A Mayflower Murder

Hi, I'm Holly. And I'm Hailey. Welcome to Mountain Mysteries, Tales from Appalachia. This is this closer.

Okay, we are live. Let me find my notes. Oh, so many notes. Okay, welcome back.

Happy December. Hello. I am still full from Thanksgiving. Oh my gosh, same.

What was your favorite holiday delicacy? Oh, I'm a big fan of the broccoli casserole. Oh, so we don't have that. That sounds amazing.

That's really good. Also like a mac and cheese. We had really good ham. Yes.

I'm not a big turkey fan, so I got some ham. Those are nice. Nice. What about you?

My aunt always makes these really great double eggs. So those are always a favorite. You know what? I'm not a big meat eater.

I don't really like meat that much. I'll eat ground turkey, but I don't really like Thanksgiving turkey. But really enough this year, I was like, this is really good. And that ended up being my favorite thing, which is so weird.

Right, so very unlike you. And another weird thing is, I am a leftover queen. Even when we worked together, there would be leftover sort of party and I was like, dibs. I'm all about being resourceful and not wasteful and all those things.

So, of course, everybody's like, all right, get what you want from leftovers. And I was like, nah. You didn't take any? I didn't take any.

I was shiver it. So I made dips. I made mac and cheese. I made green bean casserole and I made some different dips.

One of the dips I made was jalapeno popper dip. It was so good. I made something similar. Everybody loved it.

Delicious. That was great. Then I made a warm spinach artichoke dip. Ooh, loves the chocolates.

That is like, amazing. So anyway, they were so good. But I had spent all this time having friends givvings and events at work that it just, I was over the food. Yeah.

And I was like, nah, I'm good. So I took nothing. Yeah. Did you take a lot of leftovers?

I did not because I lived so close to my grandmother's. You just go read the fridge. Yeah. But we had, so like, we went over there and ate at like two o'clock.

Yeah. And then came back, I came back home and I took a solid nap. Nice. And then went back to her house and I didn't even get until like eight o'clock.

That was nice. So yeah. I believe it. I mean, once you get stuffed.

I know. And like, I really, I had like one plate. Like, I did like one plate of food and I was so full. Me too.

I was like, I can't, can't do another. Me too. I, so this morning, I, um, I was like, you know, I just still feel so full. It's been a week.

But I was like, yeah, I'm just going to have an egg. So you have to have an egg this morning. Yeah. My mom bought me this giant container.

It is three pounds worth of butter cookies. It's like the Christmas like butter cookies. A hundred and thirty six grams if you're, you know, using the metric system. Forty eight ounces perhaps.

Yes. They're so good. They're my favorite cookies. Like, am I allowed to have one?

You are absolutely, I left them open just for that. That is so sweet. Thank you. You're, I just talked about being full and I'm like, oh, you know what?

I want a cookie. So that's what I've had for breakfast this morning. Oh my God. Are these cookies?

They're so good. But I usually get like the little tins from like the Walmart. Mm hmm. I will eat like, like if I'm not paying attention, like I'm sitting like watching TV or something, I'll eat an entire tin.

It's easy to do. And like, not even think about it. I mean, they're not good for you by any means. What cookie is?

It's called a butter cookie. Like, it's not good for you. Oh, but they're fantastic. They're so good.

And I was sitting there and eating an entire tin. So this one is like three tins and one. Oh my gosh. I was out with my mom the other day and we saw it.

She's like, I almost got this for you. The last time I was here, we were at the hammers. I love hammers. Yeah.

So we saw them there and I was like, I will love you forever. You buy me that. And she wanted to be loved right there. So she put it in the cart.

Wow. And I bet it was pretty reasonable. It was like $12. Yeah.

For that many cookies or three pounds of cookies. That's amazing. I'll take it. Wow.

Yeah. Because a little tins at Walmart are like five, five, 98. Something like that. That's a steal.

Until you exactly how much they are because I buy multiple of them in a year. That's good to know when you have to present you with some cookies. I would love it. She would love me forever.

Yeah. She's already going to love me forever. I'm the best. I'm humble.

I'm not full of herself. All the things. All the things. All the things.

All right. Well, what story do you have in? So I've been kind of on this like historic kick of like we're going back. We're going way back.

