Walking through the city today, we can still see many of the places which were important to the future American colonists:

• Continuously since the 13th century, Dutch people in Leiden have bought and sold goods in a marketplace near today’s Koornbrug (Corn Bridge).



• A block from the bridge is the Stadhuis (Town Hall) where William Bradford (the Pilgrim’s future governor and adopted son of William Brewster) married his wife, Dorothy.



• Because they were poor, the English families likely bought their meat at the Penshal, across the street from the Staduis.



• Miles Standish, a soldier who joined the Pilgrims on their Mayflower crossing, was treated at St. Catherine’s Hospital in 1601. Today the chapel of that hospital is known as the Waalse Kerk (Walloon Church).



• The Pieterskerk (Peter’s Church) was a significant place for the Mayflower Pilgrims. Their pastor in Leiden, John Robinson (who had intended to join the settlers later) is buried there.



• While he was alive, John Robinson lived near the Pieterskerk. Although his house is gone, another home (the Jean Pesijnshofje almshouse, built in 1683) stands in its place. A plaque commemorates Robinson’s time there while a map from 1600 (made by Pieter Bast) gives us a contemporary view of the area around the church.



• The Pilgrims built 21 houses near the home of their pastor and lived in a garden area called “The Green Close.” Although their houses are also gone, one can see the location where they lived.



• Some of the Pilgrims left families in Leiden when they crossed the Atlantic on the Mayflower. Thomas Rogers, one of those individuals (who took a son - Joseph - with him on the crossing), died the first winter in America. While he was away, his family lived in Leiden.  (They later joined Joseph in the “new world.”)



• When meeting in private homes, for religious purposes, was no longer legal in Holland, the Mayflower Pilgrims were allowed to meet at the Begijnhofkapel.



• While living in Leiden, William Brewster (the author of the Mayflower Compact and chief elder for Pastor Robinson) wrote (and, with the help of Edward Winslow, published) books about his religious beliefs. (Writing such things would have been illegal had Brewster still lived in England.) Today, only a wall remains of the Brewster home, but the alleyway in which the house stood is called William Brewstersteeg (William Brewster Alley).

It was those books which, at least in part, forced the Pilgrims to leave Holland.