[481] [We only know this compact in the transcript given in Mourt’s Relation, and in the copy which Bradford made of it in his MS. history.
Its last surviving signer was John Alden, who died in Duxbury, Sept. 12, 1686, aged eighty-seven; though that passenger of the “Mayflower” longest living was Mary, daughter of Isaac Allerton, who became the wife of Elder Thomas Cushman (son of Robert Cushman), and she died in 1699, aged about ninety.—Ed.
[482] By New Style the 21st; through an unfortunate mistake originating in the last century (Palfrey’s History of New England, i. 171) the 22d has been commonly adopted as the true date.
[483] Mourt’s Relation, p. 21. Mr. S. H. Gay has suggested (Atlantic Monthly, xlviii. 616) that this landing was not at Plymouth, but on the shore more directly west of Clark’s Island (Duxbury or Kingston), and that consequently the commemoration of a landing at Plymouth on that day rests on a false foundation; but the Rev. Henry M. Dexter, D.D., has conclusively shown (Congregationalist, Nov. 9, 1881) that the soundings must have led the explorers, unless the deep-water channels have unaccountably changed since then, directly to the neighborhood of the rock which a chain of trustworthy testimony on the spot identifies as the first landing-place of any of the “Mayflower” company within Plymouth Harbor. Tradition divides the honor of being the first to step on Plymouth Rock between John Alden and Mary Chilton, but the date of their landing must have been subsequent to December 11.
[484] [The burials of that first winter were made on what was later known as Coale’s Hill, identical with the present terrace above the rock.
It perpetuates the name of one of the early comers.—Ed.
[485] Printed in 1854 in Mass. Hist. Coll. vol. xxxii, with Introduction by Mr. Charles Deane; also separately (one hundred copies). [The original parchment was discovered, in the early part of this century, in the Land Office in Boston; and having been used by Judge Davis when he edited Morton’s Memorial, was again lost sight of till just before it fell to Mr. Deane to edit it. Besides the autographs of the Duke of Lenox, the Marquis of Hamilton, the Earl of Warwick, Lord Sheffield, and Sir Ferdinando Gorges, it bore one other signature, of which a remnant only remains. It is now at Plymouth.—Ed.]
[486] Bradford’s History, xi.; Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., August, 1866, p. 345.