Myles Standish

Myles Standish was English by birth and ancestry; Pilgrim Hall Museum’s page places his birth around 1584–1587, probably in Lancashire, England.⁠[1][1]

BritannicaEncyclopædia BritannicaEncyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopedia first published in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1768; the name also refers to its publisher, Chicago-based Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. (which presents itself as The Britannica Group). The print edition ended in 2012, and the company’s main businesses since then have been the online encyclopedia Britannica.com, digital education products for schools and libraries, and Merriam-Webster dictionaries.Open the full entry’s article has him born about 1584 in Lancashire and notes that his first name is also spelled Miles; the family profile of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants likewise gives about 1584 but places his birth probably on the Isle of Man.⁠[2][3]

The New England Historic Genealogical Society’s sketch, reasoning from the date of his first marriage, places his birth by about 1593. It records that in 1984 G. V. C. Young argued that he was born on the Isle of Man, the son of John Standish of Ellanbane, and judges the proof incomplete but the identification highly probable.⁠[4]

He may have served as a soldier in Holland from as early as 1601, taking part in England’s long effort to help the Dutch Republic defend itself against Spain, and gained experience of siege warfare and fortified defense that he later applied in Plymouth Colony.⁠[1]

Stationed in Leiden during the twelve-year truce that began in 1609, he met the Rev. John Robinson and other English Separatists; Pilgrim Hall Museum’s page considers it likely that he joined their congregation. He appears to have married his first wife, Rose, while in Holland.⁠[1]

The exhibit text of the Duxbury Rural & Historical Society states, by contrast, that he was not a Separatist but was hired by the Separatist community as the colony’s military leader.⁠[5]

The profile of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants has him serving with the English army in and around Leiden until 1616; the New England Historic Genealogical Society’s sketch estimates that he married Rose by about 1618.⁠[3][4]

He became the military leader of the Pilgrims’ colonial venture after Captain John Smith proved too costly to hire.⁠[1]

He sailed for America on the Mayflower with Rose. On November 11, 1620, Old Style (November 21, New Style), while the ship lay at anchor at Provincetown, he signed the Mayflower Compact.⁠[3][6]

After the arrival at Cape Cod he led sixteen men overland, with William BradfordWilliam BradfordWilliam Bradford (1590–1657) was a Mayflower passenger and the second and longest-serving governor of Plymouth Colony; his manuscript Of Plymouth Plantation is the most complete account of the Pilgrims and the colony’s early years.Open the full entry, Stephen Hopkins and Edward Tilley assigned to him for counsel and advice. On December 6, 1620, he set out again with John CarverJohn CarverJohn Carver (died 1621) was one of the chief organizers of the Mayflower voyage and, after the signing of the Mayflower Compact in November 1620, the first governor of Plymouth Colony, serving until his death in April 1621.Open the full entry, William Bradford, Edward WinslowEdward WinslowEdward Winslow (1595–1655) was a Mayflower passenger and one of the founders of Plymouth Colony, where he served three times as governor, handled the colony’s dealings with the Wampanoag leader Massasoit and repeatedly went to England as its agent. In his last years he served in Oliver Cromwell’s government, and he died on an expedition to the West Indies.Open the full entry and others; the party was attacked about dawn without anyone being hurt and named the place the “First Encounter.”⁠[7]

Three exploring expeditions were made on Cape Cod in November and early December 1620, and he led the first and the third.⁠[3][4]

Rose died at Plymouth on January 29, 1621 (1620/1 in Old Style double-year form).⁠[4]

During the sickness of the first winter William Bradford named him and William BrewsterWilliam BrewsterWilliam Brewster (c. 1566–1644) was a Mayflower passenger and the Elder of the Separatist church at Leiden and then in Plymouth Colony, an office he held for the rest of his life.Open the full entry as two of the seven colonists who remained well and nursed the sick.⁠[4]

