THE PILGRIM CHURCH AND PLYMOUTH COLONY.
BY FRANKLIN B. DEXTER,
_Professor of American History in Yale College._
THE preceding chapter has outlined the growth of Separatism in England,
and prepared the way for the story of the fortunes of that remarkable
congregation which has given a new significance to the name “Pilgrim.”
[Illustration]
Elizabeth’s policy of Uniformity, so sternly pursued by her last
Archbishop of Canterbury, Whitgift (1583-1604), was ostentatiously
adopted by her successor, James I., at the Hampton Court Conference
held in his presence by learned men of the Puritan and High Church
parties in the first year of his reign; and when this conference
was quickly followed by the elevation of Bancroft, a more arbitrary
Whitgift, to Whitgift’s vacant place, those who were earnest in the
opposite opinions were forced to choose between persecution and exile.
[Illustration: SITE OF THE MANOR-HOUSE.
[This cut follows an engraving in Bartlett’s _Pilgrim Fathers_, p.
40, representing the scene about thirty years ago. Raine, _Parish of
Blyth_, p. 129, referring to the time of Edwin Sandys, raised to the
archiepiscopal throne of York in 1576, says: “Under him a family of
the name of Brewster occupied the manor-house, which had gradually and
insensibly dwindled down from a large mansion to a moderately sized
farmhouse;” and Raine gives for a frontispiece a view of the remaining
fragment, which is copied by Dr. Dexter in _Sabbath at Home_, 1867, p.
135. Mr. Deane says of it, “It may have been originally connected with
the manor-house, which has long since passed away.” (_Mass. Hist. Soc.
Proc._ xi. 404.) Dr. Dexter gives a plan of the neighborhood.—ED.]]
[Illustration: SCROOBY AND AUSTERFIELD.]
There were doubtless other neighborhoods where the Separatists
maintained thriving congregations for a longer or shorter time after
the King’s policy became known; but by far the most zealous company of
which accounts remain was one formed by residents “of sundry towns and
villages, some in Nottinghamshire, some of Lincolnshire, and some of
Yorkshire, where they border nearest together.” In 1602, or thereabout,
these people, from places at least eight or ten miles apart, gathered
themselves into a church,—probably at Gainsborough, a market-town in
Lincolnshire, on the Trent; at least we know that when the original
congregation divided, in 1605 or 1606, into two,—perhaps for greater
security, as well as for local convenience,—it was at Gainsborough
that one branch remained, which soon chose John Smyth, a Cambridge
graduate, who had been some time with them, to be its pastor, and that
with him many of this portion of the parent stock migrated in 1606 to
Amsterdam.
The western division of the original company appears to have been
formed into a distinct church in the summer of 1606, and, according to
the testimony of Governor Bradford, in his notice of Elder Brewster,
“they ordinarily met at his [Brewster’s] house on the Lord’s day
(which was a manor [_i. e._ manor-house] of the Bishop’s), and with
great love he entertained them when they came, making provision for
them, to his great charge.”
[Illustration: AUTOGRAPHS OF JOHN ROBINSON.
[No wholly authenticated signature of Robinson is known. Dr. Dexter, in
his _Congregationalism as seen in its Literature_, pp. xx, 359, gives
the upper of these two, as from a book in the British Museum, “believed
by the experts of that institution to have belonged to him.” It is
evidently by the same hand as the lower of the two, which, with another
very like it, is upon the title of Sir Edwin Sandys’s _Relation of the
State of Religion_, London, 1605, belonging to Charles Deane, Esq., of
Cambridge. Hunter, _Founders of New Plymouth_, p. 155, has pointed out
how parts of this book show its author to have been “much in advance
of his time,” and that there is “a correspondency in some parts with
the celebrated Farewell Address of Robinson.” It is easy to suppose,
therefore, that Robinson once owned the little treatise. Hunter errs
in assigning 1687 as the date of its first edition. That of 1605 is
called in the 1629 edition a surreptitious one, and there is a copy in
the Boston Athenæum, with MS. annotations said to be by the author. Dr.
Dexter points out 1629 as the year of the first authorized edition, and
there were others in 1632, 1633, 1638, and 1673. (_Congregationalism_,
App. nos. 299, 568; Palfrey, _New England_, i. 191.)—Ed.]]
William Brewster, the chief layman of this congregation, was
postmaster, or “post,” as the usual term was, at Scrooby, a small
village in the northern part of Nottinghamshire, ten miles west
of Gainsborough. Though Scrooby was a mere hamlet, its station on
the London and Edinburgh post-road gave Brewster full occupation,
especially after the two capitals were united under one king, as it
was his duty to provide food and lodging for all travellers by post on
Government business, as well as relays of horses for them and for the
conveyance of Government despatches. He was a native of the village,
and had matriculated in 1580 at the University of Cambridge, where he
came under Puritan influence; he soon, however, quitted his books to
enter the service of William Davison, Elizabeth’s upright and Puritan
Secretary of State, whose promising career was sacrificed to her
duplicity in the matter of the execution of Mary Stuart. Under Davison,
Brewster had experience both at court and in foreign embassies; he
remained with his master for a year or two after the fall of the
latter in 1587, and then retired to his native village. There he
assisted his father, who was then postmaster, until the latter’s death
in 1590; and after a brief interval the son, then about twenty-three
years of age,[475] succeeded to the father’s place through the
intercession of his old patron, Davison.[476]
In 1603 his annual stipend from the Government was raised from £30 to
£36, the two sums corresponding in present values to perhaps six and
seven hundred dollars respectively. The manor-house of Scrooby, built
originally as a hunting-seat for the Archbishops of York, though in
Brewster’s time “much decayed,”[477] had been occupied for many years
by his father as bailiff for the archbishops, and as representative of
their vested interests in the surrounding property, which was leased to
Sir Samuel Sandys, of London.
The clerical leaders of the church, meeting in the great hall or chapel
under Brewster’s roof, were Richard Clyfton and John Robinson. The
former had been instituted in 1586, at the age of thirty-three, rector
of Babworth, a village six or seven miles southeast of Scrooby, and
had continued there until the undisguised Puritanism of his teachings
caused his removal, probably in connection with Archbishop Bancroft’s
summary proceedings against Nonconformist ministers at the end of 1604.
His associate, Robinson, apparently a native of the neighborhood, had
entered Cambridge University in 1592, and after gaining a Fellowship
had spent some years in the ministry in or near Norwich; but about 1604
he threw up his cure on conscientious grounds, and returning to the
North, allied himself with Separatists in Gainsborough. He was, by the
testimony of an opponent (Robert Baillie), “the most learned, polished,
and modest spirit among the Brownists.”
[Illustration: AUSTERFIELD CHURCH.
[This cut follows a photograph owned by Mr. Charles Deane, who also
furnished a photograph, after which the accompanying fac-simile of the
registry of the baptism of Bradford, preserved in this church, is made;
see _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._ x. 39. The view of the church given in the
title of Bartlett’s _Pilgrim Fathers_ is the one followed by Dexter
in _Sabbath at Home_, 1867, p. 131, and in _Harper’s Magazine_, 1877,
p. 183. Raine, in his _Parish of Blyth_, Westminster, 1860, gives a
larger view; and Bartlett, p. 36, gives the old Norman door within the
porch.—ED.]]
The other members of the Scrooby congregation were of humble station,
and have left little trace even of their names; most notable to us is
young William Bradford, born in 1590 in Austerfield, a hamlet two and a
half miles to the northward, within the limits of Yorkshire.
[Illustration]
After they had covenanted together in church relations, “they could
not long continue in any peaceable condition, but were hunted and
persecuted on every side.... For some were taken and clapped up in
prison; others had their houses beset and watched night and day, and
hardly escaped their hands; and the most were fain to fly and leave
their houses and habitations. ... Seeing themselves thus molested, and
that there was no hope of their continuance there, by a joint consent
they resolved to go into the Low Countries, where they heard was
freedom of religion for all men.”
[Illustration]
The remedy of exile was not new to a generation that could remember
the emigration of Robert Browne’s followers from Norwich to Zealand in
1581, and had witnessed the transfer of their Gainsborough neighbors
to Holland shortly after their own organization. “So, after they had
continued together about a year, and kept their meetings every Sabbath
in one place or other, ... seeing they could no longer continue in
that condition, they resolved to get over into Holland as they could.”
A large number attempted, in the latter part of the year 1607, to
embark at Boston in Lincolnshire, the most convenient seaport for them,
though fifty miles distant from Scrooby. But emigration, except with a
license, was in general prohibited by an early statute (A. D. 1389),
and the ship’s captain, who had engaged to take them, found it to his
interest to betray them in the act of embarking; so that the only
result for most of them was a month’s detention in Boston jail, and
the confiscation of their goods, while seven of the leaders, including
Brewster, were kept in prison still longer. In a new attempt the
following spring, an unfrequented strip of sea-coast in northeastern
Lincolnshire, above Great Grimsby, was selected, and a bargain made
with a Dutch captain to convey the party thence to Holland; then,
perhaps, taking advantage of the Idle, a sluggish stream flowing
near their doors, tributary to the Trent, and so to the Humber, the
women and children, with all the household goods, were in that case
despatched by water, while the men marched some forty miles across
country to the rendezvous. But after a part of the men (who arrived
first) had embarked, on the appearance of armed representatives of the
law the captain took alarm and departed; some of those left on shore
fled, and reached their destination by other means; but the women and
children, with a few of the men and all their valuables, were captured.
Another season of suspense followed; but at length the absurdity of
detaining such a helpless group began to be felt, the magistrates were
glad to be rid of them, and by August, 1608, the last of the straggling
unfortunates got safely over to Amsterdam.
