Crosby Ancestors in Prime Time

Eleanor Billington: “The matriarch of one of America’s most troublesome first families.” Well, National Geographic Channel is going to be putting some of my family’s business out there. Here is the who is who…

One Family in Every Neighborhood

John and Eleanor Billington are to be part of the National Geographic Channel docudrama, Saints and Strangers. John and Eleanor are my 10th-great grandparents on the Crosby side of my family tree.  Their notoriety was more infamous than famous.  I’m not sure how deep this series plans on going, but the brief character sketches provided on the Nat Geo website are as such:

John Billington, Sr.

… was the patriarch of a family of troublemakers who drew attention on the ship for its troublesome behavior. Billington was implicated in mutinous maneuvering during the journey, and his son Francis [my 9th-great grandfather] could have sent the ship to the ocean floor by firing off his father’s musket near a powder keg while the ship was moored in Plymouth Harbor. The elder Billington was accused of—and talked his way out of—charges of insubordination in the challenging of the military rule of Myles Standish. He was implicated in the Oldham-Lyford failed revolt against the Plymouth church, and ultimately made history as the first person to be executed in the new colony for his conviction of the murder of John Newcomen.

Eleanor Billington

The matriarch of one of America’s most troublesome first families, Eleanor Billington also found trouble on her own. In 1636 she was sentenced to sit in the stocks and be whipped for slandering John Doane, an influential leader in the settlement.

So, there are the Billingtons! I previously wrote about their troubles and John’s subsequent execution in a post found here:  Black Sheep Sunday: John Billington and the Noose.

Plymouth Love Triangle

The other two ancestors included in the series are John and Priscilla (Mullins) Alden, my 9th-great grandparents.  John and Priscilla were one of the first marriages in Plymouth and have been depicted in everything from paintings to salt and pepper shakers.  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a (fictional) poem that named Myles Standish as the odd man out in the attempt to marry Priscilla Mullins.

John Alden

Was a 21-year-old ship laborer hired to be the “cooper”, or barrel maker, for the Mayflower’s voyage to America, and chose to stay in Plymouth. Alden would go on to be a prominent member of the community, serving in various capacities, and was one of the longest-surviving Mayflower passengers at the time of his death in 1687.

Priscilla Mullins

Was the only member of her family to survive the first Plymouth winter, and would go on to marry John Alden. She is well known in literary history as the unrequited love interest of Myles Standish in the fictional Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem “The Courtship of Myles Standish,” in which the military leader dispatched Alden to ask for Mullins’s hand in marriage only to have her ask why he was not speaking for himself.

 

So there you have it. The first foray into prime time for some of my ancestors. Lets hope the writers and director treated them well!

Other Ancestors to look for:

1. Francis & Sarah Eaton and their son Samuel and his wife Martha Billington (Yup. That family)
2. Samuel & Bridgett Fuller
3. William & Alice Mullins (Priscilla’s parents)
4. Richard & Elizabeth Warren
5. William & Mary Brewster
6. James Chilton and his daughter Mary Chilton (Married John Winslow).
7. Peter & Martha Brown

 Green Text indicates they are great grandparents.