The Mayflower Compact

'Signing The Compact'

November 21st
The Anniversary of
The Signing of the Mayflower Compact

The Compact was signed in the cabin of the Mayflower, November 11th, Old Style, November 21st, New Style, 1620.

Richard More and Henry Samson were young boys and did not sign the Compact. Both have descendants.

After a difficult voyage in November 1620, the Mayflower anchored at Cape Cod, north of the limits of the Virginia Colony, and beyond any organized law. Some form of government was necessary. Those who intended to settle here at Cape Cod comprised two separate groups: the religious dissenters from England and Holland, and those who hoped to better themselves in this new Colony. Differences of opinion had arisen between these groups on the voyage. These differences had to be reconciled if the colony was to survive.

Therefore, on November 21,1620, in the "Great Cabin" aboard the Mayflower, forty-one male passengers composed a written document, which was a vow, a pledge a word of honor that all who signed it, as well as their families promised to abide by its proclamation.

The settlers lived up to the Compact they signed. It brought the divergent groups into one unified group, and the Compact remained as the Constitution of the Colony until Plymouth was merged into the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1692 by order of King William and Queen Mary.

IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN. We whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith,etc.

Having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents, solemnly and mutually in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony: unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cape Cod. the 11th of November, in the year of the reign of our sovereign lord King James; of England, France and Ireland the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Ano. Dom. 1620.

       John Carver           Edward Tilly       * Degory Priest
     * William Bradford    * John Tilly           Thomas Williams
     * Edward Winslow      * Frances Cooke        Gilbert Winslow
     * William Brewster    * Thomas Rogers        Edward Margeson
     * Isaac Allerton        Thomas Tinker      * Peter Brown
     * Myles Standish        John Ridgdale        Richard Britteridge
     * John Alden          * Edward Fuller      * George Soule
     * Samuel Fuller         John Turner          Richard Clark
       Christopher Martin  * Francis Eaton        Richard Gardiner
     * William Mullins     * James Chilton        John Allerton
     * William White         John Crackston       Thomas English
     * Richard Warren      * John Billington    * Edward Doty
     * John Howland        * Moses Fletcher       Edward Leister
     * Stephen Hopkins       John Goodman

* Has descendants