On February 17, 1621 (1620/21 in Old Style double-year form), he was elected the colony’s military commander, and that spring he organized its militia.⁠[1][3]

On March 22, 1621, Massasoit, the great sachem of the Wampanoag, crossed the brook with about twenty men, leaving their bows and arrows behind; Myles Standish met them at the brook with an escort of musketeers and brought them to an unfinished house, where Governor John Carver then joined them and a treaty of mutual aid was concluded.⁠[8]

The New England Historic Genealogical Society’s sketch identifies the “Master Williamson” who met Massasoit at the brook with him as William Brewster.⁠[4]

In 1622 he directed the building of a palisade around the settlement and oversaw the placing of cannon on top of the fort that also served as the meetinghouse. Edward Winslow’s Good News from New England relates that the town was impaled in February with four bulwarks and that Myles Standish divided the men into four companies, each with an appointed leader.⁠[1]

The settlers built the fort in 1622, on the hill above the town, after news arrived of a deadly Native attack on the Virginia Colony.⁠[9]

He had charge of the colony’s security and military readiness, provided armed escorts for trading expeditions and led military excursions. Britannica’s article states that he learned the language of the local Native people.⁠[1][2]

The best known of his military excursions was the one to the troubled settlement at Wessagusset in 1623. After reports of an imminent attack on Plymouth he led a pre-emptive strike against the Massachusett that killed seven men, and the English soldiers carried the head of Witawamet, one of the Massachusett leaders, back to Plymouth as a warning. Pilgrim Hall Museum’s page calls it one of the colony’s most brutal conflicts.⁠[1]

The violence dismayed John Robinson when the news reached him in Leiden. A number of contemporaries criticized Myles Standish as hot-headed and injudicious, and in enforcing the colony’s laws he sometimes met verbal abuse from those he had to censure.⁠[1]

The profile of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants quotes contemporaries who described him as “a man of very little stature, yet of a very hot and angry temper”; the Commonwealth Museum’s exhibit text judges that the colony’s military leader was overly aggressive at times, particularly with Native people.⁠[3][10]

His second wife, Barbara, arrived on the Anne in 1623, and they were married at Plymouth between July 1623 and March 1623/24. In the division of land in 1623 he received two acres for himself and Rose, and “Mrs. Standish” received one acre as a passenger on the Anne.⁠[1][3][4]

Late in 1625 he was sent to London as the colony’s agent to the Merchant Adventurers, returning early in 1626. Plague and political turmoil prevented much business; he borrowed 150 pounds at 50 percent interest and brought back the news of John Robinson’s death.⁠[4][1]

In 1627 twelve “Undertakers,” eight from Plymouth and four from London, agreed to pay the colony’s debts in return for trade benefits; Myles Standish was one of the eight from Plymouth, with William Bradford, John Howland, Isaac Allerton, Edward Winslow, William Brewster, John Alden and Thomas Prence. Britannica’s article describes him as a leader of the group in the colony that bought out the London investors.⁠[7][2]

In the division of cattle in 1627 he, Barbara and their sons Charles, Alexander and John were the first names in the third company.⁠[4]

In 1628 he was sent to seize Thomas Morton by force; Morton and his men were drunk and armed, and Myles Standish disarmed Morton with only one man slightly hurt. Britannica’s article states that he thereby helped to break up Morton’s colony at nearby Merry Mount. Thomas Morton called him “Captain Shrimp.”⁠[4][2]

Britannica’s article has him moving to Duxbury in 1631 and remaining there until his death. He was granted 120 acres on the Nook in South Duxbury; the exhibit text of the Duxbury Rural & Historical Society calls him and John Alden the founders of the town.⁠[2][5]

In 1631 he sold his two acres in the north field to Edward Winslow. In the 1633 list of Plymouth freemen he stands first among the councillors, directly after the governor, and he was assessed 18 shillings in each of the tax lists of March 25, 1633, and March 27, 1634.⁠[4]

