Barbara Standish

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"The maiden names of Myels Standish's wives Rose and Barbara are not known.Wife Rose died on 29 Jan 1620/1 at Plymouth, and wife Barbara arrived on the ship Anne in Jul 1623 She and Myels were married 1623 by the time of the Division of Land. Absolutely no evidence that the wife's maiden names were Mullens. The name "Mullens" comes from the intentionally fictional poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "The Courtship of Myles Standish" in which Myles Standish pursues the fictional Pricilla Mullens".

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Information comes from Warren Willard's copy of the Howard geneaology, compiled and handwritten by his aunt Lillian Howard Floyd.

Indicates she came over in the "Ann" in 1623.

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Misc. Notes Volume 14: Myles Standish1997. 218pp. + Index Russell Warner, Robert S. Wakefield (Editor) Captain Myles Standish m. first Rose ______ who died during the first winter and 2nd Barbara _______ who survived her husband and was among the executors of his estate. Standish, among the more well known of the Mayflower passengers -- perhaps due to Longfellow's fictitious poem "The Courtship of Miles Standish -- was by some accounts of short stature and of feisty temperament. Nonetheless, he served the fledgling colony with great fidelity and was consistently called upon for service. He was called by Thomas Morton, the man who Standish arrested, "Captain Shrimp." In a combative encounter with the natives, Wittuwamet, Peksuot and others over a plot to eliminate the Weston colony, Winslow recounts that prior to the death fight, Pecksuot earlier had told Standi sh: "though he were a great captain, yet he was but a little man; and said he, though I be no sachem, yet I am a man of great strength and courage." Both Wittuwamet and Peksuot were kil led in hand-to-hand combat by Standish and his men. Bradford's Passenger List: "Captain Standish his wife dyed in the first sicknes; and he maried againe, .4. and hath .4. sones liveing, and some are dead." Captain Myles Standish died at Duxbury, on Friday, 3 October, 1656. His will was ma de 7 March, 1655/6. It was probated 4 May, 1657, as is shown by the record of the inventory a nd by the following court order, of that date: "Mr Allexander Standish and mr Josias Standis h Doe accept of beeing exequitors with Mis Barbery Standish theire mother on the estate of Ca ptaine Myles Standish Deceased; " The third lot fell to Capt Standish & his compani e Joyned to him his wife2 Barbara Standish 3 Charles Standish 4 Allexander Standish5 John Standish Children by Barbara: Charles, died young, unmarried Alexander, m. 1st Sarah Alden, m. 2nd Desire (Doty) (Sherman) Holmes as her 3rd husband. John - b. by 1627 no further record Myles, m. Sarah Winslow dau. of John Winslow Lora, died unmarried Josias, m. 1st Mary Dingley, m. 2nd Sarah Allen, dau. of Samuel Allen. Charles, again, named in father's will, but no further record. Myles Standish BORN: c1584DIED: 3 October 1656, Duxbury,MAMARRIED: (1). Rose (---)(2). Barbara (---), c16 23, Plymouth CHILDREN (all by Barbara): NAME BIRTH DEATH MARRIAGE Charles c1624, Plymouth between 1627 and 1634 unmarried Alexander c1626, Plymouth 6 July 1702, Duxbury, MA (1). Sarah Alden, Duxbury, MA (2). Desir e (Doty)(Sherman) Holmes, c1688 John c1627, Plymouth before 1650 unmarried Myles c1629, Plymouth lost at sea, 19 August 1661 Sarah Winslow, 19 July 1660, Boston Lora after May 1627, probably Plymouth before 1651 unmarried Josiah c1633, Plymouth 19 March 1690/1, Preston, CT (1). Mary Dingley, 19 December 1654, Mars hfield, MA; (2). Sarah Allen, after 7 March 1655/6 Charles after 1634, probably Duxbury after 7 March 1655/6 unmarried ANCESTRAL SUMMARY: A lot of research has been done on the ancestry of Myles Standish, yet nothing conclusive o n his parents have been found. G.V.C. Young has suggested Myles Standish's great-grandfathe r was Huan Standish of the Isle of Man. However, recent research has tended to undermine thi s conclusion, and new discoveries are