Nooks and Corners of the New England CoastDrake, Samuel Adams
History
Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast
Drake, Samuel Adams
New England -- Description and travel
On William Wood's map of 1634,[184] Old Plymouth is laid down on the
eastern shore of Narraganset Bay, while New Plymouth has its proper
position. "New Plimouth" is placed on Blauw's map at the head of a small
bay, into which a large river flows. One of the headlands of the bay is
named C. Blanco Gallis, and the bay itself Crane Bay. Josselyn has also
this reference to Old Plymouth:
"At the farther end of the bay, by the mouth of Narraganset River, on
the south side thereof was Old Plymouth plantation, _Anno_ 1602." He may
have borrowed his itinerary in part from Wood, who, as I take it,
referred to Gosnold's attempt at the mouth of Buzzard's Bay. In his
summary, under date of 1607, Josselyn notes, "Plimouth plantation in New
England attempted."
I spent some hours among the grave-stones on Burial Hill. Here, as in
the streets of the living inhabitants, the old familiar names of the
_Mayflower's_ passengers are to be met with. And in every burial-place
in the land, I make no doubt, are to be found Howlands and Winslows,
Bradfords and Brewsters, side by side. I have felt myself much moved in
thinking on the story of those stern men and self-contained, trustful
women. Their whole lives might justly be called a pilgrimage. Consider
their gathering in the Old England they loved so well; then their
dispersion, suffering, and hurried flight into Holland; afterward the
staking their all on the issue of their venture in the New World, and
the painful, anxious lives they led; despoiling the young of their
youth, and the elders of a peaceful old age.
This spot, as is well known, was not the Pilgrims' original place of
interment. They who first died were buried on Cole's Hill, nearer the
shore, and to the strait limits of their little hamlet. They lost one
half their number during the first dismal winter, and there was room
enough without going far to make their graves. Tradition says that,
fearing their wretchedness might inspire the Indians with the hope of
exterminating them, those early graves were first leveled and then
planted upon in order to conceal their losses. It is said that sixty
years elapsed before a grave-stone with an inscription was set up in
Plymouth; certain it is that none older has been found than that of
Edward Gray, merchant, who died in 1681.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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