Page 136 - Family History

Family Stories

Two Mayflower Descendants Marry …

Do you like Thanksgiving, all that turkey, pies, cakes and being with your

family? You have ancestors, great, great, … grandparents who were there at the

First Thanksgiving that the Pilgrims held in Plymouth Colony in the fall of
1621! They had sailed from England on the Mayflower in 1620. There were 102

passengers and the crew. The Mayflower was not a big ship and they were very

crowded. It took them 66 days to cross the ocean. One baby was born on the
voyage and his parents named him Oceanus Hopkins. They arrived in Cape Cod

Bay in the middle of November. It was too late to build homes or shelters on land,
so they stayed on the ship until spring. During this time another baby boy was

born and his parents named him Peregrine White. The Pilgrims finally left the

Mayflower in early April. They began building homes and planting crops. A
blessing arrived in the form of an Indian named Tisquantum, who was also

called Squanto. When he was a young man, he had been captured by men from
an English ship and taken to Europe and England. There he learned English so

he could translate for Englishmen when they came to the colonies. He was a

Patuxent from the Wampanoag Confederation. Because he knew enough English
to talk to the Pilgrims, he was a big help to them. He taught them to plant corn

and how to fertilize it using fish, and how to grow other crops in this new land.

He taught them where to hunt for ducks, wild turkeys and deer and where to
catch fish and eels. In England where the Pilgrims came from, it was common to

have a Harvest Festival in the fall to celebrate a successful harvest. Because the

Pilgrims were a religious people who came to the colonies so they could worship as
they wished, they made the festival a feast of Thanksgiving to Heavenly Father.

They had grown good crops, had hunted and fished and had a good supply of
food put away for the winter. They had also been able to build homes and would

have shelter from the weather. They were very grateful to Heavenly Father for His

blessings given to them. When it came time for the feast, over one hundred
Indians came. Everyone feasted and gave thanks for three days. You have five

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