June 30, 2011 • 28 mins
John Billington didn't just sign the Mayflower Compact -- he was also the colony's first criminal, and had the dubious honor of being the first European to be convicted of murder in this new place. But how did it happen? Tune in to find out.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff You Should Know
from house Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
and this is Stuff you Should Know Episode three. Well,
(00:25):
I'm saying it is so now it's episode episode three
something three niner eight or that's good, Josh? Is that
your intro? Rocking and a rolling, splihing in the splashing
over the horizon? What could it be? Look like it's
gonna be a new country? Do you remember that one? Now?
(00:46):
What are you talking about? That idea? That was the
the schoolhouse rock for the Mayflower Voyage? Really rocking in
a roll and splashing in the splash, and you remember
that good coming over the horizon? What could it be?
Look like it's going to be a free country or
new country? Either way, it was both new and probably
(01:08):
knew because it was not free for everybody. That's true.
So you're talking about this because we're going to talk
about the first murderer? Right yeah? And before we start,
I want to ask why has no one ever made
a modern film about the Mayflower Voyage. It seems like
a no brainer, you know. Yeah, I don't know, especially
(01:28):
after gotting around to you yet. Like the awesomeness of
Master and Commander. Did you ever see that, the one
with um Russell Crowe? Yeah, it was very good, surprisingly good. Yeah,
it surprised me too. Actually, I didn't get the colon.
It made it sound like it was a franchise, but
it was like the first of the franchise. It wasn't like, Oh,
I guess, I guess parts of the Caribbean did have
a call in the first one, didn't it. I don't know. Huh.
(01:51):
But Master, that was Peter we Are Master and Commander,
So it makes sense that it was awesome because he's
such a great director and related to bobwe right, I think, really,
I don't know, I don't think so. I've always suspected.
Did he do the Treaman show? Uh? That was written
by we did Gattica. I don't know who directed that.
(02:12):
That might have been Peter Weir, but he did Gallipoly
and U like scores of great movies. Well cool, Well,
thank you for joining us at this discussion of Peter
Weird's films. He should direct the Mayflier movie was what
I'm saying. For goodness sakes, Okay, they need to do
it like a realistic because you know, when you learned
about it in school at least I did. I thought,
you know, you learned about it from Schoolhouse Rock, and
(02:34):
you get the picture. They sang songs and kind of
rock and rolled over the ocean and then ran into
Plymouth rock and shared Thanksgiving with the Indians, and they
need to make a real movie about how it really was. Well, yeah,
because you know, that whole Schoolhouse Rock impression is pretty
widely held even among adults, educated adults. And the reason
(02:54):
why is because there's a very small amount of firsthand
information that left Plymouth call any right um and was
allowed to stand. There was a small group of people
who were controlling all of the info about that place,
and they were trying to paint it in as good
as light as possible because they were trying to attract investors.
(03:15):
And these firsthand accounts that you know, basically painted the
Puritans as you know, these hard scrapple people who were
um guided by a divine hand in the wilderness. Has
stood all these centuries hard scrapple. So let's talk about
let's talk about the Pilgrims the voyage, right, They landed
(03:37):
in sixty just as a quick primer um. And they
were Pilgrims. They were Puritans separatists, as they were often called.
They were people who were so pious that no one
in all of Europe was pious enough to contend with them.
And they were like, I'm sick of all you sinners.
(03:58):
Were going to go found a new um, a new
republic in the in the name and for the glory
of God, and we're going to be really, really good,
and we're going to do it in the new world.
And that that's what they did. They sailed over to
Massachusetts and landed in Plymouth, as it turns out, nice
place to land, I imagine. And uh, welch, I mean,
(04:20):
are we going to get to the murder a guy
right away or should we just ease into that. Well,
let's talk about who was there. It wasn't just Puritans,
it wasn't just separatists. There's a whole other group of
people who don't get talked about a lot. Uh. And
they were called the strangers. Yeah, that sounded really creepy
when I read it. For some reason, I think it
sounds cool. I think it sounds creepy. Like they look
like they should have been dressed in like like the
(04:41):
pilgrim black, like with why brim hats that you can't
see their eyes. Yeah, what was the deal with them?
Were they Catholic? They were anything but the separatists of
the Puritans. So they were Catholics, They were sailors, they
were um Africans, they were whoever kidnapped Indians. I don't
know if all those people were on the main Flower,
(05:02):
but there it was. There was a bunch of people,
you know, I got them over there. He went with them.
And the Puritans were pretty rigid. Obviously they didn't like
Catholics at all. They were indeed extremely rigid. But to
this degree is we'll see, um. They they they found
that like, no nobody's this rigid. And there were a
(05:23):
lot of strangers who broke a lot of laws. But um,
there are a lot of Puritans who did too, um
and they just kind of glossed it over. They kept records,
but these things just didn't get promoted. Right. Yeah, Mort's relation. Yes,
so you're talking about mort relation. Written in sixteen twenty
two by William Bradford, who was clearly the governor, longtime
(05:45):
governor of Plymouth. His cousin George Morton wrote he was
a separatist and he wrote this book or an account,
and that was that sort of looked at as the
account of Plymouth. But as it turns out, as you
point out, because you wrote this um works relation was
written to attract funding, right for Plymouth. So it was
basically like a lengthy, in depth brochure to attract investors.
(06:10):
And what are you going to say. You're not going
to say, we're starving to death over here, we're having
a really hard time, we're probably not going to make it.
People are committing bestiality, yes, buggery is what they call
the huh And we'll get to that and then okay, um,
And they're not going to say this. They're going to
say things are great, we're really you know, living and
(06:30):
by God's will, we're really just making it over here,
and we need some more money. Yeah. Yeah, so that
means take take it with a grain of salt. They
but they didn't just pretend like the strangers weren't there,
but they painted some of the strangers in possibly less
than flattering light, right, Yeah, I mean, are we at
the Billington's Inn, might as well be the Billington's the family,
(06:53):
John Billington's, his wife um eleanor his son's little John
John Jr. And Francis who was a boy his other son.
