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Mabel de Standish
F, #9403

Father

Jordan de Standish d. 1290

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Relationship

23rd great-grandaunt of Richard Prescott Bale.

Relationship

24th great-grandaunt of Alexander Prescott Bale.

Relationship

24th great-grandaunt of Taylor Jane Bale.

Last Edited

Nov 22, 2007

Marriage*

Principal=Henry de Fulshagh

Marriage*

Jun 24, 1285

Principal=Henry Fulshaw¹

Family 1

Henry de Fulshagh

Family 2

Henry Fulshaw

Citations

[S298] Th.D. Fellow of the American Society of Genealogists Frederick Lewis Weis, The Families of Standish.

Margaret Standish
F, #21070

Father

Alexander Standish b. 1502, d. 1539

Mother

Anne Molyneaux

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Relationship

1st cousin 15 times removed of Richard Prescott Bale.

Relationship

1st cousin 16 times removed of Alexander Prescott Bale.

Relationship

1st cousin 16 times removed of Taylor Jane Bale.

Relationship

24th great-granddaughter of King Egbert of Wessex "1st King of England".

Last Edited

Nov 21, 2007

Marriage*

after 1539

Principal=Lambert Tyldesley

Family

Lambert Tyldesley

Mary de Standish¹
F, #21161

Father

Sir Ralph de Standish Knight¹ d. 1383

Mother

Elizabeth (?)¹

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Relationship

1st cousin 22 times removed of Richard Prescott Bale.

Relationship

1st cousin 23 times removed of Alexander Prescott Bale.

Relationship

1st cousin 23 times removed of Taylor Jane Bale.

Last Edited

Nov 22, 2007

Citations

[S298] Th.D. Fellow of the American Society of Genealogists Frederick Lewis Weis, The Families of Standish.

Matilda de Standish¹
F, #21106

Father

Robert de Standish¹ b. 1256, d. before May 25, 1301

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Relationship

21st great-grandaunt of Richard Prescott Bale.

Relationship

22nd great-grandaunt of Alexander Prescott Bale.

Relationship

22nd great-grandaunt of Taylor Jane Bale.

Last Edited

Nov 22, 2007

Birth*

Duxbury¹

Citations

[S298] Th.D. Fellow of the American Society of Genealogists Frederick Lewis Weis, The Families of Standish.

Myles Standish
M, b. circa 1629, d. Aug 19, 1661, #21233

Father

Captain Myles Standish b. circa 1584, d. Oct 3, 1656

Mother

Barbara (?) d. Oct 6, 1659

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Last Edited

Nov 22, 2007

Birth*

circa 1629

Plymouth, MA, USA

Marriage*

Jul 19, 1660

Boston, MA, USA, Principal=Sarah Winslow

Death*

Aug 19, 1661

lost at sea

Family

Sarah Winslow

Captain Myles Standish^1,2
M, b. circa 1584, d. Oct 3, 1656, #21166

Father

Huan? Standish

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Last Edited

Nov 22, 2007

Birth*

circa 1584

Marriage*

between 1584 and 1621

Principal=Rose (?)

Marriage*

after Jan 29, 1620/21

Principal=Barbara (?)

