William Bradford, Governor of the Plymouth Colony

1590 - 1657  (67 years)

• Name	William Bradford  [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
  Suffix	Governor of the Plymouth Colony
  Birth	19 Mar 1590	Austerfield, Yorkshire, England   [6, 7, 8]
  Baptism	19 Mar 1590	St. Helen's, Austerfield, Yorkshire, England   [6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12]
  Gender	Male
  Death	9 May 1657	Plymouth, Plymouth Colony   [6, 7, 8, 11, 13]
  Burial	Burial Hill, Plymouth, Plymouth, Massachussets   [6, 7]
  Person ID	I19976	Ancestry of PNH, TNH, and others | Ancestor of BJS, Ancestor of JTS, Ancestor of LDN, Ancestor of TWK
  Last Modified	17 Aug 2022

  
  

  Father	William Bradford   d. Bef 15 Jul 1591, Austerfield, Yorkshire, England
  Mother	Alice Hanson,   b. Bef 8 Dec 1562, Austerfield, Yorkshire, England d. Bef 23 May 1597, Austerfield, Yorkshire, England (Age < 34 years)
  Marriage	21 Jun 1584	Austerfield, Yorkshire, England   [9]
  Family ID	F12344	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family 1	Dorothy May,   b. Abt 1597   d. 7 Dec 1620, Cape Cod Harbor, Plymouth Colony (Age ~ 23 years)
  Marriage	10 Dec 1613	Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands   [13]
  Family ID	F22434	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	17 Aug 2022

  
  

  Family 2	Alice Carpenter,   b. Abt 1590   d. 26 Mar 1670, Plymouth, Plymouth Colony (Age ~ 80 years)
  Marriage	14 Aug 1623	Plymouth, Plymouth Colony   [6, 7, 8, 11, 13, 14, 15]
  Children	+ 1. William Bradford,   b. 17 Jun 1624, Plymouth, Plymouth Colony d. 20 Feb 1704, Plymouth, Plymouth, Massachusetts (Age 79 years)
  Family ID	F12338	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	17 Aug 2022

  
  

• Notes

  Governor of Plymouth Colony 1621-33, 1635, 1637, 1639-43, and 1645-56. From Wikipedia: William Bradford was an English Separatist originally from the West Riding of Yorkshire. He moved to Leiden in Holland in order to escape persecution from King James I of England, and then emigrated to the Plymouth Colony on the Mayflower in 1620. He was a signatory to the Mayflower Compact and went on to serve as Governor of the Plymouth Colony intermittently for about 30 years between 1621 and 1657. His journal Of Plymouth Plantation covered the years from 1620 to 1657 in Plymouth. [...] William Bradford's most well-known work by far is Of Plymouth Plantation. It is a detailed history in journal form about the founding of the Plymouth Colony and the lives of the colonists from 1621 to 1646. Bradford's journal is described as a retrospective account of his recollections and observations. The first work was written in 1630; the second was never finished, but "between 1646 and 1650, he brought the account of the colony's struggles and achievements through the year 1646." As Walter P. Wenska states, "Bradford writes most of his history out of his nostalgia, long after the decline of Pilgrim fervor and commitment had become apparent. Both the early annals which express his confidence in the Pilgrim mission and the later annals, some of which reveal his dismay and disappointment, were written at about the same time." In Of Plymouth Plantation, Bradford drew deep parallels between everyday life and the events of the Bible. As Philip Gould writes, "Bradford hoped to demonstrate the workings of divine providence for the edification of future generations." In 1888, Charles F. Richardson referred to Bradford as a "forerunner of literature" and "a story-teller of considerable power." Moses Coit Tyler called him "the father of American history." Many American authors have cited his work in their writings; for example, Cotton Mather referred to it in Magnalia Christi Americana and Thomas Prince referred to it in A Chronological History of New-England in the Form of Annals. Even today it is considered a valuable piece of American literature, included in anthologies and studied in literature and history classes. It has been called an American classic and the pre-eminent work of art in seventeenth-century New England. The Of Plymouth Plantation manuscript disappeared by 1780, "presumably stolen by a British soldier during the British occupation of Boston"; it reappeared in Fulham, London, England. Philip Gould states, "In 1855, scholars intrigued by references to Bradford in two books on the history of the Episcopal Church in America (both located in England) located the manuscript in the bishop of London's library at Lambeth Palace." A long debate ensued as to the rightful home for the manuscript. Multiple attempts by United States Senator George Frisbie Hoar and others to have it returned proved futile at first. According to Francis B. Dedmond, "after a stay of well over a century at Fulham and years of effort to [e]ffect its release, the manuscript was returned to Massachusetts" on May 26, 1897.

  
  

• Sources

  [S975] Clifford L. Stott, "Humphrey Blake (1494?-1558) and His Descendants in New England and South Carolina: Blake, Richards, Selleck, Torrey, and Wolcott." The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 163:85, April 2009; 163:199, July 2009; 163:278, October 2009; 164:63, January 2010. [S1545] Memoir of the Life and Character of Mrs. Mary Anna Boardman by John Frederick Schroeder. New Haven, 1849. [S1737] Biographical Dictionary of Massachusetts: Biographies and Autobiographies of the Leading Men in the State, Volume 5, by Samuel Atkins Eliot. Boston: Massachusetts Biographical Society, 1914. [S3044] Genealogical Notes, or, Contributions to the Family History of Some of the First Settlers of Connecticut and Massachusetts by Nathaniel Goodwin. Hartford: F. A. Brown, 1856. [S3854] James Wade Ferris Collins, "The Family and American Descendants of Deacon Edward Collins of Cambridge, Medford, and Charlestown, Massachusetts." The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 174:52, Winter 2020; 174:258, Summer 2020. [S1738] Lineage from Gov. William Bradford down to Sybil Chapin, by Howard Hurtig Metcalfe. [S1739] Mayflower Increasings: From the Files of George Ernest Bowman at the Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants by Susan E. Roser. 2nd edition. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1995. [S1647] The Pilgrim Migration: Immigrants to Plymouth Colony 1620-1633, by Robert Charles Anderson. Boston: New York Historic Genealogical Society, 2004. [S1861] William Bradford Browne, "Ancestry of the Bradfords of Austerfield, County York: Records Extending the Ancestral Line of Gov. William Bradford." The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 83:439, October 1929; 84:5, January 1930. [S1862] George Ernest Bowman, "The Record of Governor Bradford's Baptism, on the Parish Register at Austerfield." Mayflower Descendant 7:65, April 1905. [S4249] The Mayflower Migration: Immigrants to Plymouth, 1620 by Robert Charles Anderson. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2020. [S2252] Mayflower Families Through Five Generations: Volume 22, William Bradford by Robert S. Wakefield and Ann Smith Lainhart. Plymouth, Massachusetts: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 2004., date and town only. [S2252] Mayflower Families Through Five Generations: Volume 22, William Bradford by Robert S. Wakefield and Ann Smith Lainhart. Plymouth, Massachusetts: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 2004. [S145] Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis and Walter Lee Sheppard, Jr. 8th edition, William R. Beall & Kaleen E. Beall, eds. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 2004, 2006, 2008. [S1545] Memoir of the Life and Character of Mrs. Mary Anna Boardman by John Frederick Schroeder. New Haven, 1849., date only.