THE FORTUNE

The actual second boat to Plymouth was the 55 ton Fortune. It arrived at Cape Cod on Nov. 11, 1621 with "35 persons to remaine and live in ye plantation." Under command of Thomas Barton, master, she had left London in July. The pilgrim fathers and mothers were settling in for another long, cold winter. They didn't expect another boat until spring. When the Fortune's tall white mainsail was seen off Cape Cod the nervous colonists thought it was a French raiding party come down from Canada to make mischief. Governor William Bradford convened a council of war. Defense chief Miles Standish, "the little chimney easily fired," mustered "every man, yea boy, that could handle a gun" and ordered the 1,500 pound cannon on Fort Hill to thunder out a warning shot. As the Fortune tacked into Plymouth harbor, the settlers were surprised and relieved to see her run up the red cross of England, this being in the days before Scotland's cross of Andrew was added to the Union Jack. Plymouth's sturdy little shallop, a tiny fishing vessell, brought ashore 35 new settlers, all in good health, "which did not a little rejoyce them." The welcome mat frayed a bit when it was learned that the penny pinching Merchant Adventurers, the Colony's underwriter in London, had sent the Fortune out with no provisions..."not so much as bisket cake or any victialls," little bedding beyond "some sorry things" in their cabins, and neither "pot nor pan to dresse any meate in." Like those who crossed on the , not all on the Fortune had come to the New World seeking religious freedom. Only 12 were listed in Plymouth's company of "saints," Separatist followers of Robert "Trouble Church" Browne, a famous and fiesty dissenter from the Church of England. The "saints" on the second boatload included such names as William Bassett, Jonathan Brewster, William Wright, Thomas Morton, Austin Nicholas and 14 year old Thomas Cushman, who was adopted by Governor Bradford and grew up to become Plymouth's ruling elder. The rest were "strangers" - artisans and craftsmen sent over by the sponsoring adventurers to make the colony viable enough to send fur and timber back to England for profit. Included among them were Stephen Deane, a miller; vintner William Hilton; Robert Hicks, a dealer in hides; armorer William Pitt; carriage maker Thomas Prence, who later became governor; and, "fellmonger" Clement Briggs, also a dealer in skins. There was also a John Adams-a family name that was to leave an indelible mark on the new continent- and William Conner, who might have been Irish and either died or left the colony a few years later. Besides the "lusty yonge men, and many of them wild enough," the Fortune also carried four women, among them Martha "Goodwife" Ford who, the journals report, was "delivered of a sonne the first night she landed, and both are doing very well." The newcomers found a tidy, tiny town rising along "a very sweete brooke under a hillside." There were 11 buildings along Leyden Street, seven private dwellings and four common houses for stores, arms and bachelors. Plymouth had made peace with a half dozen neighboring Indian tribes, had celebrated its first harvest and witnessed its first marriage, between Susanna Fuller White, a widow of three months, and , a widower of less than two months. The colony had also witnessed its fist and last duel, between Edward Dotey and Edward Leister. The little corn field on the hill behind the meeting house hid the graves of more than half the 101 passengers who alighted from the Mayflower. After surviving that first bitter winter and a spring epidemic of scurvy and pneumonia, "when they were but six or seven sound persons" to work the fields and put up the buildings, the Plymouth settlers were shocked to learn that Robert Cushman arrived on the Fortune with an insulting letter from Thomas Weston, speaking for the adventurers. It berated the colonists for keeping the Mayflower too long and sending her back empty. The letter also accused them of "weakness" and squandering their time in "discoursing, arguing and consulting". They swallowed the insults and loaded the Fortune with beaver and otter pelts, bartered with the Indians for cheap trinkets, and stuffed as much hardwood timber, wainscoting and "good clapboard" as they could into the ship's hold. The Fortune set sail on its return trip to England Dec. 13, just over a month after arriving, only to fall into the hands of French pirates, who hijacked the cargo and stripped the ship of everything of value on board, including her sheet anchor. They left the passengers, including Robert Cushman who had left his son behind in Plymouth, with not a "hat to their heads or a shoe to their feet." The new colonists from the Fortune were on hand for the second Thanksgiving feast at Plymouth in 1622. The Thanksgiving celebration, then usually held in October, was repeated almost every year thereafter in the and soon became a tradition throughout New England. Thanksgiving moved west in the covered wagon era and became a national holiday in 1863, when a war weary President Abraham Lincoln set aside the last Thursday in November as a time for public thanksgiving.

(The above story from THE SECOND BOAT MAGAZINE, May 1982)