Chapter V: Part 5

Early in the spring a strange swarm of large noisy flies came out of the ground--ate the young green things, and disappeared. Such had never been seen by the colonists and the Indians foretold sickness. This prophecy proved all too true and during the summer and autumn a devastating fever swept away a score or more of men, women and children; some were of the new comers from Leyden, but the weight of the sadness was among the old families. Gentle Fear Brewster Allerton was laid to rest beside her mother, on Burial Hill, leaving her baby boy, Isaac, to her sorrowing father’s care, who was spending the summer with his two unmarried sons on their farm in the country. Isaac Allerton’s sister, Sarah Cuthbertson, was also a victim to the infection, likewise her husband. While Susanna Winslow was mourning these two friends, her brother, the doctor, after fighting the disease for the help of others, succumbed. This shock and loss to the colonists was felt not only in Plymouth--while in Plymouth grief was deep. This educated, Christian gentleman was sadly missed for many a year. What he was to the people can be easily imagined. His widow and children were devoted to his memory; in after years, the son, Samuel, studied for the ministry and married a granddaughter of Elder Brewster; the daughter, Mercy, married Ralph James; but his profession was carried on in the Old Colony, after a time, by his nephews--his namesake Samuel--whom we have known of since the Pilgrims’ emigration from Holland--and Matthew, who came later to Plymouth.

The business affairs of the Colony became complicated in their trade on the Connecticut River, both because of the Dutch and Indians. At home, Roger Williams, whom they had befriended, acted in a very unpleasant manner, so they were glad when he left them. Notwithstanding the clouds over-shadowing them, this year’s return of the trade in furs was noteworthy, and as election time drew near, it was decided that it would be best for Edward Winslow to go again to England on their foreign business; therefore Thomas Prence was elected Governor and Susanna was again left alone with her children. The White boys were now sturdy, manly lads, a comfort and joy to Susanna and the admiration of their small brothers and sister, the Winslows. Another brother-in-law, Kenelm, was a visitor in her home, and appearances indicated that he would remain as a permanent resident of Plymouth.

Several marriages occurred before a year closed. Ann Warren became Mrs. Thomas Little and her sister, Sarah, became Mrs. John Cooke, Jr.

Recently a family of four girls had come to the colony with their father, William Collier, a wealthy merchant from London; from among them one of the Brewster boys selected his wife and Sarah Collier went as Love’s bride to the Duxbury home to try to bring cheerfulness to the three lonely men there and to help care for little Isaac Allerton, his mother’s legacy to her family, until he should grow up. Remember Allerton married also, and was one of the girls who went away from Plymouth to a new home in Salem, leaving her sister Mary, to give their father such attention as he needed in his rare visits home.

At this time, in Boston, eggs were three cents a dozen, milk one cent a quart, butter six and cheese five cents a pound, so housekeepers not caring for the somewhat higher prices in Plymouth, could send for butter or cheese at least, if they did not make it themselves, and felt economically inclined.

In the early part of the new administration, when Patience Brewster Prence was mistress of the executive mansion (which was the Governor’s own house, whichever one it was), certain affairs concerned two of the Plymouth women mightily, Priscilla Alden and Barbara Standish, but particularly the former, which was caused by the interference in Plymouth’s affairs by Massachusetts Bay, through misrepresentation. John Alden putting into Boston from a trip to the Kennebec trading station, was held there and imprisoned until Plymouth should explain its connection with a shooting incident in which two men were killed at the station. The ship was allowed to return to Plymouth bringing the news of this cool proceeding, which, we can imagine made John Alden’s wife anything but cool, and we can also think that the Governor was not allowed to delay in getting John Alden home to his family. To do so, Captain Myles Standish was dispatched to Boston, with the facts of the unpleasant incident at the trading station, which were so different from the representation which the Bay authorities had received that John Alden was immediately set at liberty. We can appreciate the feelings of both Barbara and Priscilla as they looked for the return of the ship again. Barbara anxious for the success of her husband’s efforts to release the husband of her friend, and Priscilla both indignant and worried. However, the incident was happily concluded, though more than Priscilla were indignant in Plymouth.

Later in the year, news came from London which caused the heart of Susanna to burn with indignation in her turn, and for the same cause concerning her husband as had agitated Priscilla. Through the old jealousy of the Church authorities, on trumped up charges concerning the business on which Winslow went to England, which was in behalf also of the Bay, he was held for many weeks in the Fleet Street prison. Fortunately friends were able to release him--but it was some time before he was able to return to his family in Plymouth.