Will*

Mar 7, 1655

The Will of Myles Standish
The Last will and Testament of Captaine Myles Standish Exhibited before the court held att Plymouth (the 4th) of may 1657 on the oath of Captaine James Cudworth; and ordered to bee recorded as followeth;
Given under my hand this march the 7th 1655 Witnesseth these prsents that I Myles Standish senir of Duxburrow being in prfect memory yett Deseased in my body and knowing the fraile estate of man in his best estate I Doe make this to be my last will and Testament in manor and forme following;
1 my will is that out of my whole estate my funerall charges be taken out & my bod(y) to be buried in Decent manor and if I Die att Duxburrow my body to bee layed as neare as Conveniently may bee to my two Daughters Lora Standish my Daughter and Mary Standish my Daughterinlaw
2 my will is that that out of the remaining prte of my whole estate that all my jus(t) and lawful Debts which I now owe or att the Day of my Death may owe bee paied
3 out of what remaines according to the order of this Govrment: my will is that my Dear and loveing wife Barbara Standish shall have the third prte
4 I have given to my son Josias Standish upon his marriage one young horse five sheep and two heiffers which I must upon that contract of marriage make forty pounds yett not knowing whether the estate will bear it att prsent; my will is that the resedue remaine in the whole stocke and that every one of my four sons viz Allexander Standish Myles Standish Josias Standish and Charles Standish may have forty pounds appeec; if not that they may have proportionable to ye remaining prte bee it more or lesse
5 my will is that my eldest son Allexander shall have a Double share in land
6 my will is that soe long as they live single that the whole bee in prtenership betwix(t) them
7 I do ordaine and make my Dearly beloved wife Barbara Standish Allexander Standish Myles Standish and Josias Standish Joynt Exequitors of this my last will and Testament
8 I Doe by this my will make and appoint my loveing frinds mr Timothy hatherley and Capt: James Cudworth Supervissors of this my last will and that they wilbee pleased to Doe the office of Christian love to bee healpfull to my poor wife and Children by theire Christian Counsell and advisse; and if any Difference should arise which I hope will not; my will i(s) that my said Supervissors shall Determine the same and that they see that m(y) poor wife shall have as comfortable maintainance as my poor state will beare the whole time of her life which if you my loveing frinds pleasse to Doe though neither they nor I shalbee able to recompenc I Doe not Doubt but the Lord will; By mee Myles Standish
further my will is that marcye Robenson whome I tenderly love for her Grandfathers sacke shall have three pounds in somthing to goe forward for her two yeares after my Decease which my will is my overseers shall see prformed
further (m)y will is that my servant John Irish Junir have forty shillings more then his Covenant which will appear upon the towne booke alwaies provided that hee continew till the time hee covenanted bee expired in the service of my exequitors or any of them with theire Joynt Concent
March 7th 1655 By mee Myles Standish.
9 I give unto my son & heire aparent Allexander Standish all my lands as heire apparent by lawfull Decent in Ormistick Borsconge Wrightington Maudsley Newburrow Crawston and the Ile of man and given to me as right heire by lawful Decent but Surruptuously Detained from mee my great G(ran)dfather being a 2cond or younger brother from the house of Standish of Standish
March the 7th 1655 by mee Myles Standish
Witnessed by mee
James Cudworth
Myles Standish
A Manx Connection?

Death*

Oct 3, 1656

Duxbury, Massachusetts, USA²

Family 1

Rose (?) d. Jan 29, 1620/21

Family 2	Barbara (?) d. Oct 6, 1659
Children	1.	Charles Standish b. circa 1624, d. between 1627 and 1634
	2.	Alexander Standish b. circa 1626, d. Jul 6, 1702
	3.	John Standish b. circa 1627, d. before 1650
	4.	Lora Standish b. after May, 1627, d. before 1651
	5.	Myles Standish b. circa 1629, d. Aug 19, 1661
	6.	Josiah Standish b. circa 1633, d. Mar 19, 1690/91
	7.	Charles Standish b. after 1634, d. after Mar 7, 1655/56

Citations

An extract from "Tales of Old Standish" by S. Aspinall.
The story of Myles Standish seems to come direct from the pages of 'Boys' Own'. As a young man Myles was commissioned to fight in the Netherlands. On his return to England he was hired by the Merchant Adventurers to sail with the Pilgrims in the Mayflower. He was with the first landing party to step ashore after they cast anchor on November 11th, 1620, in the Bay of Cape Cod. He acted as the commander of the exploring parties, and rallied the pilgrims to counter the first attack by Indians on December 8th, 1620.
On December 19th, the settlers selected a site for their colony to which they gave the name New Plymouth, but the next few months were to be a time of terrible hardship. One hundred and one persons came ashore, but by Christmas 1620 there were so many sick or dead that only about half-a-dozen were left capable of self-help. It was at this time that Myles lost his wife, Rose Standish. These few had to tend the sick, make fires, cook, wash and feed the others. A later account says that all this was done 'without any growling in the least' by 'William Brewster, their Reverend Elder, and Myles Standish, their Captain and military commander'.
Myles continued his exploits as the colony prospered. In 1662 he successfully led a rescue mission to Weymouth, which was under Indian attack. In 1628 he put down a minor rebel;lion by break-away settlers and in 1635 led an attack on French Traders who were intent on taking land from the colony. As late as 1653 he was called upon, at the age of 70, to command the fighting volunteers of the colony against a threatened Dutch invasion.
Myles died on October 3rd, 1656, at Duxbury a settlement he had himself founded on the north side of Plymouth Bay in 1632. It is at this point in the story that the Standish connection re-appears. In his will Myles says:
"I give unto my son and heir apparent, Alexander Standish, all my lands as heir apparent by lawful descent in Ormistic (Ormskirk?), Buuscough (Burscough?), Wrightington, Maudsley, Newbarrow (Newbrough?), Cranston (Croston?), and the Isle of Man, and given to me as right heir by lawful descent, but surreptitiously detained from me, my grandfather being a second or younger brother from the house of Standish of Standish."
He obviously believed he had a strong claim to these lands and this claim has been pursued by his descendants in America.
In 1846 an association was formed to investigate the American Standish's claims to 'large tracts of rich farming lands, including several valuable coal mines and producing a yearly income of £100,000.' The representatives of this association visited Standish and Duxbury and studied the records of Chorley Parish Church where the Duxbury Standishes registered births and deaths. An account of this investigation tells us that:
"the records were all readily deciphered, with the exception of the years 1584 and 1585, the very dates about which Standish is supposed to have been born; and the parchment leaf which contained the registers of the births of these years was wholly illegible, and their appearance was such, that the conclusion was at once established, that it had been done purposely with pumice stone or otherwise, to destroy the legal evidence of the parentage of Standish and his consequent title to the estates thereabout."
This claim of defacement of Parish records has since been dismissed by other writers but it seems likely there will always remain a question mark over the will of Myles Standish.
An extract from "Tales of Old Standish" by S. Aspinall, Published by Clarington Press Ltd, Ince, Wigan, 1982

