John Billington

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John Billington was a Mayflower pilgrim, and a signer of the Mayflower Compact, who became America’s first murderer after he shot and killed a fellow colonist in 1630.

Billington was born in England about 1582. In 1603, he married a woman named Elinor Lockwood and had two sons: John, who was born in 1604 and Francis, who was born about 1606. The Billington family lived in Lincolnshire.

According to the book The Human Tradition in the Atlantic World, the Billingtons were poor and faced limited prospects in overpopulated England.

In the summer of 1620, business men from London began recruiting families and individuals to help colonize northern Virginia. Billington decided to take the men up on their offer. The only catch was that the passage to America came with a price:

“In exchange for their passage, shipboard provisions, and a share of the profits, Billington signed a contract that bound himself, his wife, and their two sons to labor on behalf of the colony until 1627. For the duration of their partnership with the investors, the Billingtons and their fellow colonists would work six days per week for ‘the Company.’ All profits from ‘trade, traffic, trucking, working, fishing, or any other means’ would remain in the common stock; even the houses and gardens ere to be included in the assets to be divided after seven years. Some people considered the terms ‘fitter for thieves and bond slaves than honest men,’ but the prospect of a better life was sufficient inducement for the Billingtons to cast their lot with other hard-pressed families headed for America.”

When the Billington family boarded the Mayflower in the late summer of 1620, they discovered their fellow travelers were a large group of religious Separatists from Holland. The Billingtons were devoted members of the Church of England and realized they had nothing in common with these religious dissenters.

Little did they know that when the organizers of the trip, a Separatist church exiled in Holland led by John Robinson, tried to originally recruit church members for the trip most of them were reluctant to join due to the harsh contract terms, the danger of crossing the ocean and the untamed wilderness of America.

When the recruiters failed to find 150 volunteers among its church members, they began to recruit non-Separatists like John Billington in order to secure enough volunteers.

According to the book American Murder, Billington and his family began causing problems while aboard the Mayflower:

“Billington, his wife Ellen, and their sons Francis and John the younger were aboard when the Mayflower dropped anchor at Provincetown harbor. Straightaway, the Billingtons started causing trouble. Even before the newly arrived immigrants could move on to Plymouth Rock, Francis almost sank the ship when he fired a gun near an uncovered barrel of gunpowder and set fire to a cabin.”

Billington and some of the other non-Separatists also started to cause trouble when the ship landed in New England, where they did not have a patent to settle.

According to Governor William Bradford’s journal, Of Plymouth Plantation, the non-Separatists began to utter “discontented and mutinous speeches” and insisted “when they came ashore they would use their own liberty; for none had power to command them, the patent they had being for Virginia, and not for New England, which belonged to another government.”

The author of The Human Tradition in the Atlantic World states that these protests came from colonists like Billington who were eager to walk away from the strict contract they signed and wanted to avoid living in a society dominated by anti-Anglican religious separatists.

Despite signing the Mayflower Compact, which was a social contract the colonists signed in early November in which they promised to obey the colony’s laws, Billington continued to cause problems in the colony. In March of 1620, Billington insulted the colony’s military adviser, Miles Standish, when he challenged his authority and was sentenced to public humiliation by having his neck and feet tied together.

In 1623, the colonists divided the available land and John Billington was awarded three acres. Technically, he should have received four acres, one for every member of his family, but it appears that his son, John, was living with Richard Warren at the time and, as a result, Billington only received three acres while Warren received one extra acre.

In 1624, Billington got into trouble again after he was accused of secretly supporting local dissenters who had been sending political letters meant to undermine the colony back to England. Billington insisted he was innocent and since there was no proof that he was actually involved in the conspiracy, the colonists could do little about it.

"Signing the Mayflower Compact," oil painting by Edward Percy Moran, circa 1900

“Signing the Mayflower Compact,” oil painting by Edward Percy Moran, circa 1900

In 1625, it appears Billington became involved in a quarrel with a man named Robert Cushman, for reasons unknown to the colonists. Bradford wrote a letter to Cushman in June of that year stating: “Billington still rails against you, and threatens to arrest you, I know not wherefore, he is a knave, and so will live and die.”

In 1626, the colonists assumed full ownership of the plantation after a period of negotiation with the investors who were disgruntled because they had received very little profit from the project. The land and cattle were divided up among them but for Billington, it wasn’t quite what he was expecting.

Billington received the smallest per capita allotment in the colony, despite the fact that he was one of the first settlers of the colony. He received a house in the center of Plymouth, 63 acres of land, a share in the plantation’s livestock and rights in future distribution.