They were sort of painted as like reading your reading
your article. They sort of seem like, on one hand,
like the first white trash, you know, that's one way
(07:17):
to put it, and then they also sort of seem like, no,
you know, they might have been kind of cool and
just rabble rousers. Yeah, or yes, I think that that's
very accurate. But they definitely weren't any friends of Bradford
that he did not like these people. No, he didn't.
He called um He wrote in a letter to a
Mr Cushing I believe uh that who had some sort
(07:40):
of authority I guess in the over the colony in
back in England. But he basically says that Billington's still
rails against you and that he's a nave, which means
a scoundrel, and he'll always be a nave. He'll live
and dies so and and as so he'll live and die. Yeah,
that was Cushman. By the way, they cute same thing.
(08:01):
And uh he also said he quote he said they
were one of the profanest families to come to the colony.
And it wasn't just John, I mean they didn't. He
didn't like any of them. His kids were a bit
of a handful too, well, one of them. It doesn't
say who in the records, but on the way over,
Um decided that he was going to shoot off his
(08:21):
father's musket, right gun in a cabin filled with people,
which is bad enough, but he did it right next
to a open, half filled keg of gunpowder, right, so
he almost just blew the whole Mayflower up and history
would have changed forever probably. So that was the first
(08:42):
thing that happened with the Billington's and the rest of
the people on the Mayflower. Yes, no, actually it wasn't.
There was part. There was a mutiny that John Billington's,
the father was involved in Um and he was he
was let off the hook because it was his first offense.
But he uh he that that started. Tensions were already high.
(09:05):
And then one of his sons, either Francis or John Jr.
Shot off the gun in the camp. So you start
to get an impression of this family, especially when you
look at you know when you think of them bristling,
not just the average persons, you know, right, ire, Yeah, yeah,
but a puritan's hire, right, because you can screw up
(09:28):
like innumerable ways in the eyes of a Puritan, especially
if you're not a Puritan, That's right. And then once
they got to the New World, Uh, they continue their shenanigans.
John Jr. Kind of wandered off one day twenty miles
worth and wandered into a Native American village, and then
he was taken to another village by those Native Americans.
(09:50):
And eventually they sent out a group to go find
him and took him a little while they set sail,
actually ended up on Cape Cod what is now Cape
Cod and uh said, you know you're gonna have to
come back, yes, And they found him because of Massa Swat,
who was the great statum of the Wappanoag Wapag. Yeah,
(10:12):
well panel Wag or get an email for that one
um who was involved in the first Thanksgiving with these
same people. So he might have had something to do
with that, then, Uh, well he did. He was already
like he he basically was um trying to use the
Englishman against his rivals. I think the Abenaki um to
(10:37):
basically run them out rather than consolidate with the other
Indians against the English, and basically that turned over the
whole continent to Europe. Like that one act is largely
considered as the the turning point. So he was already
pals with him, um and uh so he helped him
find the boy. And if you're from Plymouth, if you
(10:57):
live in the Plymouth area, then you might know Billington see,
which is a pond and that's name for John Jr. Yeah,
who wandered off right. Yeah, I think that he might
have found that. I mean, you know, he discovered the pond,
but he may have discovered it on his wander right,
his sojourn. Yeah, but they found him and he was
quote be hung with beads. So apparently they you know,
(11:20):
kind of adopted him a little bit like he was
the mascot and yeah, and then they gave him back. Yeah,
and then the I think that the colonists gave the
Indians and a couple of knives and said thanks and
went back to Plymouth, thanks for the beads and the guy.
But you have to imagine that mounting a ten man
sailing expedition into Indian country. Um, because your kid wandered off,
(11:44):
it's gonna you're gonna You're gonna rub the back of
your neck and be like a lot. Uh yeah, you know,
if you're a Billington and she like, thanks for getting
my kids back, you know, can I do I owe
you anything? Or you know? Not so though, because Billington
uh had a bad reputation and that he scoffed at
Captain Miles Standish and you don't scoff at Standish Miles
(12:06):
Standish proud Miles Standard was trying to get people to
uh to you know, serve in the military, and Bill
and was like, no, dude, I'm not doing that. He
was a part of anti government groups. Government subversion, well
there was in sixty four there was called what's called
the Old woman Lyford Conspiracy. That was the name of
the two main conspirators. He was named as a co conspirator.
(12:29):
And reading his history and then this, you know, the
the actual history of this conspiracy, which is a lot
of secret meetings about how they should overthrow this Puritan
regime and start governing this colony the right way. Um,
he was probably a part of it, but he denied
it and and was let off the hook again. Well,
and he he was also apologized for the UM for
(12:51):
standing up against Standish, and they said they threatened him
with hog tyme, which can actually kill you. I didn't
realize that I could see that could what you're all
your weights on your chest right, Well, it's they tie
your legs together, they tie your arms behind your back,
and then they tie your ankles to your neck around
your neck. What So, unless you stay completely arched like that,
(13:14):
you're gonna start cutting off circulation. Like it's a form
of torture. It's not just how we're gonna tie you up. Well,
the that whole second step has been kind of lost
to history as I understand it. Well, now is it
just tying the hands and tie your your hands and
your ankles, your wrists and your ankles together behind your back,
And yeah, you're arched, but I don't know anything about
(13:36):
tying the ankles around that. That's horrible. Apparently the old
hog tie is a little more brutal. Yeah, which makes
total sense. Which also makes sense why he's described as
basically like pleading for mercy not to have that happened
to him, and which is why they let him go. Yeah,
Miles Stands is like, all right, but get out of
my sight Billington, And I mean, like there's really there's
(13:56):
there's we can't forget. We can't leave out the fact
that these people were original Plymouth colonists, Like they were
the first he's on the charter, the first European, the
first English European Americans, and the first what would become
one of the first states of America. Like, these are
important people, no matter what their reputations are. He was
(14:16):
the signer of the Mayflower Compact, which is the first
um European based governing law. I guess you would call
it of laws um. And he was he was. He
helped Hugh the colony out of the wilderness. He was
one of the colonists, right, yeah. And there's a pdf
online I found that traces his family tree and apparently
(14:40):
James Garfield, the President, was a descendant of Billington and
it I mean, if you're I wish I would have
written down some of the last names. I know Witten
was one of them, but I mean there are people
that have said, like still alive today, Oh yeah, there's
an apparently I remember researching this. I couldn't find it
when I reresearched for this podcast. But there's like a
whole up of people who are into that kind of thing.
