USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. II > Part 6
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USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. II > Part 6
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Then came a pause, and then democracy seized on France, its armies swept over Europe, and at last the world understood. After Waterloo, another pause,
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SIGNING OF THE COMPACT IN THE CABIN OF THE MAYFLOWER. 1620
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while the Polignacs and Metternichs thought that they could turn back the wheels of time and make the old system flourish where the plowshares of the French Revolu- tion had rent the soil and turned the furrows. It was the vainest of dreams. Even while the Holy Alliance was tightening the chains, Greece rose in arms, and then came democracy once more in France in 1830 and in England in 1832. Another pause, and again the new, popular force broke out in 1848, and from that day to this has gone steadily forward, until now it is known in Russia and China and is acknowledged and powerful in Turkey, Persia, and Japan. It has suc- ceeded marvelously. It has brought great benefits to men; but a perilous future stretches before it, and it has many problems to solve.
It is well to remember, also, that this democracy, recognized in the cabin of the "Mayflower" as the true government for free men, developed one quality wholly lacking in the democracies of Rome and Greece and of the Middle Ages. That quality was the representative principle, in theory and practice, familiar to all English-speaking people, to the Virginian and to the Puritan, as well as to the Pilgrim. But the representation which they knew was that of orders and classes and institutions. Here in America they yoked it to the principle of Government by the people and so produced representative democracy, and that is the democracy which, for a century and a half, has marched on from victory to victory.
In writing history it is hard to get away from the Pilgrims or from the first explorers and adventurers whose beginnings entered into the making of the United States and Canada. Their stories are so fasci- nating, filled with adventure, human interest and all that goes to make captivating reading, to say nothing of the importance of it all and its significance which lives in the affairs of today as well as yesterday. For the purpose of this history of Plymouth, Barnstable and Norfolk counties, much of the Pilgrim story is told in the part devoted to Plymouth County. Much of it belongs to Barnstable as well as Plym- outh County. It was the Indians in what is now Barnstable County who had much to do with keeping the Pilgrims alive after they took up their abode in Plymouth and Pilgrim affairs were as peculiarly of Cape Cod as they were of Plymouth.
In especially flashing Barnstable County on the screen, it is there- fore well merely to use the titles and what they suggest without drawing anew the pictures of the Separatist movement, how Henry VIII re- pudiated the control of the Pope, the accession of Elizabeth, the Sep- aratists in Holland, the effect the execution of Mary Queen of Scots had upon the Separatist movement, the Pilgrims' resolve to leave Hol- land and emigrate to the New World. Then comes the story of the "Speedwell" and the "Mayflower," the arrangement made with a com- pany of merchant adventurers to furnish funds for the expedition, how ninety took passage in the "Mayflower" and thirty in the "Speedwell" from Southampton, both vessels put in at Dartmouth and again at Plym- outh in the south of England for repairs. Eighteen were by that time ready to quit and twelve who originally shipped on the leaky "Speed-
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well" were taken on board the already overcrowded "Mayflower," making one hundred and two when the final sailing took place Sep- tember 16, 1620. Two months at sea, during which Oceanus, a son, was born to Stephen and Elizabeth Hopkins, and one of the seamen and a young lad who had accompanied one of the families as a serv- ant died. A headland loomed up from the sea November 9, and this was the highlands of Cape Cod.
This was so far north of the intended destination that the "May- flower" turned south and was soon in shoal water with waves break- ing, threatening to make a shipwreck of the whole expedition. Captain Joanes turned the prow eastward and was eventually in the harbor of Provincetown, where anchor was dropped November 11, 1620.
There was at this time an anchor rope, at least, which connected the "Mayflower" party with land in a harbor which is described by Ed- ward Winslow in "Mourt's Relation" as "circled round, except in the entrance, which is about four miles over from land to land, compassed about to the sea, with oaks, pines, juniper, sassafras and other sweet woods. It is a harbor wherein a thousand sail of ships may safely ride."
