Colonists' expeditions, marked by severe storms and
an Indian assault, lead at length to the choice
of Plymouth as their permanent home.
At last in a "good
harbor and brought safe to land," said Bradford, the Pilgrims "fell
upon their knees and blessed the God of Heaven who had brought them
over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all the
perils and miseries thereof, again to set their feet on the firm
and stable earth, their proper element."
The longboat was put over the side of the Mayflower and a landing
party of 15 or 16 armed men headed for shore. But the boat could
not get to the beach and the men, weighted down with their armor
and carrying axes to use in replenishing the ships exhausted wood
supply, were forced "to wade a bowshot or two on going aland"--at
least knee-deep in cold November seawater.
They were pleased with the large size of the harbor and with the
wooded shore.
"There was the greatest store of fowl that ever we saw" and whales
were
"playing hard by us."
The group climbed the highland where now the Pilgrim Monument towers,
and saw the other, ocean side of the Cape, which reminded them of
the dunes of Holland. Before returning that night to the Mayflower they "laded
their boat with juniper," a chore that must have involved a lot
of wading, for the sweet-smelling supply lasted the whole time the Mayflower was
moored in this harbor.
They were deeply anxious to meet any inhabitants--potential future
neighbors--but saw neither Indians nor any sign of Indian habitation.
The next day, a Sunday, was the Lord's Day to the Pilgrims and
they observed it in their customary devout fashion despite the time
pressures upon them.
Ever since they had dropped anchor, Master Jones and the crew
had been urging that "with speed they should look out a place." Jones
did not want to leave until his passengers were out of danger,
but he had to keep a share of the diminishing food supply for
his return trip.
The following day, the Pilgrims went ashore "to refresh themselves
and our women to wash, as they had great need." Thus did Monday
as washday become a longtime New England tradition. While
the women scrubbed, the men fetched ashore the sections of the
shallop, which was
"bruised and battered...much opened with the people's lying in her."
The carpenters went to work to reassemble the craft on the beach.
As with the Mayflower, no plan of the shallop exists. From
its use in exploration and the number of passengers that would sail
in the craft, it appears that the shallop--with a single mast, mainsail
and jib--was between 20 and 30 feet long, with a beam of 7 to 9
feet.
When it seemed that repair might take five or six days--actually,
it would take much longer--some of the Pilgrims, "impatient of delay," desired
to explore the shore despite the fact that without the shallop they
would have to carry provisions on their backs.
Under solicitous instructions "to be out but two days," 16 volunteers--"with
every man his musket, sword and corslet (armor for the upper body)"--were
put ashore on Nov. 15 and set off under their military leader, short,
stout-hearted Myles Standish.
This was to be the first of three exploratory expeditions undertaken
by the Pilgrims before, more than a month later--after many hardships,
deadly exposure to the elements, Indian attack, tragic deaths and
the near wreck of the shallop in a storm--the Mayflower would
sail west across Cape Cod Bay and anchor in the harbor of the final
choice for their plantation.
Standish and his men had gone about a mile along the beach when
they spotted five or six men and a dog. At first they thought these
might be Jones and some of his crew, who were also ashore. When
they realized that they were seeing Indians, they sought eagerly
to meet with them. But the Indians, far fleeter than the armor-clad
Pilgrims, ran away.
After more miles of following footprints on sand and trails in woods,
to no avail, the group prepared a lodging for the night--gathering
wood, making a fire and posting three sentinels. Next day, still
within the future town on Truro, they resumed their trailing. They
had brought only biscuits, Holland cheese and a little bottle of
aqua vitae (liquor), and soon, having no water or beer, they were "sore
athirst." Presently, in midmorning, they spotted a deer and came
upon springs of fresh water. Here, they "drunk our first New England
water with as much delight as ever we drunk drink in all our lives."
Thinking then of the folks on the Mayflower, they headed
for the beach and made a fire to signal back that all was well.
On the first coming into the harbor, Jones had spotted to the southeastward
what appeared to be a river opening in the mainland. The Pilgrims
struck out southward to find it. En route, they came upon none of
the inhabitants they were hoping to meet but found evidence aplenty
that this was Indian terrain. Near present Pond Village, they saw
acres where the Indians had formerly planted corn and found Indian
graves. They also discovered planks where a house had been, and
a large metal kettle.
Most providentially, they later spotted recently heaped mounds of
sand and, after digging, uncovered a cache vital to their future:
baskets of Indian corn, and a few dozen ears of different colors.
