Back Aa

Old Coast Road From Boston to Plymouth

<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> <h3>PLYMOUTH</h3> One of the favorite pictures of New Englanders, and one which hangs in innumerable dining-rooms and halls, is by Boughton, the popular American artist, and is named "The Return of the Mayflower." I suppose thousands of New England children have gazed wonderingly at this picture, which, contrary to the modern canons of art, "tells a story," and many of those naïve minds have puzzled as to how those poor Pilgrims, who had no tea or coffee or milk or starch, managed to appear so well fed and so contented, and so marvelously neat and clean. The inexhaustible[Pg 176] bag which inevitably appeared at crucial moments in the career of "Swiss Family Robinson" is nowhere mentioned in the early chronicles of the Plymouth Plantation, and the precise manner in which a small vessel of a hundred and eighty tons, carrying a hundred passengers, and all the innumerable cradles, chairs, and highboys which have since flooded the museums as "genuine relics" of that first voyage, could also have brought sufficient washboards, soap, and flatirons to have kept the charming costumes so immaculate is a mystery which will probably never be solved—especially since the number of relics appears to increase instead of diminish with the passage of time. However, that is a mere trifle. Mr. Boughton, in catching this touching and dramatic moment in the history of the Plymouth Colony, has rendered a graphic service to us all, and if we could stand upon the little plateau on which this man and maid are standing, and could look out with them—we should see—what should we see?[Pg 177] We may, indeed, stand upon the little plateau—possibly it is no other than the base of Cole's Hill, that pathetic spot on which the dead were buried those first sad months, the ground above being leveled and planted with corn lest the Indians should count the number of the lost—and look out upon that selfsame harbor, but the sight which meets our eyes will be a very different one from that which met theirs. Let us, if we can, for the space of half an hour or so, imagine that we are standing beside this Pilgrim man and maid, on the day on which Mr. Boughton portrayed them. Instead of 1920 it is 1621. It is the 5th of April: the winter of terrifying sicknesses and loss has passed; of the hundred souls which left England the autumn previously more than a half have died. The Mayflower which brought them all over, and which has remained in the harbor all winter, is now, having made repairs and taking advantage of the more clement weather, trimming her sails for the thirty-one days' return voyage to England. They may return with her, if they wish,[Pg 178] any or all of the sturdy little band; they may leave the small, smoky log cabins; the scanty fare of corn and fish; the harassing fear of the Indians; they may leave the privations, the cramped quarters, and return to civilized life—to friends and relatives, to blooming English hedgerows and orderly English churches. But no one—no, not a single one returns! They have thrown in their lot with the new country—the new life. Their nearest civilized neighbors are the French of Nova Scotia, five hundred miles to the north, and the English of Virginia five hundred miles to the south. But they are undaunted. And yet—who can doubt that as they gaze out upon the familiar sails—the last banner between themselves and their ancestral home, and as they see them sailing out and out until they sink below the verge of sea and sky, the tears "rise in the heart and gather to the eyes" in "thinking of the days that are no more." Three hundred years ago! The same harbor now as then, with the highland of Cape Cod dimly outlined in the gray eastern horizon;[Pg 179] the bluffs of Manomet nearer on the right; opposite them, on the left, Duxbury Beach comes down, and ends in the promontory which holds the Gurnet Lights. Clarke's Island—already so named—lies as it does to-day, but save for these main topographical outlines the Plymouth at which we are looking in our imagination would be quite unrecognizable to us. There is a little row of houses—seven of them—that is all. Log cabins, two-roomed, of the crudest build, thatched with wildgrass, the chinks between the logs filled with clay, the floors made of split logs; lighted at night with pieces of pitch pine. Each lot measures three rods long and a rod and a half wide, and they run on either side of the single street (the first laid out in New England, and ever afterward to be known as Leyden Street), which, in its turn, is parallel to the Town Brook. There is no glass in these cabin windows: oiled paper suffices; the household implements are of the fewest. The most primitive modern camping expedition is replete with luxuries of which this colony knows nothing. They have[Pg 180] no cattle of any kind, which means no milk or butter; they have no poultry or eggs. Twenty-six