John Billington, Sr. was the patriarch of a family of troublemakers who drew attention on the ship for its troublesome behavior. Firmly in the camp of the "Strangers" onboard (he is said to have left England to escape creditors), Billington was implicated in mutinous maneuvering during the journey, and his son Francis could have sent the ship to the ocean floor by firing off his father's musket near a powder keg while the ship was moored in Plymouth Harbor. The elder Billington was accused of—and talked his way out of—charges of insubordination in the challenging of the military rule of Myles Standish. He was implicated in the Oldham-Lyford failed revolt against the Plymouth church, and ultimately made history as the first person to be executed in the new colony for his conviction of the murder of John Newcomen.