currently being made which could very well disprove th e Isle of Man origins altogether. Thomas Morton of Merrymount, in his 1637 book New England's Canaan, mentions that "Captain Sh rimp" was bred a soldier in the Low Countries, and Nathaniel Morton wrote in 1669 that Standi sh was from Lancashire. The will of Myles Standish mentions numerous lands both in Lancashir e and on the Isle of Man. The maiden names of Myles Standish's wives Rose and Barbara are not known. Rose died on 29 Ja nuary 1620/1 at Plymouth, and wife Barbara arrived on the ship Anne in July 1623. By the tim e of the 1623 Division of Land, Myles and Barbara were already married. This probably suggest s a marriage arranged by Standish, to a Barbara he either knew from home or from his stay i n Leyden. There is absolutely no evidence at all to suggest Barbara's maiden name was Mullins , as is sometimes claimed, nor that either Rose or Barbara were his cousins as occasionally c laimed. There is also no evidence to suggest Myles Standish pursued Priscilla Mullins, as i n the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, "The Courtship of Myles Standish ". This poem was in tentionally fictional and should be considered as such. Myles Standish would have been abou t 39 and Priscilla about 18--an unlikely couple. BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY: Myles Standish started his military career as a drummer, and eventually worked his way up an d into the Low Countries (Holland), where English troops under Heratio Vere had been statione d to help the Dutch in their war with Spain. It was certainly here that he made acquaintanc e with the Pilgrims at Leyden, and came into good standing with the Pilgrims pastor John Robi nson. Standish was eventually hired by them to be their military captain. Captain Standish lead most of the first exploring missions into the wintery surroundings at C ape Cod looking for a place to settle. He was elected military captain, and organized the Pil grims defenses against the Indians, as well as protect the Colony from the French, Spanish, a nd Dutch. In 1622 he led an expedition to save the remaining members of the Wessagusett Colon y and killed several Indians who had led the plot to kill all the Englishmen at that Colony. Standish befriended an Indian named Hobomok, just as Bradford befriended Squanto, and the tw o lived out their lives very close to one another. Hobomok was a warrior for Massasoit, and t he two "military men" probably understood one another better than most. So much could be written about Myles Standish. But here are a few selections from what contem poraries had to say about him, both the good and the bad. William Bradford on Myles Standish: But that which was most sad and lamentable was, that in two or three months' time half of the ir company died, especially in January and February . . . So as their died some times two o r three of a day in the foresaid time, that of 100 and odd persons, scarce fifty remained. An d of these, in the time of most distress, there was but six or seven sound persons who to the ir great commendations, be it spoken, spared no pains night nor day, but with abundance of to il and hazard of their own health, fetched them wood, made them fires, dressed their meat, ma de their beds, washed their loathsome clothes, clothed and unclothed them. . . . Two of thes e seven were Mr. William Brewster, their reverend Elder, and Myles Standish, their captain an d military commander, unto whom myself and many others were much beholden in our low and sic k condition. William Hubbard, c1650 in his The General History of New England, writes of Standish: Capt. Standish had been bred a soldier in the Low Countries, and never entered the school o f our Savior Christ, or of John Baptist, his harbinger; or, if he was ever there, had forgo t his first lessens, to offer violence to no man, and to part with the cloak rather than need lessly contend for the coat, though taken away without order. A little chimney is soon fired ; so was the Plymouth captain, a man of very little stature, yet of a very hot and angry temp er. The fire of his passion soon