On Nov. 11, 1620, the Mayflower anchored in Plymouth Bay. Those aboard had endured a horrific 66-day journey and they weren’t done. The 102 passengers and their crew lived onboard the ship for 130 more days, weathering a severe winter as their food supplies dwindled and disease and starvation ravaged them.
The group originally set out in July with another ship, the Speedwell, but both ships were old and taking on water. After several false starts and a series of major repairs, the Mayflower set out on her own Sept. 16 headed for the Hudson Bay — 250 miles south of where they finally set anchor.
By the end of that winter only 53 people remained. When the weather permitted, they gathered supplies on land and began building huts on the hills overlooking the bay. They finally left the ship at the end of March 1621.
The Wampanoag tribe watched and debated what to do about these newcomers. The Native experience with Europeans was a mixed bag at best filled with betrayals, broken treaties, and outright treachery over the 100 years before.
The tribal leader, Massasoit, weighed the risks — help the struggling band that had already stolen food from them or attack to drive them away. He decided it would be better to build an alliance with them on his terms. It was, after all, a small group.
I don’t think any of the Native tribes could have imagined the sheer number of Europeans who would travel to North American in the coming years. The Mayflower was followed by hundreds of tall-masted ships carrying people looking for land and freedom, economic opportunity, and escape from the horrors of war and famine. The Swan. The Godspeed. The Hercules. The Blessing. The list goes on.
In 1635, the Abigail put in to Boston. Among her 220 passengers was the Freeman family from Devonshire England. John would eventually marry Mercy Pence, granddaughter of Elder William Brewster. Their son moved to Norfolk, Virginia and, later, his son brought his family to Chowan County, North Carolina.
Peter Folger arrived in Watertown, Massachusetts the same year as Freeman. His daughter Abiah married Josiah Franklin. They became the parents of Ben Franklin.
Over time sons of this line married daughters descended from two other survivors of the Mayflower. The Quaker family joined the migration of that sect to New Garden (now Greensboro) in 1777. Several members became physicians, including Walter C. Folger, born in 1868, who set up practice in Dobson.
In 1892 he married Sally Victoria Freeman, the 4x great-granddaughter of John and Mercy Freeman, bringing no less than three lines of Mayflower descendants together in Surry County.
We often think of the monumental events of history in distant terms. Things that happened far away to people with no connection to us but, we are much closer to history than we know. Those Mayflower families entwine through the Freemans and Folgers, Reeves and Marions, Pooles, Riddles, Llewellyns, Mosers, Bowles, Bolichs and many others. They have produced people who built strong communities and keept them safe, patriots who cast off the tyranny of a distant monarch, doctors, musicians, teachers, interior designers, farmers, and so many more.
There are great debates in society these days trying to put the morality of our ancestors’ actions into better context. There is no doubt that great injustices happened in the formation of this nation that I love but I will leave that discussion for others more knowledgeable than I to work out.
What I do know is that 400 years ago this month a small group of people sat down to a meal to celebrate their survival. That 242 years later President Lincoln declared a National Day of Thanksgiving to celebrate the survival of the Union. And this month many of us will sit down to celebrate our families and friends as we come out of these recent unpleasant times.
If we have erred as a nation in the past, perhaps we can gather through this holiday season in love and decide to do better as individuals in the future.
Kate Rauhauser-Smith is a local freelance writer, researcher, and genealogist.
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com