They Knew They Were Pilgrims

The 17th Century Adventures of Plimoth Plantation's Colonial Interpreters

They Knew We’d Be Pilgrims: Part One

May 12th, 2013 by Sally

Greetings, dear readers! 

If you are reading this post (which I assume you are), then you are in for a treat! Not only because Alex (in the orange) and I (in the green) are writing it together, but it’s also a TWO-PART-ER. That’s right folks, this post is only half the story! 

You see, we thought what all our dear readers would want to know is exactly how a Pilgrim becomes a Pilgrim – what makes a seemingly ordinary, well adjusted adult decide to dress up in funny clothes all day and spew out obscure historical facts? But that’s the rub – for most of us our descent into Pilgrimhood started well before we ever could drive cars, drink legally, or had even graduated high school for that matter. Some people were just born to do what they do, and we Pilgrims are no exception.

All of us Interpreters have experienced our fair share of history nerd-dom in our respective childhoods. And, if you ask me, the blame for this should be squarely placed on the shoulders of the ones who raised us: Our parents.

It’s true Sally – I don’t think I would be the Pilgrim I am today if my family’s idea of “vacation” didn’t include so many trips to Civil War battlefields, or if they had had the good sense to not take me so many weekends to visit Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village.  If only they had done normal, less educational stuff! Then they might have ended up with a daughter who doesn’t play historical dress up for a living! 

My family spent many happy hours exploring historic castles, manor houses and museums on days out too! Being the intrepid reporters that we are, in the writing of this post and the discovery that Mother’s Day is approaching too quickly for us to have time to mail cards (sorry Mum!)(yeah sorry!), Alex and I made the ground-breaking decision that we should interview our Mothers! Yes, it is the cutting edge of journalism. Yes, it has the potential to be incredibly embarrassing for both of us. But for you, our distinguished readers, we are willing to make this sacrifice. In order to prepare ourselves sufficiently for the writing of this article, we became friends with each others mothers through the medium of Facebook. Being friends with Alex’s Mom has been enlightening in more ways than one, but this blog is not an appropriate forum for such disclosures…

Well, don’t you worry Sally, I have learned plenty of delightful anecdotes from your Mother as well (which will definitely be discussed later in this post).  But interviewing our Mothers is certainly to best way to get to the bottom of the age old What-Exactly-Makes-A-Pilgrim-Become-A-Pilgrim Mystery, seeing as no one has known us longer.  This means no one has more incriminating evidence about our highly nerdy pasts, and when it comes to warning signs at even a young age that one might grow up to eventually work at Plimoth Plantation, there is one which stands out above all others. And that, according to Sally’s Mom, is that “She learnt to talk very early and never shut up after that.” Thanks Mum! – Sally. 

But Sally’s Mother says she loved other Pilgrim things too, long before she ever had to worry about keeping a 17th century kitchen garden:

Sally has always loved carrots – it was her favourite food (even more than sweets!) and when she was 2 if you asked her what her name was she would say ‘Lally Carrot’. She still loves carrots. And her brothers still call her Carrot sometimes. In fact her Uncle gave her a bunch of carrots on her wedding day:

sally carrots

Yup, that’s me. In fact, I did plant carrots in my Pilgrim garden just last week. Speaking of digging in the dirt, Alex’s Mom says that when Alex was five, she wanted to be an archaeologist.  When she was FIVE, people. Her Mom, quite wisely, didn’t hold out much hope for that happening, because once Alex got older, “she realized that meant working in hot, dirty conditions. But wait, that’s what she does now. Only she gets to wear a costume!” Alex’s Mom then went on to say that she wanted her (only) daughter to grow up to do something that she truly loved…can I get an “aaaaaaaaawwwwww”?

Now, going back to the costumes…here’s what Alex’s Mom had to say on that matter:

I may have been her enabler in that regard.

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She always had whatever Halloween costume she wanted. Mostly Disney princesses. However, her favorites were her Felicity dresses. Which she wore all around Colonial Williamsburg (are we allowed to mention them? – Yes, we like them! I’ll even hyperlink it – Sally). I credit the American Girl dolls and books for her particular blend of loving history combined with playing dress up. I can still get her to play dress up when she comes home to help with our local historical musuem. Have you seen her as a flapper? (For the record, I was dressing this way before Carey Mulligan made it cool – Alex)

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We have now. (It should be noted as well that my Mom is an excellent seamstress and she’s the one who made me all those Halloween costumes and American Girl outfits. Thanks for being an enabler Mom!)

Now lest you think you’re getting off the hook easy Sally, I asked your Mom too what you were like when you were five, and she had this to say:

She learnt piano from 5 years old and was very unusual because she enjoyed the theory as much as the playing. When she was 9 she announced she wanted to play the saxophone. As soon as her fingers were long enough she started to play and she loved it. When she was 15 the neighbours came round and asked if it was her playing. I thought they were complaining and said I would ask her to stop…but they said no, they wanted her to open her bedroom window as they were having a party in the garden and wanted to hear her music!

sally pipe

Luckily for us, all of Sally’s playing for the neighbors has paid off – today if you come to the Plantation, you might get the treat of hearing Sally play the pipe! Pretty sure that’s what your Mom had in mind Sally when she said that “To be honest I wanted her to be happy” when I asked her what her hopes for your future were when you little.  Because who isn’t happy listening to a merry tune?

According to her Mother, Alex received a lot of her Pilgrim Housewife training through the Girl Scouts. There, she learnt how to start a fire and cook over it (and she’s one of the best Pilgrim chefs I know!) (aww thanks Sally!) and plenty of other “things she never thought would be useful in everyday life. However she wasn’t good with the knife safety. You must have heard about the time she sliced her finger…” I have heard this story. She cut herself badly making macaroni and cheese FROM A BOX! It’s amazing that nothing worse has happened since she has been working with knives AND the public. The more I questioned Alex’s Mom, the more it seemed to me that her upbringing was perfectly designed, through both nature and nurture, to create an excellent seventeenth-century housewife in a twenty-first century living history museum. Alex always loved Thanksgiving, “except for the year my [Alex's Mom's] cousin let her put black olives on all her fingertips and keep eating them till she got sick” and in her middle school days she was a junior docent at the Detroit Historical Museum. When she won every science fair project in elementary school (total nerd), “the teachers always thought that her parents did them for her, which we did not. Except for the year she broke her toe and I had to do some of the physical labor for her project. And the year she erased her entire paper on that new-fangled word processor and had to stay up all night retyping it.” That sounds like the Alex we all know and love!

