Captain Myles Standish (pronounced /ˈmaɪlz ˈstændɪʃ/; c. 1584 – October 3, 1656), (sometimes spelled Miles Standish) was an English military officer hired by the Pilgrims as military advisor for Plymouth Colony. Arriving on the Mayflower, he worked on colonial defense. On February 17, 1621, he was appointed the first commander of Plymouth Colony. Later, he served as Plymouth's representative in England, and served as assistant governor and as the colony's treasurer. He was also one of the founders of the town of Duxbury, Massachusetts (named after his ancestral seat at Duxbury Woods, Chorley) in 1632.[citation needed]
Standish is often remembered for his bravery in battle and his reputation as the military captain of the Pilgrims, as well as a character in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's fictitious poem The Courtship of Miles Standish.
The former Fort Standish, located on Lovell's Island, Massachusetts, was named in his honor, as was the town of Standish, Maine and Myles Standish State Forest in Plymouth, MA.
In North America
The Pilgrims contracted with Standish as military Captain for the voyage to North America. While aboard the Mayflower, he was one of the emigrants to sign the Mayflower Compact at Cape Cod November 11, 1620. After the disembarkation at Plymouth, Standish was elected military commander of the colony by the leadership of the Pilgrims, with Lieutenant William Holmes as his second in command, both to be paid 20 pounds sterling in corn or beaver pelts.[1]
Plymouth Colony
Soon after their arrival at Plymouth, illness struck the Pilgrims. This epidemic took the life of Standish's wife Rose, on January 29, 1621. In 1623, a woman named Barbara, came to Plymouth on the ship Anne; Standish married her that same year. Myles and Barbara had seven children: Charles (died young), Alexander (who married Sarah Alden, daughter of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins), John, Myles.
During the winter epidemic of 1620-21, Standish was one of seven who did not become ill. William Bradford quoted:
- But that was most sad and lamentable was, that in two or three months’ time half of their company died, especially in January and February.... So as their death, some times two or three of a day in the foresaid time, that 100 and odd persons, scarce fifty remained. And of these, in the time of most distress, there was but six or seven sound persons who to their great commendation, be it spoken, spared no pains night or day, but with abundance of toil and hazard of their own health, fetched them wood, made them fires, dressed their meat, made their beds, washed their clothes clothed and unclothed them… Two of these seven were Mr. William Brewster, their reverend Elder, and Myles Standish, their captain and military commander, unto whom myself and many others were much beholden in our low and sick condition.
Standish was quick to make friends with the natives, including one named Hobomok.
In the second year at Plymouth, Standish led a force to Wessagusett to save the settlement from native attack. Responding to reports of a military threat to the colony, Myles Standish organized a militia to defend Wessagussett. However, while he found that there had been no attack, he did find evidence that one was planned. He therefore decided on a preemptive strike. Unfortunately, while Standish returned to Plymouth a hero after the raid, the impact of his attack had larger implications.
Edward Winslow quoted in Good News From New England about this incident:
- Also Pecksuot, being a man of great stature than the Captain, told him, though he were a great Captain, yet he was but a little man; and said he, thought I be no sachem, yet I am a man of great strength and courage. These things the Captain observed, yet bare with patience for the present. . . On the next day he began himself with Pecksuot, and snatching his [Pecksuot's] knife from his neck, though with much struggling, killed him therewith. . . Hmobbamock stood by all this as a spectator, and meddled not observing how our men demeaned themselves in this action. All being here ended, smiling, he brake forth into these speeches to the Captain: Yesterday Pecksuot, bragging of his own strength and stature, said, though you were a great captain, yet you were but a little man; but today I see you are big enough to lay him on the ground.
Word quickly spread among the Native American tribes of Standish's attack; many Native Americans abandoned their villages and fled the area. Edward Winslow, in his 1624 memoirs Good News from New England, reports that "they forsook their houses, running to and fro like men distracted, living in swamps and other desert places, and so brought manifold diseases amongst themselves, whereof very many are dead". Now lacking the trade in furs provided by the local tribes, the Pilgrims lost their main source of income for paying off their debts to the Merchant Adventurers. Rather than strengthening their position, Standish's raid had disastrous consequences for the colony, a fact noted by William Bradford, who in a letter to the Merchant Adventurers noted "[W]e had much damaged our trade, for there where we had [the] most skins the Indians are run away from their habitations..." However, one positive effect of Standish's raid was the increased power of the Massasoit-led Wampanoag, the Pilgrims' closest ally in the region.
Duxbury
Monument to Myles Standish in Duxbury
Standish was also, from 1644 to 1649, the treasurer of the town of Duxbury, which was named after the original Standish estate in Chorley, England. Standish had never joined the Plymouth church (though he attended every Sunday), and to his death supposedly never did. This was possibly because of the constant conflict over religious beliefs in his family.
