Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1869-11-19
Aicsellamp.
From Our Young Folks for November
The First New England Thanksgiv.
ing.


cember 1t was an unusually mild win
ter for that part of the country. There
was little snow, but therew were many cold
rain-storms. Mild as was the weather,
they suffered greatly rom exposure and
hardships. The men travelled through
the woods for days, oftentimes drenched
with rain that froze upon their clothing
and they slept in the open air at night
until place had been found on which to
make their settlement. Then they work.
ed busily, cutting down trees, saving
them to proper lengths. and hewing them
into shape for building log houses. All
this time they slept under such misera-
BILE shelter as they could make with
boughs of trees and reeds, the women
and children and some of the sick men
remaining on board the ship.
1t was perilous as well as laborious to
collect materials for building. Those
who went to the woods for logs, and 9TH
ers who went to the streams for reeds
and flags with which to thatch the roofs,
took with them their breastplates of iron,
their heavy swords, and their still heavi-
er muskets, that were rested on the fork
ed head of a staff when fired. Some
times strange noise among the trees
would make them drop axe and saw,
hastily buckle on their jackets of iron,
grid on their swords, place their heavy
muskets on the rests, and kindle the
matches with which to touch off the
charges.
In this work the military experience
of Miles Standish became of service.
He was a rough campaigner, more than
half of whose thirty-seven years had
been spent in knocking about the world
as soldier of fortune. His trade was
fighting, and the smell of powder was
scent delightful to his nostrils. He had
roughed it too much in Flanders to be
troubled about tramping around in rain
and mud, or sleeping in the open air in
midwinter; and as for fearing half
naked Indian, had he not knocked in the
head many steel-clad Spaniard, more
formidable and ferocious than dozen
| painted savages With his rough man.
ati Captain an was nbt exactiy the me Kind oI mah
the peace-loving and devout Pilgrims
would have chosen as one of their mum
Der under other circumstances nor were
their precise ways altogether according
to his fancy; but they needed his cour
age and military experience, and he adj
mired their sturdy independence, anc
was moved by his love of adventure K
share their perils in the American vii
derness. Besides, he had been smitter
by the charms of Rose that bloomet
among the English Puritans in Leyden
and in making her his wife was conten
to link his fortune with those of he
friends. So Captain Miles Standisl
trained his companions in the use of tn
broadsword, taught them how to handl
quickly and fire the matchbox and tn
snaphance, and boasted that in a littl
yhilo he would make them fit to NEE
twice their number of Spaniards, lie
alone lot of bowling savages with n
armor but skin, and no weapons bette
than bow and arrows with heads {
brass and deer's horns.
AT first was built the common hous'
for the shelter of all on shore, until th
separate dwellings could be built, an
then for meetings. Next small hosp
tai for the sick, of whom there were se'
eral, shed for the provisions, and the
dwellings arranged along a street leadir
from the crown of the hill to the waite
Roughly squared logs, with the chin
daubed with clay, formed the sides; Il
: roofs were matched with reeds, and Il
window spaces filled with paper soak
in linseed oil, instead of with glass. !
), the town grew into existence it needed
$ name, and by common consent it W
called New Plymouth, Old Plymouth
ing the last place in which they HI
trodden the soil of England, and the
during their stay, they had found XII
= treatment.
l. The land along the main street h
lss been divided into nineteen lots, for t
r nineteen heads of families, and it was
tended to build dwelling-house on ca,
But there was no occasion for so ma
houses. Their long confinement on sh
board, the salt diet to which they b
been confined, and the exposure to CO
: and rain after landing, brought on
Z, eases that swept like pestilence throu
S. the band of pilgrims. Nine days at
.; the landing, in the midst of terri
- storm that prevented communication
tween the ship and those on shore, d
Richard Britteridge. His was the f
81. funeral at Plymouth, some of the mou
ers hastily filling in the grave, VIII
otbers stood to their arms in fear of