Failed Weymouth MA Settlement Ends in Massacre
Mayflower Backer Thomas Weston Thought Pilgrims Had Wrong Approach
May 9, 2009
This first wave of Weymouth settlers differed from the Plymouth colonists. Weston felt the Mayflower expedition was fraught with peculiar religious views and encumbered with women and children. He wanted able-bodied men to begin his settlement.
Thomas Weston Not a Puritan or Separatist
Weston’s idea of a North American colonial settlement was that it be foremost a commercial venture. That’s how he had come to odds with the Mayflower Pilgrims. For him, that expedition had turned sour. He had no return on his money.
Tired of discussing, arguing and bickering with the Plymouth people, Weston obtained his own land patent and set his sights on trade and investment returns. The Sparrow sailed as forerunner to select the settlement site. They chose a place Indians called Wessagusset. Two moths later the 100-ton Charity and 30-ton Swan left London in mid April of 1622. The Swan was to be used by the colonists and the Charity to journey back and forth between America and England with supplies for the settlers and marketable products to be sold in London.
Weymouth Settlement Begins
They convened at Plymouth. Weston’s brother-in-law, Richard Green, and the Swan contingent went to Wessagussett. About 60 passengers remained to set up the trading post to be overseen by Weston’s brother, Andrew, at what later would be Weymouth. The Charity went on to Virginia to discharge about 20 passengers, then returned.
Winter arrived and supplies were insufficient. They arranged with Plymouth a Swan voyage around Cape Cod to obtain Indian corn. Green was taken sick and died. Miles Standish led the trip, which yielded 26 hogsheads of corn. John Sanders (aka Saunders) took charge at Weymouth. After food supplies diminished, he asked Plymouth authorities for permission to take corn from Indians by force. His request was refused. He sailed north for supplies and never returned. He must be the John Saunders who settled in a Maine fishing village and left descendants there.
Weymouth Becomes Another Mismanaged and Failed Venture
The colonists were in distress. Phinehas Pratt stole away to Plymouth where he discovered the Pilgrim army of seven ready to thwart an Indian plan to destroy both settlements. Plymouth’s John Winslow had cured Chief Massassoit of a serious sickness; in return the chief warned Winslow of the plan. The Weymouth massacre followed. William Bradford wrote of the end “of them that boasted of their strength.”
Some of Weston’s colonists sailed north on the Swan; others went to Plymouth. Four remained to be tortured to death by Indians. Thomas Weston appeared later, a broken man mentally and financially. He had been shipwrecked, robbed by Indians and left to die, and arrested by Gov. Gorges. He returned to Virginia and eventually settled at St. George’s Hundred, Maryland, where he finally prospered, gaining praise and distinction. He died of the plague on a 1647 visit to England.
Weymouth’s destiny rested in the hands of a second wave of settlers.
Historians have since disagreed about the reality of some of these events purported to be part of Weymouth history.
Sources:
This is condensed from a portion of this author’s 1988 story, “The Weston Group Settles Weymouth, Mass.," published in The Second Boat (Vol. 9, No. 1)
See also:
Second Wave of Weymouth Settlers
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