Plumstead

“ More than “two hundred years ago,” when first the foot of civilization pressed the unturned sod of New England’s rock-bound soil, a man, past the prime of life, having lost his place in England, determined on seeking a new name in a new country. Accordingly, he embarked with his only earthly treasures, his wife and the family coat of arms, and, after a dangerous voyage, reached Plymouth Rock, only to encounter more dangers. ”

“ This time when the plow struck the root and turned its nose down, the team did not balk; it walked right along dragging a shattered plowbeam and the old "Cast Plow" was a total wreck. There we left its remains buried in the soil of the valley. If, as the pioneer plow of old Polk, it had anything to do with "Saving Oregon," it builded much better than it plowed.
The hills of the Coast range rose like a continuous wall four thousand feet high along the line of the ocean. Covered over with a dense evergreen forest, vast, dark and as yet unexplored, they marked the western line of our horizon. ”

“ One realizes the faithful and honest comprehensiveness of his memory's scrutiny, obeying the habitual call of his conscience, which would not allow him the transcription of untruths under any circumstances. His review "of Plimoth Plantation" is well worthy of its place as New England's first historical record of considerable extent, following Edward Winslow's fascinating journal of the three initial years. ”

“ The Town of Plymouth is fortunate in having this wide expanse of adaptable terrain within its confines. The entire area with its scenic beauty, its woods, its lakes, its bay, its beaches, its rocks, its foliage and flowers, is a natural heritage, which, combined with man’s handiwork, is becoming more and more inviting, not only as a haven of rest and recreation, but as the ideal American homesite. ”

“ The park reservation surrounding the Rock, from the roadway eastward to the water, is the property of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and is cared for and controlled by the State.
“Plymouth Rock does not mark a beginning or an end. It marks a revelation of that which is without beginning and without end, a purpose shining through eternity with a resplendent light, undimmed even by the imperfections of men, and a response, an answering purpose from those who oblivious, disdainful of all else, sought only an avenue for the immortal soul.” ”

“ In one field is a great hill on which we point to make a platform and plant our ordnance, which will command all round about. From thence we may see into the bay, and far into the sea, and we may see thence Cape Cod. Our greatest labor will be fetching of our wood, which is half a quarter of an English mile, but there is enough so far off. What people inhabit here we yet know not, for as yet we have seen none. So there we made our rendezvous, and a place for some of our people, about twenty, resolving in the morning to come all ashore and to build houses. ”

“ Soon they came to the edge of a grove and deep among the trees Captain Plum caught a glimpse of a lighted window. Obadiah Price now began to exhibit unusual caution. He approached the light slowly, pausing every few steps to peer guardedly about him, and when they had come very near to the window he pulled his companion behind a thick clump of shrubbery. Nathaniel could hear the old man's subdued chuckle and he bent his head to catch what he was about to whisper to him.
"You must make no noise, Nat," he warned. "This is the castle of our priest, king and prophet—James Jesse Strang. ”

“ Appropriately the spot was named New Plymouth, after the last port of call in Old England.
The Pilgrims landed on a huge boulder of granite, the Pilgrim Stone, still reverently preserved by their descendants: a rock which was
to their feet as a doorstep
Into a world unknown—the cornerstone of a nation! [5]
The early struggles of the Plymouth planters and the hardships they endured form a story of terrible privation and suffering on the one hand and heroic endurance and self-sacrifice on the other. ”

“ The Isle of Purbeck is no island at all—even as the “Isles,” Athelney and Avilion, in no wise fulfill the geographical requirements of islands. It is a small peninsula of Southern Dorset, and at its very center stands one of the most remarkable of the English castles. Thither we go, following the coast from Bournemouth through the somber little town of Wareham; from thence southward over heather-mottled hills, and ere long we catch sight of the gigantic mound upon which are the straggling fragments of Corfe Castle. ”

“ The madrigals that lift the dampness hanging over graves.
[14] THE OLD ROAD DOWN TO PLYMOUTH.
The old road down to Plymouth can never change for me,
In vagabond abandon it roams a century,
Braids through the dusky mornings, and evening’s afterglow,
An irridescent sunbeam, no matter where I go.
The old road down to Plymouth leads from a farmhouse door,
Leads like a jewelled ribbon, a thousand miles or more;
The door has lost its hinges, the barn has tumbled down,
But the old road down to Plymouth, the only road in town,
Winds in and out the bluets, the butterflies and hay ”

“ The land we found as the former day 40 we did, and we found a creek, and went up three English miles. A very pleasant river, at full sea a bark of thirty tons may go up, but at low water scarce our shallop could pass. This place we had a great liking to plant in, but that it was so far from our fishing, our principal profit, [55] and so encompassed with woods that we should be in much danger of the savages, and our number being so little, and so much ground to clear, so as we thought good to quit and clear that place till we were of more strength. ”

“ New Plymouth lies on the slope of a hill stretching east toward the sea coast, with a broad street about a cannon shot of eight hundred (yards) long, leading down the hill, with a (street) crossing in the middle northwards to the rivulet and southwards to the land. [1] The houses are constructed of hewn planks, with gardens also enclosed behind and at the sides with hewn planks, so that their houses and court-yards are arranged in very good order, with a stockade against a sudden attack; and at the ends of the street are three wooden gates. ”

“ We saw the smoke of the fire which the savages made that night, about four or five miles from us.
In the morning we divided our company, some eight in the shallop, and the rest on the shore went to discover this place, but we found it only to be a bay, without either river or creek coming into it. Yet we deemed it to be as good a harbor as Cape Cod, for they that sounded it found a ship might ride in five fathom water. We on the land found it to be a level soil, though none of the fruitfullest. ”

