On September 16, 1620, a wooden ship called the Mayflower slipped out of Plymouth, England, with 102 passengers crammed below deck and a crew of about 30 above. Most of the passengers were ordinary families carrying everything they owned, including children, chickens, and even two dogs. They were headed across the Atlantic Ocean to a place they had only seen on rough maps, hoping to start a new life. The journey ahead would take 66 long, stormy weeks at sea.
Life on the Mayflower was miserable. The passengers lived in a single dark space the size of a tennis court, with low ceilings and no privacy. They had no fresh fruits or vegetables, so many got sick, and a giant Atlantic storm cracked one of the wooden beams holding the ship together. Sailors fixed it with a giant iron screw a passenger had luckily brought to build a house. A baby was even born during the trip and named Oceanus. When they finally spotted land in November, they were way off course, having aimed for Virginia but arrived hundreds of miles north in what is now Massachusetts. They decided to stay anyway and founded Plymouth Colony.
The first winter was brutal, and about half the passengers died. But with help from the local Wampanoag people, especially a man named Tisquantum, also called Squanto, the survivors planted corn and learned to fish the area. The autumn harvest feast they shared in 1621 became the inspiration for the American Thanksgiving holiday. Today millions of Americans can trace their family back to that small group of seasick, determined Mayflower passengers.
