Hunting Myles Standish, the Mayflower Mystery Man

Hey Americans! (and/or, really, anyone else interested in how today’s world came to be how it is)

Does this mean anything to you?

Or this?

This, even?

You might not realise it but all of them could possibly be relevant to you. Because they could all play a part in the story of how you became an American (unless you’re native American, in which case that’s a very different post for a very different blog).

For all of the above are sites reputed to be associated with Myles Standish, the military advisor who sailed across the Atlantic Ocean on the Mayflower with the Pilgrim Fathers and helped them survive when they landed on what was to become the United States.

That’s a lot of ‘coulds’, I grant you, but then there isn’t an awful lot known about Myles Standish, not before he joined the passengers on the Mayflower anyway.

But what he did after he arrived in the New World points to Myles being from somewhere around my neck of the woods, in Lancashire. He established a settlement called “Duxbury” – there was then, and still is, a “Duxbury” just down the road from where I’m writing this – and in his will he left lands not far from here to his son and heir, Allexander, (even though those lands had been, as Myles says: “Surruptuously Detained from mee” possibly even before he was actually born):

I give unto my son and 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 mee as right heire by lawfull Decent but Surruptuously Detained from mee my great Grandfather being a 2cond or younger brother from the house of Standish of Standish

However, Standish is quite a common name around here, and in Myles’s day (the turn of the 16/17 Centuries) there were umpteen prominent families with that surname. They may have shared common ancestors, but by the time Myles was around they were separate branches of the same family tree – even if twigs on those branches did intermingle at times (cousins marrying cousins, for example). And so far no one has been able to establish for certain which of the branches Myles was born into.

In Myles’s day the Duxbury near here was the seat of a Standish family, but the lands Myles listed in his will weren’t linked with them but another branch of the Standishes. There’s no trace of a “Myles” in the family trees of either of these Standish families, nor in any of the other Standish families prominent enough at the time to have their lineages recorded.

Indeed, Myles may not even have been a member of any of the branches: some people speculate that he may have been something like a tenant of one of the Standish families who adopted the surname for whatever reason.

Unless or until someone produces some definite proof of Myles’s existence pre-Mayflower, his origins will remain a mystery. But that hasn’t stopped people round in this part of Lancashire claiming him as one of their own, or American descendants coming here in search of him.

2020 should have been a massive, massive, year for anyone interested in Myles and his fellow Mayflower mates. It slipped by almost unnoticed (for some strange reason…) but 2020 was the 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower.

A national programme of events was planned to mark the quadricentenary of this journey that really did change the world, and that included in Chorley, the town probably closest to most of the sites with the strongest (possible) links to Myles Standish.

I didn’t take that much notice of what was happening nationally, but in Chorley I watched as events were cancelled, postponed, re-arranged, postponed (again); the programme was rescheduled and re-named Mayflower 2020+1. And events were postponed, cancelled, rearranged and postponed (again).

One event I was particularly sad to miss out on was a coach tour of sites associated with Myles, mainly because my American mate W is one of his descendants. The idea was that (unbeknown to W) I’d do the tour ‘for her’ then surprise her by sending her a record of it so she could see where her great-great-whatever grandad may have lived. (So, yup, W this really is for you! I mean it’s for anyone else interested in how that landmass on the other side of the Atlantic came to be the United States as well, but I would never have thought of doing it if it hadn’t been for you, W.)

Of course the coach trip didn’t happen (several times), but I turned out to be luckier than most other (non-)passengers, in that two members of Chorley Heritage Group, Lincoln Shields and Bill Walker, offered to take me round one of the places with a prominent (possible) association with Myles Standish: Duxbury Park near Chorley.

Bill Walker (left) and Lincoln Shields (right)

By the time I met them, the group had managed to get funding to turn the-coach-trip-that-didn’t-happen into a “virtual tour”, so that anyone who fancied doing the trip under their own steam could – can – do it at their leisure. Paper copies are available, but a printable online version can be found here: https://www.chorleyheritagecentre.co.uk/content/chorley-celebrates-myles-standish-1620-2020-1-virtual-coach-tour.

