Behind the Scenes
at Plimoth Plantation

Current articles in this section:

1. Firing Up the Kiln

2. Ordinarie Technology

3. Notes on a Shallop

4. Archaeology at Plimoth Plantation: Key to the Past

5. Maritime Programs at Plimoth Plantation

6. Recreating the Material Culture of Mayflower II

7. Documenting Mayflower II

8. Hands Across the Bay: A 1957 Crewmember Sails Again

9. A New Furnace for Mayflower II

10. The Story and Crew of 1957's Mayflower II

11. Why P-l-i-m-o-t-h?

Recreating the Material Culture of
Mayflower II

by Maureen Richard, Curator, Reproduction Collections

Recreating the material culture of the English colonists who settled in Plymouth is a challenge for Plimoth Plantation’s curators, artisans and historians. To make a complete picture for our role-playing sites, Mayflower II and the 1627 English Village, we look to a number of sources including contemporary accounts from Plymouth and, documentary and physical evidence of other English colonization. The earliest writings from Plymouth Colony, such as those of Governor William Bradford and a work known as Mourt’s Relation give excellent first-person accounts of the Plymouth colonists’ work, relations with the Natives, and general goings-on of the colony. However, they give little evidence of the many material objects necessary for the colonists to use and transport on board a ship to then establish their English lifestyle in what they considered a “wild and uncivilized” land.

Although the economic makeup of each colony was different, they were largely English people coming to a new land and they brought their English goods and English customs with them. The recommendations of what to bring to a colony are fairly similar whether to Virginia or New England. These recommendations, published in England as “provisions lists,” give us a good start at establishing what might have been on the Mayflower when she sailed in 1620. Other examples of the evidence that helps us piece together the material world of the colonists are shipping documents, journals and letters, and archaeological remains from land and sea excavations, in New England, Virginia, England and Europe. The earliest probate inventories from Plymouth date from the early 1630s; these were compiled following a person’s death and filed in the court. These records help us to identify specific items found in a household just a few years after they have arrived in Plymouth Colony.

Bradford states in his history, Of Plymouth Plantation, that a number of the colonists brought provisions themselves and some things were provided for them. While on Mayflower, goods were apportioned by a Governor and two assistants. They were to “see to the disposing of their provisions and such like affairs…All which was not only with the liking of the masters of the ships but according to their desires.” The remainder of the supplies were necessities useful for setting up a household and working in the new colony. Bradford says there would be provisions to disperse for everyone in the colony once they have arrived, regardless of their personal possessions. It is not an exhaustive account, but he states “all such persons as are of this colony are to have their meat, drink, apparel, and all provisions out of the common stock and goods of the said colony.”1

Francis Higginson’s 1630-list entitled “A Catalogue of such needful things as every planter doth or ought to provide to go to New-England…for one man,” is a useful measure when trying to arrive at what items the Plymouth colonists thought were necessary for starting a colony and what things were useful to have on board a ship. His list includes “Victuals for a whole year, (to be used after arrival in the colony), apparel, arms, tools, household implements, spices, books, nets, hooks and lines, cheese, bacon, kine and goats & etc.” Below is a brief description of some of these items and how they were shipped, determined by looking at various research resources.2

Food or victuals for the journey and for later use in the colony were usually packed in coopered vessels, which are stave-built from individual pieces of wood fitted together, and held in place with wooden (sometimes iron) hoops. Higginson listed a “firkin” of butter, which is an eight-gallon cask. He also lists “Eight bushels of meal” which would fit into a vessel called a hogshead, which held 64 gallons. These large barrels were packed directly in the hold, in the lowest level of the ship. A 1636 letter from Massachusetts Bay governor John Winthrop to his son John Winthrop Jr., indicated that smaller cooperage might be packed within chests with other goods “…you shall receive of Mr Hodges the key of one of his Chests where the seeds are, the key of the other cant be found, so you must break it open, there is in one of them a rundlett of honey.”3

Higginson also listed medicine such as “aqua vitae”, which is a distilled alcohol. Other remedies used onboard a ship were “aniseed water” and burnt claret wine which were “a very comfortable thing for the stomach or such as are seasick.” Portions of these liquids were stored in bottles of stoneware, wood, leather, earthenware or glass. Existing examples of stoneware and leather bottles were found on board the Mary Rose wreck, Henry the VIII’s flagship that sunk of the coast of Portsmouth England in 1545. Some were found in personal chests others were found in a surgeon’s chest. Other medicines such as “conserves” for seasickness, and juice of lemons “well put up …to prevent or cure the scurvy” were also either private provisions or supplied for the surgeon on board. Medicines brought for everyone on Mayflower might be similar to these on board a ship called Supply travelling to Virginia, “Ffor drugs & phisicks bought of Mr. Barton Apothecary by doctor Gulsons direccon for the flipp & scurvy &….A wainscott boxe and hay to pack the same in.”4

