Pilgrim Stories: Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things

[00:00:06]One of the things you learn when you start studying them is I know there may be something bad about them. I don't know. But I love them. I love them. And they do amazing things. One of the things you must remember, we all must remember is they're not aristocrats.

[00:00:22]They didn't have any money. In fact, they came here and needed a lot more money uh that they didn't have. Yet they were able to govern themselves when other other uh uh societies and colonies like Santa Fe and St. Augustine and James Town had governors imposed upon them. We had our own governor. We elected our own governor first and were able to govern ourselves just fine. So, I'm going to tell you, I hope some things that you may know about several of these individuals, but I hope I surprise you with a few stories about them that you don't know.

[00:01:04]So, we all know this story that the passengers created the Mayflower Compact. We know that there were 41 men and three of them were servants. And that is amazing in and of itself because if they were in England only about 5% of men could vote and none of these men on the Mayflower would have been allowed to vote. Yet they composed their own government on that ship and they agreed to make just and equal laws and elect John Carver as their first governor uh first in the Western Hemisphere.

[00:01:38]and the first elected governor in North America by men who couldn't vote otherwise. I'm going to try to see if I can get this over here. Can I move this?

[00:01:49]>> You should be able to.

[00:01:50]>> Okay. That way I won't be looking over there. Okay.

[00:01:58]So, first I'm going to tell you a little bit about William Bradford. You probably think I know everything about William Bradford. He was the second governor elected and but the reason we know so many of these stories is because he wrote them down and they were in a journal uh which he left to his sons. He was intending his audience to be his sons. Uh like many if you're a parent you know you want to tell them the way to live so they don't make the same mistakes you did and they understand all the sacrifices that you did. And thankfully we know a lot about what happened. A lot of these amazing stories are because he wrote them down. Um, but there's more to William Bradford than being a long-erving governor. Um, he was really ahead of his time in a lot of ways. And one of the things that he was very much ahead of his time was in voting in the voting franchise.

[00:02:53]Later on, when Massachusetts Bay and other colonies tried to restrict people who could vote, they added property requirements of 20 pounds of raidable property. William Bradford resisted it.

[00:03:07]He did not want that. He even allowed people who were not members of his church to vote. The Swans Baptists, they were allowed to vote. And that doesn't sound like a big deal now, but it was huge at that time. It really was.

[00:03:25]And when other colonies were establishing um property requirements that would cut out a third to 50% of their voters, William Bradford said no. And the reason why he did that was because he knew that in order to get the support of the government, you're going to have to have people that are involved in it.

[00:03:47]And it's still true today. If you want people to support the government, they have to have an opportunity to have an impact on it. Whether it's voting or running for office or for writing or or voting for laws uh and attending town meeting. We have town meeting today. And it's that direct one onone experience that directly comes from these pilgrims, these first people that lived in Plymouth. So good for you, Bradford.

[00:04:17]Now, John Carver didn't live very long.

[00:04:19]He was the first governor, but he negotiated the longest peace treaty in American history u with Native Americans. It's lasted for 54 years. And three of the most important things in that that treaty was each agreed not to harm the other. They agreed that they will come to each other's aid when uh when threatened by others like uh Massaso was worried about the Naragansits and the Massachusetts tribes which were far bigger than they were and threatened to dominate them. And most importantly, they will discipline their own wrongdoers. And this last one was really tested in 1638 in the Arthur Peach Gang trial. We just made a video about it on uh YouTube. And it is when uh four indentured servants actually colonists ran away and murdered a nipmunk man and stole his wampom and his beaver coats. And the real he was actually captured by Roger Williams of all people and tried here in Plymouth at the meeting house. And Bradford was really concerned that he said, "Well, the rude and ignorant sort might not convict uh an English colonist for murdering a Indian man." And so he wanted to make sure that the jurors were honest men. And he did. He went as far as Situit to get jurors. And the result was conviction.

[00:05:47]And those four colonists were convicted of that murder. And very importantly, the witnesses, the star witnesses were two narroansid men who swore to tell the truth by putting their h hand forward not on a Bible, but they did it to swear to their native gods. And they allowed them to do that. And that's what we do in courtrooms today. We allow you to swear on whatever religion you happen to practice. If you believe that there would be, you know, consequences if you lied, then that's what we allow in juries today. Again, pilgrims ahead of their time.

[00:06:26]So, now we're going to talk about lions.