I figured that while it’s not that difficult to get a copy of the booklet not everyone will be able to do the tour in person and see for themselves the sites as they are today, so I thought I’d share ‘my’ virtual tour, not just with you, W, but anyone else who wants to come along for the (virtual) ride…

So was our Mystery Man:

Myles Standish of Duxbury?

The claim to Myles that seems to have been made the loudest is that for Duxbury Hall, near Chorley.

Church of St Laurence, Chorley

St Laurence’s is the parish church for Chorley, and it was also the family church of the Standishes of Duxbury Hall.

Family members from around Myles’s time are buried in the crypt under the Lady Chapel, and the presence of a burial vault is marked with a stone in front of the altar:

And the Standish family also had its own pew, installed around 1600:

There’s no mention of a “Myles” in the parish registers, though. But donkey’s years ago someone searched out the page in the register completed around the time Myles is believed to have been born – and found it so damaged the contents couldn’t be read. Cue claims from descendants in the US that the page had been damaged deliberately, depriving them of their birthright.

Mayflower 400(+1) display outside the church

Duxbury Hall…

… doesn’t exist any more; it was demolished in 1956. The grounds are now partly a park and partly a golf course.

Where Duxbury Hall used to be

But even if Myles was a Standish of Duxbury, he wouldn’t have known Duxbury Hall anyway, since it was only built after 1623 (and was remodelled in 1823 and re-built in 1861, after a fire). He might – note, might – have known the estate barn, which was built around 1600 and is still standing today.

It’s now the home of Gilling Dod architects, and they were kind enough to supply me with this picture of the impressive interior, with its original cruck beams.

Hear Bill Walker talk about the barn here (apologies for the background noises – it was a really rubbish day, windy, rainy, damp; pretty typical of round here, actually. And then people wonder why Myles left!):

And the hall here:

Later buildings, added well after Myles’s day, still standing are the hall’s stables and coach house, dating from around 1780…

Bill Walker on the stables and coach house, and how Myles may have stayed in touch with his family (who/whichever it was) after 1620:

The formal gardens of the later hall/s included a walled garden. (“This is where we were going to have the American food court…” Lincoln told me sadly as we walked through it. That was the food court for a commemorative Fun Day that was postponed in 2020, only to be cancelled in 2021):

Bill Walker talks grounds and formal gardens:

Part of the gardens has recently been given over to the Myles Standish Garden which, when it’s complete, will contain plants associated with Great Britain and North America, to commemorate Chorley’s (claimed) link with the founding of the United States.

Another addition so recent it was still under construction during our tour is the Mayflower-themed play area:

which, as Bill says here, shows how the story of Myles Standish persists today:

Like many formal halls, Duxbury had lodges at the entrances to its park. Here are the lodges today, the East Lodge, on Wigan Road:

and the North Lodge on Bolton Road:

Just past the North Lodge, off Bolton Road, is Myles Standish Way. When it was built, about 10 years ago, the St Laurence History Society campaigned to get it named after Chorley’s (possible) famous son. They succeeded, too:

St Gregory’s Weldbank

If Myles was a Standish of Duxbury, he could actually have been born somewhere around here, as it’s believed that the family lived in a pele tower (a fortified house) that stood either where the church stands now or not far away from it, before moving less than a mile up the road to Duxbury.

Myles Standish of Lower Burgh?

This is Lower Burgh Hall and it possibly boasts the most tangible link with Myles. A Standish of Standish had settled in the area, which was actually part of the Manor of Duxbury, during the century before Myles was (supposedly) born. Parts of Lower Burgh Hall date back to at least the time when Myles was around, so anyone lucky enough to be invited inside (it’s a private home now) could actually be walking in Myles’s footsteps…

(Oh, and while they were visiting they could get rid of some household waste at the same time – the Chorley Council tip is right next door!)