Billington didn’t have much of a social status in the colony either. He was not a member of the church, he had been excluded from all public office due to his bad reputation with Governor Bradford and he lacked the resources necessary to become one of the colony’s Undertakers, which were men who took on financial liability for the colony and controlled its trade with England. As a result of all this, Billington was frustrated and angry.

To make matters worse, sometime between 1627 and 1630, Billington’s son, John, died just before he turned 25 years old. The cause of death is unknown but Richard Warren also died in 1628 which indicates there may have been an illness in the Warren household.

Around the same time, Billington became involved in a dispute with his neighbor John Newcomen. It is not known what the dispute was about but the after effects lingered until 1630 when Billington happened upon Newcomen in a field and shot him dead, according to William Hubbard’s book A General History of New England:

“So when this wilderness began first to be peopled by the English where there was but one poor town, another Cain was found therein, who maliciously slew his neighbor in the field, as he accidentally met him, as he himself was going to shoot deer. The poor fellow perceiving the intent of this Billington, his mortal enemy, sheltered himself behind trees as well as he could for a while; but the other, not being so ill a marksman as to miss his aim, made a shot at them, and struck him on the shoulder, with which he died soon after. The murtherer expected that either for want of power to execute for capital offenses, or for want of people to increase the plantation, he should have his life spared; but justice otherwise determined.”

According to the book The Human Tradition in the Atlantic World, the murder was the result of Billington’s frustration after years of struggling to prosper in the colony. The book states that after the death of his son, Billington was angry about his bad fortune and was frustrated about a new wave of incoming colonists that would only increase their hardships:

“Not long after that personal tragedy, John Billington learned that Plymouth would soon receive a new wave of impoverished Separatists from Holland. Not only would there be additional competition for arable pasture land and timber, but the established colonists would be expected to support these newcomers for up to eighteen months until they could become self-sufficient. The burden fell heavy on the plantation and exacerbated tensions that simmer just below the surface. Men like Billington were powerless to stem the tide of dissenters from Leiden. His land holdings were modest, his options were limited, his oldest son was dead, and just as he was starting to reap the benefits of his long labors, the colony was saddled with indigent Calvinists who years earlier had shunned the hazards of initial settlement. To add insult to injury, servants began to arrive from England to work for the colony’s privileged undertakers. After years of strife and frustration, John Billington reached a breaking point. As the decade drew to a close, his frustration and anger got the best of him, and he ‘waylaid a young man, one John Newcomen, about a former quarrel and shot him.’”

Massachusetts Governor William Bradford wrote an account of Billington’s trial and hanging in his journal Of Plymouth Plantation, and stated that he sought the advice of the nearby Massachusetts Bay Colony on the matter:

“This year John Billington the elder (one that came over with the first) was arraigned; and both by grand, and petty jury found guilty of willful murder; by plain and notorious evidence. And was for the same accordingly executed. This as it was the first execution amongst them, so was it a matter of great sadness unto them; they used all due means about his trial, and took the advice of Mr. Winthrop, and other the ablest gentlemen in the Bay of Massachusetts, that were then newly come over, who concurred with them that he ought to die, and the land be purged from blood. He and some of his, had been often punished for miscarriages before, being one of the profanest families amongst them.”

John Billington was hanged in September of 1630. Billington’s burial location is unknown, although he was probably buried on his property as per social custom at the time.

The Billington family continued to get into trouble even after John Billington’s death. On June 7, 1636, Elinor was found guilty of slandering a man named John Doane, a church deacon and former assistant governor. She was sentenced to sit in the stocks, be whipped and pay a £5 fine. In 1638, she remarried to a man named Gregory Armstrong and died sometime between 1643 and 1650.

Francis Billington married Christian Eaton in July of 1634. He received a few small fines in the 1630s and 40s for minor offenses but for the most part stayed out of trouble. He and Christian had nine children and lived in Plymouth until 1669 when they moved to Middleboro. They both died of old age in 1684.

