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| Aerial View of Plymouth Colony |
"Another published reference to the Pilgrims during their Leiden period, and the earliest to appear, is found in the first history of the city of Leiden - Jan Jansz Orlers' Description of the City of Leyden, a 1614 joint effort by three Leiden publishers, Henrick Haestens, Jan Orlers, and Jan Maire."
The book includes a fairly extensive description of the poor and indigent in the city supported by the Welfare Masters who distributed fuel to everyone without any distinction.
"In Plymouth Colony, the Pilgrims established similar civic systems for providing at common cost for the support of widows, orphans and the poor, as they perceived themselves commanded to do by biblical precept."
"Orlers' description of the English as divided into two congregation indicates his awareness of both the English Reformed Chruch (Puritans) established in 1607, and the Pilgrim congregation of John Robinson and Deacon William Brewster. Brewster lived just around the corner from Orlers, who had moved to the Pieterskerk Koorsteeg in 1697. They became friends, so much so that Orlers took some of the books Brewster published, along with his own, when he went to the international book fair at Frankfurt in 1617. Very well connected, Orlers was a nephew of Leiden's city secretary, Jan van hout, who had ensured that the Pilgrims received permission to come there. Orlers was in a position to help Brewster escape when the English demanded the suppression of the Pilgrim's publishing activities and attempted to have Brewster arrested."
Some sources:
Bangs, Jeremy. "Towards a Revision of the Pilgrims: Three New Pictures," NEHGS Register 153, Boston: MA: NEGHS, 1999.
Breugelmans, Ronald. "The Pilgrims Press & How Its Books Were Sold," The Pilgrims in the The Netherlands, Leiden: The Leiden Pilgrim Documents Center, 1995.
Dozy, Charles, et al. The Pilgrim Fathers: Exhibition of Documents from Public and Private Collections at Leiden, Relating to Dutch Settlements in North-America, Ledien: Trap, 1888.
Neal, Daniel. History of the Puritans, London: R. Hett, 1732.
Prince, Neal. A Chronological History of New-England in the Form of Annals, Boston, MA: Cummings, Hilliard & Co., 1826
Sumner, George, "Memoirs of the Pilgrims at Leyden," Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, 3rd Series, Vol. 9, Boston, MA: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1846.
Bangs, Jeremy. "A Window Into Holland's Heroic Golden Age," New England Ancestors, Fall 2004.
"John Adams wrote in his diary that on October 8, 1782, he 'cast an Eye on the Collection of Pictures,' while waiting in the Truce Chamber of the Dutch parliament buildings in The Hague for signed copies of the Treaty of Amity and commerce between The Netherlands and the United States of America. These paintings depicted the heroic deeds of antique hero Claudius Civilis, and Adams asked who the painter was. The Clerk of Parliament answered 'that it was Otto Ovenius a Dutch Painter, Author of the Emblemata Horatiana. That each of those Pictures was formed upon some Passage of Tacitus.'"
Bangs, Jeremy, "An Unknown Seventeenth-Century Map of New England!" New England Ancestors, Fall 2002.
Description of a map housed in the Vatican Library: unpublished, ink and watercolor map of New England drawn by Dutch artists Johannes Vingboons ca. 1670 from cartographic information of about forty years earlier. Published in Bangs, Jeremy. Indian Deeds, Land in Plymouth Colony, 1620-1691.
Bangs, Jeremy. Begat . . . Begat . . . Begat . . . Begat . . . " New England Ancestors, Summer 2002.
Discussion about a Bible published in 1634-35 which contains a section entitled The Genealogies Recorded in the Sacred Scriptures, According to Every Family and Tribe with the Line of our Sauiour Iesvs Christ, Observed from Adam to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The genealogy includes coats of arms which the author discusses at length.
Bangs, Jeremy, "Did They Know They Were Pilgrims?" New England Ancestors, Holiday, 2004
Did the Pilgrims call themselves "pilgrims?" People have cited Willison's Saints & Strangers; National Geographic Society children's books; Plimoth Plantation.
When did the term "Pilgrims" become known in reference to these New England colonists?
According to Willison the term came into common usage in 1840. He ignores several instances of the use of the term prior to 1840, e.g. foundation of the Pilgrim Society in 1820, Francis Bayllie's 1830 Historical Memoir of the Colony of New Plymouth; and James Thacher's History of the Town of Plymouth printed in 1832 among others.
Samuel Eliot Morrison states that "the term Pilgrim Fathers was first applied exclusively to the Mayflower passengers in the celebration of 1799, but it was Bradford himself who called himself and his companions Pilgrims."
What did these colonists call themselves?
Morrison points out that the sources of the term - Bradford's phrase "they knew they were pilgrims" - was first printed in 1669 in Nathaniel Morton's New England's Memorial.
Edward Arber, writes that the "Pilgrim Fathers" were "All those members of the Separatist Church at Leyden, who voted for the emigration to America, whether they were actually able to go or not; together with such others as joined their Church from England. Membership in the Pilgrim Church was the first qualification; intended, or actual, emigration to New England was the second one.
A second argument is that it is off point to attempt to apply the term pilgrim to the Plymouth colonists.
Writing circa 1630, William Bradford was, however, not the first to use the now-famous phrase. In Mourt's Relation, published in London in 1622, Robert Cushman quotes the identical biblical passage. "But now we are all in places strangers and pilgrims, travellers and sojourners . . . " Expecting his readers to know their Bible, Cushman omits the verse reference Bradford cites, Hebrews 11:13-16. The entire text provides imagery that the colonists could, with Bradford and Cushman, identify as descriptive of their own lives. The full Bible citation, which these people knew, was this:
"All these dyed in the faith, and received not the promises, but sawe them a farre of[f], and beleved them, and received them thankefully, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrimes on the earth.Bradford uses the general New Testament term "Saints" to refer to earlier Protestants in England. When applying for permission to reside in Leiden, the exiles described themselves as "some people of the congregation of the of the Christian Reformed Religion, born in the Kingdom of Great Britain."
For they that say suche things, declare plainely that they seke a countrey.
And if they had bene mindeful of that countrey, from whence they came out, they had leasure to have returned.
but now they desire a better, that is an heavenlie: where fore God is not ashamed of them to be called their God; for he hathe prepared for them a citie.
