The Romantic Story of the Mayflower Pilgrims, and Its Place in the Life of To-day

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

Edward Leister went to Virginia.

Edmund Margeson, unmarried, died in 1621.

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

Desire Minter returned to England, and there died.

Ellen More perished the first winter.

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

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

Solomon Power died December 24, 1620.

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

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

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

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

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

Ellen Story died the first winter.

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

Edward Thompson died December 4, 1620.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

VI
NEW WORLD PILGRIMS TO OLD WORLD SHRINES

pilgrim shrines,

Shrines to no code or creed confined. – Longfellow.

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

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

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

In June, 1896, another company of New World pilgrims landed at Plymouth, and proceeded to worship in spirit at Old World shrines. During two weeks they wandered about the dear old country – "Our Old Home," as Nathaniel Hawthorne calls it in his book of English reminiscences – lingering on the scenes associated with the lives of their forefathers: quiet villages wherein they were born; quaint, half-forgotten boroughs in which they lived; the metropolis in which they taught; the sombre East Anglia, where many of them died "for the testimony." But chief of all were the places where these sojourners could look on the homes of the grave, brave men who gathered together the people who sailed in the Mayflower, and led the way to the New World.

We still call them "the Pilgrim Fathers," in spite of what the Reverend Joseph Hunter, an esteemed native of South Yorkshire, wrote in his book.¹² "There is something of affectation in this term," he finds, "which is always displeasing to me." "It appears to me," says he, "to be philologically improper." And then he explains. "An American who visits the place from which the founders of his country emigrated is a pilgrim in the proper sense of the word, whether he finds an altar, a shrine, or a stone of memorial, or not. But these founders, when they found the shores of America, were proceeding to no object of this kind, and even leaving it to the winds and the waves to drive them to any point on an unknown and unmarked shore."

Perhaps Mr. Hunter is right, philologically; but apart from his history (which may be challenged, because the master of the Mayflower knew where he was going if the Pilgrims did not, and a map and description of the region had been published by Captain John Smith, the name-giver of New England), the designation stands, and will ever be cherished by those familiar with the spots these faithful Fathers left when, pilgrims and wanderers, they set forth they scarcely knew whither, and finally crossed the little-known sea. And the most historic of such shrines are in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire.

When the New World pilgrims arrived at Plymouth for the journey through the old country, by a curious arrangement they travelled backwards; for Plymouth was the last place the Pilgrim Fathers touched, and the haunts they took in turn were those which saw the rise and earlier efforts of those grave and reverend seekers for religious freedom. Soon they reached Boston – dreamy, old-world, tide-washed, fenland-locked Boston – scene of deep interest to them all, filled with hallowed memories of the Pilgrim Fathers and founders of the Western States.

The party numbered nearly fifty, a dozen at least of whom could lay claim to be lineal descendants of the Mayflower Pilgrims. Their leader was the Reverend Dr. Dunning of Boston, Massachusetts, and among them were representatives of the National Council of American Congregational churches.

Boston, like Plymouth, gave them a warm welcome. The cordiality of their reception to the old town was acknowledged on behalf of the pilgrims by Dr. Dunning. "Our fathers found it difficult to get away from Boston," said he, "and from the kindness you have shown us we are much afraid that you are planning to detain us also." The character of the "detention" was very different with nearly three centuries intervening, and this Dr. Dunning and his friends abundantly realised.

The visitors were taken over the old parish church, and were duly impressed by its size and grandeur as a whole; and the scene was most striking and memorable when, gathered within its beautiful chancel, these representative New World men, many of them with the blood of the Pilgrim Fathers in their veins, joined in singing together the noble hymn, "O God, our help in ages past." Next the Guildhall was visited. Here the disused sessions-court, where the fugitives were arraigned in 1607, and other upper rooms were scrutinised.

But most attractive were the kitchen and prison beneath. The cells must in fact have had more "prisoners" in them that day than they had held for a long time, for there was scarcely a member of the company who was not shut up in at least one of them during the inspection. They thus realised something of what their forefathers actually endured; the taste of the bitterness was slight, and wanting in the old-time flavour which the prisoners' treatment imparted, but it was sufficient to call forth expressions of abhorrence at the thought of continued confinement in such a place.

At last the pilgrims said farewell to a town crowded with precious memories and entrained for Lincoln, where their welcome by the Free Churches and Cathedral authorities was in keeping with that extended to them everywhere on their route. At Lincoln they received an address. "We feel," said the Nonconformists there, "that in welcoming you to this county of ours, we are welcoming you back to your ancestral home, for Lincolnshire people never forget that their county is inseparably associated with the history of the Pilgrim Church. We claim the great John Robinson, the pastor of the Pilgrim church, as our own, and the neighbouring town of Gainsborough boasts of having been for some time the church's home. We are proud of the men, of the testimony they bore, of the work they did. All England is debtor to the men of the Pilgrim Church for their heroic witness in behalf of a pure and Scriptural faith and freedom of conscience worship."

And "the neighbouring town of Gainsborough," home of the Pilgrim Church, gave itself up at this time to a ceremonial stone-laying of the Robinson Memorial Church, a function which the American pilgrims attended, together with the Honourable T. F. Bayard, the United States Ambassador, who made a journey into Lincolnshire to lay this stone, and Congregationalists gathered from all parts.

