One Small Candle: The Pilgrim's First Year in America (The Thomas Fleming Library)

by Thomas Fleming

  But the natives were as anxious to escape as the explorers were to catch them. They followed their “footings” for some ten miles, even tracking them up a hill, where the red men had paused to check on their pursuers. Darkness fell, with Standish and his men still far in the rear, and they made camp, kindled a fire, and posted three sentries for the night.

  The next morning they again took up the Indians’ trail. It was easy to be a scout in the sandy earth of the Cape. But after a few hours, they lost the track at the head of a long creek. Circling it, they picked it up again at the entrance of another stretch of woods. But this forest was by no means as open as the woods around the Mayflower’s harbor. “We marched through boughs and bushes, and under hills and valleys, which tore our very armour in pieces,” Bradford says. But the Indians had vanished, and by ten o’clock the exploring party was in deep trouble. They had had nothing to drink but a few swigs of brandy someone had thoughtfully stuffed in his pack. For food they had dined on biscuits and cheese, and now they were gasping for water.

  With their tongues thick and lips dry, they fought their way out of the woods and found themselves in a “deep valley, full of brush, bayberry and long grass.” A number of little paths or “tracts” ran through it. Wandering in a rough semicircle, they had stumbled into what is now called East Harbour in the town of Truro. While they surveyed the peaceful, windblown scene, a deer gamboled past. Then came the welcome cry: “Water!”

  Water it was, and fresh, the first they had tasted since they boarded the Mayflower. “We were heartily glad,” William Bradford says, “and sat us down and drank our first New England water with as much delight as ever we drank drink in all our lives.”

  Refreshed, they marched south to the waters of the bay, where they built a fire so the worried watchers on the Mayflower could locate them once more. Then they swung off down the beach in the direction of this “supposed river.” Wherever they saw a break in the woods or a lay of land that had, an interesting look, they investigated. Thus in a few more miles, they found themselves looking down on a “fine clear pond of fresh water” which is now Pond Village in Truro. Around this pleasant spot grew many small vines, and they saw several deer darting through the woods. The pond waters were thick with wild fowl.

  Nearby they found about fifty acres of what was obviously cleared ground “fit for the plow.” There were signs that this was an Indian farm. But once more the Indians remained invisible. The explorers went back to the beach and tramped for a few more hours. Soon Standish’s single file was stretched out for the better part of a mile. He called a halt to wait for the stragglers to come up. Tramping through soft sand burdened with armor and heavy muskets was hard work.

  They now abandoned the beach and struck into the woods again, following a little path to “certain heaps of sands.” One heap was covered with old mats and had a wooden arch over it. In a little hole at the end was an earthen pot. Poking into it with their swords, they dug up a bow and several arrows, which crumbled in their hands. They decided they had stumbled on a graveyard, and dug no more. “We thought,” Bradford says, “it would be odious unto them to ransack their sepulchres.”

  Not far away on this same woodland path they found the stubble of a harvested cornfield, strawberry and grape vines, and a “great store” of walnut trees full of nuts. They marched on and came upon two more well-gleaned cornfields, and then a place where “a house” had been, and four or five old planks laid together. Nearby was a “great kettle” obviously from a European ship. They stood for a moment around the desolate scene wondering if they were seeing the relics of some shipwrecked seamen who had tried to winter here and had succumbed to either cold or savages.

  Then someone noticed another heap of sand at the top of a rounded hill nearby. They struggled up the steep slope and saw that whatever was under this mound was freshly buried. They could see how the sand had been smoothed by human hands not long before. Standish ordered thirteen of the men to stand in a ring, with their muskets ready, and told three others to start digging. They went to work with their swords and soon uncovered a “little old basket” full of corn. Excited, they dug further, and found another huge basket, full of “very fair corn of this year . . . some 36 goodly ears of corn, some yellow and some red and others mixed with blue.”

  It was, as Bradford says, “a very goodly sight.” They had brought along seeds of wheat and barley, but they knew from English experience in Virginia that the crop that grew best in the New World was this corn, and one of the reasons they had been pursuing the Indians was to borrow or buy some.

  All told, the basket held about four bushels of corn. What to do with it? For them, it was - or could, be - more precious than gold. But they hesitated to begin their sojourn in the country by robbing the natives. “After much consultation,” Bradford says, “we concluded to take the kettle and as much of the corn as we could carry away with us. And when our shallop came, if we could find any of the people, and come to parley with them, we could give them the kettle again, and satisfy them for the corn.”

  They took all thirty-six of the ears in the little basket, filled the kettle with loose corn, and hung it on a staff so that two men could carry it. Those who had room stuffed more in their pockets. The rest they buried, wishing they were not “so laden with armour” that they could not take more.

