SMITH
(Dort/Winsor-Secord/Harris)
OUR
MAYFLOWER FOREMOTHERS
16
Generations of Women Ancestors leading back to 1620 Plymouth Plantation
In 2020, we
will mark the 400th anniversary of an iconic piece of American
history: the 1620 Mayflower voyage and founding of Plymouth Colony. As direct
descendants of some of her passengers, we share this special lineage with
millions of other Mayflower Americans -but in a rather unique way.
William Bradford,
recounting the perils of the Mayflower’s 1620 sea voyage:
“…In sundry of these storms the winds were so fierce and the
seas so high, as they could not bear a knot of sail, but were forced to hull for
divers days together. And in one of them, as they thus lay at hull in a mighty
storm, a lusty young man called John Howland, coming upon some occasion above
the gratings was, with a seele of the ship, thrown into sea; but it pleased God
that he caught hold of the topsail halyards which hung overboard and ran out at
length. Yet he held his hold (though he was sundry fathoms under water) till he
was hauled up by the same rope to the brim of the water, and then with a boat
hook and other means got into the ship again and his life saved…” (Chapter
IX, Of Plymouth Plantation)
John Howland was my eleventh
great grandfather. And, through his marriage to fellow Mayflower passenger, Elizabeth
Tilley, our ancestral chain was forged link by link, generation by generation -connecting
four hundred years of family history. Discovering this Mayflower connection in
our family tree came by chance, as I began to solve the mysterious heritage of
my great-grandmother’s great-grandmother: Lydia Harris. Her father -the only male
link in this otherwise female chain- was the essential linchpin that connected
it all together. If not for a grave marked “Our Little Asa,” I might still
be searching.
Although John
Howland is a noted figure in the history of Plymouth Plantation, our pilgrimage
back in time takes a very uniquely feminine route: through our mothers,
grandmothers, and great grandmothers. My grandchildren make up the seventeenth
generation of Mayflower descendants beginning with the mother of Elizabeth
Tilley. Sadly, both of Elizabeth’s
parents, John and Joan (Hurst) Tilley would die only months after their arrival off the coast of Cape Cod, leaving her an orphan in a strange new land at the age
of thirteen.
Today, my mother's children,
grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and even two great-great grandchildren share the distinction of descending from the history-book pilgrims
who crossed the ocean in 1620 on the Mayflower to establish Plymouth Plantation
in the New World. Only a few (currently three) 3rd generation
GloverSmith children hold the unique difference of being the youngest female descendants
in this “matrilineal” ancestry. -my mother’s daughters' daughters' daughters are
the Seventeenth Generation of Mayflower Women (including the one “linchpin” man, Asa Harris) through their great-great-grandmother (Ona)
Smith’s heritage.
NOTE: (The SEVEN Mayflower Passengers
included in Elizabeth Tilley’s family: her mother and father John and Joan
(Hurst) Tilley; her uncle and aunt Edward and Agnes (Cooper) Tilley and their wards: niece
Humilitie Cooper (age 1) and nephew Henry Samson (16). Of this family, only the
children (Elizabeth, Humilitie, and Henry) survived the first difficult winter
at Plymouth, 1620-1621.)