William Bradford also wrote an autobiographical poem which begins:
From my years young in days of youth,"Pilgrims is not a name foisted on these immigrants two centuries later. "Pilgrims is a name they found in the Bible and used among themselves - not cut off from, but united with, others on the same pilgrimage. It is a deep expression of their own understanding of their lives as Christians. "Pilgrims" for them was no mere literary turn. For that reason, its first appearance among them is not in the writings of either Cushman or Bradford. It is in the name given by William and Susanna White to their son, the first child born in the colony, whom they called Peregrine (from the Latin word "peregrinus" meaning "pilgrim" or "stranger"). These people did know indeed that they were pilgrims.
God did make known to me his truth,
And call'd me from my native place
For to enjoy the means of grace.
In wilderness he did me guide,
And in strange lands for me provide.
In fears and wants, thorugh weal and woe,
A pilgrim, past I to and fro . . .
Sources:
Arber, Edward. The Story of the Pilgrim Fathers, 1606-1623, A.D. as Told by Themselves, their Friends, and their Enemies, London: Ward & Downey, 1897.
Deetz, James & Patricia Scott Deetz, The Times of Their Lives: Life, Love and Death in Plymouth Colony, New York: W.H. Freeman, 2000.
Heath, Dwight, ed. Mourt's Relation, A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, Cambridge, MA: Applewood Books with Plimouth Plantation, 1986.
Morton, Nathaniel. New England's Memorial, Boston, MA: Crocker & Brewster, 1826.
Morrison, Samuel Eliot. Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620-1647 by William Bradford, Sometime Governor Thereof, A new Edition, The Complete Text, with Notes and an Introduction, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1952.
Stratton, Eugene. Plymouth Colony: Its History and People, 1620-1691, Salt Lake City, UT: Ancestry Publishing, 1986.
Williston, George. Saints and Strangers, Being the Lives of the Pilgrim Fathers and their Families, with Their Friends & Foes; & an Account of Their Posthumous Wanderings in Limbo, Their Final Resurrections & Rise to Glory, & the Strange Pilgrimages of Plymouth Rock, New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1945.
Bangs, Jeremy. "It's Not Always Pilgrims," New England Ancestors, Winter 2001.
A discussion of the squirrels of research . . .
A biography of Edward Winslow led to additional research on the Pilgrims in Leiden.
A chapter to be written about vital records in Leiden.
A chapter about the political environment of Leiden --> impacts on decisions later made in Plymouth Colony.
Plan to complete the publication of Plymouth Colony records begun in 1855 and stalled by the Civil War led to an abstracting of all Indian deeds which led to more genealogical data regarding the Indians.
An account regarding the capture of Fort Pentagoet in Maine.
A request for translation assistance brought to light correspondence between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson housed in the The Netherlands national archives.
Bangs, Jeremy. "Leiden's Historic Monuments to be Preserved in New Town Plan," New England Ancestors Winter 2002.
In 2002 Leiden's citizens protested the planned destruction of historic monuments in order to build a shopping center. Some of these monuments include:
St. Catharine's Hospital built 1560 where Myles Standish recuperated from wounds received while a soldier in the Dutch army.
Ruins of the Vrouwekerk, which is the place where Walloons (who became some of the first settlers of New England and New Netherlands) held their religious services. The Delano family is now the best known of these, but Franklin Delano Roosevelt's ancestor Philip Delano, also a forebear of U.S. Grant, had an aunt and uncle, Esther Mahieu and Franchoys Coucke, who were ancestors of the Bush family, so this may be considered a very non-partisan monument.
Bangs, Jeremy. "Leiden's Newest Monunment," New England Ancestors, Spring 2005.
"Leiden's Church of St. Peter, the Pieterskerk, was consecrated in 1121. This earliest church was the chapel of the Courts of Holland, who lived in Leiden before moving to The Hague in the mid-thirteenth century. The Reformation came officially to Leiden in 1572. For the Reformed - Calvinist - services, the Pieterskerk was purged of most of its Catholic ornaments . . . "
"Uninterrupted by the Reformation, the memorial function continued . . . The newest memorial was unveiled on Thanksgiving Day 2004 by Clifford Sobel, the U.S. Ambassador to The Netherlands . . . The stone is mounted on the outside wall of the baptismal chapel, next to the bronze monument to John Robinson, the minister of the Pilgrims who died in Leiden in 1625. The new epitaph commemorates the members of the Pilgrim families buried in the Pieterskerk, and it is a direct outgrowth of the publication of their names in New England Ancestors in the spring 2002 issue."
Text of the new monument reads:
During the Pilgrim Fathers' exile,
more than thirty family members died.
Many were buried in the Pieterskerk along with
their Leiden neighbours.
"But now we are all, in all places,
strangers and pilgrims, travelers
and sojourners . . . "
Robert Cushman, Pilgrim leader, 1622
Robert Peck's child - 1619 - is included in the list this would be one of our cousins.
Bangs, Jeremy. "Mayflower Compact - A Dissenting View, Part One," New England Ancestors, Summer 2003.
In 1802 John Quincy Adams called attention to the Mayflower Compact as an instance, "perhaps the only instance in human history of that positive, original social compact which speculative philosophers have imagined as the only legitimate source of government." He considered the Mayflower Compact to have been the "first example in modern times of a social compact or system of government instituted by voluntary agreement conformable to the laws of nature, by men of equal rights and about to establish their community in a new country."
This opinion has been repeated and embellished for over 200 years.
What does the Mayflower Compact do? It has four elements. First, it identifies the signers as loyal subjects of King James. Thus the foreigners submitted themselves to English law while the English nation (literally, native-born Englishmen) acknowledged their natural condition. Second, it describes the purpose of their voyage and intended colony as an undertaking for the glory of God, the advancement of Christian faith, and honor of king and country. Third, the signers stated that they "solemnly & mutually in ye presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine our selves together in a civill body politick . . . and [fourth] by vertue hearof to enacte laws, ordinances, acts constitutions, & offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet & convenient for ye generall good of ye Colonie."
Bangs, Jeremy. "Mayflower Compact - A Dissenting View, Part Two," New England Ancestors, Fall 2003.
"But where did the charge of dread democracy arise that led Robinson to insist that his church was aristocratic despite being in some respects democratic?"
Discussion of Anabaptist, Mennonite and Plymouth Colony civil government vis a vis biblical principles.
Bangs states "that transfer (from religious to civil democracy) was the significant act of the Pilgrims, embodied in the Mayflower Compact and developed in later laws and structures proposed, accepted and carried out by themselves."
