Spirit-Pilgrim: Trail a Line Like the Future Depends on It

How John Howland’s MOB Survival Left an Astonishing Legacy

Peter Swanson Nov 27

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If you’ve ever fallen off a moving boat, grabbed a stray line and managed to clamber back on board, then your spirit-Pilgrim—and mine—is a man named John Howland.

In 1620, Howland was a passenger on the Mayflower bound for New England carrying a band of religious “Separatists.” These are the kinds of folks who would say things like, “cleanliness is next to godliness” but found they were unable to practice what they preached while voyaging on 17th century ship.

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Below decks, the Mayflower was foul from the stench of 102 human bodies, especially when everyone huddled inside during a fierce storm. Howland decided it would be a good idea to go on deck for some fresh air, and found himself tossed into the raging North Atlantic ocean on a leeward roll of the ship a’hull.

Somehow in the turmoil, Howland saw before him a line being dragged through the water and snatched it. It was said to have been an unsecured topsail halyard. From experience I can say that Howland’s world would have entered a stage akin to a movie in slow motion. Once the men on deck realized what had happened they dragged him back and over the gunwale like a prize fish.

A year later, this guy had a little more to be thankful for than the others when Pilgrims sat down for that initial feast with the Wampanoags. He had survived the North Atlantic and, unlike some of his Plimouth neighbors, their first New England winter. “Divine providence” is how Pilgrims would describe it. Nowadays, we might call it luck.

Howland began life in America as an indentured servant but went on to hold important positions in government and commerce until his death at age 80. Along the way, he married Elizabeth Tilley and took that “Pilgrim Father” title very seriously, as he sired 10 children, who then produced 88 grandchildren. There are an estimated two million Howland descendants living in the U.S. today.

And that isn’t even the astonishing part. Here’s a list of some of them:

• Maude Adams (actress)
• Alec Baldwin (actor)
• Daniel Baldwin (actor)
• Stephen Baldwin (actor)
• William Baldwin (actor)
• Humphrey Bogart (actor)
• Phillips Brooks (writer)
• George H.W. Bush (41st U.S. President)
• George W. Bush (43rd U.S. President)
• Jeb Bush (former Florida Governor)
• Mary Chapin Carpenter (singer/song writer)
• Florence Earle Coates (poet)
• James Marlan Coughtry (baseball player)
• James D. Dole (founder of Dole Pineapple Company)
• Sanford B. Dole (former Hawaii Governor)
• George Howard Earle III (American politician and diplomat)
• Tommy Edman (baseball player)
• Ralph Waldo Emerson (poet)
• Nathaniel Gorham (Continental Congress President)
• Esther Allen Howland (creator of American Valentines)
• Charles P. Howland (football coach)
• Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (U.S. Senator)
• Christopher Lloyd (actor)
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (poet)
• Sarah Heath Palin (former Alaskan Governor)
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt (32nd U.S. President)
• Lillian Russell (actress)
• Salome Sellers (last verified person to be born in the 18th century)
• Joseph Smith Jr. (founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints)
• Dr. Benjamin Spock (writer)
• Justin Winsor (writer)
• William H. Macy (actor)
• John Howland (doctor) (founded First Pediatric Department in the U.S.)
• Justice Robert Jackson (U.S. Supreme Court Justice)
• George C. Remey (U.S. Admiral)
• Chevy Chase (actor)
• Eliza Howland (writer)
• John Lithgow (actor)
• Jane G. Austin (writer)
• Eville Gorham (environmentalist)
• Sam Ervin (U.S. Senator)
• Alfred Cornelius Howland (painter)
• Albert Alexander Hyde (industrialist)
• John Gorham (Industrialist)

George Bush, Franklin Roosevelt and Sarah Palin—who says the universe doesn’t have a sense of humor?

Trailing Line

My own story was never as dire. It happened in the days when I sailed out of Newburyport, Massachusetts, from a river only locals can love. The Merrimack River tidal current rips through at 2-3 knots in either direction.

My first sailboat with accomodations was a 28-foot wooden sloop that “sailed like a witch” with a cocky skipper at the helm. This is the story about how I fell off the Meerschaum as she rocked along at hull speed, then managed to get back aboard in just seconds.

Like John Howland, my superpower was luck.

Meerschaum’s freeboard averaged about 20 inches, so she was a wet ride. And she had no lifelines. Three-foot chop had covered everything in spray that day. Everything was soaked as we drove her up between the jetties.

I cut the No. 7 can as we hardened up to make a west-southwest heading, hoping to clear the shallows behind No. 8 nun without tacking. My inexperienced crew took the tiller while I set about cranking in the jib. We were sailing close to the shallows of Plum Island to port.

Atypically, I wasn’t wearing my deck shoes—barefoot, I was.

It happened in a wink. I slipped and launched head-first into the river. I remember my exact thought at the moment of immersion: Boy, you sure (fouled) up this time!

Then, I kid you not, everything slowed down like a Sam Peckinpah action sequence. As my body oh-so-slowwwly rolled underwater, and I faced upward, I saw something moving above me at the surface. Yep, slowwwly.

It was a line. I reached up and snatched the bitter end.

Having only gone out for the day, we left the dinghy tethered to the mooring ball. The dinghy tow rope had been coiled on the fantail but was swept overboard during our lively sail. Neither of us had noticed that we were towing a warp. (Memo to non-New Englanders: Pronounced “waup.”)

Line in hand, my head broke the surface. I found myself returned to Earth’s time-space continuum. My hapless crew, still at the tiller, was looking back at me. Meerschaum’s weather helm was rounding her up toward the sandbar. “Pull it toward you,” I hollered. He drew the tiller to his chest. Meerschaum accelerated, me in tow.

Time sped up. I swear I was back on that boat in five seconds. Like Howland, I was in my 20s and fit.

This was in August, and we didn’t wait for Thanksgiving to celebrate. That was a day for Myers rum and grapefruit juice at Michael’s Harborside.

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