Chapter II: Part 2

The early struggles of the Plymouth planters and the hardships they endured form a story of terrible privation and suffering on the one hand and heroic endurance and self-sacrifice on the other. They were late in arriving, and the season, midwinter, was unpropitious. The weather was unusually severe, even for that rigorous climate, and the Pilgrims found themselves in sorry plight on that bleak New England shore. Cold and famine had doggedly to be fought, and the contest was an unequal one. Cooped up for so long in the Mayflower, and badly fed and sheltered on the voyage, the settlers were ill-fitted to withstand the stress of the new conditions. For a time it was a struggle for bare existence, and the little colony was brought very near to extinction.

The first care was to provide accommodation ashore, and for economy of building the community was divided into nineteen households, and the single men assigned to the different families, each of whom was to erect its own habitation and to have a plot of land. These rude homesteads of wood and thatch, and other buildings, eventually formed a single street beside the stream running down to the beach from the hill beyond. The soil of the chosen settlement appeared to be good, and abounded with "delicate springs" of water; the land yielded plentifully in season, and life teemed upon the coast and in the sea.

THE CANOPY OVER PLYMOUTH ROCK]

But many of the Pilgrims never lived to enjoy this provision of a bountiful Providence. Worn out, enfeebled in health, insufficiently housed ashore, they were a prey to sickness. Death reaped a rich harvest in their midst. Every second day a grave had to be dug for one or other of them in the frozen ground. Sometimes, during January and February, two or three died in a single day. So rapid was the mortality that at last only a mere handful remained who were able to look after the sick. William Bradford was at this time prostrated, and it is pathetic to note the expression of his gratitude to his friend William Brewster and Miles Standish and others who ministered to his needs and those of the fellow-sufferers around him. One house, the first finished, was set apart as a hospital. The hill above the beach was converted into a burial-ground,[6] and one is touched to the quick to read of the graves having to be levelled and grassed over for fear the prowling Indians should discover how few and weak the strangers were becoming!

With March came better weather, and for the first time "the birds sang pleasantly in the woods," and brought hope and gladness to the hearts of the struggling colonists. But, by that time, of the hundred or more who had landed three short months before, one-half had perished miserably. John Carver succumbed in April, and his wife quickly followed him to the grave. Bradford, by the suffrages of his brethren, was made Governor for the first time in Carver's place. He had himself sustained a heavy bereavement, for, while he was away in the shallop with the exploring party, Dorothy May, the wife he had married at Amsterdam, fell overboard and was drowned. Many men of the Mayflower also died that dreadful winter as the ship lay at anchor in the bay, including the boatswain, the gunner, and the cook, three quartermasters and several seamen.

_From a Painting_

THE OLD FORT AND FIRST MEETING HOUSE]

To other troubles were allied the ever menacing peril of the Indians, which resulted in the famous challenge of the bundle of arrows wrapped in a rattlesnake's skin, and Bradford's effective reply to it with a serpent's skin stuffed with powder and shot; also, less happily, that return of Miles Standish and his men bearing in triumph a sagamore's head; and the building of the hill-fort, with cannon brought ashore from the Mayflower mounted on its roof, where also they worshipped till the first church was built at the hill fort in 1648. Here it was that the Pilgrims perpetuated the church founded at Scrooby in England. A building erected for storage and public worship in the first days of the colony took fire soon after its completion and was burnt to the ground. Of the refuge on the hill Bradford writes: "They builte a fort with good timber, both strong and comly, which was of good defence, made with a flatte rofe and batilments, on which their ordnance was mounted, and where they kepte constante watch, especially in time of danger. It served them also for a meeting-house, and was fitted accordingly for that use." The fort was large and square, and a work of such pretentions as to be regarded by some of the Pilgrims as vainglorious. Its provision was fully justified by the dangers which threatened the settlers, and it became the center of both the civic and religious life of the little colony.

An excellent idea of the scene at Sunday church parade is given in a letter[7] written by Isaac de Rassieres, secretary to the Dutch colony established at Manhattan, the modern New York, in 1623, describing a visit he paid to the Plymouth Plantation in the autumn of 1627. After speaking of the flat-roofed fort with its "six cannon, which shoot iron balls of four and five pounds and command the surrounding country," the writer says of the Pilgrims meeting in the lower part: "They assemble by beat of drum, each with his musket or firelock, in front of the captain's door; they have their cloaks on, and place themselves in order three abreast, and are led by a sergeant without beat of drum. Behind comes the Governor in a long robe; beside him, on the right hand, comes the Preacher with his cloak on, and on the left the Captain with his sidearms and cloak on, and with a small cane in his hand; and so they march in good order, and each sets his arms down near him. Thus they are constantly on their guard, night and day."

The spectacle may not have been strictly that witnessed at every service on "Sundays and the usual holidays," for this was a state visit to the Colony, with solemn entry and heralding by trumpeters, and the Pilgrims probably treated the occasion with more form than was their wont. Still it is an instructive picture, full of romantic suggestion.

_From the Painting by G. H. Boughton_

PILGRIMS GOING TO CHURCH]

And then the service itself. For some notion of this we must turn to a visit paid to the Plantation five years later, in the autumn of 1632, when we are introduced to another scene in the fortified church. From the "Life and Letters" of John Winthrop, Governor of the neighbouring Colony of Massachusetts Bay, we gather that, at the time stated, Winthrop and his pastor, John Wilson, came over to Plymouth, walking the twenty-five miles. "On the Lord's Day," we read, "there was a sacrament, which they did partake in." Roger Williams was there as assistant to Ralph Smith, the first minister of Plymouth church, and in the afternoon Williams, according to custom, "propounded a question," to which Mr. Smith "spake briefly." Then Mr. Williams "prophesied," that is he preached, "and after, the Governor of Plymouth spake to the question; after him, Elder Brewster; then some two or three men of the congregation. Then Elder Brewster desired the Governor of Massachusetts and Mr. Wilson to speak to it, which they did. When this was ended the deacon, Mr. Fuller, put the congregation in mind of their duty of contribution; whereupon the Governor and all the rest went down to the deacon's seat, and put into the box, and then returned."