Hey Sally, did you know you were interpreting from the tender age of 3? According to your Mom, you were:

When Sally was small we lived on the Isle of Wight (just off the south coast of England) and a tourist destination. It was Queen Victoria’s favourite place and she had a holiday home there called Osborne House to which we could walk from our house. Sally loved it there and would amaze visitors as she pointed out things of interest. Her saying ‘This large urn was given to Victoria and Albert as a wedding present from Tsar Nicholas II’ was the one that always had the most effect! Little did we know then that this was a foretaste of her life in the future! 

The island often held Victorian markets and fairs – I will give you a (grainy) photo of Sally with her two brothers in Victorian costume:

sally victorian

Mwuahahahaha! You’re welcome Sally!

I think I was rather cute, actually. There was one final question I asked Alex’s mother: 

What did you (really) think when Alex told you she was going to be a full time 17th century housewife? 

That she would love it, but hoped she could afford to live on that salary. And that she would hate being the subservient housewife. But it’s only dress up, not real life.

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Oh, and Sally, your Mom thinks you’ll be great no matter what you do (well, except for one thing!):

Sally did everything well-so long as she wanted to do it. There was just one thing she never achieved – she couldn’t or wouldn’t ride a bike.

(Psssst! Sally! Don’t worry! I can’t ride a bike either! (We few, we happy few…)) 

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So there we have it, directly from the mouths of the women who made us who we are. 

Thanks Moms, for letting your little weirdos grow up into the big weirdos we are today, and loving and encouraging us all the same! The least we can do is return the favor, and make you super famous on our humble blog!

And if you want something cuter for your Mother’s Day than just some pictures of Baby Alex and Baby Sally, we’ve got your fix. In the animal world, spring is a great time for mothering – prepare yourselves for some incredible adorableness!

We have a baby kid goat in the Village. In the twenty-first century, we call her Anna. 

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Some eagle-eyed interpreters spotted a nest of Marsh Wrens snugly tucked in between the timbers in the saw pit. 

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Down at the Mill, not only are the herring running to increase their population, and four little cygnets being well protected by their parents, there’s a family of Canada Geese with their goslings. I would have taken a better picture, but the big ones started to hiss at me, and once when I was about 7, I got bitten by a goose. It hurt. 

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I think that just leaves us to say “Happy Mother‘s Day” to you all! If you are a Mother (or a Mother figure) we hope you are spoiled today, and if you have a Mother (or a Mother figure), we hope you’re showing her how wonderful you think she is! 

And to our own Mothers…THANK YOU! Thanks for bringing us into the world, loving us, supporting us and encouraging us to be ourselves and do what we love, no matter how crazy it might seem. 

Oh, and remember how we said this post was a two-parter?!! Hold on to your (buckle) hats, because more stories and pictures chronicling the rise of Plimoth Plantation’s Interpreters from kid nerds to fully formed adult nerds are on the way. You didn’t think we’d be the only ones to post embarrassing photos on the Internet, did you?

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Posted in Family Life, Pilgrim, Plimoth Plantation, William Bradford | 2 Comments

‘Twas In The Merry Month Of May

May 4th, 2013 by Alexandra

 

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Posted in Seasons, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

This Old Hat

April 13th, 2013 by Sally

Last week, as part of my weekly grind at The Mill, I was going through some newspaper articles that had been written around the time of the completion of the building that now stands on Jenney Pond. This was mainly so that we can give an accurate account of the history of our reconstructed mill alongside the history of milling and water power in Plymouth Colony. But, as I am wont to do, I got distracted. These days, anything with the word “Pilgrim” in it catches my eye. Here’s what I found while reading the July 3rd, 1970 edition of New England Real Estate Journal:

It’s an advert extolling the economic virtues of the Town of Plymouth. Apparently, “the school community has computer math at grade 6″! This got me thinking about two things that I will address right here in this post.

How exactly does something become (or avoid becoming) “Old Hat”?

and

Actual Old Hats.

As it turns out, the saying “old hat” as we use it today is, in fact, not very old hat. Our good friend The OED cites its first use in 1911. This means you won’t be hearing it in the 1627 Village any time soon. Like many things, when a hat gets old it starts to sag. Its once bold colour fades to a grey-ish tinge of its former glory. But it’s not all bad. That well-worn piece of headgear takes on the shape of your head. It starts to smell like you. It is comfort in a head covering. Moreover, you know what to expect from an old hat and it doesn’t disappoint. Anyway, going back to the dictionary, if you are described as being old hat, you are “considered to be old-fashioned, out of date, unoriginal, or hackneyed”. Conveniently, this brings me on to my next interesting find; from the Town of Plymouth’s 350th Anniversary brochure, 1970:

It could easily have been written yesterday. Wait a minute. Am I trying to say that Plimoth Plantation is old hat? Well, do I think it is old-fashioned? Innately. Is it out of date? By about four hundred years. Unoriginal? We try to re-create the past as accurately as possible through the use of primary sources, so while we certainly do not lack in creativity, I suppose unoriginality is our end-game, yes. Are we hackneyed? This one requires a closer look…

hack·neyed

/ˈhaknēd/
Adjective
(of a phrase or idea) Lacking significance through having been overused.
 