First the pilgrims drove to Scrooby, Bawtry, and Austerfield, where they inspected Brewster's house and Bradford's cottage and other objects of absorbing interest linked with the lives of the exiled Separatists. They then entered Gainsborough – that "foreign-looking town," subject of George Eliot's romantic pen, birthplace of John Robinson – where an address was presented to Mr. Bayard at the Town Hall, and luncheon was partaken of at the Old Hall, one of Gainsborough's most cherished antiquities, where John Smyth and his brethren held services and John Wesley many times preached. A move was next made to the site of the future Robinson Memorial Hall, a building at once a tribute to a worthy Englishman and an agency for the development of Christian work in the home of the Pilgrim Fathers. The proceedings were under the presidency of the Reverend J. M. Jones, chairman of the Congregational Union of England and Wales. To Mr. Bayard was handed a silver trowel, the gift of the congregation of the Gainsborough church, bearing an inscription and engravings of the Mayflower and of Delfshaven, on whose beach Robinson knelt in prayer with the Pilgrim band ere they set out on their long and checkered voyage. Having laid the cornerstone, Mr. Bayard sketched the early life of John Robinson, on from his Cambridge career to his harassed ministry at Norwich, his withdrawal to Lincolnshire in 1604 and the inception of the Scrooby congregation, whose faith found cause for hope and cheerful courage in the dark hours of their persecution, adversity, and affliction. He went on to picture the blessings of civil and religious liberty which we are apt to accept and enjoy without giving much heed to the generations that in bygone years toiled and suffered to secure them for us. How small, said he, the measure of our gratitude and infrequent our recognition of those who

Beyond their dark age led the van of thought.

Well, reasoned Mr. Bayard, on such a scene and such an occasion as this, might the words of Whittier be repeated —

 
Our hearts grow cold,
We lightly hold
A right which brave men died to gain;
The stake, the cord,
The axe, the sword,
Grim nurses at its birth of pain.
 

It was the momentous issues raised by the invasion of liberty of conscience that drove John Robinson and his associates forth. As William Bradford has recorded, "Being thus molested and with no hope of their continuance there, by a joynte consent they resolved to go into ye low countries, where they heard was freedom of religion for all men." Then it was that they made the attempted passage from Boston to The Netherlands.

Glancing at the history of the arbitrary and cruel measures taken to prevent the departure of the congregation, which finally, in broken detachments, distressed, despoiled, imperilled by land and sea, assembled at Amsterdam, moving thence to Leyden, Mr. Bayard paid grateful recognition to the country which, in their hour of sore need, extended to exiles welcome protection and generous toleration in an age of intolerance, and recited the familiar incidents connected with their sailing for America. "It is clear and plain to us now that the departure from England of this small body of humble men was a great step in the march of Christian civilisation. It contained the seed of Christian liberty, freedom of enquiry, freedom of man's conscience." As for John Robinson, between whose grave and the colony he was the means of planting, washes the wide ocean he never crossed. His memory is a tie of kindred – a recognition of the common trust committed to both nations to sustain the principles of civil and religious liberty of which he was a fearless champion, and under which he has so marvellously fulfilled the prophesy "A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a great nation." And the seed of Christian liberty, sown in adversity but on good soil, has become a wide-spreading tree in whose sheltering branches all who will may lodge.

Six years after this stone-laying, in June, 1902, the tercentenary of the founding of the Gainsborough church, a tablet was unveiled in the vestibule of the new building to commemorate the world-wide co-operation in honouring one "the thought of whom stirs equal reverence in English and American hearts."

What the American Ambassador so well said at Gainsborough was a fitting prelude to the excursion which his countrymen, continuing their itinerary, made to the Pilgrim scenes in Holland where, in 1891, the English Plymouth memorial year, they had erected on St. Peter's Cathedral at Leyden, under which lie his bones, a tablet to John Robinson, pastor of the English church worshipping "over against this spot," whence at his prompting went forth the Pilgrim Fathers to settle New England.

The Gainsborough ceremony and the visits to Plymouth and Boston forged further links in the chain of sympathy and brotherhood between England and America. Fresh evidence has since been forthcoming that the religious zeal and love of manly independence which induced the Mayflower Pilgrims to expatriate themselves and found a mighty empire across the Atlantic have their abiding influence to-day. We have seen how these New World pilgrimages to Old World shrines rekindled dormant affections on both sides.¹³ No doubt the journeys will be renewed again and again over much the same ground in the days to come.

It was about this time that Mr. Bayard was instrumental in restoring to the State of Massachusetts William Bradford's manuscript "History of Plymouth Plantation." About the middle of the eighteenth century this valuable record was deposited in the New England Library, in the tower of the Old South Church in Boston, but it disappeared, and found its way to England. By some it was thought that Governor Hutchinson carried it off; others believed that it was looted by British soldiers when Boston was evacuated. Anyhow it vanished, and was given up for lost. But by a lucky chance it was discovered. It was not until 1855 that certain passages in Wilberforce's "History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America," printed in 1846, professing to quote from "a manuscript History of Plymouth in the Fulham Library," revealed the whereabouts of the priceless folios. These quotations were identified as being similar to extracts from Bradford's History made by earlier annalists – Nathaniel Morton, who used it freely in his "New England's Memorial," published 1669; Thomas Prince, in his "Annals" printed in 1736; and Governor Hutchinson, the last man known to have seen the manuscript, who used it in the preparation of his "History of Massachusetts" (second volume), in 1767. The story of the return of the manuscript has been told by the Honourable George F. Hoar, the venerable Senator of Massachusetts who, during a visit to England, interviewed the Bishop of London on the subject, and, when the History had been recovered through the good offices of Mr. Bayard, had the satisfaction of handing it over to Governor Wolcott on May 24, 1897. Ten years subsequently, after Mr. Bayard's death, another Bishop of London, engaged on a mission to America, presented to President Roosevelt the original deed appointing Colonel Coddington first Governor of Rhode Island. This document was found in the muniment room at Fulham Palace; it bears the seal of the Cromwellian Government and the signature of Bradshaw.