[00:06:28]I don't know if you know this story, but uh early on when the pilgrims were trying to construct um they were act in January 12th trying to construct shelters here on Leiden Street only two blocks away. Um, John Goodman and Peter Brown were out cutting thatch and they had two dogs we know, a mastiff and a spananiel. I just love that spaniel. He was afraid of wolves. We know that from the Bratford Journal. And so they ran off chasing a deer. The men followed and they got lost in the woods and it's January 12th and it's freezing cold and they can't find their way back to the village and they have to spend the night in a tree and the dogs are down below standing guard and all that night Peter Brown thinks he hears lions growling and now we think that's funny but how do they know there aren't lions here? They don't know. This is like going to Mars.

[00:07:26]You don't know what kind of animals there are out there. Now, I had this picture here was dri uh actually drawn by Peter Aronston for his book. And I maybe it was some kind of mountain lion, but it sounded like a big lion. And that night they got frostbite, they climbed down, and the dogs decided they were hungry. So, they have noses. And that led them back to the village and they got back home. But I I would say thank you to the dogs for saving them. But probably the dogs got him into trouble in the first place.

[00:08:02]So, oops, went back.

[00:08:12]So, here are those pictures of the dogs that uh Mike Hayward actually uh drew, and I just love that. Uh, and this is actually a stein that's at Pilgrim Hall that belonged to Peter Brown. And I'm pretty sure they raised this one or something like it after they returned and uh may have toasted those dogs uh for getting them through it. But now I'm going to talk about John Alden. Uh John Alden's been most heavily covered because a poem was written about him by his descendant. And uh but John Alden is a really quintessential American story.

[00:08:49]uh he agreed to only a one-year contract to be a cooper for the Mayflower passengers and he was convinced to stay and really became an example of the meritocratic American dream. If he had stayed in England for the next 10 generations, he might had Coopers as descendants. He would never have been allowed to rise in that in Europe. Uh and that's kind of the reasons a lot of immigrants come to America is they want something better for their children. And he's an example of that. Through his own merit and hard work, he actually served as he was elected as assistant to the governor, as treasurer, which is a hard job, and deputy to the court, and committee member to revise the laws, and lastly, a thing called the an undertaker to guarantee the pilgrims debt. And that's not meaning that he hammered coffins together. an undertaker was really undertaking the debt. Uh the pilgrims came over here with not enough money uh especially not enough money to pay the merchant adventurers and the people in London. And it took them 26 years to pay off that debt. And the way they did it was they had eight men that came forward and said, "I'll be the guarantor."

[00:10:08]And that's he was one of them. The barrel maker became one of the eight men. And they all had to pay. I mean, all of them had to sell property. All of them to pay off that debt. And thank goodness they did. Because of that, um, the rest of the pilgrims got to keep their land. And all the losses they had that first winter where 50% of them died. It was because, inevitably because of those undertakers that actually paid off that debt so they could keep their land.

[00:10:40]Now, here we have Priscilla Mullins. I'm not going to leave her out. And I know Peggy Baker, my friend here, is one of her biggest fans. And I agree uh because she was a orphan shoe erys. Her parents and her brother died that first winter, but she inherited all his shoes. He was a m a shoe maker. So she had a a choice as about 17 years old. And there was maybe Miles Standish. There was the young 21-year-old John Alden, the barrel maker. and she chose him and she saw something in him and she turned out to be right because he became a leader in the colony and they had 10 children together.

[00:11:25]Now my my buddy William Brewster I wouldn't anybody give to see one night to talk to him. He would have been I I think the intellectual of the group. He was the one that went to college at Cambridge and he knew Hebrew, Greek and Latin. Uh probably he was the one who trained the boys, the young boys who were going to go to the new college in Cambridge called Harvard. There were about five boys that went and one of them was his grandson Isaac Allerton Jr.

[00:11:57]who graduated class of 1650.

[00:12:01]And I I love that. And we know he really was an intellectual because not only did he was he a a printer uh running away from u uh from the authorities, but he also had a lot of amazing books and some of them many of them still exist. If you look over here, you'll see the sign of the bear and that when you see a book like that, that's one of his from his printing press. and he had 390 books over here at that time. He may have had more books than mo uh one of the the biggest holder of books of anybody in the Western Hemisphere. I know we have to count people in Mexico and things like that, but it's very rare to see anybody with a collection that large. And many of them were in Latin.