Synonyms
trite – banal – commonplace – threadbare – platitudinous

Absolutely not! Just looking at those synonyms makes me want to curl up in a corner and die of boredom. Take another look at that advertisement. By smelling the woodsmoke, we’re providing a multi-sensory experience of the past. Walking down the street allows  a 21st-century mind to be wholly absorbed into a seventeenth-century mindset. Seeing the animals brings home the reality of the desperate struggle to survive in a hostile and strange New World. Visiting the (small, simple) houses opens up a discussion on the virtues of a pre-consumerist lifestyle. And in talking to the people, a piece of history is being kept alive. In short, I think that Plimoth Plantation and the history we interpret is far too interesting, too significant, too compelling to ever be described as old hat. Frequently, we talk with our visitors about issues concerning sustainable living, property ownership, race, religion, immigration, healthcare, gun ownership and debt management. If that’s not relevant, I don’t know what is. It’s like being in our own individual presidential debate every day. I suppose the paradox for us is that we who pretend to be these seventeenth-century people are always trying to make our seventeenth-century way of life seem like old hat. “Why yes”, I hear myself saying, “of course I grind all of my corn in a mortar and pestle, and sift it all with a bolting cloth and then bake all my own bread”. I’ll give visitors a quizzical look when they ask me where the bathroom is, I’ll think they are outright crazy when they try to convince me that women should have the right to vote – this is all part of my (un-hackneyed) early modern period world view. In my humble opinion, this is exactly what makes our exhibit the opposite of old hat (new hat? Perhaps not…).

Now, onto Actual Old Hats.

A common question we get from out visitors is “How do you make a profit here in the colony?” You may remember from my last post, that just last year in 1626 Plymouth began using a convenient and wholesome pinnace (a good size boat) in trading with the natives. (They had already been trading in this way prior to 1626, but the pinnace enabled them to trade more goods in one journey than ever before. Ingenious.) What were they trading? Mostly maize grown in Plymouth for furs trapped in The Maine. These fur pelts were in turn sold in England which in turn gave our Pilgrims money to begin to pay off their debt and to buy their all-essential supplies. There are diverse and sundry kinds of pelts, otter, mink, marten, but the one that was in highest demand in England was beaver. “Why?” I hear you ask. Well, my friends, beaver fur makes good hats.

I guess it would go a long way in keeping your head dry…

That’s Stacy modelling exactly what I think goes through the heads of 95% of all school children when they hear the phrase “beaver fur hat”. It’s really rather more suited to Davy Crockett and the wild frontier than anything else. In actuality, the fur is removed from the pelt, and felted just like wool. Here’s a legit four hundred year old hat to show you what I mean:

C. Hopkins beaver hat

Now THAT’S what I call old hat!

This hat is attributed to Constance Hopkins of Mayflower fame and you can see it for yourself, right here in Plymouth at Pilgrim Hall Museum. The fantastic and endlessly talented Johanna Tower in our Historic Clothing and Textiles Department has been making felt hats for us to wear for a couple of years now, and I’m told you’ll be seeing a hat like this in the Village very soon! I think it’s fascinating to see just how similar a hat felted from beaver fur is to a common or garden woollen felt hat. However, hat experts tell me that a beaver hat will last much, much longer.

Recently, it seems there have been an overplus of videos here on They Knew They Were Pilgrims. I think it’s partly because I take far too many pictures than I know what to do with, and a video is an excellent way to show them all to you without it growing too tedious.  That being said, I hope you don’t mind another one, one which I think is a fitting tribute to the hats and caps we wear every day.

WARNING: This video contains a serious ear worm. I’ve been singing it all week, and don’t my fellow Pilgrims know it – sorry everyone!

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Posted in Pilgrim, Plimoth Plantation, Primary Sources, William Bradford | 5 Comments

Your Interpretation Will Be Televised.

March 30th, 2013 by Alexandra

I’ll just come out and say it: if you’re a Colonial Interpreter at Plimoth Plantation you probably weren’t the cool kid in high school. You probably were involved in the drama club’s production of The Sound of Music, or you were that kid who got an annoyingly perfect 5 on their AP US History test (Spoiler alert: if you were me, you were both!).

Suffice it to say, to be a Pilgrim you have to be pretty comfortable in your un-coolness. It’s not often that we see the small period details we fret about day to day crop up in the pop culture zeitgeist, and even stranger when some piece of popular entertainment makes your Pilgrim ears perk up and pay attention.

History as depicted in pop culture alternately makes me cringe (Full disclosure: I actually, literally stopped watching The Tudors on Netflix because Henry VIII used the word “picnic,” which wasn’t around until the 19th century.), makes me swoon (Colin Firth as Jan Vermeer? Yes, please.), and sometimes, in that rare gem of an occasion, makes me think Yes! They actually got that right! (Well, at least as right as my experience in living history would lead me to believe).

Luckily for us period pieces seem to be having a bit of a moment on our television screens – whether its Downton Abbey, Boardwalk Empire or Mad Men - but for many of us Pilgrims, there is one show which can fuel heated lunch time debate like none other: Game of Thrones. Set in a facsimile of the medieval world, the show has just enough reality (Knights! Funny clothes! Weird words!) to hook a bunch of history nerds, but enough fantasy (Dragons! Zombies!) to excuse it if things aren’t exactly right.

And lest you think we here on the blog are barbarians who only watch TV and don’t read books, I can assure you that a good chunk of us Interpreters find ourselves at varying points in the book series which inspired the show, George R.R. Martin’s A Song Of Ice and Fire, meaning that you have to take care to not ruin your friendships by accidentally spoiling crucial plot points.

Like any devoted fans of a particular slice of pop culture, those of us invested in Game of Thrones buy cookbooks based on the series, can hum the theme song with aplomb, and waste their Saturday nights fighting each other for control of the fictional kingdom of Westeros – well in board game form anyway:

It only took 7 hours, but my partner & I finally won the Iron Throne through a combination of luck, luck & more luck.

Here’s where it gets weird (weirder?) though:  In what can only be considered New World Problem #427, I often find myself relating  to the characters a little too much. Like most of the people who tune into HBO for the show and/or read the book series, I enjoy the plot twists, intrigue and dragons, but I also find myself taking note of how and what the characters are eating, the depiction of items of period clothing, or the use of language eerily similar to what I use to speak to museum visitors everyday.

They say life imitates art, but what happens when you see the historical life you imitate at a museum imitated in books and on TV? (Or is that just some crazy rabbit hole I’d be better off not falling down?)  But don’t take my word for it, let me show you that we Pilgrims are as hip as any House in Westeros – we really are! Promise!