acres of cultivated ground—twenty-one of corn, the other five of wheat, rye, and barley—have been quite enough for the twenty-one men and six boys (all who were well enough to work) to handle, but it is not a great deal to feed them all. At one end of the street stands the common house, twenty feet square, where the church services are held; the store-house is near the head of the pier; and at the top of what is now Burial Hill is the timber fort, twenty by twenty, built the January before by Myles Standish. In April, 1621, this is all there is to what is now the prosperous town of Plymouth. And yet—not entirely. There are a few things left in the Plymouth of to-day which were in the Plymouth of three hundred years ago. If our man and maid should turn into Pilgrim Hall their eyes would fall upon some of the selfsame objects which were familiar sights to them in 1621. Those sturdy oaken chairs of Governor Carver, Elder Brewster, and Edward[Pg 181] Winslow; the square, hooded wooden cradle brought over by Dr. Samuel Fuller; and the well-preserved reed one which rocked Peregrine White, and whose quaint stanchness suggests the same Dutch influence which characterizes the spraddling octagonal windmills—they would quickly recognize all of these. Some of the books, too, chiefly religious, some in classic tongues, William Bradford's Geneva Bible printed in 1592, and others bearing the mark of 1615, would be well known to them, although we must not take it for granted that the lady—or the man either—can read. Well-worn the Bibles are, however, and we need not think that lack of learning prevented any of the Pilgrims from imbibing both the letter and spirit of the Book. Those who could write were masters of a fine, flowing script that shames our modern scrawl, as is well testified by the Patent of the Plymouth Colony—the oldest state document in New England—as well as by the final will and various deeds of Peregrine White, and many others. The small, stiff baby shoes which encased[Pg 182] the infant feet of Josiah Winslow, the son of Governor Winslow and destined to be Governor himself, are of a pattern familiar to our man and maid, as are the now tarnished swords of Carver, Brewster, and Standish. Probably they have puzzled, as we are still doing, over the Kufic or Arabic inscriptions on the last. The monster kettle and generous pewter plate brought over by the doughty Captain would be too well known to them to attract their attention, as would be the various tankards and goblets, and the beautiful mortar and pestle brought over by Winslow. But the two-tined fork they would regard with curiosity, for forks were not used, even in England, until 1650. The teapots, too, which look antiquated enough to us, would fill them with wonder, for tea was practically unknown in both colony and mother country until 1657. Those fragments of rude agricultural implements which we treasure would not interest our man and maid for whom they are ordinary sights, and neither would they regard with the same historical interest that[Pg 183] moves us the bits of stone from the Scrooby Manor in England, the bricks from the old pier at Delft Haven in Holland, or the piece of carved pew-back from the old church at Scrooby. Possibly our Pilgrim maid is one of the few who can write, and if so, her fingers have doubtless fashioned a sampler as exquisite as that of Lora Standish, whose meek docility and patient workmanship are forever preserved in her cross-stitched words. From all around the walls of Pilgrim Hall look down fine, stern old portraits, real and imaginary, of the early colonists. Modern critics may bicker over the authenticity of the white bull on which Priscilla Alden is taking her wedding trip; they may quarrel over the fidelity of the models and paintings of the Mayflower, and antiquarians may diligently unearth bits of bone to substantiate their pet theories. Our man and maid could tell us all, but, alas, their voices are so far away we cannot hear them. They will never speak the words which will settle any of the oft-disputed points, and, unfortunately, they will leave us[Pg 184] forever to argue about the truth of the famous Plymouth Rock. To present the well-worn story of Plymouth Rock from an angle calculated to rouse even a semblance of fresh interest is comparable to offering a well-fed man a piece of bread, and expecting him to be excited over it as a novelty. Bread is the staff of life, to be sure, but it is also accepted as matter of course in the average diet, and the story of Plymouth Rock is part and parcel of every school-book and guide-book in the country. The distinguished, if somewhat irreverent, visitor, who, after being reduced to partial paralysis by the oft-repeated tale, ejaculated fervently that he wished the rock had landed on the Pilgrims instead of the Pilgrims on the rock, voiced the first original remark about this historic relic which has refreshed our ears for many years. However, as Americans we