Who Were Signers of Mayflower Compact?
Historic Document Signed by 41 Plymouth Colony Pilgrims
Oct 1, 2009
The signers of the Mayflower Compact, probably not realizing it, opened a new chapter of human history as they became pace-setters for the thousands of colonists that would follow them in the 17th century and well into the 18th century.
Setting for the Mayflower Compact Signing
The small ship Mayflower was crowded with well over 100 passengers. They were anchored off Cape Cod and wanted to make sure they reached a common understanding of how they would live, work and worship together in a self-governing community.
Next, exploration parties would go ashore to search for a good location for their community. A few crude shelters would be constructed before everyone came ashore to live. Most artists depicting events of those November days in 1620 have shown them as dreary, cold and rainy. At least one artist has snow on the ground when the last community members stepped ashore at the fabled Plymouth Rock.
Names of Mayflower Compact Signers
The following men signed the Mayflower Compact. Six months later slightly more than half of them would be dead. They are designated with a cross after their name.
John Carver+, William Bradford, Edward Winslow, William Brewster, Isaac Allerton, Miles Standish, John Alden, Samuel Fuller, Christopher Martin+, William Mullins+, William White+, James Chilton+, John Craxton+, John Billington, Richard Warren, John Howland, Stephen Hopkins, Edward Tilly+, John Tilly+, Francis Cook.
Thomas Rogers+, Thomas Tinker+, John Rigdale+, Edward Fuller+, John Turner+, Francis Eaton, Moses Fletcher+, Digory Priest+, Thomas Williams+, Gilbert Winslow, Edmond Margeson+, Peter Brown, Richard Bitteridge+, Richard Clark+, Richard Gardiner, John Allerton+, Thomas English+, Edward Doten, Edward Liester, John Goodman+ and George Soule.
What Do We Know About Mayflower Compact Signers?
Biographical data is available for many of these men. Here are some brief notes:
- John Carver and wife Catherine belonged to the Leiden Separatist community in Holland and he helped plan the Mayflower voyage. Both died at Plymouth early in 1621. He spent most of his considerable estate paying for the Plymouth experiment.
- Francis Cooke and his teenage son, John, came on the Mayflower. Mrs. Cooke, the former Hester Mayhieu, came three years later with children Jane, Jacob and Hester.
- Stephen Hopkins and second wife Elizabeth Fisher were wed in London in 1618 and came on the Mayflower with his children Giles and Constanta (to first wife) and their daughter Damaris. Son Oceanus was born during the voyage and they had five more children in Plymouth. Hopkins served as emissary to the Indians. He also was charged with assault and overpricing.
- James Chilton died while the Mayflower was anchored off Provincetown and his wife died shortly after. Daughter Mary, then 12, grew up to marry John Winslow. They moved to Boston after the birth of their tenth child.
- Capt. Miles Standish was the military leader for the first Plymouth colonists. He trained a local militia to wage reprisal attacks on the Indians. He died in 1656 and his will names family members and locations for land he owned in England.
Additional information on the signers of the Mayflower Compact is available through Plymouth’s Pilgrim Hall Museum, including the text of the wills of several of the Mayflower passengers.
(Companion articles give the text of the Mayflower Compact and discuss the Mayflower passengers and their descendants.)
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