The Pilgrim Chronicles

by Rod Gragg

  Sunday, the 24th. Our people on shore heard a cry of some savages (as they thought) which caused an alarm, and to stand on their guard, expecting an assault, but all was quiet.

  Monday, the 25th. . . . We went on shore, some to fell timber, some to saw, some to rive, and some to carry, so no man rested all that day. But towards night some, as they were at work, heard a noise of some Indians, which caused us all to go to our muskets, but we heard no further. So we came aboard again, and left some twenty to keep the court of guard. That night we had a sore storm of wind and rain.

  Monday, the 25. . . . Being Christmas day, we began to drink water aboard, but at night the master caused us to have some beer, and so on board we had divers times now and then some beer, but on shore none at all.

  Tuesday, the 26th. It was foul weather, that we could not go ashore.

  Wednesday, the 27th. We went to work again.

  Thursday, the 28th of December. So many as could went to work on the hill where we purposed to build our platform for our ordnance, which doth command all the plain and the bay, and from whence we may see far into the sea, and might be easier [fortified], having two rows of houses and a fair street.

  Stumps still rise from the street in this late nineteenth-century artist’s conception of an early Colonial Era settlement. Plymouth Colony’s first structures also lined a street leading up a hill, but they were built of planks, not logs, and a wooden fortification topped the hill.

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  So in the afternoon we went to measure out the grounds, and first we took notice of how many families there were, willing all single men that had no wives to join with some family, as they thought fit, that so we might build fewer houses, which was done, and we reduced them to nineteen families. To greater families we allotted larger plots, to every person half a pole in breadth, and three in length, and so lots were cast where every man should lie, which was done, and staked out. We thought this proportion was large enough at the first for houses and gardens, to [fence] them round, considering the weakness of our people, many of them growing ill with cold, for our former discoveries in frost and storms, and the wading at Cape Cod had brought much weakness amongst us, which increased so every day more and more, and after was the cause of many of their deaths.

  Friday and Saturday. We fitted ourselves for our labor, but our people on shore were much troubled and discouraged with rain and wet, that day being very stormy and cold. We saw great smokes of fire made by the Indians, about six or seven miles from us, as we conjectured.

  Monday, the 1st of January. We went early to work. We were much hindered in lying so far off from the land and having to go as the tide served, that we lost much time, for our ship drew so much water that she lay a mile and almost a half off, though a ship of seventy or eighty tons at high water may come to the shore.

  Wednesday, the 3rd of January. Some of our people being abroad to get and gather thatch, they saw great fires of the Indians, and were at their cornfields, yet saw none of the savages, nor had seen any of them since we came to this bay.

  Thursday, the 4th of January. Captain Miles Standish, with four or five more, went to see if they could meet with any of the savages in that place where the fires were made. They went to some of their houses, but not lately inhabited, yet could they not meet with any. As they came home, they shot at an eagle and killed her, which was excellent meat; it was hardly to be discerned from mutton.

  Friday, the 5th of January. One of the sailors found alive upon the shore a herring, which the master had to his supper, which put us in hope of fish, but as yet we had got but one cod; we wanted small hooks.

  Saturday, the 6th of January. Master Martin was very sick, and to our judgment no hope of life, so Master Carver was sent for to come aboard to speak with him about his accounts, who came the next morning.

  Monday, the 8th day of January. Was a very fair day, and we went early to work. Master Jones sent the shallop, as he had formerly done, to see where fish could be got. They had a great storm at sea, and were in some danger; at night they returned with three great seals and an excellent good cod, which did assure us that we should have plenty of fish shortly.

  Early colonists dig New England clams. Plymouth’s location overlooking Cape Cod Bay enabled the Pilgrims to harvest shellfish—although their first such meal sickened some of them.

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  This day, Francis Billington, having the week before seen from the top of a tree on a high hill a great sea as he thought, went with one of the master’s mates to see it. They went three miles and then came to a great water, divided into two great lakes, the bigger of them five or six miles in circuit, and in it an isle of a cable length square, the other three miles in compass; in their estimation they are fine fresh water, full of fish, and fowl. A brook issues from it; it will be an excellent help for us in time. They found seven or eight Indian houses, but not lately inhabited. When they saw the houses they were in some fear, for they were but two persons and one piece.

  “We agreed that every man should build his own house”

  Tuesday, the 9th of January, was a remarkable fair day, and we went to labor that day in the building of our town, in two rows of houses for more safety. We divided by lot the plot of ground whereon to build our town. After the proportion formerly allotted, we agreed that every man should build his own house, thinking by that course men would make more haste than working in common. The common house, in which for the first we made our rendezvous, being near finished wanted only covering, it being about twenty feet square. Some should make mortar, and some gather thatch, so that in four days half of it was thatched. Frost and foul weather hindered us much, this time of the year seldom could we work half the week.