are thoroughly imbued with the theory on which our advertising is based. Although it would seem that every housekeeper in the land had been kept fully informed for forty years of the advantages[Pg 185] incident to the use of a certain soap, the manufacturers still persist in reciting these benefits. And why? Because new housekeepers come into existence with each new day. So, if there be any man who comes to Plymouth who does not know the story of Plymouth Rock, it is here set down for him, as accurately and briefly as possible. This rock—which is an oval, glacial boulder of about seven tons—was innocently rearing its massive, hoary head from the water one day in December, 1620, as it had done for several thousand years previously in unmolested oblivion. While engaged in this ponderous but harmless occupation it was sighted by a boatful of men and women—the first who had ever chosen to land on this particular part of the coast. The rock presented a moderately dry footing, and they sailed up to it, and a charming young woman, attired, according to our amiable painter, in the cleanest and freshest of aprons and the most demure of caps, set a daintily shod foot upon it and leaped lightly to shore. This was Mary Chilton, and she was[Pg 186] promptly followed by an equally trig young man—John Alden. Thus commenced the founding of Plymouth Colony, and thus was sown the seed of innumerable pictures, poems, stories, and sermons. Now the Pilgrims themselves, in none of their various accounts, ever mention the incident of the landing described above, or the rock. In fact they are so entirely silent about it that historians—besides discrediting the pretty part about Mary Chilton and John Alden, in the brusque fashion characteristic of historians—have pooh-poohed the whole story, arguing that the rock was altogether too far away from the land to be a logical stepping-place, and referring to the only authentic record of that first landing, which merely reads: "They sounded y^e harbor & founde it fitt for shipping, and marched into y^e land & found diverse cornfeilds & little running brooks, a place fitt for situation: at least it was y^e best they could find." The Pilgrims, then, were quite oblivious of the rock, the historians are entirely skeptical concerning it, and the[Pg 187] following generation so indifferent to the tradition which was gradually formulating, that in the course of events it was half-covered with a wharf, and used as a doorstep to a warehouse. This was an ignominious position for a magnificent free boulder which had been a part of the untrammeled sea and land for centuries, but this lowly occupation was infinitely less trying than the fate which was awaiting. At the time the wharf was suggested, the idea that the rock was the actual landing-place of the first colonists had gained such momentum that a party was formed in its defense. An aged man, Thomas Faunce, was produced. He was ninety-five and confined to an armchair. He had not been born until twenty-six years after the landing of the Pilgrims; his father, whom he quoted as declaring this to be the original rock and identical landing-place, had not even come over in the Mayflower, but in the Anne. However, this venerable Canute, carried to the water's edge in his armchair, in the presence of many witnesses,[Pg 188] assured them and all posterity that this was the genuine, undeniable landing-place of the Pilgrims. And from that moment the belief was so firmly set in the American mind that no power could possibly dislodge it. In accordance with this suddenly acquired respect, it was decided to move the huge bulk to the more conspicuous location of the Town Square. When it was lifted from its prehistoric bed, it broke, and this was hailed as a propitious omen of the coming separation of the Colonies from the mother country. Only the upper half was dragged up to the Town Square—a process which took twenty yoke of oxen and was accompanied by wild huzzahing. There the poor, broken thing lay in the sun, at the bottom of the Liberty Pole on which was flying, "Liberty or Death." But its career as a public feature had only begun. It remained in the square until 1834, and then on July 4 it was decided to drag it to a still more conspicuous place. So with a formal procession, it was again hoisted and hauled and set down in front of the entrance porch of[Pg 189] Pilgrim Hall, where it lay like a captive mammoth animal for curious folk to gaze at. Here it was granted almost half a century of undisturbed if not secluded slumber. But the end was not yet. In 1880 it was once more laid hold of and carted back to its original setting, and welded without ceremony, to the part from which it had been sundered. Now all of this seems quite enough—more than enough—of pitiless publicity, for one old rock whose only offense had been to be lifting its head above the water on a December day in 1620. But no—just as the mind of man takes a singular satisfaction in gazing at mummies preserved in human semblance in the unearthly stillness of the catacombs, so the once massive boulder—now carefully mended—was placed upon the neatest of concrete bases, and over it was reared, from the designs of Hammatt Billings, the ugliest granite canopy imaginable—in which canopy, to complete the grisly atmosphere of the catacombs, were placed certain human bones found in an exploration of Cole's Hill. Bleak and homeless[Pg 190] the old rock now lies passively in forlorn state under its atrocious shelter, behind a strong iron grating, and any of a dozen glib street urchins, in syllables flavored with Cork, or Genoese, or Polish accents, will, for a penny, relate the facts substantially as I have stated them.