There is nothing here about the music of the services, such as it was, vocal only, rugged, but not without melody. We know, however, that the Pilgrims used that psalter, brought over by them to New England, with its tunes printed above each psalm in lozenge-shaped Elizabethan notes, which Longfellow so grandly describes in "The Courtship of Miles Standish" as

the well-worn psalm-book of Ainsworth,
Printed in Amsterdam, the words and the music together,
Rough-hewn, angular notes, like stones in the walls of a churchyard,
Darkened and overhung by the running vine of the verses.

The duty of "tuning the Psalm," as they designated the performance, in the young colonial days, before choirs or precentors were dreamt of, was delegated to some lusty-lunged brother present, and, judged by the testimony which has come down to us, it was an onerous one, trying to his patience and his vocal power when, as sometimes happened, the congregation carried another tune against him. They were called to Sabbath worship in the earlier times by sound of horn or beat of drum or the blowing of a large conch-shell. At Plymouth we have seen it was by drum beat, probably from the roof, that the people were assembled at the meeting-house.

When the Mayflower left them to return home in the spring, the settlers must have felt they were desolate indeed, for their nearest civilised neighbours were five hundred miles to the north and south of them, the French at Nova Scotia and the English in Virginia. Seven months later, in November, came the Fortune, bringing thirty-five new emigrants, including William Brewster's eldest son; John Winslow, a brother of Edward; and Robert Cushman, who had turned back the year before at Old Plymouth. In addition to her passengers, the Fortune brought out to the colonists, from the Council of New England, a patent[8] of their land, drawn up in the name of John Pierce and his associate Merchant Adventurers in the same way as the charter granted them by the Plymouth Company on February 21, 1620, authorising the planters to establish their colony near the mouth of the Hudson river.

_From the Painting by A. W. Bayes_

THE DEPARTURE OF THE MAYFLOWER]

When the Fortune sailed back to England, she carried a cargo of merchandise valued at five hundred pounds. This was intended for the Adventurers, but they never received it, for when nearing port, the vessel was captured by the French and the cargo seized. The ship was allowed to proceed, and Cushman, who returned in her, secured the papers on board, among them Bradford and Winslow's Journal, known as Mourt's Relation, and a letter from Edward Winslow to his "loving and old friend" George Morton, who was about to come out, giving seasonable advice as to what he and his companions should bring with them--good store of clothes and bedding, and each man a musket and fowling-piece; paper and linseed oil for the making of their windows (glass being then too great a luxury for a New England home), and much store of powder and shot.

Soon arrived further parties from Leyden and stores from the Adventurers in London in the Anne and the Little James pinnace, the people including such welcome additions as Brewster's two daughters, Fear and Patience; George Morton and his household; Mrs. Samuel Fuller; Alice Carpenter, widow of Edward Southworth, afterwards the second wife of Governor Bradford; and Barbara, who married Miles Standish. Then from the Leyden pastor came letters for Bradford and Brewster. The writer was dead--had been dead a year--when those letters reached their destination, but this they only knew when Standish gave them the tidings on his return from a voyage to England. John Robinson passed away at the age of forty-nine on March 1, 1622, in the old meeting-house at Leyden, and they buried him under the pavement of St. Peter's Church. Brewster lost his wife about the time the sad news was known, and the messenger who brought it had further to tell of the death of Robert Cushman. Truly the tale of affliction was a sore one.

By the July of 1623 a total of about two hundred and thirty-three persons had been brought out, including the children and servants, of whom one hundred and two, composed of seventy-three males and twenty-nine females, eighteen of the latter wives, were landed from the Mayflower. At the close of that year not more than one hundred and eighty-three were living. The survivors bravely persevered. Gradually the Pilgrim Colony took deep root. The New Plymouth men were a steady, plodding set, and the soil, if hard, was tenacious. They got a firm foothold. They suffered much, for their trials by no means ended with the first winter; but their cheerful trust in Providence and in their own final triumph never wavered. By 1628 their position was secure beyond all doubt or question. The way was now prepared; the tide of emigration set in; and the main body of the Puritans began to follow in the track of their courageous and devoted advance-guard.

CAPTAIN MILES STANDISH]

Out there in the West these Pilgrims, or first-comers, settled themselves resolutely to the task which lay before them. They were no idle dreamers, though their idealism was intense, and they were united by the bonds of sympathy and helpfulness, one towards another. Their works were humble, their lives simple and obscure, their worldly success but small, their fears many and pressing, and their vision of the future restricted and dim. But they consistently put into practise the conceptions and ideals which dominated them and were to be the inheritance of the great Republic they unconsciously initiated and helped to build up. They established a community and a government solidly founded on love of freedom and belief in progress, on civil liberty and religious toleration, on industrial cooperation and individual honesty and industry, on even-handed justice and a real equality before the laws, on peace and goodwill supported by protective force. They were more liberal and tolerant in religion than the Puritan colonists of Massachusetts Bay, and more merciful in their punishments; they perpetrated no atrocities against inferior peoples, and cherished the love of peace and of political justice.