(15:01):
We're proudly ancestors of Billington's this rabble rous of the
first like real troublemaker in America. Well, people are proud
period just to be descendants of the Plymouth colonists for sure.
So um, but you you, I hopefully everybody has like
kind of an idea of how Billington and his family
were regarded. Right, Well, we didn't get to his wife
(15:23):
and daughter. I know that was after what he could.
His wife was Eleanor was locked in the stocks and
whipped at one point. She was also had to pay
fines of five pounds sterling because she was found guilty
of slandering her neighbors. And his granddaughter Dorcas. I love that.
There's only one way to pronounce that, right, yeah, d
(15:46):
O r c As. I'm gonna bring that one back.
If I ever had a daughter, she's gonna be Dorcas Bryant. Uh.
Dorcas apparently was sentenced to whipping because she um had
sexual intercourse. She was twenty two years old, and he
didn't do that. So um, yeah, the whole family was
definitely not. They didn't fall in line with with the
(16:07):
rest of the crowd. Although that's that's not true because
a lot of the rest of the crowd was doing
even worse things. As it turns out, you just didn't
read it in the brochure, right, So can we talk
about some of the stuff that people were doing please? Okay.
So remember by there's still only seven and fifty five
people in Ploymouth Colony. Okay, so this this stuff is
(16:31):
happening like twenty fifty years before that the way fewer people.
And yet there were incidents where people like Thomas Granger,
who was a servant UM was indicted for buggery which
we established before it was beastiality with a mayor, a cow,
two goats, diverse sheep, two calves, and a turkey he
(16:56):
fell in love with. He he was sentenced to hang
by Um are sentenced to die by hanging John Walker
the next year turkey he yes, um, he was. He
laid with a bitch as it's uh put and of
course we mean the the well the pilgrims meant the dog,
the female dog. Um. Another guy was was he was
(17:23):
held on suspicion of buggery with the beast. Another guy
had buggery with the mayor, and it just keeps going
on and going on. So basically somebody would get caught
sleeping with a dog and would be whipped, put into
the stocks, pilloried, um, and it was just recorded but
never talked about. Yeah, there was also rape in sodomy
(17:44):
against humans. Yeah. The the way they put sodomy was
that they were um. These John Alexander and Thomas Roberts
back in sixty seven were caught um and they got
the hot irons, which wow, is that's rough. So you
hear about this stuff and you think Dorcas doing you know,
(18:05):
sleeping with a man, I presume is a very normal
thing for twenty two year old middle aged woman to do.
Right at the time. Yes, she's not, she's not laying
down with the turkeys. No, so Eleanor got put in
the stocks for slander, right, Yeah, there's no recording of
what she said or basically we've reached this point here
(18:25):
where we should probably talk about what John Billington did. Okay,
because now that we debunk the fact that not everyone
was super pure and you can't necessarily read uh Mort's
relation and the brochure and say, you know, everything was
just hunky dory over there. This maybe actually, maybe this
is why the movie hasn't been made because he wants
(18:45):
to see a guy sleeping with the turkey. I don't know.
I think there's a market that you paid a lot
for it. You know, it's a market for that, but
it's not the box office grossing record breaking numbers. Peter
Weir wouldn't touchdown or not what the didn' football? So, um,
we should probably talk about how Billington became America's first murderer.
It took it took place what ten years after he
(19:08):
got there, So you have to think, like, this guy's
an original settler and he's been farming and hewing an
existence out for himself and other people. And as a
h an original Mayflower compact signer, he got a bunch
of land parcel to him, like this is probably ten's
land now. So but while he made an enemy, clearly
(19:29):
one real enemy. He made quite a few, Bradford being
one of them. But he made one enemy named John Newcomen,
who was a newcomer as it turns out, to Plymouth. Um,
he hadn't been there for ten years and it seems
like history is a little sketchy because, like you said,
it's not all like recorded at that point. But one
(19:50):
thing I read was that it was possibly over hunting rights,
and I don't know how true that is. It is true,
it is, Yeah, there there's I When I was going
back and um reading the the source material for this,
I'm like, why did I Why was I so vague
when I wrote this article? Because it did that confirm?
(20:11):
Did it confirm that? Yeah? Well so in the Bradford's
version basically is like this, he wayed at Billingtons Waylade Newcoming,
which we should explain what waylate is. Waylade is like
basically lying in wait and then murdering, like hiding in
the bush. It premeditated. It's huge if you read a
stranger's account. There's an account by a stranger and I
(20:33):
don't know who. Um it's not in this, not in
the source I cited, but um it's It talks about
how Newcoming was already known to Billington's because he um
he used to steal from Billington's traps, he poached on
his land and um Billington had chased the kid off
a bunch of times newcomers seventeen at the time. He
(20:54):
was a little jerk basically, and he was what the
strangers called a saint, which meant you were in good
with Bradford because you're a Puritan, and compared to a stranger,
you had exponentially more rights and you got away with
exponentially more stuff. Okay, So here's Billington, who already has
a bad reputation, and there's some little seventeen year old
punk kid stealing from his traps who's chased off time
(21:17):
and time and time again, and um, he catches him there.
