Rev. Dr. Douglas K. Showalter
First Congregational Church of Falmouth, MA of the UCC
November 22, 2009
Scripture: Hebrews 11:11:1-3, 8-16
“The Saga Continues: The First Thanksgiving”
THIS MORNING the saga continues. Once again, as Thanksgiving draws near,
I invite you to use your imagination. In some Thanksgivings past, our
congregation re-lived the story of the Pilgrims--from the early
1600's to 1620. Today, the story continues as we retrace the
Pilgrim=s steps to the First Thanksgiving in 1621.
As you may recall, this story began with our church family being
persecuted in England. We were treated as criminals, because we felt
called by God, to practice our Christian faith in our own way,
apart from the Church of England.
ONE SUNDAY MORNING, we all stopped coming to this beautiful white church
building on Main Street. Instead, we began holding our worship
services in secret, at the far edge of town, at a house owned by
WILEY and FRAN OSBORN.
In time, the local police caught on. Our Moderator JAN HULL was arrested
in the middle of the night at her home. Our head Deacon JOHN HONEY was
dragged off his boat, to be placed in the stocks on the Village
Green, alongside our Church Clerk MARILOU WHITMORE.
Over time the persecution became so intense, that we all sold our
belongings, and secretly fled to Holland--where we could practice our
faith freely. Head Trustee WALT SLABODEN was reluctant to sell his
pick-up truck and all his tools, but he finally did.
OVER A PERIOD OF TWELVE YEARS our church people struggled to make a
living in Holland. But our younger families--like the MACCLEODS,
CASWELLS, and ANDRADES--grew increasingly concerned, because their
children were growing up more Dutch than English.
Thus, at an all church meeting we decided to send one-sixth of our
congregation to the New World. They would set up a new colony, where
we could have a better life and worship freely. This was a scary
idea, because the New World still seemed like a Ahowling
wilderness.@ But that didn=t dissuade our teenagers, like
IVAN ABRAMS, GWEN KOONTZ, and JACOB COAKLEY from thinking
it was a "neat" idea.
More than 40 people in our church were selected for this daring venture.
Almost half of these were children. Only four were over age 50. After
many delays, our church people were finally crowded together with
other
English people on an old wine ship called the "Mayflower."
Altogether there were 102 passengers--both saints and
strangers--who later became known as "the Pilgrims."
IT WAS A CRAMPED and terrifying 66 day voyage across the North Atlantic.
Copyright 2009
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With God's help, our Church Editor AL ALLENBY saved the ship from
sinking. During a furious ocean storm, Al used a printing press
screw to secure a major ship's beam which had broken in two.
With God's help, Church school teacher BRENDAN O=HARA kept the ship from
exploding, when some young people in his Games workshop church school
class, accidentally threw a burning piece of rope, right next to a
wooden barrel of gunpowder. Young KENNY SHANN and DAVID
COAKLEY exclaimed,
WE DIDN'T DO IT!
FINALLY, ON NOVEMBER 21st 1620, our "Mayflower" set anchor in the
sheltered harbor below the clenched fist of Cape Cod. The icy grip of
winter was already setting in. The delays had caused us to arrive
in the New World much later than we had expected.
Before we could go ashore we faced a crisis. Our original destination was
Virginia. If we had landed there, we would have been subject to the
English King's law. But now--because the winds blew us off course-we were in a much different part of the New World, where we were
subject to no law.
Fearing the possibility of anarchy, our Church Moderator JAN HULL called
an emergency meeting. The result was the creation of a Covenant which
bound all our ship's passengers into one civil body, which would
govern itself with just laws which also served the common good.
Reminiscent of our church Covenant back in Holland, this new civil
covenant came to be called the MAYFLOWER COMPACT. Jan breathed a huge
sigh of relief, when the last adult male passenger signed his name
to that document.
ONCE THE CRISIS WAS ENDED, we all eagerly made our way onto the Cape's
sandy shore, wading through frigid shallow waters. Many of us ended up
with colds. On shore:
--The first thing we did was fall on our knees, to thank God for bringing
us across the sea safely. As a group we had great faith in God.
-BAnd, do you remember what we did second? The second thing we did was
wash out our smelly clothes, after more than two cramped months at
sea.
TWO DAYS LATER, Deacon MARTIN MONK led a musket-bearing search party down
the densely wooded forearm of the Cape. A few wary Wampanoag Native
Americans were spotted in the distance.
At a place we called CORN HILL, our party found a considerable store of
Indian corn, freshly buried in the sand, in Indian baskets. The whole
idea of corn was new to us; we didn't have corn back in England or
Holland.