Although at first the relations of the Pilgrims with their Puritan neighbours were none of the best, a better state of feeling before long prevailed. We have seen how John Winthrop and his pastor plodded over to Plymouth to attend its Sunday worship. Three years earlier, in 1629, Bradford and some of his brethren went by sea to Salem to an ordination service there, and, says Morton in his "Memorial," "gave them the right hand of fellowship." There were other visits, letters of friendship, and reciprocal acts of kindness. We read of Samuel Fuller, physician and deacon, going to Salem to tend the sick, and of Governor Winthrop lending Plymouth in its need twenty-eight pounds of gunpowder.

This good feeling strengthened as time went on, and drew together the Plantations of Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Connecticut for mutual support and protection; and in May, 1643, the deputies of these Colonies, meeting at Boston, subscribed the Articles of Confederation which created the first Federal Union in America. This league prospered well until 1684, when the Colonial charter was annulled and a Crown Colony was established under an English governor. Less than a decade later Massachusetts became a Royal province, and that period in American history was entered upon which ended with the Declaration of Independence and the creation of the United States.

GOVERNOR WILLIAM BRADFORD]

While the federation of 1643 did much for the United Colonies, it overshadowed, but could not obscure, Plymouth and the unique annals and traditions which have preserved for it a foremost place in all American history. With the order of things inaugurated in 1692 the body politic framed by the men of the Mayflower ceased to have separate existence, but it remains deep in the foundations of the nation which absorbed it. In the modest language of William Bradford used in his day, "As one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone to many, yea, in some sort to our whole nation," a truth which has a far wider application now than it had in Bradford's time.

* * * * *

Such is the story of the Mayflower Pilgrims, romantic, heroic, idyllic, based also upon the principles which have molded and maintained a mighty free nation. Its place in the life of to-day is honoured and conspicuous, and rests upon the rock of a people's gratitude.

During the nineteenth century it was proclaimed by many orators, among them John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Edward Everett, Robert Charles Winthrop, and George Frisbie Hoar--to name only the century's dead--who as New Englanders and lovers of liberty were well fitted to voice the virtues of the Pilgrim Fathers, the hardships they endured, their high merits as colonists compared with other colonists of ancient and modern times, and the immense issues springing from their devout, laborious, and self-sacrificing lives.

Passing on to the twentieth century we have the story taken up by one American President and continued by another at the cornerstone laying and dedication of a combined tribute of State and Nation to the lives and work of the Forefathers. This was the Pilgrim Memorial Monument, erected at Provincetown on a commanding site above the harbour in whose waters the Mayflower dropped her anchor nearly three centuries ago.

The gatherings there of 1907 and 1910 stand out prominently in Pilgrim history, especially so that of August 5 of the latter year, which was grandly impressive alike in its magnitude and its purpose and character. President Taft, the successor of President Roosevelt, arrived in his yacht Mayflower with imposing naval display amid rejoicing and the booming of guns. He was greeted by Governor of the State Eben S. Draper, Captain J. H. Sears, president of the Cape Cod Pilgrim Memorial Association, and members of the local committee. Accompanying him were Secretary of the Navy George von L. Meyer, United States Senators Henry Cabot Lodge and George Peabody Wetmore, and Justice White of the United States Supreme Court. The scene and the ceremonies, soul-stirring and significant, are worthy of permanent record.

Escorted by a company of bluejackets, of whom two thousand, with marines from the warships, lined the street from the wharf, President Taft and the other guests were driven up the hill to the Monument, where, from the grandstand at its base, Captain Sears reviewed the plans which resulted in its erection.

THE PILGRIM MEMORIAL MONUMENT AT PROVINCETOWN]

President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard University gave an historical address. In graphic language he contrasted the desolate prospect confronting the Pilgrims at Cape Cod with the picture upon which the present concourse gazed, a happy and prosperous population filling the smiling land and in the harbour traversed by the Mayflower a varied throng of ships, "with them numerous representatives of a strong naval force maintained by the eighty million free people who in nine generations from the Pilgrims have explored, subdued, and occupied that mysterious wilderness so formidable to the imagination of the early European settlers on the Atlantic coast of the American continent."

With force and pathos Dr. Eliot spoke of the debt they all owed to the Pilgrim Fathers. "We are to hear the voices of the Chief Magistrate of this multitudinous people and of the Governor of the Commonwealth acknowledging the immeasurable indebtedness of the United States and of the Colony, Province, and State of Massachusetts to the adult men and the eighteen adult women who were the substance or seed-bearing core of the Pilgrim company; and we, the thousands brought hither peacefully in a few summer hours by vehicles and forces unimagined in 1620 from the wide circuit of Cape Cod--which it took the armed parties from the Mayflower a full month to explore in the wintry weather they encountered--salute tenderly and reverently the Pilgrims of the Mayflower, and, recalling their fewness and their sufferings, anxieties and labours, felicitate them and ourselves on the wonderful issues in human Joy, strength, and freedom of their faith, endurance, and dauntless resolution."

Dr. Eliot was followed by M. Van Weede, charge d'affaires of the Netherlands Legation at Washington, whose Government was represented on this occasion because the Pilgrims sailed from Holland. (The cornerstone laying three years before was attended by the British Ambassador.)

Formal transfer of the Monument from the National Commission, which directed its construction, to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the Pilgrim Memorial Association, was made on behalf of the United States Government by Senator Lodge, who enlarged upon the two great political principles embodied in the Mayflower compact, the conception of an organic law and of a representative democracy, and on the noble purpose--that of securing freedom of worship and the preservation of their nationality and native language--of the little band of exiles who signed the document and settled there.

William B. Lawrence of Medford accepted the Monument on behalf of the Memorial Association, and a quartet sang "The Landing of the Pilgrims," by Mrs. Felicia Hemans.

Congressman James T. McCleary of Minnesota, who supported the bill in Congress for a Government appropriation to assist in the building of the Monument, also spoke.