1. Our houses are the same!

“…in a one-room hut of mud and straw with a thatched roof and smoke hole and a floor of hard-packed earth, (he) shivered and coughed and licked his lips…Only a grey-and-black tangle of charred wood remained, with a few embers glowing in the ashes. There’s still smoke, it just needs wood…’Catch,’ he croaked. ‘Burn.’ He blew upon the embers…Already the little hut was growing colder.” – A Dance With Dragons

Look, I’m going on the assumption here that should most people read the description of “a one-room hut of mud and straw with a thatched roof and a smoke hole and a floor of hard-packed earth” in a fantasy novel the first thing they think of isn’t their work place.  But if you’re a Pilgrim, a place like that is pretty much your office:

No climbing on Elder Brewster's thatch Brandon Stark!

No climbing on Elder Brewster’s thatch Brandon Stark!

Not only that, reading such a description might conjure up memories of Mourt’s Relation, which recounts the building of New Plimoth’s first common house  by saying that some men “should make mortar, and some gather thatch, so that in four days half of it was thatched.”  And it doesn’t take much for me to imagine what it must be like to try to start a fire on a cold, snowy night because I came into work last Tuesday and quite actually saw this:

Does Santa still come down the chimney if the hearth is full of snow?

Shoveling snow out of their hearth is a job hazard everyone has, right?

2. We eat the same stuff!

“Such food Bran had never seen; course after course after course, so much that he could not manage more than a bite or two of each dish. There were great joints of aurochs roasted with leeks, venison pies chunky with carrots, bacon and mushrooms…savory duck, peppered boar, goose, skewers of pigeon and capon…twenty casks of fish…packed in salt and seaweed; whitefish and winkles, crabs and mussels, clams, herring, cod, salmon, lobster and lampreys…there were turnips and pease and beets, beans and squash and huge red onions…” – A Clash Of Kings

If you’ve visited Plimoth Plantation there’s a good chance you’ve seen Interpreters cooking food over an open hearth – it has its dangers (I’ve singed a few petticoats), but also great rewards (as in, the resulting food is awesome).  You can’t beat cold, rainy November days when you get to sit next to a fire and turn the spit on a rack of ribs for hours like it’s your job…because well, it is.  So naturally whenever food, whether it be humble pease pottage or a feast with multiple courses, is mentioned in any Song of Ice And Fire book, the Pilgrim in me instantly thinks I know exactly how I would cook this, and it would be delicious or alternately (and like a true nerd), Is there a legit period recipe for this so I could cook it at work? And sure, we don’t necessarily have a full-fledged feast everyday like we’re lords and ladies, but I’d say we do alright:

What does your TV prop food taste like Cersei? Because the food I get to cook is excellent good belly cheer.

And even though there were times we know the Pilgrims wanted for food in New Plimoth, there were times when they did alright too – like when Governor Bradford got married in 1623 and Emmanuel Altham says there were “about twelve pasty venisons, besides others, pieces of roasted venison.” And in a 1622/23 letter, John Pory mentions herring, eels, smelt, bass, bluefish, lobster, cod, hake, mussels, and clams, as well as fowl, fruit and venison all being available to the colonists depending upon the season.  In other words, we Interpreters eat well enough daily to make any lord of Winterfell jealous:

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Okay, fine. We’ve never roasted an aurochs – is a suckling pig close enough?

(P.S.: If you want some period receipts and general food talk, you should read Pilgrim Seasonings!)

 3. We have the same fashion sense!

“He filled his basin from the flagon of water beside his bed, washed his face and hands, donned a clean set of black woolens, laced up a black leather jerkin, and pulled on a pair of well-worn boots.” – A Dance With Dragons

Getting dressed in one’s Pilgrim’s clothes every morning can be an ordeal – there’s bodies to be laced into, garters to tie, hair to be braided, breeches to be hooked into doublets.  I can’t help but feel some odd kinship then with anyone who rocks the same early modern style that I do from 9-5, even if they are actors who probably have quadruple my pay grade:

This must be embarrassing for you Jon Snow, wearing the same doublet as my co-worker. Guess someone is firing their stylist.

Clothing was particularly precious to the Pilgrims because there was no one in early New Plimoth producing it – new supply would have to come from England, so one can understand why Edward Winslow would advise anyone thinking of making the journey to “bring good store of clothes.”  Likewise, even if we Interpreters might complain about wearing layers of wool in the middle of August, we appreciate the care and work that goes into making all the petticoats, doublets, stockings, jerkins, and waistcoats we sport (Thanks Wardrobe Department!).  We’re not an HBO show however, so I think we keep  our clothes on more than any given Game Of Thrones character might, but just in case you were wondering what was under all that wool:

The Elder won't like this.

The Elder won’t like this.

The answer? MORE WOOL!

 

So the Cliff Notes version? Thanks Game of Thrones for giving thatched roofs, pease pottage and leather doublets the 15 minutes of cool we Pilgrims always knew they deserved.   Of course, if you’re a fellow fan and visit us in 1627 we can’t ‘fess up to being the avowed nerds that we are, but we’d still be happy to tell you more about early modern building methods, cooking and/or clothing than you ever wanted to know.  And while we can’t talk about the Night’s Watch, or what it’s like to sail across the Narrow Sea or to feast in King’s Landing, we can certainly discuss why New Plimoth built it’s own Wall (no ice, just wood), and the voyage of the Mayflower, and exactly what happened at that most famous feast of all, The First Thanksgiving.

If you can’t leave Massachusetts, but want to go to Westeros, come visit us instead – we have pretty much everything except the dragons.

And since now of course you’re wondering What if Game Of Thrones was set in New Plimoth? I leave you with our very own version of the show’s opening title sequence, created by my intrepid coworker Doug:

In the Game of Froes, you win or you rive.

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Posted in Pilgrims in Pop Culture | 9 Comments

Jackpot!

