On May 12, 1621, two bereaved Pilgrims were united in marriage. Both Edward Winslow and Susannah White had lost their spouses during the first bitterly cold winter in the New World. With the coming of spring, there was new hope and new life. This first Pilgrim wedding in Plymouth inspired the weary band of settlers that hope could shine again after hardship.

Susanna’s Life Before Edward

Susanna was originally from Scrooby in England. Her parents, Richard and Mary Jackson, taught her the way of the Lord from an early age, and they brought their daughter to the meetings of the Separatists at Scrooby Manor. After being driven out from England to Holland due to persecution, Susanna Jackson met and married a wool comber named William White. They named their first baby, a boy, Resolved, in testimony to their decision to leave Holland for the New World.

On board the famous Pilgrim ship, the Mayflower, Susanna White gave birth to her second child, naming him Peregrine, a name derived from the Latin that means, fittingly, “Pilgrim.” Amazingly, the brave mother survived the dirty, crowded conditions on board the Mayflower. In fact, she was one of only four adult women to live through the first winter, brutally cold and harsh, in Plymouth. But on February 21, 1621, her husband William succumbed to the prevailing sickness and left her a widow and his sons, Resolved and Peregrine, fatherless.

Edward’s Life Before Susanna

Edward Winslow was from a noble family in England. He was well educated and positioned for a distinguished career. But he came under the influence of Separatist teaching and was determined to join the English exiles in Leiden, Holland. There, he assisted Elder William Brewster in the printing and smuggling of religious tracts. It was in Holland that he married Elizabeth Barker in 1618. The young couple determined that they would join the other Pilgrims in their proposed voyage to the New World.

Once in the New World, Edward Winslow took a leading role in the exploration of Cape Cod. He was a trusted friend of leaders such as William Brewster and William Bradford. Edward and Elizabeth Winslow were both stricken with the widespread illness that took the lives of half of the Pilgrims during that first severe winter in the New World. Edward recovered, but his wife did not. Elizabeth Winslow died on March 24, 1621.

Life Together as the Winslow Family

Susanna White needed a husband, as well as a father for her children. There was no time to enter a long period of mourning. Less than two months after the death of his first wife, Edward Winslow married Susanna White and assumed the care of her two sons. Their marriage became a model of “starting anew,” and the Lord blessed their union. Susanna bore her new husband five more children over the years and their Winslow descendants now fill the continent of North America!

Edward Winslow became one of the leading Pilgrim fathers. He was a skilled and trusted diplomat, and served as one of the chief negotiators with the Wampanoag tribe. He was a personal friend of Chief Massasoit, who was the leader of the Wampanoag confederacy. Winslow extended the chief’s life on one occasion by journeying to the village where the Indian king lay dying. After scraping the chief’s tongue with his knife and feeding him good broth, Chief Massasoit recovered.

Edward Winslow served three terms as governor of Plymouth Colony. He was one of the colony’s chief historians. He wrote an eyewitness record of God’s goodness to the settlement called Good News from New England. He also was a contributor to the book known as Mourt’s Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, a report narrating God’s mercy to the colony and one of the chief sources of the history of the first Thanksgiving.

During the English Civil War, Winslow returned to England to assist Oliver Cromwell in his Godly rule during the Protectorate. While on a mission for Cromwell to the Caribbean, Edward Winslow died in 1655, and was buried at sea near Jamaica.

Susanna Winslow lived until at least the age of sixty, but nothing is known of the exact location or date of her death. Her legacy lives on in the lives of her descendants. Her son, Peregrine White, became the oldest surviving Mayflower passenger and a Godly leader in the next generation. 

A sweet tribute to the marriage of Edward and Susanna Winslow can be seen in the only life portrait ever made of any Pilgrim, the portrait of Edward Winslow. If one looks closely at the painting, these words are readable in a letter the Pilgrim father is holding: “your loving wife, Susanna.”