Person Information
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Mary was born in Sandwich. When she was about two, her mother was excommunicated for attending the secret (non-Church of England) burial of a child. The family then moved to Leyden and joined the church there. In 1619, when she was twelve, her father and oldest sister were caught in an anti-Arminian riot and her father was hit in the head with a stone--an injury for which he would have to seek out a surgeon. She was a passenger along with her parents on the Mayflower at the age of 13; the rest of her siblings stayed behind. Tradition has it that she was the first to set foot on Plymouth Rock. The painting "The Landing of the Pilgrims" by Henry Bacon and exhibited in Pilgrim Hall in Plymouth, Massachusetts reflects this tradition. Mary's father died while the Mayflower was still anchored off the shore of Plymouth, and her mother several weeks later. Based on the later divisions of lands, it is believed she was raised in the John Alden and Miles Standish households. Mary's husband John Winslow came to Plymouth on the Fortune in 1621. John was the brother of Edward Winslow, a Mayflower passenger and a Governor of Plymouth Colony. Mary was 16 and unmarried at the 1623 land division, and married to John, with no children yet, by the May 1627 division of cattle. Mary and John moved to Boston about 1655, where John became a successful merchant and shipowner. She was the only passenger of the Mayflower to later settle in Boston. Mary left the only will of a female passenger on the Mayflower, which is preserved at the Suffolk County Registry of Probate in Boston. The will was dated 31 July 1676 and proved 11 Jul 1679. It can be found at http://members.aol.com/calebj/will_mwinslow.html. She and John are buried in King's Chapel Burying Ground in Boston, where their tombstones still stand.
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