The Wm. Harlow House
A 17th Century Home
“As one candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shown to many, yea, in some sort to our whole nation.”
The dim lights burning in the few houses first built by the Pilgrims on the banks of the Town Brook, increased to the brighter lights of a small town by the close of the 17th Century. (Population, 1620—102; 1700—1200.)
Ships came from England bringing new colonists, who were always welcomed, though at times there was hardly food enough to spare from the scanty harvests. “In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often,” but with reliance upon themselves and faith in the help of God, the Pilgrims and their descendants established at last a self-supporting and respected commonwealth, still owning allegiance to the King of England.
They built permanent homes on the edge of an unbroken wilderness; they built a church and a free school; they inaugurated the town meeting, where every freeman, or householder, had a voice in the affairs of the community. They elected their own Governor and selectmen and town officials, and maintained a small band of soldiers under a Captain and military officers. They made treaties with the Indians, and agreements for trade with their neighbors, the Dutch of Manhattan. Most important of all, they established freedom of speech and conscience in their religion, and liberty for their civil rights.
Cattle, sheep, and goats were early brought from England. Woolen cloth was woven on cottage looms, and linen spun from the flax raised in the fields.
Though the first houses were too rudely built to be long lasting, they soon became more substantial and comfortable, and many had “trim gardens.”
Several houses of the 17th century are still standing in Plymouth. One of these, the Harlow House, was built in 1677. It has been carefully restored, and shows in architecture and contents the characteristics of its times. The timbers which form its frame and beams were first used in the fort built on Burial Hill.
The close co-operation of family life, and the thrift and industry necessary to supply a household with food, light and clothing, by its own labor, can be well studied here, where household utensils and furniture are used as they were made to be used by the builder of the house, William Harlow, and his wife, fifty years after the Pilgrims built their first houses on the first street. Some of the Pilgrims were then still living in Plymouth, or its neighborhood; and since the process of household industries changed very little, it is easy to form a true picture of the domestic life of the Pilgrims from this home of their descendants.
Flax is spun on the wheels, and woolen cloth woven on the loom, dyed with plants from field and wood; candles are dipped from the wax of the bayberries, and the corn or maize of the Indian squaws is grown in the garden patch, dried, pounded, and cooked in iron kettles over the wood fire on the hearth. From a home like this, the next generation took grants of land in more distant parts of the colony, and became the pioneers of other new settlements; the frontier was pushed onward into the forests, and along the river banks. Thus the growth of a nation was continued.
The Plymouth Antiquarian Society is the owner of the Harlow House, and takes great thought and interest in reviving there the human element in daily life in a momentous episode of history,—the settlement of the Plymouth Colony.
“In a short time other causes sprung up to bind the Pilgrims with new cords to their chosen land. Children were born, and the hopes of a future generation arose, in the spot of their new habitation.
The second generation found this the land of their nativity, and saw they were bound to its fortunes.
They beheld their fathers’ graves around them, and while they read the memorials of their toils and labors, they rejoiced in the inheritance which they found bequeathed to them.”
Daniel Webster
Plymouth, Dec. 22, 1820