Clothing and bedding are grouped as Apparel on Higginson’s list. When Bradford wrote of these items he omitted most details, only saying that the Plymouth colonists were supplied with “cloth, stockings and shoes.” References to how clothing was packed included “…4 or 5 trunks with the Servants apparell in them” or a “caske to put his goods in,” which included clothing and bedding. Although Higginson lists bedding for the crossing, a Virginia supply list suggested bringing two sets of bedding. One set was for the journey; “[cloth]to make a bed at Sea …filled with straw ” and “one coorse rug at Sea”; and a new rug to use upon arrival, as well as more cloth to be made into a bed and “filled in Virginia.” Presumably shipboard conditions, the salt water and continual dampness were destructive to these items and it was better to replace them upon arrival in the New World. One writer suggested, “For bedding, so it be easy and cleanly and warm, it is no matter how old or coarse it be for the use at sea; and so likewise for apparel, the oldest clothes be the fittest, with a long coarse coat to keep better things from the pitched ropes and planks.”5

“Household implements” were items for cooking and eating. A portion of these items would be used on board during the journey and others would be used later. Other colonists suggested having some cooking implements handy aboard ship, even if eating of general ships’ provision. John Winthrop wrote to his to wife in England as she prepared to join him in New England, “Be sure to have ready at sea 2: or 3: skillets of severall sizes, a large frying panne, a small stewing panne, & a case to boyle a pudding in; store of linnen for use at sea… some drinking vessels, & peuter & other vessells.” Some of these things would be stored nearby, perhaps in the passenger’s cabin; “a large stronge chest or 2: well locked, to keepe these provisions in: & be sure they be bestowed in the shippe where they may be readyly come by, (wch the boatswaine will see to & the quatermasters, if they be rewarded beforehand).” Utensils for eating, such as wooden dishes, spoons, drinking vessels and dishes of pewter have been found in individuals’ chests on the Mary Rose. Some wooden dishes were found in a cask in the galley, presumably to be given out at mealtimes and not owned by individuals. Eating vessels not intended for use during the journey were often packed in cooperage. “2 hoggsheds of wooden ware no. 50, 51…packt up in malt…” were sent to Boston in 1635, and “a kinterkin of pewter” was sent to Newfoundland in 1611.6

Books were rarely itemized by title on these provision lists. The Plymouth colonists brought many religious books with them, and other secular books, according to their inventories. Individuals on board Mary Rose had their own books for use when they were at sea, judging by leather book covers found in chests among the remains of this ship. In the 1630s John Winthrop, Jr. imported “…2 hogshed full bound that was filed with bookes and Cloth” into New England. Popular “how to” books by Gervase Markham and Barnaby Googe were included in the goods sent to Virginia on the ship Supply in 1620. These books functioned as guides in some of the day-to-day tasks, such as running a household, gardening, cooking, farming, and fishing, that colonists encountered in the New World.7

Although Plymouth Colony primary sources lack sufficient detail to recreate the exact material culture aboard Mayflower II and the supplies needed for starting the colony, other sources are helpful in piecing together details that were similar amongst other English colonies. Provision lists help illustrate some of the general belongings of the colonists while shipping documents, journals and letters, household inventories and archaeological remains give us more specific possibilities of the material culture on board a ship heading to a new colony. Plymouth colonists were English people coming to settle in a New World and brought with them the personal possessions that they were familiar with and that they would want to impose their culture on this “wild” and “uncivilized” land.

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NOTES:

1. William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647, ed. Samuel Eliot Morison, (New York,
Alfred A. Knopf, 1987), pp. 51 & 41.

2. Francis Higginson, “A Catalogue of Such Needful things as Every Planter Doth or Ought to Provide to Go to New England,. 1630 p 266-267.

3. Higginson, p 266-267. Michael Dalton, The Country Justice, (London, 1618) pp.117 &118. Winthrop Papers, 1631-1637 (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1943) 3:240. A “rundlett” holds sixteen gallons according to Dalton, p. 117.

4. Higginson, p 266-267. Mourts Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, 1622, ed. Dwight B. Heath, (Cambridge/Boston, Applewood Books, 1986) p.86. William Wood, New England’s Prospect (1634) reprint, Alden T. Vaughan, ed., (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993) p.69;. Margaret Rule The Mary Rose: The Excavation and Raising of Henry VIII’s Flagship, (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1982) p. 187 &188. Wood, pp. 69 & 70. “Cost of Furnishing the Supply” Bulletin of the New York Public Library, v. 3, (1899) p. 283.

5. Higginson, p. 266-7. Bradford, p. 45. Winthrop Papers,3:209-210. Relation of Maryland, (Readex Micropoint Corporation, 1966) p.46. “A Note of Provisions Necessarie for Every Planter” Samuel Purchas, Hakluytus Posthumus V. 19, reprint, (New York: AMS Press, 1965) p. 165. Wood, p. 70.

6. Higginson, p. 267; Joseph H. Twichell, ed., Some Old Puritan Love Letters: John and Margaret Winthrop 1618-1638 (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1894) pp. 163-167; Mark Redknap, editor, Artefacts from Wrecks (Oxford, England: Oxbow Books, 1997) pp. 51-72 and 87-98. Winthrop Papers 3:209-210. “An Inventory of the Provisions Left with the Settlers at Cupid’s Cove” in Gillian T. Cell, ed., Newfoundland Discovered: English Attempts at Colonisation, 1610-1630 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1981) pp. 65-67.

7. Rule, p. 195; Winthrop Papers 1631-1637, 3:43, Edward Clarke’s Bill to John Winthrop, Jr.; “Cost of Furnishing the Supply” p. 286

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