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For generations, historians and boat lovers have been trying to

learn more about the brave ship that brought the Pilgrims to America.

The task is a difficult one because Mayflower was such a common

name for ships back in early seventeenth-century England that there

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were at least twenty of them when the Pilgrims left for the New World.

An exact duplicate of the Mayflower has been built in England

and given to the people of the US as a symbol of good will and

common ancestry linking Britons and Americans. The Pilgrims’

Mayflower apparently was built originally as a fishing vessel. It seems

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to have been 90 feet long by 22 feet wide, displacing 180 tons of

water. The duplicate measures 90 feet by 26 feet, displaces 183

tons, and has a crew of 21, as did the original vessel. The new

Mayflower has no motor but travels faster than the old boat.

What happened to the historic boat? So far as can be told, the

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Mayflower went back to less colorful jobs and, not too many years

later, was scrapped. What happened to the beams, masts, and

planking is questionable. In the English city of Abingdon, there is a

Congregational church that contains two heavy wooden pillars. Some

say these pillars are masts from the Mayflower. A barn in the English

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town of Jordans seemed to be built with old ship timbers. Marine

experts said these timbers were impregnated with salt and, if put

together, would form a vessel 90 feet by 22 beet. The man who

owned the farm when the peculiar barn was built was a relative of the

man who appraised the Mayflower when it was scrapped.

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So the original Mayflower may still be doing service ashore while

her duplicate sails the seas again.