The Brewster Book Manuscript

A blank notebook was brought on the Mayflower. Within it the writer recorded letters from New England and Virginia and copied patents and commissions. He copied provisions lists, one of his own letters, and wrote instructions on transporting cattle. He copied down a Latin text he had seen in Leiden, Holland, in 1617, when he worked as a printer. The notebook came into the hands of William Brewster in the 1630s. When he died in 1644 his son Jonathan used it to record the sale of some of his father's books. Jonathan started keeping a genealogical record of his family. He made alchemy notes and copied a church history. It continued to be used to record family records until 1899. This invaluable notebook has never been transcribed or fully studied. Caleb Johnson and the Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants are pleased to make this long-overlooked manuscript available, with the original pages imaged and presented with a transcription on the page opposite.