This Canopy, built at a cost of $20,000.00, covered Plymouth Rock from 1866 until the Rock was returned to its original location in 1920. Behind the Canopy is Cole’s Hill, and just to the right of it is the Mayflower Society House
This Canopy, built at a cost of $20,000.00, covered Plymouth Rock from 1866 until the Rock was returned to its original location in 1920. Behind the Canopy is Cole’s Hill, and just to the right of it is the Mayflower Society House
NOT until 1894 did descendants of the passengers of theMayflowerorganize to perpetuate the ideals and commemorate the memory of their ancestors. The first Society was formed 22 December 1894 in New York, followed by societies in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania within 18 months. These societies founded the General Society 12 January 1897. The General Society now consists of 40 State Societies, with a membership of over 7600 men and women.
19 February 1923 the General Society was incorporated under the laws of Massachusetts. Among those signing the petition to the Great and General Court were Major General Leonard Wood,William Howard Taft, and Henry Cabot Lodge. The Mayflower Society is not interested in the wealth of its members, or their social standing, or their politics, although two Presidents of the United States have been members. Two others were eligible but passed on before its organization. It is proud, however, of the notable achievements of many of its members.
Some of the patriotic Societies were in early days largely social in character. Many joined solely of pride in their ancestry. Democracy was not then under attack and needed no defenders. The country’s growth since the turn of the century has brought to the United States a tremendous number of persons fleeing from Old World conditions. Our melting pot did well for a time; of recent years our freedom has been attacked. The Society now has a mission—that of spreading the wisdom and ideals of our ancestors to the masses who have come to our shores.
The Society has accomplished much in its effort to discover and publish matter relating to the Pilgrims. It has aided in establishing memorials and has contributed over $100,000.00 toward the Bradford Memorial Tablet, the Provincetown Monument, the Monument to the Pilgrims at Southampton, England, the Sarcophagus on Cole’s Hill, Plymouth, the Aptuxet Trading Post, at Bourne, the Mayflower Index, and to lesser memorials throughout the country. One of the most important things accomplished is the purchase and restoration of the Mayflower Society House. This is more than a National Headquarters. It is propaganda for Americanism. It is a landmark that will inspire those who visit Plymouth to increase their knowledge of the Pilgrims and thus help make better citizens of them, and it is a contribution to patriotism. Plymouth welcomes another museum house, particularly an 18th century one, where visitors may learn more of Colonial life and customs. The importantthing is that visitors to the Mayflower Society House, who number thousands each year, coming from every state in the Union, find there exists an organization to perpetuate the memory and carry forward the ideals of the Pilgrims.
When the General Society of Mayflower Descendants was organized, it adopted a declaration of purpose, the most important part of which is to commemorate and honor the Pilgrims, to defend the principle of civil and religious liberty, as set forth in theMayflower Compact, to discover and publish original matter pertaining to the Pilgrims, and to authenticate, preserve, and mark spots of Pilgrim association.
These things the historian, orator, and poet have helped do. In our libraries are carefully prepared writings on the subject by Fiske, Dexter, John Quincy Adams and Daniel Webster, Choate, Everett and Sumner, and so on down to Henry Cabot Lodge, Calvin Coolidge, and the third Governor Bradford. So diligent have writers and speakers been, it is difficult to find and add new facts.
There are those who say, “It’s not what my ancestors did, it’s what I’ve done. I live in the present, not the past.” One must make good, but statistics prove those most successful are the first to preserve the best of the past.
It is fitting and proper that the descendants of the Pilgrims should gather in Plymouth from time to time and give expression to the respect, gratitude and admiration they feel for the Pilgrims. To express sympathy for them for the terrible months they spent crossing the stormy Atlantic, and the added months on shipboard while shelters were being erected on shore for the first winter in a foreign land, when nearly half the company died of scurvy and ship fever, in spite of which not one member gave up and returned to England when theMayflowersailed.
The Pilgrims believed in the equality of all men before God; they, therefore, made all men equal before the Law. On the Sarcophagus, which contains the remains of some of the Pilgrims, is this inscription:
“This monument marks the first burying-ground in Plymouth of the Passengers of the Mayflower. Here, under cover of darkness, the fast dwindling Company laid their dead; levelling the earth above them lest the Indians should learn how many were the graves.READER, History records no nobler venture for Faith and Freedom than that of this Pilgrim band. In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and cold they laid the foundations of a State wherein every man, through countless ages, should have liberty to worship God in his own way. May their example inspire thee to do thy part in perpetuating and spreading throughout the World the lofty Ideals of our Republic.”
“This monument marks the first burying-ground in Plymouth of the Passengers of the Mayflower. Here, under cover of darkness, the fast dwindling Company laid their dead; levelling the earth above them lest the Indians should learn how many were the graves.READER, History records no nobler venture for Faith and Freedom than that of this Pilgrim band. In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and cold they laid the foundations of a State wherein every man, through countless ages, should have liberty to worship God in his own way. May their example inspire thee to do thy part in perpetuating and spreading throughout the World the lofty Ideals of our Republic.”
We must admire the Pilgrims for their courage and piety, for their attachment to civil rights and religious liberty in exile, under unhappy conditions.
There was a famine the first year, but no actual starvation as there were wild fowl, shellfish, and berries in abundance, but there was cold and snow, and there were Indians and sickness to cope with.
A great disaster befell the community the second year which seldom seems to be mentioned, but which would have discouraged less resolute souls. The shipFortunecarrying their entire year’s yield of furs and products to England to be sold, was captured by the French as a prize.
The gist of the preface of a book entitled “The Pilgrim Fathers,” by W. H. Bartlett, published in London, England, in 1853, is—
“Of the many heroic emigrations from our island, which have covered the face of the earth, no one is more singular than the band of sectaries driven forth in the reign of James I. In an age when toleration was unknown, they were thrust forth from their native land, thus the harshness of the rulers became the instrument which planted on American shores a mighty republic, the proudest and most powerful offshoot of the mother country, whose institutions, as thus founded, are not without a powerful reaction upon her own.“The details of the story are unknown to the mass of English readers, while across the Atlantic they are known to almost every child, and numerous are the works published about them and many are the Americans who visit Boston, Scrooby and Leyden, but these publications and researchers are all unknown in England and therefore this continuous narrative.”
“Of the many heroic emigrations from our island, which have covered the face of the earth, no one is more singular than the band of sectaries driven forth in the reign of James I. In an age when toleration was unknown, they were thrust forth from their native land, thus the harshness of the rulers became the instrument which planted on American shores a mighty republic, the proudest and most powerful offshoot of the mother country, whose institutions, as thus founded, are not without a powerful reaction upon her own.
“The details of the story are unknown to the mass of English readers, while across the Atlantic they are known to almost every child, and numerous are the works published about them and many are the Americans who visit Boston, Scrooby and Leyden, but these publications and researchers are all unknown in England and therefore this continuous narrative.”