Meanwhile Eleanor Newton Adams and Priscilla Carpenter Wright, both made widows by the epidemic of the previous year, became wives again. The marriage of the former, who had been left quite well off, was of special interest to Susanna since she became her sister-in-law, Mrs. Kenelm Winslow, the third Mrs. Winslow of Plymouth and Marshfield, as all had summer places in the latter suburb of Plymouth--Careswell, The Edward Winslow place, soon became a permanent abode, handsome of style and proportions.

This year saw sorrow once more fall on the members of the old families--bound together by the powerful ties formed in the old days--and many more, for at its close, the Governor’s wife was taken by death--and Patience Brewster Prence’s short, happy life was over. The religious convictions of the Pilgrims did not admit of undue mourning for their loved ones, since they regarded the departed not as victims to death, but as victors through death, and the lives of those remaining must go on. Hearts were true, nevertheless, and even in their wills the men sometimes especially requested to be laid beside the graves of their wives and daughters.

The following year, April, brought a marriage ceremony performed by Captain Standish, as assistant, which was of interest to many--that of Samuel Fuller, loved for his own admirable qualities as well as for being the nephew of their Doctor of happy memory. His bride was one of the girls who had helped in the new settlement of Scituate, founded by her father and other men from Kent, in England. In spite of all his pretty playmates in Plymouth, Samuel found this girl of old England was the one to receive his heart. But Jane Lothrop took him from Plymouth to the newer township.

In August a furious storm broke over Plymouth and the surrounding land and sea, inflicting great damage and terrifying the women and children. It wrecked many ships, killed cattle and blew roofs from many of the houses and knocked others to pieces in Plymouth, and uprooted quantities of great trees; the evidences of it were prominent for many years in the blemished beauty of the great pines which withstood the hurricane, still remaining the sentinels of Plymouth.

When Edward Winslow returned, he again served as Governor, and one of the weddings of that year was Mary Allerton’s. She was last but one of the _Mayflower_ girls to marry--Damaris Hopkins’ marriage to Jacob Cooke completed the list. Mary’s courtship had begun in childhood’s days, when Thomas Cushman, in the house across the street, had waited for her to grow up--while growing up himself and pursuing his studies with the other boys in the Governor’s family. At the time of her marriage the rumblings of the Pequot war were beginning to be heard, which soon broke, owing to the mistakes of the Bay Colony, causing the old time fears to return to Plymouth women for the safety of their men and themselves. Under Captain Standish, the Plymouth men played their valiant part, and Thomas Stanton, the interpreter for Massachusetts, and Captain John Gallup did their full share to redeem the situation.

Richard Church had not long before come from the Bay Colony to visit Plymouth, but meeting Elizabeth Warren decided him to remain permanently, in spite of displeasure from the Bay authorities, who missed him. He was one of the Plymouth fighters in this Indian disturbance, as his and Elizabeth’s son, Benjamin, was in the greater, bloodier war of a later time--King Philip’s--when the Pilgrim’s good friend, Massasoit, was dead. Plymouth tried to settle down to its own affairs after this, and had plenty to attend to.

A lovely June day seemed ushering in another summer when an unknown experience marked that year as one to date by even as the one of the great storm. That morning some of the principal men were meeting to discuss important questions, and in the street and about the doorsteps many of the women were talking of their own or public affairs, when a violent though brief earthquake shook them from their balance, and catching hold of whatever was nearest, they heard the crashing and falling of things in their houses. The children were frightened and began to cry, and all the women who were indoors came running out, fearing the houses would fall. The men were no less concerned and the streets presented a lively scene. Another shock was soon felt but less severe, and that was the end. Indians came hurrying into the town with their experience to relate; the quake was felt far inland and at sea. What with the frightful storm, the alarming Pequot trouble and this terrifying experience, all within a comparatively short time, the nerves of the women must have been more on edge than for many a day.

The young people of Marshfield and Duxbury, married and single, clung closely to their friends and associations of Plymouth and their amusements were shared in common. Weekly lecture day, a diversion of sober character, was nevertheless gladly welcomed as a means of enjoyable intercourse, going or returning. Maple sugar making, Training day, corn husking, apple bees were occasions for merry gatherings, the sequence found in the frequent weddings. Dancing became popular, though frowned on in some quarters, but it could not be repressed in an age when the desire for physical activity and excitement was as natural as now. Some of those early dance names such as High Betty Martin, Constancy, Orange Tree, Rolling Hornpipe, The Ladies Choice, compare with our recent names of Hesitation, Fox Trot, One Step.

