Mrs. Mary Brewster

 

Birth: About 1569 in England

Death: 17 April 1627 in Plymouth, Massachusetts, New England

Mary, the wife of William Brewster, was born around the year 1569 in England, possibly Yorkshire or Nottinghamshire. Her maiden name and parentage are unknown though a list of speculative maiden names include Love, Wentworth and Wyrral.

Probably around 1592, Mary married William, likely in the place where they both resided at the time, Scrooby, Nottinghamshire, England. The could had six children: Jonathan, Patience, Fear, An Unnamed Infant, Love, and Wrestling.

Mary emigrated to Holland with her husband and children when the persecution became too harsh in England. Soon, the Separatists were no longer safe in the Netherlands so the plan was hatched that settlers would be sent to America to develop a colony that would benefit England economically and the allow the Separatists to live in peace.

In 1620, Mary, William and two of their sons boarded the Mayflower. William Bradford recorded:

“The names of those which came over first, in the year 1620, and were by the blessing of God the first beginners and in a sort the foundation of all the Plantations and Colonies in New England; and their families...
"Mr. William Brewster, Mary, his wife, with two sons, whose names were Love and Wrestling. And a boy was put to him called Richard More, and another of his brothers. The rest of his children were left behind and came over afterwards.”
William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647, ed.

By the fall of 1621, most of the adult women who had traveled on the Mayflower, had died. Mary was one of the only four that survived. However, a few years later in 1627 she died.

She did live long enough to see her older children immigrated and settled in the New World, allowing her to be with all of her living, immediate family members before she died.