[00:12:51]And we know, well, how do we know this?

[00:12:52]because when he died, they actually did an inventory and listed the titles of every single book. And they weren't all religious. They were interesting history and botany. He was a Renaissance man interested in the way the world worked.

[00:13:07]So, I just think that's fascinating. And thanks to him, five of those boys attended Harvard. Uh without him, I really don't know anybody knew any Hebrew or Greek here. Maybe a few more.

[00:13:20]Now we have Samuel Fuller, the deacon and the doctor. Uh that is an actual kind of drawing um of what they would wear a plague doctor would wear and it probably is maybe even better than a COVID mask. I think it might have worked. Um but he was not only a doctor but he was also a um a deacon at the church and we know he performed an important function in that he made the comfortable cordials that Edward Winslow took to Masso which mash the soet thought saved his life. And if and uh you if you need to know what trail he took, he took the Namasca trail which still exists and looks almost exactly to me like it would have 400 years ago. And Jim Baker can take you exactly along that Namasca trail. It's amazing. And but what he took with him was Dr. Fuller's cordials and also with instructions to make more. Now, we don't know exactly what was in them, but we do know two ingredients that were because Winslow was told to collect strawberry leaves and sassifras, and those are both anti- uh um what am I going to say? Uh the things that actually are good for you to uh make swelling go down. And >> anti-inflammatories, there's the word.

[00:14:47]And when he mixed some of these cordials up and he gave them with water, he had first put them on the tip of a knife to get them into Masso's throat that was swollen shut. And within a a small amount of time, he was able to completely recover. And then Winslow was tasked with actually um treating all the other members of the tribe and he did.

[00:15:11]And this created a lifelong friendship which lasted forever.

[00:15:16]um they were good friends forever. The tragic the Greek tragedy of all of this is their sons became mortal enemies. And we have King Phillips War uh as proof of that. But uh when Dr. Fuller died, he actually left a part of his estate to the meeting house. He left the brown cow to the meeting house and he also left he and his wife Bridget left their town lots to the minister so that he could live there and have a garden and for I don't know centur not centuries but decades the minister of the meeting house always lived there. It's on the north side of the street uh where you see the the fuller houses. That's where uh the Reverend Cotton and others lived afterwards.

[00:16:01]Now, I'm going to talk about a very sad story. Um, and that is Richard Moore, the aristocratic survivor. The only one that has royal blood. This is the most really terrible story. He and his brother, and two sisters, they were all aged four to eight, were sent on the Mayflower because their father believed that their mother uh was had committed adultery and that they were not his children. and he was minor nobility. Uh and uh Jasper uh the oldest brother would have inherited the estate but sadly and of course three out of the four die. What's a miracle is that Richard didn't die. He was only six years old. All the other children taken from their mother and their father and put on this ship with strangers. And I mean strangers. They had never seen them before. And it's like being put on a spaceship to Mars with strangers. And it's a miracle that he survived. But he was raised by William Bradford, I mean uh William Brewster in his house. And then when he was old enough, he was apprenticed to Isaac Allerton who uh trade uh kept him or taught him the trade of a mariner. And he became pretty successful in Salem. So he did have a happy uh ending in some ways. Uh he still has descendants today.

[00:17:25]And I'm going to talk a little bit more about these u these orphans. Um one of the things when I given a speech similar to this, my youngest son was really affected by the fact that there were so many children that survived and lost either one parent or both parents.

[00:17:42]Again, they are in this new world with people they've gone to church with, but they are all alone and there is no way of getting back home safely. And if you do, there may or may not be uh relatives that you can live with. So these are the names. Bartholomew remember, and Mary Allerton lost their mother. Uh Resolved and and Peragan White lost their father.

[00:18:08]Richard Moore, of course, I've just told you about. Uh Mary Chilton was only 13.

[00:18:13]We think she probably ended up living with the Winslows because she shares cattle with them in 1627.

[00:18:21]There's Priscilla Mullen, 17. John Crackstone, who lives with the Allerttons. Samuel Fuller, 12, who lives with his uncle, uh, Sam, Dr. Sam, and then Joseph Rogers, 16. Uh, and Joseph Rogers lived with William Bradford, um, for 10 years. And if you go to that that store on the corner of um well it's the really nice housing store and it's got clothes in it and it is on the corner of Main Street and Leiden. That was the Bradford lot and it almost it looks like maybe a double lot and that's where Joseph Rogers would have uh actually grown up until he married.

