The Mayflower Barn at Jordans, Buckinghamshire, England.

  
 
     
 
 

On the edge of the Chiltern hills in the South Buckinghamshire countryside in the small village of Jordans you will find the Mayflower Barn standing in a farm that dates back to the late Middle Ages. Its history begins in 1618 when Thomas Russell bought it. Part of the present farmhouse was already there and Thomas Russell added to it in 1624, when he built a substantial new barn with timbers from a ship, thought to be the Mayflower.
   
       

In the 1920s historian J. Rendel Harris concluded that the barn had been built with timbers from a ship called the "Mayflower" bought from a shipbreaker's yard in Rotherhithe for £50 (equivalent to £5,800 today) and that this was the Mayflower which carried the 102 Pilgrim Fathers from Plymouth to New England. Below is a copy of the Probate Inventory of the Mayflower in 1624 with its transcription to the left. You can listen to the story of the Mayflower Barn in the video above told by Paul Harvey.

  
           

The appraismt or valuacon of the shippe the Mayflower of London and her tackle and furniture taken and made by authoritye of his Maje Highe Courte of Admiraltye on the 26th day of May 1624 at ye instance of Roberte Childe, John Moore, and Jones the relicte of Christopher Jones deceased, owners of three fourth parte of the said Shippe, by us William Craford and ffranncis Birks of Redriffe, marriners, Robert Clay and Christopher Malym of the same, shipwrights as followeth:

Inprimis wee the said appraisers having viewed and seene the hull, maste, yardes, boate,
winles and Capsten of and belonginge to the said Shipp, Doe estimate the same at £50

Item. five anckors weighinge about 25c wt wee value at £25

Item. one suite of sailes more than half worne, wee estimate at £15

Item. 3 Cables, 2 hawsers, the shrowdes and stayes wth all the other rigginge more
then half worne at £35

Item. 8 muskitts, 6 bandeleers, and 6 piks at 50s/-

  

 

Descendents of the 102 passengers include:
 

President John Quincy Adams
President Zachary Taylor
President and General Ulysses S. Grant
President James A. Garfield
President Franklin D. Roosevelt
President George W. Bush
Alan B. Shepard
Marilyn Monroe
Orson Welles
Clint Eastwood
Humphrey Bogart
Dick Van Dyke
Christopher Lloyd
Richard Gere
Christopher Reeve
Bing Crosby
Hugh Hefner
Amelia Earhart ...
 

and a lot of other famous names and not so famous because there are tens of millions of Americans that have at least one ancestor who was among this group of early settlers. More at The Mayflower Society.