Emigrated to America on the Mayflower, arriving Nov 1620. The term “Pilgrim” to describe this group of immigrants comes from Bradford’s term describing the group as they embarked from Leyden to meet up with other Separatists in Southampton and make their way to the New World.237

Bradford bio
William Bradford was born in 1590 to parents of modest means in a farming community in Austerfield, Yorkshire, England. His father died when William was one. His mother remarried three years later, sending him to live with his grandfather. Two years later (1596, William age 6) his grandfather died, and William moved back in with his mother and step-father. Shortly thereafter, his mother died, and he was sent to live with his biological father's brothers, who didn't seem particularly fond of him.

William was sickly as a child and so read a great deal. He was interested in the Bible from an early age. He sought out Robert (?) Clyfton's Puritans in Scrooby, attending his first meeting (church service) at the age of 12. At 16 he joined the church. Once he became involved with the Scrooby congregation, he was taken under the wing of William Brewster, the principal Elder of the group, and virtually adopted.

Two years later, when William was 18, he decided to escape to Holland with the rest of the Scrooby congregation. According to Cotton Mather, our principal source for Bradford's early biographical material, William saw leaving as a "cross to bear" but felt he must do it to "keep a good conscience" and walk where he felt God was leading him.

In Holland, he worked as a weaver for a silk merchant. When he came of age and received his English inheritance, he went into business for himself but went bankrupt. (He became a citizen of Leiden while there.239)

Bradford married Dorothy May in Holland. She embarked for the New World with him, but when the Mayflower was at anchor off Cape Cod she fell off the boat and was drowned. Allegations that she committed suicide seem to date from a 19th-century romantic fiction.

William was a key figure in the Plymouth Colony, wise, fair, and generous in his dealings with both Anglo and Native peoples. He was elected governor after the first governor died, and served for a cumulative 33 years, continually from1627-1656. He was elected over 30 times to the position. The role of governor combined judge, treasurer, business manager, and secretary of state.

The patent for Plymouth from the London Council for New England was made out in his name. Like William Penn of Pennsylvania, he could have been sole proprietor of the colony. Instead he was committed to the Pilgrim community. "…[H]e seems to have been content with an active public life, his house and orchard, his books and his writing," says an introduction by Francis Murphy to a 1981 edition of Bradford's "Of Plymouth Plantation."

William was a fine writer, and his "Of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647" is a wonderful chronicle of the colony's joys and woes, as well as a window into his mind. The manuscript passed down through the family until it came to a Boston bibliophile, who donated it to the library of the Old South Church in Boston. During the War of Independence, the British took over this historic building and used it as a horse barracks. After the war, the manuscript disappeared, only to be discovered in 1855 in the Bishop of London's library. It is now on view in the Massachusetts State House in Boston.

When William died, he left over 300 books in his library. He is buried in Plymouth at the top of Burial Hill, with his wife Alice and other family members buried nearby.1

From the marker at his grave in Plymouth:
Under this stone rest the ashes of WILLM BRADFORD a zealous puritan & sincere christian Gov. of Ply. Col. from April 1621 to 1657. (the year he died aged 69) except 5 yrs. which he decllned.

Qua patres difficillime adepti sunt nolite turpiter relinquere


Although not educated at one of the universities, Bradford could certainly hold his own with any of those who were. His library was one of the most extensive among the first generation of New Englanders, being valued at £15 3s, and, like many of the ministers, he had knowledge of many languages, including Hebrew.138

In the 1623 Plymouth land division he received three acres as a passenger on the Mayflower, and Alice Bradford received one acre as a passenger on the Anne. In the 1627 Plymouth cattle division "the Governor Mr. William Bradford and... his wife Alles Bradford," William Bradford, Junior, and Mercy Bradford were the first four persons in the eleventh company.138

Arrived in Plymouth Colony on the Anne, July 1623237

After the death of Southworth, Alice sailed to Plymouth on the Anne in 1623, and shortly after arrival married Gov. William Bradford as his second wife. She had four sisters associated with Plymouth Colony, Juliana, Priscilla, Agnes, and Mary (Mary Lovering Holman, The Scott Genealogy [Boston, 19191). All the sisters eventually came to Plymouth except Agnes, who married Samuel Fuller, but died before he sailed on the 1620 Mayflower. Alice's two sons by her first marriage, Constant and Thomas Southworth, came to Plymouth after her. Her sister Priscilla's husband, William Wright, mentioned in his will his "brother Will Bradford," who had also been mentioned in the will of Samuel Fuller, her sister Agnes's widower, (MD 1:200, 24). 237