The Landing of the Pilgrims Page 4

  “It is how the Indians catch deer!” said Stephen.

  As William Bradford stepped forward to examine it, the sapling gave a jerk, and he found himself suddenly hanging by one leg upside down. The woods rang with laughter as he was released from the trap and set upon his feet.

  They soon came out on the beach, where they sighted the Mayflower. They fired off their muskets and were welcomed home by Masters Jones and Carver, who were waiting on shore with the longboat.

  And thus we came, both weary and welcome, home; and delivered our corn into the store, to be kept for seed; for we knew not how to come by any, and therefore were very glad; purposing soon as we could meet with any of the inhabitants of that place, to make them large satisfaction.

  This was our first discovery.

  Of the Adventure in the Shallop and of the Mystery of the Blond Skull

  It was late November and the bleak northern winter was upon them. Landward lay the unknown wilderness where they must soon find a place for their settlement. The shallop was now seaworthy and ready to take the expedition down the Cape. Master Jones was made the leader of a party that would search for a good site. It consisted of ten sailors and twenty-four men from among the passengers.

  As the shallop ran down the coast through a wild sea, it blew bitter cold with snow. The spray froze to the men’s clothing till they were covered with ice. A landing party went ashore at the place of the First Discovery, which they called appropriately Cold Harbor (the Pamet River). All day they marched up and down through the rugged snow-covered hills.

  That night the hungry marchers feasted under the pines on three fat geese and six ducks they had killed. They slept in the snow by a fragrant juniper fire under a windward barricade.

  The next morning they crossed the river in an abandoned Indian canoe and found the place where they had dug up the baskets of corn (Hopkins’ Cliff). Again they dug, breaking through the frozen ground with their cutlasses and levers until they found ten more baskets of precious seed corn.

  “And sure it was God’s Providence that we found this corn; for else we know not how we should have done.”

  More bad weather was coming and Master Jones grew anxious for his ship, so he went back with the sick members of the party and the baskets of corn. Before he left, he promised to return the next day with spades and mattocks.

  The eighteen men who remained pushed on through the woods, finding a broad path that they thought might lead to an Indian village. The musketeers lighted their match cords to be ready for action, but the road proved to be only a deer path leading nowhere.

  As they came out of the woods onto open, level ground, the men found old boards heaped on a long mound that looked like a grave. Digging down, they unearthed rush mats, bowls, trays, and dishes, a bow and a painted and carved stick, then a new mat, and under that two bundles. In the larger bundle, wrapped in a sailor’s blouse and breeches, were the bones and skull of a man. The skull had strands of fine yellow hair still on it and some of the flesh unconsumed.

  The discoverers looked at one another in wonder. What was the mystery behind this blond skull in the bottom of a lonely Indian grave on desolate Cape Cod?

  Had this white man been a great chief, or was he a shipwrecked sailor who had been murdered? What strange tales about the wilderness, as it was before the Mayflower came, could these bones tell? In the other bundle were the bones of a child with wampum necklaces and bracelets. The men took some of the trinkets and covered the graves.

  Then they made another discovery: two round lodges, scarcely visible under the blanket of snow. Inside the lodges were all the objects of an Indian household, including finely woven mats and earthen pots that had recently been in use. The discoverers took away what they fancied and, as it was growing dark, they hurried down to the shore, went aboard the shallop, and reached the Mayflower that night.

  As the men told of their adventures and of the mystery of the Blond Skull, Elder Brewster’s Christian conscience twitched uneasily. They had robbed the Indian graves and stolen the natives’ corn, but he promised himself that “As soon as we can meet with them, we will give them full satisfaction. Thus much for our second discovery.”

  The Third Discovery and the First Encounter and Divers Perils by Land and Sea

  (December 1620)

  November had passed. Winter lay over the Cape and the weather worsened. Each day there were fewer provisions. The sailors aboard the Mayflower were impatient to start on the return voyage to England. The Pilgrims were anxious to find a safe harbor and a good place to build a settlement.