[Illustration]
They found there the church of English Separatists transplanted under
Francis Johnson upwards of twenty years before, as well as that of
John Smyth and his Gainsborough people; but the church from Scrooby
appears to have kept its separate organization, and their experience
is calmly recounted by their historian, Bradford, as follows: “When
they had lived at Amsterdam about a year, Mr. Robinson, their pastor,
and some others of best discerning, seeing how Mr. John Smyth and his
company was already fallen into contention with the church that was
there before them, and no means they could use would do any good to
cure the same; and also that the flames of contention were like to
break out in the ancient church itself (as afterwards lamentably came
to pass),—which things they prudently foreseeing, thought it was best
to remove, before they were anyway engaged with the same; though they
well knew it would be much to the prejudice of their outward estates,
both at present and in likelihood in the future,—as, indeed, it proved
to be.”
For these, with other reasons, in the winter after their arrival
they asked the authorities of Leyden, an inland city, twenty miles
or more southwest from Amsterdam, and the next in size to it in the
province, to allow their congregation, of about one hundred English
men and women, to remove thither by May 1, 1609.[478] The application
was granted, and the removal to that beautiful city was accomplished,
probably in May; but their senior pastor, Clyfton, being oppressed with
premature infirmity, preferred to remain in Amsterdam.
[Illustration: LEYDEN.
[This little cut is a fac-simile of one given by Mr. Murphy in the
_Historical Magazine_, iii. 332, following a bird’s-eye map of the
city, dated 1670, when this part of the town was unchanged from its
condition in the Pilgrims’ time. More of the same plan is given by
Dr. Dexter in _Hours at Home_, i. 198. No. 1 is the bell turret, no
longer standing, of the cathedral which stood at 2, and beneath which
Robinson was buried. No. 10 is the house in which Robinson lived,
with a garden on the hither side, the front being at the other end of
the building, on the Klog-steeg, or Clock-alley, marked 5; a building
now on the spot, bearing the date 1683 as that of its erection, has
also borne since 1866 another tablet, placed there by the care of Dr.
Dexter, which reads: “_On this spot lived, taught, and died_ JOHN
ROBINSON, 1611-1625.” See Dexter in _Hours at Home_ i. 201-2, and in
_Congregationalism as seen in its Literature_, p. 387.—ED.]]
In Leyden they were forced to adapt themselves, as they had begun to
do hitherto, to conditions of life very unlike those to which they had
been trained in their own country; and so far as we can trace them, a
majority of the flock seem to have found employment in the manufacture
of the woollen goods for which the city was famous. Upon the public
records the church appears as an organized body early in 1611, when
Robinson with three others purchased for 8,000 guilders (corresponding
in our currency to perhaps $10,000 or $12,000) a valuable estate in the
centre of the city, including a spacious house for the pastor, used
also for Sunday worship, and at the back of the garden an area large
enough for the subsequent erection of twenty-one small residences for
church members.
Among additional reasons which had led the studious Robinson to favor
the removal to Leyden, may be counted the fact that it was the site
of a university already famous, and so furnished ample opportunities
of intercourse with learned men and of access to valuable libraries.
The sharp controversy between the occupants of the chair of
theology, Gomarus and Arminius, involving no personal risk to the
English spectators, was an added attraction; and before long Robinson
himself appeared as a disputant on the Calvinist side in the public
discussions, and so successfully that by Bradford’s testimony “the
Arminians stood more in fear of him than [of] any of the University.”
This perhaps opened the way for his admission to membership of the
University, which took place in September, 1615, and secured him
valuable civil as well as literary privileges. Such an honor was
justified also by the activity of his pen while in exile. Between
1610 and 1615 he published four controversial pieces, of nearly seven
hundred quarto pages, the most important being a popularly written
Justification of Separation from the Church of England. In the same
field of argument were the other treatises; while in 1619, when public
attention was absorbed with the Synod of Dort, he brought out in
Latin a brief but telling _Apologia_, or Defence of the views of the
Separatists, in distinction from those of the Dutch churches.
[Illustration: PLAN OF LEYDEN.
[This follows a plan given by Bartlett in his _Pilgrim Fathers_, p.
79. No. 1 is Saint Peter’s Church, where Robinson was buried in 1625.
Bartlett also gives, p. 88, a view of the interior. No. 2 is Saint
Pancras church. No. 3 is the Town Hall. Bartlett also gives a view, p.
83. from the tower of this building.—ED.]]
These outside discussions, in which their pastor took such interest,
left undisturbed the steady growth of the Pilgrim church, in the
government of which Brewster, as ruling elder, was associated with
Robinson, after the removal to Leyden. In these years “many came
unto them from divers parts of England, so as they grew a great
congregation,” numbering at times nearly three hundred communicants.
Among these new-comers were some who ranked thenceforth among their
principal men: John Carver, an early deacon of the church, and leader
of the first migrating colony; Robert Cushman, Carver’s adjutant in
effecting that migration; Miles Standish, the soldier of the company;
and Edward Winslow, a young man probably of higher social position than
the rest, who shared with Bradford, after Carver’s death, the main
burden of sustaining the infant colony.
But though some recruits were attracted by Robinson’s gifts and by a
prospect of freedom from prelatical oppression, yet the condition of
the Leyden people was in general one of struggling poverty, with little
hope of amendment. It were vain to expect that their language or their
peculiarities of religious order could gain a secure foothold on Dutch
soil, or that a Government on friendly terms with England could show
active good-will to a nest of outcasts which England was anxious to
break up. The increase of numbers had come in spite of the hardships
attending the struggle for a livelihood in a foreign city; but as
the conditions of the struggle were better understood, the numbers
fell off. Time was also bringing a new danger with the approaching
expiration of the twelve years’ truce (April, 1609-April, 1621) between
Spain and the Netherlands.
As years passed, the older generation among the exiles who clung
loyally to the English name and tongue began to realize that a great
part of their aims would be frustrated if their children should, by
intermarriage with the Dutch and other outside influences, wander
from their fathers’ principles, and be absorbed in the Dutch people.
These dangers being recognized, and the major part of the company
being agreed that it was best to avoid them by a removal, it became
necessary to select a new asylum, where Englishmen might preserve their
nationality undisturbed. To the new continent of America, which best
satisfied the conditions, all thoughts turned as early as the summer of
1617; and the respective claims were weighed of tropical Guiana on the
one hand, which Raleigh had described in 1595 as the true Eldorado, and
Virginia on the other, conspicuous as the seat of the first successful
English colony. A little consideration excluded Guiana, with its
supposed wealth of gold tempting the jealousy of the Spaniard; and
so the choice was limited to the territory somewhat vaguely known as
Virginia, within the bounds assigned to the two companies chartered by
King James in 1606. The objection was duly weighed “that if they lived
among the English which were there planted [_i.e._ on the James River],
or so near them as to be under their government, they should be in as
great danger to be troubled or persecuted for the cause of religion as
if they lived in England; and it might be worse. And if they lived too
far off, they should neither have succor nor defence from them.”
There were risks either way; but they decided, under the advice of some
persons of rank and quality at home,—friends, perhaps, of Brewster’s
when at court, or of Winslow’s,—to dare the dangers from wild beasts
and savages in the unsettled parts of Virginia, rather than the dangers
from their own bigoted countrymen, and to ask the King boldly for leave
to continue as they were in church matters.
Their first care was for the regular sanction of the Virginia Company
in London to the settlement of the proposed colony on their territory;
and with this object Carver and Cushman were despatched to England as
agents, apparently in September, 1617. They took with them, for use in
conciliating the sentiments which any petition from a community with
their history would awaken at court, a memorable declaration in seven
articles, signed by the pastor and elder, which professed their full
assent to the doctrines of the Church of England, as well as their
acknowledgment of the King’s supremacy and of the obedience due to him,
“either active, if the thing commanded be not against God’s Word, or
passive [_i.e._ undergoing the appointed penalties], if it be.” The
same articles, in carefully guarded language, recognized as lawful
the existing relations of Church and State in England, and disavowed
the notion of authority inhering in any assembly of ecclesiastical
officers, except as conferred by the civil magistrate. In any estimate
of the Pilgrims, it is necessary to give full weight to this deliberate
record of their readiness to tolerate other opinions.
The two messengers found the Virginia Company in general well disposed,
and gained an active friend in Sir Edwin Sandys (a prominent member of
the Company and brother of Sir Samuel Sandys, the lessee of Scrooby
Manor), who, though no Puritan, was a firm advocate of toleration; but
as he was also a leader of the Parliamentary Opposition, his friendship
was a doubtful recommendation to royal favor. Their report, on their
return in November, was so encouraging that Carver and another were
sent over the next month for further negotiations with the Virginia
Company and with the King. But the former business still halted,
because of the prejudice in official minds against their independent
practices in church government. Sir Edwin Sandys, Sir Robert Naunton
(one of the Secretaries of State), and other friends labored early in
1618 with the King for a guarantee of liberty of religion; but the
ecclesiastical authorities were strong in their opposition, there
was a suspicion abroad that the design was “to make a free popular
State there,”[479] and the delegates returned to Leyden to propose
that a patent be taken on the indirect assurance of the King “that
he would connive at them and not molest them, provided they carried
themselves peaceably.” It seemed wisest to proceed, and Brewster
(now fifty-two years of age, one of the oldest and most experienced
of the congregation) and Cushman were commissioned in the spring of
1619 to procure a patent from the Virginia Company, and to complete
an arrangement with some London merchants who had partially agreed to
advance funds for the undertaking. The business was delayed by a crisis
in the Virginia Company’s affairs, connected with the excited canvass
attending the election (April 28 [May 8], 1619) of Sir Edwin Sandys as
Governor; but at length the patent was granted (June 9/19, 1619), being
taken by the advice of friends, not in their own names, but in that of
Mr. John Wincob (or Whincop), described by Bradford as “a religious
gentleman then belonging to the Countess of Lincoln, who intended to go
with them.”[480]
When the patent was secured, Brewster appears to have returned to
Leyden at once, leaving Cushman for a time to negotiate with the
merchants; but so little was done or perhaps hoped for in this
direction, that an entirely new project was started the next winter
under Robinson’s auspices. Certain Amsterdam merchants, already
interested in the rich fur-trade on and near the Hudson River,
presented a memorial to the States-General, Feb. 2/12, 1620, from which
it appears that Robinson had signified his readiness to lead a colony
of over four hundred English families to settle under the Dutch in New
Netherland, if assured of protection. The memorial asked for assurances
on this last head, and for the immediate despatch of two ships of war
to take formal possession of the lands to be reserved for such a colony.
