William and Kate Wedding

The British royal fam­ily on Buck­ing­ham Palace bal­cony after Prince William and Kate Mid­dle­ton were mar­ried. Kate wears a wed­ding gown by Sarah Bur­ton. Photo dated 2011-04-29 16:31 (UTC). Used with per­mis­sion from the Wikipedia arti­cle.

On March 20, 1630, the ship Mary and John departed Ply­mouth, Eng­land. The great fleet of four­teen ships and 1500 emi­grants, the “Winthrop Fleet,” were bound for New Eng­land and the Mass­a­chu­setts Bay Colony.

The ship Mary and John, Cap­tain Squeb, Mas­ter, landed at Nan­tas­ket, Mass­a­chu­setts on May 30, 1630.

Strong fam­ily tra­di­tion, based on the account writ­ten by Gov­er­nor Caleb Strong in 1777, main­tains that Elder John Strong was a pas­sen­ger on Mary and John in 1630. No defin­i­tive records exist, and there­fore we have no con­tem­po­rary proof of who was or was not aboard Mary and John in 1630.

Rev. Syd­ney Strong in the Hamp­shire Daily Gazette, April 5, 1934, Northamp­ton, MA, has this to say:

Con­sid­er­ing the com­mu­nity, the char­ac­ter of the peo­ple involved, their close and inti­mate rela­tions, it is not pos­si­ble for me to con­ceive how an idea like John Strong com­ing in 1630, with Warham, etc. could get into the mind of Gov. Strong, unless it was a fact. There were peo­ple in Northamp­ton for 100 years who would be able to cor­rect a story that John Strong came in 1630, with the Mary & John com­pany, if it weren’t true.

(From Search for the Pas­sen­gers of the Mary & John, Vol. 2, by Bur­ton Spear.)

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