The Coast Road from Boston, though never more than a few feet wider than the old Indian trail, came to mean to the dwellers in the various townships of Plymouth such an artery of connection to the life of all as the Great North Road had been to the inhabitants of the little villages, Scrooby and its neighbors, long ago homes to the elder members of the Colony.

* * * * *

The coldest winter Plymouth has ever known has frozen the harbor to a solid mass over which ox teams and sledges have been driven for several weeks, an astonishing and interesting sight and one may walk over the ice to Duxbury as well as by the land. One afternoon bright with the lengthening daylight of the season, sees a pleasant picture in the old parlor of Governor Bradford’s house, for he is again Governor, by urgent request of the community. A cheery fire blazes up the wide chimney and there is gay chatter to the tune of the crackling logs. Mistress Alice Bradford, now a grandmother (her son, Constant Southworth having married Elizabeth Collier and having a little Alice) has invited several of her daughter’s special friends to spend the day. So we see Mercy, a delightful reproduction of her mother and father both, as hostess to nine merry girls: Mary Brewster, Betty and Sally Alden, from Duxbury, Mary Cooke, Mercy Fuller and Deborah Hopkins of Plymouth, Lora Standish of Duxbury and Desire and Hope Howland. Elizabeth Tilly had given charming companion names to her older daughters, her first born having been named in remembrance of Desire Minter, her dear friend. Desire was now at the age of her mother when she had married--that mother seeming always as an older sister, being still young herself in spite of the cares of a large family--but it was more than a year later before Desire decided to marry, and be the first bride, though not the eldest, of this pretty group. The girls of this generation never having experienced the world’s hardships and vicissitudes that had been their mother’s portions, having been carefully and lovingly brought up in comfortable, cheerful homes, were not anxious to leave them for the first time, even with love to point the way. However, Desire was beginning to listen to the importunities of her dashing young lieutenant--in later years known as Captain John Gorham, who was to lead the 2nd Barnstable Company under command of Major William Bradford, Mercy’s brother, into fame, at the Great Swamp Fight in Philip’s War. The swift knitting needles click in Desire’s hands as she stands by the frame-work of the western window, leaning to watch the progress of the sampler which is being worked by a lovely girl who is sharing the broad window seat with another, who has evidently completed her sewing, having just folded it and put it into a bag hanging from her arm. This young beauty is Betty Alden--eldest of the family of John and Priscilla. She too, is eagerly watching the stitches that are to tell the worker’s admirers and friends, from that day to this, that the sampler was made by Lora Standish, only and much beloved daughter of the Pilgrim’s Captain. That piece of handicraft is the only specimen of their work that we know of and may look at today as if we had seen it when its stitches were being placed, among the group we are picturing of Plymouth Colony’s first-born daughters--the first native generation of Colonial girls of New England. On a seat by the hearth, Mary Cooke and Mercy Fuller have a book between them and are reading aloud snatches of receipts for making perfumes, or poetry, or jokes--this is not a monthly magazine as we might fancy from our own experience, but a yearly periodical, welcomed by every household--Pierce’s Almanac, printed in Cambridge, its contents holding much that is similar but much that is different to the magazines we know. Leaning over the high back, smoothing the soft hair of Mercy Fuller, is Hope Howland. Bonny as her sister is, somehow Hope reminds us more of little Elizabeth Tilly of Leyden. Mercy Bradford is placing little cakes with a pitcher of cider on a big center table and lights one or two bayberry candles in wooden holders that stand upon its polished top and twinkle on it or in the shining pewter dishes and cups. At the window towards the street, Deborah Hopkins and Mary Brewster, granddaughter and namesake of our first Mary Brewster, are looking out--evidently some one is expected. The last rays of the winter sun, the flashing fire and the glowing bayberry flames, strive to light for one more instant this appealing picture. There is sound of footsteps in the cold air outside--stamping and laughing--the brothers and sweethearts have arrived to take the girls home but first to have some slight refreshment at the hands of Mistress Bradford and Mercy. Cloaks are brought and velvet hoods tied snugly over hair both light and dark, surrounding the pink cheeks and sparkling eyes of all the happy girls who have spent the day with Mercy Bradford and her mother.