The Mayflower Compact was superseded by the Pierce Patent in 1621 which expanded by the Warwick Patent in 1629. The Warwick Patent augmented the description of the colonists' rights of self-governance:
Alsoe it shall be lawfull and free for the said William Bradford his associates his heires and assigns att all tymes hereafter to incorporate by some usuall or fitt name or title, him or themselves or the people their inhabitinge under him or them with liberty to them and their successors from tyme to tyme to frame, and make orders ordinances and constitutions as well for the beter govermente of their affairs here and the receavinge or admittinge any to his or their society, as alsoe for the better government of his or their people and affaires in New Englande or of his and their people att sea in goeinge thither, or returninge from thence, and the same to put in execucion or cause to be putt in execucion by such officers and ministers as he and they shall authorise and depute: Provided that the said lawes and orders be not repugnante to the lawes of Englande, or the frame of governmente by the said presidente and councell hereafter to be established."Quite clearly, the Mayflower Compact, rooted in Dissenting theology, remained the foundation and formative constitution of Plymouth Colony."
Bangs, Jeremy. "Moses Simons of Leiden," New England Ancestors, Summer 2004.
"The baptismal registers of Leiden's Hooglandsekerk record the baptism of Moses (Simonsz, or Simonson), the son of 'Sijmon Mooses,' (i.e. Simon Mosesz.) on July 26, 1622. His parents registered their betrothal in Leiden on November 4, 1616. Symon Moysesz., 'a locksmith from Ledien,' was accompanied by his guardian Pieter Henricxz. Moll. This last fact indicates that Symon had not reached the age of majority (twenty-five for men; twenty-one for women). The bride-to-be was Annetgen Willemsdr. van Vredenburg, also from Leiden, who was accompanied by her mother, Maria Jansdr."
Bangs, Jeremy. "Moving from Amsterdam to Leiden, 1609," New England Ancestors, Spring 2004.
"In 1609, at the end of April, John Robinson and William Brewster led a group of English Separatists (the "Pilgrims") moving from Amsterdam to Leiden. The move was relatively short, about twenty-five miles, but the land and waterways have changed so drastically that one can only attempt to imagine their journey by interpreting old documents, drawings, and maps."
Bangs, Jeremy. "Name Formations, Part One," New England Ancestors, Fall 2001.
According to the very valuable book by Henry Martyn Dexter and Morton Dexter, The England and Holland of the Pilgrims, in preparation for Thomas Rogers' departure for New England on the Mayflower, Rogers sold his Leiden house to Mordecai Cohen in April 1620.
Upon closer examination Cohen turned out to be Colven. He was originally from Hastings, England. Additional transcription errors have been found in the work.
Moral of the story . . . always check original records whenever possible and look for a native historian when working with records in other languages and / or in old English.
Bangs, Jeremy. "Strangers on the Mayflower - Part One," New England Ancestors, Summer 2004.
"In February 1609 a group of one hundred English religious refugees approached the town secretary, Jan van Hout, requesting permission to reside in the city. The response of welcome the city gave them remains famous in America, and I repeat it here: Leiden 'refuses no honest people free entry to come live in the city, as long as they behave honestly and obey all the laws, and ordinances, and under those conditions the applicants' arrival here would be pleasing and welcome.'"
"When they began their migration to America in 1620, their minister John Robinson counted 400 families willing to make the move. Although some of those families were expected to come out of England to go directly to America, the congregation had clearly increased rapidly during their dozen years in Holland. No longer was the group composed primarily of long-time acquaintances from the neighboring villages of Scrooby, Babworth, Austerfield, and Gainsborough. In Leiden, new members joined who came from a variety of places in East Anglia and Kent, with numerous additions of people from London, and several from the West Country, besides Myles Standish, who, according to the most recent scholarship, must have been born on the Isle of Man. Besides the British, we know that several Dutch from Leiden joined the congregation, as did some Walloons (French-speaking Calvinist refugees) and one man identified as having come to Leiden from "Oostland" (a term referring to the Baltic coast, and often specifically indicating Dantzig.)"
Bangs, Jeremy. "Strangers on the Mayflower - Part Two," New England Ancestors, Vol. 1, No. 2.
Reevaluation of the so called strangers who came to Plymouth Colony on the Mayflower. Morison's definition of stranger was "persons unknown to the Leyden Pilgrims or to their friends, who had to be taken along to please the Adventurers and increase the number of colonists."
William Bradford used the term stranger when explaining the parts of the Mayflower Compact and that Christopher Martin was the representative of "these strangers that were to go with them."
John Robinson used the term also, in a letter to John Carver in which he warned the colonists against taking or giving offense easily. Robinson wrote, "There are divers motives provoking you above others to great care and conscience this way:
As first, you are many of you strangers, as to the persons so to the infirmities one of another, and so stand in need of more watchfulness this way, lest when such things fall out in men and women as you suspected not, you be inordinately affected with them; which doth require at your hands much wisdom and charity for the covering and preventing of incident offenses that way. And, lastly, your intended course of civil community will minister continual occasion of offence, and will be as fuel for that fire, except you diligently quench it with brotherly forbearance.A second meaning of the word is found in reference to the Dutch who settled in England. The Norwich historical museum is housed in a seventeenth-century guild hall built by the weavers from the Low Countries called Strangers' Hall. It is therefore possible that the strangers on the Mayflower were Walloon or Dutch passengers which included Francis Cooke who married Hester Mayhew in Leiden's Vrouwekerk, the Walloon church in 1603, when they were still known as frachoys Coucke and Esther Mahieu. Their nephew Philip Delano was baptized in the same church in 1603 as Philippe de la Noye. He would become the ancestor of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Ulysses S. Grants.
Bangs, Jeremy. "Thanksgiving Day - A Dutch Contribution to American Culture?" New England Ancestors, Holiday 2000.
History of the Thanksgiving holiday in America.
In colonial New England, Catholic / Anglican holy days / holidays were not observed, but "under the influence of John Calvin's attempt to reform life along the pattern of precedents found only in the Bible, the Pilgrims and Puritans . . . proclaimed special days of reflection on the outward events of Providence - days of thanksgiving or days of humiliation and penitence. These were not on recurrent dates, and like Thanksgiving Day still, these exceptional days were created by special proclamations."
Description of the Dutch thanksgiving celebration during the Dutch & Spanish war held on October 3rd.
Bangs, Jeremy. "The Pilgrims' Earball," New England Ancestors, Holiday 2005.
Discussion of how the Pilgrims knew Indian corn when they found it before they met up with an Indian.
William Brewster owned a book listed in his estate inventory as "Dodoner Herball." It was also listed in Miles Standish's estate inventory as "Dodines earball."
