| Birth: About
1597 at Wisbeech, Cambridge, England. Originally thought to have
been the daughter of John May, recent scholarship suggests she was the
daughter of Henry May. |
 Of
Plymouth Plantation was written by Dorothy
(May) Bradford's husband William, over the course of about twenty years, beginning in 1630.
It is his History of the Plymouth Colony, from the origins of the
Separatists churches in England to their life in Holland, and voyage on
the Mayflower, plus the history of the Plymouth Colony through 1646. It
is the only complete history of Plymouth that was actually written by a
Mayflower passenger.
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Biographical Summary
Dorothy Bradford was born in Wisbeech,
Cambridge, England, about 1597, the apparent daughter of Henry May.
At the age of 16, she married the 23-year old William Bradford on 10
December 1613, in Amsterdam, and returned with her husband to take up
residence in Leiden, Holland. They had a son, John, who was born
in Leiden sometime around 1617 or 1618. When William and Dorothy
decided to make the voyage to America in 1620 on the Mayflower,
they left behind their son John in Leiden, presumably with the intention
to send for him as soon as the colony was built and more stable and
suitable for a young child. The
Mayflower anchored off Provincetown Harbor on November 11, and the
Pilgrims sent out several expeditions of men to explore the region to
seek out the best place to build their Colony. While William
Bradford was away on one of these explorations, on 7 December 1620,
Dorothy accidentally fell off the Mayflower into the freezing
waters of Provincetown Harbor, and drowned. Her son John came to
America later, married Martha Bourne, took up residence in Duxbury and
later moved to Norwich, Connecticut where he died about 1676, having had
no children. |
William
Bradford: Plymouth's Faithful Pilgrim
Mourt's
Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth
Governor
William Bradford's Letter Book