New-York tribune., 1920-08-29
The Lesson of the Pilgrims
Anniversary Celebration Brings Excellent Books
on the Meaning of 1920

tPutnam). by Professor Albert Perry
Brigham.
JOHN ROBINSON. PASTOR OF THE
PILGRIM FATHERS tHarcourt. Brace &
Howe). by Walter II. Burgess
YOUNG PEOPLES HISTORY OF THE
PILGRIMS (Houghton- Mifsln Company,
by William Elliott Grttfis.
IN THE DAYS OF THE PILGRIM
FATHERS (Littie. Brown & Coz, by
Mary Caroline Crawford
"HE background and the base
of all history is the land on
which it is staged and enacted.
Among American writers, Pro-
fessor Albert Perry Brigham, of Col
gate University, holds an enviable posi-
tion as student of great epochal and
determining movements of men over the
earth's surface. His peculiar province
naturally has been the United States,
and in his Cape Cod and the Old Colony
.tPutnam), he has produced book that
must be accepted as a first source book,
to be considered in any complete con-
sideration of the coming of the Pilgrims
and the methods of their settlement and
adaptation to the soil of New England.
This book, now open before us, is not
merely source book. 1t is in every
way distinctly readable and inspiring
study of the grip and hold of the Pill
grms on the rather savage and intract-
able ground of Eastern Massachusetts,,
the little area of their splendid and
significant conquest. Professor Brigham
opens his book with pages on the crea-
ton of Cape Cod. accurately defined as
the land from Provincetown to Buz-
Yards Bay, through ages of glacial
grind and sand shiftings. In no way,
save through a study of this nature,
can one obtain true sense of the him
terland of geological drama that made
the very earth of the Pilgrim habita-
ton a terrain possessing in itself
record of adventure.
A Land of Battle
That the sea has not clawed a chan
mel through at Truro, that the inces-
SAINT tear of winds and drag of surf |
have not swept off and borne away the |
whole of the Cape, is story of tenacity
against threat of destruction as STIR
ring as the record of the Pilgrim strug-
gle for life 1t was a land of battle for
a people that fought.
Having this background clear in
mind, the scheme of this book be- |
comes evident With the age-old his
tory of the many little lakes of the
Cape and of the glacial morainc region
of the east shore of Buzzard's Bay, cut !
off from the back of Cape Cod by a
spine of hills that terminate in the
Falmouths, established, we go on to
the romantic and at times quaint story
of the Old Colony.
The fourth chapter. that Immediate
ly following those on the Pilgrim land
fall, in 1920 and the geological struc-
ture of their new home, is given over
to glance over the field of names of |
towns and families on the cape. We
are reminded of the strewing of good
old English place names sprinkled over
a few of Indian origin on the reaches
from Provincetown to Woods Hole,
and VIC read the dramatic record of a
race of sturdy men who still persist
in living in the modern lists of Nyes,
Swifts, Bournes, and other clans that
have subdued the soil and swept the
seven seas with their sails.
Indian Trails and Footpaths
Professor Brigham, developing the
theme of the Old Colony, gives us au-
thortative chapters on the develop
ment of roads on the cape from the
sunrise days of footpaths and Indian |
trails and then follows through fasci- !
mating pages with review of the |
growth of the centers of population. |
He closes his book with a chapter, in !