  From the top of this rise, still known as Corn Hill, the explorers had a fine view of the surrounding country. They saw a small river to the south, which seemed to be part of the “opening” they had come to inspect. Marching on, they passed the ruins of an old fort or palisade - another unpleasant reminder of visits by earlier explorers. Reaching the river, they found that it was cut in half by a high bank at the mouth. This was the Pamet River, divided by “Old Tom’s Hill.” The southern arm looked “not unlikely to be a harbour for ships,” but whether it was salt or fresh, they had no time to investigate.

  Governor Carver had given them strict orders to remain out no more than two days, and to check the river for fresh water would have required a march of several miles inland. They decided to leave that job to the shallop. But they did take time to investigate two canoes, one on either side of the river. “We could not believe it was a canoe until we came near it,” Bradford says, communicating in this brief sentence the eerie feeling the explorers were beginning to have that this country was anything but deserted. Two canoes, one on either side of the river, was the way intelligent people might create a ferry service for those who wanted to cross. But where were these citizens of the forest?

  With wary eyes and uncertain nerves, the scouting party tramped back to the fresh-water pond and made camp for another night. This time they put up a “barricado” of logs, stakes, and boughs to the windward, so that no one could creep up on them. Once more they were under the impression that they could easily outwit these savages at woodcraft. They kept “good watch,” with three sentinels taking turns all night and with five or six inches of match cord glowing at all times.

  The weather turned foul, raining and blowing furiously. By morning everyone was soaked, chilled, and discouraged. Worse, their powder and fuses were wet, and their usable muskets were reduced to a handful. To speed their pace, they decided to sink the kettle in the pond, and skirting the wood where they had almost had their armor ripped to pieces, they promptly got lost. “We were shrewdly puzzled,” Bradford says.

  Wandering through the woods, they came to a sapling that bowed down until it formed an archway over the path. They noticed a bow in the center of the archway and some acorns scattered around it. The leaders of the file were about to march right across these when Stephen Hopkins called out a warning. In his trip to Virginia, eleven years before, he had learned enough to recognize an Indian deer trap when he saw one.

  Everyone gathered around, and Hopkins began telling them how the trap worked. William Bradford, who had been bringing up the rear and did not hear Hopkins’ first warning, came strolling into the circle and inadvertently gave ev
eryone a demonstration. Bradford stepped into the center of the trap and instantly the sapling sprang straight up in the air, and the poor fellow found himself dangling head down by one leg. If there had been no one around to help him, he might have been in serious trouble. “It was a very pretty device,” he says, “made with a rope of their own making, and having a noose as artificially [cunningly] made as any roper in England can make and as like ours as can be.”

  After more wandering, they fumbled their way out of the woods and found themselves barred by East Harbour Creek. They were consoled by seeing three fine bucks plunging through the grass within musket shot. But they were gone before they could light their matchlocks. “We had rather have had one of them,” Bradford says ruefully.

  They also flushed some partridges along the creek bank and roused great flocks of geese and ducks, which were “very fearful” and took off with an enormous clatter. The explorers were learning the hard way that if they were going to live off this country, they would have to acquire some stealth.

  After more marching through woods and over sand and wading two tidal creeks, they trudged wearily onto the beach that is now called Long Point and fired off a musket to attract the Mayflower, a mile out in the harbor. Soon there were dozens of people running down the beach to greet them. Governor Carver and Captain Jones were ashore, along with many others, and the heroes received a tumultuous welcome. They had been gone almost three full days, and those who had been left behind had been alarmed when they failed to appear within the stated two-day period.

  That night was an exciting time for passengers and crew as everyone listened to the explorers’ descriptions of the country, the signs and glimpses of the Indians, the game, the soil, the rivers and woods. But the corn was the biggest excitement. The ex-farmers among them, such as William Bradford, were stirred by the size of the kernels, which meant rich soil and good harvests to come.

  William Bradford saw a parallel with the Israelites entering the Promised Land. They too had sent sixteen men exploring, under the command of a brave captain, and had brought back “the fruit of the land” for their brethren to see. The comparison was startling, and Bradford says his friends were “marvelously glad and their hearts encouraged.”

  The corn was carefully stored aboard the ship “for seed,” and for the next few days, every effort was made to repair the shallop. When that proved slow work, the passengers decided it might be faster to build a new one. There was much “seeking out wood and belying of tools and sawing of timber,” Bradford tells us. But the geography of their harbor was a fatal hindrance to the project. They could only land in the heavy longboat at high water, and even then they had to wade ashore, “oftentimes . . . to the middle of the thigh, and oft to the knees?” The weather also failed to cooperate. It turned cold and stormy, and soon everyone who was in the habit of going ashore (“some did it necessarily and some for their own pleasure,” Bradford says) were down with coughs and colds.

  This attempt to build a boat by men who had never built one before was a sign of their growing desperation. The hollow cheeks and weary faces of their women and children, growing steadily weaker on the stale ship’s food, haunted them. But they could do nothing but endure until November 27, when the carpenter finally announced that the shallop was ready to sail. Instantly another obstacle loomed. The four men they had hired to sail the shallop were sick. How could amateurs handle this big, unwieldy boat with its cumbersome sail? Once again they had to take their problem to Christopher Jones. The captain generously agreed to lend them ten of his seamen to man the shallop - and offered to take command of her himself.

