Mayflower voyagers weathered rough trip

11-23-2003

Talk about bad trips.

The swirling currents and changeable climates of the North Atlantic make it an ocean of contrasts, peacefully beguiling one moment, elementally violent the next. Even today, its perfect storms claim victims from among those mariners who stretch their luck.

How much more fearsome was it on Sept. 16, 1620, when a badly overloaded 180-ton vessel slipped out of Plymouth Harbor, England, for a 2,700-mile voyage across the stormy seas?

The long journey for the Mayflower's 103 passengers actually had begun years earlier.

The group that eventually became the Pilgrims started as a Protestant congregation centered around Scrooby, a Nottinghamshire village in the English Midlands. They came to feel the only way to practice their religion was to separate themselves from the Church of England. In 1607, this Separatist congregation relocated to Amsterdam in the more religiously tolerant Netherlands, and in 1609 to the city of Leiden. Several years passed, but not without incident or encroachment on their religious freedoms. Gradually, the community determined to resettle to a tract of land in the Virginia colony of America, where they hoped they could practice their religion without interference from kings and governments.

To fund their passage and supply the voyage, the group contracted with a group of English merchants, who also recruited other settlers who could provide needed skills in the new colony.

In Holland, they acquired a ship called the Speedwell and set sail to Southampton, England, where a second ship, the Mayflower, had been leased for their voyage to the New World. In early summer, the two vessels set out. Almost immediately, the Speedwell began to leak badly, forcing the expedition to return to England for repairs, putting into port first at Dartmouth and then at Plymouth.

Weeks passed before it became apparent that the Speedwell was not going to be fit for the voyage, and the decision was made to cram as many passengers as possible onto the Mayflower.

The time wasted trying to make the Speedwell seaworthy had cost them all fair winds. Running against strong currents, this Pilgrims' progress averaged a mere two miles an hour. Initial good weather quickly turned foul, forcing passengers to stay in cramped, cold, unlit quarters. Yet, despite the apparent hazards and anxieties, the 65-day voyage went largely without incident. On Nov. 19, land was spotted -- the Cape Cod cliffs where Truro lighthouse now stands.

Though hundreds of miles north of their intended Virginia destination, the Pilgrims landed the following day. Two days later, on Nov. 22, 1620, beset by dissension in their ranks, 41 men of the Mayflower signed an agreement that the passengers would stay together in a "civil body politic." That agreement, later known as the Mayflower Compact, established the self-governing colony.

One month after that, just as the New England winter was settling in, the entire group moved to the mainland, settling at the mouth of a river they named Plymouth.

Far from home and unprepared for the rigors of a New World winter, dozens of settlers died over the coming months, succumbing to cold, disease and starvation. The following spring, more of them returned to England, when their lease on the Mayflower elapsed.

In the fall of 1621, probably in early October, the remaining Pilgrims held a feast to give thanks for having survived their passage and their first year in a new land. The feast went on for three days and included 90 of the natives who had helped them. But that was likely the only thanksgiving feast held for more than 250 years.

In 1789, George Washington decreed a day of Thanksgiving to celebrate the new nation, but that also was a one-time affair.

Thanksgiving didn't become an official national holiday until 1863, when Abraham Lincoln in the midst of the Civil War declared the last Thursday in November as a day to "heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union."

In 1939, Franklin Roosevelt changed the holiday celebration to the fourth Thursday of the month.

So, the Thanksgiving holiday did begin with a journey and a feast.

Here's hoping your journeys this week go more smoothly than the one the Pilgrims took almost four centuries ago.

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