The snowflakes of winter have turned to falling apple blossoms and spring has awakened the violets in the flower beds under the windows of William Brewster’s library. The fragrance of these and other blossoms is borne through the white curtained windows open to the warm air, mingled with the saltness of Duxbury marshes. The library comprises four hundred books, the largest and most valuable in America. Whether it is or no, matters not, the books are the solace of their owner, who while enjoying his farm life and appreciating the companionship of his son’s families and Isaac Allerton, Jr., his grandson, dwells much within himself. To keep the books dusted and the Elder’s chair in just the right place, Mrs. Love Brewster has often the assistance of her nieces, Jonathan Brewster’s daughters. This bright morning sees Mary, one of the girls in the winter’s frolic at Mercy Bradford’s, attending to these matters. A boy is deep in study by a bookshelf, and Mary, playfully sweeps her duster across his book as she works--it is her cousin, Isaac--preparing for entrance into the new College at Cambridge. Up the road a horse comes at a lively pace and Samuel Fuller has arrived to join with Isaac in reading the precious books, though his father left him some of his own. The owner of the library glances through the window and smiles and nods to the young people--Mary seeing him, runs out to enjoy with him the sunshine and to pat the horse tied near the door. Possibly William Brewster recalls from the past a spring morning when another lad rode a horse, to acquire knowledge from books--but he says nothing as Mary slips her arm in his.

This decade flashes many another change before our eyes. In a few years the first church building has been erected in Plymouth, with Richard Church as architect and builder, as seems appropriate. Its bell rings out for many a year, succeeding the roll of drums to summon worshipers. Many of the girls marry and the younger children succeed to their pleasures. Mercy Bradford has gone to live in Boston as Mercy Vermayes. Her mother’s loneliness is partly relieved by the coming to her of her remaining sister in England, Mary Carpenter. This sister is rather notable among the women of Plymouth, in that she never married. Her attractions were not less than her sisters’; indeed, from what was said of her, quite an appropriate companion for the governor’s wife, her sister, Alice. Another exception to the general rule may be noted, and another spinster of the colony named Elizabeth Pool, daughter of Sir William, who coming as Plymouth’s boundaries expanded, and possessing wealth, property and intelligence, remained unwon. These two esteemed women, one a resident of Plymouth town, the other, one of the founders of the new township of Taunton, are an interesting contrast. Miss Carpenter lived quietly, uneventfully, until ninety years old; of a religious frame of mind and given to kind deeds, unknown, through her retiring nature. Miss Pool seems much more modern in her career. She erected iron works and was altogether enterprising and a promoter of advancement for her settlement. She brought over a minister for the church in Taunton, so had a thought for religion, also, not only for herself but for others. A record states “she died greatly honored, in 1654 aged 66.”

Edward Winslow was again governor for a brief period and then made another trip to England, at the request of the authorities of the Bay, as they had recognized his great abilities as a negotiator of business interests and there were some affairs pressing on the Bay Colony which he undertook to remove. This was to the regret of the Plymouth people who were reluctant to have him go from their own affairs. He left Susanna and his children, almost grown now, in comfortable Careswell, and there, for several years, his wife awaited his return. Not that the Bay or his own affairs took very long, but England herself needed him, as it seemed, and he agreed to a diplomatic mission to an island colony. Loving Plymouth and loving England he was not destined to rest in either; his grave was made in the ocean he had crossed so often. Susanna had parted from her husband for the last time.

Other deaths among the first comers saddened the Pilgrims. Elizabeth Hopkins closed her long and honorable career as one of the women of Plymouth. Her husband soon followed her. In this year perhaps its greatest blow fell on Plymouth when their leader in spiritual and often adviser in temporal things passed from among them. No words can more fittingly describe the beautiful end of his earthly life than those of the governor. There is no greater record of loyalty and affection than that shown in the nearly fifty years between his followers and himself. While his fame, as William Bradford said, is more enduring than a marker at his grave--which he lacks, in company with so many--such words as the governor wrote of him and such work as Constantino Brumidi has made to represent him, serve to keep it vigorous through the centuries. (In the President’s room at the Capitol in Washington, Brumidi has painted Elder Brewster as typifying Religion.)

When Mary Chilton Winslow moved to Boston, it could not have seemed more strange or different than Plymouth had come to be to her by that time. Except the Aldens, the Howlands and her sister-in-law, few remained who had been her companions and friends on the _Mayflower_ and in building the colony. Her husband had become a prosperous merchant in the West India trade and perhaps Boston seemed a necessary relief to them. Their position became at once prominent and important and her life flowed happily onward for many years. In one of her daughters, Myles Standish, Jr., found his fate, and upon their marriage likewise settled in Boston.

Meanwhile Susanna Winslow continued in eminence of circumstance, to live at her beautiful home in Marshfield. Her boys, Resolved and Peregrine, had married and made homes of their own but remained devoted to her. Josiah, her youngest son, reproducing in a marked degree the look and manners of his talented father, remained with her. As he grew into the handsome, courtly man, whom all admired, she must have smiled as she looked sometimes at the little shoes he had worn as her baby and which she carefully kept with other treasures--such as the cradle in which she had rocked all her boys and little girl. That little girl was now Mrs. Robert Brooks of Scituate.