So he goes after him with his gun, and the
kid goes and hides behind a tree, and Billington shoots
at the tree. I don't know if he meant to
shoot at the kid. Apparently he's a pretty good marks mint,
but he hit the kid in the shoulder, not exactly
(21:37):
a lethal shot. Today. Well, the kid died in like
three days of an infection. That's how the America's first
murder took place. And it was apparently with a blunderbuss.
Have you ever heard of these guns? Is that the
one with the big sort of like pilgrim hunting with yeah,
a little bit. I mean, it's not like an elephant gun,
(21:57):
but if it does flare out at the end, and
it's sort of, um, what would be considered today, it's
sort of like a sawed off shotgun. So like it
was a musket, but it was short and flared, and
so I imagine it it had a wider spray, even
though it wasn't well it wouldn't be a spray because
they didn't use pellets, but they compared it to a
(22:18):
sawed off shotgun. And what I read hand on the
pump exactly. So, um, that's how the first murder took place.
I get the impression. Billington, who was also um described
as um beloved by many in another account by a
stranger kind of a satirical take on Plymouth colony. Yeah,
(22:38):
Thomas Morton in the New English Canaan said that he
was a beloved dude. He was beloved by many. Basically,
if you were a stranger, you probably like Billington's He
sounded like a kind of a fun guy to be honest.
I know he's the first murderer, but he's a rebbel
rouser that's into associate with those types. Well, Billington thinks
that because of the um, the fact that they need people,
(23:03):
they're still each individual is very important. UM. And that
this kid had been really it was the kid's fault
that he was on his property. Billington and warned him,
all warned him all that he would he would be
spared his life. Well, no, Governor Bradford himself was the
one who ordered him to death, and he didn't like
him to begin with. So right, So this is um
(23:24):
what you could call unfair to a certain extent perhaps.
And not only did Bradford sentence his longtime enemy or
somebody he disdained for many years to death, he was
also the one who literally wrote the history. In addition
to what is it Morts what mort retort? Uh? Not
(23:45):
Mort's retort? I was kidding most mort relation, Okay. So
in addition to Morts relation, the other probably largest cited
um firsthand account of Plymouth plantation is called of Planmouth Plantation.
It's Bradford's own journal. So he literally wrote the history
for Plymouth. And of course he's going to paint it
(24:07):
in his He's gonna paint himself and his fellows in
the best light. And that's what we go on and
Billington in a poor light because he sent him the hang.
So I think if anything, this um was the episode
intended to tell you to always take historical accounts of
(24:29):
the Green Stall, especially the old ones. There's always two
sides to every story, and the three stooges actually get
better as you age stuff. You should know you got
anything else. Nope. If you want to learn more about
America's first murderer, type America's first murderer America. I'm gonna
have be trouble saying that. These days you can type
(24:50):
that in the hand You can type wherever you want,
but you're gonna get the best result if you type
it in the handy search bart how stuff works dot
com uh, and then of course brings up listener mail. Yes, Josh,
I'm gonna call this nicotine poisoning from Aaron. A couple
of years ago, guys who came home from university to
find my key, we roommate, working away in the kitchen.
(25:10):
He decided to bake brownies for the first time, and
I hurried upstairs to try some, because you want to
support his friend. Quickly, I was overwhelmed by a sour taste,
which was only mildly canceled out by the cherries which
were mixed in with the batter. It was very close
to spitting it out when my roommate walked in and said,
what do you think. I didn't want to insult them,
so I popped the rest of it in my mouth
(25:30):
and said I could use a little more sugar. I
left the room, and that's when everything got hazy. What
I do remember is my roommates bursting into my room.
This is crazy. They found me curled up into a
ball with my head between my knees, rocking slowly. I
was covered in sweat and muttering to myself, letting out
loud moans, which is apparently what alerted my roommates when
(25:52):
they opened the door. They flooded the room with light,
caused intense pain in my head and for some reason
in my stumm I not really thinking. I bolted to
the bathroom and induced vomiting trying to get all the
evil out of me. I was exhausted, laying on the
floor trying to figure out what was wrong. Apparently, there
were two boxes on the table, did you read this?
(26:14):
One one containing brownies and one with shisha tobacco destined
for the hookah that they kept in their house, Clark,
In my haste, I accidentally consumed about three ounces of
cherry tobacco mix that was destined for the hookah. I'm
not sure exactly how much nicotine my body absorbed in
the hour or so it was in me, but when
(26:37):
I stood up, I promptly passed out and, according to
my roommates, started convulsion on the floor. They wanted to
take me to the hospital, of course, but I refused,
being the bull headed midwesterner I sometimes can be, or
the college student who doesn't want to pay for that
kind of When I did go to the hospital the
next morning explain the situation to the e R Tech,
(26:58):
they immediately took my vital sin said I was lucky,
lucky to have survived without any serious complications, uh that
it very well could have been a fatal dose. And
all I can say is, if you're ever in the
same situation, air on the side of caution, called poison
control right away. And He's lucky that his roommates one
of them at e M T training because it could
(27:19):
have gone the other way. And Aaron might not be
a fan of our podcast today Man the eight who
gets tobacco pot it in his mouth and said it
needs a little more sugar. Wow. So okay. And if
you are a member of the Billington Clan by blood,
somehow or marriage, whatever we want to hear from you,
send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff
(27:41):
works dot com. Be sure to check out our new
video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuff Work
staff as we explore them as promising and perplexing possibilities
of tomorrow. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand
twelve Camry. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff You Should Know
from house Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
and this is Stuff you Should Know Episode three. Well,
(00:25):
I'm saying it is so now it's episode episode three
something three niner eight or that's good, Josh? Is that
your intro? Rocking and a rolling, splihing in the splashing
over the horizon? What could it be? Look like it's
gonna be a new country? Do you remember that one? Now?
