By Ethel J. R. C. Noyes Plymouth, Massachusetts 1921 Copyright, 1921, by ETHEL J. R. C. NOYES. Linotyped and Printed by Memorial Press, Plymouth, Mass....

The Pilgrim Women have been written about so little that it is indeed a pleasure to welcome a book bearing the title, “The Women of the Mayflower and Plymouth Colony.” History has dwelt long and minutely upon the Pilgrim Fathers and their great adventure, but has passed over the women with a generalization and occasionally a tribute. Even their contemporaries have had but little to say about them. The author of this little book is to be highly commended therefore for this much needed addition to

Three hundred and a few more years ago the Great North Road leading from London to Edinburgh ran through and by an English village in Nottinghamshire just as it had done three hundred years earlier than that and as it has these three hundred years. The streets of the village ran toward it and into it as brooks flow to a river, it being the main thoroughfare of travel and therefore source of all outside interests for the inhabitants of the village. At the corner as one could say, of one of these

A ship had been engaged to meet them at Boston from where these travellers were to sail. The first stage of their journey was accomplished by their arrival at that town. Since the edict that whoever did not subscribe to and uphold the State Church must leave the country, one would suppose that their proposed departure would not have been difficult, but when it was discovered how many desired to go and had so arranged, malice itself must have been the cause of the refusal of the authorities to pe

The chimes from the spire of the State House rang out an evening hour. There seemed no unusual portent in this daily custom to the ear of workers in the busy city turning homewards at close of day. Yet in that hour on that calm evening of early summer, history was being made for that city, and to its honored name was added an interest for thousands of a future day by the seemingly unimportant event then taking place. A large canal boat, one of the many that plied between Amsterdam and Leyden, wa

As one goes along the road of remembrance, some readers as well as the writer may see before them the outlines of a ship at the wharf of, perhaps, an unfamiliar city, towards which they have travelled after careful planning and arrangements for a voyage which is, after all, to carry them towards the unknown—. Just so, and with the same feelings the eyes of the women passengers on the canal boats from Leyden, looked upon the form of the “Speedwell”, the little ship on which their thoughts and pla

The first street of Plymouth, the first street of New England, was in the making. From the decks of the Mayflower the women looked longingly toward the land, whither the men went daily, hearing the sounds of hammering and sawing which came across the harbor, for as yet none of them had been permitted to go ashore in these new surroundings. The hill which arose at the water’s edge, behind the rock, was snow-crowned; around and beside it a path had been cut and worn by the men as they went to the

Massasoit was ill—very ill, and a Dutch ship had run aground near his encampment. This news, brought by runners, caused Winslow to again leave his family and penetrate the forests to visit the Chief, as he was looked upon as a special friend of Massasoit, and could speak Dutch. It was about a year from the time when Hobomok’s wife went over the trail on her diplomatic errand. The Dutch ship had gotten away, but Massasoit was decidedly ill. Among Winslow’s talents was skill in doctoring and nursi

The Anne , laden with lumber, furs and mail, sailed in September, carrying also an important passenger; Susanna Winslow had to spare her husband for a time, while he went to England on the colony’s business and his own affairs. However, her cares now were somewhat lessened by the coming in the Anne of a young women, named Mary Becket, to assist in her household labors. Since his other aunt had come, by the Anne , to live in Plymouth, little Samuel Fuller went back to the doctor’s house to grow u

Burial Hill no longer bristles with the guns of the Pilgrim’s fort but is thickly studded with the graves of the generations who in turn walked on Plymouth’s first street below. One traversing this way and recalling the scenes it has witnessed, must be indeed insensitive not to feel the thrill that comes from treading on hallowed ground. Particularly must this be experienced by the descendants of the women we would honor. We know that upon Cole’s Hill, Burial Hill and in the old burying grounds