[00:19:02]So, Stephven Hopkins, I know you Hopkins people have been waiting because this man lived a life that is almost stranger than fiction. If you read this and you would say, "That's not true. That's just too corny. Disney's gone too far. There's no way that this really happened to one individual." But it is true that he was the only man who knew both both Pocahontas and Squanto, famous famous historical figures. Um he came in6009. He was coming to Jamestown.

[00:19:35]He left his wife and children behind and he was wrecked uh in Bermuda or what would become Bermuda uh on the Sea Venture. Made his way finally after 10 months to Virginia, stayed in Jamestown a little a bit of a time, but before that he eluded the hangman's noose because he was a mutineer and he must have had a good gift for Gab because he talked himself out of them hanging him.

[00:20:00]Uh, according to contemporaneous records, he pleaded that he had a wife and children at home and if you hung him, they would starve to death on the streets of London and or wherever. And they believed him because they knew that's what happened when the father was gone. Many cases you the family was reduced to begging on the street. So he he was saved, made his way back to London, found out his wife had died. he remarried and he still wanted to go to the new world and that's when he was on the Mayflower.

[00:20:33]So he may have been the first tavern owner. Uh and because of his escapades on the sea venture, which we know Shakespeare may have heard about, uh he creates a character called Stephano modeled on Steven Hopkins. And he has some of the most interesting things that go on in that tavern, which is where the Spritza dress shop is right now. And in that tavern, uh, that is where the Peach Gang hatched their plot of escape. Uh, we know he got in trouble a lot for overserving his customers and for maybe charging too much, but you know, he was just an early capitalist.

[00:21:15]So now, Richard Warren, we know so little about him. Richard Warren was uh on the Mayflower. His wife and five daughters came in 1623 on the Anne. Then he had two more sons. And William Bradford called him a useful instrument indicating perhaps he was a wealthy merchant. We knew that. But that he also helped monetarily with financing the voyage. And but he's really a man of mystery. And this is so exciting. Did you know that in 1898 there was a sword that was discovered excavated in those gardens right behind you in the Mayflower Society gardens and it is a sword according uh to a researcher from a great article in 1982. Uh the sword is dated to about 1600. We don't know whose sword it really was but this land belonged to James Warren the grandson of Richard Warren. And the author makes an argument that that sword would have been it was possible for this sword to be his sword. Uh if it isn't his, it's one of the first comers swords. So I I think it's really really amazing. This sword, which is going to be on in the m meeting house on display, is maybe the second oldest sword in America. James Town gets number one. Okay. They they say there's one from the 1580s, something like that that they've excavated, but this one is pretty impressive. And it's the oldest sword definitely in New England. Um, and what's interesting is they think on that pommel might have been traces of silver and gold. That would have been the kind of thing that would have been on there, which makes him even more of a man of mystery.

[00:23:06]We know a lot more about his wife, Elizabeth Warren, uh, the honorary man.

[00:23:11]And I say this because William Bradford and the other leaders had such incredible respect for her. When her husband died in 1628, they actually made her a purchaser even though she was a woman and a widow. Uh, she had five girls and two boys and um, and actually had lot of the land where Plymouth Pux Museums is now on the Eel River. that was the war on land and she had quite a bit of it. And uh so one of the things in 1653 her son Nathaniel sued her. Can you believe that?

[00:23:47]Sued his mother because Elizabeth had decided to equally partition her land and give it to her older daughters when they married. And you know over here we had that right. and he kept saying, "No, under the law of primogenitor, I'm the oldest son." And you know, and then there was there's more in there about his grandmother-in-law said that Elizabeth said that he'd get it all or more or something. So anyway, this this dispute was submitted to arbitration with William Bradford and Miles Standish and William Brewster, all the usual suspects, and they took about a half a day to decide. And they said, "Not only do you lose, you lose. Don't ever bring a case like this again." And he didn't.

[00:24:34]Uh, respect your mother. And so, she was allowed to distribute her property the way she thought best. And I like that a lot. Those old English primogenitor laws just beginning not to apply here.

[00:24:50]Now, Edward Dodie, as a former attorney, I love him.

[00:24:54]He is a lawyer's dream. He would make any lawyer rich.