kindled, and blown up into a flame by hot words, might easil y have consumed all, had it not been seasonably quenched. Thomas Morton of Merrymount, in his New England's Cannan describing Standish, and his own arr est which was carried out by Standish (1637): . . . But mine Host no sooner had set open the door, and issued out, bu t instantly Captain Shrimp and the rest of his worthies stepped to him, laid hold of his arm s , and had him down . . . Captain Shrimp, and the rest of the nine worthies, made them selves, (by this outrageous riot,) Masters of mine Host of Merrymount, and disposed of what h e had at his plantation. Nathaniel Morton in his New England's Memorial (1669) wrote of Myles Standish's death in 1656 : This year Captain Miles Standish expired his mortal life. . . . In his younger time he went o ver into the low countries, and was a soldier there, and came acquainted with the church at L eyden, and came over into New-England, with such of them as at the first set out for the plan ting of the plantation of New-Plimouth, and bare a deep share of their first difficulties, an d was always very faithful to their interest. He growing ancient, became sick of the stone, o r stranguary, whereof, after his suffering of much dolorous pain, he fell asleep in the Lord , and was honourably buried at Duxbury. Conspiratorial letter of John Oldham, intercepted by William Bradford: Captain Standish looks like a silly boy and is in utter contempt. Edward Winslow, in Good News From New England describing an retaliatory military expedition , relating to an Indian conspiracy Massasoit had alerted the Pilgrims to (1624): Also Pecksuot, being a man of greater stature than the Captain, told him, though he were a gr eat Captain, yet he was but a little man; and said he, though I be no sachem, yet I am a ma n of great strength and courage. These things the Captain observed, yet bare with patience fo r the present. . . . On the next day he began himself with Pecksuot, and snatching his own kn ife from his neck, though with much struggling, killed him therewith . . . Hobbamock stood b y all this time as a spectator, and meddled not, observing how our men demeaned themselves i n this action. All being here ended, smiling, he brake forth into these speeches to the Capta in: "Yesterday Pecksuot, bragging of his own strength and stature, said, though you were a gr eat captain, yet you were but a little man; but today I see you are big enough to lay him o n the ground." A chair and a sword owned by Myles Standish are preserved in the Pilgrim Hall Museum, Plymout h, Massachusetts. The authenticity of the portrait of Myles Standish shown above not fully kn own. The inscription with the portrait reads "AEtatis Suae 38, Ao. 1625", and it is only by t radition that the portrait is of Myles Standish--a tradition, however, which dates back to a t least 1812. SOURCES: Robert S. Wakefield, Mayflower Families for Five Generations: Myles Standish, volume 14 (Plym outh: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1994). George V.C. Young, Myles Standish: First Manx American, (Isle of Man: Manx-Svenska, 1984). George V.C. Young, More on Pilgrim Myles Standish: First Manx American, (Isle of Man: Manx-Sv enska, 1986). George V.C. Young, Myles Standish was Born in Ellenbane, (Isle of Man: Manx-Svenska, 1988). Norman Weston Standish, "Standish Lands in England," Mayflower Quarterly 52:109. William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Samuel Morison (New York: Random House, 1952). William Bradford and Edward Winslow. A Relation or Journal of the Beginning and Proceedings o f the English Plantation settled at Plymouth . . . (London: John Bellamie, 1622). Edward Winslow. Good News From New England (London: John Bellamie, 1624). Thomas Morton. New English Canaan (Amsterdam: Frederick Stam, 1637). Nathaniel Morton. New England's Memorial (Cambridge, 1669). Merton Taylor Goodrich, "The Children and Grandchildren of Capt. Myles Standish", New Englan d Historical and Genealogical Register 87(1933):149-153. Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1876-1877, p. 324 (Standish portrait inf ormation).

