Fortune Passenger List

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Plymouth, Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States
Year range
1621 - 1621

The ship Fortune arrived at Plymouth on November 9, 1621, just a few weeks after the First Thanksgiving. This passenger list is based on the 1623 Division of Land, the passenger list compiled by Charles Edward Banks in Planters of the Commonwealth, by material published occasionally by Robert S. Wakefield in the Mayflower Quarterly, and by the information found in Eugene Aubrey Stratton's Plymouth Colony: Its History and Its People, 1620-1691. [1]

  • son Flavel
  • Hicks, Robert
  • Hilton, William
  • Morgan, Benedict (returned to England 1623-24)
  • Morton, Thomas (died or departed before 1627, but son arrived on the Anne)
  • Nicholas, Austin (died or departed before 1627)
  • Palmer, William
  • Pitt, William (died or departed before 1627)
  • Prence, Thomas
  • Simmons, Moses
  • Statie, Hugh (died or departed before 1627)
  • Steward, James (died or departed before 1627)
  • Tench, William (died or departed before 1627)
  • Winslow, John
  • Wright, William

The arrival of the Fortune brought significant change to Plymouth: "[A]lmost immediately after coming ashore, Martha Ford gave birth to a son, John....With the arrival of the Fortune, there would be a total of sixty-six men in the colony and just sixteen women...For young girls such as fifteen-year-old Elizabeth Tilley, nineteen-year-old Priscilla Mullens, and fourteen-year-old Mary Chilton (all of them orphans), the mounting pressure to marry must have been intense....There were some familiar faces... the Brewsters welcomed their eldest son, Jonathan, a thirty-seven-year-old ribon weaver....Others from Leiden included Philip de la Noye, whose French surname was eventually anglicized to Delano and whose descendants included future U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The newly remarried Edward Winslow greeted his twenty-four-year-old brother John. There was also Thomas Prence, the twenty-one-year old son of a Gloucestershire carriage maker, who soon became one of the leading members of the settlement." (Philbrick)

The Fortune (1621)
The Fortune, the second ship to arrive at Plymouth, was sent by the Merchant Adventurers, the same group that financed the Mayflower. It arrived unexpectedly and without significant supplies, thus further stressing the colony. Upon return to England, the Fortune was carrying £500 of cargo to pay off the Pilgrims' debt, but it was captured by the French en route.
Sailed: 9 Aug 1621 from London, England under Master Thomas Barton
Arrived: 9 Nov 1621 at Plymouth, Massachusetts, shortly after the first Thanksgiving
Next Vessel: The Anne and the Little James (1623)

Passengers:
35; 17 families left descendants (Full List)
John Adams - William Bassett - Jonathan Brewster - Clement Briggs - Edward Bumpas - Robert Cushman (and son) - Stephen Deane - Phillip Delano - Ford family - Robert Hicks - William Hilton - Thomas Morton - William Palmer (and son)- Thomas Prence - Moses Simmons - John Winslow - William Wright

Resources: Primary Sources: Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation - Mourt's Relation
Wikipedia: Arrival of the Fortune