[00:25:00]He we I know of 16 lawsuits that were filed against him or where he filed and he won some he won some of them. Um but he had kind of he must have had a temper. I think he was involved in some fights. Uh uh he probably worked with Hopkins Tavern until his indenture was over. Uh, and he recounts that Dodie and Edward Lester injured each other in a duel like they were gentlemen. Ha. And were uh bound hand and foot as punishment, but they cried so much that they let him go sooner than they thought they were going to. But the interesting thing is the fighting, the slander, the trespass, and the debt. And guess what?

[00:25:43]Most of those lawsuits were about pigs.

[00:25:49]Pigs. his fences weren't good enough and his pigs got out and ate his neighbors corn. You know that old thing about good fences make good neighbors. He never learned that. It took about 16 lawsuits for him to figure that out that you've got to keep your pigs pinned up or they go eat your neighbor's corn. So, um but I it these are funny stories, but he does establish the rule of law. He really does. when he files lawsuits and other people file lawsuits, they that means they trust in the government to get redress and it worked. And I will also tell you for all of you who've lived in New England for generations, New England is the most latigious history. There were men that filed over 300 lawsuits in their lifetimes uh throughout New England. And it's by golly, you were right and that guy was wrong. And I I mean I should have come up here instead of practice in Texas. It it is amazing because of I don't know if that's part of the character or the culture but they like lawsuits. So thank you Edward Dodie.

[00:26:59]Now Susanna White Winslow uh from intrepid pioneer to landed great lady and I love her. Everybody loves her because she had the baby on she had Paragon White on the Mayflower and she lived while her husband died. She had a toddler and a newborn. And three months later, after her husband had died, she married Edward Winslow in the very first civil marriage on the continent. And how hard that must have been, but how she knew it had to happen. She had to get married. It had to be. And like Priscilla, she had a choice of a lot of widowers, and she chose him. And I think she was happy with the choice. Um they their youngest son Josiah served as governor. I'm not sure how good of a governor he was but he was her son and but she was considered to be a great lady. Uh there's one interesting will by John Jenny who had the Jenny Mill over here. He really thought a lot of his daughter Abigail very impressed with Abigail like my father or your father would be of any of his daughters. and he was dying and he knew he was dying but he was afraid that Abigail was going to marry Henry Wood who obviously he did not think that he was good enough for her. So he tried to convince her to go live for a year with either Reverend Chanty and Situit or go live with Susanna Winslow in Marshfield so that she could learn manners. And I know what he was thinking because I'm a parent myself. And she was thinking he'll she'll meet a higher quality of man.

[00:28:38]And uh she'll she'll uh but of course, you know, like like all children, they don't do what their kids say. And she married Henry Wood. I think they had 14 children. It's okay. He didn't get his wish, but he tried. And the fact that this is a real clue that Susanna Winslow was highly regarded and the great lady of Marshfield would have been someone you wanted your daughter, you wanted her to have influence over your daughter and train her um to be someone that would be and would grow up and do well in the world.

[00:29:13]And then Edward Winslow must have loved her too. He traveled frequently. But in the only painting we know of a pilgrim, this is it when he's older. Uh he's painted reading a letter from Susanna.

[00:29:25]So even though I I'm sure he sends maybe the painting, I'm reading a letter for you.

[00:29:32]I am. Um but it's to show that he loves her. And I hope that I hope that really was the case.

[00:29:40]Francis Cook, the sensible grandfather.

[00:29:42]Um we don't know much about Francis. We know he lived near the meeting house on the south side uh uh near um of Leiden Street. He came as a young man with his son John and they survived. His wife and other children came later on the Anne in 1623.

[00:30:00]Uh he is um a good man in that he serves on numerous juries, an arbitrator, a successful litigant, serves on many town committees, but his chief claim to fame and William Bradford considered it a big one. It was that he was a greatgrandfather.

[00:30:17]>> Whoa. In a time when you would not even see your children grow up. What that meant was, and he called him a very old man and has seen his children's children have children. That means that's the best proof you can have that you're a member of the elect. You're going to heaven because God has really blessed you with this incredible thing. I'm not sure how many of the other pilgrims ever got that kind of uh proof of their election, but Francis Cook did. So, all of you who are Francis Cook uh descendants are very lucky, very good genes. I didn't get those, so very good.