He was an Assistant to the governor in 1633 (the record is dated January 1, 1632/3, Old Style), 1635, 1637–1641 and 1645–1656.⁠[4]

In 1634, when “Mr. Alden” was imprisoned in Massachusetts Bay, he was sent to free him.⁠[4]

On December 4, 1637, he was granted surplus land on the Duxbury side because he had received less than his share, and on July 2, 1638, he received three hundred acres of upland.⁠[4]

The New England Historic Genealogical Society’s sketch lists him as treasurer of the colony in 1644–1656 and captain in 1620–1656; Britannica’s article gives his term as treasurer as 1644–1649.⁠[4][2]

In the 1643 list of men able to bear arms he appears as “Capt. Standish” in the Duxbury section.⁠[4]

In 1645, when the Commissioners of the United Colonies raised an army for an expected war with the Narragansett, forty armed men from Plymouth were placed under his command. In 1646 he was chosen with six others for the Council of War, and in 1654 he was appointed commander in chief of fifty men from ten towns for an expedition against the Dutch.⁠[3]

On March 4, 1651 (1650/1 in Old Style double-year form), the Court granted him about forty or fifty acres in recognition of his trouble and repeated journeys to Yarmouth on public business.⁠[4]

His signature appears on several Plymouth Colony documents, among them one certifying the choice of Governor William Bradford and Assistant Browne as representatives at Plymouth in 1647 and a deed of 1655.⁠[11]

Myles Standish died at Duxbury on October 3, 1656. His will, dated March 7, 1656 (written 1655[/6]), and proved on May 4, 1657, asked that if he died at Duxbury he be buried near his daughter Lora and his daughter-in-law Mary.⁠[4]

The will left his wife, Barbara, one third of the estate after debts and 40 pounds each to his sons Alexander, Myles, Josias and Charles, with a double share of the land to Alexander as the eldest; Barbara, Alexander, Myles and Josias were named executors, and Timothy Hatherley and Captain James Cudworth supervisors.⁠[4]

In the will he left to his heir Alexander lands at Ormistick, Borsconge, Wrightington, Maudsley, Newburrow, Crawston and the Isle of Man, which he said had been wrongfully “detained from me,” adding “my great-grandfather being a second or younger brother from the house of Standish of Standish.”⁠[4]

The inventory of his estate, taken on December 2, 1656, came to 358 pounds 7 shillings, of which the dwelling house, outhouses and the land belonging to them were valued at 140 pounds. The arms listed are “one fowling peece 3 musketts 4 Carbines 2 smale guns, one old barrel,” together with a sword and a cutlass.⁠[4][11]

His books were valued at 9 pounds 3 shillings; Pilgrim Hall Museum’s description puts the library at nearly fifty volumes. They included three Bibles and other theological works, Calvin’s Institutes, the botanical work of the Flemish physician Dodoens, Homer’s Iliad and Caesar’s Commentaries.⁠[4][11]

He had no known children with Rose. With Barbara he had seven: Charles, who died young, Alexander, John, Myles, Lora (also spelled Loara), Josias and a second Charles. Barbara’s maiden name is unknown; she died sometime after October 6, 1659, when she is mentioned in the inventory of Elizabeth Hopkins’s estate.⁠[3][1]

Alexander, born at Plymouth about 1626, married Sarah Alden, daughter of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins, and died at Duxbury on July 6, 1702. Myles, born about 1629, married Sarah Winslow at Boston on July 19, 1660, and disappeared at sea after March 20, 1661. Josias, born about 1633, married Mary Dingley at Marshfield on December 19, 1654, and afterward Sarah Allen, and died at Preston, ConnecticutConnecticutConnecticut is a U.S. state in the New England region. Its capital is Hartford and its largest city is Bridgeport (2010 census). It entered the Union on January 9, 1788, as the 5th state, and had a population of 3,605,944 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry, on March 19, 1690. Lora died unmarried before March 7, 1656 (1655/56 in Old Style double-year form).⁠[3]