PLYMOUTH ROCK]

Governor Draper then introduced the President. "This Monument," he said, "shows that our people and our State and National Government honour and revere the Pilgrims and the great principles of government they enunciated," and for that reason, he added, "It is most fitting that this Monument, whose cornerstone was laid by one President, should be dedicated by another."

President Taft declared that the spirit which animated the Pilgrim Fathers had made the history of the United States what it was by

furnishing it with the highest ideals of moral life and political citizenship. "It is meet therefore," said he, "that the United States, as well as the State of Massachusetts, should unite in placing here a Memorial to the Pilgrims. The warships that are here with their cannon to testify to its national character typify the strength of that Government whose people have derived much from the spirit and example of the heroic band. Governor Bradford, Elder Brewster, Captain Miles Standish are the types of men in whom as ancestors, either by blood, or by education and example as citizens, the American people may well take pride."

The ceremonies were brought to a close by Miss Barbara Hoyt, a descendant of Elder Brewster, unveiling a bronze tablet over the door of the Monument facing the harbour which bears an appropriate inscription written by Dr. Eliot.

And so this magnificent Monument stands as a landmark which, seen from afar across the ocean, will remind the traveller of the small beginnings of New England when, in the words of Dr. Eliot, fired and led by the love of liberty, the Mayflower Pilgrims here "founded and maintained a State without a king or a noble, and a Church without a bishop or a priest."

* * * * *

It is upon record that in the early days of the Plymouth Plantation an expedition was made in the Mayflower's shallop, a big boat of about fourteen tons, to a point lower down on the coast, where the party made friends with the Shawmut Indians and found a fine place for shipping, and forty-seven beautiful islands, which they greatly admired as they sailed in and out amongst them. This was the future Boston Harbour.

It is interesting to reflect that when, a decade and more after the Pilgrim Fathers had landed in America, some hundreds of Puritan colonists embarked for Massachusetts, many of the leading burgesses of the then only Boston--that Old Boston, scene of the Pilgrims' detention and suffering--were of the number. The town cannot claim a contribution to the Mayflower, but it has a boast as proud, for it was because the ancient seaport sent so large a contingent of Puritans to America that it was ordered "that Trimountain," the site overlooking the sheltered waters and the island group which delighted Pilgrim eyes, "shall be called Boston."

A BIT OF OLD BOSTON]

It was in the spring of 1630 that the main body of Puritan emigrants, John Winthrop's party, sailed from Southampton. A year before that the Massachusetts Bay Company dispatched to the West an expedition of five ships, and one of them was our old friend the wonderful little Mayflower, of immortal memory, which nine years earlier had carried out the Plymouth Pilgrims and was now assisting in the settlement of Massachusetts!

Among the Bostonians and their friends who sailed with or in the wake of Winthrop were Richard Bellingham, Recorder of the town (Nathaniel Hawthorne in "The Scarlet Letter" draws Governor Bellingham of the New Boston); bold Atherton Hough aforementioned, Mayor of the borough in 1628; Thomas Leverett, an alderman, "a plain man, yet piously subtle"; Thomas Dudley and young John Leverett, who became Governors of Massachusetts; William Coddington, father and governor of Rhode Island; and John Cotton, the far-famed Puritan preacher of Boston church, who became one of the leading religious forces of New England life.

And Old Boston, we have seen, is still much as it was outwardly over three hundred years ago, when the Pilgrim Fathers gazed upon it, and later Cotton preached long but edifying sermons in the vast church, and the Puritan warden struck the Romish symbol from the hand of a carven image on the noble tower.

The first days of the Trimountain Colony resembled in some of their features those of the planting of New Plymouth. Although their shelter was of the scantiest, the settlers had not, like the settlers of Plymouth, to face at the outset the rigors of a Western winter. The Pilgrims arrived in December, on the shortest day of the year, whereas the day of the Puritans' landing was the very longest. Sickness and famine had nevertheless to be fought. Disease quickly carried off twenty per cent. of the people. About a hundred others returned home discouraged. The rest persevered, and proved themselves worthy followers of the New Plymouth Pilgrims. The Colony was, moreover, recruited by fresh comers from the old country; and through many vicissitudes, dissensions, and set-backs, much that was blasting to the spiritual and moral life and development of the Colony, it prospered materially and gathered strength. And there grew up the New England States.

* * * * *

THE SITE OF THE OLD FORT, BURIAL HILL, PLYMOUTH]

On the slope of Burial Hill,[9] surrounded by memorials of the Pilgrim Fathers and with the graves of their dead in the background; facing down that stream-skirted street of the Pilgrims once bordered by their humble dwellings and echoing to the tread of their weary feet; looking out upon the waters which bore to this haven, long years ago, the storm-tossed Mayflower and her eager human freight, there stands to-day a church which through the centuries has preserved unbroken records and maintained a continuous ministry. This is the First Church in Plymouth and the first church in America, the church of Scrooby, Leyden, and the Mayflower company, the church of Brewster and Bradford, of Winslow and Carver, whose first covenant, signed in the cabin of the little emigrant ship, is still the basis of its fellowship. Here Roger Williams, the banished of Boston and missionary of Rhode Island--a man according to Bradford of "many precious parts, but very unsettled in Judgment"--ministered for a time under Ralph Smith in the early stormy days of the sister colony; and here John Cotton, son of the famous Boston teacher and preacher--"a man of scholarly tastes and habits, somewhat decided in his convictions, diligent and faithful in his pastoral duties"[10]--was pastor for nearly thirty years from 1669.

As the First Church in Boston is the fifth of its line, so is the First Church in Plymouth the fifth meeting-house used by the Pilgrim community. Its predecessor, a shrine of Pilgrim history around which precious associations clustered, was destroyed by fire in 1892; from the burning ruins was rescued the town bell cast by Paul Revere in 1801, and this sacred relic hangs and tolls again in the tower of the present edifice.

