Elizabeth Tilley Howland

What she chose to leave

Elizabeth Howland's will distributes a household in striking detail. Beds, blankets, linen, a cupboard, an iron pot and a brass kettle appear beside books and a set of weighing scales. The objects are assigned to particular people, sometimes with the useful qualification that the recipient already possessed them. Written on December 17, 1686, the will records her decisions after more than six decades in New England.

Elizabeth had been baptized at Henlow, in the English county of Bedfordshire, on August 30, 1607. She crossed the Atlantic in 1620 with her parents, John Tilley and Joan Hurst Tilley. Both died during the first winter at Plymouth, the English colony on the coast of present-day Massachusetts. She later married John Howland, and they raised ten children. The family's homes included Duxbury and, by about 1640, Rocky Nook, in what is now nearby Kingston.

John died in 1673. His will made Elizabeth his executor and gave her use of his house and lands during her lifetime, with the property then passing to their son Joseph. The provision secured a place and an income-producing resource for her widowhood, but it was a life interest rather than unrestricted ownership to dispose of as she pleased.

Her own will shows a different set of choices. John was to receive money, linen and a volume of Tyndale's works. Joseph received linen and the stilliards, or steelyard scales. Jabez was left a feather bed, bedding and a large iron pot with its hooks. Isaac's portion included a work on Romans and a brass kettle already in his possession. Her son-in-law James Browne received the great Bible.

Lydia Browne's bequest was especially detailed: Elizabeth's best feather bed, a green rug, a small cupboard, andirons, a small Bible, Robinson's Divine and Moral Observations and some of her finest linen. Elizabeth Dickenson, Lydia Browne and Hannah Bosworth were to divide her wearing clothes and the remaining estate. Other bequests extended to the next generation and included chests, sheep and interests in land.

These provisions preserve the distinctions Elizabeth made among possessions, obligations and recipients. She asked the beneficiaries to live in peace. She appointed James Browne and Jabez Howland to carry out the instructions.

Elizabeth died at Swansea, in what is now southeastern Massachusetts, on December 21, 1687. The will leaves her more than a name among the Mayflower survivors: an elderly woman directing the transfer of the furniture, tools, textiles and books accumulated through a long family life.

Her mother’s fuller recorded name is Joan Hurst Rogers Tilley. The children included Desire. In her later years Elizabeth lived with Lydia Howland Browne at Swansea. Pilgrim Hall Museum identifies her burial at Little Neck in East Providence, distinct from her husband’s Burial Hill memorial.