Later trips being equally unsuccessful, the emigrants re-embarked, and the Mayflower was taken a little further up the western coast of Cape Cod, whence excursions were made to different points in an open boat by a few sturdy explorers, who landed on Clark’s Island—so called after the first man to step on its shores—and finally, on the 11th December, crossed the modern harbor of Plymouth, and landed on or near the rock which has since been revered as the sacred “corner-stone of a nation,” the “altar and bulwark of religion and liberty.”
LANDING PLACE OF THE PILGRIMS, AT PLYMOUTH.
Convinced that the fertile, well-watered tract stretching away from the sea to the pine-clad hills was the very site for a settlement, the men hastened to report their discovery to their expectant comrades on board ship, and on the 15th December, the Mayflower left her anchorage off Cape Cod to sail to Clark’s Island and halt half between it and the rock of Plymouth, so-called in remembrance of the port in the south of England from which the little vessel had made her final start.
TOMB OF THE MATE OF THE “MAYFLOWER.”
On Christmas Day, 1620, after the site for the erection of the first house of the new settlement had been chosen at a spot called by the Indians Patuxet, and christened Plymouth by the new-comers, the main body of the emigrants went on shore. Many are the traditions which have gathered round the rock—of which a portion is still shown to visitors—on which these founders of a great nation first set foot, and in all of them the names of the governor, Carver, and the military captain, Standish, stand out as those of men who were equal to every emergency. A dreary winter, with starvation and disease staring the settlers in the face at home, and hostile Indians hovering about in the outskirts of the little encampment, ready to take advantage of any sign of weakness, was succeeded by a somewhat brighter spring, and toward the end of March, 1621, as the leaders of the colony were discussing their future plans in full conclave, an incident occurred which inspired them with new hope of the successful realization of those plans.
A naked Indian suddenly stalked into the midst of the white men, and greeted them in their native tongue with the words, “Welcome, Englishmen!” The sensation caused by this may be imagined. The Indian, who said his name was Samoset, was eagerly plied with questions, and told how he had been one of the men carried into slavery by Hunt, who, it will be remembered, had accompanied John Smith on his visit to Maine. After many vicissitudes, Samoset had got back to his native land, and, hearing from his comrades that some white men had settled at Patuxet, he had come to make their acquaintance, and to inquire if they came with peaceable intent or as man-stealers. Convinced that they were certainly not the latter, though probably a little puzzled at the explanations given of their presence so far from home, Samoset promised to be their messenger to the Wampanoags and Nansets of the neighborhood, assuring the chiefs of the colony that the hostile attitude of these tribes had been the result of the ill-treatment they had received at the hands of Hunt and Dermer.
WINSLOW’S VISIT TO MASSASOIT.