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Our Outreach Chairperson SUE ANTILLA thought this corn should be left
where it was, for the Wampanoags who raised it. But then, after
considerable debate, our party decided to take part of this corn,
for our own survival, and re-bury the rest. We planned to use
the corn we took as seed, to grow new corn. In another location we took
some more Indian corn and also some beans of many colors.
These were difficult decisions. For, on the face of it, this was
stealing. Though, it seemed to us that we needed those items for our
survival. It also seemed to us, that God had mercifully provided
those items to us, so we would survive in this strange land.
As our search party agreed, we would fully repay the people who owned
that corn and those beans, at a later time, when we made contact with
them. As it turned out, in about 6 months, we did repay those Cape
Cod Native Americans--and, as we thought, to their full
satisfaction.i
Our search party came across another strange thing--a bent sapling with
acorns beneath it. Stepping closer to inspect, BOB HELLER suddenly
found himself jerked into the air. His leg was caught in a noose of
Wampanoag rope. We learned quickly, that that's how Wampanoags
catch deer.
AS WINTER WAS ENVELOPING US, we were eager to find a good place to build
our colony--a place with abundant fresh water and a sheltering harbor.
Traveling by boat through brutal snow and ice storms, Trustee TOM STONE
led another search party to the west, to a place we called Clark's
Island. There, on the Sabbath, Deacons BOB GAYNOR and TOM HAYNES
led our first worship service on New World soil. From there, our
search party also saw the hillside on the mainland, which
soon became the site of our Plimouth Plantation.
On December 26, 1620 our "Mayflower" finally anchored in Plymouth Harbor,
a mile-and-a-half off shore. Within days Trustees PETER PARTRIDGE and
BRUCE ZIMMERLI were leading a workcrew which laid out our
plantation, and cut down trees, to build our first structure, a
common house with a thatched roof.
Our work crew lived in that common house, while the rest of our group
lived on board the Mayflower. Early one Sabbath morning, the roof of
that common house was gutted by fire. But we didn't repair it that
day, because we felt obliged by our faith to rest on the
Sabbath.
The next day, Monday, freezing rain fell through that house=s open roof.
Our work crew and all their bedding were soon soaking wet. Many became
ill, just as many of us were already beginning to suffer from
scurvy.
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IN TIME, the common house was repaired, and a few small cottages were
built to house our families. But the epidemic of flu, pneumonia, and
consumption that January and February was terrible. In that period,
half our number died. It was mostly our young people and males
who survived. The survivors' average age was a little less
than 30 years old.
Throughout those two months, only six or seven of us were well enough to
see to the needs of the rest of us. But those six or seven persons
worked tirelessly. At winter's end there were only 52 of us
Pilgrims left. But still trusting in God's goodness and
providence for our settlement, we re-grouped and clung
closely together.
IN MARCH a surprising thing happened. RACHEL GILBERT and GREGORY PICKART
were talking, when suddenly two Wampanoags stepped out of the woods.
In plain English one Wampanoag said, "I am Samoset." The other
Wampanoag was Squanto, who had been taken to England some years
before, as a captive.
Squanto soon became very important to our group. Squanto served as our
translator when we needed to speak with other Wampanoags in the
region. He also taught us how to plant the Indian corn we had
taken. Like the Wampanoag, we used fish heads to fertilize the
soil. As our Stewardship Chairman HAL PETERSON observed,
'TIS A WORK THAT STINKETH!
As English commoners, we weren't used to hunting game, like deer. That
was reserved for royalty and nobles in the king's forests. Thus, to
survive through the next winter, we were greatly dependent upon the
success of our grain crops.
But as it happened:
--In the month of July our precious crop of PEAS came to naught. They all
withered under the blazing yellow, summer sun.
--In the month of August our precious crop of English BARLEY was only
meagre. Panic began to set in among us.
The "Mayflower" had already gone back to England. So we 52 survivors were
left by ourselves in this "howling wilderness." Our only certainty in
this strange land was our faith.
Summer gradually turned into fall, and JOHN FARRINGTON and DENNIS
MCGILLICUDDY watched our remaining crop of Indian corn like hawks.
Finally, in the month of October, God blessed us with a bountiful
20 acre harvest of that corn. It had grown rich and full--just
as Squanto had said it would.
Laughing and shouting, young JULIA LIMA and EMMA LOVETT ran through our
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fields, gathering ear after ear of that corn with its yellow, red, and
blue kernels.
We all rejoiced in the wonderful bounty of God's good earth. We also
rejoiced in the likelihood--now revealed to us--that we would survive
the coming winter.
SO IN OUR THANKFULNESS, with our harvest safely gathered in, we made
preparations to celebrate a Harvest Home festival--much like the one
we used to celebrate in England.
