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The Mayflower: History & Fun Facts

Quick Facts

• The Mayflower departed Plymouth, England on September 6, 1620 with 102 passengers and about 30 crew.
• Captain Christopher Jones owned a quarter-share of the ship and had commanded her since around 1611.
• She sighted Cape Cod on November 9, 1620 — about sixty-six days at sea.
• A cracked main deck beam was saved mid-voyage by jacking it back into place with an iron screw.
• Mayflower II, built in Brixham, England in 1957, sits today at the State Pier in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
• Records suggest the original Mayflower was broken up for timber in 1624 after a final cargo voyage.

The Mayflower that carried 102 passengers and about 30 crew from Plymouth, England to Cape Cod was not built as a passenger ship. She was a working English merchant vessel of roughly 180 tons burden, used for years to haul wine, cloth, and other cargo between English ports and France. Master Christopher Jones acquired a quarter-share of her around 1611 and captained her until his death in 1622. The voyage that made her famous left Plymouth on September 6, 1620, and reached the tip of Cape Cod after sixty-six days at sea on November 9.

What the real Mayflower actually looked like

No contemporary drawing of the original Mayflower survives, but historians believe she was a three-masted square-rigged carrack measuring roughly 100 to 110 feet from stem to stern, with a beam of about 25 feet. Her hull was built of English oak using mortise-and-tenon planking, and she carried two decks plus a high quarterdeck and forecastle. The 1957 replica Mayflower II, built in Brixham, Devon, used surviving English shipbuilding records of the period to estimate proportions and now sits at the State Pier in Plymouth, Massachusetts. She measures 106 feet long with a 25-foot beam and displaces 236 tons.

Sixty-six days from Plymouth to Cape Cod

The Mayflower originally sailed in company with a smaller ship called the Speedwell, which sprang leaks twice and forced both vessels back to port. The Speedwell was abandoned, some passengers and supplies transferred to the Mayflower, and she finally departed alone on September 6, 1620. Storms in the mid-Atlantic cracked one of the main deck beams, which the carpenter saved by jacking it back into place with an iron screw. Land was spotted off the eastern tip of Cape Cod on November 9, and the ship anchored in what is now Provincetown Harbor two days later. The passengers spent another month exploring before settling on the site of Plymouth Plantation on December 21, 1620.

What happened to the ship after the voyage

The Mayflower stayed anchored off Plymouth through the brutal first winter of 1620 to 1621, which killed roughly half the passengers and crew. Captain Jones finally sailed her back to England in April 1621, taking only a small ballast of stones for the empty return voyage. She continued working as a cargo ship out of London for another two years before her aging hull was deemed unfit for further service. Records suggest she was broken up for timber in 1624, and a barn at Jordans in Buckinghamshire, England, is sometimes claimed to contain her recycled beams — though that connection has never been firmly proven by carbon dating or documentary evidence.