GOVERNOR EDWARD WINSLOW.
[This is the only authentic likeness of any of the “Mayflower” Pilgrims. It was painted in England in 1651, when Winslow was fifty-six. It has been several times engraved before, as may be seen in the Winslow Memorial, in Young’s Chronicles, in Bartlett’s Pilgrim Fathers, and in Morton’s Memorial, Boston edition, 1855. The original, once the property of Isaac Winslow, Esq., is now deposited in the gallery of the Pilgrim Society at Plymouth. (Cf. 3 Mass. Hist. Coll., vii. 286, and Proc., x. 36.) Various relics of the Governor are also preserved in Pilgrim Hall at Plymouth. There are biographies of him in Belknap’s American Biography, and in J. B. Moore’s American Governors. A record of Governor Winslow’s descendants will be found in the N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., 1850, 297 (by Lemuel Shattuck); 1863, p. 159 (by J. H. Sheppard). Of the descendants of his brother Kenelm, see L. R. Paige’s account in the Register, 1871, p. 355, and 1872, p. 69. An extensive Winslow Memorial has been begun by David P. Holton, 1877, the first volume of which is given to all descendants (of all names) of Kenelm. See Register, 1877, p. 454; 1878, p. 94, by W. S. Appleton, who in the Register, 1867, p. 209, has a note on the English ancestry; and Colonel Chester has a similar note in 1870, p. 329. There is in Harvard College Library a manuscript on Careswell and the Winslows by the late Dr. James Thacher.—Ed.]
In these arrangements, which proved eminently wise for the public interests, one object was to facilitate further emigration from Leyden. The management of the London merchants had been unfavorable to this end, and it was a special grief that during this period of delay the beloved pastor, Robinson, had ended his life in Leyden,—Feb. 19 (March 1), 1625. The heavy expenses of transporting and providing for such as came over in 1629-30 were cheerfully borne by the new management.
The same temper in the London merchants which had hindered Robinson’s coming,—a conviction that the religious peculiarities of the Pilgrims interfered with the attractiveness and financial success of the colony,—led them to send over in 1624 a minister of their own choosing (John Lyford), who was not merely not in sympathy with the wants of the Plymouth men, but even tried to serve his patrons by false accusations and by attempting to set up the Church of England form of worship. He was expelled from the colony within a year from his arrival, and the church continued under Elder Brewster’s teaching. In 1628 Mr. Allerton on a voyage from England, without direction from the church, brought over another minister, but mental derangement quickly ended his career.
The colony began within these first years to enlarge its outlook. In 1627, to further their maritime interests, an outpost was established on Buzzard’s Bay, twenty miles to the southward; in the same year relations of friendly commerce were entered into with the Dutch of New Amsterdam, and as soon as the nearer plantations of the Massachusetts Company were begun, Plymouth was prompt to aid and counsel as occasion offered. In 1628 the attempt was made to establish more firmly the existing trade with the Eastern Indians, by obtaining a patent for a parcel of land on the River Kennebec.
GOVERNORS OF PLYMOUTH COLONY.
[Of John Carver, the first governor, no signature is known. This group shows the autographs of all his successors, who held the office for the years annexed to their names:—