Thus on through its seventy years of shadow and sunshine, heroic daring, splendid achievement and independence, we may follow the fascinating records of Plymouth Colony—especially as those records are tinted even faintly by the footprints and finger-touches of its women.
As the first death on theMayflowerat anchor was that of a woman, Dorothy Bradford, so the last survivor of the originalMayflowercompany was a woman, Mary Allerton Cushman, who saw all of the life with its chances and changes of which we read.
Through the years we may well believe that the women of theMayflowerwho became the women of Plymouth, and their children, whether in newer homes or remaining in the old, looked back to the early days of their privation, when by their anxieties, their sorrows, their economies, their endeavors, their fearlessness and faith, the foundation of their colony was laid.
We may well echo their thoughts as they remembered some of Elder Brewster’s words on their first Thanksgiving Day, which one orator has expressed as “Generations to come will look back to this hour and these scenes, this day of small things and say, ‘Here was our beginning as a people. These were our fathers and mothers. Through their trials we inherit our blessings. Their faith is our faith, their hope our hope, their God our God.’”