BORN: unknown, called "a youth" in 1620
DIED: 6 November 1620, at sea on the Mayflower, three days shy of
Cape Cod
MARRIED: no known marriage, probably too young
CHILDREN: none
William Button was the only passenger on the Mayflower to die while she was sailing across the Atlantic. He came as an apprentice of Dr. Samuel Fuller.
The ancestry of William Button has not been identified. A William Button, along with a sister Margaret, were baptized in Austerfield, York, England, on 12 September 1589 (Mayflower Descendant, vol. 7, pg. 65). However, William Bradford wrote of William Button: "In all this voyage there died but one of the passengers, which was William Butten, a youth, servant to Samuel Fuller, when they drew near the coast."
Since Bradford called him a "youth", and the above baptized William Button was over 31 years old, it is very doubtful this is the William Button that sailed on the Mayflower. Charles Banks (English Ancestry and Homes of the Pilgrim Fathers, 1929) quotes a baptism date for a William Button, son of Robert, as 12 February 1598, in Austerfield, York, England. This William would have been about 22 when the Mayflower sailed, which is still too old to be called a youth.
There are the following baptisms of William Buttons found in the parish register abstractions of the I.G.I. which are much more probable in my opinion than the above-mentioned:
Since nothing else is known about William Button of the Mayflower, it seems unlikely that anyone will be able to determine which of these baptisms, if any, belong to the Mayflower passenger.