E-Mail from Tim Healy [Edith & Ale'cs grandson], Oct. 19, 2013
Susan and I went up to Cape Cod last week, just for some rest and recreation. It was pretty glorious, little traffic on the Cape, not too many people since it’s out of season, great lobsters, a visit to the Plimoth Plantation and the Mayflower to see about drifting back in time a little further, from our trip to Hancock Michigan earlier in the year. In this adventure we went to the Alden House Historic Sitein Duxbury Massachusetts. This house is the only existing example of a Pilgrim house built, occupied and still owned by the same family to whom the property was assigned in the original land division of 1627. At that time, the pilgrims, having served a kind of indentured service, were granted tracts of land amounting to 20 acres per family member at the time of distribution. John Alden and Priscilla Mullin received 100 acres at that time and had this house built. Duxbury is a really cool town, mondo deluxo.
Anyway, it was an off day so the house was closed to visitors, as luck would have it. But we wandered around on the property anyway, like people do who are in a dreamy mode. We crossed into the back yard and discovered a troop of girl scouts, in uniform in the middle of a meeting and some discussions with their troop leader. They greeted us with great enthusiasm and waves, as the scout leader was leading them in a recitation. Just then a beautiful young Golden retriever, maybe 9 months old, came bounding into the rear yard, with a plastic bottle of water in his mouth. He was playing keep away from his owner, the curator named Matt. “Alden, come back here, come back. SIT!” After a great deal of remonstrations, we learned that the dog’s name was Alden. The curator’s name was not Alden.
Anyway, the presence of the Mayflower families who mostly congregated in Duxbury after the ordeal at the Plymouth plantation, was fine indeed and illustrated the high degree of community giveback there is in that group. The historic lines of each of the Mayflower families and their interlinking over the past several centuries lent an air of social enthusiasm to the town, a most beautiful town. It was an inspirational sight to behold. There was so much community…many art museums, historic societies and monuments…a tremendous amount of community activism and social connection. And the presence of the girl scouts (one had a trumpet and was setting out to play it, much to the consternation of the troop leader but the delight of the young scouts) was a thrill and reminder of Grammy and her great commitment to the Girl Scouts. She would have been in her element there, amongst the Unitarian Universalists and the pilgrim spirit of the Mayflower. Maybe that’s why she wanted to go back to Boston one month a year in the initial pre-nuptial discussions (at least that’s the story I remember).
One other thought: The unity and cohesiveness of that intrepid band of people, drawn together to live in the hold of a boat for 5 months through a tough New England winter, unprepared for the cold, and then to rally and stay the course over all those hard years, is impressive. (By the way, the latitude of Plymouth is quite a bit south of England, so they were expecting to be in much warmer weather. Little did they expect the weather to come out of the northwest over the ponds and waters onto the Atlantic Coast. Further, they had wanted to arrive at the mouth of the Hudson River, much further south than even Plymouth, but the northernmost part of the Virginia territorial land grant. The Mayflower group had made a deal with some investors in England to stay in America for 7 years to establish a colony in exchange for patented (homestead) land, under the protection of the British king and paid for from those investors in that lower land grant area. Landing so far north, they were out of the original land grant and were forced to renegotiate with a different set of investors later on. By 1627, the Mayflower group was almost completely bankrupt and was working to renegotiate a deal with their investors. It all sounds too familiar to hear about over extended debtors, investors who were finding their investments in shambles…a lot like the real estate world of today.
The good news is that they stayed the course and prevailed.
There are so many stories of hardship, of fear of the neighboring tribes of indigenous peoples, the personal hardships faced and faced down. But in the months and years that they lived in that area, the bonds of that group have remained strong and vibrant. The descendants at this point must be tremendous as we are out to the 14th generation.