Amid such scenes as these well may we of to-day pause and reflect. For on this hallowed spot, with its historic environment and its striking reminders of a great and honoured past, was rocked the cradle of a nation of whose civil and religious liberty it was the first rude home.

FIRST CHURCH, PLYMOUTH

_The entrance to Burial Hill is shown on the Right_]

FOOTNOTES:

[4] Morton in his "New England's Memorial," declares that the Dutch fraudulently hired the captain of the Mayflower to steer to the north of what is now New York, and adds: "Of this plot between the Dutch and Mr. Jones I have had late and certain information."

[5] Longfellow, "The Courtship of Miles Standish."

[6] This is the Cole's Hill of the present day, the spot where half the Mayflower Pilgrims found their rest during the first winter. Five of their graves were discovered in 1855, while pipes for the town's waterworks were being laid, and two more (now marked with a granite slab), in 1883. The bones of the first five are deposited in a compartment of the granite canopy which covers the "Forefathers' Rock" on which the Pilgrim Fathers landed.

[7] The letter was addressed by De Rassieres to Herr Blommaert, a director of his company, after his return to Holland, where the Royal Library became possessed of it in 1847.

[8] This document, preserved still in the Pilgrim Hall at Plymouth, is dated June 1, 1621, and bears the signatures and seals of the Duke of Lenox, the Marquis of Hamilton, the Earl of Warwick, and Sir Ferdinando Gorges, a name for many years prominent in American history. The patent only remained in force a year. That issued by the Council eight years later was transferred by Governor Bradford to the General Court in 1640.

[9] Burial Hill was the site of the embattled church erected in 1622, and contains many ancient tombstones and the foundations of a watchtower (1643), now covered with sod.

[10] John Cuckson, "History of the First Church in Plymouth." Dying in 1699, two years after his resignation at Charleston, South Carolina, Cotton was "buried with respect and honour by his old parishioners, who erected a monument over his grave."

V

THE PILGRIM ROLL CALL--FATE AND FORTUNES OF THE FATHERS

THE PILGRIM FATHERS' MEMORIAL, PLYMOUTH]

V

THE PILGRIM ROLL CALL--FATE AND FORTUNES OF THE FATHERS

_On Fame's eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled._
EDMUND SPENSER.

_There were men with hoary hair_
_Amidst that pilgrim band:_
_Why had they come to wither there,_
_Away from their childhood's land?_

_There was woman's fearless eye,_
_Lit by her deep love's truth;_
_There was manhood's brow serenely high,_
_And the fiery heart of youth._

So sings Mrs. Hemans in her famous poem "The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers in New England." That devoted little Pilgrim band comprised, indeed, the Fathers and their families together, members of both sexes of all ages. When the compact was signed in the Mayflowers cabin on November 21, 1620, while the vessel lay off Cape Cod, each man subscribing to it indicated those who accompanied him. There were forty-one signatories, and the total number of passengers was shown to be one hundred and two. What became of them? What was their individual lot and fate subsequent to the landing on Plymouth Rock on December 26? For long, long years the record as regards the majority of them was lost to the world. Now, after much painstaking search, it has been found, bit by bit, and pieced together. And we have it here. It is a document full of human interest.

John Alden, the youngest man of the party, was hired as a cooper at Southampton, with right to return to England or stay in New Plymouth. He preferred to stay, and married, in 1623, Priscilla Mullins, the "May-flower of Plymouth," the maiden who, as the legend goes, when he first went to plead Miles Standish's suit, witchingly asked, "Prithee, why don't you speak for yourself, John?" Alden was chosen as assistant in 1633, and served from 1634 to 1639 and from 1650 to 1686. He was treasurer of the Colony from 1656 to 1659; was Deputy from Duxbury in 1641-42, and from 1645 to 1649; a member of the Council of War from 1653 to 1660 and 1675-76; a soldier in Captain Miles Standish's company 1643. He was the last survivor of the signers of the compact of November, 1620, dying September 12, 1687, aged eighty-four years.

Bartholomew Allerton, born in Holland in 1612, was in Plymouth in 1627, when he returned to England. He was son of Isaac Allerton.

JOHN ALDEN]

PRISCILLA MULLINS]

Isaac Allerton, a tailor of London, married at Leyden, November 4, 1611, Mary Norris from Newbury, Berkshire, England. He was a freeman of Leyden. His wife died February 25, 1621, at Plymouth. Allerton married Fear Brewster (his second wife), who died at Plymouth, December 12, 1634. In 1644 he had married Joanna (his third wife). He was an assistant in 1621 and 1634, and Deputy Governor. He was living in New Haven in 1642, later in New York, then returned to New Haven. He died in 1659.

John Allerton, a sailor, died before the Mayflower made her return voyage. Mary Allerton, a daughter of Isaac, was born in 1616. She married Elder Thomas Cushman. She died in 1699, the last survivor of the Mayflower passengers. Remember Allerton was another daughter living in Plymouth in 1627. Sarah Allerton, yet another daughter, married Moses Maverick of Salem.

Francis Billington, son of John and Eleanor, went out in 1620 with his parents. In 1634 he married widow Christian (Penn) Eaton, by whom he had children. He removed before 1648 to Yarmouth. He was a member of the Plymouth military company in 1643. He died in Yarmouth after 1650.

John Billington was hanged[11] in 1630 for the murder of John Newcomen. His widow, Eleanor, who went over with him, married in 1638 Gregory Armstrong, who died in 1650, leaving no children by her. John Billington, a son of John and Eleanor, born in England, died at Plymouth soon after 1627.

