The Pilgrim Story / Being largely a compilation from the documents of Governor Bradford and Governor Winslow, severally and in collaboration; together with a list of Mayflower passengers.

by William Franklin Atwood

Winslow and Hopkins Visit Massasoit

The months of July and August were featured by several events of interest. On July 12, Edward Winslow and Stephen Hopkins paid a visit to Massasoit taking with them clothing and other small gifts which the chieftain gladly accepted. They learned that the Wampanoags had been greatly reduced by the plague that had visited them prior to the coming of the colonists, “wherein thousands of them died, they not being able to bury one another; their skulls and bones were found in many places, lying still above aground, where their houses and dwellings had been, a very sad spectacle to behold.”

It was learned also that the Narragansetts “lived but on the other side of that great bay and were a strong people and many in number, living compact together and had not been at all touched by this wasting plague.”

During the last of July John Billington, Jr., became lost in the woods lying to the south of the settlement and was forced to subsist for several days on berries and whatever nature afforded. He came in contact with an Indian plantation below Manomet whence he was conducted to the Nausets on the Cape. Word reached Massasoit who, in turn, informed the Plymouth company as to his whereabouts. A party of ten men was despatched in the shallop by the Governor and he was located and returned to the colony apparently none the worse for the experience.