So this then was Cape Cod, on which ancient Norsemen landed in 1004, visited and named Cape Cod by Captain John Smith ; also visited by Bartholomew Gosnold and the French explorers prior to the coming of the Pilgrims. Monhegin traders and the notorious Indian kidnapper, Captain Hunt, had been here. So white men were not unknown to the Indians
"When a band of exiles moored their bark, On the wild New England shore."
Famous Witticisms Founded On Facts-In Provincetown Harbor, the Pilgrims made their first landing, drew up the form of government, cleaned house, did the family washing, looked about them and made plans for the immediate future and the years to come, for those who were to be able to become acclimated. Here the first white child of Eng- lish parentage saw the light. In the Cape Cod sand were buried the first of the Pilgrims to succumb to the hardships and the severe climate. The first explorations were made, the first New England spring water drank, the first seed corn was obtained and the first meeting with the aborigines took place. It was here that the Pilgrims knelt on the sandy shore and offered thanks for their deliverance from the perils of the sea and asked protection from the perils of the land and success in their undertakings.
In this connection it has been said that "the Pilgrims first fell upon their knees and then upon the aborigines." This witticism was uttered
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many years ago by Honorable William M. Evarts. It has been credi- ted to many men in many parts of the country. In an effort to trace the real author, the writer of this history engaged the services of several experts at Washington and in connection with several newspapers. Even Senator George S. Vest, of Missouri, author of the famous tribute to the dog, was credited with the saying, but there is good evidence that Honorable William M. Evarts was the originator of the witticism and, while it was shocking to some people, seems decidedly pardonable and "founded on facts."
There is a stone in the Pilgrim monument at Provincetown which was taken from the churchyard wall of the quaint church dedicated to St. Helen at Austerfield. In this church, March 19, 1589, was bap- tized William Bradford, destined to become the governor of the Plym- outh colony.
William Bradford was born in the village of Austerfield, a few miles distant from Scrooby, the year that Elder Brewster was made post- master at Scrooby. The church in which he was baptized dates back to the thirteenth century. The church register, in which is recorded the baptism, is still in existence and the record is still legible. Not far from the church is the house, still standing, in which Bradford first saw the light. These connections almost make it seem a matter of recent date when the Scrooby brethren attempted to worship God ac- cording to the dictates of their own conscience and James of Scotland passed through the village on his journey to London to accept the crown, after the death of Queen Elizabeth. Regarding the sect in Scrooby, King James said: "I will make them conform or I will harry them out of the land."
William Bradford was annually elected governor of the Plymouth Colony from the death of Governor John Carver in 1621 to his own death in 1657, with the exception of three years when Edward Winslow was governor and two years when Thomas Prence was governor. Bradford was senior assistant even in those five years. The people chose to elect him thirty-one times, although he was much opposed to such continuous service.
William Bradford wrote his record of the creation of the Governor's Council in 1624, in which he said: "The time of new election of their officers for the year being come, and the number of their people in- creased, and their troubles and occasions therewith, the Governor de- sired them to change the persons, as well as to renew the election, and also to add more assistants to the Governor for help and counsel, and the better carrying on of affairs. Showing that it was necessary it should be so. If there was any honor or profit, it was fit others should be partakers of it; if it was a burden (as doubtless it was) it was but
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equal others should help to bear it; and that this was the end of annual elections. The issue was, that as before there was but one Assistant, they now chose five, giving the Governor a double voice."
Not only was William Bradford valuable to the colony as governor, but to him we of the present day as well as those who have preceded us and those who will come after, owe a deep debt of gratitude for his services as historian. He began, in 1630, a "History of Plymouth Plantation," and continued it to the year 1648.
When he died in 1657 the manuscript passed to his son, then to his grandson. For many years it was preserved in the historic Bradford House in Kingston, still standing. In 1728 the manuscript was loaned . to a Boston clergyman, who kept it in the tower of the Old South Meet- ing-house, still standing on Washington Street, at the intersection of Milk Street, in Boston.