*****************

MYLES STANDISH: A lot of research has been done on the ancestry of Myles Standish, yet nothing conclusive on his parents have
been found. It has been conclusively proven that Myles' great-grandfather was Huan Standish, who was living on the Isle of Man in 1540, having died before 1572. He was identified because Myles Standish, in his will, lists a number of properties that were detained from him by legal descent from his great-grandfather. It is Huan Standish that owned all these lands, thus identifying him as Myles' great-grandfather.

Huan was the son of Robert Standish and Margaret Croft. Robert Standish is the son of Gilbert Standish, or Ormskirk, Lancashire, England. Huan had three known children: John, Huan II, and Gilbert. Gilbert has no known children. Huan II had William and John. John I had: John II, William, Joan, Katherine, Margaret, and an unnamed son. John II married Christian Lace--proposed as the parents of Myles Standish by G.V.C. Young in Myles Standish: First Manx American (1984). However, nothing has been found to conclusively prove this.
Thomas Morton of Merrymount, in his 1637 book New England's Canaan, mentions that "Captain Shrimp"
was the son of a soldier.

The maiden names of Myles Standish's wives Rose and Barbara are not known. Rose died on 29 January 1620/1 at Plymouth, and wife Barbara arrived on the ship Anne in July 1623. By the time of the 1623 Division of Land, Myles and Barbara were already married. This probably suggests a marriage arranged by Standish, to a Barbara he either knew from home or from his stay in Leyden.

Neither of his wives were his cousins, as is sometimes stated. There is absolutely no evidence at all to suggest Barbara's maiden name was Mullins, as is sometimes claimed. There is also no evidence to suggest Myles Standish pursued Priscilla Mullins, as in the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, "The Courtship of Myles Standish". This poem was intentionally fictional and should be considered as such. Myles Standish would have been about 39 and Priscilla about 18--an unlikely couple.

Myles Standish started his military career as a drummer, and eventually worked his way up and into the Low Countries (Holland), where English troops under Heratio Vere had been stationed to help the Dutch in their war with Spain. It was certainly here that he made acquaintance with the Pilgrims at Leyden, and came into good standing with the Pilgrims pastor John Robinson. Standish was eventually hired by them to be their military captain.

Captain Standish lead most of the first exploring missions into the wintery surroundings at Cape Cod looking for a place to settle. He was elected military captain, and organized the Pilgrims defenses against the Indians, as well as protect the Colony from the French, Spanish, and Dutch. In 1622 he led an expedition to save the remaining members of the Wessagusett Colony and killed several Indians
who had led the plot to kill all the Englishmen at that Colony.

Standish befriended an Indian named Hobomok, just as Bradford befriended Squanto, and the two lived out their lives very close to one another. Hobomok was a warrior for Massasoit, and the two "military men" probably understood one another better than most.

So much could be written about Myles Standish. But here are a few selections from what contemporaries had to say about him, both the good and the bad.

William Bradford on Myles Standish:

But that which was most sad and lamentable was, that in two or three months' time half of their company died, especially in January and February . . . So as their died some times two or three of a day in the foresaid time, that of 100 and odd persons, scarce fifty remained. And of these, in the time of most distress, there was but six or seven sound persons who to their great commendations, be it spoken, spared no pains night nor day, but with abundance of toil and hazard of their own health, fetched them wood, made them fires, dressed their meat, made their beds, washed their loathsome clothes, clothed and unclothed them. . . . Two of these seven were Mr. William Brewster, their reverend Elder, and Myles Standish, their captain and military commander, unto whom myself and many others were much beholden in our low and sick condition.