Okay. Yeah. We're going way back because I, you know, this time of year just feels like, I don't know. It's like a heavy time of year somewhat.

We're like, I'm kind of coming to the end of the semester with like my kids and like things are coming. Like it's just a lot. So I'm like, I don't really want to dive into like really gruesome awful current events. There's also a lot of this time of year, a lot of like reflection on the things that have happened.

We've had some pretty nature events. We've had some things. Yeah. So I just kind of needed a degree of separation.

So I felt like a murder story from 1620. Holy crap. Might be the way to go. Like the year of the Mayflower.

The year of the Mayflower. Wow. That's what we're talking about. The actual Mayflower.

Yeah. The actual Mayflower. What the heck? Yeah.

Well, we're going to talk a little bit about the Mayflower. I'm so excited. Okay. So, and I felt like, you know, I should put this out like our week of Thanksgiving, but you know, we're just a week behind.

So if you're still in the Thanksgiving spirit, this will help. And hopefully you are. Yeah. Okay.

So we're going to go back to thank you to the History Channel, first of all, for giving me all this information. I'm going to talk about the first person who was ever convicted of murder in America. What? Like on New Soil.

Yeah. Like on the New Land. So I'm very excited. Okay.

So there were. Get me to the stocks. Sorry. I think they hanged him.

Oh, yeah. So we'll get into that. Maybe he was detained in the stocks. Maybe if they had those built yet.

Hey, listen, think bang, boom, we can get that going fast. Yeah. That feels like a necessity. I feel like something they were making on the show.

Yeah. They brought from England. Probably. Yeah.

Sorry. It's a lot less than I thought. Yeah. It's very small.

I really thought that we were talking about like five, six hundred people. No, it's a small. It's so true. Yeah.

So on this Mayflower, there was a family that just kind of was trouble. Like, you know that family that you know, like, if you work in public schools, like you know, and they always have like six kids. So by the time you get done with one, there's like three more coming up. You know their car, you know, their car, the car, motorbike.

You have the dread and you're like, oh my gosh. And when they flag you down, you have that inside. You have that inside, that pit in your stomach that. Yeah.

They're always in trouble. They're always doing, you know, nonsense. That kind of thing. They tend to be some of my favorite children.

They are not my favorite parents. They're not my favorite parents, but the kids are usually some of my favorite kids. Yeah. They're the type of people.

It's like we actually have one at my church and it's cool because nobody at church listens to us, I'm sure. But we have this one lady that she rarely comes. Right. But when she does.

Oh boy, howdy at the time. So I usually exit stage left. Yeah. Yeah.

I usually pretend I have diarrhea. Oh excuse me. Oh, I've been having some tummy issues and I head to the bathroom and then I look out and make sure she's gone and I run the opposite way. Nice.

Sorry. Yeah. So on this Mayflower, there is a family that is that family and they are the Billington's. And they're made up of John Billington and his wife Eleanor along with her two teenage sons, John and Francis.

Gotcha. So. And the governor of Plymouth, which is, you know, of course, where they, the Mayflower landed and they need to see, you know, whatever they made, you know, they're claimed to the , you know, we can get into that another time. But they, the mayor of the time, William Bradford actually was called the governor, the mayor, the governor.

Cool. He described them as one of the most profanist families. Profan in the sense that they just came out like cursing and swearing or profanist in like 1600 terms of just uncouth. I think that.

Okay. I think they were just a little like. Rough around the edges. Yeah.

Yeah. Probably. How did we let the chimney sweeps come to the new land sort of thing? Yeah.

I'll get on to that too. Yeah. I think so. Yeah.

So the Billington's, they weren't separate, separatists, which most of the people on Mayflower were, which is, you know, another word for religious refugee, also known as the pilgrims. Yeah. Callie's got a mouthful cookie. I can tell she wanted to say something, but it's.

I did. But it's really, really hard. I have a biscuit in my mouth. But yeah, so they weren't part of the like religious refugees.

They were just, I think they just like, how the hell did they get on this boat? You know, they were. Okay. So that's the thing.

They were called strangers who were recruited for the Mayflower voyage by London investors. Why? I don't know. Um, maybe the investors themselves didn't want to, because I mean, coming over was risking your life.