Rembert Dodoens/Dodonaeus was a Dutch botanist and physician born 1517 and died 1585. He published CruijdeBoeck in 1554 an extensive illustrated herbal discussing most then-known plants as well as diseases and herbal remedies. "On pages 506-7, Dodoens clearly and accurately describes Indian corn, providing an easily recognizable illustration. Dodoens calls it, in Dutch, "torksch Coren" (Turkish wheat); in Latin, Dodoens says it is, according to Pliny, "Milium Indicum" (Indian corn or millet); but Dodoens remarks that nowadays it is called in Latin "Frumentum Turcicum" and "Frumentum Asiaticum." In German it is "Turcken korn" and in French, "Bled Sarazin" (Saracen wheat). These names attest to Indian corn's widespread familiarty in Europe. It grows in Turkey, Dodoens says, and is a recent import from there, now found in the gardens of amateur botanists in the Low Countries. It also grows in India and was brought from there to Italy in the time of Caesar Nero, said Pliny. It is to be sown in April and ripens first in August."
"In recent years, the Pilgrims have increasingly been portrayed as lacking all preparation for survival in New England. William Katz, for example, writes that 'They were able to avoid disaster and starvation when the Wampanoag Nation brought them gifts of food and offered advice on planting, hunting, and fishing. [ . . . ] half of the world's crops had been planted by native Americans and were unknown to Europeans [ . . . ].' Squanto 'taught them to use the corn growing wild from the abandoned fields of the village, taught them to fish, and about the foods, herbs and fruits of this land,' according to Julia White.
This growing idea that the Pilgrims were totally ignorant and ill-prepared is a myth that falters especially when one starts reading their Earball."
Bangs, Jeremy. "Truth & Fashion: Edward Winslow," New England Ancestors, Fall 2004.
"Myths keep changing to answer new social questions and in history writing are often presented as new insights based on improved use of evidence. The 'truth' of the moment always needs checking against sources contemporary with historical events. Edward Winslow wrote history and made history, and the Winslow documents, by or about him, do not support some of the most recently cherished myths about the Pilgrims, their colony, and their contacts with Natives."
Bangs, Jeremy. "What's in a Name?" New England Ancestors, Holiday 2002.
The differences between The Netherlands and the Low Countries. Explanation of political issues involved in the 1500s. Information regarding religious reformations throughout Europe and their impace on The Netherlands.
Anabaptist "reformed life according to Old Testament example, including polygamy, by which women, it was said, could all be put under the protective custody of men." The movement was crushed and the leadership executed.
Mennonites founded by Menno Simons a Catholic priest from Friesland who gathered the "refugees of the spirit. In his view, Christians were called to withdraw from the world -- not participate in the processes of impure society, not to kill or inflict bodily harm, and not to associate with the unconverted, even if that meant breaking up exisitng families."
Robert Browne influenced by the Mennonites, "developed the idea of congregations living in mutually watchful ethical purity, separated from the Church of England, and electing their own ministers and officers. Unity would be accomplished by mutual agreement to walk in the way of the Lord together, the so-called Covenant.
Puritans influenced by Browne fled to Amsterdam, establishing a congregation in the 1590s.
Baptists came from Separatists led by John Smyth who migrated to Amsterdam. Influenced by the Mennonites, they rejected infant baptism and began to rebaptze themselves as adults and rejecting all who would not be baptized as heretics.
Pilgrims led by John robinson came to Leiden in 1609 to get away from the Baptists. There they established Congregational Churches. Their time in Leiden coincided with the Twelve Years' Truce in the Dutch & Spanish war. As the truce came to an end the Pilgrims cast about for a new home and eventually immigrated to Plymouth Colony.
"Not pacifists and not withdrawn from civil society around them, the Pilgrims, finding themselves to be in fact that civil society when they established their colony, applied the Mennonite principle of democratic equality not only to their congregation but also to their wider common activities in the organization of their colony. "
"In 1643, [Edward] Winslow was one of the initiators of the formation of the United Colonies of New England, whose governments sent representatvie Commissioners to formulate and execute a common foreign policy (with respect to the threat of war, whether from France, The Netherlands, Spain or Indian nations), as well as to settle mutual differences regarding boundaries, jurisdiction, and taxation. This bonding finds its parallel in the States General of the United Provinces of the Netherlands."
Bangs, Jeremy. "What the Huke?" New England Ancestors, Winter 2005.
"Not many early colonial inventories of estates give us details of women's clothing. The first in Plymouth Colony is that of Mary Ring, who died in 1631, but whose estate inventory dates fro 1633, when Samuel Fuller, near death, passed his responsibility for the care of Mary's young orphaned son Andrew Ring to Thomas Prence."
Items listed:
red petticote
violet coloured petticoate
Dutch Yock - yoke
Huke - kind of cape or cloak with a hood - Dutch attire covering the head, face, and all the body.
Bangs, Jeremy. "Winslow's Defense in 1634-1635, New England Ancestors, Holiday 2003.
Excerpts of Pilgrim Edward Winslow's reports to the Commissioners of Plantations as reported by William Bradford, 1634.
To ye right honorable ye Lords commissioners for ye Plantations in America.Sir Fernando Gorges responded with an attack on Winslow's sincerity, accusing the Plymouth colonists of scheming with the Dutch as a means to counteract intervention from London.
The humble petition of edw: Winslow, on ye behalfe of ye plantations in New-England.
Humbly sheweth unto your Lordships, yt [that] whereas your petitioners have planted them selves in new england under his Ma.tis [Majesty's] most gratious protection: now so it is right Hon.bl. that ye French & Dutch doe indeaouer to devide ye land betweene them; for which purpose ye French have, on ye east side, entered and seased upon one of our houses, and carried away the goods, slew 2 of ye men in another place, and tooke ye rest prisoners with their goods. And ye Dutch on ye west, have also made entrie upon Conigtecute [Connecticut] River, within ye limits of his Majts. l[ette]rs patent, where thy have raised a forte, and threaten to expell your petitioners thence, who are also planted upon ye same river, maintaining possession for his Ma.tie to their great charge, & hazard both of lives & goods.
In tender consideration hereof your petitioners humbly pray that your L.pps [Lordships] will either procure their peace with. Those foraine states, or else to give spetiall warrante unto your petitioners and ye English Collonies, to right and defend them selves against all foraigne enemies. And your petitioners shall pray, &c.
