The following paper is by the 2009 recipient of the Katharine Fox Little Distinguished Mayflower Scholarship Award. Jane Fiske was honored at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the SMDPA in Essington, PA for her “Discovering, Recording, Compiling, Preserving, Publishing, And Facilitating the Same by Others, of Genealogy and History of the Pilgrims.” Her paper was not presented verbatim, although all issues were covered. It is posted here for those who could not attend the meeting.

That New England's Calvinist Puritans created theocratic governments is a stereotype that owes much to the nineteenth-century myth that Calvin established theocratic government in Geneva. In his Institutes, Calvin distinguishes between the jurisdiction of civil and ecclesiastical governments, stating that the magistrate in a Christian society has general authority over the entire society, including the obligation to protect and enforce religion and morality. Clergy have authority within the congregation only, including excommunication. While laws should conform with biblical precept, Calvin believes that many Old Testament regulations were abrogated by the New Testament.

1. Introduction
Pilgrim families arrived in Holland in the spring of 1608 and in Plymouth in December 1620. In May 1607, 105 men arrived in Jamestown to establish the first permanent English settlement in North America. While the individuals in both settlements were English, the they were different in many important ways. To fully appreciate our Pilgrim heritage, it is important to understand the differences between Plymouth and Jamestown. This essay identifies major differences and explains how these differences affected the settlements during the first few decades of their arrival.

New publications still have some errors in fact.

"A Thanksgiving for plenty. O Most merciful Father, which of thy gracious goodness hast heard the devout prayers of thy church, and turned our dearth and scarcity into cheapnesse and plenty: we giue thee humble thankes for this thy special bounty, beseeching thee to continue this thy louing kindnes unto vs, that our land may yeild vs her fruits of increase, to thy glory and our comfort, through Iesus Christ our Lord, Amen"

Our Mayflower ancestors were not of “royal blood.” For the most part, they were what we now would call “middle class” people who had to work for a living. Of the 58 male passengers, both men and boys, the trades or occupations of only 32 are known. This is one more than what was known in January 1999 because the Pilgrim John Howland Society has discovered an Indenture dated 1623 that reveals John Howland’s trade: salter. The women and girls are not included because about two hundred years would pass before females would be allowed to be any more than what we now call “Housewives.”

The Algonquin Nation inhabited New England and the mid-Atlantic states. The Wampanoag federation at its peak contained 20,000 to 30,000 individuals in two dozen tribes who occupied southeastern Massachusetts and eastern Rhode Island. The Wampanoag was ruled by a Sachem, Massasoit, and a council of young men who had proven themselves in battle and older men chosen for their wisdom. Europeans explored, and in some cases planted settlements along the coast of New England since at least 1498.

1. William Brewster (ca 1559 - 1643)
Mary Wyrral(?) (d 1627)
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     2. Patience Brewster (1600 - 1684)
     Thomas Prence (1600 - 1673)

There were one hundred and two passengers (plus the crew) on the Mayflower. Only forty-one males who were free agents, including Christopher Martin, the agent and treasurer of the London merchants, signed the Compact on November 11 (=21), 1620, in Provincetown Harbor. The intent of the Compact was to assure that all would band together and submit to majority rule.

Each year the Society of Mayflower Descendants in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania holds an annual worship service in November to commemorate the First Thanksgiving in Plymouth Colony in 1621 and in memory of those members of the Society who have died during the past year. What follows is the sermon delivered at the November 21, 1999 service by the Society's Elder, The Reverend Judith A. H. Meier, pastor of the Gulph United Church of Christ, in that church located in Gulph Mills, northwest of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.