  Thursday, the 11th, William Bradford being at work (for it was a fair day) was vehemently taken with a grief and pain, and so shot to his huckle-bone. It was doubted that he would have instantly died; he got cold in the former discoveries, especially the last, and felt some pain in his ankles by times, but he grew a little better towards night and in time, through God’s mercy in the use of means, recovered.

  A Colonial Era woman plucks a goose. The Pilgrims quickly attempted to make a life in their new home, felling trees to build homes, and learning how to hunt and fish in the wilds—but their determined efforts were hampered by illness.

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  Friday, the 12th, we went to work, but about noon it began to rain that it forced us to give over work. This day two of our people put us in great sorrow and care; there was four sent to gather and cut thatch in the morning, and two of them, John Goodman and Peter Brown, having cut thatch all the forenoon, went to a further place, and willed the other two to bind up that which was cut and to follow them. So they did, being about a mile and a half from our plantation. But when the two came after, they could not find them, nor hear anything of them at all, though they hallooed and shouted as loud as they could, so they returned to the company and told them of it. Whereupon Master Leaver and three or four more went to seek them, but could hear nothing of them, so they returning, sent more, but that night they could hear nothing at all of them. The next day they armed ten or twelve men out, verily thinking the Indians had surprised them. They went seeking seven or eight miles, but could neither see nor hear anything at all, so they returned, with much discomfort to us all.

  [As it turned out,] these two that were missed, at dinner time took their meat in their hands, and would go walk and refresh themselves. So going a little off they find a lake of water, and having a great mastiff bitch with them and a spaniel, by the water side they found a great deer; the dogs chased him, and they followed so far as they lost themselves and could not find the way back. They wandered all that afternoon being wet, and at night it did freeze and snow. They were slenderly appareled and had no weapons but each one his sickle, nor any victuals. They ranged up and down and could find none of the savages’ habitations. When it drew to night they were much perplexed,
for they could find neither harbor nor meat, but, in frost and snow, were forced to make the earth their bed and the element their covering. And another thing did very much terrify them; they heard, as they thought, two lions roaring exceedingly for a long time together, and a third, that they thought was very near them. So not knowing what to do, they resolved to climb up into a tree as their safest refuge, though that would prove an intolerable cold lodging; so they stood at the tree’s root, that when the lions came they might take their opportunity of climbing up. The bitch they had to hold by the neck, for she would have been gone to the lion; but it pleased God so to dispose, that the wild beasts came not. So they walked up and down under the tree all night; it was an extremely cold night.

  “They lost themselves and could not find the way back”

  So soon as it was light they traveled again, passing by many lakes and brooks and woods, and in one place where the savages had burnt the space of five miles in length, which is a fine champion country, and even. In the afternoon, it pleased God, from a high hill they discovered the two isles in the bay, and so that night got to the plantation, being ready to faint with travail and want of victuals, and almost famished with cold. John Goodman was fain to have his shoes cut off his feet they were so swelled with cold, and it was a long while after that he was able to go; those on the shore were much comforted at their return, but they on the shipboard were grieved at deeming them lost.

  But the next day, being the 14th of January, in the morning about six of the clock the wind being very great, they on shipboard spied their great new rendezvous on fire, which was to them a new discomfort, fearing because of the supposed loss of men, that the savages had fired them. Neither could they presently go to them, for want of water, but after three quarters of an hour they went, as they had purposed the day before to keep the Sabbath on shore, because now there was the greatest number of people. At their landing they heard good tidings of the return of the two men, and that the house was fired occasionally by a spark that flew into the thatch, which instantly burnt it all up but the roof stood and little hurt. The most loss was Master Carver’s and William Bradford’s, who then lay sick in bed, and if they had not risen with good speed, had been blown up with powder, but, through God’s mercy, they had no harm. The house was as full of beds as they could lie one by another, and their muskets charged, but, blessed be God, there was no harm done.

  “And our people, so many as were in health, worked cheerfully”

  Monday, the 15th day. It rained so much all day, that they on shipboard could not go on shore, nor they on shore do any labor but were all wet.

  Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, were very fair sunshiny days, as if it had been in April, and our people, so many as were in health, worked cheerfully. . . .3

  “That Which Was Most Sad and Lamentable”

  Illness Kills the Pilgrims in Shocking Numbers

  Even as the Pilgrims worked to build their cottages, contagious illnesses swept through their ranks, striking down men, women, and children, and filling Plymouth’s new common house with makeshift sickbeds occupied by the ailing. Many had sickened while in the cramped quarters of the Mayflower. Others fell ill from their exposure to the harsh New England winter. Some were stricken with scurvy, some apparently with tuberculosis or typhus, and others by what appears to have been pneumonia. Within a few months, scores were dead. It had begun even before Dorothy Bradford’s drowning: one of the four More children sickened and died, and Mary Allerton, the third pregnant woman aboard the Mayflower, soon afterwards gave birth to a stillborn child. Seventeenth-century English people were accustomed to death: infant mortality, reduced life expectancy, and death by illnesses such as measles were common. But the amount of death that struck the Pilgrims in their first months in America shocked even them.