In 1856 James Hall, a descendant of Myles Standish and a steel engraver in Boston, excavated the site of his house in Duxbury, recording the position of each find and drawing a plan; Pilgrim Hall Museum describes the dig as one of the earliest professional archaeological excavations in the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States is a federal country in North America made up of 50 states, the District of Columbia as the seat of government, and territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam; its capital is Washington, D.C. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted a resident population of 331,449,281, and the 435 seats of the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states on the basis of the census.Open the full entry. In 1859 and 1863 James Hall placed most of his collection in the museum’s safekeeping.⁠[11]

The site and the collection date from about 1630 to about 1710; his old homestead is known to have burned down around 1665. The museum also holds his daughter’s sampler, traditionally dated to 1653, which has been in its collection since 1844.⁠[11]

A rapier attributed to him and shown at Pilgrim Hall Museum is made of steel, iron and wood, with a blade made at Solingen, Germany, between 1630 and 1650; he probably acquired it after he came to Plymouth.⁠[12]

He is buried in the Myles Standish Burial Ground in Duxbury, also known as the Old Burying Ground or Standish Cemetery, the site of the town’s first and second meetinghouses. The burial ground lay abandoned until the Duxbury Rural Society reclaimed it in 1887, when his grave marker was discovered; after exhumations in 1889 and 1891 it was generally agreed that his remains had been found. In 1893 a memorial with castellated stone walls was placed over the grave, with four cannons of 1853 bought from the Boston Navy Yard.⁠[13]

Captain’s Hill in Duxbury, on land that was once his, is named for him and carries the Myles Standish Monument; the site of his home is now a public park. The Massachusetts Department of Conservation & Recreation describes the hill as 200 feet above sea level and the monument as a 116-foot granite shaft crowned by a 14-foot statue of Myles Standish, with 125 steps inside.⁠[5][14]

An article by Carolyn Ravenscroft, archivist of the Drew Archival Library, relates that the monument was conceived by J. Henry Stickney of Baltimore and designed by the architect Alden Frink, that its cornerstone was laid on October 7, 1872, and that it was completed in 1898; on August 26, 1922, lightning toppled the statue’s head and one arm, and the statue was not reassembled until 1930. Two years before the lightning strike the Standish Monument Association had deeded the land to the state, and Governor Calvin CoolidgeCalvin CoolidgeCalvin Coolidge (1872–1933) was an American lawyer and politician who served as governor of Massachusetts and, from 1921, as vice president of the United States; he succeeded Warren G. Harding as the 30th president in August 1923, was elected to a full term in 1924 and served until 1929.Open the full entry signed a bill making MassachusettsMassachusettsMassachusetts (officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts) is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States; its capital and largest city is Boston. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on February 6, 1788, the sixth state to do so. Its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 7,029,917.Open the full entry the owner and caretaker of the monument.⁠[15]

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published his poem The Courtship of Miles Standish in 1858, bringing the Plymouth Colony soldier national fame.⁠[11]

In the poem he asks John Alden to propose to Priscilla Mullins on his behalf. Britannica’s article states that there is no historical evidence for the story; the exhibit text of the Duxbury Rural & Historical Society calls it a fictional love triangle and notes that Longfellow was a descendant of the Aldens; and the Commonwealth Museum’s exhibit text observes that the poem uses real historical figures but not real history.⁠[2][5][10]

Pilgrim Hall Museum: Official website: https://www.pilgrimhall.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[16]

General Society of Mayflower Descendants: Official website: https://themayflowersociety.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[17]

Duxbury Rural & Historical Society: Official website: https://duxburyhistory.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[18]

Myles Standish Monument State Reservation: Official website: https://www.mass.gov/locations/myles-standish-monument-state-reservation (opens in a new window).⁠[14]