HOW CAPTAIN MILES STANDISH MET

THE INDIANS.

ON one of the boats that ferried across shoal water from the Mayflower to the rock came Captain Miles Standish, with his wife Rose and their household belongings.

Captain Miles Standish was a" character" He was about forty years old. He was short, sturdy, and stout, as quick of temper as he was of eye; in fact, the Indians called him the "little pot that soon boils over." But they also called him the "strong sword," which shows how much they feared and respected his valor.

He was courageous, energetic, and determined, a man of sound ideas, of good common sense, and ripe military knowledge based on real experience. He was gentle of heart, sparing of words, strong of purpose, and of excellent judgment. It was a great good fortune that gave to the first Massachusetts colony so valiant a defender, so faithful a comrade, and so excellent a soldier as Captain Miles Standish.

Though one of the Puritan Pilgrims, he was no Puritan. He came of the old Roman Catholic family of Standish of Duxbury Hall, in the English county of Yorkshire. Defrauded of his rights and his inheritance when a young man, he went across the sea to Holland, and there enlisted, like other English soldiers, in a Dutch regiment. He made friends in the Separatist colony at Leyden, became interested in their plans, and, being of a restless and adventurous disposition, joined himself to the company of Pilgrims, and embarked with them on their uncertain voyage to the New World.

He was a fine soldier, and was looked upon by his companions as the one best fitted as a leader in all affairs of danger or of defense. He had signed the compact for mutual protection in the cabin of the Mayflower; he led the first exploring party at Cape Cod; and had headed the landsmen who made that bolder voyage across the bay to Plymouth. Even before the landing of the Pilgrims at the rock, he had seen and scattered at Eastham, on " the cape," certain of the scarce and unreliable Indians who had spied upon, threatened, and, on one occasion, really attacked the newcomers on the Massachusetts shores; in memory of which this place for years retained the name the Pilgrims gave it—the " First Encounter."

These Indians were members of one or another of the twenty tribes of red Americans who then inhabited the present State of Massachusetts. But their numbers were small, and it was because of this that the Pilgrims of Plymouth were able to occupy and hold without molestation the fertile fields that lay about the place of landing and settlement.

Once upon a time that section had been fairly well peopled with Indians. But a few years before the coming of the Pilgrims a fatal epidemic had swept across southeastern Massachusetts, and but few Indians had been spared. Those who lived had joined other tribes, leaving their corn fields and hunting grounds uncared for and unoccupied.

Of these the Pilgrims took possession, and after they had built the half-dozen log huts of their little settlement upon a street (now known as Leyden Street) starting from the rock and running up to the hill, Captain Miles Standish had raised on this hill a strong platform, upon which he mounted a few cannon, to protect the little settlement below. They passed their first terrible winter there on Leyden Street, It was really not a terrible one, as New England winters go, but it was fatal to those English people unused to the climate, the changes, and the quick consumption and deadly pneumonia they led to. Then as soon as spring fairly opened, the little remnant of fifty-two seasoned ones set about planting and farming the Indian plantation.

In this farm work they were greatly helped by an Indian with a story. His name was Squantum. He had belonged to the tribe that owned and occupied the site of Plymouth; but a few years before he had been kidnapped by a roving party of English sailors, taken to Spain in captivity, rescued by a philanthropic Englishman, taken to London, where he had lived as a servant, and finally had drifted back to his old home and hunting ground at Plymouth.

But while he had been abroad the fearful epidemic had killed or scattered all his tribe; so Squantum became a wanderer, and at last joined himself to the warlike tribe of the Wampanoags, who lived in what is now the region of Taunton, New Bedford, and Bristol.

Squantum was brought to Plymouth and introduced to :the Pilgrims by a wandering Indian named Samoset. He became very friendly because they were Englishmen,— countrymen of the good Englishman who had rescued him from slavery, rather than of the wicked Englishmen who had kidnapped him.

Squantum proved a great help to these inexperienced Englishmen who wished to become American farmers and fishermen. He told them all about the Indians in that country, helped them to make friends, and afterwards to arrange a treaty with Massasoit, the chief of the warlike Wampanoags. He sold them the land which they had " squatted upon" at Plymouth, and which they looked upon as belonging to Squantum as the last living male heir of his lost tribe.