While this memorial was awaiting its (unfavorable) answer, Thomas
Weston, one of those London merchants with whom there had already
been consultations, came to Leyden as their agent, to propose a new
arrangement for a settlement in North Virginia. For some reason, not
now clear, the Pilgrims showed peculiar deference to his advice;
and accordingly the negotiations with the Dutch were broken off and
articles of agreement with the London merchants drawn up, embodying the
conditions propounded by Weston. By these conditions a common stock was
formed, with shares of ten pounds each, which might be taken up either
by a deposit of money or of goods necessary for the undertaking; and
Carver and Cushman were sent to England to collect subscriptions and
to make purchases and preparations for the voyage. In this service,
while Carver was busy with the ship in Southampton, Cushman took the
responsibility of conceding certain alterations in the agreement, to
please the “merchant adventurers,” as they were styled, whose part in
the scheme was indispensable. The original plan was for a seven years’
partnership, during which all the colonists’ labor—except for two days
a week—was to be for the common benefit; and at the end of the time,
when the resulting profits were divided, the houses and improved lands
in the colony were to go to the planters: but the changes sanctioned
by Cushman did away with the reservation of two days in the week for
each man’s private use, and arranged for an equal division, after seven
years, of houses, lands, and goods between the “merchant adventurers”
and the planters. Dr. Palfrey has well observed that “the hardship
of the terms to which the Pilgrims were reduced shows at once the
slenderness of their means and the constancy of their purpose.” About
seventy merchants joined in the enterprise, of whom only three—William
Collier, Timothy Hatherly, and William Thomas—became sufficiently
interested to settle in the colony.
Notwithstanding discouragements, the removal was pressed forward,
but the means at command provided only for sending a portion of the
company; and “those that stayed, being the greater number, required the
pastor to stay with them,” while Elder Brewster accompanied, in the
pastor’s stead, the almost as numerous minority who were to constitute
a church by themselves; and in every church, by Robinson’s theories,
the “governing elder,” next in rank to the pastor and the teacher, must
be “apt to teach.”
A small ship,—the “Speedwell,”—of some sixty tons burden, was bought
and fitted out in Holland, and early in July those who were ready for
the formidable voyage, being “the youngest and strongest part,” left
Leyden for embarkation at Delft-Haven, nearly twenty miles to the
southward,—sad at the parting, “but,” says Bradford, “they knew that
they were pilgrims.” About the middle of the second week of the month
the vessel sailed for Southampton, England. On the arrival there,
they found the “Mayflower,” a ship of about one hundred and eighty
tons burden, which had been hired in London, awaiting them with their
fellow-passengers,—partly laborers employed by the merchants, partly
Englishmen like-minded with themselves, who were disposed to join the
colony. Mr. Weston, also, was there, to represent the merchants; but
when discussion arose about the terms of the contract, he went off in
anger, leaving the contract unsigned and the arrangements so incomplete
that the Pilgrims were forced to dispose of sixty pounds’ worth of
their not abundant stock of provisions to meet absolutely necessary
charges.
The ships, with perhaps one hundred and twenty passengers, put to sea
about August 5/15, with hopes of the colony being well settled before
winter; but the “Speedwell” was soon pronounced too leaky to proceed
without being overhauled, and so both ships put in at Dartmouth, after
eight days’ sail. Repairs were made, and before the end of another week
they started again; but when above a hundred leagues beyond Land’s
End, Reynolds, the master of the “Speedwell,” declared her in imminent
danger of sinking, so that both ships again put about. On reaching
Plymouth Harbor it was decided to abandon the smaller vessel, and thus
to send back those of the company whom such a succession of mishaps
had disheartened. Those who withdrew were chiefly such as from their
own weakness or from the weakness of their families were likely to be
least useful in the hard labor of colonization; the most conspicuous
desertion was that of Cushman, smarting under criticism and despairing
of success. The unexpected parting between those who disembarked and
those who crowded into the “Mayflower” was sad enough. It was not
known till later that the alarm over the “Speedwell’s” condition was
owing to deception practised by the master and crew, who repented of
their bargain to remain a year with the colony, and took this means of
dissolving it.
At length, on Wednesday, September 6/16, the “Mayflower” left Plymouth,
and nine weeks from the following day, on November 9/19, sighted
the eastern coast of the flat, but at that time well-wooded, shores
of Cape Cod. She took from Plymouth one hundred and two passengers,
besides the master and crew; on the voyage one man-servant died and
one child was born making 102 (73 males and 29 females) who reached
their destination. Of these, the colony proper consisted of 34 adult
males, 18 of them accompanied by their wives and 14 by minor children
(20 boys and 8 girls); besides these, there were 3 maid-servants and
19 men-servants, sailors, and craftsmen,—5 of them only half-grown
boys,—who were hired for temporary service.
[Illustration: AUTOGRAPHS OF THE “MAYFLOWER” PILGRIMS.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
It is thought that the autographs of all who came in the “Mayflower,”
whose signatures are known, are included in this group, except that of
Dorothy May, who at this time was the wife of William Bradford, and
whose maiden signature Dr. Dexter found in Holland, as well as the
earliest one known of Bradford, attached to his marriage application at
Amsterdam, in 1613, when he was twenty-four years old.
(See Dexter’s _Congregationalism_, p. 381.) Resolved White was then
but a child, and his brother Peregrine was not born till the ship had
reached Cape Cod Harbor.
John Cooke, son of Francis Cooke, was the last male survivor of the
“Mayflower” passengers.—ED.]
Of the thirty-four men who were the nucleus of the colony, more than
half are known to have come from Leyden; in fact, but four of the
thirty-four are certainly known to be of the Southampton accessions.
The ruling motive of the majority was, therefore, that which had
impelled the church in Leyden to this step, modified, perhaps, to
some small extent by their knowledge of the chief reason, as Bradford
alleges, in the minds of Weston and the others who had advanced them
money, “for the hope of present profit to be made by the fishing that
was found in that country” whither they were bound.
And whither were they bound? As we have seen, a patent was secured
in 1619 in Mr. Wincob’s name; but “God so disposed as he never went
nor they ever made use of this patent,” says Bradford,—not however
making it clear when the intention of colonizing under this instrument
was abandoned. The “merchant adventurers” while negotiating at Leyden
seem to have taken out another patent from the Virginia Company, in
February, 1620, in the names of John Peirce and of his associates;
and this was more probably the authority under which the “Mayflower”
voyage was undertaken. As the Pilgrims had known before leaving
Holland of an intended grant of the northern parts of Virginia to a
new company,—the Council for New England,—when they found themselves
off Cape Cod, “the patent they had being for Virginia and not for
New England, which belonged to another Government, with which the
Virginia Company had nothing to do,” they changed the ship’s course,
with intent, says Bradford, “to find some place about Hudson’s River
for their habitation,” and so fulfil the conditions of their patent;
but difficulties of navigation and opposition from the master and crew
caused the exiles, after half a day’s voyage, to retrace their course
and seek a resting-place on the nearest shore. Near half a century
after, a charge of treachery was brought against Mr. Jones, the master
of the “Mayflower,” for bringing the vessel so far out of her course;
but the alleged cause, collusion with the Dutch, who desired to keep
the English away from the neighborhood of New Netherland, is incredible.
But their radical change of destination exposed the colonists to a new
danger. As soon as it was known, some of the hired laborers threatened
to break loose (upon landing) from their engagements, and to enjoy full
license, as a result of the loss of the authority delegated in the
Virginia Company’s patent.
The necessity of some mode of civil government had been enjoined on the
Pilgrims in the farewell letter from their pastor, and was now availed
of to restrain these insurgents and to unite visibly the well-affected.
A compact, which has often been eulogized as the first written
constitution in the world, was drawn up, as follows:—
“In the name of God, amen. We whose names are underwritten, the loyal
subjects of our dread sovereign lord King James, by the grace of God
of Great Britain, France, and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith,
etc., having undertaken, for the glory of God and advancement of
the Christian faith, and honor of our King and country, a voyage to
plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these
presents solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and one of
another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body
politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance
of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute,
and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions,
and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and
convenient for the general good of the Colony, unto which we promise
all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have
hereunder subscribed our names at Cape Cod the 11th of November, in
the year of the reign of our sovereign lord King James, of England,
France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth.
Anno Dom. 1620.”
[Illustration: CAPE COD HARBOR.
[This is a reduction of part of a map, which is given by Dr. H.
