Dean Poling: When a moment saves generations

Jul. 15—How many of us have met the descendants of John Howland?

For that matter, how many of us might be descendants of John Howland?

Who's John Howland?

He's a young fellow who fell overboard the Mayflower.

As Nathaniel Philbrick writes in his book, "Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War," Howland wanted some fresh air on the famed ship. He and the other pilgrims were below decks, trying to keep safe from a storm at sea.

Howland stepped onto the deck and immediately learned that a storm-tossed ship's deck was no place for a land-lubbing pilgrim.

"The Mayflower lurched suddenly to leeward," Philbrick writes. "Howland staggered to the ship's rail and tumbled into the sea.

"That should have been the end of him. But dangling over the side and trailing behind the ship was the topsail halyard, the rope used to raise and lower the upper sail. Howland was in his mid-20s and strong, and when his hand found the halyard, he gripped the rope with such feral desperation that even though he was pulled down more than 10 feet below the ocean's surface, he never let go."

Sailors saw him go overboard and hauled him back onto the Mayflower.

That was 1620.

Writing a decade later, one pilgrim recounted Howland's near-death experience, noting that Howland had married and was on his way to fathering 10 children.

Howland's 10 children gave him 88 grandchildren.

Eighty-eight grandchildren who had children, who had children, who had children, untold thousands, perhaps millions of people, stemming from this one man in the New World of the 1600s.

One can only imagine how many Americans are the result of John Howland. After all, tens of millions claim to be descendants of the relatively few Pilgrims who sailed the Atlantic then survived the first months at Plymouth.

One can only imagine how many people, possibly people we've known, maybe even ourselves, who would not have been had Howland not grabbed the halyard.

Generations of people vanished had Howland missed the halyard or had his grip broken by the roiling sea.

Gone.

All of those people who likely served in America's wars, who started businesses, who moved away, who did good and bad, who gave birth to generations upon generations for the past 400 years, gone.

We never know of the impact one life may have. We never know of the impact of what might have been had one moment gone another way. The close calls that litter our genetic trail through the ages, the close calls overcome, the ones who disappeared, the moments that brought each and everyone of us to here and now.

We have no idea, but with the story of John Howland, we have a glimpse into what may not have been had one thing turned differently.

Dean Poling is an editor with The Valdosta Daily Times and editor of The Tifton Gazette.