Yes. So maybe they were like, listen, we don't really want to risk our own lives, but we can pay some poor family to come over and risk their lives. And if they die of, you know, famine, some kind of disease, yes, then it's fine. Yeah.

You know, whatever. Right. And apparently several of these like so called strangers, you know, we would be right. Oh, absolutely.

We would have been strangers. For sure. Um, so they were, so they were still like kind of into the church of England. Like they were like, yeah, this is cool.

Um, so, you know, it's common for these non-separate just strangers to disagree with and criticize pilgrim leadership in Plymouth because we're bringing in people who are on opposing views. Right. Um, so that was America. Right.

Right. So that was, that was pretty common for there to be some like disagreements and stuff. But apparently John Billington's behavior repeatedly crossed the line. Oh, dear.

Yeah. Um, what you're just going to stand here. I'm trying to build my stick house. So according to the executive director of the Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth.

That's cool. Yeah. Her name is Donna Curtin. Oh, she said that quote, the level of anger that's hinted at in the records of Plymouth is serious and significant.

And John Billington, we have someone who publicly expresses rage and discontent at and mutinous speeches and who ultimately commits the greatest act of violence by murdering a fellow colonist. John, not a Yale. Yeah. What are you doing, mate?

So in 1630, Billington was found guilty of willful murder. So 10 years after you arrived. Yes. By plain and notorious evidence, according to the governor.

And it was actually hanged for his crime. So he was the first person in the history of the English colonists to be executed for murder. Well, see, and look at that, I had plenty of time to build stocks and, you know, a news and get everything ready. Mm hmm.

The 10 years. So let's dive into it a little more. No, I'm going to do all the juicy details that we can from 1620. Um, so as, you know, if you've attended a history class, what, some point in your life, at least American history, the Mayflower was originally supposed to land in Northern Virginia, but was actually blown off course.

And that mean it had to land in Massachusetts in Plymouth. So on November 11, 1620, the ships that anchor in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. And this kind of prompted some of those mutinous speeches because people were like not landing, like they weren't landing where they were supposed to. So people were like, screw this.

We can do whatever we want now. Yeah. Great. Um, so because they weren't in Virginia, the non-separatist or strangers wanted to void their harsh work contracts, which required toiling six days a week for the, quote, Virginia company.

And I have the freedom to settle the new land on their own. So I guess part of the deal for them coming over to this new land was you've got to put in, you know, work to stay here, which, I mean, makes sense because it's a land that's like native land. So there's nothing right there, except, you know, a very strong and proud indigenous culture that, you know, that's kind of really don't care about what I push off our land. And by four.

Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, just lots of bad things. But yeah, they had to work to.

It does make sense. Yeah. That was like part of their passage. Colony.

You have to come and work and build it. Yeah. Makes sense. So ultimately though, they were able to avoid this mutiny and they convinced all the adult men on board, the separatists and the strangers both to sign the Mayflower Compact, which is a pledge of loyalty to the leadership of the new English colony.

So they were like, okay, whatever, I guess we're going to do this. But essentially once you're signing is saying, yeah, my loyalty is to these new Americas and no longer to England. Right. And it's in writing.

Yeah. So, so. Right. But apparently before the colonists had even settled in Plymouth, the whole enterprise almost went up in flames.

Crap. And lo and behold, the suspect was, of course, the Billington. Of course. Yeah.

Wait a minute. Oh, I didn't disses it more than nine. So what do you say, indeed? Yeah.

Well, it wasn't even the adult. Oh crap. It was a 14 year old. Oh no.

This is Billington was playing around with its swibs, which are homemade fireworks that are made from gunpowder and paper. Wonderful. And his father's musket, which he managed to ignite a half empty barrel of gunpowder. The room caught fire and threatened to spread to the rest of the ship.

But thankfully they were able to like put it out and no harm was done to the remaining ships. So he almost blew up the whole ship. Yeah. So according to like all these records and things that they found from this time, the governor says that the teenage boys were pretty much out of control.

Like seems like it. They were terror. They were out of control. And if that fire would have spread, then we wouldn't have even had like Plymouth.

Wow. I mean, they could have changed the whole trajectory of our history as Americans. Yeah. The 14 year old.