M. Dexter in his edition of _Mourt’s Relation_. He has carefully
studied the topography of the region in connection with the record,
and he possessed certain advantages in such study over Dr. Young,
who has similarly investigated the matter in his _Chronicles of the
Pilgrims_. There were three expeditions from the ship, and Dr. Dexter’s
interpretation is followed. The women were set ashore to wash at
_a_, and while the carpenter was repairing their shallop, Standish
and sixteen men started on the 15th November (O. S.) on the first
expedition. At _b_ they saw some Indians and a dog, who disappeared
in the woods at _c_, and later ran up the hill at _d_. The explorers
encamped for the night at _e_, and the next day, where they turned the
head of the creek, they drank their first New England water. Then at
_g_ they built a fire as a signal to those on the ship. At _h_ they
spent their second night; at _j_ they found plain ground fit to plough;
at _k_ they opened a grave; at _l_ dug up some corn; at Pamet River
they found an old palisade and saw two canoes. They then retraced their
steps, and at _i_ Bradford was caught in a deer-trap. They reached
the ship on the 17th. When the shallop was ready, ten days later, a
party of thirty-four started in her with Jones, the captain of the
“Mayflower,” as leader, and the expedition, called the second on the
map, lasted from the 27th to the 30th November. The third expedition,
likewise in the shallop, started on the 6th of December. Farther
south than the map carries the dotted line, they landed at the modern
Eastham, and had their first encounter with the natives on the 8th, and
the same day reached Plymouth Harbor in the evening, as narrated in the
text. On the 12th the shallop, sailing directly east across the bay,
returned to the “Mayflower,” which on Saturday, the 16th, reached the
anchorage depicted on the map on the following page.—ED.]]
Of the forty-one signers to this compact, thirty-four were the adults
called above the nucleus of the colony, and seven were servants or
hired workmen; the seven remaining adult males of the latter sort were
perhaps too ill to sign with the rest (all of them soon died), or the
list of signers may be imperfect.[481]
This needful preliminary step was taken on Saturday, November 11/21,
by which time the “Mayflower” had rounded the Cape and found shelter
in the quiet harbor on which now lies the village of Provincetown;
and probably on the same day they “chose, or rather confirmed,” as
Bradford has it (as though the choice were the foregone conclusion of
long previous deliberation), Mr. John Carver governor for the ensuing
year. On the same day an armed delegation visited the neighboring
shore, finding no inhabitants. There were no attractions, however,
for a permanent settlement, nor even accommodations for a comfortable
encampment while such a place was being sought. After briefer
explorations, an expedition started on Wednesday, December 6/16, to
circumnavigate Cape Cod Bay in search of a good harbor, and by Friday
night was safely landed on Clark’s Island (so called from the ship’s
mate, who was of the party), just within what is since known as
Plymouth Bay. On Saturday they explored the island, on the Sabbath day
they rested, and on Monday, the 11th,[482] they sounded the harbor and
“marched also into the land, and found divers cornfields and little
running brooks, a place very good for situation.”[483]
[Illustration: PLYMOUTH HARBOR.
[This is reduced from a map given in Dr. Dexter’s edition of _Mourt’s
Relation_. The Common House of the first comers was situated on
Leyden Street, which left the shore just south of the rock and ran
to the top of Burial Hill, and it is the lots on the south side of
this street that Bradford marked out in the fac-simile of the first
page of the record given on another page. The “highway” as marked on
that plan led to the south to the Town Brook. The Common House, if it
had been designated on that draft, would have been put next “Peter
Brown;” on the plan here given it would be on the north side of the
brook, about where the meridian crosses it, though the engraver has
put the designation on the opposite side of the water. It was not
till about 1630, or ten years after their landing, that the Plymouth
settlers began to spread around the bay, beyond the circuit of mutual
protection. Still for a year or two they scattered merely for summer
sojourns, to work lands which had been granted them. About 1632 Duxbury
began to receive as permanent residents several of the “Mayflower”
people. Standish settled on the shore southeast of Captain’s Hill, thus
attaching his military title to the neighboring eminence, and though
his grave is not known, it is probable that he was buried, in 1656, on
his farm. His house stood, it is supposed, nearly ten years longer, and
was probably enlarged by his son, Alexander Standish, who was, there
is some reason to believe, a trader, and he may have been the town
clerk of Duxbury. Its records begin in 1666, and the tradition that
connects the destruction of the earlier records with that of this house
derives some color from the traces of fire which have been discovered
about its site. (_Sabbath at Home_, May, 1867.) The house now known as
the Standish house was built afterwards by Alexander, the son. Elder
Brewster became Standish’s neighbor a little later, and lived east of
the hill.
[Illustration]
Alden settled near the arm of the sea just west of Powder Point, and
George Soule on the Point itself; Peter Brown also settled in Duxbury.
Still farther to the north, beyond the scope of the map, Edward Winslow
established his estate of Careswell, where in our day Daniel Webster
lived and died, in Marshfield. John Howland found a home at Rocky Nook.
Isaac Allerton removed to New Haven, and Governor Bradford during his
last years was almost the only one of those who came in the first ship
who still lived in the village about the rock. (Cf. _Mass. Hist. Soc.
Proc._ xi. 478.)—ED.]]
Prepared to report favorably, the explorers returned to the ship, which
by the end of the week was safely anchored in the chosen haven. The
selection of a site and the preparation of materials, in uncertain
weather, delayed till Monday, the 25th, the beginning of “the first
house, for common use, to receive them and their goods.” Before the
new year, house-lots were assigned to families, and by the middle of
January most of the company had left the ship for a home on land.
But the exposures incident to founding a colony in the dead of a
New England winter (though later experience showed that this was a
comparatively mild one) told severely on all; and before summer came
one half of the number, most of them adult males, had fallen by the
way.[484] Yet when the “Mayflower” sailed homewards in April, not one
of the colonists went in her, so sweet was the taste of freedom, even
under the shadow of death.
An avowed motive of the emigration was the hope of converting the
natives; but more than three months elapsed before any intercourse with
the Indians began. Traces of their propinquity had been numerous, and
at length, on March 16/26, a savage visited the settlement, announcing
himself in broken English as Samoset, a native of “the eastern parts,”
or the coast of Maine, where contact with English fishermen had led
to some knowledge of their language. From Samoset the colonists
learned that the Indian name of their settlement was Patuxet, and
that about four years before a kind of plague had destroyed most of
the inhabitants of that region, so that there were now none to hinder
their taking possession or to assert a claim to the territory. They
learned also that their nearest neighbors were the Wampanoags, the
headquarters of whose chief sachem, Massasoit, were some thirty miles
to the southwestward, near the eastern shore of Narragansett Bay. The
next week Samoset brought in Squanto, formerly of Patuxet, who had
been taken to England in 1614 by Hunt, and who was now willing to act
as interpreter in a visit from Massasoit; the latter followed an hour
later and contracted unhesitatingly a treaty of peace and alliance,
which was observed for fifty-four years.
[Illustration: THE SWORDS.
[This group is preserved in the cabinet of the Massachusetts Historical
Society, and all but two of the swords are associated with Plymouth
history. The middle sword is that of Governor Carver. On the left,
descending, are those of General John Winslow, Captain Miles Standish,
and Governor Brooks of Massachusetts. On the right are those, in a
like descending order, of Sir William Pepperrell, Elder Brewster,
and Colonel Benjamin Church, the Plymouth hero of Philip’s War.
Another Standish sword is preserved in Pilgrim Hall in Plymouth, and
is figured in the group of Pilgrim relics on another page, as well
as in Bartlett’s _Pilgrim Fathers_, p. 177. Concerning those above
represented, see _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, i. 88, 114.—ED.]]
With the beginning of a new civil year (March 25) Carver was re-elected
governor, and some simple necessary laws were established; on Carver’s
sudden death the following month, Bradford was chosen his successor,
under whose mild and wise direction the colony went on as before. As
Bradford was then enfeebled by illness, Isaac Allerton was at the same
time appointed Assistant to the Governor.
After a summer and autumn of prosperous labor and harvest, they were
cheered, November 11/21, by the arrival of the “Fortune” from London,
bringing as a visitor Robert Cushman, their former associate, and
thirty-five additions to their feeble number, twenty-five of them adult
males,—the majority, however, not from Leyden. The ship brought also
a patent, granted June 1/11,[485] by the President and Council of New
England—within whose territory the new settlement lay—to the same
John Peirce and his associates in whose names the merchants fathering
this venture had secured a patent the year before from the Virginia
Company for the use of the “Mayflower” colonists. Without fixing
territorial limits, the new grant allowed a hundred acres to be taken
up for every emigrant, with fifteen hundred acres for public buildings,
and empowered the grantees to make laws and set up a government.
[Illustration: SIGNERS OF THE PATENT, 1621.]
By the delivery of this patent a sufficient show of authority was
conferred for immediate need and for eight and a half years to come.
It is true that in April, 1622, Peirce obtained surreptitiously for
his private use a new grant with additional privileges, to be valid in
place of the grant just described; but the trick was soon discovered,
and the associates were reinstated by the Plymouth Company in their
rights.
Taking these eight and a half years under the first patent as a
separate period, the progress made in them may be briefly stated.
The settlement is first called “New Plymouth” in a letter sent back to
England by the “Fortune” in December, 1621, and printed in the second
edition of Captain John Smith’s _New England’s Trials_, in 1622. That
it was so called may have been suggested as much by the name Plymouth
on Smith’s map of this region (1614) as by the departure of the
“Mayflower” from Plymouth, England, or by the knowledge that the colony
was the first within the limits of the newly incorporated Plymouth
Company. Later, the town was called simply Plymouth, while the colony
retained the name New Plymouth.