  Robert Coppin, the ship’s pilot, said he could take them to a good harbor across the bay where he had been on a previous voyage. The place was called Thieves’ Harbor because an Indian had there stolen a harpoon from them.

  For a second time the shallop put off from the Mayflower and ran down the Cape coast before a stiff east wind that blew ever colder. The sea spray froze in the men’s beards. Miles Standish and his musketeers wrapped their heavy cloaks around their muskets to keep them dry. Brewster and Carver huddled in the stern and the pilot, Coppin, manned the tiller. In all there were sixteen men. Two seasick men hung limply over the gunwales.

  After a twenty-mile run they came to a sandy point of land running out into the Bay (Billingsgate Point) and found a fair harbor (Wellfleet Bay). As the sailors sought to make a landing among the sand flats, they spied, away down the beach, a little group of figures crowded around some dark object. When the seamen hailed them, they quickly disappeared into the woods.

  Wading over the sand flats, the discoverers came ashore and built a landward barricade and a fire. Five miles inland they saw a smoke column rise in the evening sky from an Indian signal fire. The Indians had seen them and were warning their people. By this time, the discoverers were too tired to worry about them, so after a lean supper they slept on the frozen ground.

  In the morning the party divided, some going in the shallop to explore the coast and the rest marching inland to seek a suitable place of settlement.

  In the sea wash along the beach they came upon the fifteen-foot body of a strange sea creature. “It is a kind of whale called a Grampus,” said Coppin, cutting a strip of flesh with his knife from the carcass. It was two inches thick of solid fat.

  Farther down the beach they found another Grampus half stripped of his coat of fat. The sand about the creature’s body was printed with the feet of the Indians the men had seen from the boat. “We will call this place Grampus Bay,” said Captain Standish.

  All day the men ranged over the rough country seeking a site for their New World home, but they found none. Their exploring was not useless, however, for it taught them one thing. Old corn fields, abandoned lodges, and a melancholy Indian cemetery, surrounded by a high palisade, were evidence enough that the mysterious Indians were near.

  As the red sun sank in the gray west, the discoverers marched wearily back to the sea coast. Thank heaven they could see the brown sail of the shallop standing off shore!

  As they made camp, there was a cheerful feeling in finding one another safe again. After warming their numb hands at the juniper fire behind the rough barricade, they ate their bit of cheese and biscuit. Soon they were asleep with their muskets under their cloaks.

  It seemed they had hardly closed their eyes when a voice roused them. “Wake up, Captain! The Indians be upon us.” The sentinel was shaking Standish violently by the shoulder. “To arms, to arms!”

  The cry brought every man to his feet in a moment. From the woods came a high-pitched yell in a wild inhuman cadence. The sentinels fired a couple of musket shots toward the sound, and the crying suddenly ceased.

  “It’s only the song of the wild wolves,” muttered a seaman, who had met wolves before in Newfoundland.

  The fire was built up, a sentinel added to the watch, and they slept on uneasily through the night.

  Before dawn the men turned out and knelt in a circle while Brewster said the morning prayers. As
the cook prepared breakfast, several men took their muskets down to the shore, where they left them till the shallop would come in on the tide.

  Suddenly a chorus of wild yells burst from the land side. They were the same yelping cries they had heard at midnight, but this time there was no mistaking the terrible Indian war cry. A shower of arrows fell around the campfire.

  The four men at the barricade who had kept their muskets lighted their fuses at the fire, while the rest ran for the shore where they had left their firearms. Several shadowy figures broke from the woods in pursuit, and then turned and ran, as a half-dozen soldiers armed with cutlasses charged out from behind the barricade.

  Captain Standish called to the shallop and the heartening cry came back, “Well, well. Be of good courage,” as the sailors fired two or three shots. Then someone called from the shallop for a firebrand to light their match cords. A soldier picked a brand from the fire and ran down to the shallop. Arrows showered on the barricade and the war cries rose louder.

