A special case at the head of the Hall contains the oldest state document in New England, and probably in the United States. This is the first patent granted to the Plymouth Colonists by the Northern Virginia Company. A patent was granted by the Virginia Company in the name of John Wincob, but never used. About the time of the departure of the Forefathers from England for this country a new company was created by a royal charter, within the limits of which Plymouth was included, and this patent dated June 1, 1621 was granted to John Pierce by the Northern Virginia Company and sent over in the “Fortune,” arriving here in November of that year. This patent was found in the land office in Boston, among a mass of old papers, by William Smith, Esq., one of the land committee. The Hon. John Davis, then editing a new edition of Morton’s New England Memorials, obtained it for his use in that book, and from him it came into the possession of the late Nathaniel Morton Davis, Esq., in whose family it remained until deposited in the hall by Mrs. William H. Whitman. It bears the seals and signatures of the Duke of Lenox, the Marquis of Hamilton, the Earl of Warwick, Lord Sheffield, and Sir Ferdinando Gorges, with the exception that the seal of Hamilton is missing. A sixth signature, probably that of John Peirce, the party of the second part, is broken out of the parchment, leaving but a trace of the letter J. The seal to this signature is also torn away. From the curator’s office a flight of stairs conducts to the basement, where all desired conveniences for visitors will be found. In the lower hall is an interesting museum of articles which have been separated from the Pilgrim collection, and as pertaining to ancient days in many instances or as curiosities will well repay examination. Among them is the frame of the “Sparrowhawk,” wrecked on Cape Cod, at Orleans, in 1626, her company finding refuge and assistance at Plymouth. Her history is remarkable, as being the first known vessel stranded on the Cape, which since that time has been the grave yard of fully 2,000 sea-going craft, with a loss of hundreds of lives. A large placard attached to the old wreck gives the story. To see these remains of a vessel as old as the Mayflower, though much smaller, is very suggestive of the perils of an ocean passage in the days of the Pilgrims. The bones of the Indian Chief Iyanough are preserved in a special case in the lower hall, together with a large brass kettle and other implements found with the skeleton which was discovered at Hyannis in Barnstable in May, 1861. The Court House “Though justice be thy plea, consider this,— That in the course of justice none of us should see salvation.” [Illustration: Illustrated capital]