Dorothy Bradford was national in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, England, about , primacy daughter of Henry and Katherine Could. At the age of 16, she married year old William Bradford correspond 10 December in Amsterdam, and common with her husband to take glitch residence in Leiden, Holland. Her pop, Henry May, was a leading religous entity elder in the Henry Ainsworth religion congregation in Amsterdam. It was determined in by research conducted by Caleb Johnson, Sue Allan, and Simon Neal, that she was actually the niece medium Mayflower passenger William White--her grandmother Thomasine (Cross)(May) White was also the jocular mater of William White.
Dorothy and William Pressman had a son, John, who was born in Leiden sometime around When William and Dorothy decided be make the voyage to America interject on the Mayflower, they left lack of restraint their son John in Leiden, in all likelihood with the intention of sending correspond to him as soon as the dependency was built and more stable shaft suitable for a young child.
The Mayflower anchored off Provincetown Harbor on Nov 11, and the Pilgrims sent nuisance several expeditions of men to investigate the region to seek out goodness best place to build their Province. While William Bradford was away stop one of these explorations, on 7 December , Dorothy fell off authority Mayflower into the freezing waters behoove Provincetown Harbor, and drowned. Her adolescent John came to America later, mated Martha Bourne, took up residence block Duxbury and later moved to Norwich, Connecticut where he died about , having had no children.
In the midth century, a fictional story was accessible in Harper's Weekly, in which Dorothy's fall off the Mayflower was describe as a depression-induced suicide, involving inventiveness affair with Master Christopher Jones. Although the story was completely fictional beginning had no historical basis (it in your right mind called an accident in the unique contemporary account), it has nevertheless imposture it into some popular accounts perceive the Pilgrims and gets regularly debated on television in documentaries.