GOVERNOR BRADFORD'S MONUMENT, BURIAL HILL, PLYMOUTH]

William Bradford, baptised in 1589 at Austerfield, Yorkshire, was a leading spirit in the Pilgrim movement from its inception to its absorption in the Union of the New England Colonies. We have seen how, on the death of John Carver, he became the second Governor of Plymouth Colony, and he five times filled that office, in 1621-33, 1635, 1637, 1639-44, and 1645-47, as well as serving several times as Deputy Governor and assistant. A patent was granted to him in 1629 by the Council of New England vesting the Colony in trust to him, his heirs, associates and assigns, confirming their title to a tract of land and conferring the power to frame a constitution and laws; but eleven years later he transferred this patent to the General Court, reserving only to himself the allotment conceded to him in the original division of land. Bradford's rule as chief magistrate was marked by honesty and fair dealing, alike in his relations with the Indian tribes and his treatment of recalcitrant colonists. His word was respected and caused him to be trusted; his will was resolute in every emergency, and yet all knew that his clemency and charity might be counted on whenever it could be safely exercised. The Church was always dear to him: he enjoyed its faith and respected its institutions, and up to the hour of his death, on May 9, 1657, he confessed his delight in its teachings and simple services. Governor Bradford was twice married, first, as we know, at Leyden in 1613 to Dorothy May, who was accidentally drowned in Cape Cod harbour on December 7, 1620; and again on August 14, 1623, to Alice Carpenter, widow of Edward Southworth. By his first wife he had one son, and by his second, two sons and a daughter. Jointly with Edward Winslow, Bradford wrote "A Diary of Occurences during the First Year of the Colony," and this was published in England in 1622. He left many manuscripts, letters and chronicles, verses and dialogues, which are the principal authorities for the early history of the Colony; but the work by which he is best remembered is his manuscript "History of Plymouth Plantation," now happily, after being carried to England and lost to sight for years in the Fulham Palace Library, restored to the safe custody of the State of Massachusetts.

GOVERNOR CARVER'S CHAIR AND ANCIENT SPINNING WHEEL]

William Brewster more than any man was entitled to be called the Founder of the Pilgrim Church. It originated in his house at Scrooby, where he was born in 1566, and he sacrificed everything for it. He was elder of the church at Leyden and Plymouth, and served it also as minister for some time after going out. Through troubles, trials, and adversity, he stood by the Plymouth flocks, and when his followers were in peril and perplexity, worn and almost hopeless through fear and suffering, he kept a stout heart and bade them be of good cheer. Bradford has borne touching testimony to the personal attributes of his friend, who, he tells us, was "qualified above many," and of whom he writes that "he was wise and discrete, and well-spoken, having a grave and deliberate utterance, of a very cheerful spirite, very sociable and pleasante among his friends, of an humble and modest mind, of a peaceable disposition, under-valewing himself and his own abilities and sometimes over-vallewing others, inoffensive and innocent in his life and conversation, which gained him ye love of those without, as well as those within." Of William Brewster it has been truly said that until his death, on April 16, 1644, his hand was never lifted from Pilgrim history. He shaped the counsels of his colleagues, helped to mould their policy, safeguarded their liberties, and kept in check tendencies towards religious bigotry and oppression. He tolerated differences, but put down wrangling and dissension, and promoted to the best of his power the strength and purity of public and private life. Mary Brewster, wife of William, who went out with him, died before 1627.

Love Brewster, son of Elder William, born in England, married (1634) Sarah, daughter of William Collier. He was a member of the Duxbury company in 1643, and died at Duxbury in 1650.

Wrestling Brewster, son of Elder William, emigrated at the same time; he died a young man, unmarried.

Richard Britteridge died December 21, 1620, his being the first death after landing.

Peter Brown probably married the widow Martha Ford; he died in 1633.

William Button, a servant of Samuel Fuller, died on the voyage.

John Carver, first Governor of the Plymouth Colony, landed from the Mayflower with his wife, Catherine, and both died the following spring or summer. Carver was deacon in Holland. He left no descendants.

Robert Carter was a servant of William Mullins, and died during the first winter.

James Chilton died December 8, 1620, before the landing at Plymouth, and his wife succumbed shortly after. Their daughter Mary, tradition states, romantically if not truthfully, was the first to leap on shore. She married John Winslow, and had ten children.

Richard Clarke died soon after arrival.

Francis Cook died at Plymouth in 1663.

John Cook, son of Francis Cook by his wife, Esther, shipped in the Mayflower with his father. He married Sarah, daughter of Richard Warren. On account of religious differences he removed to Dartmouth, of which he was one of the first purchasers. He became a Baptist minister there. He was also Deputy in 1666-68, 1673, and 1681-83-86. The father and son were both members of the Plymouth military company in 1643.

John Cook died at Dartmouth after 1694.

Humility Cooper returned to England, and died there.

John Crackston died in 1621; his son, John, who went out with him, died in 1628.

Edward Dotey married Faith Clark, probably as second wife, and had nine children, some of whom moved to New Jersey, Long Island, and elsewhere. He was a purchaser of Dartmouth, but moved to Yarmouth, where he died August 23, 1655. He made the passage out as a servant to Stephen Hopkins, and was wild and headstrong in his youth, being a party to the first duel fought in New England.

ELDER BREWSTER'S CHAIR AND THE CRADLE OF PEREGRINE WHITE]

Francis Eaton went over with his first wife, Sarah, and their son, Samuel. He married a second wife, and a third, Christian Penn, before 1627. He died in 1633.

Samuel Eaton married, in 1661, Martha Billington. In 1643 he was in the Plymouth military company, and was living at Duxbury in 1663. He removed to Middleboro, where he died about 1684.

Thomas English died the first winter.