That sounds like what a teenager would do. Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. For sure.

Okay. So the first winter in Plymouth was rough. Absolutely. It was a rough time.

About half of the passengers from Mayflower died of disease and malnourishment. But of course the Billington's probably just thriving. Of course. There's Grathey.

Yeah. So by March of 1621, the weather began to break and you know, they were able to strike their first peace treaty with the Wampanoag tribe that was the local indigenous tribe. So they were able to be like, Hey, maybe we'll stop killing each other for a minute. If you'll help us.

Yes. Let's let's find some peace. Yeah. Which like good on the Wampanoag because I would just blasted them.

Yeah, I probably would have to. Yeah. But you know, they did. No, no, no, no, no.

So just when the Plymouth colony was kind of getting on its feet and doing, you know, okay, the governor reported a shocking act of insubordination by of course, John Billington. At the time there was this guy, Miles Standish, who was Plymouth's military leader. Yes. But Billington refused to follow his orders.

And even worse, he mouled off to Standish in public, which is a big no, no. How can you do that? Seems about right. Yeah.

You can't be doing that. You say something about my kid, Standish. I'll give you something to Standish about. So this is how I view his voice.

Yeah. Yeah. So apparently it was pretty like a pretty dangerous thing to like do that. Oh, yeah.

Because it could, you know, spark another like mutiny and another like rebellion, which when you're already like half of your 120 people down, you're probably going to need, you know, a little bit of help. When you're on the edge, you know, you're barely hanging on. Just like my microphone. Same.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, a little escalation can just, you know, push it over the edge. Sure can.

Sure can. Okay. So Billington's rude behavior prompted the very first legal action in Plymouth and a judge found Billington guilty of quote contempt of the captain's lawful command and sentenced him to have his neck and heels tied together. Oh, yeah.

That's incredibly painful. Yeah. But apparently this was a pretty common practice, like form of punishment. In this new, you know, colony, which makes sense because you don't have a prison to put them in.

So you just like immobilize them and are like, okay. Worse than hog tying them. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

I mean, essentially this is putting you in a fetal position. Yeah. You're in the shape of like a circle almost. Yeah.

Oh my God. How long were people tied up like that? You know, I think like maybe a couple days. You think you're bloody getting it made by a time minute to me wait, bring it.

Yeah. I'll defecate all myself real hard. Yeah. Well, good news for Billington.

Oh, good. He got out of it. He did. Oh, can I not himself for you or what?

No, like he didn't actually have to do. Okay. He said that it's reported that he humbled himself and was able to like talk his way out of it pretty much. Gotcha.

So, um, fake humbled himself. Yeah. But his crime was reported as the first offense. Wow.

So, but he didn't have to actually like serve the sentence. The sentence. Oh, that's good. Okay.

So let's talk about young John. That's a 16 year old to say he caused some other types of trouble. He apparently got lost in the woods and disappeared for like five days and was found 20 miles away by a one-ponog settlement at Nossett. Wow.

So he'd somehow traveled like 20 miles. So retrieving him though was like, it was tricky. Everybody was kind of freaked out about it because if you use earlier in 1614, there was another voyage led by Captain Thomas Hunt and he was a real bad dude and he kidnapped several Nossett youth and sold them into slavery in Spain. So everybody was kind of thinking like, oh, this awful dude came and like kidnapped their young people and sold them.

And now one of our young people like has wandered into their territory. Like what are they going to do? Well, come on. It's a Billington.

Right. Nobody wants them. Yeah. So, yeah, so they were kind of freaked out.

But the plumbit leaders went and kind of begged for, you know, forgiveness for their past crimes and of the people that came before them and like for the release of this. Stupid teenager. Yeah. They're putting, I mean, I hate to say next, but essentially they're putting their necks on the line for a Billington.

Well, and the Nossett people are like, they really, I guess took that to heart and they returned him with beads, like bestowed beads on the boy and like gave him back, which is like a huge deal. It meant that you had built trust? Yeah. Wow.

Yeah. Not about into that. No, a little excursion. So, you know, teach you to go into wounds again.

Don't go into wounds. Yeah. Don't go into wounds. Stay on the woods.

Stay on the woods. He clearly didn't listen to the podcast. He did not. In 1624, we're going to move on to the next scandal.

