1897
Plymouth · General Society
The General Society is formed.
Descendants organize the parent society in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in time for the 277th anniversary of the landing.
A Society of Maryland Descendants
By blood,
by bond,
by covenant.
For three centuries and four winters, the Pilgrims’ voyage has been kept by their descendants — not as relic, but as living thread. From the cabin of the Mayflower in 1620 to a charter signed at the Lord Baltimore Hotel in 1938, the line has held in Maryland.
We are physicians and farmers, mapmakers and mothers — bound together by the names on a manifest, and the company we keep in the years that follow.
1620.
Crossing of the Mayflower
1938.
Maryland Chapter Chartered
54.
Member Societies, Worldwide
102.
Pilgrims Aboard the Voyage
A Line of Descent · An Account
An Account of Our Founding
From a wooden ship to a Baltimore parlor.
The Society honors the men, women, and children who sailed on the Mayflower and signed the Compact at Cape Cod — and the unbroken chain of Maryland families who carry their names today. Membership is by proven descent; what we make of it together is our own.
The Maryland Chapter was chartered on the 4th of March, 1938, at the Lord Baltimore Hotel — ten years a building, and twenty-two stories tall. On the 5th of March, 2011, a plaque and the framed Crossing of the Mayflower by Captain Fritz Briggs was unveiled near the gift-shop entrance, exactly seventy-three years to the date.
In the years since, the Chapter has become a small but durable fellowship: a dinner each spring, a Compact dinner each November, and a quiet labor of genealogy carried on in the corners of the state. We descend from John Howland and Richard Warren, from Francis Cooke and others — and where we descend from, we remember.
· ✦ ·
“The line is the thing; the keeping of it is the calling.”
1620
Cape Cod · November
The Compact is signed.
Forty-one men aboard the Mayflower bind themselves into a civil body politic — the first written framework of self-government in the colonies.
1938
Baltimore · 4 March
Maryland is chartered.
At the Lord Baltimore Hotel, the Maryland Society of Mayflower Descendants receives its charter from the General Society.
Today
Annapolis · Statewide
A small, durable fellowship.
Spring and Compact dinners, scholarship awards, genealogical research, and the slow, careful keeping of records.
Scholarship · Service · Records
What we keep, we give.
A society in service.
Beyond the dinners and the dues, the Chapter quietly funds a yearly scholarship, keeps the records of a hundred Maryland lines, and tends the small labors of a working heritage society. The work is shared.
Awarded yearly
The Mayflower Scholarship.
Each year the Chapter awards a scholarship to a graduating high-school senior of proven Mayflower descent. The fund is sustained by member contributions and the quiet labor of a working society.
Apply or ContributeOngoing
The work of keeping.
Genealogy for new applicants, record-keeping for established lines, and hospitality at the spring and compact dinners. The Chapter runs on volunteer hours — yours are welcome.
Lend a HandAs you are able
Give to the line.
Direct contributions to the Chapter sustain the Scholarship Fund, the Maryland Mayflower Log, and the everyday costs of keeping a heritage society at work.
Make a ContributionDinners · Lectures · Congress
Of Dinners & Gatherings
What we make of the in-between years.
The Chapter meets twice a year for a long meal: once in the spring, once in November in honor of the Compact. Lectures and special events are added as occasion permits.
19
April 2026
The Spring Dinner
Tom Frank, M.D. — “Medicine in the Plymouth Colony.”
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22
November 2026
The Compact Dinner
Richard Stone — author of Project Mayflower.
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By invitation, 2026
New Jersey Society Luncheon
A reciprocal gathering with our neighbors in New Jersey.
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Triennial · Plymouth
The General Society Congress
The triennial assembly of the GBOA in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
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Signed at Cape Cod · 11 November 1620
Words signed at Cape Cod
A civil body politick.
Before they came ashore, forty-one men aboard the Mayflower set their hands to a document of one short paragraph. It has carried weight enough for four centuries.
The Compact was signed in the cabin of the ship, on the eleventh day of November, 1620 — off the tip of Cape Cod, in the colder weather of the new world.
Its language is plain. Its work is durable. The descendants of its signers have kept its memory in dinner rooms and parlors for the four hundred and six years that have followed.
— A common cause, kept commonly.Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia — do by these Presents solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation. The Mayflower Compact · 11 November 1620
Annual dues are open until the 1st of April.
Pay early at $65, or at $75 thereafter. The treasurer keeps a quiet ledger and a longer memory.
Pay Annual Dues