[00:31:01]So, we talked a little bit about Edward Winslow uh traveling. Um he helped write the first law in 1623, which I love. The first law in America was the right to trial by jury. And it's very simple. If you go to the deed records today, you can see it. And it says uh if you're accused of a crime, uh you have the right to be tried by a jury of 12 men.

[00:31:26]And then it crosses out the word men and writes 12 honest men.

[00:31:32]Not that guy over there. not that you you you want to be a fly on the on the wall to figure out why did somebody make that change and why did everybody agree to it. So um but that is very important for the system of law that was set up here. And also Edward Winslow I I think I love him best for the Bill of Rights and the the 1636 general fundamentals that he created when he was governor and it was basically an assemblage of the earlier laws but he added new ones and very a lot of them sound very familiar.

[00:32:07]They sound like they're derived from the Magna Carta of 1215 because they knew they were Englishmen and they had English rights like the right and in this is the right to due process, the right to have a speedy trial, uh the right to um fair taxation. This is so great. Even if you're a freeman, freemen don't get better tax rates than non-freemen, than ordinary citizens. And that is almost a precursor to the Revolutionary War. You know, taxation without representation. We want fair taxation. And all there's several legal historians that have said this really is the first bill of rights in America. Uh five years later, Massachusetts Bay does one, but we were first and with the first bill of rights. And I I and one thing that I love is that uh it implies that the rule of law is is more important than anything else and the king has to abide by it too. And of course if Charles the first ever knew thought of that he would have crushed them. Uh there's no way he would have stood for that at all. Divine right of kings and all of that. But good for Edward Winslow. Now Miles Standish.

[00:33:21]Uh Miles Standish, as many of you know, was the head of the militia. The first militia created, the US Army actually dates its beginnings to February of 1621 when he formed the militia and the defense. It was very organized. Um all of the defensive palisade was made by him. Uh the we think his house is the one that was excavated by uh Professor David Landon right next to the meeting house. and because it's cut into the bottom of Bab burial hill and he also is one of the one who created four militia companies to defend the colony and I think of all those teenage boys 16 years old you have to learn you are in the militia that means Joseph Rogers and the Billington boys they give guns to the Billington boys and tell them to defend it and one time they see a ship coming from Cape Cod and they think it's a French ship and they're terrified and they must have mustered ready to go uh to fight the French and it turns out to have been um the fortune and thank goodness so they were happy about that. So they never really faced any dangers there but by golly they were ready uh in 1636 and really one of the most important things that laws that was passed was the very first veterans benefits. Uh I think there were some young men going away to they thought signing up for the Peekquat war about 44 Plymouths and they said what happens if I'm maimed what's happens if I'm killed and who's going to take care of my wife and children and so they passed a law that said if you are maimed in the defense of the colony then the colony will take care of you the rest of your life and that's what we do today in England they don't they didn't do that at the time during the Spanish Armada War when there were men that were wounded deathly and couldn't work anymore, Queen Elizabeth didn't give them a thing. And maybe there were some memories of that from fathers or grandfather's stories. I don't know. But in this case, they knew how important it was to take so that men could feed their families.

[00:35:35]Now, who here is a howland up there?

[00:35:38]It's all right. I knew there'd be some.

[00:35:40]There always are. And because this man fell off this ship and actually had the strength uh to pull himself and get pulled aboard back on board, there's a lot of you in that room, this room. And even my son-in-law. Yeah. Uh that lusty young man was uh and it's very it's very good that he was pulled back on the Mayflower because he really became an important part of the colony. Um he went from a servant, he was John Carver's servant uh to a colony leader. Again, the servant who voted, he was allowed to vote for the Mayflower Compact. He later became an assistant to the governor, a selectman, a surveyor of highways, and deputy to the general court. And he became a member also of the undertakers.

[00:36:26]Here's one of these young men, a servant who actually ended up being one of the men financially responsible for saving the colony. Wow. I mean that again is an American story you don't hear in Europe.

[00:36:39]I mean back then you would not have been able to rise like you could here.

[00:36:46]Ah now we have sad story. Francis Eaton the poor unlucky carpenter. Uh he did survive the first voyage but Francis had a very tough life. He lost two wives and then he had a disabled child.