Sources:
Johnson, Caleb H. The Mayflower and Her Passengers. Xlibris, 2006
Hubbard, William. General History of New England.Massachusetts Historical Society, 1815
Mayo, Mike. American Murder: Criminals, Crimes and the Media. Visible Ink Press, 1998
Givens, George W. 500 Little Known Facts in U. S. History: The More We Know about the Past, The Better We Understand the Present. Bonneville Books, 2006
Bradford, William. Of Plymouth Plantation. Privately Printed, 1856
Thacher, James. History of the Town of Plymouth: From Its First Settlement in 1620, to the Year 1832. Marsh, Capen & Lyon. 1832
The Human Tradition in the Atlantic World, 1500–1850. Edited by Karen Racine, Beatriz G. Mamigonian. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, In, 2010
“A Genealogical Profile of John Billington.” Plimoth.org, Plimoth Plantation, www.plimoth.org/sites/default/files/media/pdf/billington_john.pdf

About Rebecca Beatrice Brooks

Rebecca Beatrice Brooks is the author and publisher of the History of Massachusetts Blog. Rebecca is a freelance journalist and history lover who got her start in journalism working for small-town newspapers in Massachusetts and New Hampshire after she graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a B.A. in journalism. Visit this site's About page to find out more about Rebecca.

33 thoughts on “John Billington

  1. MarkB

    There’s a large shallow pond in Plymouth called Billington Sea. Apparently, this same gentleman had climbed a tree and claimed he saw a ‘sea’ to the west. The pond was named after his goof.

    1. Larry Boyce

      John Billington Jr., was the founder of the Billington Sea. It was his father who was hung.

    2. Scott Williams

      I have heard of several ghost sightings on and around the Black Cat Rd. area assumed to be that of John Billington.

  2. Harold Titus

    John Billington is a direct ancestor of mine. I appreciate greatly the detail of your post. John Billington’s granddaughter Martha married Samuel Eaton, the son of Mayflower passenger and carpenter Francis Eaton. The Eaton line married into the Titus ancestral line in 1858 when Lucy Maria Eaton married my great grandfather Edwin Bristol Titus in Elizabethtown, New York. The ancestral line of another original Mayflower passenger, Samuel Fuller, connected with the Eaton line twice. Samuel’s grandson Samuel Fuller III married Mercy Eaton, the daughter of Samuel Eaton and Martha Billington. Samuel I’s great granddaughter Lydia married Francis Eaton’s great grandson Francis probably in 1734. They lived in Middleboro, Massachusetts Colony. One thing I learned from my genealogical studies is that if you are a descendent of one Mayflower passenger, you are the descendant of several — in my case five: John Billington, Francis Eaton, Samuel Fuller, Francis Cooke, and John Howland. This is due to the limited number and size of settlements that existed in the Plymouth Bay area during the 17th Century.

    Harold Titus, author of “Crossing the River”

    1. Anita

      My father n law who turns 87 Tuesday has a paper from the mayflower listing John Billington, I would like more history on his family, anybody help appreciated or any books John was in

      1. Brittany

        Anita. John was a family member of mine. Would you mind emailing me a copy of this paper your grandfather has. I would so very much appreciate it. Even if its a picture from your phone of the document. 🙂

  3. Stephen N. Leavy

    John Billington would be my 11th Greatgrandfather. His son, Francis Billington married Christian Penn. They had a daughter Martha b.1638 who married Samuel Eaton who was a baby on the Mayflower. His parents were Francis and Sarah Eaton. Sarah Eaton died in 1621. Francis Eaton then re-married to Dorothy who died shortly thereafter. Francis Eaton then married his third wife Christian Penn in 1626 and had 3 children together.Francis Eaton died in 1633, he would be my 10th greatgrandfather. Christian then married Francis Billington. So, Samuel Eaton and Martha Billington were step siblings! They had a daughter Sarah who married phili[p Bumpus.

  4. Harold Titus

    Thank goodness that good genealogical records were kept in Massachusetts Colony. It’s when ancestors moved out of Massachusetts, for Vermont to cite an example, that we ancestor-hunters have difficulties.

  5. Brittany

    John billington is also a family member of mine. I’m not exactly sure off hand at the moment since I don’t have my family history in front of me but renew carpenter was the great great granddaughter of john billington. She was an ancestor of.mine. 🙂

  6. Tiona Johnston

    I am a direct descendant of John Billington.My family still carries the Billington name.My mother is the eldest child of Dolly and Floyd Billington.

  7. CC Scarbrough

    Elinor and John are also my ancestors. Interesting in anything I can find about them. I like the sympathic narrative above. As an outspoken Anglican among Separatists I can understand his dilemma. I wonder if Bradford was pleased in his heart of hearts to rid the colony of this irritant.

  8. Lilly

    Does anyone know why John Billington Jr. live with Richard Warren? John Billington is my 12th great grandfather!

  9. Betty Nichols

    My husband is a direct descendant of John billington. billington is his 11th grandfather. A billington daughter married a sabin who was one the founders of Rehoboth. The ancestry is grandfather to grandfather right down to my husband and his brother. my husband mother was a sabin. mayflower society published books 21 volumes. On the mayflower genealogy. MAYFLOWER and five generations out. these books are available on amazon. There is another book. History Rehoboth 1643 to 1800. Mayflower book published 10 yrs. Ago has several pages on billingtons.

