Walk through a 1667 house where the Mayflower Pilgrims lived

Journey

About 2 million people, including three U.S. presidents, can trace their ancestry to the pilgrim family who lived there.

Plymouth native Peter Arenstam worked for years on a replica of the Mayflower ship in Plymouth Harbor before learning he was the descendant of a pilgrim who arrived on the real ship more than 400 years ago.

He now spends his time maintaining the 1667 Jabez Howland House, a historic home where his famous ancestors once lived and which will reopen for tours in June. It is on the National Register of Historic Places and is believed to be the only existing house in Plymouth where the Pilgrims actually spent time.

The house is named for the son of John and Elizabeth Howland, who both arrived on the Mayflower in 1620. Jabez, their eighth child, purchased the property in 1669 and lived there with his wife Bethiah and their family until 1680.

“It’s a literal connection to our history,” said Arenstam, executive director of the Pilgrim John Howland Society, a lineage society founded in 1897 that purchased the house and turned it into a museum in 1912 and completely renovated it. renovated in the 1940s.

John Howland fell overboard during the Mayflower’s grueling 66-day voyage across the Atlantic and was nearly lost at sea. But he grabbed a rope and was rescued by the crew. He later worked for John Carver, the first governor of Plymouth Colony, and signed the Mayflower Compact. He also has 10 children and 88 grandchildren, Arenstam said.

An estimated 2 million people in the United States can trace their ancestors back to John and Elizabeth Howland, Arenstam said. Howland’s famous descendants include Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush as well as poets Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and actors Humphrey Bogart, Christopher Lloyd and Alec Baldwin.

Arenstam discovered he was a descendant in 2010 after a historian examined his genealogy while working for the Plimoth Patuxet Museums in Plymouth, a living history museum that recreated the Plymouth Colony and famously ship.

“I was one of the people who took care of the replica of the Mayflower II ship,” Arenstam said. “I helped navigate it several times during my time there. All this time I didn’t know I was a descendant of John Howland.

On a recent April morning, he wandered the floors of the Jabez Howland House where his ancestors once cooked, cleaned, dined and lived.

Visitors to the house really get a sense of what family life was like in the 17th century, he said. The house is filled with period furniture, spinning wheels, objects, documents and even framed letters written by Jabez.

A large, wide hearth was discovered and restored during an early 20th century renovation, he said. The hearth was a very important part of a house in those days, he said.

“The idea is you have multiple fires to do multiple things,” he said. “You could heat water to do laundry in a corner, you could prepare a meal that requires heat of different intensities and all of that can happen in this large firebox.”

Cooking tools on display in the foyer include a spider-shaped skillet with legs for cooking food over a fire, he said, a grill and a cast-iron toaster that supports bread and rotates.

The original part of the house (the right side facing) was built by carpenter Jacob Mitchell and included a downstairs room and an upstairs room, Arenstam said.

“John died in 1672. Elizabeth probably lived in this house until 1680, when Jabez and Bethiah moved to Bristol,” Arenstam said. “She signs the deed when they sell the house.”

The newer parts of the house were built in the 18th century: four rooms were added in 1720 and four more in 1750, he said.

“By visiting the house you can see the evolution of the house, starting in 1667,” he said.

There are two exposed bedrooms upstairs and the beds are surrounded by curtains.

“It’s a very typically English style and the idea is that they keep you warm,” Arenstam said.

A display case of preserved objects on the second floor includes a pewter spoon, armor and other items. Thousands of other items are housed in the Plimoth Patuxet museums, he said. Many of the artifacts were discovered during archaeological digs in the early 20th century at Rocky Nook in Kingston, about four miles away, where John and Elizabeth once lived on 100 acres. The society sponsored other archaeological digs at the site as recently as last year, Arenstam said, and artifacts are still being discovered.

“Everything is intriguing when you think that this object, whether it is a needle, a sewing pin or a pipe from an earthen pipe that was broken because it was clogged by tar and thrown in the yard, all of these things were touched by people who lived in the 17th century and came on the Mayflower. It’s pretty neat,” Arenstam said.

Howland’s descendants also donated items such as Bibles, samplers and a finger bowl once used for washing hands during meals.

Even the estate transports visitors back in time.

“We have herb gardens outside and a vegetable garden representing the type of herb garden and vegetable plots they would have had in the 17th century,” said Arenstam, who currently tends the gardens.

The Jabez Howland House reopens June 14 for tours. The tours, which run until November 1, take place Thursday to Monday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. No reservations are required and guides lead visitors through the house.

Travelers looking for other ways to learn about the Pilgrims while visiting Plymouth can visit Pilgrim Hall, filled with Pilgrim artifacts and billed as the oldest operating public museum in the country, Arenstam said. and the Plimoth Patuxet Museums, recently named the best outdoors. museum in America by USA today readers.

Editor’s note: In the coming months, Boston.com will feature historic sites in Greater Boston chosen by staff and suggested by readers. Enter your suggestion in the form below.