One Ely, a hired man, served his time and returned to England.

Moses Fletcher married at Leyden, in 1613, widow Sarah Dingby. He died during the first winter.

Edward Fuller shipped with his wife, Ann, and son, Samuel. The parents died the first season.

Samuel Fuller, the son, married in 1635 Jane, daughter of the Reverend John Lothrop; he removed to Barnstable, where he died October 31, 1683, having many descendants.

Dr. Samuel Fuller, brother of Edward, was the first physician; he married (1) Elsie Glascock, (2) Agnes Carpenter, (3) Bridget Lee; he died in 1633. His descendants of the name are through a son, Samuel, who settled in Middleboro.

Richard Gardiner, mariner, was at Plymouth in 1624, but soon disappeared.

John Goodman, unmarried, died the first winter.

John Hooke died the first winter, as did also William Holbeck.

Giles Hopkins, son of Stephen, married in 1639 Catherine Wheldon; he moved to Yarmouth and afterwards to Eastham, and died about 1690.

Stephen Hopkins went out with his second wife, Elizabeth, and Giles and Constance, children by a first wife. On the voyage a child was born to them, which they named Oceanus, but it died in 1621. He was an assistant, 1634-35, and died in 1644. His wife died between 1640 and 1644. Constance, daughter of Stephen, married Nicholas Snow. They settled at Eastham, from which he was a Deputy in 1648, and he died November 15, 1676; she died in October, 1677, having had twelve children. Damaris, a daughter, was born after their arrival and married Jacob Cooke.

John Howland married Elizabeth, daughter of John Tilley. He was a Deputy in 1641, 1645 to 1658, 1661, 1663, 1666-67, and 1670; assistant in 1634 and 1635; also a soldier in the Plymouth military company in 1643. He died February 23, 1673, aged more than eighty years, and his widow died December 21, 1687, aged eighty years.

John Langemore died during the first winter.

William Latham about 1640 left for England, and afterwards went to the Bahamas, where he probably died.

Edward Leister went to Virginia.

THE GRAVE OF JOHN HOWLAND]

Edmund Margeson, unmarried, died in 1621.

Christopher Martin and wife both died early; his death took place January 8, 1621.

Desire Minter returned to England, and there died.

Ellen More perished the first winter.

Jasper More removed to Scituate, and his name is said to have become Mann. He died in Scituate in 1656; his brother died the first winter.

William Mullins shipped with his wife, son Joseph, and daughter Priscilla, who married John Alden. The father died February 21, 1621, and his wife during the same winter, as did also the son.

Solomon Power died December 24, 1620.

Degory Priest married in 1611, at Leyden, widow Sarah Vincent, a sister of Isaac Allerton; he died January 1, 1621.

John Rigdale went out with his wife, Alice, both dying the first winter.

Joseph Rogers went with his father, Thomas Rogers, who died in 1621. The son married, and lived at Eastham in 1655, dwelling first at Duxbury and Sandwich. He was a lieutenant, and died in 1678 at Eastham.

Harry Sampson settled at Duxbury, and married Ann Plummer in 1636. He was of the Duxbury military company in 1643, and died there in 1684.

George Soule was married to Mary Becket. He was in the military company of Duxbury, where he resided, and was the Deputy in 1645-46, and 1650-54. He was an original proprietor of Bridgewater and owner of land in Dartmouth and Middleboro; he died 1680, his wife in 1677.

Ellen Story died the first winter.

THE GRAVE OF MILES STANDISH, DUXBURY]

Miles Standish, that romantic figure in the Pilgrim history, did good service for the Colony, and practically settled the question whether the Anglo-Saxon or the native Indian was to predominate in New England. Born in Lancashire about 1584, and belonging to the Duxbury branch of the Standish family, he obtained a lieutenant's commission in the English army and fought in the wars against The Netherlands and Spain. His taste for military adventure led to his joining the Pilgrims at Leyden, and when the Mayflower reached Cape Cod, he led the land exploring parties. Soon he was elected military captain of the Colony, and with a small force he protected the settlers against Indian incursions until the danger from that quarter was past. When they were made peaceably secure in their rights and possessions, and warlike exploits and adventures were at an end, Standish retired to his estate at Duxbury, on the north side of Plymouth Bay: but in peace, as in war, he was still devoted to the interests of the Colony, frequently acting as Governor's assistant from 1632 onward, becoming Deputy in 1644, and serving as treasurer between that year and 1649. His wife Rose, who sailed with him in the Mayflower, died January 29, 1621, but he married again, and had four sons and a daughter. He died on October 3, 1656, honoured by all the community among whom he dwelt, and his name and fame are perpetuated in history, in the poetry of Longfellow and Lowell, and by the monument which stands upon what was his estate at Duxbury, the lofty column on Captain's Hill, seen for miles both from sea and land.

Edward Thompson died December 4, 1620.

Edward Tilley and his wife Ann both died the first winter.

John Tilley accompanied his wife and daughter Elizabeth; the parents died the first winter, but the daughter survived and married John Howland.

Thomas Tinker, with his wife and son, died the first winter.

John Turner had with him two sons, but the party succumbed to the hardships of the first season.

William Trevore entered as a sailor on the Mayflower, and returned to England on the Fortune in 1621.

William White went out with his wife Susanna, and son Resolved. A son, Peregrine, was born to them in Provincetown Harbour, who has been distinguished as being the first child of the Pilgrims born after the arrival in the New World. This is his strongest claim, as his early life was rather disreputable, though his obituary, in 1704, allowed "he was much reformed in his last years." William, the father, died on February 21, 1621; his widow married, in the May following, Edward Winslow, who had recently lost his wife.