One other item of interest is that our connection, Henry Samson, was from Bedfordshire, (a quote from Tara: Henery was born in Henlow, Bedfordshire in 1603, in a sumptuously appointed hut just ten minutes west of the A1M (Stotfold/Shefford exit). the next shire over from Hertfordshire in England. What a curious twist, to find Alec and Janet’s family growing up a stone’s throw from his home area. (well, maybe more than a stone’s throw)
Susan and I went up to Cape Cod last week, just for some rest and recreation. It was pretty glorious, little traffic on the Cape, not too many people since it’s out of season, great lobsters, a visit to the Plimoth Plantation and the Mayflower to see about drifting back in time a little further, from our trip to Hancock Michigan earlier in the year. In this adventure we went to the Alden House Historic Sitein Duxbury Massachusetts. This house is the only existing example of a Pilgrim house built, occupied and still owned by the same family to whom the property was assigned in the original land division of 1627. At that time, the pilgrims, having served a kind of indentured service, were granted tracts of land amounting to 20 acres per family member at the time of distribution. John Alden and Priscilla Mullin received 100 acres at that time and had this house built. Duxbury is a really cool town, mondo deluxo.
Anyway, it was an off day so the house was closed to visitors, as luck would have it. But we wandered around on the property anyway, like people do who are in a dreamy mode. We crossed into the back yard and discovered a troop of girl scouts, in uniform in the middle of a meeting and some discussions with their troop leader. They greeted us with great enthusiasm and waves, as the scout leader was leading them in a recitation. Just then a beautiful young Golden retriever, maybe 9 months old, came bounding into the rear yard, with a plastic bottle of water in his mouth. He was playing keep away from his owner, the curator named Matt. “Alden, come back here, come back. SIT!” After a great deal of remonstrations, we learned that the dog’s name was Alden. The curator’s name was not Alden.
Anyway, the presence of the Mayflower families who mostly congregated in Duxbury after the ordeal at the Plymouth plantation, was fine indeed and illustrated the high degree of community giveback there is in that group. The historic lines of each of the Mayflower families and their interlinking over the past several centuries lent an air of social enthusiasm to the town, a most beautiful town. It was an inspirational sight to behold. There was so much community…many art museums, historic societies and monuments…a tremendous amount of community activism and social connection. And the presence of the girl scouts (one had a trumpet and was setting out to play it, much to the consternation of the troop leader but the delight of the young scouts) was a thrill and reminder of Grammy and her great commitment to the Girl Scouts. She would have been in her element there, amongst the Unitarian Universalists and the pilgrim spirit of the Mayflower. Maybe that’s why she wanted to go back to Boston one month a year in the initial pre-nuptial discussions (at least that’s the story I remember).
One other thought: The unity and cohesiveness of that intrepid band of people, drawn together to live in the hold of a boat for 5 months through a tough New England winter, unprepared for the cold, and then to rally and stay the course over all those hard years, is impressive. (By the way, the latitude of Plymouth is quite a bit south of England, so they were expecting to be in much warmer weather. Little did they expect the weather to come out of the northwest over the ponds and waters onto the Atlantic Coast. Further, they had wanted to arrive at the mouth of the Hudson River, much further south than even Plymouth, but the northernmost part of the Virginia territorial land grant. The Mayflower group had made a deal with some investors in England to stay in America for 7 years to establish a colony in exchange for patented (homestead) land, under the protection of the British king and paid for from those investors in that lower land grant area. Landing so far north, they were out of the original land grant and were forced to renegotiate with a different set of investors later on. By 1627, the Mayflower group was almost completely bankrupt and was working to renegotiate a deal with their investors. It all sounds too familiar to hear about over extended debtors, investors who were finding their investments in shambles…a lot like the real estate world of today.
The good news is that they stayed the course and prevailed.
There are so many stories of hardship, of fear of the neighboring tribes of indigenous peoples, the personal hardships faced and faced down. But in the months and years that they lived in that area, the bonds of that group have remained strong and vibrant. The descendants at this point must be tremendous as we are out to the 14th generation.
One other item of interest is that our connection, Henry Samson, was from Bedfordshire, (a quote from Tara: Henery was born in Henlow, Bedfordshire in 1603, in a sumptuously appointed hut just ten minutes west of the A1M (Stotfold/Shefford exit). the next shire over from Hertfordshire in England. What a curious twist, to find Alec and Janet’s family growing up a stone’s throw from his home area. (well, maybe more than a stone’s throw)
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