Two hundred years after the death of Bradford and one hundred years after its whereabouts had become unknown, it was discovered at Fulham, England, in the private library of the Bishop of London. This was in 1855. The bishop refused to part with it and it was in 1897 that Honorable Roger Wolcott, governor of Massachusetts, asked for the return of the manuscript in the name of the Commonwealth of Massa- chusetts. This formal request was honored and the manuscript was placed in the fireproof vault of the library at the State House, where it can still be seen, in the handwriting of Governor Bradford, the scholar and wise executive. He was indeed a scholar. Finding out about the church of the Separatists when he was twelve years of age, he decided to leave the established church and cast his lot with them, for which he was reproached by his family. He replied: "Were I doing anything wrong, you would have a right to complain. But you know that I am diligent, sober and thrifty. My conscience comes before you, or even life itself. And if I suffer in a good cause, you have no reason to be angry with me, or even sorry for me."
As an old man he took up the study of Hebrew. He tells us: "I have a longing desire to see with my own eyes something of that most ancient language and holy tongue in which the Law and Oracles of God were writ, and in which God and angels spake to the holy patri- arks of old time." He knew Dutch, French, Latin and Greek, and quoted Pliny, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius. He criticized the practice of Plato's "Republic" as not suitable for the Plymouth Colony.
Concerning the "Mayflower" journey and its perils, Bradford wrote : "But they knew they were pilgrims, and looked not much on those things, but lift up their eyes to the heavens, their dearest country, and quieted their spirits."
Once in the harbor of Provincetown, in which he wrote "they ridd
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in saftie," he continued : "But hear I cannot but stay and make pause, and stand half amased at this poore peoples presente condition; and so I thinke will the reader too. Being thus passed the vast ocean and a sea of troubles before in their preparation, they had now no freinds to wellcome them, nor inns to entertaine or refresh their weatherbeaten bodys, no houses or much less townes to repaire too, to seeke for succoure. It is recorded in Scripture as a mercie to the apostle and his shipwracked company, that the barbarians shewed them no smale kindness, but these savage barbarians, when they mette with them (as will after appeare) were readier to fill their sids full of arrows. And for the season it was winter. Besides, what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men? For Sum- mer being done, all things stared upon them with a weatherbeaten face. If they looked behind them, ther was the mighty ocean which they had passed, and was now as a maine barr and goulfe to separate them from all the civill parts of the world. What could now sustaine them but the spirit of God and his grace !"
So we have a pen picture from the hand of one of the Pilgrims, describing how they felt in those weeks before the landing at Plym- outh, using the "Mayflower" as a houseboat "wher they ridd in saftie."
Pilgrim's House is Still Coming Over-It was not very long ago that the Pilgrims landed, measured in terms of history. Reading the "His- tory of Plymouth Plantation" written by one of them does not seem far different than reading the diary of one's grandfather. As a matter of fact it was a sort of diary that William Bradford kept. There are many things of the present which link it with the past so closely that three hundred years are easily bridged, to make the atmosphere surrounding the Pilgrims easy for their descendants to breathe, by the use of a moderate amount of imagination and sympathy.
One of the men on the "Mayflower" who signed the Compact was Christopher Martin, about forty years of age. He had at Billericay, County Essex, just outside London, Chauntry House, which was re- cently bought by an unnamed American at a cost of $50,000. The pur- chaser announced his intention of carefully taking down the house, transporting it to Massachusetts and reerecting it, exactly as it has stood for centuries in the ancient town of Billericay.
It is said that Christopher Martin was the man who victualled the "Mayflower" for its journey. The ecclestiastical authorities learned of his connection with the Separatists and he fled to Leyden, with his wife, son and servant and all four were later passengers on the "May- flower."
Chauntry House, the sixteenth century home of a Pilgrim, is in-
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cluded in the tremendous work of the Royal Commission inventorying the historical monuments of England. It was originally of the central hall type, with north and south wings and a south extension. It is be- lieved to have been built early in the sixteenth century but a floor has since been inserted in the hall and some other modern alterations made. In the work the timber framing was exposed at the south end, and the date 1510 was discovered, from which it is supposed that the house was built in that year, making it more than one hundred years old when the Pilgrims sailed for the New World.
