The Pilgrims now continued their explorations in the midst of a driving snowstorm. Their rudder broke, and they had to steer with their oars. Finally they were driven ashore, where they kindled a fire, spending Sunday in prayer and praise, and resuming their journey only on Monday morning.
On December 21 or 22 they again ran ashore, landing on a rock, since called "the stepping-stone of New England," and now carefully preserved and known as "Plymouth Rock." The land around seemed so favorable that they decided to plant their colony here, naming it Plymouth, in honor of the last English town they had seen before leaving old England.
As the landing of the Pilgrim fathers is one of the great events of our history, the anniversary of their coming is still kept in New England and elsewhere, and is known as "Forefathers' Day."
Landing on Plymouth Rock.
While Standish and his men were busy exploring, the Mayflower rode at anchor, and its inmates barely escaped a horrible death. One of the colonists, named Bil´ling-ton, having, gone into the cabin to get powder, carelessly left the barrel open. His boy, a mischievous youngster, crept into the cabin unseen, and began playing with a gun. Of course it went off unexpectedly, and the child came very near setting fire to the powder in the barrel, and thus blowing up the Mayflower and all on board.
As soon as Standish had made his report, the anchor was raised, and four days later the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. The first woman to set foot upon it, we are told, was a Puritan maiden. Soon all the settlers were very busy building a storehouse for their provisions, and homes for themselves.
The men, exposed to the bad weather, caught such heavy colds that before long all were ill, and when the storehouse and a log hut were finished, both had to serve as hospitals for the sick. In spite of an unusually mild winter, the colonists found their close quarters on the Mayflower and in damp log houses so uncomfortable that they suffered greatly.