PREFACE.

The design of this publication is to present a minute narrative of the settlement of the oldest town in the New England territories.

Those who have reviewed the numerous local histories produced by learned antiquarians, may imagine that little remains of pilgrim story for the exercise of another pen, but the gleanings which escape the research, or would not comport with the views of the technical historian, may yet be found to bear a peculiar interest in a memoir of less import, and should not be lost to society. There are, moreover, numerous events and incidents of more recent occurrence, which the antiquarian would lament should be consigned to the shades of oblivion. The author has endeavored to exhibit a faithful delineation of the characters of our venerated fathers, from whom we inherit civil and religious foundations incomparably the wisest and best that ever a political body bequeathed to their posterity. It is from our fathers, that we receive instruction in the radical principles, which are recognized at the present era as the immutable laws of the rights of man, and their noble achievements were highly prized and gloriously sustained by the sages of our revolution in 1776. Let not, therefore, the sons dishonor their father's holy standard; it was their ardent zeal and heavenly mindedness, that prompted them to commence the race of liberty and freedom, and their spirits, tracing through the eye of faith the glorious destiny of future generations, were sustained by a holy trust. They may have had a pro

Reclass r. 9-17-35

HISTORY

OF THE

TOWN OF PLYMOUTH;

170296

FROM ITS FIRST SETTLEMENT IN 1620, TO

THE YEAR 1832.

BY JAMES THACHER, M. D., A. A. S. &c.

* Ask thy fathers, and they will show thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee."

100290

BOSTON:

MARSH, CAPEN & LYON.

1832.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1832, by Marsh, Capen AND LYON, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Masscchusetts.

AND DOW'S PRESS.

Reclass

The design of this publication is to present a minute narrative of the settlement of the oldest town in the New England territories.

Those who have reviewed the numerous local histories produced by learned antiquarians, may imagine that little remains of pilgrim story for the exercise of another pen, but the gleanings which escape the research, or would not comport with the views of the technical historian, may yet be found to bear a peculiar interest in a memoir of less import, and should not be lost to society. There are, moreover, numerous events and incidents of more recent occurrence, which the antiquarian would lament should be consigned to the shades of oblivion. The author has endeavored to exhibit a faithful delineation of the characters of our venerated fathers, from whom we inherit civil and religious foundations incomparably the wisest and best that ever a political body bequeathed to their posterity. It is from our fathers, that we receive instruction in the radical principles, which are recognized at the present era as the immutable laws of the rights of man, and their noble achievements were highly prized and gloriously sustained by the sages of our revolution in 1776. Let not, therefore, the sons dishonor their father's holy standard; it was their ardent zeal and heavenly mindedness, that prompted them to commence the race of liberty and freedom, and their spirits, tracing through the eye of faith the glorious destiny of future generations, were sustained by a holy trust. They may have had a pro