Resolved White married (1) Judith, daughter of William Vassall; he lived at Scituate, Marshfield, and lastly Salem, where he married, (2) October 5, 1674, widow Abigail Lord, and died after 1680. He was a member of the Scituate military company in 1643.

Roger Wilder died the first winter, and Thomas Williams also died the first season.

THE MILES STANDISH MONUMENT, DUXBURY]

Edward Winslow, an educated young English gentleman from Droitwich, joined the brethren at Leyden in 1617, and accompanying them to New England, was the third to sign the compact on board the Mayflower, Carver and Bradford signing before, and Brewster after him, then Isaac Allerton and Miles Standish. Winslow was one of the party sent to prospect along the coast. Before leaving Holland, he married at Leyden, in 1618, Elizabeth Barker, who went out with him, but died March 24, 1621, and as we have seen, he shortly afterwards married widow Susanna (Fuller) White. Winslow proved himself a man of exceptional ability and character, and gave the best years of his life to the service of the Colony. While on a mission to England in its interests in 1623, he published an account of the settlement and struggles of the Mayflower Pilgrims, under the title "Good News for New England, or a relation of things remarkable in that Plantation." Later he wrote (and published in 1646). "Hypocrisie Unmasked; by a true relation of the proceedings of the Governor of Massachusetts against Samuel Groton, a notorious Disturber of the Peace," which is chiefly remarkable for an appendix giving an account of the preparations in Leyden for removal to America, and the substance of John Robinson's address to the Pilgrims on their departure from Holland. Winslow was Governor of the Colony in 1633, 1636, and 1644, and at other times assistant. In 1634 he went to England again on colonial business, and before sailing accepted a commission for the Bay Colony which required him to appear before the King's Commissioners for Plantations. Here he was brought face to face with Archbishop Laud, who could not resist the opportunity of venting his wrath upon the representative of the Plymouth settlement, about whose sayings and doings he had been duly informed. Winslow was accused of taking part in Sunday services and of conducting civil marriages. He admitted the charges, and pleaded extenuating circumstances; but Laud was not to be appeased and committed the bold Separatist to the Fleet Prison, where he remained for seventeen weeks, when he was released and permitted to return to America, wounded in his conscience by the cruel wrong done him and impoverished by legal expenses. In October, 1646, against the advice of his compatriots, Winslow undertook another mission to the old country, this time in connection with the federation of the New England Colonies, and, accepting service under Cromwell, sailed on an expedition to the West Indies, caught a fever, and died, and was buried at sea on May 8, 1655.

Gilbert Winslow, another subscriber to the compact in the Mayflower's cabin, returned subsequently to England and died in 1650.

Apart from the events of their after lives, the spirit which possessed the Mayflower Pilgrims and guided their leaders in exile is well expressed by Mrs. Hemans when she says, in her stirring lines--

They sought a faith's pure shrine!
Ay, call it holy ground,
The soil where first they trod;
They have left unstained what there they found--
Freedom to worship God.

GOVERNOR EDWARD WINSLOW

_The only authentic Portrait of a Mayflower Pilgrim_]

FOOTNOTES:

[11] The murderer Billington, sad to relate, was one of those who signed the historic compact on board the Mayflower. He was tried, condemned to death, and executed by his brethren in accordance with their primitive criminal procedure. At first, trials in the little colony were conducted by the whole body of the townsmen, the Governor presiding. In 1623 trial by Jury was established, and subsequently a regular code of laws was adopted. The capital offences were treason, murder, diabolical conversation, arson, rape, and unnatural crimes. Plymouth had only six sorts of capital crime, against thirty-one in England at the accession of James I, and of these six it actually punished only two, Billington's belonging to one of them. The Pilgrims used no barbarous punishments. Like all their contemporaries they used the stocks and the whipping-post, without perceiving that those punishments in public were barbarizing. They inflicted fines and forfeitures freely without regard to the station or quality of the offenders. They never punished, or even committed any person as a witch. Restrictive laws were early adopted as to spirituous drinks, and in 1667 cider was included. In 1638 the smoking of tobacco was forbidden out-of-doors within a mile of a dwelling-house or while at work in the fields; but unlike England and Massachusetts, Plymouth never had a law regulating apparel.

VI

NEW WORLD PILGRIMS TO OLD WORLD SHRINES

MAYFLOWER TABLET ON THE BARBICAN, PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND]

VI

NEW WORLD PILGRIMS TO OLD WORLD SHRINES

pilgrim shrines,
Shrines to no code or creed confined.--LONGFELLOW.

Memories of the Mayflower and the Pilgrim Fathers were actively revived when, in July, 1891, during the Mayoralty of Mr. J. T. Bond, a number of the Pilgrims' descendants and their representatives from the New World visited Old World Plymouth, and with an interest whole-hearted and profound inspected the scene, famous in the annals and traditions of our race, which witnessed their forbears' last brief sojourn on English soil--a place where the Fathers, as they never tired of testifying, in the days when Thomas Townes was Mayor, were "kindly entertained and courteously used by divers friends there dwelling," and whence the sturdy little Mayflower sailed to the West with its precious human freight, to lay the foundation of the New England States.

To commemorate this visit, and the sailing of the Pilgrim Fathers two hundred and seventy years before, the site of the historic embarkation was marked by the Mayflower Stone and Tablet placed on the Barbican at Plymouth, the stone in the pavement of the pier adjacent to the ancient causey trod by the Pilgrims' departing feet and destroyed a few years later, and the tablet on the wall of the Barbican facing it.

The memorial and the circumstances of its erection formed a fitting tribute to the New England pioneers; and the story told by these stones should serve to remind all who behold them of the devoted lives, the splendid achievement, and the romantic history of the Mayflower Pilgrims. They are at once a landmark and a shrine honoured by the English and American peoples.