Upon the upper side of Plymouth Bay, enclosing its northern portion,
is one of those long peninsulas of sand and rocks, abounding upon the
Massachusetts coasts, which projects about six miles southeastward
into the sea and terminates in a high knob, called the Gurnet, with a
hook turned inward. This elongated sand-strip is Duxbury Beach, the
town of Duxbury being upon the mainland inside, a fishing village
probably best known as the terminus of the French Atlantic Cable. It
was at Duxbury that the first regular pastor was Ralph Partridge, whom
Cotton Mather described as having "the innocence of a dove and the
loftiness of an eagle." The Pilgrims allotted this district to Miles
Standish and to their youngest member, John Alden. Standish named it
from Duxbury Hall, in Lancashire, the seat of his English ancestors.
The brave Miles was not a Puritan and did not belong to their church,
but as he was an experienced warrior, they made him the commander of
their standing army of twelve men. Is is said that there have been
only two renowned military chieftains in history who were personally
acquainted with all their soldiers--Julius Cæsar and Miles Standish.
The redoubtable old captain lost his wife Rose soon after the landing,
and he then engaged the fascinating and youthful Alden to do his
courtship for him and woo the gentle Priscilla Mullins, with the usual
result that the maiden preferred the more attractive Alden to the grim
old soldier. Standish has been described as "a short man, very brave,
but impetuous and choleric, and his name soon became a terror to all
hostile Indians." His is the romance of early Plymouth, for he has
been made the hero of Longfellow's poem, and of renowned operas and
many New England tales, while the fair Priscilla gave her name to the
great Long Island Sound steamer. Standish lived upon the "Captain's
Hill," out on the Duxbury peninsula, the highest land thereabout,
rising one hundred and eighty feet, upon a broad point projecting into
Plymouth Bay. His monument is near the site of his house upon the
bare-topped, oval-shaped hill, a rather bleak place, however, to have
selected for a home. Beyond it the projecting Duxbury Beach ends in
the high Gurnet, with twin lighthouses, and then hooks inward to
another bold terminating bulb, the headland of Saquish. To the
northward is Clark's Island, where the Pilgrims first landed, a
similarly round-topped mass rising from the water. Thus is Plymouth
Bay environed, for to the southward its long guarding ridge on that
side, Manomet, projects far into the sea.