BORN: c1580, possibly Lincolnshire, England
DIED: September 1630, Plymouth (hanged for murder)
MARRIED: Ellen (---)
CHILDREN:
| NAME | BIRTH | DEATH | MARRIAGE |
| John | cir 1604, possibly Lincolnshire | between 22 May 1627 and September 1630 | unmarried |
| Francis | cir 1606, possibly Lincolnshire | 3 December 1684, Middleboro | Christiana (Penn) Eaton, July 1634 |
The only clue to the ancestry of John Billington is a 1612 lease of 29 acres of land from the English Crown to a gentleman, Francis Longland, and two heirs of his choice. He chose Francis Billington, son of John, and Francis Newton, son of Robert. In 1650, a survey of the land stated that Francis Longland was still living in Welby, Lincolnshire, England, aged 70, and that Francis Newton was living in Swayfield, Lincolnshire, England, and that Francis Billington was living in New England, aged about 40.
Research is currently ongoing into the Newton, Longland, and Billington families of Lincolnshire. Preliminary discoveries made by researcher Leslie Mahler show that Francis Longland was the son of John and Mary Longland of Welby. Mary Longland names her son Francis, and a daughter "Katherine Newton" in will of 20 August 1613. Also mentioned in Mary's will, among others, is her goddaughter Mary Newton. It seems likely that Katherine married Robert Newton, and they had a son Francis Newton. This would make Francis Newton the nephew of Francis Longland. The connection between Francis Longland and Francis Billington has not yet been discovered, but research in this area continues.
There is a John Billington son of John baptized on 25 April 1604 in Thurlby Near Bourne, Lincolnshire, which seems like a good candidate for the John Billington II of the Mayflower. There is a Francis Billington bp. 24 June 1607 in St. Michael, Stamford, Lincolnshire son of William which should be "watched" when further research is made, because this shows there are two Francis Billington's of the same age in the same county.
John Billington came
on the Mayflower with his wife Ellen and children John and Francis.
The Billingtons are recorded as a contentious family. Young Francis
Billington nearly blew up the Mayflower while it was sitting in
Provincetown Harbor--he shot off a gun near an open barrel of gun powder
inside the Mayflower's cabin. Shortly after settling down at Plymouth,
John Billington the elder was charged with contempt when he bad-mouthed and
insulted Myles Standish, and was sentenced to have his neck and heels tied
together, but he humbled himself and was forgiven. A few months later, John
Billington the younger wandered off into the woods, and was taken by the
Nauset Indians to Cape Cod, where he lived for about a month before he was
returned.
In 1624, John Billington the Elder was implicated in the Oldham-Lyford scandal, in which blasphemous letters were secretly being written and sent to England trying to undermine the Plymouth Colony. However, Billington claimed he was a scapegoat, and there was not enough evidence to show he was a party to the scandal so the matter was dropped.
In 1630, John Billington the Elder was tried and executed for the murder of John Newcomen, whom Billington had shot with a musket in a quarrel over a past dispute between the two. He was found guilty by a grand and petty jury, "by plain and notorious evidence", and became the first Englishman to be hanged in New England.
Harriet Hodge, Mayflower Families through Five Generations: Edward Winslow and John Billington, volume 5 (Plymouth: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1991).
R.N. Whiston, "Francis Billington and Lincolnshire," New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 124(1970):116-118.
Eugene Aubrey Stratton, Plymouth Colony: Its History and Its People, 1620-1691 (Ancestor Publishers: Salt Lake City, 1986).
William Bradford and Edward Winslow. A Relation or Journal of the Beginning and Proceedings of the English Plantation settled at Plymouth . . . (John Bellamie: London, 1622).
William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Samuel Morison (New York: Random House, 1952).