  A young seventeenth-century mother mourns her loss. Illnesses ravaged the Pilgrim families during their first winter at Plymouth, killing almost half of those who had made the voyage to America.

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  Most of the women died. Captain Standish lost his wife, Rose. Edward Winslow’s wife Elizabeth died. So did Mary Allerton, who had endured the stillborn birth. Christopher Martin—the belligerent “governor” of the Mayflower—perished, followed by his widow, Mary. Governor Carver’s wife Katherine died too, but the governor was not present to witness it—he died shortly before after being stricken in the field by an apparent sunstroke. Of the eighteen wives who had left England aboard the Mayflower, thirteen died. The single men among the Pilgrims did not fare much better: nineteen of twenty-nine died. Four entire families perished, and almost half the husbands and fathers died. Oddly, the small children experienced a better survival rate, including Peregrine White, the first child born in New England. Many were orphaned, however, and of the four More children—sent to America when their father learned they were not his—one survived. Approximately half of the Mayflower’s crew died too. The rough-and-tumble sailors took an every-man-for-himself attitude, offering little aid to each other even as one after another sickened and died.

  “It was the Lord which upheld them”

  The Pilgrims were different. Their faith sustained them when all else seemed to be crumbling. Again, they followed Pastor Robinson’s advice to treat each other with biblical charity. As more fell ill or died, the numbers left to care for the others steadily dwindled, and at one point those who remained “healthy” were reduced to seven. The few served the many. “Greater love hath no man than this,” declares the Scriptures, “that a man lay down his life for his friends.” The few who were able nursed the ill and dying, and buried the dead on the hillside, lowering the bodies into unmarked graves lest the Indians count the crosses and realize how vulnerable the Pilgrims were to attack. Two who demonstrated true servants’ hearts, according to William Bradford, were Elder William Brewster and Captain Myles Standish. They and the few others who remained healthy “spared no pains night nor day,” Bradford would recall, “but with abundance of toil and hazard of their own health, fetched them wood, made them fires, dressed them meat, made their beds, washed their loathsome clothes, clothed and unclothed them. . . . and all this willingly and cheerfully.”

  The few among the Pilgrims who remained able-bodied nursed the ill and dying “with abundance of toil and hazard of their own health.” The sacrifices they made, observed William Bradford, demonstrated “their true love unto their friends and brethren.”

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  December, January, February, March, April—the death toll continued, finally dwindling to an occasional death after winter eased into spring. By summer, fifty would be dead—almost half the number of Pilgrims who had sailed to America on the Mayflower. The village site that had become a graveyard for the Native Americans before them had also become a burial place for the Pilgrims. But Plymouth Colony somehow survived. Of the nineteen cottages that had been planned, only seven had actually been built by spring—but half the colonists had survived and so had their colony. Why did they not all die? Why did Plymouth Colony not cease to exist during that first, deadly winter? Perhaps the survivors were spared by the timely arrival of spring and warm weather. Perhaps they were saved by the critical care provided by the few who remained healthy. Or perhaps there was another reason. William Bradford believed so, concluding confidently that “it was the Lord which upheld them.” Bradford, who was among those who survived a near-death illness, would later recount the story of that first killer winter:

  But that which was most sad and lamentable was that in two or three months’ time, half of their company died, especially in Jan. and February, being the depth of winter, and wanting houses and other comforts, being infected with the scurvy and other diseases, which this long voyage and their [unaccommodating] condition had brought upon them. So as there died sometimes two or three of a day in the foresaid time, that of 100 and odd persons, scarce 50 remained. And of these in the time of most distress, there was but six or seven sound persons, who, to
their great commendations be it spoken, spared no pains, night nor day, but with abundance of toil and hazard of their own health, fetched them wood, made them fires, dressed them meat, made their beds, washed their loathsome cloths, clothed and unclothed them. In a word, did all the homely and necessary offices for them which dainty and queasy stomachs cannot endure to hear named; and all this willingly and cheerfully, without any grudging in the least, showing herein their true love unto their friends and brethren: a rare example and worthy to be remembered.

  “A rare example and worthy to be remembered”

  Thirteen Pilgrim men were made widowers by killer illnesses during the deadly winter, and four entire families were wiped out.

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  Two of these seven were Mr. William Brewster, their reverend Elder, and Miles Standish, their Captain and military commander, unto whom myself and many others were much beholden in our low and sick condition. And yet the Lord so upheld these persons as in this general calamity they were not at all infected either with sickness or lameness. And what I have said of these, I may say of many others who died in this general visitation, and others yet living, that while they had health, yea, or any strength continuing, they were not wanting to any that had need of them. And I doubt not but their recompense is with the Lord. . . .

  “In two or three months’ time, half of their company died”

  The spring now approaching, it pleased God the morality began to cease among them, and the sick and lame recovered apace, which put as it were new life into them; though they had borne their sad affliction with as much patience and contentedness as I think any people could do. But it was the Lord which upheld them. . . .4