James Chilton

James Chilton (c. 1556 – 1620) was a Leiden Separatist passenger on the historic 1620 voyage of the ship Mayflower and was the oldest person on board. Upon arrival in the New World, he was a signer of the Mayflower Compact. James Chilton was one of the earliest to die that winter, perishing within the following month.

Chilton was born about 1556 (age 63 in 1619) probably in Canterbury. Kent, England. The Chilton surname is an ancient one that appears in records from at least 1339, when his ancestor Robert Chilton was a Canterbury parliamentary representative.

His father was Lyonel Chilton.

James became a freeman in 1583 in Canterbury, and in a Canterbury Quarter Session in the next year, he was recorded as being a tailor.

Per Banks, in 1583 he was recorded as James "Chylton", citizen and tailor of Canterbury.

James Chilton married about 1586 (date based on his first child’s baptism date). Research has not revealed the name of his wife, which was at one time thought to have been his stepsister, Susanna Furner, but recent research has found this not to be true. As far back as 1840 Nahum Mitchell’s History of Bridgewater provided the given name of James’ wife as “Susanna”, but there is no solid documentary evidence to this claim.

James Chilton and his wife had seven children who were baptized in Canterbury, Kent between 1587 and 1589. About 1600 the family moved to Sandwich, also in Kent, where three more children were baptized.

It is believed that here James met Moses Fletcher, who was also a Mayflower passenger, as well as other Separatists who later went to Holland, and so became part of the English Leiden religious company. Sandwich was becoming a center of Separatist activity, and was home to several future members of John Robinson's Leiden church.

The first evidence that the Chilton family had its own Separatist views appears in 1609. In late April, Chilton's wife was among four people who secretly buried a dead child, without having the Church of England perform its mandatory burial rites.

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