Mayflower Trivia Quiz Questions with Answers

Trivia quiz questions with answers about the Mayflower

Mayflower Trivia Quiz Questions with Answers

What was the Mayflower?
A: The Mayflower was an English ship that famously transported the first English Puritans, known today as the Pilgrims, from Plymouth, England, to the New World in 1620.

The Mayflower was a square rig that was typical with what?
A: English merchant ships of the early 17th century.

Her stern carried a 30-foot high, square aft-castle which made the ship what?
A: Extremely difficult to sail against the wind and unable to sail well against the North Atlantic's prevailing westerlies, especially in the fall and winter of 1620.

As a result, how long did the voyage from England to America take?
A: More than two months.

The exact dimensions are not known for the Mayflower, but she probably measured about how long?
A: 100 feet (30 m) from the beak of her prow to the tip of her stern superstructure.

How wide at her widest point?
A: About 25 feet (7.6 m)

How deep in the water would the bottom of her keel be?
A: About 12 feet (3.6 m) below the waterline.

William Bradford estimated that she had a cargo capacity of what?
A: 180 tons.

Records indicate that she could carry 180 casks holding what?
A: Hundreds of gallons each.

Aft on the main deck in the stern was the cabin for whom?
A: Master Christopher Jones.

How big was the cabin?
A: About ten by seven feet (3 m × 2.1 m).

Forward of that was the steerage room, which probably housed what?
A: Berths for the ship's officers.

Forward of the steerage room was the capstan, which was what?
A: A vertical axle used to pull in ropes or cables.

Far forward on the main deck, just aft of the bow, was the forecastle space, which was used for what?
A: It’s where the ship's cook prepared meals for the crew.

Where did the passenger reside during the voyage?
A: On the gun deck in a space measuring about 50 by 25 feet (15.2 m × 7.6 m) with a five-foot (1.5 m) ceiling.

It was a dangerous place if there was conflict, as it had what?
A: Gun ports from which cannon could be run out to fire on the enemy.

The gun room was in the stern area of the deck, to which passengers had what?
A: No access because it was the storage space for powder and ammunition.

The gun room might also house a pair of stern chasers, which were what?
A: Small cannon used to fire from the ship's stern.

Forward on the gun deck in the bow area was a windlass, which was used to do what?
A: Raise and lower the ship's main anchor.

Below the gun deck was the cargo hold where the passengers kept what?
A: Most of their food stores and other supplies, including most of their clothing and bedding.

It also stored the passengers' personal what?
A: Weapons and military equipment, such as armor, muskets, gunpowder and shot, swords, and bandoliers.

It also stored all the tools that the Pilgrims would need, as well as all the what?
A: Equipment and utensils needed to prepare meals in the New World.

There were no bathrooms on the Mayflower; passengers and crew had to what?
A: They had to fend for themselves in that regard.

Gun deck passengers most likely used what as a chamber pot?
A: A bucket, fixed to the deck or bulkhead to keep it from being jostled at sea.

The Mayflower was heavily what?
A: Armed.

Her largest gun was a minion cannon which was brass, weighed about 1,200 pounds (545 kg), and could shoot a 3.5 pound (1.6 kg) cannonball how far?
A: Almost a mile (1,600 m).

What other cannons did she have?
A: A saker cannon of about 800 pounds (360 kg), and two base cannons that weighed about 200 pounds (90 kg) and shot a 3 to 5 ounce ball (85–140 g).

She carried at least ten pieces of ordnance on the port and starboard sides of her what?
A: Gun deck: seven cannons for long range purposes, and three smaller guns often fired from the stern at close quarters that were filled with musket balls.

Ship's Master Jones unloaded four of the pieces to help what?
A: Fortify Plymouth Colony against invaders.

How many vessels were there bearing the name Mayflower in the Port Books of England during the reign of James I (1603–1625)?
A: 26.

The identity of Captain Jones's Mayflower is based on records from where?
A: Her home port, her tonnage (est. 180–200 tons), and the master's name in 1620 in order to avoid confusion with the many other Mayflower ships.

It is not known when and where the Mayflower was built, although late records designate her as what?
A: "of London".

Records dating from August 1609 note Christopher Jones as what?
A: Master and part owner of the Mayflower .

Jones sailed the Mayflower cross-Channel, taking English woolens to France and bringing what back to London?
A: French wine.

Jones was one of the owners of the ship by 1620, along with whom?
A: Christopher Nichols, Robert Child, and Thomas Short.

It was from Child and Jones that Thomas Weston chartered her in the summer of 1620 to undertake what?
A: The Pilgrim voyage.

Approximately how many passengers embarked the Mayflower in the middle of July 1620 at either Blackwall or Wapping on the River Thames?
A: 65.