In the heyday of Plymouth’s prosperity a gentleman in England, long interested in colonial life by the reports of it which had found their way to him in his comfortable ancestral home, planned a visit to see life across the sea. With his young daughter, Penelope, Mr. Herbert Pelham came to the Old Colony. The spirit of adventure in them both and the interest they found in their new surroundings caused them to linger for a period beyond the length of a casual visit in their temporary home in Marshfield. To the men, the companionship of Herbert Pelham was a delight, and seeing her father’s pleasure, Penelope, with her own various employments, did not long for home. Her’s is the last romance we may notice as closely connected with the women of our special interest in Plymouth colony, even as that of her mother-in-law, was the first. Penelope Pelham, with her high-bred manner and aristocratic face, made the only permanent impression on the heart of Josiah Winslow and we can easily fancy that in making her bead bag, Penelope had plenty of time to decide that for him she would renounce all thought of returning to her home, and remain a colonial woman. The bead bag, her dressing-case and her portrait are other links connecting us to those vivid lives of our chronicle.

Soon Josiah Winslow was called to the place occupied by his father, for a time, and by William Bradford for many years--when the great governor had left it vacant, forever--so Penelope became the first lady of the land in her adopted home and Susanna closed her life’s history in the first place which had been hers so often in the colony--first mother after the _Mayflower_ found harbor, first bride of Plymouth and now mother of the first native born governor of New England. Truly the footprints of Anna Fuller, since we found them first in Leyden, have led us along a colorful pathway.

The records we find of her brilliant daughter-in-law show her a character after Susanna Winslow’s own type. The second mistress of Careswell lived there for many happy years ere she and her family were forced to flee from it under the fearful scourge of Philip’s War.

Thus on through its seventy years of shadow and sunshine, heroic daring, splendid achievement and independence, we may follow the fascinating records of Plymouth Colony--especially as those records are tinted even faintly by the footprints and finger-touches of its women.

As the first death on the _Mayflower_ at anchor was that of a woman, Dorothy Bradford, so the last survivor of the original _Mayflower_ company was a woman, Mary Allerton Cushman, who saw all of the life with its chances and changes of which we read.

Through the years we may well believe that the women of the _Mayflower_ who became the women of Plymouth, and their children, whether in newer homes or remaining in the old, looked back to the early days of their privation, when by their anxieties, their sorrows, their economies, their endeavors, their fearlessness and faith, the foundation of their colony was laid.

We may well echo their thoughts as they remembered some of Elder Brewster’s words on their first Thanksgiving Day, which one orator has expressed as “Generations to come will look back to this hour and these scenes, this day of small things and say, ‘Here was our beginning as a people. These were our fathers and mothers. Through their trials we inherit our blessings. Their faith is our faith, their hope our hope, their God our God.’”

A CHAPLET OF ROSEMARY.

A CHAPLET OF ROSEMARY.

Burial Hill no longer bristles with the guns of the Pilgrim’s fort but is thickly studded with the graves of the generations who in turn walked on Plymouth’s first street below. One traversing this way and recalling the scenes it has witnessed, must be indeed insensitive not to feel the thrill that comes from treading on hallowed ground. Particularly must this be experienced by the descendants of the women we would honor.

We know that upon Cole’s Hill, Burial Hill and in the old burying grounds at Duxbury and Marshfield are the graves of many of the women of Plymouth, and some lie elsewhere, yet the exact location of how few is positive.

The second wife of Governor Bradford requested in her will that she might be laid as near her husband’s grave as might be. Their family plot is easily found. By another will, that of Captain Myles Standish, we may know where two of the women of his family rest--since his own grave is located and his request was to lie beside his two dear daughters--one his son’s wife Mary, the other his own lovely Lora, whose early death caused him much sorrow. At Marshfield, in the family burying ground, Susanna Winslow rests. A stone in the center of the town of Taunton marks the grave of Elizabeth Pool. A tablet at Little Compton, has been erected to the memory of Elizabeth Pabodie, John and Priscilla Alden’s eldest daughter; she lived her later years in this place. Mary Chilton Winslow lies beside her husband, in King’s Chapel Burying Ground, Boston; their names are marked upon a slab at the gate in Tremont Street. Elizabeth Tilly Howland, after she became a widow, went to live with her daughter, Lydia Brown, in Swansea and there died; her husband’s grave on Burial Hill is known, but she was not brought back to rest beside him. The grave of Mary Allerton, who lived to such a great age and saw the foundations of twelve of the thirteen colonies which formed the nucleus of the United States, is indicated by a monument erected to her and her husband on Burial Hill.

