The church where the Pilgrims prayed before sailing to America

On a July night in 1620, about 100 English religious dissenters knelt in prayer outside a converted Catholic church in Delfshaven, a Dutch port town. By morning, they would board a ship bound for Virginia. They didn't know it yet, but this moment—captured decades later in a painting now hanging in the U.S. Capitol—would become foundational to American mythology.

These were Brownists and Separatists, people who'd broken with the Church of England over how worship should be conducted. In 1608, they'd fled to Leiden, a university town between Amsterdam and Rotterdam, where they could practice their faith without persecution. For 11 years, they built a quiet life there. But something shifted. Their children were becoming Dutch. Their religious identity felt like it was dissolving into the culture around them.

So they made a harder choice: leave again. This time for the colonies of Virginia, an ocean away.

The journey required preparation and funding. The London Merchant Adventurers, a trading company, agreed to finance the voyage. The congregation gathered their belongings and made their way to Delfshaven, where a ship called the Speedwell waited to carry them to Southampton, England. There they would meet up with other leaders of the congregation who'd returned home to secure the necessary permits.

The night before departure, they gathered outside what is now called Pilgrim Fathers Church—a building that had shifted from Catholic to Reformist a century earlier, much like the people who now prayed within its walls. Robert Weir, an American painter, would immortalize this scene in 1843, painting "Embarkation of the Pilgrims" with enough historical weight that Congress hung it in the Capitol Rotunda.

What happened next is less romantic. The Speedwell took on water somewhere in the Atlantic and had to turn back. The passengers transferred to the Mayflower, which sailed on to New England, arriving in November 1620. The church they'd prayed in remained in Delfshaven, a quiet stone building that most visitors never noticed.

Today, Pilgrim Fathers Church stands as a small monument to a moment when people chose displacement over conformity—when staying put felt less bearable than starting over. The building itself has survived wars, floods, and centuries of religious upheaval in the Netherlands. It's still used for worship, still standing in the same port district where those 100 people once gathered in the dark, preparing to cross an ocean.