(00:46):
What are you talking about? That idea? That was the
the schoolhouse rock for the Mayflower Voyage? Really rocking in
a roll and splashing in the splash, and you remember
that good coming over the horizon? What could it be?
Look like it's going to be a free country or
new country? Either way, it was both new and probably
(01:08):
knew because it was not free for everybody. That's true.
So you're talking about this because we're going to talk
about the first murderer? Right yeah? And before we start,
I want to ask why has no one ever made
a modern film about the Mayflower Voyage. It seems like
a no brainer, you know. Yeah, I don't know, especially
(01:28):
after gotting around to you yet. Like the awesomeness of
Master and Commander. Did you ever see that, the one
with um Russell Crowe? Yeah, it was very good, surprisingly good. Yeah,
it surprised me too. Actually, I didn't get the colon.
It made it sound like it was a franchise, but
it was like the first of the franchise. It wasn't like, Oh,
I guess, I guess parts of the Caribbean did have
a call in the first one, didn't it. I don't know. Huh.
(01:51):
But Master, that was Peter we Are Master and Commander,
So it makes sense that it was awesome because he's
such a great director and related to bobwe right, I think, really,
I don't know, I don't think so. I've always suspected.
Did he do the Treaman show? Uh? That was written
by we did Gattica. I don't know who directed that.
(02:12):
That might have been Peter Weir, but he did Gallipoly
and U like scores of great movies. Well cool, Well,
thank you for joining us at this discussion of Peter
Weird's films. He should direct the Mayflier movie was what
I'm saying. For goodness sakes, Okay, they need to do
it like a realistic because you know, when you learned
about it in school at least I did. I thought,
you know, you learned about it from Schoolhouse Rock, and
(02:34):
you get the picture. They sang songs and kind of
rock and rolled over the ocean and then ran into
Plymouth rock and shared Thanksgiving with the Indians, and they
need to make a real movie about how it really was. Well, yeah,
because you know, that whole Schoolhouse Rock impression is pretty
widely held even among adults, educated adults. And the reason
(02:54):
why is because there's a very small amount of firsthand
information that left Plymouth call any right um and was
allowed to stand. There was a small group of people
who were controlling all of the info about that place,
and they were trying to paint it in as good
as light as possible because they were trying to attract investors.
(03:15):
And these firsthand accounts that you know, basically painted the
Puritans as you know, these hard scrapple people who were
um guided by a divine hand in the wilderness. Has
stood all these centuries hard scrapple. So let's talk about
let's talk about the Pilgrims the voyage, right, They landed
(03:37):
in sixty just as a quick primer um. And they
were Pilgrims. They were Puritans separatists, as they were often called.
They were people who were so pious that no one
in all of Europe was pious enough to contend with them.
And they were like, I'm sick of all you sinners.
(03:58):
Were going to go found a new um, a new
republic in the in the name and for the glory
of God, and we're going to be really, really good,
and we're going to do it in the new world.
And that that's what they did. They sailed over to
Massachusetts and landed in Plymouth, as it turns out, nice
place to land, I imagine. And uh, welch, I mean,
(04:20):
are we going to get to the murder a guy
right away or should we just ease into that. Well,
let's talk about who was there. It wasn't just Puritans,
it wasn't just separatists. There's a whole other group of
people who don't get talked about a lot. Uh. And
they were called the strangers. Yeah, that sounded really creepy
when I read it. For some reason, I think it
sounds cool. I think it sounds creepy. Like they look
like they should have been dressed in like like the
(04:41):
pilgrim black, like with why brim hats that you can't
see their eyes. Yeah, what was the deal with them?
Were they Catholic? They were anything but the separatists of
the Puritans. So they were Catholics, They were sailors, they
were um Africans, they were whoever kidnapped Indians. I don't
know if all those people were on the main Flower,
(05:02):
but there it was. There was a bunch of people,
you know, I got them over there. He went with them.
And the Puritans were pretty rigid. Obviously they didn't like
Catholics at all. They were indeed extremely rigid. But to
this degree is we'll see, um. They they they found
that like, no nobody's this rigid. And there were a
(05:23):
lot of strangers who broke a lot of laws. But um,
there are a lot of Puritans who did too, um
and they just kind of glossed it over. They kept records,
but these things just didn't get promoted. Right. Yeah, Mort's relation. Yes,
so you're talking about mort relation. Written in sixteen twenty
two by William Bradford, who was clearly the governor, longtime
(05:45):
governor of Plymouth. His cousin George Morton wrote he was
a separatist and he wrote this book or an account,
and that was that sort of looked at as the
account of Plymouth. But as it turns out, as you
point out, because you wrote this um works relation was
written to attract funding, right for Plymouth. So it was
basically like a lengthy, in depth brochure to attract investors.
(06:10):
And what are you going to say. You're not going
to say, we're starving to death over here, we're having
a really hard time, we're probably not going to make it.
People are committing bestiality, yes, buggery is what they call
the huh And we'll get to that and then okay, um,
And they're not going to say this. They're going to
say things are great, we're really you know, living and
(06:30):
by God's will, we're really just making it over here,
and we need some more money. Yeah. Yeah, so that
means take take it with a grain of salt. They
but they didn't just pretend like the strangers weren't there,
but they painted some of the strangers in possibly less
than flattering light, right, Yeah, I mean, are we at
the Billington's Inn, might as well be the Billington's the family,
(06:53):
John Billington's, his wife um eleanor his son's little John
John Jr. And Francis who was a boy his other son.