That howsoever the agent of New Plymouth pretendes that the coming of the Dutch into the River of Connectacute, was without theire knowledge and that they did laboure to set downe by them to prevent theire farther intrusion upon his Ma[jes]ties Territories, It maie be doubted that they rather had intelligence with them, and that it was a practise betweene them: ffor two speciall reasons.Winslow's petition exposed Archbishop's plan to scrutiny and foiled it.
The one that seeing the Rivers to the Eastwards of them be already planted, by such as favoure not theire waies & opinions; To prevent that, none of the Condicions come to the west, they make it theire Coloure to sit downe by the Dutch That so they might both inlarge theire extent and be free from the danger that might ensue from such a neighbourehood; neither were they hopeles that by such a peace of service, they might obtaine Commission to continue theire possession and so have more lawfull warrant for what they had done.
Theire second reason is That findeing his Ma[jes]tie and theire Lor[dshi]ps begin to be sencible of theire disaffections both to his Ma[jestie]s government & the state Ecclesiasticall, they seeke in tyme to fortifie themselves, by the aids of the duch & to assuer theire trade & commerce by theire meanes, if they be prohibted and from hence as they expect to be, if they submit not as they ought, which in all probability they intended not to doe, till they finde themselves inforced thereunto, by a stronger hand then theire owne.
I wish this were but co[n]iectured, but I feare it will appeare in the end to be too true howsoever there is the lesse danger to be feared when the worst is prevented.
These things Considered to graunt them more extent, or authority were not safe: but to leave them to furhter order from theire Lo[rdshi]pps or the governor to be sent according to his Commission or Instrument to be given in that, or the like Cases.
What fruite is to be expected from such as they are, who dare to say That if a drunken Governer be sent over there, if they take him drunke they will put him in the stockes & send him back againe, whether it be not more than tyme these people should be looked unto is humbly referred to better consideration.
But this crossed both Sr. Ferdinandos Gorges' and Cap: Masons designe, and ye archbiship of Counterberies by them; for Sr Ferd: Gorges (by ye arch[bisho]pps (favore) was to have been sent over generall Gov.r into ye countrie, and to have had means from ye state for yt end.
Laud nonetheless was able to halt action on the petition. Winslow appeared before the Commissioners again,
but ye bishop, Sr. Ferd: and Captine Masson, had, as it seemes, procured [Thomas] Morton . . . to complaine; to whose complaints Mr. Winslow made answer to ye good staisfaction of ye borde, who checked Morton and rebuked him sharply, & allso blamed Sr Fer. Gorges, & Masson, for countenancing him. but ye bish[op]; had a further end & use of his presence, for he now begane to question mr. Winslow of many things; as of teaching in ye church publickly, of which Morton accused him and gave evidence that answered, that some time (wanting a minister) he did exercise his gifte to help ye edification of his brethren, when they wanted better means wch was not often. Then aboute mariage, the which he also confessed, that haveing been called to place of magistracie, he had sometimes maried some. And further tould their lord[shi]ps yt mariage was a civille thinge, & he found no where in ye word of God yt it was tyed to ministrie. Againe, they were necessitated so to doe, having for a long time together at first no minister; besides, it was no new-thing, for he had been so maried himselfe in Holland, by ye magistrats in their Statt-house.Winslow presented another petition:
Ye Peticioner humbly beseecheth yr Lo[rdshi]pps further to Consider
ffirst That whereas he confessed that he had both spoken by way of exhortation to the people & married, yet that it was in America, and at such a time as necessity constrayned them that were there not onely to these but many other things far differing from a setled Common weale; And if he had been heere would not have married nor should have needed to preach as yo[u]r l[ordsh]pps terme it: but having no Minister in 7 or 8 yeares at lest, some of us must doe both; or else for want of the one we might have lost the life & face of Christianity; And if the other w[hi]ch is marriage had been neglected all that time we might become more brutish then the heathen, whne as in doing it we did but follow the president of other reformed Churches.
2. That however we disliked many things in practise heer in respect of Church Ceremony, yet chose rather to leave the Countrey then be accounted Troublers of it, and therefore went into Holland: And that from thence we procured a mocion to be made to his Ma[jes]tie of late famous memory for liberty of Conscience in America under his gratious proteccion, w[hi]sh his Ma[jes]tie thinking very reasonable (as Sr Rob t. Naunton principall Secretary to the State in that time can testifie) we cheerfully proceeded, and afterwards procured a Commission for the ordering of our body politick: And have so demeaned our selves from that time to this as we can give a good account of our loyalty towards his Ma[jes]tie, and have shewed loving respect & reliefe to others his subjects in their extremities.
3. That we were so tender of his Ma[jes]ties honor as we would not enter int league w[i]th any the Natives that would not together w[i]th ourselves acknowledge our Soveraigne for their King, as appeareth by a writing to that end, whereunto their knowne markes are prefixed.
4. That however the maine obiection against us is that we are Brownists, factious Puritanes, Schismatickes &c. If there be any posicion we hold contrary to the Word of God contrary to the royall honor of a King & due allegiance of a Subject, then let his Ma[jes]tie reject us & take all severe courses against us: But if we be fownd truly loyall we humbly entreate to be embraced & encouraged as subjects, And that we may still enjoy the gratious liberty granted by his royall ffather, & hetherto enjoyed under his Ma[jes]ties happy Government we dayly pray for his Ma[jes]tie his royall heires & Successors.
5. That however we follow the discipline rather of other the Reformed Churches then thi [sic] yet the accusacion is false, that we require of those that joyne in Church Communion w[i]th us to Censure the Church of england & her Bishops, All we require being to render a Reason of that ffaith & hope they have in Christ w[hi]ch togeather w [i]th a good testimony of an honest life, wee admitt them; not medling further w[i]th the Church of Engl. then as we are bound to pray for the good thereof.
6. That the Countrey of new-England is frutefull where we live as well for English graine as Indian, the ayre temperate agreeing w[i]th our bodies, the Sea rich in ffish, the Havens commodious: The Northern parts thereof, ffor w[hi]ch we must contend w[i]th the ffrench if this State enjoy them able to supply the Navy of Engl. W[i]th Masts if need require: The Southern for w[hi]ch we contest w[i]th the Dutch being like to prove as serviceable for Cordage by reason of the abundance of hemp & fflax that groweth naturally; All w[hi]ch by our industry, If his Ma[jes]tie and the State be pleased to continue our liberty of Conscience, to keep open the passage of such as will resort to us, & give us so free a Commission for displanting ffrench & dutch as planting the place by us his Ma[jes]ties loyall subjects, Yo[u]r Honors shall soone see his Ma[jes]ties revenues of Customs by reason of this Plantacion enlarged many thowsands per An[num] and this Kingdome supplyed w[i]th many necessaries it wanteth, when as England shall onely part w[i]th a part of her overcharged multitudes w[hi]ch she can better misse then beare. And for w[hi]ch God hath plentifully provided in the other.