  10. Kev Billington

    Hi to all fellow Billington’s. I’m one too. I’m not sure if I am related to any of the Mayflower passengers but I’d like to find out some day.
    My mother lived in Lincolnshire, England a while ago and I used to visit them from Southampton, England. I feel a strange affinity and coincidental longing for these places in me. Both places that John Billington had associated with. Spooky!

  11. Gretchen Kenower

    and one of my cousins also researched this (am a descendant through my mothr’s father), and her tale was that a neighbor kept poaching on Billington, was warned about it by Billington and the ruler of the colony. When the neighbor kept poaching, Billington shot him in the leg. The wound turned gangrenous, and he eventually died. Since the neighbor died from the gunshot, it was called murder and Billington was hanged. I guess their was no defense of protecting one’s private property.

    1. Phil Billington

      That is substantially the same account my family has always been told. Newcomen stole one of John Billington’s pigs and Billington shot him in the leg or the shoulder. There’s a book called “Saints and Strangers” that has this account.

    2. Deborah billington

      The colony would take children away from families if they thought the parents weren’t given them a righteous upbringing, another reason John was so distraught his eldest son died while living with another family

      1. Pat

        When the pilgrims came here they agreed to all work for 7 years, that meant the children would work for others. John being the one to work for Warren.

  12. Tina Smith

    Wow, Great article and loved all the history. I just finally made my Mayflower Connection today and searched John and found your article. My grandmother used to have a book that showed my direct line and my cousin threw it out accidently after her died back in 1984. I kept chasing the wrong family line. Other direct grandparents are White and Eaton so I keep trying to bridge those gaps. I can trace most of my mother’s lines back to colonial days. John Billington is my 11th Great Grandfather, Francis being my 10th. Then Mary Billington my 9th Great Grandmother married to Samuel Sabin. Their son Israel my 8. My 7th Great Grandmother was Margaret Sabin married to Robert Otis. Their son Robert was my 6th married to Lydia Stafford. My 5th was his son John Otis married to Betsy Butler. Then this gets interesting because my 4th Great Grandmother is their daughter Aurillia Otis and also their son Franklin is my 4th Great Grandfather. Aurillia was married to Charles Beardsley and their son my 3rd Great Grandfather John O Beardsley married Franklin’s daughter Helen Otis. From John Beardsley and Helen, my 2nd Great Grandfather is Sheldon Beardsley. His son Leon Beardsley is my Great Grandfather and his daughter Naomi Beardsley is my grandmother.
    Thanks for Posting,
    Tina Smith Huntington Beach Ca

  13. Russell Smith

    Thank you for this detailed article! Francis is my 9th Great Grandfather. I am just getting into the genealogy of my family and it’s all very interesting!

  14. Maury

    Massachusetts has apparently always had a penchant for railroaling people! Anyone who has ever had the indignity to experience Massachusetts archaic courts knows that the willingness of those involved in the service of insuring justice often use the courts as a retribution circus for their entitled friends.

  15. Dean Vincent

    According to Ancestry, JB is my 11th great grandfather through my paternal grandmother Marian Fuller.

  16. Elizabeth Robbins

    My daughter brought home a family tree project for school, and I didn’t know much about ours so I called my dad and he told me about John Billington and that we were direct descendants. We are Robbins’, and I was able to find Abigail (Cushman) Robbins married to Benjamin Robbins, I haven’t been able to been able to find much past Joseph Robbins II. I was able to find the Robbins name as one linked to the Mayflower, but I’d love to know the full connection. It seems there were quite a few Robbins’ though!

  17. Gordon Campbell

    WOW! I am a Plymouth resident born and raised but expatriated to Texas now. I LOVE THIS STUFFF! I used to go to the Plymouth public library (BTI – Before The Internet) and devour all of this same kind of stuff in the history room. My family is from Amanda Ramsdell lineage. There is so much to the history of the “Old Colony”..people don’t even know…what they teach us in school or the “thanksgiving” fairy tale barely scratches the surface! Thank you so much for putting this together so well. Great job!

  18. Dot Yates

    When researching Robert Lee Daniel of Virginia, my grandfather, John Billington popped up with statement that my grandfather was descendent of a Mayflower voyage. I had hoped that John Billington’s life would give further information on Robert Lee Daniel because the Mayflower passenger list has no one with name of Daniel.

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