They were sort of painted as like reading your reading
your article. They sort of seem like, on one hand,
like the first white trash, you know, that's one way
(07:17):
to put it, and then they also sort of seem like, no,
you know, they might have been kind of cool and
just rabble rousers. Yeah, or yes, I think that that's
very accurate. But they definitely weren't any friends of Bradford
that he did not like these people. No, he didn't.
He called um He wrote in a letter to a
Mr Cushing I believe uh that who had some sort
(07:40):
of authority I guess in the over the colony in
back in England. But he basically says that Billington's still
rails against you and that he's a nave, which means
a scoundrel, and he'll always be a nave. He'll live
and dies so and and as so he'll live and die. Yeah,
that was Cushman. By the way, they cute same thing.
(08:01):
And uh he also said he quote he said they
were one of the profanest families to come to the colony.
And it wasn't just John, I mean they didn't. He
didn't like any of them. His kids were a bit
of a handful too, well, one of them. It doesn't
say who in the records, but on the way over,
Um decided that he was going to shoot off his
(08:21):
father's musket, right gun in a cabin filled with people,
which is bad enough, but he did it right next
to a open, half filled keg of gunpowder, right, so
he almost just blew the whole Mayflower up and history
would have changed forever probably. So that was the first
(08:42):
thing that happened with the Billington's and the rest of
the people on the Mayflower. Yes, no, actually it wasn't.
There was part. There was a mutiny that John Billington's,
the father was involved in Um and he was he
was let off the hook because it was his first offense.
But he uh he that that started. Tensions were already high.
(09:05):
And then one of his sons, either Francis or John Jr.
Shot off the gun in the camp. So you start
to get an impression of this family, especially when you
look at you know when you think of them bristling,
not just the average persons, you know, right, ire, Yeah, yeah,
but a puritan's hire, right, because you can screw up
(09:28):
like innumerable ways in the eyes of a Puritan, especially
if you're not a Puritan, That's right. And then once
they got to the New World, Uh, they continue their shenanigans.
John Jr. Kind of wandered off one day twenty miles
worth and wandered into a Native American village, and then
he was taken to another village by those Native Americans.
(09:50):
And eventually they sent out a group to go find
him and took him a little while they set sail,
actually ended up on Cape Cod what is now Cape
Cod and uh said, you know you're gonna have to
come back, yes, And they found him because of Massa Swat,
who was the great statum of the Wappanoag Wapag. Yeah,
(10:12):
well panel Wag or get an email for that one
um who was involved in the first Thanksgiving with these
same people. So he might have had something to do
with that, then, Uh, well he did. He was already
like he he basically was um trying to use the
Englishman against his rivals. I think the Abenaki um to
(10:37):
basically run them out rather than consolidate with the other
Indians against the English, and basically that turned over the
whole continent to Europe. Like that one act is largely
considered as the the turning point. So he was already
pals with him, um and uh so he helped him
find the boy. And if you're from Plymouth, if you
(10:57):
live in the Plymouth area, then you might know Billington see,
which is a pond and that's name for John Jr. Yeah,
who wandered off right. Yeah, I think that he might
have found that. I mean, you know, he discovered the pond,
but he may have discovered it on his wander right,
his sojourn. Yeah, but they found him and he was
quote be hung with beads. So apparently they you know,
(11:20):
kind of adopted him a little bit like he was
the mascot and yeah, and then they gave him back. Yeah,
and then the I think that the colonists gave the
Indians and a couple of knives and said thanks and
went back to Plymouth, thanks for the beads and the guy.
But you have to imagine that mounting a ten man
sailing expedition into Indian country. Um, because your kid wandered off,
(11:44):
it's gonna you're gonna You're gonna rub the back of
your neck and be like a lot. Uh yeah, you know,
if you're a Billington and she like, thanks for getting
my kids back, you know, can I do I owe
you anything? Or you know? Not so though, because Billington
uh had a bad reputation and that he scoffed at
Captain Miles Standish and you don't scoff at Standish Miles
(12:06):
Standish proud Miles Standard was trying to get people to
uh to you know, serve in the military, and Bill
and was like, no, dude, I'm not doing that. He
was a part of anti government groups. Government subversion, well
there was in sixty four there was called what's called
the Old woman Lyford Conspiracy. That was the name of
the two main conspirators. He was named as a co conspirator.
(12:29):
And reading his history and then this, you know, the
the actual history of this conspiracy, which is a lot
of secret meetings about how they should overthrow this Puritan
regime and start governing this colony the right way. Um,
he was probably a part of it, but he denied
it and and was let off the hook again. Well,
and he he was also apologized for the UM for
(12:51):
standing up against Standish, and they said they threatened him
with hog tyme, which can actually kill you. I didn't
realize that I could see that could what you're all
your weights on your chest right, Well, it's they tie
your legs together, they tie your arms behind your back,
and then they tie your ankles to your neck around
your neck. What So, unless you stay completely arched like that,
(13:14):
you're gonna start cutting off circulation. Like it's a form
of torture. It's not just how we're gonna tie you up. Well,
the that whole second step has been kind of lost
to history as I understand it. Well, now is it
just tying the hands and tie your your hands and
your ankles, your wrists and your ankles together behind your back,
And yeah, you're arched, but I don't know anything about
(13:36):
tying the ankles around that. That's horrible. Apparently the old
hog tie is a little more brutal. Yeah, which makes
total sense. Which also makes sense why he's described as
basically like pleading for mercy not to have that happened
to him, and which is why they let him go. Yeah,
Miles Stands is like, all right, but get out of
my sight Billington, And I mean, like there's really there's
(13:56):
there's we can't forget. We can't leave out the fact
that these people were original Plymouth colonists, Like they were
the first he's on the charter, the first European, the
first English European Americans, and the first what would become
one of the first states of America. Like, these are
important people, no matter what their reputations are. He was
(14:16):
the signer of the Mayflower Compact, which is the first
um European based governing law. I guess you would call
it of laws um. And he was he was. He
helped Hugh the colony out of the wilderness. He was
one of the colonists, right, yeah. And there's a pdf
online I found that traces his family tree and apparently
(14:40):
James Garfield, the President, was a descendant of Billington and
it I mean, if you're I wish I would have
written down some of the last names. I know Witten
was one of them, but I mean there are people
that have said, like still alive today, Oh yeah, there's
an apparently I remember researching this. I couldn't find it
when I reresearched for this podcast. But there's like a
whole up of people who are into that kind of thing.