7. Consider I beseech yo[u]r Lo[rdshi]pps what our Adversaries that accuse us are, and you shall see them to be such as Morton, who hath been twice sent hither as a delinquent, first for that he furnished the Natives w[ith] peecs powder & shott & taught them the use of them 2ly by my Lord Chiefe Justice Hides warrant to answere for the muther of a person spesified therein. Such like was Sr Christopher Gard[i]ner a Knight of the sepulcher & a Jesuited Gentleman as appeareth by a diary of his owne under his hand w[hi]ch is extant in the Countrey aforesaid. A third they offered the last yeare for testimony against us was one Dixie Bull who was out in Piracy at the same time, & after went to the ffrench &c. These & such like who are enemies to all goodnes are the men that trouble & grieve the State w[i]th false accusacions, and cause them to be prejudiced against us the well deserving subjects of his royall Ma[jes]tie.
8. Whereas they have formerly accused us unjustly w[i]th correspondency w[it]th ffrench & Dutch themselves may justly be suspected, who cannot doe the ffrench & Dutch better service then by go about to perswade the State heer to deprive us of our Liberty of Conscience graunted as aforesaid as also of our freedome of Governm[en]t and set such a Governour over us as will impose the same things upon us we went thither to avoid. And if yo[u]r Lo[rdshi]pps for want of due informacion, I speake w[i]th all submissive reverence should send such a Governour as between whom & the Countrey there is personall dista[s]te & difference, hee might be more prejuditiall to the Plantacions then the swords of ffrench & Dutch, w[hi]ch yo[u]r Peticioner humbly beseecheth yo[u]r Lo[rdshi]pps to consider.
9. That we give a reall testimony of our loyalty by the present possession we maintaine by force at a great charge against the Dutch, & the great losses we sustaine by the ffrench In w[hi]ch cases I came to seeke the plesure of the State, being so tencer of his Majesties & yo[u]r Lo[rdshi]pps displeasure as we durst attempt no further designe ["till" stricken through] w[i]thout yo[u]r honorable approbacion: yet assure my selfe Right hon[ora]ble the enemy durst not have attempted what is past, nor threaten as at p[re]sent, and whereof I can informe if it bee desired, except incouraged by some English.
Lastly Consider I beseech yo[u]r honors that the same persons to whom as I conceive yo[u]r Lo[rdshi]pps promised large Commission for planting the Countrey & displanting ffrench & Dutch, And w[hi]ch intend God permitting to use their best endeavour thereabout if yo[u]r Lo[rdshi]pps thinke meet to refer the ordering therof to us that offer to beare the charge on those termes, doe all now suffer by me their Agent, who cannot by reason of mine imprisonm[e]nt provide a fitt & seasonable supply for the Plantacion or be assured any commission or incouragement but the contrary: When as the Adversaries in the meane time have too great advantage against us, who by credible report intend to assault the plantacions this ensuing Spring.Winslow defended the use of civil marriage in New England by citing the Dutch legal precedent and the absence of a minister. Archbishop Laud disregarding the circumstances had Edward Winslow imprisoned for seventeen weeks.
All w[hi]ch yo[u]r honorable consideration That a Countrey so hopefull be not ruinated, his Majesties loyall subjects will be further bound to pray for recompence of yo[u]r honourable care.
Yo[u]r Lo[rdshi]pps humble servant
Dejected by yo[u]r displeasure
[signed:] Edw: Wynslow
Bangs, Jeremy. "Young William Brewster in Leiden, 1585-86," New England Ancestors, Summer 2000.
William Brewster, later the leading layman, or Elder, of the Pilgrim congregation, was the first of the group to have contact with Leiden. Born about 1566, probably in Scrooby, Nottinghamshire, as a young man he studied in Cambridge.
William Bradford describes Brewster's youthful employment:
He went to ye Courte, and served that religious and godly gentleman Mr. [William] Davison, diverce years, when he was Secretary of State; who found him so discrete and faithfull as he trusted him above all other that were aboute him, and only imployed him in all matters of greatest trust and secrecie. he esteemed him rather as a sonne then a servante, and for his wisdom and godliness (in private) he would converse with him more like a friend & familiar then a maister. He attended his mr. when he was sent in ambassage by the Queen into ye Low Countries, in ye Earle of Leicesters time, as for other weighty affaires of state, so to receive possession of the cautionary townes, and in token & signe thereof the keyes of Flushing [i.e. Vlissingen] being delivered to him in her ma[jes]tis name, he kepte them some time, and committed them to his servante, who kept them under his pillow, on which he slepte ye first night. And, at his returne, ye States honoured him with a goulde chaine, and his master committed it to him, and commanded him to wear it when they arrived in England, as they ridd thorrow the country, till they came to ye Courte. He afterwards remained with him till his troubles, that he was put from his place aboute ye death of ye Queene of Scots; and some good time after, doeing him manie faithfull offices of servise in ye time of his troubles.
Bangs, Jeremy & Gregory Hahn. "The Pilgrims in Holland 1608-1620: A New DVD by the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum," New England Ancestors, Holiday 2006.
For most people, the Pilgrim story starts in England and ends in Plymouth, Massachusetts. But the Pilgrims left England for the Low Countries with no further emigration plans. The Pilgrims in Holland: 1608-1620, an educational DVD in production by the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum in Leiden , The Netherlands, is devoted to the twelve year gap which William Bradford himself never managed to fill. To do so, as he wrote in Of Plymouth Plantation, "might worthily require a large treatise in itself."
Leiden American Pilgrim Museum Foundation
Betlock, Lynn. "Announcing the Pilgrim Migration: Immigrants to Plymouth Colony, 1620-1633, New England Ancestors, Winter 2005.
"The volume collects in one place the existing information on every family or individual known to have resided in Plymouth Colony from the coming of the Mayflower in 1620 until 1633, when the growing migration to Massachusetts Bay Colony to the north changed the dynamics of New England settlement. Each of the more than two hundred sketches provides information on the early histories of these immigrants as well as their New World experiences. This material is followed by complete genealogical accounts, including known parents or English residency, all marriages, and children of the immigrants. Additionally, many of the sketches conclude with discussions of unusual and interesting features of the lives of these pioneers."