In numbers they increased from less than fifty at the arrival of the
“Fortune,” to near three hundred on the reception of the second charter
in May, 1630. The most important accessions were in July, 1623,—about
sixty persons, a few of them from Leyden; and about as many more—all
from Leyden—in 1629-30.
In the second year at New Plymouth, because of threats from the
Narragansett tribe of Indians about Narragansett Bay, the town was
enclosed with a strong palisade, and a substantial fort (used also
on Sundays as a meeting-house) was erected on the hill which formed
so conspicuous a feature of the enclosure. The mode of life which
John Smith described in his _Generall Historie_ in 1624,—that “the
most of them live together as one family or household, yet every man
followeth his trade and profession both by sea and land, and all for
a general stock, out of which they have all their maintenance,”—was
modified the same year, to the great advantage of all, by the
assignment to each head of a family of an acre of ground for planting,
to be held as his own till the division of profits with the London
merchants. While this taste of proprietorship tended to increase the
restlessness of the planters, the vanishing prospect of large returns
was simultaneously disheartening the “merchant adventurers,” so that
many withdrew, and the remainder agreed to a termination of the
partnership, in consideration of the payment of £1,800, in nine equal
annual instalments, beginning in 1628. This arrangement was effected in
London in November, 1626, through Isaac Allerton, one of the younger
of the original Leyden emigrants, who had been commissioned for the
purpose; and to meet the new financial situation, the resident adult
males (except a few thought unworthy of confidence) were constituted
stockholders, each one being allowed shares up to the number of his
family. Then followed an allotment of land to each shareholder, the
settlement of the title of each to the house he occupied, and a
distribution of the few cattle on hand among groups of families,—all
these possessions having hitherto been the joint, undivided stock of
the “merchant adventurers” and the planters. At the same time eight
leading planters (Bradford, Standish, Allerton, Winslow, Brewster,
Howland, Alden, and Prince), with the help of four London friends,
undertook to meet the outstanding obligations of the colony and the
first six annual payments on the new basis, obtaining in return a
monopoly of the foreign trade.
[Illustration: GOVERNOR EDWARD WINSLOW.
[This is the only authentic likeness of any of the “Mayflower”
Pilgrims. It was painted in England in 1651, when Winslow was
fifty-six. It has been several times engraved before, as may be seen in
the _Winslow Memorial_, in Young’s _Chronicles_, in Bartlett’s _Pilgrim
Fathers_, and in Morton’s _Memorial_, Boston edition, 1855. The
original, once the property of Isaac Winslow, Esq., is now deposited
in the gallery of the Pilgrim Society at Plymouth. (Cf. 3 _Mass. Hist.
Coll._, vii. 286, and _Proc._, x. 36.) Various relics of the Governor
are also preserved in Pilgrim Hall at Plymouth. There are biographies
of him in Belknap’s _American Biography_, and in J. B. Moore’s
_American Governors_. A record of Governor Winslow’s descendants will
be found in the _N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._, 1850, 297 (by Lemuel
Shattuck); 1863, p. 159 (by J. H. Sheppard). Of the descendants of his
brother Kenelm, see L. R. Paige’s account in the _Register_, 1871, p.
355, and 1872, p. 69. An extensive _Winslow Memorial_ has been begun
by David P. Holton, 1877, the first volume of which is given to all
descendants (of all names) of Kenelm. See _Register_, 1877, p. 454;
1878, p. 94, by W. S. Appleton, who in the _Register_, 1867, p. 209,
has a note on the English ancestry; and Colonel Chester has a similar
note in 1870, p. 329. There is in Harvard College Library a manuscript
on Careswell and the Winslows by the late Dr. James Thacher.—ED.]]
In these arrangements, which proved eminently wise for the public
interests, one object was to facilitate further emigration from Leyden.
The management of the London merchants had been unfavorable to this
end, and it was a special grief that during this period of delay the
beloved pastor, Robinson, had ended his life in Leyden,—Feb. 19 (March
1), 1625. The heavy expenses of transporting and providing for such as
came over in 1629-30 were cheerfully borne by the new management.
The same temper in the London merchants which had hindered Robinson’s
coming,—a conviction that the religious peculiarities of the Pilgrims
interfered with the attractiveness and financial success of the
colony,—led them to send over in 1624 a minister of their own choosing
(John Lyford), who was not merely not in sympathy with the wants of the
Plymouth men, but even tried to serve his patrons by false accusations
and by attempting to set up the Church of England form of worship. He
was expelled from the colony within a year from his arrival, and the
church continued under Elder Brewster’s teaching. In 1628 Mr. Allerton
on a voyage from England, without direction from the church, brought
over another minister, but mental derangement quickly ended his career.
The colony began within these first years to enlarge its outlook. In
1627, to further their maritime interests, an outpost was established
on Buzzard’s Bay, twenty miles to the southward; in the same year
relations of friendly commerce were entered into with the Dutch of New
Amsterdam, and as soon as the nearer plantations of the Massachusetts
Company were begun, Plymouth was prompt to aid and counsel as occasion
offered. In 1628 the attempt was made to establish more firmly the
existing trade with the Eastern Indians, by obtaining a patent for a
parcel of land on the River Kennebec.
[Illustration: GOVERNORS OF PLYMOUTH COLONY.
[Of John Carver, the first governor, no signature is known. This group
shows the autographs of all his successors, who held the office for the
years annexed to their names:—
William Bradford, 1621-32, 1635, 1637, 1639-43, 1645-56.
Edward Winslow, 1633, 1636, 1644.
Thomas Prince, 1634, 1638, 1657-72.
Josiah Winslow, 1673-80.
Thomas Hinckley, 1681 to the union, except during the Andros
interregnum.—ED.]]
These outside experiences were all in the way of encouragements:
the most serious annoyances came, not directly from the savages,
but from neighbors of their own blood. Thus in 1623 the wretched
colonists sent out the year before by Thomas Weston to Weymouth, twenty
miles northwest from Plymouth, had to be protected from their own
mismanagement and the hostility of the natives, by which means came
about the first shedding of Indian blood by the Pilgrims; and thus
again, five years later, the unruly nest of Morton’s followers at Merry
Mount, just beyond Weymouth, had to be broken up by force.
Of the progress of civil government in this first period we have scanty
memorials. Few laws and few officials answered the simple needs of
the colony. Bradford was annually elected governor, and in 1624, at
his desire, a board of five Assistants was substituted for the single
Assistant who had hitherto shared the executive responsibility. The
people met from time to time in General Court for the transaction
of public business, and in 1623 a book of laws was begun; but three
pages sufficed to contain the half-dozen simple enactments of the next
half-dozen years.
The next period of the colony history extends from Jan. 13/23,
1629-30, when the Council for New England granted to Bradford, his
heirs, associates, and assigns, a useful enlargement of the patent for
Plymouth and Kennebec, to March 2/12, 1640-41, when Bradford in the
name of the grantees conveyed the rights thus bestowed to the freemen
of New Plymouth in their corporate capacity.
[Illustration: PILGRIM RELICS.
[The chest of drawers is an ancient one, which there is some reason
to believe belonged to Peregrine White. (_N. E. Hist._ and _Geneal.
Reg._ 1873, p. 398.) The sword and vessels belonged to Standish. The
cradle belonged to Dr. Samuel Fuller, the physician of the Pilgrims.
(Russell’s _Pilgrim Memorials_, p. 55; Bartlett’s _Pilgrim Fathers_,
p. 201.) Chair No. 1 belonged to Governor Carver; No. 2 was Elder
Brewster’s; No. 3 is said to have been Governor Edward Winslow’s;
and this with a table, which was until recently in the hall of the
Massachusetts Historical Society, has lately been reclaimed by
its owner, Mr. Isaac Winslow. (See 3 _Mass. Hist. Coll._ v. 293.;
_Proceedings_, ii. 1, 284; iv. 142; xix. 124; Young’s _Chronicles_, p.
238; Bartlett’s _Pilgrim Fathers_, p. 197.) There are other groupings
of Pilgrim relics in Dr. Dexter’s papers; C. W. Elliott’s “Good Old
Times at Plymouth” in _Harper’s Monthly_, 1877, p. 180; Bartlett’s
_Pilgrim Fathers_.—ED.]]
The most striking feature of this period was the growth from a single
plantation to a province of eight towns, seven of them stretching
for fifty miles along the shore of Cape Cod Bay, from Scituate
to Yarmouth, and Taunton lying twenty-five miles inland,—in all
containing about twenty-five hundred souls. With this growth there
was also some extension of trade on the Kennebec and Penobscot, and
in 1632 a beginning of exploration, and in 1633 of settlement, in
the Connecticut Valley; but the appearance of numerous emigrants from
Massachusetts Bay defeated the contemplated removal of the entire
colony to the last-named location.
The establishment of towns led necessarily to a more elaborate
system of civil government, and in 1636 it was found expedient to
revise and codify the previous enactments of the General Court, and
to prescribe the duties of the various public officers. In 1638 the
inconveniences of governing by mass-meeting led to the introduction of
the representative system already familiar to Massachusetts Bay. The
number of Assistants had been increased in 1633 from five to seven.
In 1629 an acceptable minister of the gospel—Ralph Smith, a Cambridge
graduate—for the first time took charge of the church in Plymouth;
and by 1641 the eight towns of the colony were all (except Marshfield,
which was but just settled) supplied with educated clergy, of whom
perhaps the most influential was Ralph Partridge, of Duxbury.
The half-century (1641-91) which completed the separate existence of
Plymouth Colony, witnessed no radical changes, but a steady development
under the existing patent, though repeated but unsuccessful attempts
were made to obtain a charter direct from the English Government. At
the outset (in 1641), by a purchase of the remaining interests of the
English partners of 1627, the last trace of dependence on foreign
capital was wiped out.
