With Thanksgiving coming up, attention in some quarters will turn to the Pilgrims, one of the most intensively studied colonial groups in history. Debate continues about Pilgrims and Puritans holding the first 'American', or New England thanksgiving, when (1621, 1623, 1631) and where (in Plymouth or in Boston).
It is much clearer who was convicted of 'Ameria's first murder': John Billington of Plymouth. (although some object to this characterization; see Billington Redux)
BIllington immigrated to Plymouth in 1621, with his family: wife Eleanor, and children John and Francis. Billington may have been born in in 1580 around Spalding, Lincolnshire, England. Eleanor (Ellen) may have been a Newton (thus the connection to us), or a Longland. A Francis Longland from Lincolnshire named two heirs: Francis Billington and Francis Newton (the thinking that Elleanor was a Newton who married Billington; she could have been a Longland too).
The Mayflower overcame incredibly horrible conditions to approach land in November 1620, near Cape Cod; John Billington signed the Mayflower Compact that day.
Upon sighting land, young Francis Billington fired off a musket on the ship, apparently near the powder magazine. (He also discovered the Billington Sea later). Although many of Plymouth's women and children died the fist winter, all of the Billingtons survived.
John Billington the younger went missing for several days in the woods, to be brought home by natives from Nauset on Cape Cod.
Ellinor (Ellen, Elleanor) spend time in stocks, where she was whipped for slandering John Doane.
John Billington the elder caused particular problems. He was known to be a malcontent on the mayflower. He was implicated in the Oldham-Lyford Scandal in 1624. He frequently stirred up trouble for other colonists.
in 1630, Billington was arrested, tried and convicted of the murder of John Newcomen. Billington's sentence was carried out when he was hung in September 1630.
Wife Eleanor remarried Gregory Armstrong in 1638, she died in March 1642.