William Butten

Provincetown, Massachusetts, memorial to Pilgrims who died on board the Mayflower in Nov./Dec. 1620

William Butten was a young indentured servant of Samuel Fuller, a long-time leader of the Leiden Church. Butten died during the voyage of the Mayflower while traveling with Fuller, who had been appointed doctor for the group. At that time, children and young men were routinely rounded up from the streets of London or taken from poor families receiving church relief to be used as laborers in the colonies.[1][2] Butten was sick the entire voyage and died on November 6, 1620 at sea when near the coast of New England.

  1. ^ Morison & Commager, The Growth of the American Republic, Virginia, 1618-1622 (in H.S. vol. 1,(4th Ed., New York, 1950), p.40
  2. ^ R.C. Johnson, The Transportation of Vagrant Children from London to Reinmuth (Ed.), Early Stuart Studies: Essays in Honor of David Harris Willson, (Minneapolis: 1970)