[00:37:02]uh we don't know exactly why what was wrong with the ch child but um Bradford points it out and then he also went into severe debt uh before dying in his 30s in 1633 they had a plague of some kind here in the town lots of the original comers on the Mayflower died uh and he was one of them and he sold all of he had sold all of his land and his house and borrowed hundreds of pounds from other men in the town uh and his and it was really really terrible for him and his family. He left a wife and he had four little girls. He just had a newborn baby girl and then he died. And so even though it was his tragedy, it actually became one of the most important laws ever passed uh here in the colony and later on inspiring others. Um because his wife had all these debts, massive hundreds of pounds of debts she could never repay and four little children to raise.

[00:38:05]They were really faced with what are we going to do now? In England, you just beg on the street. But here there's one street. There's just one. And as Bradford said, this is such a raw country. We live in such a raw country.

[00:38:22]We're going to have to take care of ourselves. and he quoted uh Exodus 22:22, "Thou shalt not trouble the widow or the fatherless child." And so what they did, they took care of their own.

[00:38:35]They decided, the council decided to obliterate all the debts, and the two biggest debtors were William Bradford himself and Isaac Allerton, and they agreed to wipe out the hundreds of pounds that were owed to them by Francis Eaton. They also gave the the widow a pension for her and the two youngest children and the two oldest children were placed with other families uh to raise and just incredible thing they said and we're going to set aside a little bit of money for the girls to have a dowy so they'll have 15 pounds when they want to get married. Oh man, that is really really compassionate uh and so ahead of their time. Uh for for decades and decades and decades, England never did that. Uh this is an uh actually a picture from a newspaper in uh in Britain where people were actually having to beg on the street in the in the late 1800s. So I really really give them an incredible credit for that ahead being ahead of their time and being so compassionate.

[00:39:40]Now we have George Soul, the wise and esteemed father. George Soul was a servant when he came on the Mayflower.

[00:39:48]Another man who by dent of hard work and effort actually did rather well in the world. He ended up owning a lot of land and he must have managed it well. He had a large family and but he had a son named John and John also thought under the law of primogenitor he should get it all and he told his father that you should leave all of your property to me and uh George said no I'm going to divide it between my children including patients your sister here he really didn't want patients to have anything so what George Soul did was he created this is the first known case of an interero Orum clause. Uh it's a clause in a will which says this is the way I'm parceling out my will and if anybody contests the will, they immediately lose everything I gave them. And that includes you, John.

[00:40:44]I mean, he really said that. And he said, if you if you do not allow if you uh disturb patience in the lawful enjoyment of her land, then you will forfeit all your land and she will become the executive.

[00:40:58]And you know what? It worked.

[00:41:01]He did not he did not disturb patients at all. And that is a provision now that's very common in most wills. A lot of people still try them. David actually tried an interorum clause case in Houston. So it is still very common.

[00:41:20]Again, George, smart guy, ahead of his time. It's the way to buy peace in your family and uh it's supposed to prevent litigation.

[00:41:30]Uh so uh really interesting story there.

[00:41:34]Now the critical importance of a lost boy. I love this story. My grandson, we're not related to the Billingtons, but my grandson thinks that John Billington Jr. is his favorite pilgrim.

[00:41:45]Period. because he was a little boy that probably was told to stay close to the village and didn't and ran off into the forest and got lost and then he walked the wrong way and for 4 days he was eating berries and he was actually picked up by some of the Wampaog who for some reason I don't understand uh didn't take him back home they t took him farther south on the Cape uh to the NSET and uh the Nets had been the ones that had fired upon them in cape on the Cape and but it turned out that it was really one of the best things in the world because somehow John Billington Jr. and the Nosads got along very well and two weeks later they were told where he was.

[00:42:31]They thought he was dead. They took a boat down the Cape and they met Aspenet, the the chief of the the uh the Nets.

[00:42:39]And he explained the hostility to the pilgrims. And that was because there had been an English captain Hunt who had come and you know pretending to be friendly actually kidnapped a lot of their sons and took them on his ship to Spain and sold them for slaves.

[00:42:56]And so they brought out one of the mothers who had lost three sons and she described sobbing and sobbing and sobbing the story of her lost sons and they listened and they said we would never do that. He uh Captain Hunt is you know is hated in our country too. We would never do that and we are so sorry that this happened to you. And it must have been convincing because not only did they give back John Billington and he actually did carry him, the chief carried him to the boat to say, "I am giving you this child's life back."

[00:43:36]And then they said, "Why don't we start trading?" And they did. And they said, "Would you want us to come down here?"

