Following the example of John Alden, Francis Eaton took to himself a wife, thereby adding another to the number of married women among the original company. He wedded the only woman who has been without a name in the history of the Mayflower and of the colony, perhaps the only woman in history who, being mentioned several times, has always been nameless. Of course she had a name and was called by it by her contemporaries, but seek as we may, she is designated only for us as “Mrs. Carver’s maid.” For Francis Eaton she stayed, when she might have returned with Desire Minter; for him and his baby boy, left motherless, in the first winter, who had been looked after by plain but kind-hearted Eleanor Billington.
A passenger by the Anne whom we know, the wealthy widow, Mrs. Alice Southworth, brought her maid—but she was Christian Penn, and she married Francis Eaton for his third wife in after years, as the second Mrs. Eaton (we are glad to give her a name for once), did not live long.
The Anne stayed at Plymouth over a month—a witness of the several marriages which she had brought about, directly and indirectly.
Alice Carpenter—the lovely English girl, going with her family into voluntary exile in Leyden, marrying there and afterwards living, a prosperous matron of London, as Alice Southworth, then crossing the sea, a widow, to become a bride again, this time of a Colonial governor, living thereafter as Alice Bradford, an adornment of the community about her and a great factor in its peace and progress—weaves one of the bright threads of romance through the story of the women of Plymouth. The governor’s marriage to the charming widow was indeed an important event in the life of the village.
Somewhat of a surprise to all but a few, was the announcement of the coming marriage of the Captain to an old friend, who had come out in company with Mrs. Southworth, for the same reason, in answer to a proposal of marriage, by letter. Then followed another wedding, of special interest to all the first comers by the Mayflower and to many of the recent arrivals, that of big John Howland with little Elizabeth Tilly, as she always seemed to her old friends, though quite grown up now and nearing seventeen. John Howland had patiently waited, as other men. Thus, by the coming of the Anne, bringing her own dear daughters, after three years of separation, Mary Brewster was able to smile at the departure of two of her loving daughters of adversity, to homes of their own. In this practical and primitive life, no honeymoons could be thought of. Plymouth, itself, then lay within the radius of a quarter of a mile and there was not another civilized habitation in hundreds of leagues, so the only wedding journey of these Mayflower girls, Priscilla and Elizabeth, was from Elder Brewster’s doorway to their own new homes; one down, one up the street. We know that these girls had in addition to the loving interest of Mary Brewster, the affectionate encouragement of Susanna Winslow and the warm friendship of their girl companions of Leyden and of Plymouth, Fear and Patience Brewster, Mary Chilton and Humility Cooper—priceless wedding gifts—nor lacking was the regard of the governor’s wife, a contemporary bride and old friend of Leyden days.
Of these marriages we have not a sketch in the written history of those days, except in the new book brought by the Anne for the colony’s records, and the first entries, most appropriately, are these. And that the Fortune might be represented in the weddings of this season, as well as the Mayflower an Anne, the widow, Mrs. Ford, proceeded to take a second husband, in the person of Peter Brown, one of the sturdy and loyal men of the colony, who had come in the Mayflower.
The doctor’s young wife, Bridget; Richard Warren’s daughters, as well as their mother, and Hester Cooke and Juliana Morton, all arrivals by the Anne, hardly realized at first the sombre background of the life against which these marriages shone out for the first comers. To them it seemed they had arrived in a land of weddings and happiness—though lack of feasting and trousseaux was somewhat evident. Another interested on-looker, is the aunt of Remember and Mary, Isaac Allerton’s sister, whom we knew in Leyden as Sarah Priest, but, widowed the first winter after her husband arrived at the new home he was to prepare for her, she nevertheless came to Plymouth with a new husband, whom she had recently married in Leyden, and now she is Sarah Cuthbertson. She brought the little sister of the Allerton children, Sarah, who had been left in her care, but did not give up charge of her.
The augmented motion and sounds on Plymouth’s street, under the September sky was apparent. Many women had come; numerous children were there; the men’s families were forming new households; strangers getting accustomed to one another and surroundings; friends renewing old ties—the newcomers feeling a bit lost, nevertheless.
The life, such as it had been, for the Mayflower passengers was over. That time, within the three years from their departure on the Speedwell from Delfshaven, to their welcome of the Anne, at Plymouth, was a thing apart.
BENEATH THE PINES OF PLYMOUTH.