BORN: Ca. 1593
DIED: February 23, 1673/3 at Rocky Nook, Kingston

John Howland was probably born in Fenstanton, Huntingdonshire, about 1598/99.  His parish Church of St. Peter and St. Paul still stands.

Before leaving England, John Howland became John Carver’s manservant, perhaps signing an indenture with him in London as an opportunity to come to New England. He almost didn’t make it. During a storm while crossing the Atlantic on the Mayflower, Howland was swept overboard at night. Grabbing onto a trailing rope, he was dragged under the waves until hauled up with a boat hook and rescued.

Although a servant, Howland was one of the signers of the Mayflower Compact. He also served as a member of the party that explored Cape Cod before the landing in Plymouth. Once established in the Colony, he quickly rose to a position of responsibility and respectability.

Within three years of his arrival, Howland was free from service and married to Mayflower passenger Elizabeth Tilley. In 1623, he was granted four acres of land on the south side of the Town Brook. By 1627, he was successful enough to step forward as one of eight “undertakers” who took responsibility for the debt of the entire colony.

Howland was elected Assistant to the governor from 1632 to 1635 and by 1634 was placed in charge of the Colony’s fur trading post at Kennebec, Maine. By that time he was one of the wealthiest citizens in the colony and also an important person in the Plymouth Church.

Sometime in the 1630s, the Howlands moved to a large farm in nearby Duxbury. By 1640 they had relocated again, to the area of Kingston known as Rocky Nook. The Howlands’ new homestead was acquired through an exchange with John Jenney, who sold a house, barn and out-buildings, with uplands and five acres of meadow, for 85 pounds and three acres of the Duxbury land. The couple raised 10 children, all of whom survived to adulthood.

Howland maintained his standing in the community throughout his life, serving as a deputy for the Plymouth Court 16 times between 1641 and his death in 1673.

Howland died on 24 February 1673, aged 80. We do not know the site of his grave, but there is a Howland Monument erected by his descendants on Plymouth’s Burial Hill.

Elizabeth Tilley died at the home of her daughter Lydia Howland Browne at Swansea in 1687. Her will is recorded in the Bristol County (MA) Probate Records. She is buried in the Little Neck Cemetery in East Providence, Rhode Island.

The Pilgrim John Howland Society maintains the homestead property at Rocky Nook in Kingston and operates the historic “Howland House” at 33 Sandwich Street, Plymouth, MA. The Howland House was the home of Jabez Howland, son of John and Elizabeth Tilley Howland.