Ethel J. R. C. Noyes

“ Their eyes sharpened by expectancy and uncertainty, soon discern the stranger’s sails, even as the lookout from the fort calls out the fact that it is in view. Intently they wait and watch, when, behold, before their astonished eyes, the flag of England is flung out in greeting! Relief and amazement run a race in their minds. The ship is smaller than the Speedwell. The first boat puts out, making straight for the men drawn up on the seashore. In their incredulity they can scarce recognize, can scarce believe, what they see: Robert Cushman grasping the hands of Brewster and Bradford ”

“ As the turn of the road will soon take him from sight, he looks back at the group watching him for a final wave of his hat, then rides on towards his destination, Cambridge, thinking, perhaps, of the gentle Mary, whom we have noted, whose fine character and winning ways are already an influence with him and not thinking at all, or knowing, of another Mary who is to be perhaps an equal if not more potent influence in his life—a woman in as great a contrast in rank and circumstance as the difference may be between a queen and a village maid. ”

“ The mission of the Mayflower company was to open the way for a successful colonization of the New World. Its mission was faithfully performed. In studying the details and circumstances relating to the immortal voyage and settlement of Plymouth—particularly in relation to the women, vested today with supreme interest and in a glamour peculiarly their own, we must feel that that nobility of life may be ours as well as theirs and that it may illuminate the difficult life of today and make it worthy to be the fruit of the tree of Liberty they helped to plant, in tears and smiles. ”

“ Away with the Mayflower to a once familiar life from unfamiliar trials, from haunting memories to friends or relatives left on the other side of the sea? Each woman for herself has answered “No.” The venture made in faith by those loved and gone from their sight, should not have been made in vain; the standard formed of high hope and courage should not go down while they were able in the light of that faith and remembrance to carry it forward. ”

“ If history as some one has said is in its unchangeable essence a tale, then this particular history is a tale that cannot be too often told or heard, not merely to hold our attention to the past but by its light to look forward with a thrill to the future, to the tasks and service for civilization, under the Providence by which the women of the Mayflower and the women of Plymouth were upheld. This will be the best memorial we can give these women all through the years; the remembrance that cannot fade. ”

“ While the history of these Pilgrims may be told, and has been, with casual if any reference to the women, the story of the women must hinge on reference to the whole Pilgrim story. Looking at them from our position, down the long vista, seeing the background of which they were hardly conscious, the foreground invisible to them, their reality and aliveness should be vividly lighted by all the colors of romance which only distance may give and we should be able to get the feeling that things had for them, at least. ”

“ There is much need to-day to perpetuate their spirit, to practise their faith, to maintain their ideals. They loved liberty and endured hardship, sacrifice and suffering for its sake. They built the homes of the Nation on the foundation of English ideals of home and family life which we cherish to-day as ours. They served their homes and the community life of the colony with loyal and unswerving devotion. ”

“ Her young husband was to steadily advance in the esteem of the colony and in material position, reaching the important place of governor in a few years. Thus destiny had woven for her life a beautiful pattern, with childhood in Scrooby, girlhood in Leyden, womanhood in Plymouth, with love and tender care to lighten all her days. A bright particular star in the galaxy of women of Plymouth colony who were not of the Mayflower company, but who found their life’s fulfillment there. ”

“ Thus, by the coming of the Anne, bringing her own dear daughters, after three years of separation, Mary Brewster was able to smile at the departure of two of her loving daughters of adversity, to homes of their own. In this practical and primitive life, no honeymoons could be thought of. Plymouth, itself, then lay within the radius of a quarter of a mile and there was not another civilized habitation in hundreds of leagues, so the only wedding journey of these Mayflower girls, Priscilla and Elizabeth, was from Elder Brewster’s doorway to their own new homes ”

“ While each old friend or comparatively new acquaintance who had been of their original party at home, must have grown doubly dear by similar situation in the surrounding strangeness of this new world with all its marvels and perplexities. The contrast between the quiet existence they had led so long and the bustling, colorful life into which they were plunged, might well have dazed them for a time had not a certain sort of commotion and change attended them, in the interval, and been an unforseen preparation for steadiness in any confusion of circumstance. ”

“ The eager children are held from crowding forward as they near the shore. An instant of excitement, the sailors making ready to fasten the boat, it touches, is beside the rock; the woman who stood foremost at the bow on the way over, has poised herself a second and sprung from the boat, catching at the outstretched hands of the nearest man, to steady her foothold on the slippery stone; the keen wind and spray have dashed color in her cheeks, the brilliancy of sun on snow is reflected in her eyes—a flashing triumph at being the first—it is Mary Chilton. ”

“ Some are using their greatest efforts; some are too weak to come at all, and even those still well are vastly different in looks and manner from their appearance at leaving old Plymouth or even on that first Monday of enthusiasm at Cape Cod. But all feel that a new era is dawning and again the need calls out the latent spirit of sacrifice inherent in every woman, on this occasion once more requiring the putting aside of personal feelings of sorrow or illness for the common good. ”

“ The little family of three had expected to face the new life together, with whatsoever pleasure or privation it might bring, and to have the one taken for whom and with whom the other two had willingly ventured, strong in their love and determination to bear their part in the work which needed women’s hands to secure even a semblance of home, was crushing indeed. Yet these women, already proven brave, would now be braver still and rejoice in the safe return in the shallop of the other husbands and fathers who brought the good news of a satisfactory place to establish their settlement. ”