(15:01):
We're proudly ancestors of Billington's this rabble rous of the
first like real troublemaker in America. Well, people are proud
period just to be descendants of the Plymouth colonists for sure.
So um, but you you, I hopefully everybody has like
kind of an idea of how Billington and his family
were regarded. Right, Well, we didn't get to his wife
(15:23):
and daughter. I know that was after what he could.
His wife was Eleanor was locked in the stocks and
whipped at one point. She was also had to pay
fines of five pounds sterling because she was found guilty
of slandering her neighbors. And his granddaughter Dorcas. I love that.
There's only one way to pronounce that, right, yeah, d
(15:46):
O r c As. I'm gonna bring that one back.
If I ever had a daughter, she's gonna be Dorcas Bryant. Uh.
Dorcas apparently was sentenced to whipping because she um had
sexual intercourse. She was twenty two years old, and he
didn't do that. So um, yeah, the whole family was
definitely not. They didn't fall in line with with the
(16:07):
rest of the crowd. Although that's that's not true because
a lot of the rest of the crowd was doing
even worse things. As it turns out, you just didn't
read it in the brochure, right, So can we talk
about some of the stuff that people were doing please? Okay.
So remember by there's still only seven and fifty five
people in Ploymouth Colony. Okay, so this this stuff is
(16:31):
happening like twenty fifty years before that the way fewer people.
And yet there were incidents where people like Thomas Granger,
who was a servant UM was indicted for buggery which
we established before it was beastiality with a mayor, a cow,
two goats, diverse sheep, two calves, and a turkey he
(16:56):
fell in love with. He he was sentenced to hang
by Um are sentenced to die by hanging John Walker
the next year turkey he yes, um, he was. He
laid with a bitch as it's uh put and of
course we mean the the well the pilgrims meant the dog,
the female dog. Um. Another guy was was he was
(17:23):
held on suspicion of buggery with the beast. Another guy
had buggery with the mayor, and it just keeps going
on and going on. So basically somebody would get caught
sleeping with a dog and would be whipped, put into
the stocks, pilloried, um, and it was just recorded but
never talked about. Yeah, there was also rape in sodomy
(17:44):
against humans. Yeah. The the way they put sodomy was
that they were um. These John Alexander and Thomas Roberts
back in sixty seven were caught um and they got
the hot irons, which wow, is that's rough. So you
hear about this stuff and you think Dorcas doing you know,
(18:05):
sleeping with a man, I presume is a very normal
thing for twenty two year old middle aged woman to do.
Right at the time. Yes, she's not, she's not laying
down with the turkeys. No, so Eleanor got put in
the stocks for slander, right, Yeah, there's no recording of
what she said or basically we've reached this point here
(18:25):
where we should probably talk about what John Billington did. Okay,
because now that we debunk the fact that not everyone
was super pure and you can't necessarily read uh Mort's
relation and the brochure and say, you know, everything was
just hunky dory over there. This maybe actually, maybe this
is why the movie hasn't been made because he wants
(18:45):
to see a guy sleeping with the turkey. I don't know.
I think there's a market that you paid a lot
for it. You know, it's a market for that, but
it's not the box office grossing record breaking numbers. Peter
Weir wouldn't touchdown or not what the didn' football? So, um,
we should probably talk about how Billington became America's first murderer.
It took it took place what ten years after he
(19:08):
got there, So you have to think, like, this guy's
an original settler and he's been farming and hewing an
existence out for himself and other people. And as a
h an original Mayflower compact signer, he got a bunch
of land parcel to him, like this is probably ten's
land now. So but while he made an enemy, clearly
(19:29):
one real enemy. He made quite a few, Bradford being
one of them. But he made one enemy named John Newcomen,
who was a newcomer as it turns out, to Plymouth. Um,
he hadn't been there for ten years and it seems
like history is a little sketchy because, like you said,
it's not all like recorded at that point. But one
(19:50):
thing I read was that it was possibly over hunting rights,
and I don't know how true that is. It is true,
it is, Yeah, there there's I When I was going
back and um reading the the source material for this,
I'm like, why did I Why was I so vague
when I wrote this article? Because it did that confirm?
(20:11):
Did it confirm that? Yeah? Well so in the Bradford's
version basically is like this, he wayed at Billingtons Waylade Newcoming,
which we should explain what waylate is. Waylade is like
basically lying in wait and then murdering, like hiding in
the bush. It premeditated. It's huge if you read a
stranger's account. There's an account by a stranger and I
(20:33):
don't know who. Um it's not in this, not in
the source I cited, but um it's It talks about
how Newcoming was already known to Billington's because he um
he used to steal from Billington's traps, he poached on
his land and um Billington had chased the kid off
a bunch of times newcomers seventeen at the time. He
(20:54):
was a little jerk basically, and he was what the
strangers called a saint, which meant you were in good
with Bradford because you're a Puritan, and compared to a stranger,
you had exponentially more rights and you got away with
exponentially more stuff. Okay, So here's Billington, who already has
a bad reputation, and there's some little seventeen year old
punk kid stealing from his traps who's chased off time
(21:17):
and time and time again, and um, he catches him there.