March 27th, 2013 by Alexandra

This past week we reached a momentous occasion here on the blog – we got our 100th subscriber!  In the grand scheme of the Internet it may not seem like much, but considering we’re a blog that posts more about William Bradford and Henry Ainsworth than Justin Bieber (The kids still like him, right?), I’d say we’re doing okay.  So from all of us at They Knew They Were Pilgrims we’d like to thank everyone who has supported us in this crazy endeavor to bring the 17th Century into the 21st, and your continued interest in reading about this weird little job we do at Plimoth Plantation.

If you’d like to join this elite group and become a subscriber (that means you’ll get an email alerting you every time we post), just look to your top right and click the link that says “Get ‘They Knew They Were Pilgrims’ in your inbox!”  And if you currently subscribe, we hope you continue reading, enjoying, and sharing our blog, and all the other awesome stuff you already do. Lastly, if reading our blog has got you interested in visiting Plimoth Plantation, come on by – we’re open for the season and can’t wait to see you!

One final thought before we say farewell – there were roughly 100 passengers on the Mayflower in 1620. If there was any group of 100 people I’d like to spend 2 months with on a leaky wooden ship while we were all seasick, it’d be you guys! Thanks again!

 

Thank you!

From us, and our break room fridge.

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Posted in Plimoth Plantation, Uncategorized | 10 Comments

“…and thus passed the affairs of this year.”

March 25th, 2013 by Sally

You may remember that back in January I postponed my new year well wishes to you, our dear readers, for reasons that can only be explained by Julius Caesar himself. Well, you can’t say I don’t keep my promises.

Happy New (Old Style) Year!

Because the museum opened for the season on March 16th, and that is before the  Julian calendar year ends, we have been in 1626 for NINE DAYS! It might seem like somewhat trivial news to those of you who work in a different year every year…but when you perpetually work in 1627, this is HUGE – what a refreshing change! In 1626, Standish returns with the sad news of the deaths of John Robinson, our pastor and Robert Cushman, our ancient friend. Trading with the natives for furs began to be the primary source of profit for the colony, so much so that Master Bradford requested the “ingenious man that was a house carpenter…took one of the biggest of their shallops and sawed her in the middle, and so lengthened her some five or six foot, and strengthened her with timbers, and so built her up and laid a deck on her.” And so, we have a convenient and wholesome pinnace - very fit and comfortable for our use!

1626 in 2013 has been a fantastic week; my highlights include cooking the first cabbage pottage, dirtying my apron within the first hour of being in the village, quite literally getting back to the old (new) grind at the Grist Mill and coming home from work every day with dirt under my nails, smelling like a human bonfire (not a particular highlight for my husband, I must say). It’s not all fun and games though, and wading through ankle deep muddy slush after a snow storm was most unpleasant. Still, it’s good to be back.

Being the blogaholic that I am, I have documented the past week in order to share it with you. There are far too many photos, so I’ve made you a video round-up of the first week of the 2013 season and our last (and only!) week of 1626!

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Posted in Pilgrim, Plimoth Plantation, Primary Sources, Seasons, William Bradford | 6 Comments

Open For Business!

March 16th, 2013 by Alexandra

The signs of spring are popping up all around us: birds chirping, flowers timidly pushing through the dirt, snow (hopefully) melting for good.  Here at Plimoth Plantation, you don’t have to look very far to see the signs of the season either – the costumes have been parceled out, the artifacts have been taken out of storage, and Interpreters are panicking that they won’t remember the name of their 17th century husband/wife/child when they open their mouths to answer the first visitor question of 2013.

In other words, starting today, March 16, Plimoth Plantation has opened its doors for its 66th season!

So let me take this opportunity to shamelessly plug some of the great things we have planned for this year (that’s our prerogative, right?), like our brand new exhibit in downtown Plymouth, the Plimoth Grist Mill:

The Plimoth Grist Mill

The Grist Mill is a reconstruction of an original mill which stood on the same site, the history of which dates back to 1636 when John and Sarah Jenney received permission from the town of Plymouth to build a mill for “grinding of corn upon the brook of Plymouth.” Besides offering us Interpreters the chance to broaden our horizons and learn some new skills,  with this new exhibit we have the opportunity to not only expand the sites included in our museum, but to continue the story of New Plimoth beyond 1627.  In addition, you will be able to purchase the organic cornmeal the mill grinds at our gift shops (like I said, shameless plugs). But just in case you need some additional enticement to check it out, head on over to our newest blog, The Miller’s Tale, written by Kim Van Wormer, the Grist Mill’s new supervisor. Good luck on Opening Day to Kim and everyone else involved in getting our newest exhibit up and running – sacks to the mill!

And while we are looking forward to many future seasons with the Grist Mill, we are also taking some time this year to look back and celebrate the 40th anniversary of our Wampanoag Indigenous Program. So if you’re at the museum, don’t forget to visit the Wampanoag Homesite to speak to our Interpreters, learn how a mishoon is made, try your hand at some games or smell something delicious cooking.  My favorite part of the Homesite is the recently built nush wetu, meaning  a house containing three fire pits. But don’t just take my word for it, go visit yourself because it is AWESOME:

wetu

Last but not least, you may have heard that Mayflower II won’t be joining us for the start of the 2013 season, and that’s because she’s getting some TLC from our crew of marine artisans while at dry dock in Fairhaven, MA.  This June it will be 56 years since Mayflower II completed her crossing from England, meaning that her restoration is much needed and much deserved.  During the winter, along with numerous helping hands, our marine crew of Peter, Keith and Danny worked to get Mayflower II ready for her return to Plymouth hopefully sometime in the late spring, as well as for the upcoming 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first Mayflower in 2020.  And even if you don’t know your fo’c'sle from your mizzen-mast, you can still peruse the Save Our Ship page to see the ways you can help with the restoration, or check for updates on Peter Arenstam’s Mayflower II’s Captain’s Blog.

Sending out an SOS!

Sending out an SOS!

We’re ready for another year of history here at the Plantation, and we hope you are too. Come visit! See you soon!