We would willingly make a pilgrimage to visit each known spot, regretting, the while, that there were so many we might not include. Yet upon all we may place the same unfading, if invisible, wreath of the leaves that signify remembrance.

Descendants of the women of Plymouth are now estimated to number more than a million. It is for them especially to rejoice in the results of artist’s brush, writer’s pen or sculptor’s tool that have been produced in efforts to recall to all the world that epoch in its history in which these women lived, by portraying the events of which they were a part.

Thus we have such pictures as Jacob and Albert Cuyp’s painting of the “Departure of the Pilgrims from Delfshaven.” J. G. Schwartz’s picture of “The Pilgrim Fathers’ First Meeting for Public Worship in North America.” “The Embarkation of the Pilgrim Fathers,” painted by Charles W. Cope, hangs in the British House of Parliament. “The Sailing of the Mayflower,” a painting in the audit house, Southampton, England--no more appropriate setting could be found for that portrayal. Charles Lucy has called his picture “Departure of the Pilgrims,” it is in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth--that Memorial temple. Robert W. Wier’s painting of “Embarkation of the Pilgrims” hangs in the nation’s Capitol, while Edgar Parker’s copy of it is in Pilgrim Hall. A. Gisbert has given us his idea of the “Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth Rock,” and the “Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers” is the title taken by Henry Sargent. “The Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor,” is portrayed by W. F. Halsall, and Granville Perkins has visualized “The Mayflower at Sea,” while Linton has engraved this subject. George H. Boughton has made charming and familiar reproductions of the Pilgrim men and women, and many another artist’s ideal has been depicted in the variations of the subject.

Fiction, verse and chronicle with the themes of the voyage and the Plymouth home of the Pilgrims have been produced by many able pens. Skillful historians, essayists, orators have done justice to the men; the events entering into their lives, the courage and valor which each day brought forth, have been recorded with emphasis and unflagging zeal. We are indeed glad and appreciative of the constant narration of the facts with which we have become familiar. At the same time, the regret comes to us that of the women so little has been said; that the balance of the two groups of the colony builders has not been better kept.

Of the Fathers we are accustomed to hear, but our gratitude salutes those who occasionally mention the Mothers and Daughters. They were two characteristic notes in the making of that Pilgrim score but because the latter was more lightly struck it has been too lightly regarded. Nevertheless, we rejoice that we know as much as we do of the women, and in the knowledge that increasing recognition is being given them.

Recently a plan was made that a chime of bells should be placed in the tower of the Pilgrim Monument at Provincetown and dedicated to the Women of the _Mayflower_ by their descendants. More recently still, Henry H. Kitson has modeled a statue of a Pilgrim Woman for erection at Plymouth, in their memory. We may recall here the noble monument erected by the nation to the Pilgrims. In this design a woman is the exalted figure who holds the book and gazes over the sea. Also of the four important though lesser figures, two are women. Hon. John D. Long has said of the heroic figure, “Her eyes look toward the sea. Forever she beholds upon its waves the incoming “_Mayflower_,” she sees the Pilgrims land. They vanish, but she, the monument of their faith remains and tells their story to the world,” which, as another has said, “in romance of circumstance and charm of personal heroism ... is pre-eminent.”

Well may be seen the qualities of heart and mind reproduced in countless of their descendants who have carried on the influence of their personality and work, deepening its roots down through the years. “The light they kindled has shone to many, in some degree to our whole nation.” In proof of this is a relation of some who have claimed descent from a Pilgrim of the _Mayflower_ or of Plymouth. This will comprise Presidents of the United States, presidents of universities or colleges, jurists, diplomats, writers, artists, military and naval men of all our wars, governors of states, church dignitaries, physicians, scientists, senators, representatives, signers of the Declaration of Independence, makers of the Constitution. It is difficult to begin, more so to pause, in such a list.

Annie A. Haxtun has said of one to be mentioned, “John Tilly’s spirit of adventure has fallen upon one, at least of his descendants, General A. W. Greely, the Arctic explorer, watched over by the God of his Pilgrim forefathers, was saved by the naval relief expedition to do good to the country, which is his on a claim of more than two centuries.” It is John and Hope Chipman, daughter of John and Elizabeth Tilly Howland, who are also ancestors of General Greely; and it may here be said that it is partly through his suggestion that the subject of this work was projected (in the smaller form of its first appearance); the other descendant likewise responsible was Mr. William Lowrie Marsh, of Washington, D. C., founder of the Society of Mayflower Descendants in that city; the ancestors of Mr. Marsh were William and Alice Bradford.