At least one of the rooms on the ground floor is lined with six- teenth century paneling and doors are paneled in the same manner. More sixteenth century paneling is in a room above but in both rooms late seventeenth century moulded wood cornice is employed. There is a paneled cupboard beside one of the fireplaces, significant of the early seventeenth century, and there is a segmental head and archi- volt supported by fluted pilasters with moulded caps. On the second floor are two battered doors and a sixteenth century door with wrought- ironed cock's-head hinges. The plan of the American purchaser will make it possible for people of this day and generation to inspect one of the houses actually the home of one of the Pilgrims and one which was, according to American standards, an old house when the Pilgrim lived in it, and to have this privilege without even going out of Mas- sachusetts.
There have been thousands of stories about the number of clocks, and various articles of household furniture "which came over in the 'Mayflower'," but this will be the first instance of an entire house of a Pilgrim being brought over. Christopher Martin may have had an ambition to have his good deeds live after him, but he could hardly have expected that his home in England would follow him three hundred years later.
CHAPTER XXXII
GANGPLANKS TO CAPE COD
First Spot in New England Ever Trod by Englishmen-Epenow, a "Sight" in England, Lived to Get the Laugh On Sir Ferdinand Gorges-Outrages Perpetrated On the Aborigines-Captain Dermer Found Frenchmen Serving as Slaves to Indians and Purchased Their Freedom-Trio of Indians Who Spoke English Slightly Became In- terpreters-Party Given by Sachem Iyanough at the Restoration of John Billington-Cape Cod Indians Refused to Join King Philip in His War of Extermination-Great Excitement Among Both Reds and Whites When the Ship "Fortune" Reached Cape Cod.
Cape Cod has a history before the landing of the Pilgrims and it is probable that some of the passengers on the "Mayflower" knew some- thing of it. In passing it might be said that the Indians inhabiting Cape Cod also knew something of the white men and entertained certain opinions or prejudices concerning them. More than eighteen years before the "Mayflower" rounded Race Point, Bartholomew Gosnold, a mariner from the west of England, sailed into the same waters with a crew of thirty-two men, and found themselves "embayed with a mighty headland," which at first appeared "like an island by reason of the large sound that lay between it and the main." The honor of naming this peninsula Cape Cod is given to Gosnold because, it is said, "Within a league of the land, he came to anchor, in fifteen fathoms" and he and his crew dropped lines overboard and took from the wealth of the sea a great quantity of cod-fish, furnishing the circumstances which gave rise to the name.
"A low, sandy shore, but withing dangers, in the latitude of 42 de- grees, the shore bold and the sand very deep," is the way in which the locality was described by Gosnold. This is not a bad description, in a few words, of the southeastern extremity of Massachusetts, now an island, but, until the Cape Cod Canal was put through, a peninsula sixty-five miles in length, irregular in form, its width varying from five to twenty miles, constituting the county of Barnstable.
The Cape Cod Canal makes a very well defined boundary to show "where the Cape begins." This is the answer to the more or less ab- surd claims made by several towns which call themselves "The gateway to the Cape." As a matter of fact, Cape Cod has two gateways or gangplanks, a better term, these two being the bridges across the canal, one at Bourne, near the north end of the canal; the other at
1
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Sagamore, near the south end. To call these bridges gangplanks is not far-fetched, as both of them are drawbridges.
Bartholomew Gosnold also left us a description of the inhabitants of Cape Cod whom he encountered in his explorations. He said: "They all had pipes and tobacco of which they were very fond." The story is told that Gosnold was visited by one of the natives who had a plate of copper upon his breast, twelve inches by six. Others had pendants of the same metal suspended from their ears. One young native with ear ornaments of this sort approached, with his bow and arrow in hand, and, in a friendly manner, offered to be of such service to the new arrivals as he might. This same attitude was shown by the In- dians at Plymouth but there came a time when the logic of events seemed to indicate that it would be all white or all red and the Indian wars and massacres and the long tale of atrocities constitute a bloody chapter in American history.