“ Well, I know where there are plenty of plums, but they're in a distant part of Storyland called Plum Valley.
Jack Horner
Plum Valley? That's odd. I've never heard of such a place. How do you explain that?
Farmer
Well, nobody ever goes to Plum Valley. Lots of people have gone into the place, but nobody ever comes out. That's trouble, you know?
Jack Horner
But, if it's possible to get into the valley, it's certainly possible to get out. I'm gonna go there and buy all the plums, but first I'll call up Paddy Pelican. ”

“ Chester told us that from their summit, on a clear day, one could see the ocean, forty or fifty miles away to the eastward.
Plumfield struck me as a very fragmentary and straggling sort of village—so straggling, in fact, that it was scarcely recognizable as a village at all, and seemed to have no beginning and no end. There were two or three little stores, a church and a few houses—
“Though,” Mr. Chester explained, “the village isn’t so small as it looks. It is spread out a good deal, and you can’t see it all at one glance.” ”

“ Plymouth extends over a territory about eighteen miles long, and from five to nine miles wide, and beyond the settled parts of the town is a succession of wooded hills. This large tract is interspersed with hundreds of large and small ponds (or lakes) stocked with fish, furnishing limitless fields for the lover of nature or seeker of pleasure, in walking, riding, fishing, or hunting. Wealthy residents of other places have fine summer seats at the town overlooking the harbor and bay. ”

“ You find them margined with marks of the pioneer. It may be just a hollow which was once his tiny cellar-hole or a rectangular mound where the logs of his cabin tumbled into the mould, perhaps a moss-grown, weather-beaten house itself with its barberry bush or its lilac still holding firmly where the pioneer householder set it. These old trails of the Plymouth woods may be just of one family's making, leading from house to pasture and woodlot, or they may be bits of an old-time footpath way first worked out by the Indians themselves no one knows how many centuries ago. ”

“ It is navigable for an unusual distance, and whatever beauty it possesses it owes to its surroundings. Of late years the river has become the Mecca of members of the London angling clubs, who charter special trains and invade the districts by hundreds on Sundays. The first stopping-place of any account from this point of view is Pulborough, the site of an old Roman settlement, with traces of camp and buildings, which will not, however, be found on Arun-side, but at Hardham and elsewhere. ”

“ Reader, I have given you a description of the log-chapel at Puddleford. It is like a thousand other places of public worship in a "new country." If there is something to condemn, there is more to praise. There seems to be a providence in this, as in all other things.
The settlers in a forest are a rough, hardy, and generally an honest race of men. It is their business to hew [Pg 79] down the wilderness, and prepare the way for a different class who will surely follow them. They cannot cultivate their minds to any extent, or refine their characters. ”

“ There were long stretches, too, of rough country where tall yuccas, sometimes ten feet high, were blooming. At Palmdale we came out into a great plain, the mountains in the distance. A high wind was blowing, filling our eyes with dust. Somewhere on the plain the searching wind whipped my lightweight motor coat out of the tonneau where I had stowed it and I saw it no more. It was literally blown out of sight and knowledge. We had seen all along advertisements of "Palmdale Acres," and we now came to the little town itself, a tiny settlement with flamboyant signs advertising its high hopes. ”

“ He remained vicar of Greenwich until his death at Longfield Court, the archdeacon's residence, on 20 Nov. 1704. On 24 Nov. he was buried in the churchyard of Longfield. Plume's portrait, which he 'forbad to be ever brought into' his library, now hangs in the council chamber at Maldon.
Plume was unmarried, and left the considerable wealth he had acquired mainly for charitable objects. The sums of 1,000l., 700l., and 202l. 12s. 6d. he devoted to the foundation of a chair at Cambridge, bequeathing the money to Dr. ”

“ If, indeed, it were to subside from 50 feet to 100 feet, the great chalk ridge which extends from Lulworth to Studland would alone be visible above the waters, and the low broad valley which marks the course of the Nether Frome and the Piddle would be covered, and form, with Poole harbour, a considerable estuary. Even now the river valleys are low and moist, and in the eighth and ninth centuries were no doubt an impracticable morass. Where nature had done so much, there remained but little needed from art, and accordingly the military remains in Purbeck are scanty. ”

“ At the foot of the descent we found a large and lone old-fashioned farmstead surrounded by a colony of flint-built barns and out-houses; the little slothful river Cuckmere seeking its way to the sea, with many windings, ran close by. The grey old farmstead with its weather-stained walls, the tranquil, reedy river below, the bare and silent downs beyond, struck a note of intense quietness. A peacefulness profound brooded over this out-of-the-world spot: it might have been a hundred miles from anywhere. A picture, too, it made, effective in its breadth and simplicity. ”

“ They came rapidly as if the person was half running. Hardly had he located the direction of the sound when a figure appeared in the opening and hurried toward the door of the cabin. A dozen yards from him it paused for a moment and turned partly about, as if inspecting the path over which it had come. With a greeting whistle Captain Plum jumped to his feet. He heard a little throat note, which was not the chuckling of Obadiah Price, and the figure ran almost into his arms. A sudden knowledge of having made a mistake drew Captain Plum a pace backward. ”

“ For an instant Captain Plum's impulse was to hold back. In that instant it suddenly occurred to him that he was lending himself to a rank imposition. At the same time he was filled with a desire to go deeper into the adventure, and his blood thrilled with the thought of what it might hold for him.
"Are you coming, sir?"
The little old man had stopped a dozen paces away and turned expectantly.
"I tell you again that you've got the wrong man, Dad!" ”

“ Then when Roger began to make improvements and draw the attention of Eastern capital to Rhode Island and to organize a State or Colony with a charter, Plymouth said, "Hold on, Roger: religiously we have cast you out, to live on wild strawberries, clams, and Indians, but from a mercantile and political point of view you will please notice that we have a string which you will notice is attached to your wages and discoveries." ”