The ship then proceeded down the Thames into the English Channel and then on to the south coast of England to anchor where?
A: At Southampton Water.

She waited there for a rendezvous on July 22 with the Speedwell, which was coming from Holland with whom?
A: English separatist Puritans, members of the Leiden congregation who had been living in Holland to escape religious persecution in England.

Both ships set sail for America around August 5, but what happened to the Speedwell?
A: She sprang a leak, and the two ships were brought into Dartmouth for repairs.

They made a new start after the repairs, and they were more than 200 miles (320 km) beyond Land's End at the southwestern tip of England when what happened?
A: The Speedwell sprang another leak.

It was now early September, and they had no choice but to do what?
A: Abandon the Speedwell.

Both ships returned to Plymouth, where some of the Speedwell passengers joined the Mayflower and others did what?
A: Returned to Holland.

The Mayflower then continued on her voyage to America, and the Speedwell was what?
A: Sold soon afterwards.

Mayflower carried 102 passengers plus a crew of how many?
A: 25 to 30 officers and men, bringing the total to approximately 130.

In early September, western gales began to make the North Atlantic what?
A: A dangerous place for sailing.

The Mayflower's provisions were already quite low when departing Southampton, and they became lower still by what?
A: Delays of more than a month.

The passengers had been on board the ship for this entire time, and they were what?
A: Worn out and in no condition for a very taxing, lengthy Atlantic journey cooped up in the cramped spaces of a small ship.

But the Mayflower sailed from Plymouth on what date?
A: September 6, 1620 with what Bradford called "a prosperous wind".

The ship carried two boats: a long boat and a what?
A: A "shallop", a 21-foot boat powered by oars or sails.

She also carried 12 what?
A: Artillery pieces, as the Pilgrims feared that they might need to defend themselves against enemy European forces, as well as the Indians.

The passage was a miserable one, with huge what?
A: Waves constantly crashing against the ship's topside deck, fracturing a key structural support timber.

The timber was repaired with the use of a metal mechanical device called a what?
A: A jackscrew, which had been loaded on board to help in the construction of settler homes.

On November 9, 1620, they sighted what?
A: Present-day Cape Cod.

They spent several days trying to sail south to their planned destination of the Colony of Virginia, where they had obtained permission to what?
A: To settle from the Company of Merchant Adventurers.

However, strong winter seas forced them to what?
A: Return to the harbor at Cape Cod hook, well north of the intended area, where they anchored on November 11.

What did the settlers write and sign after the ship dropped anchor at Cape Cod?
A: The Mayflower Compact, in order to establish legal order and to quell increasing strife within the ranks.

On Monday, November 27, an exploring expedition was launched under the direction of Capt. Christopher Jones to search for what?
A: A suitable settlement site.

As master of the Mayflower, Jones was not required to assist in the search, but he what?
A: He apparently thought it in his best interest to assist the search expedition.

The settlers explored the snow-covered area and discovered a what?
A: An empty native village, now known as Corn Hill in Truro.
The curious settlers dug up some artificially made mounds, some of which stored what?

A: Corn, while others were burial sites.
The modern writer Nathaniel Philbrick claims what?

A: That the settlers stole the corn and looted and desecrated the graves, sparking friction with the locals.
However, the only contemporary account of events, William Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation, records only that the pilgrims took what?

A: They took "some" of the corn, to show to others back at the boat, leaving the rest.
They later took what they needed from another store of grain, but did what?

A: Paid the natives back in six months, and there was no resulting conflict.
During the winter, the passengers remained where?
A: On board the Mayflower, suffering an outbreak of a contagious disease described as a mixture of scurvy, pneumonia, and tuberculosis.

When it ended, only how many passengers remained?
A: 53, just over half; half of the crew died, as well.

In the spring, they built huts ashore, and the passengers disembarked from the Mayflower on what date?
A: March 21, 1621.

Jones had originally planned to return to England as soon as the Pilgrims found what?
A: A settlement site.

But his crew members began to be ravaged by the same diseases that were felling the Pilgrims, and he realized what?
A: That he had to remain in Plymouth Harbor "till he saw his men began to recover."

The Mayflower lay in New Plymouth harbor through the winter of 1620–21, then set sail for England on April 5, 1621, her empty hold ballasted with what?
A: Stones from the Plymouth Harbor shore.

As with the Pilgrims, her sailors had been what?
A: Decimated by disease.

The Mayflower made excellent time on her what?
A: Voyage back to England.

Jones died after coming back from a voyage to France on March 5, 1622, at about what age?
A: 52.

For the next two years, the Mayflower lay at her berth in Rotherhithe, not far from what?
A: Jones' grave at St. Mary's church.

By 1624, she was no longer useful as a ship; her subsequent fate is unknown, but she was probably what?
A: Broken up about that time.