Thomas Morton of Merrymount, in his New England's Cannan describing Standish, and his own arrest which
was carried out by Standish (1637):

Capt. Standish had been bred a soldier in the Low Countries, and never entered the school of our Savior Christ, or of John Baptist, his harbinger; or, if he was ever there, had forgot his first lessens, to offer violence to no man, and to part with the cloak rather than needlessly contend for the coat, though taken away without order. A little chimney is soon fired; so was the Plymouth captain, a man of very little stature, yet of a very hot and angry temper. The fire of his passion soon kindled, and blown up into a flame by hot words, might easily have consumed all, had it not been seasonably quenched. . . .

. . . But mine Host [i.e. Thomas Morton] no sooner had set open the door, and issued out, but instantly Captain
Shrimp and the rest of his worthies stepped to him, laid hold of his arms [guns], and had him down . . . Captain
Shrimp, and the rest of the nine worthies, made themselves, (by this outrageous riot) Masters of mine Host of
Merrymount, and disposed of what he had at his plantation.

Nathaniel Morton in his New England's Memorial (1669) wrote of Myles Standish's death in 1656:

This year Captain Miles Standish expired his mortal life. . . . In his younger time he went over into the low countries, and was a soldier there, and came acquainted with the church at Leyden, and came over into New-England, with such of them as at the first set out for the planting of the plantation of New-Plimouth, and bare a deep share of their first difficulties, and was always very faithful to their interest. He growing ancient, became sick of the stone, or stranguary, whereof, after his suffering of much dolorous pain, he fell asleep in the
Lord, and was honourably buried at Duxbury.

Conspiratorial letter of John Oldham, intercepted by William Bradford:

Captain Standish looks like a silly boy and is in utter contempt.

Edward Winslow, in Good News From New England describing an retaliatory military expedition, relating to an Indian conspiracy Massasoit had alerted the Pilgrims to (1624):

Also Pecksuot, being a man of greater stature than the Captain, told him, though he were a great Captain, yet he was but a little man; and said he, though I be no sachem, yet I am a man of great strength and courage. These things the Captain observed, yet bare with patience for the present. . . . On the next day he began himself with Pecksuot, and snatching his own knife from his neck, though with much struggling, killed him therewith . . . Hobbamock stood by all this time as a spectator, and meddled not, observing how our men demeaned
themselves in this action. All being here ended, smiling, he brake forth into these speeches to the Captain: "Yesterday Pecksuot, bragging of his own strength and stature, said, though you were a great captain, yet you were but a little man; but today I see you are big enough to lay him on the ground."

A chair and a sword owned by Myles Standish are preserved in the Pilgrim Hall Museum, Plymouth, Massachusetts. The authenticity of the portrait of Myles Standish shown above not fully known. The inscription with the portrait reads "AEtatis Suae 38, Ao. 1625", and it is only by tradition that the portrait is of Myles Standish--a tradition, however, which dates back to at least 1812.

SOURCES:

Robert S. Wakefield, Mayflower Families for Five Generations: Myles Standish, volume 14 (Plymouth: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1994).

George V.C. Young, Myles Standish: First Manx American, (Isle of Man: Manx-Svenska, 1984).

George V.C. Young, More on Pilgrim Myles Standish: First Manx American, (Isle of Man: Manx-Svenska, 1986).

George V.C. Young, Myles Standish was Born in Ellenbane, (Isle of Man: Manx-Svenska, 1988).

Norman Weston Standish, "Standish Lands in England," Mayflower Quarterly 52:109.

William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Samuel Morison (New York: Random House, 1952).

William Bradford and Edward Winslow. A Relation or Journal of the Beginning and Proceedings of the English Plantation settled at Plymouth . . . (London: John Bellamie, 1622).

Edward Winslow. Good News From New England (London: John Bellamie, 1624).

Thomas Morton. New English Canaan (Amsterdam: Frederick Stam, 1637).

Nathaniel Morton. New England's Memorial (Cambridge, 1669).

Merton Taylor Goodrich, "The Children and Grandchildren of Capt. Myles Standish", New England Historical and Genealogical Register 87(1933):149-153.

Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1876-1877, p. 324 (Standish portrait information).
[S298] Th.D. Fellow of the American Society of Genealogists Frederick Lewis Weis, The Families of Standish.