The Great Migration Begins, Mayflower edition: 12th great-grandfather John BILLINGTON

I'm descended from two Mayflower families, so I thought it would be appropriate as Thanksigiving approaches to post on them. Today we'll look at John BILLINGTON.

From The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-33 by Robert Charles Anderson:

JOHN BILLINGTON

ORIGIN: Unknown
MIGRATION: 1620 on Mayflower
FIRST RESIDENCE: Plymouth
ESTATE: In the 1623 Plymouth land division John Billington received three acres as a passenger on the Mayflower [PCR 12:4]. In the 1627 Plymouth cattle division John Billington Senior, Hellen Billington and Francis Billington were the eleventh through thirteenth persons in the seventh company, and John Billington [Jr.] was the tenth person in the ninth company [PCR 12:11, 12].
BIRTH: By about 1582 based on estimated date of marriage.
DEATH: Hanged September 1630 at Plymouth [Bradford 234; WJ 1:43].
MARRIAGE: By about 1607 Elinor _____; she married (2) between 14 and 21 September 1638 Gregory Armstrong and was living as late as 2 March 1642/3 [MF 5:34].
CHILDREN:
i JOHN, b. say 1604; d. Plymouth between 22 May 1627 and September 1630.

ii FRANCIS, b. about 1606 (deposed 10 July 1674 "68 years of age" [MD 2:46, citing PCR 1:81]); in the Plymouth tax list of 25 March 1633 and 27 March 1634 assessed 9s. [PCR 1:10, 27]; m. Plymouth __ July 1634 "Christian Eaton" [PCR 1:31]. She was CHRISTIAN (PENN) EATON, widow of FRANCIS EATON.

COMMENTS: In his list of passengers on the Mayflower Bradford includes "John Billington and Ellen his wife, and two sons, John and Francis" [Bradford 442]. In his 1651 accounting of the Mayflower families, Bradford reported that "John Billington, after he had been here ten years, was executed for killing a man, and his eldest son died before him but his second son is alive and married and hath eight children" [Bradford 446]. (The man murdered by Billington was JOHN NEWCOMEN.)
In a Survey of 1650 for the manor of Spalding in Lincolnshire is a lease for three lives in which one of the lives is "Francis Billington son of John Billington." In describing the three lives involved, we are told that "Francis Billington (as it is informed) was living about a year since in New England aged forty years or thereabouts" [NEHGR 124:116-18]. The estimated age for Francis Billington is probably less accurate than his own deposition in 1674, but this record does provide an excellent clue for further research on the English origin of the family.
The family of John Billington has been treated thoroughly by Harriet Woodbury Hodge in the fifth volume of the Five Generations Project of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, and she lists the many occasions on which John Billington or his sons were in trouble with the Plymouth authorities in the first decade of the colony's existence [MF 5:31-34].
Among these incidents the most significant was Billington's outspoken support for Lyford and Oldham in their revolt against Bradford and the rest of the Leiden contingent [Bradford 156-57].

Billington and his family appear from the record to be, frankly, bad news. They were "Strangers", people who were not part of the English community that had left England to temporarily settle in Leiden, Holland-- and were therefore not trusted in the first place. The Billingtons may have even been Catholics, which, if true, would have done nothing to improve their popularity.

John Billington apparently encouraged mutiny onboard the Mayflower, disobeyed Captain Miles Standish, followed a minister who was later accused of rape, and was the first Englishman in the new world to be convicted of murder and hanged. His son Francis had come close to blowing up the Mayflowerwhen he shot off a musket near where the gunpowder was stored; his wife Eleanor was later put in stocks for insulting a high-standing member of the Pilgrim community.

But consider that everything we basically know about John and his family came from fellow Mayflower passenger and Plymouth Governor William Bradford, who despised the Billingtons. What if the only source of information about your life came from someone who hated you?

For this reason, I try to cut John Billington and his family a bit of slack.

Billington Sea, Plymouth, MA: discovered by John Billington's adventurous adolescent son Francis, who mistook this large pond for a sea.

Line: John BILLINGTON - Francis BILLINGTON - Mary BILLINGTON - Israel SABIN - Jeremiah SABIN I - Jeremiah SABIN II - Sarah SABIN - Samuel THURBER - Margaret THURBER - Hannah SPECHT - Jessie BAKER - Estelle SIMMONDS - Henry HOWES - S. HOWES - Me.

Hannah Specht Baker, my 3rd great-grandmother

Hannah Melissa (SPECHT) BAKER (1843-1924) was my mother's father's mother's mother's mother, and it turns out that she had some pretty interesting ancestry on both sides of her family.

She was born Hannah Melissa SPECHT on December 7, 1843 to Anthony Christopher and Margaret Sophia (THURBER) SPECHT in Barton, Digby, Nova Scotia, Canada. She married George Arthur BAKER on Christmas Eve, 1862 in Barton, and was living with her widowed daughter Jennie (BAKER) SANFORD in Barnard, Vermont by the time of the 1920 census. Hannah died there on July 2, 1924, of (according to her death record) chronic bronchitis.

Her grandpa was a Hessian soldier

Hannah's father's father was Ensign Johann Julius SPECHT (abt 1749- aft 1833), a soldier sent from Braunsweig (Brunswick) Germany to fight for the British during the American War for Independence.

A substantial number of troops fighting on the side of the British during this war were from Germany; they were either criminals, desperate men of some sort, or veteran soldiers, recruited and sent over by German princes. Because the majority of these troops came from the region of Hesse-Kassel, they are generally referred to as "Hessians"-- even if they hail from elsewhere in Germany, as my 5th great-grandfather did.

According to an secondary online source I've found:

Ensign Johann Julius Anton SPECHT arrived in 1776 on the ship Ost-Rust.

In 1777 Ensign Specht, under the command of General John Burgoyne, was wounded and captured at Bennington. He spent the next five or so years as a prisoner of war.

After his release, around 1783, he petitioned for and was granted British subjectship and land in Nova Scotia, at the head of St. Mary's Bay. He married Elizabeth (maiden name unknown) and settled down there.

Johann Julius Specht died in Nova Scotia sometime after 1833. He has quite a few descendants through his sons, and the Specht surname has several variations: Speicht, Speight, and Spates, to name a few.

Primary sources:

WILHELMY, JEAN-PIERRE. German Mercenaries in Canada. Beloeil, Quebec: Maison des Mots, 1985. 332p. Page: 263

"An Eyewitness Account of the American Revolution and New England Life", The Journal of J.F.Wasmus, German Company Surgeon, 1776-1783, translated by Helga Doblin.

The Mayflower connection

Through her mother, Hannah Specht Baker was also a descendant of the Mayflower Billington family.

John Billington, his wife Eleanor (maiden name unknown) came to America on the Mayflower with their two sons, John Jr. and Francis. The family did not have a good reputation; John Billington made enemies easily and was known as a "foul mouthed miscreant."

Ten years after arriving in Plymouth, he shot and killed fellow colonist John Newcomen during a heated argument over hunting rights. For this, Billington was hanged in September of 1630. He was about 50 years of age.

Line 1: Johann Julius SPECHT - Anthony Christopher SPECHT - Hannah SPECHT - Jessie BAKER - Estelle SIMMONDS - Henry HOWES - S. HOWES - Me.

Line 2: John BILLINGTON - Francis BILLINGTON - Mary BILLINGTON - Israel SABIN - Jeremiah SABIN - Sarah SABIN - Samuel THURBER - Margaret Sophia THURBER - Hannah SPECHT - Jessie BAKER - Estelle SIMMONDS - Henry HOWES - S. HOWES - Me.