[2] It is easy to be unsympathetic in regard to any form of fetishism which we do not share. And while the bare fact remains that we are not at all sure that the Pilgrims landed on this rock, and we are entirely sure that its present location and setting possess no romantic allurement, yet bare facts are not the whole truth, and even when correct they are often the superficial and not the fundamental[Pg 191] part of the truth. Those hundreds—those thousands—of earnest-eyed men and women who have stood beside this rock with tears in their eyes, and emotions too deep for words in their hearts, "believing where they cannot prove," have not only interpreted the vital significance of the place, but, by their very emotion, have sanctified it. It really makes little difference whether the testimony of Thomas Faunce was strictly accurate or not; it really makes little difference that the Hammatt Billings canopy is indeed dreadful. Plymouth Rock has come to symbolize the corner-stone of the United States as a nation, and symbols are the most beautiful and the most enduring expression of any national or human experience. It is estimated that over one hundred thousand visitors come to Plymouth annually. They all go to see the Rock; most of them clamber up to the quaint Burial Hill and read a few of the oldest inscriptions; they glance at the National Monument to the forefathers, bearing the largest granite figure in the world,[Pg 192] and they take a turn through Pilgrim Hall. But there is one place they often forget to see, and that is the harbor itself. We began our tour through Plymouth through the eyes of a Pilgrim man and maid watching the departing Mayflower. It was the Mayflower, battered and beaten, her sails blackened and mended, her leaks hastily caulked, which was the first vessel to sail into Plymouth Harbor—a harbor so joyfully described as being a "most hopeful place" with "innumerable store of fowl and excellent good ... in fashion like a sickel or fish hook." <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/image231.jpg" width-obs="430" height-obs="500" alt="" title="" /></div> [Pg 193] All that first dreadful winter, while the Pilgrims were struggling to make roofs to cover their heads, while, with weeping hearts, they buried their dead, and when, according to the good and indestructible instincts of life, which persist in spite of every calamity, they planted seed for the coming spring—all this while the Mayflower lay at anchor in the harbor. Every morning they could see her there; any hour of the day they could glance out at her; while they slept they were conscious of her presence. And just so long as she was there, just so long could they see a tangible connection between themselves and the life, which, although already strangely far away, was, nevertheless, the nearest and the dearest existence they had known. And then in April, the familiar vessel, whose outlines were as much a part of the seascape as the Gurnet or the bluffs of Manomet, vanished: vanished as completely as if she had never been. The water which parted under her departing keel flowed together. There was no sign on earth or sea or in the sky of that last link between the little group of colonists and their home land. They were as much alone as Enoch Arden on his desert isle. Can we imagine the emptiness, the illimitable loneliness of that bay? One small shallop down by the pier—that was the only visible connection between themselves and England! I do not believe that we can really appreciate their sense of complete severance—their sense of utter isolation. And I do not believe that we can appreciate the wild thrill of excitement, the sudden gush of freshly[Pg 194] established connection that ran through the colony, when, seven months later—the following November—a ship sailed into the harbor. It was the Fortune bringing with her news and letters from home—word from that other world—and bringing also thirty-five new colonists, among them William Brewster's eldest son and Robert Cushman. Probably the greetings were so joyful, the messages so eagerly sought, the flutter of welcome so great that it was not until several days had passed that they realized that the chief word which Thomas Weston (the London