Master Christopher Jones and several business partners purchased the ship Mayflower about 1607.  It's origins prior to that remain uncertain.  Its first documented voyage of record was to Trondheim, Norway, in 1609.  Andrew Pawling hired the ship to take a cargo of London goods to Norway, sell them off, and buy Norway goods (lumber, tar, fish) to return back to England.  Unfortunately on the return voyage, the Mayflower encountered a severe North Sea storm and the master and crew were forced to toss most of Pawlings goods overboard to lighten the ship.

The home of Master Christopher Jones in Harwich, co. Essex, England.

Following that, Christopher Jones seems to have stuck with safer trading routes.  TheMayflower made numerous trips primarily to Bordeaux, France, returning to London with cargoes of French wine, Cognac, vinegar, and salt.  The Mayflower could freight about 180 tons of cargo.  The Mayflower also made occasional voyages to other ports, including once to Malaga, Spain, and twice to Hamburg, Germany.

Upon returning from a voyage to Bordeaux, France, in May 1620, the Mayflower and master Christopher Jones were hired to take the Pilgrims to Northern Virginia.  This was the first recorded trans-Atlantic voyage for both ship and master, though Christopher Jones had several crewmembers, including pilot and master's mates John Clarke and Robert Coppin, who had been to the New World before.

The Mayflower was supposed to accompany another ship, the Speedwell, to America, but the Speedwell proved too leaky for the voyage so the Mayflower proceeded alone.  Departing on 6 September 1620, the ship was at sea for 66 days, arriving November 9.  The ship and crew overwintered with the Pilgrims and departed back for England on 5 April 1621, arriving back to England on May 6.

Christopher Jones took the ship out for a few more trading runs, but he died a couple of years later in March 1621/2.  The ship wasappraised for probate purposes in May 1624, and was referred to as being "in ruins."  It was only valued at 128 pounds sterling, and was almost certainly broken up and sold off as scrap.  

• Smoking is the most preventable cause of death in the United States. 
• Almost one third of deaths from coronary heart disease are attributable to smoking and secondhand smoke.
• Smoking is linked to about 90% of lung cancer cases in the United States.
• About 20 percent of adult men and about 16 percent of adult women smoke.
• The highest percentage of people who smoke are between the ages of 21 and 34.
• About 54 percent of American children ages 3-11 are exposed to secondhand smoke.
• On average, smokers die more than 10 years earlier than nonsmokers. 
• You can be one of the millions of people who successfully quit every year.

Literature (from the Latin Littera meaning 'letters’ and referring to an acquaintance with the written word) is the written work of a specific culture, sub-culture, religion, philosophy or the study of such written work which may appear in poetry or in prose. Literature, in the west, originated in the southernMesopotamia region of Sumer (c. 3200) in the city of Uruk and flourished inEgypt, later in Greece (the written word having been imported there from the Phoenicians) and from there, to Rome. Writing seems to have originated independently in China from divination practices and also independently in Mesoamerica and elsewhere. The first author of literature in the world, known by name, was the high-priestess of Ur, Enheduanna (2285-2250 BCE) who wrote hymns in praise of the Sumerian goddess Inanna. Much of the early literature from Mesopotamia concerns the activities of the gods but, in time, humans came to be featured as the main characters in such poems as Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta andLugalbanda and Mount Hurrum (c.2600-2000 BCE). For the purposes of study, Literature is divided into the categories of fiction or non-fiction today but these are often arbitrary decisions as ancient literature, as understood by those who wrote the tales down, as well as those who heard them spoken or sung pre-literacy, was not understood in the same way as it is in the modern-day.

THE TRUTH IN LITERATURE

Homer’s soaring odes to the grandeur of the Grecian fleet sailing for Troy or Odysseus’s journey across the wine-dark sea were as real to listeners as his descriptions of the sorceress Circe, the cyclops Polyphemus or the Sirens. Those tales which today are regarded as myth were then considered as true and sacred as any of the writings contained in the Judeo-Christian Bible or the Muslim Koran. Designations such as fiction and non-fiction are fairly recent labels applied to written works. The ancient mind understood that, quite often, truth may be apprehended through a fable about a fox and some unattainable grapes. The modern concern with the truth of a story would not have concerned anyone listening to one of Aesop’s tales; what mattered was what the story was trying to convey.

ONE OF THE EARLIEST KNOWN LITERARY WORKS IS THE SUMERIAN/BABYLONIAN EPIC OF GILGAMESH FROM C. 2150 BCE. 

Even so, there was a value placed on accuracy in recording actual events (as ancient criticism of the historian Herodotus’ accounts of events shows). Early literary works were usually didactic in approach and had an underlying (or often overt) religious purpose (such as the Sumerian Enuma Elish of 1120 BCE or the Theogony of the Greek writer Hesiod of the 8th century BCE). One of the earliest known literary works is the Sumerian/Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh from c. 2150 BCE which deals with themes of heroism, pride, nationality, friendship, disappointment, death, and the quest for eternal life. Whether what happened in the tale of Gilgamesh 'actually happened’ was immaterial to the writer and to the listener.

EXAMPLES OF ANCIENT LITERATURE

The Pyramid Texts of Egypt, also considered literature, tell of the journey of the soul to the afterlife in the Field of Reeds. Homer’s Iliad recounts the famous ten-year war between the Greeks and the Trojans while his Odyssey tells of the great hero Odysseus’s journey back home after the war to his beloved wife Penelope of Ithaca. The story told in the biblical Book of Exodus (1446 BCE) is considered historical truth by many today, but originally could have been meant to be interpreted as liberation from bondage in a spiritual sense as it was written to empower the worshipers of Yahweh to resist the temptations of the indigenous peoples of Canaan. The Song of Songs (c. 950 BCE) from the Hebrew scripture of the Tanakh, immortalizes the passionate love between a man and a woman (interpreted by Christians, much later, as the relationship between Christ and the church, though no such interpretation is supported by the original text) and the sacred aspect of such a relationship. The Indian epicMahabharata (c.800-400 BCE) relates the birth of a nation while the Ramayana (c. 200 BCE) tells the tale of the great Rama's rescue of his abducted wife Sita from the evil Ravna. The works found in the Assyrian King Asurbanipal’s library (647-627 BCE) record the heroic deeds of the gods, goddesses and the struggles and triumphs of heroic kings of ancient Mesopotamia such as Enmerkar, Lugalbanda, and Gilgamesh.

FIRST TOBBACO SMOKING

When was tobacco first smoked?

Frenchman Jean Nicot (from whose name the word nicotine is derived) introduced tobacco to France in 1560, and tobacco then spread to England. The first report of a smoking Englishman is of a sailor in Bristol in 1556, seen "emitting smoke from his nostrils".