Okay. In 1624, Plymouth Church leadership was shaken by what's known as the Old Henle Liford scandal. Did you anything about that? I do.

I didn't either. So London investors sent a Puritan clergyman named John Liford to Plymouth. But instead of serving their spiritual needs, he acted as a spy. So they had sent this guy in and they were like, okay, he's going to be here as your like chaplain or whatever.

And but really he's reporting back on like what's going on. Oh my God. Yeah. So Bradford, the governor, intercepted letters from both Liford and another separatist columnist named John Oldham, bad-mouthing the pilgrims to their investors back in England.

So this wasn't like a, you know, independent journey. Like the English government, British government like sent them over with and we're supplying them with money and resources and things like that. So they get this going. Right.

So when you're sending back word that like it's a total, you know, should show that supply line can be cut off. And there goes your livelihood. Yeah. I mean, there goes like your life.

Yeah. Yeah. So when Liford and Oldham were put on trial by the, you know, colonists here, they claimed to only be relaying completons told to them by colonists, John Billington. Well, crap.

So that's their source. Yeah. Not again. Right.

So Liford and Oldham were banished from Plymouth. So I guess they were just, I don't know they were banished. They were sent out into the woods. Oh my God.

And, but John Billington somehow talked his way out of this one too. And was allowed to say what the hell? I don't know. I don't know.

But I got to stay away with leads. Apparently. But the governor was still like pretty pissed off. He wrote in a letter to a friend in England that Bradford, like that he said, he is a nave and so will live and die.

And to call somebody a nave is a pretty like a crazy insult. Like, I don't know what the equivalent term would be nowadays, but it's a, it's a pretty hefty insult. A real dick. Yeah.

He's a real dick. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Means disrespectful, hostile, you know, you just don't want to be associated with that at all. All right. So in 1630, the Plymouth colonists had been settled for about, you know, 10 years.

And that time they had grown into a pretty stable colony and the Billions have been allotted a parcel of land and cattle to raise. Sadly, though, the records show that young John who had been kidnapped at one point and they're not kidnapped, but had been lost and then returned died in 1627 for unknown causes. So little John's out of here. One of the many John's who have frequented this colony.

And died. And died. Yeah. So he's a ganish.

But the older Billington. So John senior. He was still pretty quick and birded and angry. He got in a quarrel with a neighbor.

And some time later, he decided to settle it. So he apparently quote, waylaid a young man, one John Newcomen and shot him with a gun. Whereoff, he died according to the governor. So there's some sort of disagreement.

And with him and this like young guy, apparently the young guy was only like 17. So kid. So John Billington. So Billington would have been 50 at the time and Newcomen would have been just 17.

He killed a kid. Yeah. Over some sort of disagreement. And like I don't know for sure what it was.

So there's still under English law at this point. So Billington was given a full trial. And they arranged a grand jury and tried, he was tried by a penny jury of Plymouth Magister including Governor Bradford. When Billington was found guilty by quote, plain and notorious evidence, the Plymouth leaders wrestled with whether to impose a death penalty.

And they even consulted with some newly arrived Puritans who had made it to Boston. And they agreed that Billington quote ought to die and the land to be purged from blood. I mean to be fair, he and his family in general have caused a lot of havoc. There's been some issues.

There's some issues. This new land. Here's what I want to say. I feel for the wife.

Right. Like she just lost her son. She's lost her son. Her husband is just batshit crazy.

You know, her boys were mischievous. Yeah. Like she probably is just beaten down as a woman. Right.

You know, she has no rights. She has no rights. She's, she's, she don't get like, she's got a lot of stuff to do. She's probably got a very intense demanding husband.

Yeah. So I feel for her in this scenario, but also nowadays would be yelling like what a bias that you know, Bradford would be sitting on this, you know, like clearly has an issue with him. Absolutely. And he's looking for vengeance, better vengeance than, oh yes, I believe he should hang.

Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. No, for sure.

So he was hanged and it was the first execution amongst the, that group of colonists. And it was apparently a matter of very great sadness, but you all voted to this as a thing. So I guess sadness because yeah, I think maybe the reality of we're not escaping the things that we thought we were right. And like I get it of, you know, this is the first murder, like what kind of punishment are we going to instill here in this new land to prevent this from happening again and to show others we need business.