John and Priscilla Alden, William and Mary Brewster, Richard and Elizabeth Warren and Francis and Hester Cooke have as their descendants those who have been Presidents of the Republic: John Adams and John Quincy Adams, Zachary Taylor, Ulysses Simpson Grant and William Howard Taft. Also from the Aldens have descended President Wheelock of Dartmouth College and President Kirkland of Harvard.

Bishop Soule of the Methodist Church is in line of descent from George Soule and his wife.

Descendants of Giles Hopkins and Catherine Wheeldon have added distinction to the family. Stephen Hopkins, great grandson of the original, again made the name famous by placing it among the signers of the Declaration of Independence, while his brother, Ezekiel, became the first admiral of our national navy. At the present time it is important through Colonel Thomas S. Hopkins, a veteran of the Civil War, past Governor-General of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants and a prominent lawyer and resident of Washington, D. C.

In Washington, also, Mr. Ernest W. Bradford, an able patent lawyer, continues the eminence of the name of his ancestors. Washington, likewise, is the residence of Mr. A. A. Aspinwall, historian of that city’s Society of Mayflower Descendants, representing John and Elizabeth Howland.

A descendant of Francis and Hester Cooke is Major General Leonard Wood, at present Governor-General of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants.

The late Hon. Levi P. Morton, one time governor of New York State and Vice-President of the United States, was descended from the Hopkins and Cooke as well as Morton families.

From John and Priscilla Alden have come the poets William Cullen Bryant and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and the first Bishop of the Episcopal Church in America, Samuel Seabury; also the Revolutionary War Generals, Joseph and James Warren, the former of Bunker Hill fame, the latter President of the Congress of Massachusetts and husband of Mercy Otis, writer and patriot. Benjamin Church on whom the mantle of Myles Standish fell as Plymouth’s military leader, was the son of Elizabeth Warren and Richard Church.

In line of descent from Mary and William Brewster is a family of North Carolina, interesting in three generations, Chief Justice Richmond Mumford Pearson, Hon. Richmond Pearson, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States to Persia, Captain Richmond Pearson Hobson, a hero of the Spanish American War.

From them also is Donald Grant Mitchel, author, Lieut. Alden Davidson, an aviator in the World War died for his country; as his name implies, John and Priscilla Alden were his ancestors. A great great granddaughter of theirs was Faith Robinson; she married Governor Trumbull of Connecticut, George Washington’s “Brother Jonathan” which name gradually became a synonym for a typical American. She gained fame for giving her scarlet cloak at a church collection for the army, in which she was decidedly interested, having three sons as officers. Her fourth son was the famous artist. Mrs. May Alden Ward, author, was a descendant in a recent generation.

From Mary (Allerton) and Thomas Cushman came America’s famous tragedienne, Charlotte Cushman; also Mr. Cushman K. Davis, Governor of Minnesota, who made the speech of dedication at the ceremonies connected with the Cushman Monument on Burial Hill.

From Constance Hopkins and her husband Nicholas Snow, Robert Treat Paine, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and Robert Treat Paine, poet were descended.

In the convention which framed the Constitution John Tilly and the Howlands were represented by their descendant--through Desire Howland and Captain John Gorham--Nathaniel Gorham, who, as a member, was several times requested by General Washington to occupy the chair.

From this same group came Bishop Philips Brooks. As it is said, John Howland came to this country in the capacity of secretary to Governor John Carver, one, at least, of his and Elizabeth’s descendants filled that position toward another celebrity. Edward Herbert Noyes, journalist and traveller, first returned to the land of his ancestors as private secretary to Hon. John Lothrop Motley, historian and diplomatist, United States Ambassador to the Court of St. James. Rev. Thomas Clap, fourth President of Yale College, was also of the line of Howland, while his wife, Mary Whiting, was descended from Governor Bradford and his wife.

From Mary Chilton and her husband John Winslow, comes Mrs. Robert Hall Wiles, of Chicago, past President of the National Society of United States Daughters of the War of 1812 and now serving as President-General of the National Society Daughters of Founders and Patriots of America. From Mary and John Winslow, also, came Lieutenant Sturdevant, another young aviator of the World War, killed over-seas in the service of his country.

For another repetition of the exact name of his ancestor there is Doctor Myles Standish, a noted occulist of Boston. In the medical profession also Doctor Stuart Clark Johnson of Washington and Doctor Ira Hart Noyes of Providence, the first from John and Priscilla Alden, the second from John and Elizabeth Howland, both answering the call of duty to country in the World War, to serve over-seas.

