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| Beach roses or salt-spray roses,
growing on the shores of Maine
in June 2014, 384 years after the Winthrop Fleet passed this spot. Flower photos courtesy of Dr. Rondi Aastrup. |
Only three days into their
venture, while the fleet’s occupants were fasting and praying, some farm
laborers they’d brought “pierced a rundlet of strong water” (a 15-gallon barrel
of whisky used primarily for medicinal purposes), and were put in "a bolt" (probably tied or chained to part of the ship) for a
night and day to punish them.
The ships set their sails for Salem, Massachusetts,
where a previous party, led by John Endecott, had gone a year earlier to found
a town and plant crops to support itself and the hundreds of people set to
arrive in 1630.
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| The 350-ton Arbella, admiralty ship of the Winthrop Fleet, was often separated from the other ships by high seas and a succession of raging tempests. |
The fleet was at sea for 10
weeks, two weeks longer than expected, and they were two months later than
their original plan called for. Storms blew the fleet apart for days at a time. They’d fought the westerly gales and sailed
south to the 43rd parallel before they tacked back to the North Atlantic. After a month, they were only halfway
across the Atlantic, north of the Azores and west of the Bay
of Biscay. The ships had to strike their sails in the tempest and
were reduced to drifting if they wanted to keep their masts in one piece. “The sea raged
and tossed us exceedingly, yet, through God’s mercy, we were very comfortable,
and few or none sick, but had opportunity to keep the Sabbath and Mr. Phillips
preached twice that day.”
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| The Effects of Intemperance, by Jan Steen |
Tensions mounted. Men fought and
spent the night in chains. A servant made a private deal with a boy (presumably
the ship’s boy) to purloin three biscuits a day from the communal food supply,
and upon discovery, the servant was tied to a bar and had a basket of stones
placed around his neck for two hours. A maidservant, being seasick, drank so
much whisky that she was “senseless, and
had near killed herself. We observed it a common fault in our young people,
that they gave themselves to drink hot waters [whisky] very immoderately.”
We will resist the temptation to
call Mr. Winthrop “Captain Obvious” about young people and hard drinking, because in
their world, their era, their religious customs, alcohol poisoning was a rare
thing. As a rule, their drinks were very low in alcoholic content.
By the 29th of May,
two months after their launch, three of the fleet were just off the Grand
Banks, south of Sable Island and about 600 miles east of Salem. On the third of June, knowing they
were nearing dangerous shoals, they sounded for depth, but found no bottom.
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| Cape Neddick, Maine, called Aquamentius in John Winthrop's Journal |
Finally, on June 6, they sounded
at 80 fathoms/486 feet. They were offshore of Aquamentius, Maine. The next day,
Monday, they were becalmed, and they threw lines and a few hooks over the sides
of the ship, and in two hours caught 67 codfish, “some a yard and a half long, and a yard in compass.” Any fish
of 5½ to 6 feet will weigh 100 pounds or more, says Gulf of Maine Research Institute.
Still, they couldn’t proceed too
fast for fear of running on the rocks of the Isle of Shoals, a long line of
rocks and small islands. They took a large boat out of storage to sail before
the ships and take soundings so they could safely sail south to Salem.
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| "We
had now fair sunshine weather, and so pleasant a sweet air as did much refresh us, and there came a smell off the shore like the smell of a garden." |
John Winthrop
wrote in his journal on June 8, "We
had now fair sunshine weather, and so pleasant a sweet air as did much refresh
us, and there came a smell off the shore like the smell of a garden." They
celebrated by catching another 36 cod, much needed because during the
extra-long voyage, they had consumed their stores of salted fish, and were low
on other provisions.
On June 9, they could see
mountains on the mainland, and many islands or half-submerged rocks between the ship and the shore. On
the 10th, they saw several large and small ships doing commercial
fishing. On the 12th of June, they came around Cape Ann and arrived
at Salem.
But conditions at Salem were harsh, with a
short growing season exacerbated by the frosts and famines of the Little Ice
Age. The fierce storms that had battered the Winthrop Fleet had also worn down
the settlers—and killed perhaps half of them. The Endecott party used up the
rations they’d brought, and were barely surviving on seafood and wild
strawberries by the spring of 1630. Until the meager harvest in August, or the arrival
of the Winthrop Fleet with their provisions, Salem was hungry, run down, and sick.
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| The Winthrop Fleet, by WF Halsall (wiki) |
Some of the officials of the
Massachusetts Bay Company went ashore and supped on venison pasties (meat pies)
and “good beer.” They met the Endecott party of settlers—who were not in good
shape, and begged for the food stores on board the Winthrop ships. The town was not ready to
receive the hundreds of passengers—not with food and fresh water, and not with
shelter. The Winthrop
party was too late to plant a food crop and build shelters for the next winter,
and they had enough food only for a few more weeks.
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Christy K Robinson is author of these books (click the colored title):
And of these sites:
Discovering Love (inspiration and service)
Rooting for Ancestors (history and genealogy)
William and Mary Barrett Dyer (17th century culture and history of England and New England)