  In the dim light, the men firing from the barricade could see a huge Indian behind the nearest tree. As the bullets whizzed about him, he kept coolly shooting his bow, till a shot hit the tree and sent splinters flying about his head. He gave a terrific yell and ran as the whole band vanished into the forest. The Englishmen followed them for a quarter of a mile, keeping up the firing.

  The fight was over. The men came back and gathered up the arrows to send to England as a grim souvenir of how things were in New England.

  Yet by the special Providence of God none of them either hit, or hurt, us: though many came close by us, and on every side of us, and some coats which hung up in our barricado were shot through and through.

  So after we had given God thanks for our deliverance; we took our shallop, and went on our journey; and called this place The First Encounter.

  The location was the present Eastham.

  How the Discoverers Sought Thievish Bay and Found Plymouth Harbor and a Goodly Situation

  (December 1620)

  The First Encounter was not the greatest battle of history, but for the hatters and weavers of Leyden it was a fiery baptism in peril and danger. As they sat in the shallop running before the wind, they recounted to one another all the excitements of their great adventure.

  By mid-afternoon the shallop was bucking the rough sea like a wild horse and the wind bellying her sail in a full arc. It began to rain. Then the rain changed to snow. A great wave tore off the shallop’s rudder, leaving the tiller useless in Pilot Coppin’s hands. Two seamen grabbed up oars and held the little boat desperately on her course. The wind rose until the straining mast cracked and broke in three places.

  For a few desperate moments it seemed that the shallop would capsize, but the seamen cut loose the tangle of sail and tackle and she slowly righted herself.

  “Good cheer, my hearties,” shouted Coppin. “I can see the harbor, and we shall soon be in.”

  As the shallop came in to shore on the tide and wind, they could see the breakers dashing against the rocky cove. Coppin peered through the dusk. He realized he was mistaken and confused.

  “So help me, I’ve never seen this place before,” he muttered. “Run her ashore before the wind,” he called to the mate.

  The shallop now was rapidly drifting toward where the booming surf broke on the rocks. But the sailors at the steering oars brought her about and someone shouted, “If you are men, row lustily, or we are lost.”

  The men bent to the oars and the shallop slowly pulled up into the wind and out of the churning surf toward the open water. Rowing on through the dark and the rain in the teeth of a northeaster, presently they pulled in under a dark mass of rock that sheltered them from the bitter winds. Here they anchored for the night.

  At midnight the wind changed, and it turned much colder. The men in the shallop shivered through the long night. In the gray of dawn three or four men went ashore with the cold in their bones, to build a fire. With much coaxing, the damp wood at last took fire, and soon the storm-tossed discoverers were warming their hands around a driftwood fire.

  After prayers of thanks for deliverance, and breakfast, they explored the wooded island all day and found they were safe from the Indians.

  The next morning the sun rose brilliantly out of the Bay in a clear sky. The men dried the sea water out of their shirts, put their guns in order, and rested from the wildness of the sea.

  It being Sunday, December 20th, the Pilgrims kept the Sabbath in prayer and in listening to Mr. Brewster’s discourse, but the sea-weary sailors snored godlessly around the fire.

  On Monday they sounded the harbor and found it fit for shipping; and marched into the land and found diverse cornfields, and little running brooks, a place (as they supposed) fit for situation; at least it was ye best they could find, and ye season & their present necessity made them glad to accepte of it. So they returned to their shipp againe with this news to ye rest of their people which did much comforte their harts.

  The Third Discovery had brought back encouraging news of the good harbor at Plymouth. But tragic news awaited Bradford on the Mayflower. In his absence his beloved wife, Dorothy, had been drowned. She had fallen overboard in the storm on the day after he had left. He remembered how she had waved him a brave farewell. He had never guessed what fears had filled her heart as she had gazed at the bleak coast to which they had so perilously come. They had hoped and planned for a new life together in the wilderness, but now he must go on alone. In time William turned from his dark thoughts and threw himself into the days of toil and danger that lay ahead.

