Photo of the Day

The two babies born on the Mayflower.

When the Mayflower set sail from Plymouth, England, on September 16, 1620, two women in the final stage of pregnancy were among the 102 passengers aboard.

The Mayflower replica was built in the 1950s.

While still at sea, Elizabeth Hopkins gave birth to a boy who was named “Oceanus.”

And Susanna White gave birth to a boy soon after the Mayflower reached the new world, while the ship was anchored off Cape Cod.

He was named “Peregrine,” from a Latin word meaning “one from abroad.”

Peregrine's cradle, made of wicker in 1620, and now held in the Pilgrim Hall Museum, Plymouth, Massachusetts.

That only one of these babies would survive into adulthood mirrors the survival rate of the Mayflower Pilgrims during their first year.

Oceanus would live for seven short, hard years.

Benjamin Franklin (1706 — 1790).

But Peregrine would live to age 83, dying two years before Benjamin Franklin was born.

Left: Chair owned by Pilgrim William Brewster, the leader of the Plymouth Colony. Right: Pilgrim William Bradford’s sterling silver goblet, 7 inches tall, made in London in 1634, 14 years after Bradford came to Massachusetts. Now held in the Smithsonian.

During Peregrine’s long life, he served in the local militia,

Depiction of one of the three Massachusetts Bay Colony militias, formed in 1636 to protect against attacks from the Pequot tribe. Their formation is regarded as the founding of the National Guard.

ran a family farm,

Farmers created their fields by clearing extensive areas of old growth forest.

and paid a fine to settle charges that he and his new wife,

visibly pregnant,

had engaged in “fornication before marriage or contract.”

The Fairbanks House in Dedham, Massachusetts, is the oldest verified wood-frame house in North America. Its timbers were dated from 1637–1641. [Magicpiano photo]

Near the end of his life, Peregrine found religion,

an awakening much praised in his 1704 obituary.

The Old Ship Meeting House in Hingham, Massachusetts, shown here in the 1800s, was built in 1681. It is the only surviving 17th century meeting house in the US. In colonial times, meeting houses were used as churches.

“He was vigorous and of a comly Aspect to the last…

Altho’ he was in the former part of his Life extravagant;

yet was much Reform’d in his last years;

and died hopefully.”

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I’ll see you tomorrow.

— Brenda