[00:43:42]And they said, "No, we'll go back. We'll go up to Plymouth and trade." And they had a trading relationship and a treaty which actually outlasted the Wampenogs.

[00:43:51]Uh the NSETs were neutral during King Phillip's war. They did not breach any kind of a treaty with uh Plymouth. So this little boy, this little escapade kept peace between these two peoples.

[00:44:06]And that's why that's why my grandson loves him the best. And he also got lots of wampom necklaces, too.

[00:44:14]So I can see Joseph Rogers, the protector.

[00:44:19]Do we have any Rogers's here? All right, there's a Rogers. Well, Thomas Rogers, his father, died the first winter, and Joseph Rogers actually stayed uh and was raised by William Bradford. And at 16, he was probably taught to shoot a gun by Miles Standish and the others. And from the inception of the time when he was 16, I really call him the protector because he was always a soldier. He never stopped being a soldier. in each of the three towns he went to, he was always doing what needed to be done. And he was a captain. Uh he started out as a lieutenant. Uh then he was on the council of war until the time he died at 75. He was a soldier. That's 58 years of service. That's amazing. Uh when they decided they needed a ferry in Dubberry to cross the Jones River, he's the first one that created one. It's just a man that sees what needs to be done to protect his community, which he loved, and he did it. And I think he was really um an amazing man man that was really really loved and respected by each of the communities he lived in.

[00:45:34]Isaac Allerton. God, here's my guy.

[00:45:39]And he is a man with many faces. a diplomat, an agent, a mariner, a merchant, a new Amsterdammer. Uh he's actually the one who created uh the plan of the undertakers to actually save uh Plymouth. Uh when in 1646 they finally had to pay up. He sold everything in Plymouth. He lost everything. He lost the house he had built here on Leiden Street on the south side. Uh he lost his Kingston farm. Um he lost his cow. uh which he sold for originally valued at 25 pounds and because of the depression it was now at four pounds. So uh but I think that was a trade that he wanted to do. Um he left his his his younger daughter Mary actually ended up getting the farm back when whoever bought it defaulted. But so it remained in the family for um two or three or more generations before being sold. But not only was he assistant governor for 1621 to31 and in 1633 to34 he really helped chart the beginnings of the colony and he's the one who went back and got the Bradford Warwick patent which made us legal so we didn't lose everything. Uh that's if you want to see that that's on file at Pilgrim Hall uh up on the wall.

[00:46:59]And he and my Stish were the ones that traveled to meet Massoit to make the first peace treaty. Uh he was elected as one of the eight men in New Netherland when they had a horrible governor appointed there by um William Keeft who was determined to have a war with the Indians. And Allerton and the others said he's going to get us all killed. We need to make peace with these people and we need a new governor. And he risked the hangman's noose as did the other seven who signed that document. And I think that was incredibly brave. But he also knew that was something that needed to be done. And he also was he saved the new Sweden colony by agreeing to trade on credit. Uh nobody else would. And to his detriment, uh the Swedes were taken over by the Dutch and they all went back to Sweden, many of them, and they never paid Isaac Allerton back. And so, but he did help that colony survive. Uh he also again created the Plymouth undertakers and guaranteed the merchants the debt to the merchant adventurers.

[00:48:07]And this is one of the old maps which shows he had a merchant warehouse which they're excavating today in New York City. And you can see it's actually still a triangular lot right up here. Uh where it was I think they had a Wendy's on there for a while. Now, it is they're going to build a skyscraper there. And uh but I hope that what they promised to do was take all of the things that are in there and actually um uh put them on file in a museum. So, these are the undertakers who guaranteed the pilgrims debt to the merchant adventurers. Uh they had eight of them at one time.

[00:48:46]Samuel Fuller and John Jenny died in that plague, so they had to be replaced.

[00:48:51]But these are the men that helped save uh early Plymouth. And we're not going to forget the women who helped save them all. Uh because when they got the cows here finally in 1624, they actually were the only ones that knew how to milk them and make cheese and butter and excuse me. And um whether it's causation or um uh or something else, after those cows came, they actually did not have to have rations any longer.

[00:49:29]So if you like these stories, please check out our YouTube channel. We have more of them. And also our Mayflower Meeting House will tell them even more.

[00:49:40]And I hope uh we'll be able to do that in 2028 coming up.

[00:49:47]So these are unique, amazing people that I love and I hope you do, too.

[00:49:55]Thank you.