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Posted in Plimoth Plantation, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Some Things Never Change

March 5th, 2013 by Sally

It’s that time of year again. Our Spring Conference is in full swing. The cast list has been distributed (Fear Allerton, for me) and effervescently discussed. Our wonderfully made clothes, period-correct down to the last button, are in the dressing room, patiently waiting to be worn. (Men, this is the one and only time you’ll be seeing this…)

And whenever I put down my computer/finish my dinner/stop driving/try to relax, I’m faced with this view:

PRIMARY SOURCES!

From top to bottom, that’s Mourt’s Relation, A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, Good Newes from New England by  Edward Winslow, and Of Plymouth Plantation written by our esteemed (but ever so slightly tedious) Governor, William Bradford.

Yes, it’s time to revisit these old friends, and while the stories and themes are oh-so-familiar, I never fail to glean something new each time I read them. As daunting as this collection of books might seem, they are our interpretive life-blood. Just as Native Corn is the “staff of life” (Winslow), we could not accuratetly interpret New Plimoth without these invaluable records. So, dear readers, next time you find yourselves in New Plimoth, listen out for someone describing Cape Cod as “wooded to the brink of the sea” (Mourt’s) or New England winters as “sharp and violent, and subject to cruel and fierce storms” (Bradford), and know that you’re hearing the words of the men that lived it.

Here’s a gratuitous primary source of a different ilk; a beautiful scene from a recent trip to Cape Cod.

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Posted in Pilgrim, Plimoth Plantation, Primary Sources, William Bradford | No Comments

New World Problems

February 28th, 2013 by Alexandra

Bloggers blogging bloggily.

 

Hey Sally (that’s me in the reddish-brown) and Jess (I’m typing in green!)! It’s Alex, your favorite co-blogger! While we’re sitting here, I have a story to tell which you’ve probably already heard, but I’m going to tell it anyway.  I think most of our coworkers have heard it in fact, so if you count yourself amongst that number, feel free to hit fast forward to the next paragraph.  But for everyone else, let us set the scene:

I had just started my training to be an Interpreter at Plimoth Plantation, meaning that I was doing my best to learn how to speak like a Shakespeare character come to life before I made my costumed debut. And as would only happen to a former English major, this meant that my brain was agonizing over proper 17th century syntax, word choice, grammar and other nerdy nonsense.  Needless to say, my brain was not in the same state as most 21st century readers when I started to flip through a magazine at a friend’s apartment, eventually settling on reading an article about how Somali pirates were hurting the tourism trade in the Seychelles (I’m pretty sure it was this article, to be exact).  All seemed as usual however, until I read a sentence describing some islands in the Seychelles as “sparse and isolated, a nature preserve on the United Nations list of World Heritage sites, and they attract mostly scientists and divers and fly fishermen.”  Huh, that’s weird, I thought. That must be a typo.  Scientists, fishermen and divers…what? A word is missing! There is of course, not a word missing – the article clearly is talking about divers of the SCUBA variety – but to my 17th century leaning brain I read it as “divers,” a now mostly forgotten word pronounced like (and similar in meaning to) “diverse,” and not like people who jump off  springboards:

Divers is a word which pops up quite a lot in the primary sources we use here at the museum, making it a rather large part of our Pilgrim lexicon.  If you visit the museum there is a good chance an Interpreter might tell you that “there are divers people living in New Plimoth” or “divers herbs” are growing in her garden, which means it’s not so weird that I expected another noun to come after “divers” in that aforementioned sentence…right? Right? Someone else out there understands, don’t they?

I UNDERSTAND! IT’S ME! SALLY, YOUR BLOG-BUDDY!! Call it a coincidence, but I have a similar story…Recently, there has been great excitement amongst the British contingent of my Facebook friends, revolving around the football (soccer) League Cup. Here’s what confused me most:

For those of you who don’t know, Bradford City are a League Two team, which in reality, puts them in the fourth tier of English football. So for them to find themselves in the final of the League Cup was a big deal. It was even more exciting when I found out that the last time they won that trophy was 102 years ago! And there were 102 passengers on the Mayflower! Unfortunately, when it came down to it, they were outplayed by Swansea. Spectactularly. 5-0. But for a while, their fans believed they could do it. This, I think, is the first and only time I will ever blog about football. Unless England ever wins the World Cup again. I wonder what our William Bradford would have made of them playing football on a Sunday…

And then, there was the time (while she was all the way in deepest, darkest Michigan) Alex sent me this:

And this blog post was born!

Leading strings are, well, strings, that are attached to the shoulders of seventeenth-century baby gowns. They are primarily used for supporting your toddler as they learn to walk. I could be wrong, but I’m fairly sure that Rosie Huntington-Whiteley wasn’t going for early-modern-period-baby-chic when she donned this slinky black number for the Golden Globe Award Ceremony earlier this year.

Hey now, they say fashion is cyclical! If shoulder pads can make a comeback who says that leading strings won’t?

Okay, considering I am currently sat between the two of you, I feel almost obligated to offer my two cents on this topic. Oh, I’m Jess, by the way. Interested readers can find my ham face on Sally’s blog about music. I am also the author of the advertisement for An Evening of Courtly Love.  I have two stories, well really a story and a pet peeve which I will try and make into a story. (She’s an interpreter, so she’s really good at that! -Sally)

Situation 1

I’m American. The word “aye” as an affirmation is not part of my modern vocabulary. Or, at least, it shouldn’t be. Know what else shouldn’t be a part of my modern vocabulary? Methinks, Good Morrow, Yea, Nay, Mayhaps, Whence, I could go on but I think you get it.  (By the by, when I refer to modern vocab. I mean the kind of polite language I use around people I don’t know well, for example waiters, bank tellers, grocery store clerks, distant relatives and random strangers, etc.) I spend all day, five days a week during open season talking to people I don’t know well. When I’m on the clock, I talk like it’s 1627 so aye, methinks, and nay are not only not weird, it’s what helps me remind myself where I am and who I’m supposed to be.  Inevitably after a long day of  1627 talk, you change into your modern clothes and get into your modern (or at least 20th century: see Pilgrim paychecks) car, but sometimes your brain gets left behind as you leave the 17th century for errands in the 21st. So my New World Problem is this conversation, that I have had more times than I wish to admit:

Person: Hello.

