1621.]

THE FIRST WINTER.

Chilton:

397

step upon the rock is divided between John Alden and Mary Chilton. Neither of these persons is named in the list, which John Alden professes to be a full one, of those who in the shallop, on and Mary the 11th of December, discovered the bay of Plymouth; and certainly no woman could have been upon such an expedition. Nor is it likely that any woman went on shore in the stormy weather, after the arrival of the May

But even yet there was no final transfer of the colonists to land. The ship was still the home of the larger number, and probably of all the women and children, those only remaining on shore who were engaged in building or in guarding the accumulating property. On the 10th of January the common house of about twenty feet square was nearly finished; it was only then that a town of a single street was laid out, and it was agreed that each head of a family should build his own house on the lot assigned him. The building went on slowly, for the inclemency of the weather permitted of out-door work for only half the time. Some of the private houses were finished in the course of the winter, but it was not till the 21st of March that all the company went finally on shore.

Mortality in

Much less room was needed now, if that were one of the reasons for delay in removing from the ship. For the first two months those on shore were exposed, with little or no shelter, to the rigors of a New England winter, though that of 1620-21 was plainly the winter one of unusual mildness; those in the ship were crowded into close and unwholesome quarters; provision was scanty and poor; the scurvy appeared and spread rapidly; other diseases, engendered

of 1620-21.

1 Notes on Plymouth, Mass., vol. iii., Second Series, and Notes on Duxbury. vol. x., Mass. Hi-t. Coll.

in want and exposure, became equally prevalent; and when the spring opened about one half the company were dead.

Some of the most eminent in character and station; many in the prime of their days and their strength, whose loss to the colony was most serious; wives, mothers, children, servants were swept away, leaving those who survived enfeebled by sickness and overwhelmed with grief, when they were most in need of all their physical and mental energies. Carver, the governor, died in April, and his wife soon followed him; the wife of William Bradford, who was Carver's successor, was drowned as we have already said-before the Mayflower left Cape Cod harbor; Edward Winslow, Miles Standish, Isaac Allerton, were soon made widowers; Edward Tillie and John Tillie, who were of the crew of the shallop that discovered Plymouth Bay,

lost their wives, and both died not long after; John Allerton and Thomas English, of the same company, soon filled graves on the shore they had helped to find; Mary Chilton, one of the first, no doubt, if not the very first, to spring to the landing-place in glad expectation of a happy future in a new home, was soon alone, both father and mother dead; others, like her, were left orphans; parents were left childless; in some cases whole families were carried off; in others there was only a single survivor. Hardly a day passed for four months that they did not bring out their dead.

So the winter passed. Little happened to break the sad monotony of intervals of work on houses which they might not live to occupy, and nursing the sick till most of them were taken to those narrow houses which they would never leave. Twice the wretched commu

1621.]

THE FIRST WINTER AT PLYMOUTH.

399

nity were in danger of being burnt out of their poor shelters on shore, the thatched roofs of their two buildings, one for the well, the other for the sick, taking fire by accident and being consumed. Lurking savages were sometimes seen in the neighborhood, but they made no attempt to molest the new comers. Precautions, however, were taken against any attack from them, and Miles Standish, who had been a soldier in the Low Countries, was entrusted with the conduct of military affairs, as he was generally with the command of all expeditions.

CHAPTER XV.

THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH.