Example:
Name:Includes: William Bradford, William Button, Priscilla Carpenter, Philip Delano, Thomas Little, Constant Southworth, Thomas Tilden, Richard Warren
Origin:
Migration: date and ship
First Residence: Plymouth
Occupation: occupation with sources
Freeman: dates and towns
Education: literate, owned books
Offices:
Estate:
Birth: date and place, estimated, baptisms
Death: date and place, estimated
Marriage: spouse, date, place
Children: name, birth, death, marriage, spouse, date, place
Comments:
Duffy, Laura. "Off the Shelf: Building a Personal Core Reference Collection," New England Ancestors, Winter 2002.
- Acquire a diverse selection of good town histories, specifically those with genealogical content.
- Seek out books relevant to the towns in which your ancestors lived.
- Stiles, Henry. The History & Genealogies of Ancient Windsor, 1635-1891
- Mayflower Families Through Five Generations
- Great Migration books.
- New England Historical & Genealogical Register - accessible through NEHGS website
- Melnyk, Marcia. Genealogist's Handbook for New England Research, 1999
- Hughes & Allen. Connecticut Place Names
- Lainhart, Ann. Digging for Genealogical Treasure in New England Town Records, 1996
- Galvin, William. Historical Data Relating to Counties, Cities & Towns in Massachusetts, 1997.
- Librarian's Genealogy Desk Reference - bibliography compiled by Chad Leinaweaver as part of of the NEHGS Genealogy Outreach project, also available at NEHGS website.
- Crandall, Ralph. Shaking Your Family Tree: A Basic Guide to Tracing Your Family's Genealogy.
Duffy, Laura. "Using Eulogies in Genealogical Research," New England Ancestors, Fall 2001.
There are hundreds, possibly thousands, of printed eulogies and funderal sermons tucked away in the collections of libraries and historical societies around New England. The majority date from the 1750s to the mid-nineteenth century. The are predictable, often tedious, examples of the religious rhetoric of their day, but frequently filled with facts, insights and associations you may be missing in your family research.
Many of these examples are available at NEHGS, but comparable collections may be found at university, state, and historical society libraries around New England and throughout the country. Search catalogs for an ancestor's surname, the name of a town or its minister, and phrases such as "funeral sermon," "eulogy" or "memorial" to find one pertinent to your research.
"Genealogies in Progress - Lathrop," New England Ancestors, Fall 2003.
A genealogy is now in progress on the descendants of Azariah and Esther (Lewis) Lathrop of Wells, Rutland County, vermont. Azariah (Ezriah #835) is the last named descendant in our line of Rev. John Lothropp, who arrived in Scituate / Barnstable, Mass., in 1634. Azariah's lineage in the 1884 Lo-Lathrop Memoir by E.B. Huntington is John (1), Samuel (2), Samuel (3), Samuel (4), Samuel (5), Samuel (6), Azariah (7). The work in progress traces the eleven children of Azariah and Esther Lewis Lathrop, ten of whom left issue. The names are: Marcia S. (1796-1884) who married Samuel Ransom; Charlotte Sarah (1798-1878) who married Joshua Wardell; Esther (1800-1876) who married John Howard Pray; Sally (1802-1878) who married Phineas Graves; Phebe (1804-1880) who married Elihu CLine; Unicy (1806-1807); Ann (1808-1894) who married Randall Porter; Eunice (1810-1863) who married Elias Martin; Azariah Jr. (1812-1893) who married Rachel Bishop; Samuel (1815-1893) who married Margaret Hayes; and Levi Lewis (1818-1892) who married Samantha McCapes.
Kainer, R.G. "Do Not Go Gently: The Quiet Death of Dorothy (May) Bradford," New England Ancestors, Fall 2001.
Dorothy May was sixteen when she married twenty-three year old Separatist William Bradford in Amsterdam in 1613. Her fate, however, was to die at twenty-three when somehow - and in some way - she fell from the Mayflower as it lay anchored in Cape Cod Harbor. Her body was never recovered. Her only son John died without issue.
Jane (Goodwin) Austin first suggested Dorothy's death was a suicide in "William Bradford's Love Live," Harper's New Monthly Magazine, July 1869. She claimed that Dorothy's suicide was a result of William Bradford inability to get over his rejection by Alice (Carpenter) Southworth, his first love and only true love. This story has since been debunked due to lack of source materials.
George Bowman refuted Mrs. Austin's claims by citing Cotton Mather's 1702 Magnalia Christi Americana:
. . . at their first Landing [Bradford's] dearest Consort accidentally falling Overboard, was drowned in the Harbour.Other scholars have pointed out that Mather's intent for the Magnalia was to revive memory of the divinity of the early spirit of Plymouth Colony and remind the now-wayward of their pious origins. Mather had acknowledged suicides as being a major problem in other works, but may have glossed over incidents when writing the Magnalia.
W. Sears Nickerson in his Land Ho! 1620: A Seaman's Story of the Mayflower, Her Construction, Her Navigation & Her First Landfall, holds a similar view to Mrs. Austin, especially regarding her assertion that William Bradford's love for Alice Carpenter did not abate with her marriage to Edward Southworth, or his own marriage to Dorothy May. A descendant of Alice & her first husband Edward Southworth, Nickerson cites family lore.
Did she commit suicide? Possibly. Historians differ:
Samuel Eliot Morison - yes
Eugene Stratton - no
Leclerc, Michael. "New NEHGS CD-Rom! Introducing Plymouth Church Records 1620-1859," New England Ancestors, Fall 2003.
Discussion of the resource.
"In the summer of 1622 the Plymouth colonists erected a fort for their protection. This fort also served as the meetinghouse for the First Church of Plymouth until 1648. New meetinghouses were erected that year, and in 1683, 1744, and 1831. In 1892, this last building burned to the ground during a restoration project. In 1897, a fifth building was constructed on the town square and is still the home of this stalwart congregation.
Over 381 years, the church has given rise to over half a dozen offshoots. In 1632, new congregations were formed in Duxbury and Marshfield. In 1646, Eastham formed it own parish. In 1698, a new church was formed in the town of Plympton, and in 1717, the inhabitants of Kingston formed their own parish."