He told them what to plant and how to plant it; he explained to them all about Indian corn, which was a new cereal to the English Pilgrims, but which often became the mainstay and salvation of the colony. In fact, Squantum proved of so much value to the Pilgrims as friend, guide, farming expert, interpreter, go-between, and companion that one recent historian declares that Americans owe a great debt to the Indian Squantum, and that he better deserves from Massachusetts a memorial and a monument than does Leif, the fabled Norseman, whose statue stands in Boston’s stately Back Bay, or any of the early heroes of colonial America ;

for an acquaintance with Indian corn and the knowledge of how to live in America, both of them brought about by this very friendly and "traveled" Indian, made the colony of Plymouth not only possible, but permanent.

It was Squantum who brought into friendly relations with the white men the big chief of all the Indians thereabouts,—Massasoit the Wampanoag, —and we can picture to ourselves Captain Miles Standish and his six musketeers following Squantum along the town brook to the point where Massasoit and his dusky bodyguard waited to be received. A salute was fired, and after that the "guest of the colony" went back with Standish and Squantum to the town, where, in a house especially fitted up for his reception with cushions and a green carpet, the governor met the chieftain and concluded that treaty of peace and friendship of which I have spoken. This treaty was faithfully kept, both by the red men and by the white, for more than fifty years. It was finally broken by bad white men who were newcomers in the colony, and thus brought about a bloody war. But the real Pilgrims and the honorable Wampanoags kept it loyally, and in this the Pilgrims of Massachusetts set an example which William Penn followed to such excellent advantage when lie attempted the peaceful founding of Pennsylvania.

Probably the "moral influence" of Captain Miles Standish and his "thunder-making" muskets counted for considerable with Massasoit, for these were present at the making of the treaty. The Indians, indeed, had a wholesome fear of the "little captain of Plymouth" and his slim guard of matchlock men.

Later, when the bad boy of the colony, young Jack Billington, broke the rules and wandered off, only to fall among the Indians, Squantum and Captain Standish found him and brought him back.

After that, when Squantum was captured by certain rebellious braves of Massasoit’s tribe who objected to friendship with the white men, and proposed to kill Squantum,—the "mouth of the Englishmen," as they called him,—Captain Miles Standish led his picked soldiers against the rebels, and forced them to give up Squantum and obey Massasoit.

When an Indian conspiracy aimed at the destruction of the white men’s settlements, —which began to extend along the coast after Plymouth had proved itself a success,—Captain Miles Standish straightway led his little army of a dozen men against the hostiles, who were not of Massasoit’s tribe, seized the ringleader of the conspiracy, killed two Indians who attempted to interfere, and by his stern and determined manner so surprised and overawed the conspiring savages that they quickly fled, leaving their leader a prisoner in the "little captain’s" hands, and never again attempted to interfere with those whom the "strong sword" protected.

So, with firmness, decision, fairness, and friendship, with a show of force when necessary, and with real fighting if pushed to it, but always with justice and for the ends of peace and security, Captain Miles Standish met the Indians of Massachusetts, and always came off conqueror.

It was because of his courage and firm front, quite as much as because of the honor of the Pilgrims in treaty keeping, that the Indians of that section were for so many years peaceful and friendly. It was because of the valorous captain of Plymouth, the trusted defender of the colony in its days of weakness, its honored representative in England in the days of its firm establishment, that the English colonists along the south shore of Massachusetts were enabled to gain and keep a footing in the section which their pluck, their faith, and their persistence first colonized and afterwards developed.

But, in spite of his courage and firm front, Captain Miles Standish, if we may believe the legends, had not the pluck to plead his own cause when he wanted a wife. I have told you that there came to Plymouth with Captain Standish his wife Rose. But she did not live through that first dreadful winter, when the harsh, Massachusetts east wind laid so many of the unseasoned Pilgrims low.