  Twenty-four men, armed and armored as before and under Miles Standish’s command, boarded the shallop and the longboat. Those in the longboat were to go ashore and march down the beach to the mouth of the Pamet River, where the shallop would rendezvous with them and carry all hands up the river for exploration. In an unprecedented move, the passengers made Captain Jones the expedition leader. “We thought it best herein,” Bradford says, “to gratify his kindness and forwardness.” Bradford was once more among the marchers, and this time he was joined by his good friend Edward Winslow.

  Winter was on them now, fastening deadly fingers of ice on their flesh. Snow flurries howled across the bay as they shoved off from the Mayflower. “Rough weather and cross winds” were so severe that both the longboat and the shallop had to run for the nearest beach, where everyone waded ashore in water above the knees. Jones surveyed the churning bay and declared that any further progress in the shallop was out of the question.

  Bradford, Winslow, and the younger men who were going to march to the river on foot anyway decided to push on for another six or seven miles. That night it froze, and the snow continued to lash them. No clothing they had brought from Holland prepared them for this kind of exposure. Holland winters were cold, but all these men had worked in houses and shops. Huddled in their worn cloaks, some, in William Bradford’s somber phrase, “took the original of their death here.”

  At eleven o’clock the next morning, the shallop arrived to pick up the chilled, coughing campers. With a good if biting wind, they sailed briskly down to the mouth of the Pamet River. They were now with a man who, like all sailors, had the instincts of an explorer. As they approached the river’s mouth, Captain Jones suggested they give the place a name. In a wry testimony to the weather, the explorers decided to call it Cold Harbor.

  Once more the marching party debarked at the hill between the two creeks, and slogged along though six-inch snow while the shallop sailed beside them. Sounding revealed twelve feet of water in the river at high tide - not enough for ships, but deep enough to handle good-sized boats such as the shallop. They covered five miles before dusk began to darken the sky.

  Captain Jones, who had been marching on foot all the way, confessed he was weary and suggested they make camp. They settled under the bows of some pine trees and sent out hunters who came back with three fat geese and six ducks. William Bradford says they ate them “with soldiers stomachs.” Except for a few nibbles of cheese and biscuits, it was the first food they had had all day.

  They had planned to march to the head of the Pamet River where they hoped to find fresh water. But in the morning, they conferred and found many objecting to the poor soil in the vicinity and to the lack of a protected harbor for shipping. What good was fresh water if they lacked soil to grow their food and a harbor to trade with visitors? The dissenters carried the day, and they decided to retrace their steps.

  It was very discouraging. Snow on the ground and two full days wasted on this exploration. They had to find a place soon or face total disaster. To make themselves and the others feel that the trip was not a complete waste of time, they decided to cross over to the other branch of the river and dig up the corn they had left behind. On the riverbank they found another ghostly evidence of their invisible hosts - a canoe lay on the dry ground. Out in the river were a flock of geese, and the explorers showed they were learning the hunter’s art by killing a couple with a single shot.

  They picked up the geese in the canoe and then used it to ferry themselves across the river, seven or eight at a time. Down the other side of the little stream they trudged and, up the steep slope of Corn Hill. There they went to work with their swords once more. But the ground was so frozen that they could not get more than a foot below the surface, and even this amount of earth they had to “wrest up with levers.” It was another alarming proof of winter’s tightening hand. But the digging was good. They found the corn that they had left behind and, in a place nearby, a bottle of oil. Not far away they found more corn and a bag of beans. Altogether they now had ten bushels, more than enough for seed. They consoled their consciences by again resolving to make restitution to the people they were robbing as soon as they could get in communication with them. Then they fell to marveling about how providential it was that they had made their first exploration on foot. Now, with the ground covered with snow, it would have been imposs
ible to spot the telltale fresh earth where the corn had been buried.

  Toward nightfall the sky began to look gloomy, and the wind had a damp, snowy taste. Captain Jones had had enough of exploring and was anxious to get back to his cabin aboard the Mayflower. A number of others were tired and feverish from the brutal weather, but the younger men, haunted by those wan faces aboard the ship, refused to quit so soon. They sent Jones back with the corn and the sick, and eighteen camped on the beach for the night. They told the shallop to return the next day, bringing mattocks and spades so they could do some real digging.

  The next morning they followed “beaten paths and tracks” of the Indians into the woods, hoping one of them would lead “to some town or houses.” It was not only the matter of paying for the corn. These red men knew the country. They could tell them about good harbors, fresh-water rivers, lakes that lurked invisibly behind these frozen hills and barren trees. Suddenly the twisting trails converged upon “a very broad beaten path” almost two feet wide. They must be close to a village! Quickly they lit their matches and prepared to defend themselves if necessary, but after another half hour of trudging they realized it was only a path down which Indians drove deer when they were hunting.