DELFT HAVEN

 

DELFT HAVEN 

DELFT HAVEN is a clean, but rather dull town on the coast of Holland, a few miles from Rotterdam. It is of great interest to Americans, as being the place from which the first band of Pilgrim Fathers sailed for America. This was in the Speedwell, on the 22d of July, 1620. At Southampton England she was joined by the Mayflower with English Pilgrims, or Puritans, who had not emigrated to Holland. 
The two vessels had sailed but one hundred miles when the Speedwell sprung a leak, and both it and the Mayflower put into Dartmouth harbor, and the leak was stopped .But the Speedwell sprung another leak when near Land's End, and both vessels put into Plymouth harbor, where it was resolved to leave the unseaworthy Speedwell; and all went in the Mayflower, except about twenty, who could not be accommodated. On the 22d of December, the Mayflower reached the bay and port afterwards called Plymouth, and the Pilgrims landed on Forefathers Rock, and became the founders of the New England States.

References:

The American Chatterbox 1822