The colony, to succeed, must be a colonyof homes; and in such an association it was, as the Bible assured the Pilgrims, "not well for man to live alone. So Captain Miles Standish decided to take another wife, and his choice fell upon Priscilla Mullens, daughter of one William Mullens, who with his wife and two children came over in the Mayflower.

But Captain Standish’s wife Rose had only been dead about three months, and the captain, either for this reason or from some other cause, did not feel like him self asking Mr. Mullens for his daughter; so he prevailed upon his young friend John Alden, the cooper, who had joined the Pilgrims at Southampton, to interview Mr. Mullens.

The interview with Priscilla’s father was entirely satisfactory. Mr. Mullens was perfectly willing to have the main reliance of the little band of colonists as his son-- in-law. But the Puritan maiden had no desire to marry the fiery little captain, especially when she greatly preferred the handsome young cooper, and was certain that he was proffering the captain’s request, not from choice, but from duty, and because the captain had asked him, as a friend, to be his deputy. So when her father said yes to the captain’s suit, Priscilla looked at John Alden and asked that famous question, "Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?

Evidently John did speak for himself, for the records tell us that in the spring of 1621, after that deadly first winter had left Priscilla Mullens an orphan, she married John Alden,—the second wedding in the colony. Evidently, too, the captain bore no hard feelings toward his friend because Priscilla Mullens became Mrs. Alden rather than Mrs. Standish, for we read that the fifth wedding in the colony was that of Captain Miles Standish and "a lady named Barbara," said to have been a sister of his wife Rose. We read, too,

that John Alden and his wife built a house near to that of Captain Standish and his wife, and that in after years John Alden’s daughter married Captain Standish’s son.

That is the true story of John Alden and Priscilla, and of Miles Standish’s courtship, concerning which Massachusetts’s most famous poet wrote an equally famous poem. Though it may be wrong as to details and dates, the poem is what makes these three persons of the Pilgrim days historic. For, more than dates and dry facts, Longfellow’s delightful romance gives to the age it celebrates in verse an atmosphere of gentleness, kindliness, purity, and peace that glorifies those days of hardship which suggested it, that ennobles the lovers, and makes the doughty little captain of Plymouth an honored and heroic figure.

Honored and heroic he certainly was,—the colony’s strong arm, its defense and sword; and the tall shaft on Captain’s Hill in Duxbury, which commemorates his valor and recites his praise, is not more a landmark than is Captain Miles Standish himself to us who, to-day, read of that age of effort, privation, and persistence.

Governor Carver died from an April sunstroke, and William Bradford, the runaway Austerfield boy, was elected by his fellow-colonists, in "town meeting assembled, " Carver’s successor as governor of Plymouth.

The colony grew slowly,—but it grew. Colonists came over the sea to begin a new life in the Plymouth plantation; a new charter was obtained that gave them permission from the king to live in Massachusetts instead of Virginia; in twenty years the colony was free from debt; new settlements were started as offshoots along the shore; and for all its growth and strength no two men deserve more credit, or should be held in higher esteem by Americans, than Governor William Bradford, of beautiful character, and Captain Miles Standish, the Christian soldier.

Source: www.usgennet.org

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• Reference: Ancestry Genealogy - SmartCopy: Apr 15 2018, 18:19:05 UTC

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https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/34726113/barbara-standish

From Find a Grave:

By 1624 Miles Standish married (2) to Barbara _____. She died after 6 October 1659. They had 7 children: Charles, Alexander, John, Miles, Lora, Josias, Charles again. Source: Anderson's Great Migration Study Project

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Barbara Standish is my 9th great-grandmother, wife of Myles Standish. She was born in London, Middlesex, England, and died October 6, 1659, Duxbury, Plymouth, Massachusetts, and the mother of my 8th great-grandfather, Josiah Standish Her maiden last name is unknown. See Wikitree profiles on Myles Standish and Barbara Standish, my 9th great-grandparents. They are my direct ancestors.