Gosnold sailed about in his bark and sent his boat to explore the various arms of the sea. Eventually the bark came to anchor in one of the finest sounds he had ever seen, to which he gave the name of Gosnold's Hope. This is what was later called Buzzards Bay. One of the large islands in the vicinity he named in honor of Queen Eliza- beth. It is recorded of him that it was on this island, on a small islet in a little fresh water pond, that he erected a fort and took up his abode. This was the island now called Cuttyhunk, on which, in recent years, magnates of the Standard Oil Company have had a clubhouse and where the late William Wood, president of the American Woolen Company, erected a few years ago, a stone castle, flanked with con- crete walks and drives. It was the show place of the very attractive island but totally incongruous and out of keeping with its every other appearance.
There is today on the little island, in the little lake on Cuttyhunk, a monument of field stones, erected in honor of Bartholomew Gosnold, where the cellar of his storehouse was still to be seen a hundred years ago. While this storehouse was being erected by members of his crew, Gosnold crossed the bay in his vessel and explored two rivers, one that which passed through the towns of Wareham and Rochester; the other that on the shore of which stands New Bedford, famous as the whaling city of half a century ago.
Gosnold gave a glowing account of Cuttyhunk in those days, as an island with "the rank vegetation of a virgin soil; noble forests, wild fruits and flowers,-the eglantine, the thorn and the honeysuckle,- the wild pea, the tansy, the young sassafras,-strawberries, raspberries, grape vines,-all in profusion."
Amid these pleasant surroundings Gosnold attempted to make an
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English settlement which, had it succeeded, would have been the first colony of New Plymouth. Josselyn says it was "begun in 1602, near Narragansett Bay." It appears that Gosnold and his crew erected a storehouse with the intention of having some of the men remain, plant fields and establish a colony, while the others returned to England, with Gilbert, second in command, for further supplies and more colo- nists. Five days were spent in wrangling who should stay and who return, as supplies were getting low and there was a grave difference of opinion about dividing the store. All returned to England, told won- derful stories of their discoveries and the promised land, and succeeded in selling the idea of establishing a colony, but not in the latitude of forty-two degrees. So, when Gosnold embarked on his next expedi- tion to America, he sailed past New England and his storehouse and landed in Virginia. On that expedition he ranked as counsellor. He died in 1607. He had sailed away from Cuttyhunk June 18, 1602, taking with him furs bought of the Indians, roots of sassafras which the Indians had dug for him as a gift, in return for the gifts of a straw hat and two knives which Gosnold had presented to one of the Indian chiefs, when the latter and fifty of his braves visited the ex- plorer.
Bancroft declared that Cape Cod was the "first spot in New England ever trod by Englishmen" and the assertion seems to be borne out by well-established facts, but Cuttyhunk would have been the place of the first English colonization had it not been for the fear that there was not enough food to provision the storehouse against the time which would elapse before additional food could be obtained from England.
Following the explorations of Gosnold in 1602, the New England coast was visited by English, French and other vessels. Several of them touched Nova Scotia. At about the same time that French ex- plorers entered the Annapolis River in the spring of 1604 and the Penobscot and Kennebec rivers later the same year, taking possession of the territory. in the name of the king of France, a party left Great Britain, touched a few places in Maine. They ascended the Kennebec River and erected a cross, as the symbol of the Christian religion. They also seized five natives and carried them back to Great Britain. Three of the captives were taken into the family of Sir Ferdinand Gorges, then governor of Plymouth, England, an intimate friend of Sir Walter Raleigh. These Indians gave information which led to their subse- quent return and fired the two adventurers to plan projects for gain.
An Aboriginal Yarn About Marthas Vineyard-A fishing vessel en- gaged in cod-fishing in the vicinity of Marthas Vineyard about the same Plym -- 45
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time and the Indians in that vicinity became curious and approached in their canoes. One Indian, Epenow, accepted an invitation to board the vessel and was not allowed to leave. The vessel sailed away and Epenow was "shown about in London as a sight."
Epenow was also given to telling wonderful tales concerning the country from which he was taken, to a certain extent bearing out the stories told Sir Ferdinand Gorges by the earlier Indians. One of Epenow's yarns was concerning an island on which was a mine of inexhaustible gold. This was sufficient to convince Gorges that a ship should be fitted out to find the whereabouts of this delectable is- land. The ship sailed in June, 1614, with Epenow on board as pilot and interpreter.
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