The romantic story of the Mayflower pilgrims, and its place in the life of to-day

by A. C. Addison

Photograph by A. S. Burbank, Plymouth
From a Painting
The Old Fort and First Meeting House

To other troubles were allied the ever menacing peril of the Indians, which resulted in the famous challenge of the bundle of arrows wrapped in a rattlesnake's skin, and Bradford's effective reply to it with a serpent's skin stuffed with powder and shot; also, less happily, that return of Miles Standish and his men bearing in triumph a sagamore's head; and the building of the hill-fort, with cannon brought ashore from the Mayflower mounted on its roof, where also they worshipped till the first church was built at the hill fort in 1648. Here it was that the Pilgrims perpetuated the church founded at Scrooby in England. A building erected for storage and public worship in the first days of the colony took fire soon after its completion and was burnt to the ground. Of the refuge on the hill Bradford writes: "They builte a fort with good timber, both strong and comly, which was of good defence, made with a flatte rofe and batilments, on which their ordnance was mounted, and where they kepte constante watch, especially in time of danger. It served them also for a meeting-house, and was fitted accordingly for that use." The fort was large and square, and a work of such pretentions as to be regarded by some of the Pilgrims as vainglorious. Its provision was fully justified by the dangers which threatened the settlers, and it became the center of both the civic and religious life of the little colony.

An excellent idea of the scene at Sunday church parade is given in a letter[7] written by Isaac de Rassières, secretary to the Dutch colony established at Manhattan, the modern New York, in 1623, describing a visit he paid to the Plymouth Plantation in the autumn of 1627. After speaking of the flat-roofed fort with its "six cannon, which shoot iron balls of four and five pounds and command the surrounding country," the writer says of the Pilgrims meeting in the lower part: "They assemble by beat of drum, each with his musket or firelock, in front of the captain's door; they have their cloaks on, and place themselves in order three abreast, and are led by a sergeant without beat of drum. Behind comes the Governor in a long robe; beside him, on the right hand, comes the Preacher with his cloak on, and on the left the Captain with his sidearms and cloak on, and with a small cane in his hand; and so they march in good order, and each sets his arms down near him. Thus they are constantly on their guard, night and day."

The spectacle may not have been strictly that witnessed at every service on "Sundays and the usual holidays," for this was a state visit to the Colony, with solemn entry and heralding by trumpeters, and the Pilgrims probably treated the occasion with more form than was their wont. Still it is an instructive picture, full of romantic suggestion.

Photograph by A. S. Burbank, Plymouth
From the Painting by G. H. Boughton
Pilgrims going to Church

And then the service itself. For some notion of this we must turn to a visit paid to the Plantation five years later, in the autumn of 1632, when we are introduced to another scene in the fortified church. From the "Life and Letters" of John Winthrop, Governor of the neighbouring Colony of Massachusetts Bay, we gather that, at the time stated, Winthrop and his pastor, John Wilson, came over to Plymouth, walking the twenty-five miles. "On the Lord's Day," we read, "there was a sacrament, which they did partake in." Roger Williams was there as assistant to Ralph Smith, the first minister of Plymouth church, and in the afternoon Williams, according to custom, "propounded a question," to which Mr. Smith "spake briefly." Then Mr. Williams "prophesied," that is he preached, "and after, the Governor of Plymouth spake to the question; after him, Elder Brewster; then some two or three men of the congregation. Then Elder Brewster desired the Governor of Massachusetts and Mr. Wilson to speak to it, which they did. When this was ended the deacon, Mr. Fuller, put the congregation in mind of their duty of contribution; whereupon the Governor and all the rest went down to the deacon's seat, and put into the box, and then returned."