This was a great joy. But all male eyes fell on LISE MCGILLICUDDY, JILL
KOONTZ, ROBIN BOWERMAN, and LAURA ABBOTT to oversee food preparations
for this 52 person, three day feast. These four were the only adult
women who survived our first winter in Plymouth. In fact, these
four did a wonderful job--with help of our children and
servants.
The only really tense moment, was when Massasoit, the noble Wampanoag
Sachem, marched into our settlement with his 90 braves, and informed
us that all of them would also be joining us, for our three-day
dinner. As their contribution, these braves eventually brought
five slain deer.
AS IT TURNED OUT, our feast was a marvelous one. After all our people had
suffered, it was good to be joyful for a time.
Through the three days, most of our feasting was sporadic, as we took
time out: to shoot muskets with MARTIN MONK, to leap and vault with
ZACHARY BOWERMAN, or to learn about shooting arrows from the
Wampanoags.
As we had few tables, most of us sat on the ground to eat our meals. We
ate out of wooden bowls with our fingers, knives, and spoons. We also
took our meat, right out of black iron kettles which simmered on
outdoor fires. Each of us had our own three-feet-square linen
napkin to clean our mouth and fingers.
We feasted on many foods, including cod, sea bass, turkeys, ducks,
breads, and even the delicacy of corn meal venison pasties. Back in
England only the wealthiest people could afford venison. But here
in this New World, the Wampanoags told us it was plentiful.
Of course, we were suspicious of water as an enemy of health and a cause
of disease. Thus, over the three days, we always ended our feasting
with pan-fried corn cakes and strong, sweet Ale.
IN THESE SPECIAL DAYS, we all knew and were thankful, that despite our
long journey and all our hardships, God had been faithful and good to
us, in leading us to this New World.
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THUS, OUR SAGA of the Pilgrims and the First Thanksgiving draws to a
close.
These were a faithful people, a thankful people, a people who really
trusted God.
In four days, all of us will celebrate our own feasts of Thanksgiving.
As we partake of our turkeys, stuffings, mashed potatoes, and
cranberry sauces, let us remember and honor those Pilgrims, who
were our spiritual forbears in this New World.
Let us remember the courageous example of those Pilgrims. And like them,
let us strive to open our own hearts and minds to God,
--in true FAITHFULNESS, THANKFULNESS, and TRUST.
ENDNOTE
i. William Bradford, Bradford=s History of Plymouth Plantation: From the Original Manuscript.
(Boston, Office of the Secretary of State of Massachusetts, General Court, 1901).
Book II, 100-101:
And proceeding furder they saw new-stuble wher corne had been set ye same year, also they found
wher latly a house had been, wher some planks and a great ketle was remaining, and heaps of sand
newly padled with their hands, which they, digging up, found in them diverce faire Indean baskets
filled with corne, and some in eares, faire and good, of diverce col lours, which seemed to them a
very goodly sight, (haveing never seen any shuch before)....they returned to ye ship, least they
should be in fear of their saftie; and tooke with them parte of ye corne, and buried up ye rest, and
so like ye men from Eshcoll carried with them of ye fruits of ye land, & showed their breethren; of
which, & their returne, they were marvelusly glad, and their harts incouraged.
After this, ye shalop being got ready, they set out againe for ye better discovery of this place...ther
was allso found 2. of their houses covered with matts, & sundrie of their implements in them, but
ye people were rune away & could not be seen; also ther was found more of their corne, & of their
beans of various collours. The corne & beans they brought away, purposing to give them full
satisfaction when they should meete with any of them (as about some 6. months afterward they
did, to their good contente). And here is to be noted a spetiall providence of God, and a great
mercie to this poore people, that hear they gott seed to plant them corne ye next year, or els they
might have starved, for they had none, nor any liklyhood to get any [50] till ye season had beene
past (as ye sequell did manyfest). Neither is it lickly they had had this, if ye first viage had with
snow, & hard frozen. But the Lord ia never wanting unto his in their greatest needs; let his holy
name have all ye praise.
Book II, 124:
At length he light on an Indean plantation, 20. mils south of this place,
called Manamet, they conveid him furder of, to Nawsett, among those peopl
that had before set upon ye English when they were costing, whitest ye ship
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lay at ye Cape, as is before noted. But ye Gover caused him to be enquired
for among ye Indeans, and at length Massassoyt sent word wher he was, and
ye Gover sent a shalop for him, & hivd him delivered. Those people also came
and made their peace; and they gave full satisfaction to those whose corne
they had found & taken when they were at CapCodd. Thus ther peace &
aquaintance was prety well establisht wth the natives aboute them...