It was, said Bradford, "a very goodly sight, having never seen any
such before." After agreeing that they would recompense the owners--which
indeed they would one day do--they filled their pockets with the
precious seed corn and also took the kettle, which the two men carried
away on a staff. The rest of the corn they reburied.
On nearing the river, now called after the local Pamet tribe, they
saw the remainder of an old palisade, or fort--the handiwork of
Europeans, as seemed true as well of the planked house and the kettle.
As for the Pamet River, they felt that they had insufficient time
to explore it and decided to leave that until after the restoration
of the shallop. They made a note of two canoes, one on either bank,
and then headed back.
That night, a very rainy one, they spent by the pond after raising
a barricade, making a fire and posting three sentinels.
To save time in the morning, the explorers sank the kettle in the
pond and took off through the woods--where they got lost and had
to puzzle their way out.
On nearing the Mayflower the group shot off muskets and
the longboat shoved off to fetch them. Carver and Jones and many
others came ashore to greet them with relief and delight; for, said
Bradford, the Pilgrims
"were marvelously glad and their hearts encouraged" by what Standish
and his volunteers called "Our First Discovery."
There was, though, an ominous aspect to their explorations.
Bradford observed that they could neither go to nor come from the
shore except at high water. "Oftentimes they waded to the middle
of the thigh," he said. Some made the trip of necessity, some for
the pleasure of getting to stand on firm land. "But," said Bradford, "it
brought to most, if not to all, coughs and colds, the weather proving
suddenly cold and stormy, which afterwards turned to the scurvy,
whereof many died."
Although the carpenters estimated it would take two additional days
to completely repair the shallop, the Pilgrims decided to shove
off Nov. 27 for further explorations of the Pamet River area.
"Our Second Discovery,"
as the Pilgrims called it, would cover four difficult days. Twenty-four
men were picked to go--a number increased to thirty-four when Jones
expressed a wish to go, too, and brought nine of his crew. In gratitude
for his kindness, Jones was chosen leader.
They used both the shallop and the longboat. Confronted with "rough
weather and cross winds," they were soon forced to seek the nearest
shore, and then to wade above the knees to get to it.
Some of the men, worried about the loss of time, marched an additional
six or seven miles. "It blowed and did snow all that day and night,
and froze withal."
Thinking back days later on their frigid experience, they noted: "Some
of our people that are dead took the original of their death here."
Next day the group sailed to the mouth of the Pamet River. Understandably,
they called it "Cold Harbour." They decided it was navigable only
by boats, not ships. After they had plodded up steep hills and down
into valleys through six inches of snow, their wearied captain felt
that they should rest. Some wanted to explore further, but they
made camp for the night "under a few pine trees."
They had eaten little that day, and dined "with soldiers' stomachs"
when they bagged three fat geese and six ducks.
By morning the explorers decided the land was too hilly and the
harbor too shallow for a settlement, and they went looking for the
place they had cached the rest of the corn. This was on a hill near
the shore overlooking Cold Harbour. They named it
"Corn Hill," still its name. They had to dig with cutlesses and
short swords a foot into the frozen ground; and they thanked God
that they had made the first exploratory trip, for the ground was
now hidden by snow and hard-frozen.
Bradford, in his history, emphasized what "a special Providence
of God" that first corn discovery had been: "They got seed to plant
them corn the next year, or else they might have starved, for they
had none nor any likelihood to get any till the season had been
past, as the sequel did manifest."
They dug in other places and, in all, got about ten bushels of
corn, two or three baskets of wheat and a bag of beans. Then
weather-wise Master Jones saw that the sky portended foul weather
and wished to go back aboard ship. So they sent back all the corn
and "our weakest people and some that were sick." This left 18
who hoped to find Indians, with whom they were eager to trade--or,
as they expressed it, to truck.
NEXT DAY THE EXPLORERS FOLLOWED TRAILS into
the woods, but found no Indians. On the way back they came upon
graves, especially one that was "much bigger and longer than any
we had yet seen." They made an astonishing discovery on opening
it: Besides the bones of a child, they found those of a man whose "skull
had fine yellow hair still on it."
They tried to guess the mystery surely surrounding burial. From
seagoing artifacts in the grave, they concluded that the blonde
corpse was most likely that of one of a group of French sailors
killed by Nauset Indians after their ship was wrecked on Cape Cod
in 1616-1617.
In the late afternoon, they discovered two Indian houses--arbor-like
lodges with roofs made from saplings that had been curved and then
covered with mats. Still, they found no Indians.[rounded summer dwellings. One can be seen at Plimoth Plantation.]
