The Pilgrims Ended Up in Massachusetts Because They Ran Out of Beer
There are not that many things that can put a damper on festivities or ruin a party and harsh up the attendees’ buzz more quickly than if the hosts manage to run out of beer. It is a bummer, but seldom does the lack of beer produce results as consequential as what occurred in the summer of 1620, when the Pilgrims ended up in Massachusetts because they were about to run out of beer. Today, that might strike us as a trivial reason for such a momentous decision, but that’s because we’re not colonial Pilgrims.
To the Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower back then, beer was a serious matter. It began on August 5th, 1620, when they departed Plymouth, England, for a journey across the Atlantic to the newly established Virginia Colony. In other words, when they set out, the Pilgrims’ destination had not been Massachusetts, but a point significantly further south. The vagaries of weather, the hardships of crossing an ocean in a seventeenth-century sail ship, coupled with low levels of beer, made them change their minds about where to settle.