Nathaniel Morton completed his "History of the Plymouth Church 1620-1680," in 1680. He discusses the influx of immigrants to bolster the colony:
In Anno 1629 a Considerable Number of the bretheren of the Church which were le[ft] in holland were Transported ouer to vs that were of the Church of New England which although it was att About 500 lb charge yet it was bourne Chearfully by the poor bretheren heer Concerned in It; alsoe about that time seuerall Godly prsons; some whereof had bin of mr. Laythorps Church in England and others alsoe Came to vs out of England; soe that wee becaime through the Goodness of God pretty Numerous and were in the best estate Respecting the Church that wee had as yet bine in New England.Pastors, Elders and Deacons of the First Church of Pymouth
Pastors
Ralph Smith, 1629-1635
John Reyner 1636-1654
John Cotton 1669-1697
Ephraim Little 1699-1723
Elders
William Brewster 1620-1644
Thomas Cushman 1649-1691
Thomas Faunce 1699-1746
Deacons
John Carver 1620-1621
Samuel Fuller 1620-1633
Richard Masterson 1629-1633
Thomas Blossom 1629-1633
John Doane
William Paddy
John Cook
John Dunham -1669
Robert Finney 1669-1687
Ephraim Morton 1669-1693
Thomas Faunce 1686-1699
George Morton 1694-1727
Nathaniel Atwood 1694-
Thomas Clark 1694-1697
Moore, Susan. "Excerpts from Pilgrims: New World Settlers & the Call of Home," New England Ancestors, Spring 2008.
"In this new book published by Yale University Press, Susan Hardman Moore examines a fascinating topic - how changed circumstances in England led to the return home of many Great Migration immigrants. The complex reasons that spurred them to brave the Atlantic again - the allure of revolutionary England, an eye for profit, the workings of Providence, the call of home - show that much more was at stake than simply a failure to settle. America was a stage in their journey, not an end in itself."
Our ancestor Rev. Robert Peck and his family were among those who returned to England when Oliver Cromwell came to power.
Moore, Susan. "Research and Writing Pilgrims," New England Ancestors, Spring 2008.
"To find people who returned home before 1660, I trawled sources on both sides of the Atlantic. I caught many people at the point of setting sail for home. No passenger rosters exist for return voyages (there is no parallel to the records the English authorities tried to keep of immigrants to New England), but settlers often took steps to set their affairs in order before they risked the Atlantic voyage again: by writing a will, selling land, or giving a neighbor power of attorney to look after their colonial property. Those who left might seek permisison from their town or church to abandon their obligations in the New World - occasionally the records grant approval (perhaps grudgingly) for a settler to return home. So from tiny fragments of evidence in early sources, I gathered names of colonists who left."
"NEHGS Presents 'Pilgrims & Adventurers,' Beginning 1 March," NEHGS Nexus, Vol. XI, No. 1, [1994].
Announcement regarding an exhibition called Pilgrims & Adventurers celebrating the role of the county of Essex, England in the making of the United States.
Among the highlights of the exhibit are a dramatic audio presentation of Gov. William Bradford's Pilgrim journal and a ship's mast, rails and lectern desk holding a list of many immigrants from Essex County.
An accompanying book, Pilgrims & Adventurers by J.R. Smith will be available for purchase a the exhibit or by mail.
Paulick, Michael. "A Mayflower Pilgrim Quadricentennial," New England Ancestors, Fall 2006.
"This year [2006] commemorates the four-hundredth anniveersary of the founding of a Mayflower Pilgrim church in the north of northern Nottinghamshire area of England in 1606. This church was not a physical structure but rather a covenant of believers."
"We do not know the identify of most of the 'saints' who entered into this 1606 covenant. They were said to be from various 'towns and villages' who shook off the 'anti-Christian bondage' and Church of England membership forced upon them. William Bradford, later governor of Plymouth Colony, William Brewster, later a Pilgrim elder, and John Smyth were likely present when this original covenant was made. Contemporary primary sources for this event are provided by Bradford, author of Of Plymouth Plantation; Edward james, an anti-Pilgrim Church of England minister from Gainsborough. William Bradford told of the covenant in his book:
[T]he Lord's free people joined themselves (by a covenant of the Lord) into a church estate, in the fellowship of the gospel, and to walk all His ways made known. . .He continued
These people became two distinct bodies or churches, and in regard of distance of place did congregate severally [separately] for they were of sundry towns and villages, some in Nottinghamsire [Scrooby and surrounding area], some of Lincolnshire [Gainsborough area], and some of Yorkshire [Austerfield/Bawtry area] where they border nearest together."A newly improved Mayflower Trail retraces the steps of the early Pilgrim separatists and highlights sites associated with them. The area, termed "Pilgrim Country" by the local tourist bureau, encompasses roughly fifty square miles of four English counties: Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and Derbyshire. More details are available at www.PilgrimFathersOrigins.com.
Paulick, Michael. "The Mayflower Pilgrims & Thomas Wilson's Christian Dictionarie," New England Ancestors, Winter 2006.
"The books the Mayflower Pilgrims read and their own writings offer essential insights into their religious beliefs and practices. Recent research in Canterbury, Kent, England, into the life of a robert Cushman, the Pilgrims' agent in London, revealed a connection to Thomas Wilson, author of A Christian Dictionarie."
Several of the Pilgrims in Plymouth owned copies of this book.
"The Christian Dictionarie contains Thomas Wilson's definition of everyday words, often accompanied by a biblical quotation. For example, the definition of 'Children of Disobedience' included a quotation from Ephesians 5:6: 'The wrath of God cometh upon the children of disobedience.' Also included was a definition of 'Pilgrimes' which has been the subject of much discussion in recent years. Some have suggested that the Pilgrims di not identify themselves as 'pilgrimes' or as members of a group by that name."
"Wilson's Christian Dictionarie also included a definition of Thanksgiving. Some have claimed tha the Pilgrim thanksgiving for their first harvest in 1621 originated from a traditional 'harvest festival' celebration the Pilgrims had experienced in England."
Simons, D. Brenton. "Leiden: Looking at Pilgrim Life Before the Mayflower," New England Ancestors, Spring 2001.
Description of a visit to Leiden over Thanksgiving.
"My Leiden experience commenced with a Thanksgiving Day service for seven hundred or so Americans at a massive and hauntingly beautiful church, the Pieterskerk. According to Jeremy [Bangs], the present building of the Pieterskerk dates from 1390 to 1565 and is notable for its important seventeenth-century organ. It also figures in Pilgrim history as the burying place of Pilgrim leader John Robinson. When Abigail Adams visited the Pieterskerk she recalled the Pilgrim 'forefathers' and noted that she 'felt a respect and veneration upon entering the doors, like the ancients paid to their Druids.'"
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