Christopher Jones, the Captain of the Mayflower boat, lived in a house on King’s Head Street in Harwich which is now open to the public a few days a week.
The house has been described as ‘the jewel in the crown’ and is owned by a local gentleman who has sympathetically restored the house to what it would have looked like back in the day of Captain Jones. 21 King’s Head Street is currently leased to Tendring council.
Christopher Jones was born in Harwich and grew up in the house with his father also called Christopher and mother Sybil. Christopher Jones Junior married his neighbour Sara Twitt who was 17 in 1593 and whose family lived in the house opposite. The house where Sara lived is today a rather wonderful historic pub called The Alma which serves food and also has rooms. Sara’s parents would have been fairly well off to have lived in such a house, indeed her father Thomas Twitt was wealthy and gave his daughter a large share in his boat Apollo along with some money on his death. Sadly Sara died very young, when she was only 27, approximately seven years after her son Thomas passed away. Their son was named Thomas after her father who also tragically died young in 1596.
Christopher Jones remarried a wealthy young widow of only 19 called Josian Gray who apparently also had ‘seafaring connections’ and inherited a house on Church Street from her late husband. The couple went on to have no less than eight children. Jones named one of his boats Josian after his wife, presumably in honour of her. Jones later traded in Josian for a share in The Mayflower. The family moved to Rotherhithe in Southwark, London in 1611 which in those days was in Surrey and an affluent area. Having such a large brood did not stand in Christopher’s way of committing to the ambitious sail in The Mayflower. Indeed, he needed to keep the pennies rolling in with such a large family to provide for and he would have been paid handsomely as Master of that ambitious sail. Prior to the trip to America, the Mayflower brought back wine and other items such as Spanish salt from Europe and took woollens, England’s strongest export to sell. On his trip to America his wife Josian must have waited around six months to see him again, likely with no letters or precious little information in between.
There is a note connecting Christopher Jones with The Mayflower Ship in 1609 where he was listed as Master and part owner. The Mayflower ship set sail on 5 August with Jones as Master 1620 taking around 102 pilgrims and adventurers to the New World in search of religious freedom or a new life. They had to go back a couple of times to England (first Dartmouth then Portsmouth) as the Speedwell boat that was accompanying the Mayflower sprung several leaks After several attempts to fix the Speedwell it was decided it should not attempt the voyage and stay in the docks. The final voyage from Plymouth was on 16 September in the year of 1620. This was perilously late as it was now nearing the autumn and the weather was much worse.
Indeed the voyage was perilous and the timbers were failing on their arrival to dry land. The Mayflower arrived at Plymouth Bay, Massachusetts during the cold winter of 1620. Land was sighted on 9 November and they landed two days later on Cape Cod Bay. The first man who alighted, Harwich based barrel maker John Alden is said to have links to Marilyn Monroe and Dick Van Dyke. Extraordinarily, 30 million people can trace their roots back to the 102 passengers and around 30 members of crew. They included people from all walks of life and some were from Holland too.
Christopher Jones died in Southwark in March 1622, a short time after the voyage was completed at the age of approximately 52 years. The Mayflower did not leave America until 5 April 1621 so Jones would have had less than a year at home post the completion of the voyage. Did the journeys take their toll on his health? One would presume so as the average lifespan for a man of his class was approximately a decade later (an aristocrat lived to approx 63 years of age and by his death Jones might well have been considered a gentleman). Certainly it was the case that much of the crew suffered from a mystery ailment. Christopher Jones, a life well lived, a man much travelled, born in Harwich.
harwich-society.co.uk