Notwithstanding the discontinuance of English emigration after 1640,
and the enormous devastation of Philip’s war in 1675-76, the population
of the colony increased to about eight thousand in these fifty years,
being distributed through twenty towns, of which Scituate had probably
the largest numbers and certainly the most wealth, the town of Plymouth
having lost, even as early as 1643, its former prominence. That this
growth was no greater, and that expansion beyond the strict colony
limits was completely checked, resulted inevitably from the more
favorable situation of the neighboring colony of the Bay.
The civil administration continued as before, the Governor’s Assistants
and the Deputies sitting in General Court as one body. Deputies were
elected in each town by the resident freemen, the freemen being
the original signers of the compact on board the “Mayflower,” with
such persons as had been added to their number by a majority vote
of the general court. Public sentiment was so trustworthy that no
qualifications were named for the estate of freemen until 1656, when
it was merely provided that a candidate must have been approved by
the freemen of his own town. Two years later, when the colony was
overrun by Quaker propagandists, persons of that faith, as well as all
others who similarly opposed the laws and the established worship,
were distinctly excluded from the privileges of freemen, and in the
new revision of the laws in 1671 freemen were obliged to be at least
twenty-one years of age, “of sober and peaceable conversation,
orthodox in the fundamentals of religion,” and possessed of at least
£20 worth of ratable estate in the colony. By the Code of 1671 a Court
of Assistants was created to exercise the judicial functions hitherto
retained by the General Court; but in 1685, with the constitution of
three counties, most of these duties were transferred to county courts.
Two interdependent circumstances conspired with the poverty of the
settlers and the unattractiveness of the soil,—even as compared with
Massachusetts Bay,—to retard seriously the progress of the colony;
and these were, their inability to keep up a learned ministry, and the
enforced delay in providing for public education. The first of these
facts was so patent as to call forth public rebukes from Massachusetts,
and it may be enough to recall that in 1641 seven of the eight
townships constituting the colony were served by ministers of English
education; but in the next half-century these same pulpits stood vacant
on the average upwards of ten years each, and the new towns which were
formed in the colony had no larger amount of ministerial service. As to
the other point, it is sufficient to note that neither from tradition
nor from public records is there evidence of any opportunity or
provision for education before 1670,—except, of course, in the private
family. Their poverty no doubt chiefly occasioned this.
Yet while the resources of Plymouth and the education of her public
men were distinctly inferior to those of the Bay, she bore herself in
her relations with the other colonies with a certain simple dignity
and straightforward reasonableness which won respect; and in matters
of general interest she was content to share the sentiments of her
comrades without controlling them. She joined in the New England
Confederation of 1643; and though the idea sprang from another quarter,
it is probable that the form was influenced by suggestions from the
Plymouth men, derived from their experience in the United Netherlands.
Plymouth’s treatment of the Quakers, in 1656 and the following years,
illustrated in part the contrast with Massachusetts Bay. At the outset
public sentiment was much the same in the two colonies, in view of
the extravagances and indecencies of these intruders; but the greater
mildness of administration in Plymouth bore its appropriate fruit in
lessening the evil characteristics which developed by opposition, and
gradually the dreaded sectaries gained a foothold, until finally their
principles were widely adopted in certain localities with only good
results.
Plymouth’s treatment of the Royal Commissioners in 1665 indicated
fairly her consistent attitude towards the mother country; in receiving
the King’s mandates with respect, and in promising conformity, she held
the course which had produced the seven articles at Leyden in 1617.
The most serious misfortune to visit the colony was the Indian war
which broke out early in 1675. Up to that time the Plymouth men had
been careful to acquire by _bonâ fide_ purchase a title to all new
lands as they were occupied; they had endeavored also (with fair
success, as compared with like efforts in Massachusetts Bay) to spread
the knowledge of Christianity; and in 1675 there were perhaps six or
seven hundred “praying Indians” within the colony bounds.
[Illustration: GOVERNOR JOSIAH WINSLOW.
[This canvas is likewise the property of Isaac Winslow, Esq., and is
now in the Pilgrim Hall, at Plymouth. This portrait, and that of the
father, the elder Governor Winslow, are the only likenesses of the
Plymouth governors extant; and Josiah Winslow was the first governor of
native birth, having been born in Marshfield in 1629; dying there in
1680.—ED.]]
But Wamsutta and Metacomet (otherwise Alexander and Philip), the sons
and successors of the sachem Massasoit, were hostile to the whites
and unaffected by Christian influences; and after Alexander’s death,
in 1662, the colonists found that only by constant watchfulness could
they prevent a breach with the savages. Finally under Philip’s lead
they rose and began a war of extermination. The exciting cause and the
earliest operations were within the territory claimed by Plymouth;
on her fell successively the heaviest blows (in proportion to her
population) and the most pressing responsibilities for defence. When
the war ended with Philip’s death, in August, 1676, more than half
her towns had been partially or wholly destroyed, and the colony’s
share (about £15,000) of the expense incurred by the New England
Confederacy in suppressing the Indians was a very serious burden on
a feeble agricultural community. Before the slow process of recovery
from these desolations could be accomplished, the ancient customs of
self-government were invaded by James II.; and when the arbitrary
exactions under Andros, as Governor of all New England, were ended
in the Revolution of 1689, the return to the old conditions of
freedom was but temporary; the new monarchs followed James’s policy
of consolidation, and Plymouth found herself fated to be included
either in the charter of New York or in that of Massachusetts. Better
a known than an unknown evil; and accordingly the London agent of
Plymouth was authorized to express a preference for union with Boston,
and the provincial charter of Massachusetts in October, 1691, put an
end to the separate existence of the colony of New Plymouth. Of the
original “Mayflower” company but two members survived,—John Cooke, of
Dartmouth, who died in 1695, and Mary (Allerton) Cushman, of Plymouth,
who died in 1699. The younger generation were accustomed to the
leadership of Massachusetts Bay, and accepted the union as a natural
and fitting step.
CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.
THE earliest printed volume treating of the origin of Plymouth Colony
was _New England’s Memorial; ... with special Reference to the first
Colony thereof_, published by Nathaniel Morton in 1669. As he states
in his “Epistle Dedicatory,” the most of his intelligence concerning
the beginnings of the settlement came from manuscripts left by his
“much-honored uncle, Mr. William Bradford.” Morton’s parents had
emigrated in 1623, when he was a boy of ten, from Leyden to Plymouth,
with a younger sister of Mrs. Morton, who had been sent for to become
the wife of Governor Bradford. This connection and his own position as
secretary of the General Court of the Colony from 1645, gave peculiar
opportunities for gathering information; but his book preserves nothing
on the earliest portion of the Pilgrim history, beyond the date (1602)
and the place (“the North of England”) of their entering into a church
covenant together.
The manuscripts of Governor Bradford passed at his death (1657) to
his eldest son, Major William Bradford, of Plymouth, and while in his
possession a few particulars were extracted for Cotton Mather’s use in
his _Magnalia_ (1702), especially in the “Life of Bradford” (book ii.
chap. i.). A minute, but very efficient typographical error, however
(A_n_sterfield for A_u_sterfield), kept students for the next century
and a half out of the knowledge of Governor Bradford’s birthplace,
and of the exact neighborhood whence came the Leyden migration. From
Major William Bradford, who died in 1704, the manuscripts descended to
his son, Major John, of Kingston (originally a part of Plymouth), by
whom the most precious were lent or given, in 1728, to the Rev. Thomas
Prince, of Boston.[486] Prince made a careful use of this material in
the first volume of his _Annals_ (1736), fixing the locality whence
the Pilgrims came as “near the joining borders of Nottinghamshire,
Linconshire, and Yorkshire,” and lodged the originals in the library
which he bequeathed, in 1758, to the Old South Church in Boston.
Governor Thomas Hutchinson, while writing his _History of Massachusetts
Bay_, found these manuscripts in the Prince Library, and printed in the
Appendix to his second volume (1767) a valuable extract describing the
exodus to Holland. In the troublous times which followed, the Bradford
papers disappeared.
Another extract from Bradford, however, soon after came to light in the
records of the First Church in Plymouth, where Secretary Morton had
transcribed, in 1680, most of his uncle’s account of the transatlantic
history of the Pilgrims. This was printed, in part and somewhat
inaccurately, by Ebenezer Hazard, in vol. i. of his _Historical
Collections_ (1792), and in full by the Rev. Alexander Young, in his
_Chronicles of the Pilgrims_ (1841).
The clews furnished by Mather and Prince to the Pilgrim cradle-land
attracted no special attention until 1842, when the Hon. James Savage,
during a visit to England,[487] submitted the problem to the Rev.
Joseph Hunter, author of a history of South Yorkshire, of which region
he was also a native. Mr. Hunter, though the evidence was incomplete,
suggested that Austerfield was the place wanted; and the attention of
this accomplished antiquary being thus enlisted, the result appeared
in a tract, published by him in 1849, entitled _Collections concerning
the Founders of New Plymouth_, which identified the meeting-place of
the Separatist Church before their removal to Holland. This tract
was reissued, in 1852, in the _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, vol. xxxi.,
and again in London, in an enlarged form, in 1854.[488] The author’s
careful examination of local records made plain the position of the
Brewsters in Scrooby, and of the Bradfords in Austerfield (with the
entry of Governor Bradford’s baptism), and traced their families, as
well as the families of other early members of the Scrooby flock, in
the neighboring parishes. The importance of Mr. Hunter’s labors may
be seen in the fact, that, besides Brewster and Bradford, none of the
“Mayflower” passengers (except the two Winslows) have even yet been
surely traced to an English birthplace.[489]
Mr. Hunter’s success soon attracted the attention of other
investigators. The earliest visit to Scrooby which has received notice
in print was one made in July, 1851, by the Rev. Henry M. Dexter, of
Boston, described by him in _The Congregationalist_ of Aug. 8, 1851.