Standish died in Duxbury Massachusetts on October 3, 1656. Nathaniel Morton wrote of his death:
- This year [1656] Captain Myles Standish expired his mortal life. . . .In his younger time he went over into the low countries, and was a soldier there, and came acquainted with the church at Leynden, and came over into New England, with such of them as at the first set out the plantation of New Plymouth, and bare a deep share of their first difficulties, and was always very faithful to their interest. He growing ancient, became sick of the stone, or stranguary, whereof, after his suffering of much dolorous pain, he fell asleep in the Lord, and was Honorably buried at Duxbury.
Standish’s last will and testimony states even though leaving his family in England that he had land in various parts of England. His will states: “9 I give unto m DIcy son & heir apparent Allexander Standish all my land as heire apparent by lawful Decent in Ormistick [Ormskirk], Borsconge [Burscough], Wrightington, Maudsley [Mawdesley], Newburrow [Newborough], Crawston [Croston] and the Ile of man [ Isle of Man ] and given to me as right heire by lawful Decent but Surruptuously Detained from my great Grandfather being a second or younger brother from the house of Standosh [Standish] of Standish. March the 7th 1655 by me Standish.” These lands now make up the Lancashire towns of Chorley and Ormskirk.
Myles Standish was the deputy governor. He was likely buried in Miles Standish Burial Ground. There is currently a street on ppNantucket Island]], in Massachusetts named after Myles Standish.
Who was Myles Standish?
Myles Standish has been called the “Hero of New England.” Like many other heroes and great men, he was rather diminutive in person. Hubbard, the historian, has said of him, “A little chimney is soon fired: so was the Plymouth captain, a man of very small stature, yet of a very hot and angry temper.” He was born in Lancashire, England, about the year 1584. He was a soldier by profession, and was serving in the Netherlands when Mr. Robinson, with his Pilgrim flock, settled at Leyden. There he joined the Pilgrims, and came with them to America, in the Mayflower. When that vessel anchored in Cape Cod Bay, and it was thought expedient to explore the bleak shore to find a good landing-place, Standish was among the first to volunteer for the service. He was one of those who passed the first Christian Sabbath, after their arrival, in deep snow upon a barren island in Plymouth harbor; and he was the second man who stepped upon Plymouth Rock.[citation needed]
Miles Standish was very serviceable to the English when the Indians showed signs of hostility and they relied much upon his military skill and personal bravery. Wherever the duties of his profession called him, there he was always found. Two years after the establishment of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, he was called to protect a new colony at Wissagusset (later known as Weymouth), who had exasperated the Indians by begging and stealing. They had been sent over by a wealthy London merchant, and most of them were quite unfit for the business of founding a state.[citation needed]
The Indians resolved to destroy them, but through the agency of Massasoit, a firm friend of the English, the conspiracy was revealed to the Plymouth people in time for Captain Standish to march there with a small company and avert the attack. When he arrived, his anger was fiercely kindled by the insolence of Pecksuot, the chief, and his followers. Pecksuot sharpened his knife in the presence of Standish and said, “Though you are a great captain, you are but a little man; and though I be no sachem, yet I am a man of great strength and courage.”(Our Countrymen, p.14).
After this, Captain Standish settled in Duxbury, Massachusetts, about 1631, and a place near where he resided is still called Captain’s Hill, preserved as Myles Standish Monument State Reservation, complete with a tower crowned by his statue. During almost the whole time of his residence in the colony, he was an assistant magistrate. He died at his house in Duxbury in the year 1656.[citation needed]
Ancestral summary
A lot of research has been done on the ancestry of Myles Standish, yet nothing conclusive on his parents has been found. G.V.C. Young has suggested Myles Standish's great-grandfather was Huan Standish of the Isle of Man. However, recent research has tended to undermine this conclusion, and new discoveries are currently being made which could very well disprove the Isle of Man origins altogether.[citation needed]
Thomas Morton of Merrymount, in his 1637 book New England's Canaan, mentions that "Captain Shrimp" was bred a soldier in the Low Countries, and Nathaniel Morton wrote in 1669 that Standish was from Lancashire. The will of Myles Standish mentions numerous lands both in Lancashire and on the Isle of Man.[citation needed]
The maiden names of Myles Standish's wives Rose and Barbara are not known. Rose died on 29 January 1620/1 at Plymouth, and wife Barbara arrived on the ship Anne in July 1623. By the time of the 1623 Division of Land, Myles and Barbara were already married. This probably suggests a marriage arranged by Standish, to a Barbara he either knew from home or from his stay in Leyden. There is absolutely no evidence at all to suggest Barbara's maiden name was Mullins, as is sometimes claimed, nor that either Rose or Barbara were his cousins as occasionally claimed.[citation needed]
Citations and notes
References
- Sumner, William Hyslop, An Inquiry Into the Importance of the Militia to a Free Commonwealth: In a Letter from William H. Sumner ... to John Adams, Late President of the United States; with His Answer, Cummings and Hilliard, Boston, 1823
External links
Preceded by
None |
Military Commander/Plymouth Colony
1620-1653 |
Succeeded by
Captain Thomas Willett |
