used as a heading of the first Plymouth Journal, published by Nathaniel Coverly in 1785, of which one file is preserved in the library of rare old books. Here are the Original Records of the Old Colony Club, founded in 1769, but dissolved four years later when party feeling ran high between the Whigs and Tories. Its worthy members first instituted the celebration of “Forefathers’ Day,” and here we may read the bill of fare of their first dinner, “dressed in the plainest manner,” beginning with “a large baked Indian whortleberry pudding,” “a dish of Succotash,” “Clamms,” etc. The Indian dishes, succotash and nokake, and the five parched corns which recall the time when their last pint of corn was divided among them, still form part of the “twenty-second” dinner of every faithful descendant!
Here the sword of the truculent Myles Standish lies at rest, and beside it, in lighter vein, a bit of the quilt that belonged to his wife Rose, and a sampler skilfully embroidered by his daughter Lora. Between the ample armchairs in which Governor Carver and Elder Brewster must have pondered over many a weighty problem of government for the people and by the people, is the closely woven little Dutch cradle
in which Peregrine White, that most youthful of voyagers, was rocked to sleep. The large hole worn in the foot of the cradle suggests pleasantly that the rosy toes of the sturdy baby colonists made early for freedom! Perhaps the tiny leathern ankle-ties, hardly four inches in length, which belonged to Josiah Winslow—this was long before they thought of making him governor—had a hand, or rather a foot, in that bombardment! Near the shoes is a dainty salt-cellar of blue and white enamel, delicately painted with pink and yellow roses, suggestive of fine linen and pleasant hospitality. Here too are
“The wheels where they spun
In the pleasant light of the sun,”
those anxious, lonely housewives, waiting for their good men to return from dangerous expeditions in the forest or on the sea. Thus varied was the freight of the Mayflower.
As we walk through the lively main street of the town, we must stop to admire the fine gambrel roof of the old house where lived James Warren, that active patriot, who became president of the Provincial Congress, and whose wife, Mercy Otis Warren, wrote the “rousing word” which kindled many a heart in Revolutionary days. The line of fine lindens just beyond, as they rustle in the cool sea-breeze, could whisper many a charming tale of lovely dames and stately men, of scarlet cloaks and powdered wigs they have watched pass by under their shading branches, of treasures of old china and old silver, of blue tiles and claw-footed furniture, of Copley portraits now packed off to the great city, and of many changes come about since they came here as young trees from Nova Scotia, in a raisin-box.
Overlooking the blue water stands the old Winslow house, the solid frame of which came from England in 1754. Under its spreading lindens, through the fine colonial doorway so beautifully carved, many distinguished guests have passed, and here Ralph Waldo Emerson was married to Lydia Jackson, who was born in the picturesque house just beyond, almost hidden in trees and vines.