Mr. W. H. Bartlett’s _Pilgrim Fathers_, p. 35, published in 1853, added
nothing to Hunter’s researches, except some interesting engravings of
the church in which Bradford was baptized, and of Scrooby village.
In his enlarged edition of 1854, Hunter gave a better view of the
remains of the palace inhabited by Brewster. Mr. Palfrey visited the
neighborhood in 1856, and records his impressions in a note on p. 134
of vol. i. (1858) of his _History of New England_. In 1860 the Rev.
John Raine, vicar of the parish of Blyth, in which these hamlets were
formerly included, printed a valuable account of that parish’s history
and antiquities.[490]
In January, 1862, the Rev. H. M. Dexter published, in the
_Congregational Quarterly_, an article on “Recent Discoveries
concerning the Plymouth Pilgrims,” summarizing conveniently what had
been learned regarding the place where, and the time when, the church
was gathered. In March, 1867, he contributed to the _Sabbath at Home_
magazine an illustrated article on the “Footprints of the Pilgrims in
England,” which is still the most vivid and the fullest description
extant of the Scrooby neighborhood. With this should be compared,
for additional facts, a letter from Dr. Dexter in the _Mass. Hist.
Soc. Proc._ (xii. 129) for July, 1871; the early pages of the chapter
on Robinson, in the same author’s _Congregationalism as seen in its
Literature_ (1880); and the record of a visit in 1860, in Professor
James M. Hoppin’s _Old England_. The Scrooby episode is also told, more
or less fully, in the Rev. Ashbel Steele’s _Life of Elder Brewster_
(1857), in Dr. John Waddington’s _Track of the Hidden Church_ (1863),
and in chap. vi. of the second volume of his _Congregational History_
(1874), in the Rev. George Punchard’s _History of Congregationalism_,
vol. iii. chap. xi. (1867), in chap. vii. of vol. ii. of S. R.
Gardiner’s _Prince Charles and the Spanish Marriage_ (1869), and in
chap. x. of Dr. Leonard Bacon’s _Genesis of the New England Churches_
(1874).[491]
Scrooby village is about one hundred and forty miles N.N.W. from
London, and eighty miles due east from Liverpool. It lies on the Great
Northern Railway; but as its population numbers only some two hundred,
it is practically a mere suburb of Bawtry, a small market-town a
mile and a quarter to the north, of perhaps a thousand inhabitants.
Austerfield, a little larger than Scrooby, and at about the same
distance from Bawtry in a northeasterly direction, is included, as well
as much of the other two localities, in the patrimony of Lord Houghton
(Richard Monckton Milnes), whose family have held it since 1779.
* * * * *
Of the life in Holland and the preparations for removal to America,
the first connected account in print was that appended by Edward
Winslow (who had joined the company at Leyden in 1617, at the age of
twenty-two) to his _Hypocrisy Unmasked_, in 1646, which was reprinted
in 1841, in Dr. Young’s _Chronicles of the Pilgrims_. Winslow’s object
in this brief appendix was to refute an unjust charge of schism in
the Leyden church, and to explain the reasons for the removal and the
course of the accompanying negotiations; he also reviewed Robinson’s
doctrinal position, and incidentally preserved the substance of the
pastor’s farewell address to the departing portion of his flock.[492]
Morton’s _Memorial_, in 1669, gave from Bradford’s manuscripts a fuller
account of the events in question; and Mather’s _Magnalia_ (1702), and
Prince’s _Annals_ (1736), added a few touches to the picture. Prince
has also the distinction of being the first of those who have retraced
the steps of the Pilgrims on Dutch soil, his _Annals_ (vol. i. p. 160)
recording his visit to Leyden in 1714, and his supposed identification
of the church which Robinson’s congregation used, and in which he was
buried.[493]
The extracts from Bradford published by Hazard in 1792, with those
included in the notes to Judge John Davis’s edition of Morton’s
_Memorial_ in 1826, all of which were reprinted by Dr. Young in 1841,
set forth in a more orderly way the story of the removal. But there was
no inquiry in Holland until Leyden was visited by Mr. George Sumner,
a younger brother of Senator Sumner, who communicated the results
of his researches to the Massachusetts Historical Society, in 1843,
in a paper which was published separately at Cambridge in 1845, and
in the Society’s _Collections_, vol. xxix. (1846). Mr. Sumner threw
much light on the actual condition of the Pilgrims in Holland, while
investigating Prince’s report of a church lent them by the city, and
Winslow’s account of the respect paid Robinson at his funeral. He
showed that Prince had confused this congregation with one founded
contemporaneously by English Presbyterians in Leyden, for whose use a
chapel was granted, while Robinson’s company received no such favor. He
also printed the record of Robinson’s admission to the University,—a
fact not before recovered,—and the entry of his burial in St. Peter’s
cathedral, just across the way from his house.[494]
In 1848 another item of interest,—the application of Robinson and his
people for leave to come to Leyden,—was printed for the first time
in a _Memoir of Robinson_, by Professor Kist, in vol. viii. of the
_Nederlandsch Archief voor Kerkelijke Geschiedenis_.[495] A fuller
memoir, prefixed to a collected edition of his writings, was published
in London three years later (1851), by the Rev. Robert Ashton, and
reprinted in the _Mass. Hist. Coll._, vol. xli. (1852).
Next in chronological order comes the publication of the most important
of all known sources of information respecting the Pilgrims from 1608
to 1646,—the _History of Plymouth Plantation_, by William Bradford,
second governor of the colony. We have seen that this history was
used, in manuscript, by various writers, but disappeared after 1767.
In 1844 a _History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America_,
by the Bishop of Oxford (Dr. Samuel Wilberforce), was published in
London, in which quotations embodying new information were made from an
otherwise unknown “Manuscript History of the Plantation of Plymouth,
etc., in the Fulham Library.” The Bishop’s volume passed to a second
edition in 1846, and was reprinted in New York in 1849; while in
1848 there appeared in London the Rev. J. S. M. Anderson’s _History
of the Colonial Church_, in which reference was distinctly made to
“Bradford’s MS. History of Plymouth Colony ... now in the possession
of the Bishop of London.” But the significance of these allusions was
ignored by American students, until February, 1855, when Mr. John
Wingate Thornton, of Boston, called the attention of the Rev. John S.
Barry, who was then engaged on the first volume of his _History of
Massachusetts_, to the Bishop of Oxford’s book. Taking up the clew thus
given, Mr. Barry conferred with Mr. Charles Deane, who sent at once
to London for information, and by the replies received, was enabled
to announce at the meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society,
April 12, 1855, that the complete manuscript of Governor Bradford’s
history had been found in the Library of the Bishop of London’s Palace
at Fulham, and that an accurate copy had been ordered for the Society’s
use. This transcript reached Boston in August, and was issued, under
Mr. Deane’s able editorship, in the spring of 1856, both as a separate
publication and as volume xxxiii. of the Society’s _Collections_.[496]
How the manuscript came to be in the Fulham Library is uncertain; most
probably it was taken from the Prince Library, upon the evacuation of
Boston by the British in March, 1776, and was preserved and finally
deposited in a public collection by those who perceived it to be of
value. The desirability of its return to America has been repeatedly
suggested; but as an individual bishop has no power to alienate the
property of his See, nothing has yet been accomplished.
The next special contribution to the history of the Pilgrims in Holland
was the publication of the “Seven Articles which the church of Leyden
sent [in September, 1617] to the Council of England, to be considered
of in respect of their judgments occasioned about their going to
Virginia, anno 1618.” A contemporary transcript of this paper was
found in the British State-Paper Office by the Hon. George Bancroft,
and communicated by him, with an introductory letter, to the New York
Historical Society, in October, 1856. It was included, in 1857, in vol.
iii. of the second series of their _Collections_.[497]
In 1859-60 the Hon. Henry C. Murphy, of Brooklyn, N. Y., United States
Minister at the Hague from 1857 to 1861, published in the _Hist. Mag._
(iii. 261, 335, 357; iv. 4) a series of four “Contributions to the
History of the Pilgrim Fathers, from the Records at Leyden.” These
valuable papers presented much new information (derived especially
from the marriage records) as to the full names, ages, occupations,
and English homes of Robinson’s congregation; they determined also the
site and dimensions of his house, and the details of its purchase.
Another fact, which was already known, that Elder Brewster during the
last three years of his stay in Leyden was a printer and publisher,
especially of books on ecclesiastical matters, both in Latin and
English,[498] which it would not have been safe to print at home,
received new illustration from Mr. Murphy.
The labors of Sumner and Murphy in Holland have been supplemented by
the diligent researches of Dr. H. M. Dexter, whose work at Scrooby
was mentioned above. In the _Congregational Quarterly_ for January,
1862 (vol. iv.), he gave an account of the recent additions to our
knowledge; and in the notes to his invaluable addition of _Mourt’s
Relation_, in 1865, he traced the personal history of the Pilgrims,
so far as an exhaustive examination of the Leyden records made that
possible. In 1866, in company with Professor George E. Day, of Yale
College, who had shared in the previous investigations, Dr. Dexter
superintended the erection of a marble tablet, with appropriate
inscription, on the front of the Home for Aged Walloons, which now
occupies the site of Robinson’s house. In the _Sabbath at Home_ for
April, 1867, he published a graphic account of the “Footprints of the
Pilgrims in Holland,” and in the _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._ for January,
1872 (xii. 184), suggested some valuable corrections of Mr. Sumner’s
Memoirs, respecting Robinson’s death and burial. The Leyden pastor’s
influence and doctrinal position may be best studied in Dr. Dexter’s
_Congregationalism as seen in its Literature_ (1880), and in vol. iii.
of the Rev. George Punchard’s _History of Congregationalism_ (2d ed.