Me: Good Mhello…

Person: Were you able to find everything you were looking for?

Me: Aye….think so!

Person: That’ll be 16.23.

Me: (That’s the year so and so arrived.) Very well.

Person: Would you like your receipt?

Me: Nay…(well, now you’ve done it.)

Person: Where are you from?

Me: I’m from New York, but I sound weird because I’m…it’s been a long day.

Don’t worry Jess, you’re not alone. I’ve done this far too many times to count. The only difference is, that when I tell people I’m from England, they think that’s how ALL English people speak!

Situation 2

We call it hand tan. You see someone wearing a tank top and you can see a line on their mid-upper arm and you think ” they have farmer tan,” right? That’s fairly normal. It just means that person was out in the sun in a t-shirt. What do you think when you see a person with brown hands up to their wrist, then pasty white arms the rest of the way up? I don’t know either but that’s exactly what my arms look like in the summer. You see I work outside a lot in the summer, but one can only roll one’s 17th century sleeves up so far. Also, anything less than overdressed and I’d be considered a loose woman and an unhealthy one at that!

“Maybe it will look like I’m wearing cute gloves,” said I, as I wiggled into a strapless dress for my best friend’s wedding…

Hand Tan Fail.….Nope. Because gloves don’t have fingernails…

And don’t even get me started on the weird triangle tan one gets if your shift has a gap in it between your neck and your waistcoat. Or the burn on the portion of your nose that sticks out from under your hat. So awesome.

Seeing as we’re all confessing to our Pilgrim-itis, I think now is an appropriate time to tell our readers about this conversation:


1. Yes, it was my day off.

2. Yes, I was OED-ing (looking up words in the Oxford English Dictionary to check whether they were in use in our time period).

3. No, I don’t think I ever actually decided between Spanish and French Pox.

Well, I thought the next story I was going to tell was embarrassing, but I might have to reconsider after reading that Sally! Some people might have life goals that involve climbing mountains, visiting certain places or parachuting out of airplanes, but number one with a bullet on my bucket list is appearing on Jeopardy! (never mind, that is embarrassing.)  And while in years past I have managed to get as far as snagging a Jeopardy! audition, for the time being the closest I’ll get to fulfilling my dream of saying “Let’s make it a true Daily Double, Alex!” is shouting answers at my TV screen weeknights between 7:30 and 8 pm.  Sometimes, though, even when staring at a television I have trouble remembering which century it actually is:

If you're reading this Mr. Trebek, I love you & please let me be on your show.

Sadly, if I had really been a contestant on Jeopardy! that answer would have been incorrect, as broadsides in the 17th Century weren’t pamphlets, but printed only on one side of a sheet of paper.  They were however often announcements or advertisements of some sort, like this one which details useful items to bring, should you be moving to the New World:

Cross-promotional fact: You can buy a reproduction of this in our gift shop!

 

The moral of the story (and texts and Facebook posts)? You can take the girl out of the 17th Century but sometimes you can’t take the 17th Century out of the girl.

Especially after you’ve invited 1000 school children to ask you every random question that flies through their curious minds for seven hours. A fried Pilgrim brain has particular trouble separating work and play methinks.

I’m not sure whether it’s our love of what we do, or the strangeness of it, but it certainly does have a way of encroaching on all areas of our lives. I can’t help but cringe when someone refers to the Mayflower II not as a ship but a boat. My husband is not impressed when I absent-mindedly throw my vegetable peelings on the floor at home. My (non-Pilgrim) friends look at me strangely when “pray pardon” accidentally slips out in conversation. Olde habits die hard.

It’s true – we eschew modern kitchen utensils in favor of cooking only with the 17th Century preferred knife (much to my mother’s chagrin when I scraped up a new pot of hers this way),  can’t enjoy period movies because we spend too much time analyzing how accurate the clothes are, and force anyone who’s ever been with us at an art museum to spend two hours looking at the Dutch Masters collection.

These stories sound like that internet meme going around called #firstworldproblems. Y’know where privileged people complain about silly things that make their life “hard.” I don’t want anyone reading this to think we’d trade our Pilgrim lives in for anything! We’re really just basking in our uniqueness by illustrating the weird parts of what it means to be a Professional Pilgrim!

You’re right Jess! And to celebrate the start of a new season at Plimoth Plantation (staff training starts tomorrow – eek! And the museum opens to the public March 16!), we created some memes of our own for your viewing pleasure, or New World Problems as we like to call them. Can’t wait until they take the internet by storm!


 

 

Bless your heart if you’ve managed to get to the end of this blog post, and we hope to see you on Opening Day. March 16, mark your calendars!

XOXO,

Alex, Jess and Sally.

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Posted in Pilgrim, Plimoth Plantation | 1 Comment

Thank You for the Music

February 7th, 2013 by Sally

So I say:
Thank you for the music, the songs I’m singing;
Thanks for all the joy they’re bringing.
Who can live without it, I ask in all honesty:
What would life be?
Without a song or a dance what are we?
So I say: thank you for the music,
For giving it to me.

-Henry Ainsworth ABBA

I know that you’ve all been dying to hear about my very exciting winter project. First of all, I should tell you that it’s not JUST my project. I have the great privilege of working together with my good friend, colleague and now fellow bloggess, Jess. Our project came about through hours of brainstorming on quiet days in the Village, dinner dates, countless texts, emails and phone calls, and (although I think this goes without saying) big piles of general, all-around awesomeness. So, thank you Jess for your eternal patience, for encouraging excellence and being a fantastic sounding board. You are brilliant. Here we are in our civvies, looking suitably professional.

Jess and I both love music. Lots of music, in every genre. Well, most genres. We also love being Pilgrims. What better way could there be for us to while away the winter months than combining these two things? We have been given the (undeniably huge) task of revisiting, researching and revitalising the way we use music in our exhibit.

