Seekonk resident and local historian Dave Norton (below) presented the story of Pilgrim Elizabeth Tilley a four-part series that he put together for his “Discovering New England History” show. The series produced for cable television covers her amazing life as she left Scrooby, England as a young child to move to Leiden, Holland and eventually travel on the Mayflower to Plymouth in 1620. Following the death of both parents, she married John Holland in Plymouth. Find links to the four-part series on YouTube at the bottom of this page.

According to Wikipedia, Tilly was a participant in the first Thanksgiving in the New World. She was the daughter of Mayflower passenger John Tilley and his wife Joan Hurst and, although she was their youngest child, appears to be the only one who survived until the voyage. She was present at the first meeting between the Pilgrims and American Aborigine people, later known as the First Encounter.and was one of the few original Pilgrims to live to see King Philip’s War. She went on to marry fellow Mayflower passenger John Howland, with whom she had ten children and 88 grandchildren. Because of their great progeny, she and her husband have millions of living descendants today.

Elizabeth was buried in the Little Neck Cemetery in Riverside, East Providence, after she passed away in what was then Swansea after living with her daughter and son-in-law, James Brown.

The Jabez Howland House (pictured below) that the Howlands lived in following the King Philip War and the site of their original house at Rocky Nook in Kingston, MA, that was burned in the War can be visited in Plymouth, MA.

Each of the four programs on Elizabeth and John Howland produced by Dave runs about 30 minutes:

Click here for Part I

Click here for Part II

Click here for Part III

Click here for Part IV