Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1869-11-18
THE FIRST NEW ENGLAND THANKS.
....-...,.. GIVING.
ny j, II, A. BONE.

The Pilgrim Fathers landed in Deem
Der. 1t was an unusually mild winter for
that part of the country There was little
snow, but there were many cold rain
storms. Mild as was the weather, they
suffered greatly from exposure and hard
ships The men travelled through the
woods for days, oftentimes drenched with
rain that froze upon their clothing, ana
they slept in the open air at night, until
place had been found on which to make
their settlement. Then they worked
busily, cutting down trees, saving them
to proper lengths, and hewing them into
shape for building Lighthouses. All this
time they slept under such miserable
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 we'll as laborious to
collect materials for building. Those who
went to the woods for logs, and others
who went to the streams for reeds and
flags with which to thatch the roofs, took
with them their breast-plates Of iron, their
heavy swords, and their still heavier
head OF n staff when fired. Sometimes II
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 kinIe the matches with which to
touch off the charges,
In this work the military experience Of
Miles Shndish became OF service. He was
tough campagner, more than half of
whose thirty seven years had been spent
in knocking about the world rs soldier
OF fortune, His trade was fighting, and
the smell of powder was scent delightful
to his nostrils. He had roughed il too
much in Flanders to be troubled about
trampng around in rain and mud, or sleep.
ing in the open air in midwnter; and as
for fearing Il halt-naked Indian, had he
not knocked in the head many steel-clad
Spaniard, more formidable and ferocious
than dozed. painted sayages? With his
rough manners and camp phrases, the
sturdy little captain was not exactly the
kind of man the peace.loying and de-
vout Pilgrims would have chosen
as one of their number under
other circumstances; nor were their
precise ways altogether according to his
fancy; but they needed his courage and
military experience, and he admired their
sturdy independence, and was moved by
his love of adventure 10 share their perils
in the American wilderness. Besides, he
had been smitten by the charms of a Rose
that doomed among the English Puritans
in Lcydcn, and in making her his wife
was content to link his fortunes with those
of her friends. So Captain Miles Stand
ish trained his companions in the use of
the broadsword, taught them how to
handle quickly and fire the matchbox and
the sn0phance, and boasted that in little
while he would make them fit to meet
twice their number of Spaniards, let alone
4 lot of bowling savages with no armor
but skin, and no weapons better than q
bow and arrows with heads of brass and
deers horns.
At first was built the common house,
for the shelter OF all on shore, until the
Separ'e dwellings could be built, aud then
for meetings. Next n small hospital for
the sick, OF whom there were several, q
she'd for the provisions, and then dwellings
arranged along street leading from the
crown of the hill to the water. Roughly
squared logs, with the chinks daubed with
clay, formed the sides, the roofs were
matched with reeds, and the window
spaces filed with paper soaked in linseed
oil, instead OF with glass As the town
grew into existence il needed a name, and
10y common consentitwas called New Ply
mouth, Old Plymouth being the last place
in which they Ind trodden the soil Of Eng.
land, and there, during their stay, they
had found Kind treatment.
The land along the main street had been
divided into nineteen lots. for the nineteen
heads Of families aud il was intended tc
build Il dwellmg-house on each. But there
was no occasion for 50 many houses
Their Iona confinement on shtpboara. the
salt diet ~ which they h.a been confined
and the exposure To cold and rain after
landing, brought On diseases TINT swept
like pestleage through lhe band at Pill
arims. Nae days after the landing, fri til,
midst Of ategrihle storm That prevented
communication between the shipand those
on shore, died RieharI Brltteridge III,
was the tirst funeral 1T Plymouth, some 81
tie monrners hastily filling ii the grave
whilst others stood IL tleir arms III igar 81