With night coming the group hastened aboard the shallop and headed
back to the Mayflower. They soon noted that "cold and wet lodging
had so tainted our people, for scarce any of us were free from vehement
coughs."
Aboard ship, there followed worried debate--lengthy despite the
pressure for a speedy decision--on where they should settle. No
place they had yet explored seemed to satisfy their desire that
the site chosen possesses a good water supply, ample corn ground,
a convenient harbor and good fishing, and that it be "healthful,
secure and defensible."
The discussion was presently joined by a crewman who had an attractive
suggestion. Robert Coppin, the ship's second mate and its pilot,
recalled on an earlier voyage he had seen a "good harbor" near what
he thought was another headland of Cape Cod. It was
"some eight leagues (about 24 miles) distant," he told them; and
because an Indian there made off with a harpoon during the trading,
Coppin and his mates had called the place "Thievish Harbor." [the second mate and pilot of the Mayflower actually had been to America and Plymouth one year before, another Divine set-up!]
The Pilgrims thereupon decided on a third trip of discovery, which
was not to go beyond "Thievish Harbor." It was now the first full
week in December. It would be one of the most momentous of their
voyage, with the weather, at times, brutal.
What Bradford would call the General Sickness now began to take
its toll. On Monday, Dec. 4, a young servant boy, Jasper More, one
of four More children who were among the orphans brought by the
Strangers and the Pilgrims, died.
The weather Dec. 5 was "too foul" for the shallop to leave. During
that day the Mayflower, as told in Mourt's Relation, narrowly escaped
destruction by gunpowder. One of the young sons of the colony's
worst troublemaker, John Billington of London, found some gunpowder,
and in his father's absence made "squibs" (firecrackers). More seriously,
he discharged his father's fowling piece amid scattered gunpowder
in the cabin, "there being a little barrel of powder half full...and
yet, by God's mercy, no harm done."
The shallop set sail on Dec. 6. Among the eighteen volunteers were
ten of the foremost Pilgrims, including Carver, Bradford, Winslow
and Standish. Two of the Pilgrims' hired seamen were also along,
who had made two prior voyages to America, and Coppin, to show the
way to "Thievish Harbor."
The weather was "very cold and hard." It was some time before they
could even get clear of Long Point. "The water froze on our clothes
and made them many times like coats of iron."
After they got under the weather shore, however, the sailing was
better and the explorers went several leagues along the coast. As
they landed at present Eastham, they saw 10 to 12 Indians cutting
up a stranded grampus two or three miles away. The Pilgrims made
a barricade and a fire, and set sentinels. They could see the smoke
of the Indians' fire that night a few miles away.
The following day the company divided, some sailing along the shore,
others exploring by land. In the woods the land contingent found
more graves and former Indian dwellings, but no Indians. They signaled
the shallop as the sun began to draw low. "Weary and faint, for
we had eaten nothing all that day," they prepared their camp--another
barricade of logs, stakes and thick pine boughs near the north bank
where the present Herring River enters the bay.
Just about midnight the explorers heard "a great and hideous cry;
and our sentinels called, 'Arm! Arm!'" They shot off a couple of
muskets and the noise ceased.
"We concluded," they noted, "that it was a company of wolves and
foxes."
The next day, Dec. 8 was to be one of their most exhausting and
dangerous. The weather was the worst of the week; and that night
the shallop would nearly be lost on the rocks, which would have
meant, as they phrased it,
"the overthrow of all."
As daybreak came they faced their first shock.
They started stirring about 5 a.m., held prayer, and began preparing
breakfast and moving things down to the shallop. Some were concerned
about moving down their armor and guns, and four of the explorers
kept theirs--fortunately. As the others returned from the shallop
to breakfast there was again, as at midnight, "a great strange cry," and
one of the company came running in, yelling: "They are men! Indians!
Indians! Thereupon, "arrows came flyijng amongst us."
The four Pilgrims with arms manned the open side of the barricade.
Standish, who had a quick-firing snaphance, or flintlock, fired,
and so did another. The other two held fire to be sure of their
targets. The men at the shallop fired three of their matchlocks
(slow-firing guns).
The Indians, not "less than 30 or 40" in number, fled--after some
had come dangerously close to shoot their arrows. The Pilgrims followed
them for a quarter mile and fired a couple of muskets, "that they
might see we were not afraid."
None of the Pilgrims was injured. But for settlers eager to meet
and trade with their neighbors, the experience appeared deeply dismaying.
Bradford said he later learned that the Indians believed that the
Pilgrims were confreres who had "come to revenge" the murder of
the French sailors by the Nausets.