Yeah. Like what do you, what do you do in that situation? Yeah. You can't just hog time for life.

Right. So. Like if we were thinking about this nowadays, there was a man who had killed a 17 year old kid over a squabble, we would have been saying like, yeah, this guy deserves to be prosecuted like all these things. So I mean, that remains true in the 1600s was a crime against a child, essentially.

Of course, by 17 in those days, right, you were 57. Yeah, you were, you were well into the delta. Probably a few years from death. Yeah.

Yeah. So, you know, the governor, while he said, you know, this is a sad account and everything, he just couldn't resist making a final little dig at Bill and 10's questionable character. So he said, quote, he and some of his had been often punished for miscarriages before, being one of the profanist families amongst them. They came from London and I know not by what friends shuffled into their company.

Wow. So yeah, he just got to have to get one little like little dig in there. So a Billyton is called the first murder in America. However, he wasn't because there were many, many indigenous people who were murdered by early colonists and never received any kind of justice.

So they pretty much say that he is definitely the first person that committed, you know, the first homicide by gun in English America and is the first execution for a crime in the Plymouth colony. This makes me really question, you know, I mentioned it, but like what did happen to the wife in San Francis? I know. Like if the governor had such a negative view of them, right?

What happened to this wife? How did she make it on her own? Like I have so many. I have so many.

If she, you know, they had this land and they had this cattle, so I wonder like, did she kind of take over? The boy who would have been Francis, Francis who was 14 and they landed, he's in his 20s. Yeah. Now like this he take over as like head of the household and you know, who's in charge of all of this.

And then did they change their tune? Like after all this happened, there's so much loss. Like did it change how they reacted to things and you know, people's concept of them, but they sit down and play nice. Right.

Yeah. And there's not like any word about her. There was never a word about her. No, like you don't know anything about her.

I feel for her. Yeah. So that is the story of the first execution for a crime in the new world. Wow.

This has been fascinating. Yeah. I love a good historical murder. You can break me Nick, but you can have a break me spirit.

I think I did. I'm going to go ahead and say yeah. I don't know. Maybe he haunts that.

He might be ghosting around up there. Yeah. You get some weird feeling on your neck and ankles and that's him. Yep.

Yeah. Wow. So that's it. That is awesome.

Yeah. I love, I love these historic tales. I know. And finding out that you know, we may be generations, you know, centuries in the future here, but we still have true crime.

Yeah. Yeah. And we have to be a part of people even in the historic times. Yes.

Yes. Oh my gosh. So when people say back in the old, the good old days, like yeah, I mean good for who? Because it certainly wasn't the women.

Not the women. People of color. I'm going to say I'm going to just be out on a limb here and say that if Haley was in the new colony, she would have been the first woman executed and I can just tell you that. For sure.

She would have been talking back to the mayor. She'd have been talking back to everybody. Yeah. I would have been seen as a witch real fast.

Before the witch trials. Oh yeah. Yeah. Before the witch trials even.

I think those were in the 1680s, right? Yeah. Maybe 16. Some of them.

Anyway, we're still years off from that. Yeah. I think you would have for sure been hanged. Oh absolutely.

Absolutely. I've been right behind you. I'd have been like, it's headfolded. Not me.

All right. So if you want to tell us how excited you were about this episode, please do so by emailing us at mountainmysteries.appalachian at gmail.com. You can find us on Facebook at mountainmysteries. Tales from Appalachia, Instagram at mountainmysteries.appalachia and for that bonus content, patreon.com slash mountainmysteries.

Yeah. So I'm going to give a shout out to, I think this is somewhere maybe in Britain? Perhaps. After we have offended you greatly with the time before actually.

Yeah, I doesn't really say. It's Newcastle-upon-time. I'm sure because Newcastle is. Yeah.

So that's where we're shouting out. We should have been drinking a new castle. I know. Well, it is early afternoon.

So that's where we're recording. There's a lot of judgment in that tone when you look at it. Well, it is early afternoon. So what?

So what? Yeah. We're not having a response. My son is with his other parental figure.

He's fine. Okay. Well, that was fine. We will catch you next week with another delightful story.

Yeah. Bye. Bye.