4“The Zealous Puritan,” 1639, in C. H. Firth, The American Garland; Being a Collection of Ballads Relating to America, 1563-1759 (Oxford, 1915), 25-26.

5 Anderson shows that this distribution of ages was remarkably similar to the population of England in 1636:

New England s Immigrants (Anderson)

England’s Population (1636) (Wrigley and Schofield)

0-14

11.6%

0-14

12.4%

5-14

19.6%

5-14

19.7%

15-24

26.15%

15-24

17.7%

25-59

41.65%

25-59

42.03%

60 +

00.97%

60 +

8.12%

The only exception was the proportion of immigrants over sixty. The Massachusetts Puritans, because of the intensity of their respect for age, gave much attention to the presence of elderly emigrants among them. Thomas Welde in 1632 reported “many aged passengers” in his ship, “twelve persons being in all able to make well nigh one thousand years.” But every quantitative test shows that the proportion of emigrants over sixty was in fact very small—less than 1%, compared with 8–10% in England at that time. Cf. Everett Emerson, ed., Letters from New England: The Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1629–1638 (Amherst, 1676); Anderson, “Migrants and Motives,” 195, 339-83; E. A. Wrigley and R. S. Schofield, The Population History of England, 1541-1871 (Cambridge, 1981), table A3.1.