There were five Mayflower passengers who died at sea in November/December 1620. Those passengers were followed by a larger number who perished in the bitter first winter of 1620-21.
The deaths of those persons are unique in history as they occurred either at sea just before reaching Cape Cod or while the Mayflower was at anchor at the Cape Cod harbor for several weeks in what would later be called Provincetown Harbor. These shipboard deaths are the first deaths of the Mayflower company and were just a precursor of many more deaths to come. By about mid-December 1620, it was decided that the company would settle at the location which was named Plymouth and eventually all on Mayflower moved ashore where more deaths continued.
The five persons and their dates of death were: William Butten (Button), November 6; Edward Thompson (Thomson), December 14; Jasper More, December 16; Dorothy Bradford, December 17; James Chilton, December 19.
In 1921 an historic memorial tablet was dedicated in Provincetown by The Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants honoring those who died while the Mayflower was at sea or anchored in Cape Cod Harbor in those very early weeks. The tablet commemorated the 300th anniversary of the Landing of the Pilgrims. The inscription was done using lettering from a 17th-century tombstone inscription as a model and its heading reads: "In memory of the five Mayflower passengers who died at sea while the ship lay in Cape Cod Harbour". All five of those earliest deaths are recorded on the historic memorial.[8]
In 1920 there had been an earlier Provincetown Mayflower memorial to four of the five persons – Edward Thompson, Jasper More, Dorothy Bradford and James Chilton – which was erected at the Winthrop Street Cemetery and still exists today. [9]
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