“ On a March day, the first ship of the season from England came into view. If one has ever lived, in modern times, far from native land and many dear friends, as on island possessions, for instance, in civil or military life, with ships coming safely to harbor, the only chance of communication with the outside world, bringing letters, packages of gifts or a friend or two, perchance, with weeks or months of interval between sight of a ship from over-seas, one may easily comprehend just how the women of Plymouth felt when a ship was coming in. ”

“ Prence, John Winslow, Philip de la Noye and half a dozen more of the young men drop in of an evening, with four attractive girls and charming hostess to welcome them, and even an older man occasionally, as when Isaac Allerton brings his daughter over to join in the fun; though he appears only to talk to the Elder he glances at one of the girls, sometimes. Patience has her little flax wheel at one side of the room under a candle bracket and the whir of the wheel makes a background for the voices. ”

“ The women had more to do, however, than look towards the shore and long to land, for the life on the ship was not an idle one for any of them while health and strength lasted. As, one by one, illness attacked them, those remaining well had many added cares. Assisting Doctor Fuller, attending to the wants of the families of those mothers who were ill, preparing the food for the sick and for the men who went daily ashore to work, keeping the children safe and amused, and, above all, keeping their own faith and hope alive went on as unendingly as the swell of the sea beneath them. ”

“ From the time of the first anchoring of the ship (at Cape Cod) of the total of the twenty-five women and young girls, thirteen were released from their labors. It is indeed remarkable that even twelve should have survived. Into the hearts of those recovering from their own illness, the spirit of desolation must have entered for a time, as they struggled to their feet again, to grieve for those who were laid to rest under the snow and to take up the burdens of life once more. ”

“ They well realized the important asset to their venture, of the women. Without them not even the magnetism and charm of Brewster, the indomitableness and courage of Myles Standish, the business ability of Allerton, the experience of Hopkins, the worldly wisdom of Winslow, the youth and strength of John Howland and John Alden or the zeal and fervor of Bradford and Carver could have assured the stability and success of this colony. ”

“ Someone has said that always in the history of mankind the woman has been at her best when she has felt herself most needed. Every reason then for her to attract as she appears in pioneer days, in those of the Revolution or War for the Union and in the World War, unfailingly illustrating, unconsciously or not, the age old motto of Noblesse Oblige.
In hamlet or city, women descendants of Plymouth women upheld the honor of their men and country in Red Cross, Government Loans or “Y.” work during the World War. ”

“ As we have seen the men in all the branches of service to their country, the women may be compared no less favorably in what they have rendered. In their nation’s wars, they have ever been faithful, and their efforts as beneficial to the men and cause as were those of their ancestors of their own sex, whose work was as the mortar in the solid foundation wall of the nation they helped to build. ”

“ Realizing the heavy debt that we owe to the men who were led to undertake the settlement of Plymouth we owe an equal if not greater debt to the women who had the courage and spirit to enter with them into the great and epoch making adventure. ”

“ Also the wife of Captain Standish, who had joined this expedition, thought that any undertaking with which her martial husband connected himself was right, and so long as she could be with him in any part of the world, happiness would be hers. These three women, having only their husbands to think of, are naturally drawn together, and each can appreciate the beauty and charm of the others, being equally lovely herself. ”

“ The abandonment of such ventures in Maine and Virginia, where no women had accompanied the men, is proof that a common larder and fireside are not the things for which men struggle against hardship, disaster and death. But the street of Plymouth, albeit made in the face of every trial of circumstance, was made by men for the women they loved, and Plymouth has never been abandoned nor its street untrod by the families and descendants of these men and women. ”

“ To work in one’s very own soil was pleasure as well as profit, discounting the fatigue.
At this time, also, the women had a particularly choice bit of satisfaction. No less than the total disestablishment and wreck of the colony which the men had come to plant who had accepted hospitality from the Plymouth people, when they arrived, and so discourteously returned it by ridiculing a settlement which contained women. Appeals for help from them were received, and with usual generosity were granted, to enable them to keep their lives from starvation and the Indians, and to leave that country. ”

“ Alice Carpenter—the lovely English girl, going with her family into voluntary exile in Leyden, marrying there and afterwards living, a prosperous matron of London, as Alice Southworth, then crossing the sea, a widow, to become a bride again, this time of a Colonial governor, living thereafter as Alice Bradford, an adornment of the community about her and a great factor in its peace and progress—weaves one of the bright threads of romance through the story of the women of Plymouth. ”

“ At a well by the old wall several young women have gathered, some to get water for their household use, others to meet them there for a gossip—for even in the little colony of English Separatists living so quietly on their own ground, itself almost a cloister, in the gay city of Leyden there was, of course, gossip in its friendly and sociable meaning. But chat between the women only is interrupted, and apparently to their amusement, by small boys and girls all eagerness at a tale one of their number is telling of an exciting event in their school life that day ”

“ There was not room for both of Edward Winslow’s brothers on the larger ship, when the Speedwell failed their hopes, so John had to seek the new world and his winsome Mary, at a later day. John Alden, the young cooper, engaged for the voyage at Southampton, has already met his fate in acquaintance with the buoyant Priscilla. The names of these two sweet maids of the Mayflower, (soon to become sorrow-touched women of the new colony) ripple as music through poetry and romance, or staid fact and history to our imagination.
Here is a group whom we know far less well ”