The Pilgrims retrieved their arrow-pierced coats from the barricade
and gathered 18 arrows that Master Jones would later take back to
England. They called the place "First Encounter Beach," still its
name.
Coppin's estimate of the distance to his "Thievish Harbor" was more
accurate than he realized, had the Pilgrims' shallop gone directly
westward across Cape Cod Bay. The exploratory group, however, had
been taking a route more than three times longer, keeping close
to the unexplored coast of the bay so that they could spot any harbor.
The wind was good as they left First Encounter Beach. For many miles
they found "neither river nor creek." Then, after a couple of hours,
the weather changed to snow and rain and in the afternoon the wind
increased, "the seas began to be very rough...and the hinges of
the rudder broke."
Two sailors struggled to steer with oars. The seas "had grown so
great that we were much troubled and in great danger; and night
grew on."
Their crisis soon intensified.
"Master Coppin bade us be of good cheer; he saw the harbor." His
shipmates, said Bradford, crowded on what sail they could" to get
in while they could see. But herewith they broke their mast in three
pieces and their sail fell overboard in a very grown sea, so as
they had like to have been cast away. [ Object lesson for you sailors,
never put up more sail in heavy weather.] Yet by God's mercy they
recovered themselves, and having flood (tide) with them, struck
into the harbor."
Then came the worst moment: Coppin, perceiving that ahead was
"a cove full of breakers," cried out, "Lord be merciful unto them
for his eyes never saw that place before..."
Apparently, instead of heading into Plymouth Bay, they were being
swept, with the tide and wind behind them, toward a beach between
the Gurnet and Saquish Head.
DISASTER WAS SUDDENLY AVERTED WHEN ONE of
the mariners--Bradford described him only as "a lusty sailor which
steered"--yelled to those rowing: "About with her or else they were
all cast away; the which they did with speed. So he bid them to be
of good cheer and row lustily, for there was a fair sound before them,
and he doubted not but they should find one place or other where they
might ride in safety. And though it was very dark and rained sore,
yet in the end they got under the lee of a small island..."
They would actually not know until morning that they had found safety
on an island. The lusty sailor had brought them around Saquish Head
to a small island just to its north in future Duxbury Bay. Miraculously,
he had also averted the shallop's being grounded on another hazard
at the entrance to Plymouth Bay, a shoal on which French Explorer
Samuel de Champlain's ship had grounded in 1605.
Mindful of what had happened to them that morning on First Encounter
Beach, some of the Pilgrims considered it best to stay with the
boat and keep watch. Others, also wet and cold, went ashore and
made a fire. And when, after midnight, the wind shifted to the northwest "and
it froze hard," the rest joined them.
The morning brought a "fair sunshining day." Marching around revealed
they were on an island with "no inhabitants at all." They named
it for First Mate Clarke, who had been the first to go ashore. [So the Mayflower's first and second mates were onboard the shallop for this exploratory voyage.]
They proceeded comfortably to "dry their stuff, fix their pieces
(weapons) and rest themselves; and gave God thanks for His mercies
in their manifold deliverances." Thus they spent Saturday; and on
the following day, the Sabbath [their Sabbath was Sunday], they
rested.
Dec. 11, the next day, they explored Plymouth Bay and the shore
and decided that here was "the best they could find, and the season
and their present necessity made them glad to accept it."
They had sounded the harbor and found it "fit for shipping," then "marched
into the land and found divers cornfields, and little running brooks,
a place very good for situation."
This area had been the seat of the Patuxets, Squanto's people, who
were wiped out by the plague. It was the place, as Bradford learned
later, of which Capt. Thomas Dermer wrote to Sir Fernando Gorges, "I
would that the first plantation might here be seated."
The Pilgrim leaders sailed 25 miles directly eastward back to the Mayflower and
told the others of their exciting discovery, which, said Bradford, "did
much comfort their hearts." [You cannot see Provincetown from Plymouth, it’s over the horizon. Their navigation was very sound.]
For Bradford himself, however, there was dreadful news. His wife,
Dorothy--whom he had married in Holland in 1613, which she had just
turned 16 years of age, and who was the mother of their 5-year-old
son, John, like other Pilgrim children left behind with Rev. John
Robinson--was dead.
Rev. Cotton Mather of the Puritans, in an early account of Bradford's
life, said Bradford's "dearest consort, accidently falling overboard,
was drowned in the harbor." This was on Dec. 7--a week after the
seventh anniversary of their marriage, and just a day after Bradford
had left the Mayflower to join in the perilous but decisive
Third Discovery that led the Pilgrims to Plymouth.