Mrs. Chilton

Very little is known about James Chilton's wife. Mrs. Chilton's name has not even been discovered. It has been widely suggested for many years she may have been Susanna Furner, but this was fairly conclusively disproven by the research of Michael Paulick, published in 1999.

In May 1609 in Sandwich, Kent, "_[blank]_ the wife of James Chilton" was one of several individuals accused of attending the secret burial of a child of Andrew Sharpe. Shortly thereafter the family apparently left for Holland and took up residence with the Pilgrims' church in Leiden. She, her husband James, and her youngest daughter Mary came on the Mayflower to Plymouth in 1620. Her husband was one of the first people to die after arrival, on December 8. She died sometime later the first winter, but her orphaned thirteen year-old daughter Mary survived.