driven by the wind and sea. We do not know exactly what happened next. Did Howland lean over the rail to vomit and relieve seasickness? Did the ship swing wildly upward as a wave crashed into its side? Did a great cascade of seawater sweep him overboard? Bradford says that the ship experienced “a seele,” meaning it rolled or pitched, which is certainly easy to imagine in such foul weather. Whatever exactly caused it, Howland was flung over the low rail that provided some safety to those on deck; he was hurled headlong into the North Atlantic.”
― Martyn Whittock, Mayflower Lives: Pilgrims in a New World and the Early American Experience