merchant who was the head of the company which had financed the expedition) had sent them was one of reproof. The Mayflower had brought no profitable cargo back to England, he complained, an omission which was "wonderful and worthily distasted." While he admitted that they had labored under adverse circumstances, he unkindly added that a quarter of the time they had spent in discoursing and arguing and consulting could have profitably been spent in other ways. That the first official[Pg 195] word from home should be one of such cruel reprimand struck the colonists—who had so wistfully waited for a cheering message—very hard. Half frozen, half starved, sick, depressed, they had been forced to struggle so desperately to maintain even a foothold on the ladder of existence, that it had not been humanly possible for them to fulfill their pledge to the Company. Bradford's letter back to Weston—dignified, touching—is sufficient vindication. When the Fortune returned she "was laden with good clapboards, as full as she could stowe, and two hogsheads of beaver and other skins," besides sassafras—a cargo valued at about five hundred pounds. In spite of the fact that this cargo was promptly stolen by a French cruiser off the English coast, it nevertheless marks the foundation of the fur and lumber trade in New England. Although this first visitor brought with her a patent of their lands (a document still preserved in Pilgrim Hall, with the signatures and seals of the Duke of Lenox, the Marquis of Hamilton, the Earl of Warwick, and Sir[Pg 196] Ferdinando Gorges), yet to us, reading history in the perspective of three hundred years, the disagreeable impression of Weston's letter outweighs the satisfaction for the patent. When the Fortune sailed away it was like the departure of a rich, fault-finding aunt, who suddenly descends upon a household of poor relations, bringing presents, to be sure, but with such cutting disapproval on her lips that it mars the entire pleasure of her visit. The harbor was once more empty. I suppose that in time the Pilgrims half forgot, half forgave, the sting of Weston's reproof. Again they gazed out and waited for a sail; again England seemed very far away. So, doubtless, in the spring, when a shallop appeared from a fishing vessel, they all eagerly hurried down to greet it. But if the Fortune had been like a rich and disagreeable aunt, this new visitation was like an influx of small, unruly cousins. And such hungry cousins! Weston had sent seven men to stay with them until arrangements could be made for another settlement. New Englanders are often criticized for their[Pg 197] lack of hospitality, and in this first historic case of unexpected guests the larder was practically bare. Crops were sown, to be sure, but not yet green; the provisions in the store-house were gone; it was not the season for wild fowl; although there were bass in the outer harbor and cod in the bay there was neither tackle nor nets to take them. However, the seven men were admitted, and given shellfish like the rest—and very little beside. At this point the Pilgrims looked with less favorable eyes upon newcomers into the harbor, and when shortly after two ships appeared bringing sixty more men from Weston, consternation reigned. These emigrants were supposed to get their own food from their own vessels and merely lodge on shore, but they proved a lawless set and stole so much green corn that it seriously reduced the next year's supply. After six weeks, however, these uninvited guests took themselves off to Wessagusset (now Weymouth) leaving their sick behind, and only the briefest of "thank you's." The next caller was the Plantation. She[Pg 198] anchored only long enough to offer some sorely needed provisions at such extortionate prices that the colonists could not buy them. Another slap in the face! Obviously, none of these visitors had proved very satisfactory. It had been entertaining under difficulties, and if the entertainers had hoped for the "angels unawares," they had been decidedly disappointed. Therefore it is easy to believe that they took fresh courage and sincere delight when, in July, 1623, the Anne and the Little James arrived—no strangers, for they brought with them additional stores, and best of all, good friends and close kinsfolk from the church at Leyden. Yes, the Pilgrims were delighted, but, alas, tradition has it that when they pressed forward in glad greeting to their old acquaintances, these latter started back, nonplussed—aghast! Like Mr. Boughton they had fondly pictured an ideal rustic community, in which the happy, carefree colonists reveled in all the beauty of picturesque and snowy collars and cuffs in Arden-like freedom. Instead they saw a row of rough[Pg 199] log cabins and a group of work-worn, shabby men and women, men and women whose faces were lined with exposure, and whose backs were bent with toil, and who, for their most hospitable feast, had only a bit of shellfish and water to