Myles Standish of Standish?

Yes, there’s an actually place called Standish, and it was once home to a prominent family called Standish. Myles likely fitted in somewhere on its family tree, but was that on the branch living in Standish when he was born? He says in his will (written long after he’d left Lancashire, of course) that his great-grandfather was “from the house of Standish of Standish” – unlike, however, the lands he lays claim to in the will, which belonged to a different “house of Standish”.

St Wilfrid’s Church, Standish

The parish church of Standish, and the family church of the Standishes of Standish Hall, even after the Reformation and despite the family being Catholic. The church was rebuilt around the time Myles was (supposedly) born, and Edward Standish contributed a considerable amount of money towards the cost. The Standishes – who were Catholic, remember – had their own chapel in the ‘new’ church (possibly so they could be seen to be attending an Anglican church without actually entering one?). Myles is also commemorated in the East window, but that’s a modern addition.

Standish Hall:

The grand house built on this site just before Myles was supposedly born (and altered and added to over the centuries) was demolished in the 1920s, after the death of the last distant relative of the Standishes. Some of the wood panelling from the hall sort-of followed Myles across the Atlantic, as it was bought by newly-wealthy Americans, including William Randolph Hearst.

It stood somewhere round here, until it was demolished in 1921:

This is the road to the ‘hall’ site today. At the side of the track, a couple of hundred yards from the ‘hall’, is a plaque marking the site of a house the Standishes built for the priests who served in the hall chapel (by the 19th Century it was a lot easier to be Catholic than it was in the 16th Century):

Myles Standish of Ormskirk?

In his will, Myles claimed “lands” in “Ormistick Borsconge Wrightington Maudsley Newburrow Crawston and the Ile of Man”, or, today, Ormskirk, Burscough, Wrightington, Mawdesley, Newburgh, Croston and Isle of Man.

In, and a few decades before, Myles’s day, that combination of lands was owned by the Ormskirk branch of the Standish family. That “Isle of Man” could be a farm just outside Croston. It still exists today, and it’s included in the virtual tour but (full disclosure here), I’ve been just too darn lazy to cycle there to take a picture of it.

“Isle of Man” could also be ‘the’ Isle of Man, the island in the Irish Sea sort-of between Great Britain and the island of Ireland. Some Ormskirk Standishes did settle there some time before Myles was born, and, apparently, there is what the virtual tour brochure describes as “a Myles-sized gap” in their family tree, but that’s the extent of the ‘evidence’ for Myles being a member of that branch of the family. Mind you, the same could be said about any of the ‘evidence’ linking him to any of the other branches of the Standishes…

Myles Standish of somewhere else, not included in the tour?

Even a quick glance through records of the time available online tells you that ‘Lancashire’ Standishes owned land well beyond Lancashire, and Lancashire wasn’t the only county where Standishes had made their home/s.

Myles Not-Even-Standish of Wherever?

New Name, New World, New Life? Who knows….

So, apologies to anyone who’s stuck with me through all this. I’ve dragged you all round this bit of Lancashire but probably not got you any closer to knowing who Myles Standish actually was.

But for anyone who fancies trying to find out for themselves, here are some online resources. Be warned, though: you will find yourself falling down a Medieval rabbit hole. Well, not just a rabbit hole, an entire flipping warren –  and I’m speaking from experience here!:

www.mayflowerhistory.com

www.mylesstandish.info

www.moorwood.de

www.sail1620.org

This links to a radio programme about Mayflower descendants, all 35 million(!) of them: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-57698818

If your brain’s not hurting enough by now, I’m going to leave you with this, an extract from the “Souvenir Programme” published by Chorley’s Mayflower 2020 Committee before even the first bat in Wuhan had started to feel a bit peaky:

So, the 300th anniversary celebrations were scuppered by the death of the main sponsor, the 400th ones were wrecked by a global pandemic that’s killed millions of people; I don’t know about anyone else but it makes me kind-of glad I (probably) won’t be around for the 500th anniversary …