According to Edward Winslow, one of the senior leaders on the Mayflower and author of A Relation or Journal of the Beginning and Proceedings of the English Plantation Settled at Plimoth in New England (Otherwise known as Mourt’s Relation), TWO dogs made the journey from Plymouth, England to the New World in 1620. He referenced a small spaniel that belonged to John Goodman and a female mastiff.
According to Winslow, the two dogs once got a few men in some trouble in January of 1621; John Goodman and Peter Brown were out cutting thatch with a group of men when their two dogs– “a great mastiff bitch” and a spaniel– spotted a deer nearby and chased it into the woods. Goodman and Brownran ran deep into the forest after the dogs and became lost, with no weapons or warmth in the freezing January snow. Winslow recounts that Goodman and Brown thought they heard lions in the distance and so they slept in a tree that night. The two eventually made their way back to the ship and settlement the next day, though Goodman suffered severe harm to his freezing cold feet.
In honor of National Dog Day, here are some of our favorite #DogsOfPlymouth:
