Pilgrim Hall Museum

By Todd Moning
FMCA.com editor

Chairs, chests, cradles, a Bible, armor, portraits, paintings, personal and household belongings.

These items hardly evoke images of the Pilgrims who left Europe to start a new life in America. At least not as much as maize, Indians, a harvest feast and black buckles.

But seeing the items together at the Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth, Mass., creates a clearer picture of America’s founding and traditions. The museum’s exhibition of Pilgrim possessions and artifacts combine with historical information to tell the Pilgrim and Native American story.

“November is a lovely time to visit the museum to actually see some of the 17th-century artifacts that might have been used at that first Thanksgiving,” said Peggy Baker, the museum director.

First Thanksgiving
In 1621 the Pilgrims and their Native American neighbors held a harvest festival at Plymouth. The event became known in modern times as the "First Thanksgiving."

“The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth,” an oil-on-canvas painted by Jennie A. Brownscombe in 1914, is a popular exhibit at the museum. It depicts English settlers and Native Americans gathered around a table for a feast, heads bowed.

The painting was printed in Life magazine in the1940s and influenced many Americans’ perceptions of Thanksgiving, Baker said. “The Brownscombe catches people’s hearts. It has something universal about it that reflects all that we hope for at Thanksgiving — people getting together with their families, in gratitude. It’s the quintessential New England holiday picture.”

Who were the Pilgrims?
The Pilgrims began as a religious group, its members desiring to separate ties from the established Church of England and practice their own religion. Segments of these Separatists settled in the cities of Amsterdam and Leiden, Holland, in the early 1600s.

They started traveling to America in 1620, crossing the Atlantic aboard the Mayflower and landing at Plymouth Rock in December 1620, just in time for a long, harsh winter.

Beyond Thanksgiving
Museum visitors will learn that the Pilgrim experience is much more than that one-time, informal gathering in 1621.

Among the treasures on display at Pilgrim Hall Museum:

• William Bradford’s 1592 Geneva Bible. Bradford was governor of Plymouth for many years. He wrote Of Plymouth Plantation, the only complete history of Plymouth that was actually written by a Mayflower passenger.
   
• The cradle in which Susanna White rocked her son Peregrine, who was born while the Mayflower anchored off the tip of Cape Cod. Susanna’s husband William died the first winter. Susanna was one of only four adult women to have survived to see the "First Thanksgiving" at Plymouth.
   
• The chair of William Brewster, the spiritual leader of the colony and one of the most educated members.
   
• The skeleton of the 17th century vessel Sparrow-Hawk, a small vessel that shipwrecked on Cape Cod after a stormy voyage. It was carrying 25 passengers from Europe to the New World. Pilgrims rescued stranded passengers and provided food and shelter.
   
• A portrait of Edward Winslow, leader of the Plymouth Colony. Of the 103 Mayflower passengers, Winslow is the only one to have his portrait painted from life.

The museum’s Native American artifacts and displays convey the relationship between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag, the natives who inhabited the Northeast for 10,000 years before the Pilgrims’ arrival.

Temporary exhibitions — one per year — complement the museum’s historic, artistic and social themes. The current exhibit “On the Waterfront,” runs through April 2006. It chronicles the history of the Plymouth waterfront, a busy industrial area in the18th and 19th centuries that now is a serene tourist haven.

The museum’s collection continues to evolve to portray colony-building traditions in interesting detail.

Visiting
Pilgrim Hall Museum is located at 75 Court St. (Route 3A). A free parking area, which can accommodate motorhomes, is located next to the Museum.

The museum is open daily Feb. 1 through Dec. 31 from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. It is closed Christmas Day but open on Thanksgiving Day and all other holidays. Admission is $6 for adults, $5 for senior citizens (62 and older); $3 for children 5 to 17. Allow about one hour for your visit.

To arrange a guided tour, call in advance, (508) 746-1620, ext. 4.

The Museum Shop carries books, reproductions of Pilgrim artifacts and assorted gift items.

Info: pegbaker@pilgrimhall.org; (508) 746-1620.

Pilgrim Hall Museum
www.pilgrimhall.org