offer. Many of the newcomers promptly burst into tears, and begged to return to England immediately. Poor Pilgrims! Rebuffed—and so unflatteringly—with each arriving maritime guest, who can doubt that there was born in them at that moment the constitutional dislike for unexpected company which has characterized New England ever since? However, in a comparatively short time the colonists who had been brought over in the Anne and the Little James—those who stayed, for some did return at once—adjusted themselves to the new life. Many married—both Myles Standish and Governor Bradford found wives among them; and now the Plymouth Colony may be said to have fairly started. Just as a trail which is first a mere thread[Pg 200] leading to some out-of-the-way cabin becomes a path and then a road, and in due time a wide thoroughfare, so the way across the Atlantic from Old England to New became more charted—more traveled. At first there was only one boat and one net for fishing. In five years there was a fleet of fifty fishing vessels. Ten years later we have note of ten foreign vessels in the harbor in a single week. And to-day, if the Pilgrim man and maid whom we joined at the beginning of our reminiscences could gaze out over the harbor, they would see it as full of masts as a cornfield is of stalks. Every kind of boat finds its way in and out; and not only pleasure craft: Plymouth Harbor is second only to Boston among the Massachusetts ports of entry, receiving annual foreign imports valued at over $7,000,000. Into the harbor, where once a single shallop was the only visible sign of man's dominion over the water, now sail great vessels from Yucatan and the Philippines, bringing sisal and manila for the largest cordage company in the whole country—a company with an employees' list of two[Pg 201] thousand names, and an annual output of $10,000,000. Furthermore, the flats in the harbor are planted with clams, which (through the utilization of shells for poultry feeding, and by means of canning for bouillon) yield a profit of from five hundred to eight hundred dollars an acre. No, our Pilgrim man and maid would not recognize, in this Plymouth of factories and industries, the place where once stood the row of log cabins, with oiled-paper windows. And yet, after all, it is not the prosperous town of to-day, but the rude settlement of yesterday, which chiefly lives in the hearts of the American people. And it lives, not because of its economic importance, but because of its unique sentimental value. As John Fiske so admirably states: "Historically their enterprise [that of the Pilgrims at Plymouth] is interesting not so much for what it achieved as for what it suggested. Of itself the Plymouth Colony could hardly have become a wealthy and powerful state. Its growth was extremely slow. After ten years its numbers were but[Pg 202] three hundred. In 1643, when the exodus had come to an end and the New England Confederacy was formed, the population of Plymouth was but three thousand. In an established community, indeed, such a rate of increase would be rapid, but was not sufficient to raise in New England a power which could overcome Indians and Dutchmen and Frenchmen and assert its will in opposition to the Crown. It is when we view the founding of Plymouth in relation to what came afterward, that it assumes the importance which belongs to the beginning of a new era." For this reason the permanent position of Plymouth in our history is forever assured. Old age, which may diminish the joys of youth, preserves inviolate memories which nothing can destroy. The place whose quiet fame is made is surer of the future than the one which is on the brink of fabulous glory. It is impossible to overestimate the significance of this spot. The Old Coast Road—the oldest in New England—began here and pushed its tortuous[Pg 203] way up to Boston along the route we have so lightly followed. Inheritors of a nation which these pioneers strove manfully, worshipfully, to found, need we be ashamed of deep emotion as we stand here, on this shore, where they landed three hundred years ago? <div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> <div class="footnote">[2] It is hoped that by the summer of 1921 a beautiful and dignified portico of granite will be raised as a final and permanent memorial over the rock, which will be moved for the last time—lowered to as near its original bed as possible. This work, which has been taken in charge by the National Society of Colonial Dames of America will be executed by McKim, Mead & White. The General Society of Mayflower Descendants are also working for the redemption of the first Pilgrim burial place on Cole's Hill. The Pilgrim Society is to assume the perpetual care of both memorial and lot. </div> </div> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/image243.jpg" width-obs="250" height-obs="83" alt="" title="" /></div> <h3>THE END</h3> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.