The Mayflower Society House: Being the story of the Edward Winslow House, the Mayflower Society, the PilgrimsPratt, Walter Merriam
History
The Mayflower Society House: Being the story of the Edward Winslow House, the Mayflower Society, the Pilgrims
Pratt, Walter Merriam
General Society of Mayflower Descendants; Pilgrims (New Plymouth Colony); Plymouth (Mass.) -- Buildings, structures, etc.
“In a mighty storme a lustie yonge man called John Howland came
upon some occasion above ye gratings, was with a seele of ye ship
throwne into ye sea; but it pleased God yt he caught hould of ye
top saile halliards, which hung overboard and rane out at length;
yet he held his hould (though he was sundrie fadomes under water)
till he was hald up by ye same rope to ye brink of ye water and
then with a boat hook and other means got into ye shipe again,
and his life saved, and though he was somewhat ill with it, yet
he lived many years after, and became a profitable member both of
church and comonwelth.”
And the manuscript goes on to tell of a proud, very profane young
man, one of the seamen of husky and able body, which made him the
more haughty, who was always annoying the poor people in their
sickness by cursing them daily and telling them he hoped to help cast
half of them overboard before they came to their journey’s end and if
he ever, by any was gently reproved, he would curse and swear most
bitterly. But it pleased God to smite this young man with a grievous
disease, of which he died in a desperate manner and so was himself
the first to be thrown overboard.
John Carver, who had been chosen Governor, died the first winter,
and William Bradford succeeded him. The Colony grew slowly. By 1630
it had but 300 persons in it, but it had paid the London merchants.
There is little question that the contract was burdensome and
oppressive. But as proof that the Pilgrims harbored no resentment is
this laudable act: the Plymouth Colony General Court in 1660 ordered
that twenty pounds should be sent to a Mr. Ling, one of the Merchant
Adventurers, “who had fallen to decay and had felt great extremity
of poverty, the same twenty pounds being bestowed on him towards his
relief and if it was not given voluntarily that the amount that fell
short ‘bee’ made up out of the ‘Countrey stocke’ by the Treasurer.”
The Colony made a treaty with Massasoit, Chief of the Wampanoag
Indians, which lasted until broken by his son in 1675. By 1640 the
population had increased to over 3000.
As for the Puritans, they became powerful in England and comprised
many men of wealth and culture and social standing. Little bodies of
them, encouraged by the example of the Pilgrims, began to settle upon
the shores of Massachusetts. In 1628 John Endicott and a shipload
took command of the place the Indians called Naumkeag and gave it
the Bible name of Salem, or Peace. When they arrived they found
Roger Conant and his followers, who were, after several years of
struggling, happily settled. Endicott practically kicked them out.
Within a few years all of Conant’s followers had moved across the
river and established new homes in what became Beverly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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