John and Elizabeth Tilley Howland

One of our Mayflower ancestors was John Howland. He had a rather eventful journey across the Atlantic. During a raging storm he was swept overboard while checking the ships rigging. He caught a rope as he hit the water and, after being drug below the surface of the water, was hauled back to the ship by several other men.

He was a manservant who married Elizabeth Tilley whose parents had died. Elizabeth was a ward of Gov. Carver of Plymouth Colony. According to The Mayflower by Vernon Heaton, John Howland died in Plymouth in 1673. Elizabeth died in 1687 in the home of her daughter Lydia in Swansea, Massachusetts.