It is said he was born in Lancashire, England around 1584, and affirmed in his will that he was descended from the important Roman Catholic family, Standish of Standish, and had been fraudulently deprived of his inheritance, but no confirmation of this descent and no details of his early life have been discovered by extended modern research.
He served in the Low Countries as soldier of fortune and in 1620 was hired by the Pilgrims to accompany them, sailing from London on the Mayflower. The only man with practical experience in camping, he was their mainstay in the first explorations of Cape Cod and was one of the small party who made the first landing at Plymouth on December 11/21, 1620.
During the general sickness of the first winter he was the only man except William Brewster, 1567-1644, who escaped, and with Brewster he rendered most important service to the sick. Probably it was this incident which made him one of the Pilgrims in fact and not merely their employee.
Their first relations with the Indians he handled expertly, and, soon learning the Indian dialects, he became their chief resource in "foreign relations. " Almost single-handed he suppressed the early conspiracies against them, designed and superintended the erection of the fort, and devised their measures of defense.
So well did he work that after 1623 the colony experienced no real danger for half a century. This was one of the most important contributions to the welfare and success of Plymouth.
In 1624 he became one of the five assistants then appointed for the first time. Four years later he broke up the settlement of Thomas Morton at Merry Mount and shipped the offender to England. Certainly by 1625 he was established as one of the Pilgrims, for at that time he was selected for a difficult mission.
Isaac Allerton and Edward Winslow, 1595-1655, had failed to complete satisfactory arrangements with the Merchant Adventurers or with the Council for New England, and the Pilgrims were as yet without rights in the new world to land or property. Standish was chosen to return to England bearing credentials to negotiate on their behalf. With the Council he had some success, with the merchants very little; but he did secure further loans and purchased supplies of great importance. He returned in April 1626.
The following year he became one of the Undertakers who assumed the debts of the colony, and in 1630 was the attorney for the Council for New England to deliver to the Pilgrims their land under the new grant. In later years he continued one of the chief men in all affairs, for six years treasurer and for twenty-nine an assistant.
There is some doubt whether he was ever a member of the Pilgrim church, but the better view seems to be that he became a convert soon after reaching Plymouth. On his death in 1656 he left a considerable property in land and cattle, and one of the largest libraries at Plymouth.
Myles Standish was a leader of the group in the colony that bought out the London investors. Standish helped to break up the colony of Thomas Morton at nearby Merry Mount when it proved too unpuritanical to suit Plymouth. He also served as assistant governor and as treasurer of the Plymouth colony (1644–49).
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Short, plump, and sturdy in appearance, he was called by Thomas Morton "Captaine Shrimp, " a "quondam Drummer", and by William Hubbard, he was compared for his "very little stature" and his "hot and angry temper" to "a little chimney soon fired". He was nevertheless a man of great physical endurance and high courage.
Quotes from others about the person
Possibly the best source, however brief, on Standish's origin and early life is a short passage recorded by Nathaniel Morton, secretary of Plymouth Colony, who wrote in his New England's Memorial, published in 1669, that Standish:
". .. was a gentleman, born in Lancashire, and was heir apparent unto a great estate of lands and livings, surreptitiously detained from him; his great grandfather being a second or younger brother from the house of Standish. In his younger time he went over into the low countries, and was a soldier there, and came acquainted with the church at Leyden, and came over into New England, with such of them as at the first set out for the planting of the plantation of New Plymouth, and bare a deep share of their first difficulties, and was always very faithful to their interest. "
His wife, Rose, having died in the sickness of the first winter, he married in 1624 his second wife, Barbara, who had come in the Anne in 1623. They had six children, of whom a son and a daughter died young.