Two residents of Washington are Hon. William S. Washburne--United States Civil Service Commissioner and Mr. Frank Herbert Briggs of the Court of Claims--descended respectively from Francis and Hester Cooke, and the Brewster, Bradford and Alden families.

The late Henry Billings Brown, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States was another descendant of John and Elizabeth Howland while the late Seth Shepherd, Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia, was another representative of the line of William and Mary Brewster. Mr. A. Howard Clark, who was editor of the magazine of the Smithsonian Institution, was a descendant from the Brewsters, Hopkins and Howlands. The name of Howland Davis tells plainly why he has done so much for present day Plymouth and the Society of Mayflower Descendants.

In the United States Senate are three prominent descendants of the Pilgrims. The ancestors of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, chairman of Committee on Foreign Relations, are John and Elizabeth Tilly Howland. The Senators from New York and Vermont, Hon. James Wolcott Wadsworth, Jr., and Hon. Carroll Smally Page, are descendants respectively from Giles and Catharine Hopkins and William and Mary Brewster.

A descendant in the person of William Wallace Case, has visited Scrooby and brought from there a piece of oak once a part of the old Manor house, home of his ancestors, William and Mary Brewster--this priceless relic has been made into the gavel used by the Governor of the District of Columbia Society of Mayflower Descendants.

In hundreds of cities and towns and villages of the nation there are other and equally consistent representatives of the glorious names of their Plymouth ancestors. As we have seen the men in all the branches of service to their country, the women may be compared no less favorably in what they have rendered. In their nation’s wars, they have ever been faithful, and their efforts as beneficial to the men and cause as were those of their ancestors of their own sex, whose work was as the mortar in the solid foundation wall of the nation they helped to build. Someone has said that always in the history of mankind the woman has been at her best when she has felt herself most needed. Every reason then for her to attract as she appears in pioneer days, in those of the Revolution or War for the Union and in the World War, unfailingly illustrating, unconsciously or not, the age old motto of _Noblesse Oblige_.

In hamlet or city, women descendants of Plymouth women upheld the honor of their men and country in Red Cross, Government Loans or “Y.” work during the World War. In the Sanitary Commission and Nursing Units of the Civil War the women’s spirit was the same, and in 1776 when their days were nearest to the pioneer women, the women of the Revolutionary War inheriting the courage and self-forgetfulness, matched the heroism of the men. Thus each generation of women has met the crisis actuated by the same unanimity of purpose and devotion--from each in turn their successors have caught the falling torch, assuring that they shall not have lived and worked in vain. And they may sleep in peace.

The American women of today must meet the challenge of the women of 1861, 1776 and 1620. She must bear comparison with them in fundamental things. Patriotism, firmness, thrift, decision and resourcefulness, characteristics which are their heritage. As someone has said, “We are living in the tomorrow for which they wrought. We are to do today with all fidelity each bit of work which lies at our hands. This will make our next day brighter and by so much, set the world forward.”

The mission of the _Mayflower_ company was to open the way for a successful colonization of the New World. Its mission was faithfully performed. In studying the details and circumstances relating to the immortal voyage and settlement of Plymouth--particularly in relation to the women, vested today with supreme interest and in a glamour peculiarly their own, we must feel that that nobility of life may be ours as well as theirs and that it may illuminate the difficult life of today and make it worthy to be the fruit of the tree of Liberty they helped to plant, in tears and smiles.

Realizing the heavy debt that we owe to the men who were led to undertake the settlement of Plymouth we owe an equal if not greater debt to the women who had the courage and spirit to enter with them into the great and epoch making adventure. These make the shrines which we would visit. It is with reverence that we view not only the soil which first they trod but every spot associated with them.

If history as some one has said is in its unchangeable essence a tale, then this particular history is a tale that cannot be too often told or heard, not merely to hold our attention to the past but by its light to look forward with a thrill to the future, to the tasks and service for civilization, under the Providence by which the women of the _Mayflower_ and the women of Plymouth were upheld. This will be the best memorial we can give these women all through the years; the remembrance that cannot fade.

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation errors have been corrected.

Page 129: “whom she had recenly” changed to “whom she had recently”

Page 138: “our earlist acquaintances” changed to “our earliest acquaintances”

Page 156: “ceremonious assent” changed to “ceremonious ascent”

Page 192: “Declaration of Independance” changed to “Declaration of Independence”

Page 193: “another repetion of the exact name” changed to “another repetition of the exact name”