THE COMING OF FRIENDLY INDIANS.-SAMOSET AND SQUANTO.-CAPTAIN DERMER'S PREVIOUS VISIT TO PLYMOUTH.-STANDISH'S VISIT TO BOSTON HARBOR. - REINFORCEMENTS FROM ENGLAND. THE FIRST CHRISTMAS AT PLYMOUTH. - HOSTILE MESSAGE FROM THE NARRAGANSETTS.- ARRIVAL OF WESTON'S COLONISTS.-THEIR SETTLEMENT AT WESSAGUSSET. AN INDIAN CONSPIRACY.-STANDISH'S EXPEDITION AND THE PLOT DEFEATED. THE GRIEF OF PASTOR ROBINSON. ARRIVAL OF ROBERT GORGES. FIRST ALLOTMENT OF LAND IN PLYMOUTH.-JOHN PEIRCE'S PATENT. THE LYFORD AND OLDHAM CONSPIRACY. THEIR BANISHMENT. BREAKING-UP OF THE LONDON COMPANY. -THE PILGRIMS THROWN ON THEIR OWN RESOURCES. THE FISHING STATION AT CAPE ANN. - ENCOUNTER BETWEEN CAPTAIN STANDISH AND MR. HEWES.- THE DORCHESTER SETTLEMENT AT CAPE ANN.CONANT'S CHARGE OF IT, AND HIS REMOVAL TO NAUMKEAG. SETTLEMENTS ABOUT BOSTON HARBOR. MORTON OF MERRY-MOUNT. - STANDISH'S ARREST OF MORTON.

NEW events came with the spring to the colony at Plymouth, as well as health and hope. In March a naked Indian stalked boldly in

among them, and greeted them in a few English words, which he had learned from the fishermen and other voyagers on the coast of Maine,

1621.]

FIRST INTERCOURSE WITH INDIANS.

401

a friendly

his home being on the Pemaquid. This man's name was Samoset, but why he was so far from home is not clear. He may The visit of have been brought and left in the neighborhood by Captain Indian Dermer, who had twice been upon this coast, making his Samoset. second voyage only the previous summer. On his first voyage he visited the place, "which," he said, "in Captain Smith's map is called Plimouth. And," he adds, "I would that the first Plantation might here be seated, if there come to the number of Fifty persons, or upwards." 1

From this Samoset they learned that the Indian name of the place they had settled upon was Patuxet, and that about four years before all the inhabitants had been swept off by a plague.2 He told them who were their nearest Indian neighbors Massasoit's people, the

Wampanoags, and the Nausets on Cape Cod. It was these Nausets with whom the Pilgrims had their harmless fight soon after landing, and who were most inimical to the English because seven of their tribe were kidnapped by Hunt in 1614, the other twenty being taken from Patuxet Plymouth.

Samoset brought to the settlement some of the friendly Indians, and

among them Tisquantum or Squanto, one of those whom Tisquan

Squanto.

Weymouth took to England, fifteen years before, and gave tum or to Sir Ferdinando Gorges. It had been this man's fortune to be again kidnapped, this time by Hunt, and to fall into the hands. of Dermer, who brought him home to Patuxet," my savage's native country," Dermer writes, where he found "all dead," nearly two years before. It was fortunate for the new-comers that their first intercourse with the Indians was through these two men, who were friendly to the English and could speak their tongue. One immediate

[Dermer], and given

1 Bradford says of this letter that it is "a relation written by him me by a friend, bearing date June 30 Ano 1620. . . . . In which relation to his honored friend he hath these passages of this very place." Morton in the Memorial, copies verbatim from Bradford. "I will first begin [says the letter] with that place from whence Squanto or Tisquantum was taken away, which in Captain Smith's map is called Plimouth : and I would that Plimouth had the same commodities. I would that the first Plantation might here be seated if there come to the number of 50 persons or upward." Morton evidently mistakes in supposing this letter of June 30, 1620, referred to the visit of that spring. It was in the summer of 1619 that Dermer was at Plymouth.

2 There can be no doubt from the concurring testimony of several of the writers of that period, that such a pestilence prevailed throughout New England a few years before the settlement of Plymouth. The story was that a party of Frenchmen, trading on the coast of Massachusetts, aroused the enmity of the natives, who fell upon and killed all but five whom they kept as servants. None of them lived long, and the last survivor predicted to the Indians, just before his death, that God was so angry with them for their bloody and cruel deed that He would destroy them all. The Indians answered that they were so many God could not kill them. The prediction, nevertheless, was fulfilled, and the more pious of the early settlers believed that the pestilence was sent as a special providence to rid the country of the heathen and make room for the coming of a Christian people.