So he goes after him with his gun, and the
kid goes and hides behind a tree, and Billington shoots
at the tree. I don't know if he meant to
shoot at the kid. Apparently he's a pretty good marks mint,
but he hit the kid in the shoulder, not exactly
(21:37):
a lethal shot. Today. Well, the kid died in like
three days of an infection. That's how the America's first
murder took place. And it was apparently with a blunderbuss.
Have you ever heard of these guns? Is that the
one with the big sort of like pilgrim hunting with yeah,
a little bit. I mean, it's not like an elephant gun,
(21:57):
but if it does flare out at the end, and
it's sort of, um, what would be considered today, it's
sort of like a sawed off shotgun. So like it
was a musket, but it was short and flared, and
so I imagine it it had a wider spray, even
though it wasn't well it wouldn't be a spray because
they didn't use pellets, but they compared it to a
(22:18):
sawed off shotgun. And what I read hand on the
pump exactly. So, um, that's how the first murder took place.
I get the impression. Billington, who was also um described
as um beloved by many in another account by a
stranger kind of a satirical take on Plymouth colony. Yeah,
(22:38):
Thomas Morton in the New English Canaan said that he
was a beloved dude. He was beloved by many. Basically,
if you were a stranger, you probably like Billington's He
sounded like a kind of a fun guy to be honest.
I know he's the first murderer, but he's a rebbel
rouser that's into associate with those types. Well, Billington thinks
that because of the um, the fact that they need people,
(23:03):
they're still each individual is very important. UM. And that
this kid had been really it was the kid's fault
that he was on his property. Billington and warned him,
all warned him all that he would he would be
spared his life. Well, no, Governor Bradford himself was the
one who ordered him to death, and he didn't like
him to begin with. So right, So this is um
(23:24):
what you could call unfair to a certain extent perhaps.
And not only did Bradford sentence his longtime enemy or
somebody he disdained for many years to death, he was
also the one who literally wrote the history. In addition
to what is it Morts what mort retort? Uh? Not
(23:45):
Mort's retort? I was kidding most mort relation, Okay. So
in addition to Morts relation, the other probably largest cited
um firsthand account of Plymouth plantation is called of Planmouth Plantation.
It's Bradford's own journal. So he literally wrote the history
for Plymouth. And of course he's going to paint it
(24:07):
in his He's gonna paint himself and his fellows in
the best light. And that's what we go on and
Billington in a poor light because he sent him the hang.
So I think if anything, this um was the episode
intended to tell you to always take historical accounts of
(24:29):
the Green Stall, especially the old ones. There's always two
sides to every story, and the three stooges actually get
better as you age stuff. You should know you got
anything else. Nope. If you want to learn more about
America's first murderer, type America's first murderer America. I'm gonna
have be trouble saying that. These days you can type
(24:50):
that in the hand You can type wherever you want,
but you're gonna get the best result if you type
it in the handy search bart how stuff works dot
com uh, and then of course brings up listener mail. Yes, Josh,
I'm gonna call this nicotine poisoning from Aaron. A couple
of years ago, guys who came home from university to
find my key, we roommate, working away in the kitchen.
(25:10):
He decided to bake brownies for the first time, and
I hurried upstairs to try some, because you want to
support his friend. Quickly, I was overwhelmed by a sour taste,
which was only mildly canceled out by the cherries which
were mixed in with the batter. It was very close
to spitting it out when my roommate walked in and said,
what do you think. I didn't want to insult them,
so I popped the rest of it in my mouth
(25:30):
and said I could use a little more sugar. I
left the room, and that's when everything got hazy. What
I do remember is my roommates bursting into my room.
This is crazy. They found me curled up into a
ball with my head between my knees, rocking slowly. I
was covered in sweat and muttering to myself, letting out
loud moans, which is apparently what alerted my roommates when
(25:52):
they opened the door. They flooded the room with light,
caused intense pain in my head and for some reason
in my stumm I not really thinking. I bolted to
the bathroom and induced vomiting trying to get all the
evil out of me. I was exhausted, laying on the
floor trying to figure out what was wrong. Apparently, there
were two boxes on the table, did you read this?
(26:14):
One one containing brownies and one with shisha tobacco destined
for the hookah that they kept in their house, Clark,
In my haste, I accidentally consumed about three ounces of
cherry tobacco mix that was destined for the hookah. I'm
not sure exactly how much nicotine my body absorbed in
the hour or so it was in me, but when
(26:37):
I stood up, I promptly passed out and, according to
my roommates, started convulsion on the floor. They wanted to
take me to the hospital, of course, but I refused,
being the bull headed midwesterner I sometimes can be, or
the college student who doesn't want to pay for that
kind of When I did go to the hospital the
next morning explain the situation to the e R Tech,
(26:58):
they immediately took my vital sin said I was lucky,
lucky to have survived without any serious complications, uh that
it very well could have been a fatal dose. And
all I can say is, if you're ever in the
same situation, air on the side of caution, called poison
control right away. And He's lucky that his roommates one
of them at e M T training because it could
(27:19):
have gone the other way. And Aaron might not be
a fan of our podcast today Man the eight who
gets tobacco pot it in his mouth and said it
needs a little more sugar. Wow. So okay. And if
you are a member of the Billington Clan by blood,
somehow or marriage, whatever we want to hear from you,
send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff
(27:41):
works dot com. Be sure to check out our new
video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuff Work
staff as we explore them as promising and perplexing possibilities
of tomorrow. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand
twelve Camry. It's ready, are you
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Josh Clark
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