1867).[499]
For various contributions to fuller knowledge than Bradford affords of
the negotiations in London, after removal to America had been decided
on, great credit is due to the researches of the Rev. Edward D. Neill,
especially in his _History of the Virginia Company_ (1869) and his
_English Colonization of America_ (1871). Cf. _Hist. Mag._, xiii.
278. The same writer has investigated the personal history of Captain
Thomas Jones, master of the “Mayflower,” in the _Historical Magazine_
(January, 1869), xv. 31-33, and in the _N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._
(1874), xxviii. 314-17. The charge that Jones was bribed by the Dutch
in 1620, is considered by Mr. William Brigham in the volume of lectures
published by the Massachusetts Historical Society on the _Early History
of Massachusetts_, and in the Society’s _Proceedings_ for December,
1868.[500]
For the colony’s affairs from the sailing of the “Mayflower” to 1646,
the prime source of knowledge is Bradford’s _History_. At the time
of emigrating, the author was in his thirty-first year, and his book
was written at various dates, from 1630 to 1650, when he was from
forty to sixty years of age. Less than four months after landing he
became Governor, and for the remaining quarter-century covered by his
_History_ he held the same office, except during five years, when
excused at his own urgent request. The foremost man in the colony for
this long period, nature and opportunity equally fitted him to be its
chronicler from the beginning. No one could speak with more authority
than he of the inner motives and guiding policy of the original
colonists,—fortunately, also, no one could exemplify more clearly in
written words the ideal Pilgrim than does Bradford, with his grave,
homely, earnest style, not unsuggestive of the English of the Bible.
Between his style and that of Winthrop, the contemporary historian
of the Bay, there is something of the same difference that existed
between the two emigrations; and yet Bradford’s simple story, standing
as it does as the earliest piece of American historical composition,
possesses a peculiar charm which the broader, more philosophic page of
Winthrop cannot rival.[501]
[Illustration: BRADFORD’S WRITING,—FROM HIS “HISTORY.”]
* * * * *
The special contributions by others to the history of Bradford’s period
began in 1622 with the publication of _Mourt’s Relation_, a daily
journal of the first twelve months (Sept. 1620, to Dec. 11, 1621),
so called from the name, “G. Mourt,” subscribed to the preface, but
doubtless written by Bradford and Winslow. The standard edition is that
of 1865, with notes by Dr. H. M. Dexter.[502] A few facts may also be
gleaned from a _Sermon_ (by Robert Cushman) preached at Plymouth, Dec.
9, 1621,[503] and from the second edition of Captain John Smith’s _New
England’s Trials_,—both published in London in 1622. Winslow’s _Good
News from New England_ appeared in 1624, continuing the narrative of
events from November, 1621, to September 10, 1623.[504] Next came,
after a long interval, _New England’s Memorial_, by Nathaniel Morton,
printed at Cambridge in 1669, which professed to give the annals of New
England to 1668; beyond the part supplied from Bradford and Winslow,
however, there was little of value. Judge John Davis’s[505] edition of
1826 is still the best.[506]
[Illustration]
To these materials the next sensible addition was in the “Summary of
the Affairs of the Colony of New-Plimouth,” appended, in 1767, to
vol. ii. of Governor Hutchinson’s _History of Massachusetts Bay_, and
containing some personal items not before collected. In 1794 a fragment
of a letter-book, preserving copies of important letters written and
received by Governor Bradford from 1624 to 1630, having lately been
found in Nova Scotia, was printed in the _Massachusetts Historical
Collections_, vol. iii.[507] In 1798 Dr. Jeremy Belknap included in
vol. ii. of his _American Biography_ sketches of the leading Pilgrims
(Robinson, Carver, Bradford, Brewster, Cushman, Winslow, and Standish),
which put in admirable form all then known of early Plymouth history.
The next quarter of a century added nothing to the existing stock of
knowledge, unless by the publication in 1815 of the _General History
of New England_ to 1680, by the Rev. William Hubbard (born 1621, died
1704), which, so far as Plymouth was concerned, was little more than a
compilation from sources already named. But with the issue, in 1826,
of a new edition of _Morton_, and in 1830 of _An Historical Memoir of
the Colony of New Plymouth_, by the Hon. Francis Baylies,[508] and in
1832 of a _History of the Town of Plymouth_, by Dr. James Thacher, was
introduced the new era of modern research.[509]
[Illustration: FIRST PAGE, PLYMOUTH RECORDS.
[This is in the handwriting of Governor Bradford; it is also in Hazard,
i. 100, and in the State edition, xii. 2. It is not clear when the
entry was made. Pulsifer, _Records_, xii. p. iv., holds it was written
in 1620; Shurtleff, _Ibid._, i. Introd., says that all entries dated
before 1627 were made in this last year. Beside the account of the
records in this introduction, there is another in 3 _Mass. Hist.
Coll._, ii. Also see _N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._, 1858, p. 358.
The State edition is in twelve volumes, usually bound in ten; and was
originally sold for $75, but is now obtainable at a much less price.
The patents under which the colony governed itself have been defined
in the preceding narrative, and in a note the first one is traced.
(Cf. also Neill’s notes on it in _N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._, 1876,
p. 413, and Poor’s _Vindication of Gorges_.) The second patent, of
April 20, 1622, is not extant. The third, of Jan. 13, 1629-30, is at
Plymouth in the Registry of Deeds, and is printed in Brigham’s edition
of the _Laws_, Hazard’s _Collections_, etc. Cf. _Mass. Archives,
Miscellanies_, i. 123.—ED.]]
The Legislature of Massachusetts gave fresh impulse to this spirit
of investigation by publishing in 1836, under the editorship of Mr.
William Brigham, the _Laws passed in Plymouth Colony from 1623 to
1691_, with a selection of other permanent documents. In 1841 the
Rev. Alexander Young[510] collected, under the title of _Chronicles
of the Pilgrim Fathers from 1602 to 1625_, the principal writings of
that period, and, enriching them with a body of useful notes, made
a volume which still retains a distinct value. In 1846 and 1851 a
local antiquary, Mr. William S. Russell,[511] brought out two small
volumes,—_A Guide to Plymouth_ and _Pilgrim Memorials_,—which are
not yet superseded; Mr. William H. Bartlett’s _Pilgrim Fathers_[512]
(1853) added something to these local touches. Between 1855 and 1861
the _Records of the Colony of New Plymouth_ were printed _in extenso_,
by order of the State Legislature, under the editorship of Dr. N. B.
Shurtleff[513] and Mr. David Pulsifer.
The year 1856 was made memorable by the printing of Bradford’s
manuscript, and two years later appeared the initial volume of Dr.
John G. Palfrey’s _History of New England_, which comprehends by far
the best of modern narratives of the complete career of Plymouth
Colony. Only in subsidiary literature have the more recent years added
anything. Valuable bibliographical notes on Pilgrim history, by the
editor of the present volume, were printed in the _Harvard College
Library Bulletin_ for 1878, nos. 7 and 8; and the “Collections toward
a Bibliography of Congregationalism,” appended to Dr. H. M. Dexter’s
_Congregationalism as seen in its Literature_ (1880), are indispensable
to future students. In 1881 General E. W. Peirce published a useful
volume of _Civil, Military, and Professional Lists of Plymouth and
Rhode Island Colonies_ to 1700.
Apart from strictly historical composition, the theme has inspired
some of the greatest oratorical efforts of the sons of New England in
the present century,—especially in connection with the stated annual
celebrations of the Pilgrim Society,[514] formed at Plymouth in 1820
(a successor of the earlier Old Colony Club,[515] founded in 1769).
Most deservedly conspicuous in this series are the orations delivered
in 1820 by Daniel Webster, in 1824 by Edward Everett, and in 1870 by
Robert C. Winthrop; of similar note are several of the orations before
the New England Society of New York, founded in 1805. The Pilgrim
Society has also fostered local sentiment by erecting (in 1824) Pilgrim
Hall in the town of Plymouth, and by gathering within it a valuable
collection of memorials of the early settlers and of portraits of
historical interest.[516]
A portrait of Edward Winslow (engraved on a previous page) is in
Pilgrim Hall at Plymouth, and is the only undoubted portrait of any
of the Pilgrims now existing.[517] Of the many attempts to depict
on canvas signal events of Pilgrim history, the most important is a
painting by Robert W. Weir of the embarkation at Delft Haven, executed
in 1846, and occupying one of the panels in the Rotunda of the Capitol
at Washington.[518] The most imposing works of architecture and
sculpture in commemoration of the same events are the canopy recently
erected over the rock in Plymouth on which the Pilgrims are believed to
have landed, and the monument on a neighboring hill-top.[519]
In poetical literature the most serious and sustained effort to
represent the Pilgrim spirit is in Longfellow’s “Courtship of Miles
Standish” (1859);[520] while in briefer compass Old England, through
Lord Houghton (Prefatory Stanzas to Hunter’s _Founders of New
Plymouth_) and Mrs. Hemans (“Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers”), and New
England through Pierpont (“The Pilgrim Fathers”) and Lowell (“Interview
with Miles Standish”), have vied in celebrating the character and deeds
of the exiles of 1620.[521]
[Illustration]