  New life as well as death had come aboard the Mayflower. A fine baby boy had been born to Mistress Susanna White. He was the first English baby born in New England. They gave him the name of Peregrine, or the Wanderer. In spite of his name, he spent the eighty-odd years of a hardworking life without ever leaving New England.

  How the Mayflower Came to Plymouth Harbor and How They Built Their Towne and of the Cruel Sickness That Came upon Them

  (December 1620)

  It was mid-December when the Mayflower weighed anchor and sailed across Cape Cod Bay. When she came within six miles of the mainland, the wind changed and she had to beat out to sea again.

  Next day, the wind being fair, she came into Plymouth Harbor and anchored about a mile and a half off shore. Because of the shallow water, she could get no nearer. The passengers had to ferry from ship to shore through the stormy waters all winter long.

  “This Bay is a most hopeful place,” said Mr. Winslow as they came ashore in the shallop to seek a “situation,” or place to settle. As they explored inland they studied the lay of the land, sampled the soil, carefully noted the positions of springs and brooks, and considered the possibilities of Indian attack from the surrounding forest.

  From the hilltop above the Harbor they could look to the seaward horizon and landward across the wooded hills to the sunset. It would be an excellent place for a fort protecting the seaward slope. On this slope they planned to build their houses. A brook of sweet water ran down beside it, and south of it were old Indian cornfields.

  They made their decision to settle in this place by vote in the democratic English way. Here by the abundant Bay, at long last they would build. This would be their home and haven of rest after many storm-blown wanderings.

  Between the sinister forests and the Bay they would build a New England with their naked hands and a few tools, with sweat and tears and heartache.

  Before starting to build, they planned well. The congregation was separated into nineteen families. Then along a street that led from the hill to the water’s edge, the hill slope was divided into plots. The families drew lots for their location. John Carver, who had been their leader aboard the Mayflower, was confirmed as Governor for the coming year. This settlement was later known as the Plantation.

  Twenty men remained ashore in a barricaded camp and began cutting timber for building. The rest lived on the Mayflower and went back and fo
rth from the ship to their day’s work ashore.

  On Christmas Day they worked on the common house, or shelter, which was for storing provisions, ammunition, and clothing. All that day the axes swung. At night the weary builders went back to the ship, leaving twenty men ashore. Between decks on the Mayflower they ate a meager dinner with British cheer. Then they sang the old carols, with their hearts back again in merry England, as a storm lashed through the rigging of the Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor.

  As the winter wore on, hacking coughs and fever and scurvy began to take their toll among the passengers. But whenever the rain and sleet died down, the men who could walk at all went ashore to work on the common house. They began the platform of the fort and the family dwellings along the new street.

  When the common house was thatched, provisions and ammunition were brought ashore and stored in it. In the remaining space, the sick beds lay end to end. Here among the stricken lay Bradford and Carver.

  One day a spark caught in the dry thatch of the common house, and its roof took fire. At the cries of alarm, the workmen rushed to the burning building and carried out the sick. Before the fire was checked, food and precious stores were damaged, but by the grace of God no lives were lost.

  From the top of the mount, Miles Standish gazed grimly across the pine-clad hills in the west to where columns of smoke rose against the gray sky from Indian signal fires.

  For this thing called freedom, Standish now well knew, there was a price to pay. Below him in the village, death had taken nearly half of the people. Rose Standish, his wife, was among the first who had died. He had knelt at her side at the last hour. He would rather have taken an arrow through his heart. Fourteen of the eighteen Pilgrim wives had died. They had been buried at night in unmarked graves, so that the Indians would not know how few remained. Sometimes there were two or three deaths in a day.