Miles Standish, the Puritan Captain

by John S. C. Abbott

In the morning they set out on their return home, and lost their way. As they wandered along they entered a well-trodden deer path in the entangled forest. Here they came upon a singular contrivance, apparently some sort of a trap, which they were carefully examining, when Mr. Bradford, subsequently Governor, found himself suddenly caught by the leg and snapped up into the air. As he experienced no serious injury, the incident afforded only occasion for merriment. It was a deer trap, ingeniously constructed by bending a strong sapling to the earth, with a rope and noose concealed under leaves covered with acorns.

“It was a very pretty device,” writes Mourt, “made with a rope of their own making, having a noose as artificially made as any roper in England can make.” These traps were so strong that a horse would be tossed up if he were caught in one of them. “An English mare,” writes Wood, “having strayed from her owner, and grown wild by her long sojourning in the woods, ranging up and down with the wild crew, stumbled into one of these traps, which stopped her speed, hanging her, like Mahomet’s coffin, betwixt earth and heaven.”

Toiling along through the wilderness, they saw three bucks and a flock of partridges, but could not get a shot at them. “As we came along by the creek we saw great flocks of wild geese and ducks, but they were very fearful of us, so we marched some while in the woods, some while on the sands, and other while in the water up to the knees, till at length we came near the ship, when we shot off our pieces, and the long boat came to fetch us.”[5] Those familiar with the locality can trace their route as they passed round the head of East Harbor Creek, and went down on the north side of it. They then waded through Stout’s Creek, near Gull Hill, and passed on to the end of Long Point, near which the ship was anchored.

It was Friday afternoon, November 17th, when the expedition returned, with rent clothes and blistered feet, and with a discouraging report; for they had found no place suitable for the location of their colony.

Another Sunday came, and this little band of exiles was again assembled, on the deck of the Mayflower, to attend to their accustomed worship. The whole of the ensuing week was employed in refitting the shallop, which required the labor of seventeen days, and in making preparation for another and more extensive tour along the coast.

On Monday of the next week, the 27th of November, twenty-four of the colonists and ten of the seamen, in the shallop, all under command of Captain Jones, of the Mayflower, again set out in search of a spot where they might commence their lonely settlement in the wilderness. It was a dreary winter’s day, with clouds, a rough sea, freezing winds and flurries of rain and sleet. The sand hills, whitened with snow, swept by the wind and covered with a stunted growth of oaks and pines, presented nothing alluring to the eye. As the day wore away and the storm increased in violence, they ran in towards the shore for security. Here the shallop cast anchor, under the lee of the sand hills, in comparatively smooth water. The crew passed the night in the boat, which probably afforded shelter for a few persons. A party landed, and following along the beach about six miles, encamped, with a glowing fire at their feet.

The next morning, the storm still continuing, the shallop reached them about eleven o’clock, and taking them on board, continued their voyage until they arrived at Pamet Creek, which the previous expedition had visited. Here they found a sheltered cove, which they called Cold Harbor. It afforded a safe refuge for boats, but was not a suitable harbor for ships, as it had a depth of but twelve feet of water at flood tide. The creek here separates into two streams, running back about three and a half miles into the country, and separated by the high cliff of which we have spoken, called Tom’s Hill.

A party landed at the foot of the cliff and marched into the interior, between the streams, four or five miles. The country was broken with steep hills and deep valleys, and there was six inches of snow upon the ground. As night darkened over them they entered a small grove of pine trees, where they built their camp and kindled their fire, and established their sentinels for the night. They supped luxuriously upon three fat geese and six ducks, which they had shot by the way.

It was their intention in the morning to follow up this creek to its head, supposing that they should there find emptying into it a river of fresh water. But in talking the matter over, it seemed to the majority that the region was very undesirable. It was rough, hilly, with poor soil, and a harbor fit only for boats. In the morning, consequently, the shallop returned to its anchorage at the mouth of the creek, while the party on land crossed over to the other stream to get the rest of the corn which they had left behind. Here they found one of the canoes, of which we have previously spoken, which was sufficiently capacious to carry seven or eight over at a time. Here they found several other depositories of corn, so that they obtained seven or eight bushels.

“And sure it was God’s good providence,” writes Mourt, “that we found this corn, for else we know not how we should have done; for we knew not how we should find or meet with any of the Indians, except it be to do us a mischief. Also we had never, in all likelihood, seen a grain of it if we had not made our first journey; for the ground was now covered with snow, and so hard frozen that we were fain, with our cutlasses and short swords, to hew and carve the ground a foot deep, and then wrest it up with levers, for we had forgot to bring other tools.”