Sternest of them all?
She it is, and she alone
Who built on faith as her corner stone;
Of all the nations, none but she
Knew that the truth shall make us free.”
Tercentenary Ode
—L. B. R. Briggs
On the summit of a hill, back of the center of the town, stands the National Monument to the forefathers. Surmounting the pedestal, a figure of Faith, of heroic size, raises her arm with her forefinger pointing to heaven. Beneath her are seated Liberty, Law, Education, and Morality, representative of the Pilgrim ideals; below them are marble bas-reliefs of episodes in Pilgrim history. “The Departure from Delft Haven,” “The Signing of the Compact,” “The Landing of the Pilgrims,” and “The Treaty with Massasoit.”
Around the level plateau on which the monument stands, a wide view unrolls itself like a scroll of Pilgrim history. There lies the town of their founding; beyond it, the distant line of the ocean horizon seems almost as empty as when the Mayflower ploughed through the winter storms three hundred years ago. Her anchorage was inside the long, low strip of the beach, where she rode till the spring of 1621; a protection to the colonists, and a shelter for the women and children until houses could be built for them on shore.
Beyond the point of the beach is Clark’s Island, where the exploring party from the Mayflower spent the first Sabbath in Plymouth history. Still beyond, Saquish, the Gurnet, and the line of the coast had been mapped and charted by Capt. John Smith in 1615 and were known to earlier voyagers, as well as to the Pilgrims.