Coming to America, Part II

Edward Southworth's death in 1621 at the age of the 31 must have come as quite a blow to his
young family. One can easily imagine the anguish that his wife, Alice Carpenter Southworth,
must have felt at the prospect of raising their two young sons, Constant (age six) and Thomas
(age five) alone. Certainly they had dreamed of one day joining family and friends in the New
World, to help build a new order based on the teachings of the New Testament.

Life for the Pilgrims in the first year of the Plymouth Colony, however, was unexpectedly grim.
Lack of food and disease claimed many, including Governor Bradford's wife, Dorothy. He must
have received news of Edward's death in the summer of 1622 with the arrival of ships carrying
badly needed provisions, for he wasted no time in writing to Alice and proposing marriage.

Alice and William Bradford were undoubtedly well-acquainted based not only on his quick
proposal and her ready acceptance, but also on the fact that they were the same age and had
spent many years together in the small Separatist community in Leyden. Bradford and his wife
were married a month after Edward and Alice and Bradford owned property close to Heneage
House where Edward and Alice had lived prior to Edward's death.

In the summer of the following year Alice left her two sons behind and sailed for Plymouth,
arriving on 14 July 1623. Exactly one month later on 14 August Alice and William Bradford
were married by the deputy governor of Plymouth Colony, Isaac Allerton. It was an occasion for
great celebration. The colonists invited the Wampanoag tribe. Massasoit arrived with one of his
five wives, along with four other chiefs and one hundred twenty braves. They brought four bucks
and a turkey and supplied at least some of the after dinner entertainment.

Following the wedding Alice moved into her new home, constructed of hewn planks with a
small garden in the back. Things must have been a little crowded, for living in the house were
John Bradford (William's young son by his first marriage), Alice's nephew, Nathaniel Morton,
Thomas Cushman and two other boys. Alice's sons, Constant and Thomas joined their mother
and stepfather a year later, to which William and Alice added three children of their own.