When talking about music of the early modern period, it’s common to divide it up into two distinct groups. sacred music, which in post-Elizabethan, Protestant England tends to refer to the setting of the liturgy and the singing of metrical Psalms, and secular music, which can range anywhere from the madrigals of Thomas Morley, to the courtly consort music of Orlando Gibbons or William Byrd, to bawdy Broadside Ballads. What we are ultimately trying to do is to get a better idea of the kinds of music that ordinary people of England would have known when they first set foot here in Plymouth. I could hazard a guess that most people reading this could hum the melody to Hey Jude or recognise Sweet Home, Alabama just from hearing the introduction. Beyoncé is a household name, especially after last week’s spectacular (IMHO) Super Bowl performance. Love it or hate it, these songs are a part of our musical cultural literacy. We, in the modern age of recording have incredible opportunities to hear seminal performances of music that would otherwise be lost to the moment in which they were perfomed. I can go home tonight and hear Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic Orchestra playing Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra. After that, I can listen to John Coltrane playing “live” at the Village Vanguard. Then, if I want to, I can rock out on my air guitar to Eric Clapton’s Layla right there in my living room. Eclectic? Maybe. I’m a tea drinker, what can I say? There may be an ongoing discussion in musical circles concerning the demise of live music, but to a turn of the (17th) century English person, live music is all there is. Not only that, but there’s no television, no cinema, no internet (shock, horror!). When you visit a tavern, there are no dart boards or pool tables, no trivia nights, no juke box. Well, no juke box except for the guy who has had one or two more beers than you and starts up the singing! Then, the music you knew was the music you heard at church, at home, out on the street, at a play, a fair or in a tavern. And, the ordinariness of this music is just that. Ordinary. Excellently ordinary.

In our Plymouth primary sources, there are no references to the sorts of secular music people would have known or sung. This means that we will be casting our long-term research nets far and wide to trace down appropriate secondary sources on the music of common people in our time period. However, we here at Plimoth Plantation like to start with what we do know. You may recall my post late last year on Henry Ainsworth’s Book of Psalmes. If you don’t recall it, you can read it now if you like. Anyway, what we do know is that the highly reformed church in Plymouth used this, Henry Ainsworth’s settings of the Psalms, in their worship from their arrival here in 1620 until 1685 when they voted to follow the rest of Massachusetts in adapting the Bay Psalm Book. We have a couple of very useful reproduction copies of the Ainsworth psalter made by our incredibly multi-talented curator/potter/book-binder/maker-of-many-other-things, Martha Sulya. Of course, any reproduction has to be based on an original. In this case, the 1612 original is in the collection at Pilgrim Hall Museum, right here in Plymouth and is part of their permanent exhibit. “How convenient!” I hear you cry. So, we paid a visit to Stephen O’Neill, Associate Director and Curator of Pilgrim Hall who kindly opened up the display case and let us play away to our hearts’ content. This particular copy was bequeathed to the museum as part of a personal collection of historic books. Unfortunately, we don’t know who it belonged to before it was collected, or exactly when it arrived in Plymouth, but I like to think (it’s complete supposition, mind you) that it was, at some time or other, handled by some of the first settlers here. It is in remarkably good condition though, so I find it difficult to imagine that this particular book was used on a regular basis.

Here’s Jess, preparing to touch a 400 year old book for the first time.

I try recreating a Dutch Masters painting. Girl with old book, laptop and lamp, anyone??

And we carefully turned page after page…looking at minute details, getting excited about and generally appreciating this wonderful text.

Now, you might be wondering exactly WHY we’re doing this. Well, we know for sure that the Pilgrims sang these Psalms. Therefore, we, as interpreters of the history of early Plymouth Colony, ought to know them well, too. In another week or so, Jess and I will have transcribed the 48 melodies and 150 Psalms contained in this psalter in their entirety into modern, digital form. This will then be uploaded to an online, searchable database which our staff can access as and when they need to. It’s going to have downloadable MP3s too! It sounds straight forward enough, but a task like this certainly has its frustrations.


A List Of Things That Make Us Do This:

 

1) He, or Be?

In this font, the lower case “h” and lower case “b” are so close to one another, we have to look twice.

He, or be, you tell me….


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2) Soul, or Fowl?

Printed text in the 17th-century In these two extracts, look for the word that looks like fowl, or fowls. The first one refers to “their fowls-appitite”…are there hungry birds around? No, I think this particular Psalm is speaking metaphorically of the hunger of our soul. The Psalm on the right speaks of “feth’red fowl”. Does my soul have feathers? I don’t think so. That’s a chicken.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3) Mythical Creatures


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know we all like to think that unicorns and dragons are real…But nowadays, the beast in Psalm 22 is more commonly translated as wild oxen, and Psalm 74′s dragon has become a more generic, although no less frightening, sea monster.

 

4) Mystery Note Heads

In a land of movable C-clefs and diamond-headed whole- and half-notes, can anyone shed any light on the notes associated with “name” on the first line and “re-ceiv” on the second?! I’m assuming printer error until I can be proven otherwise!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5) Pecurliarly-Ainsworthian Phraseology

Ainsworth is nothing if not devoted to accuracy in his translation of the Psalms. However, when it comes to setting them in a singable metre, I think I can confidently say that he takes some liberties. Psalm 18, for example. In his own translation in the first column, he writes “…And the channels of waters, were seen; and the foundations of the world, were reveled: at thy rebuke Jehovah; at the breath, of the wind of thine anger.” In order to set this to the irregular metre of the melody assigned to this Psalm, he writes as follows:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“And channels of the waters were beheld; the worlds foundations, were eke reveald: At thy rebuke Jehovah; at the blast, of wind that from thy wrathful-nosthril past.”

Wrathful. Nostril.

To be fair to Ainsworth though, I should clarify that there are plenty of other translations of this Psalm that do refer to the olfactory organ of God himself, but they tend rather towards the blast of the breath of his nostrils, rather than the nostrils themselves being angry.

 

6) Delightful Seventeenth-Century Spellynge

Check this out:


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where do I start? “I before E, except after C”? Faythlesnes/Faithlessness. Styrrd/Stirred. Hye/High. Gealousye?! Lucky for Master Ainsworth, I find his spelling endearing. If I were a little less enamoured by the seventeenth-century though, I can tell you that the spelling would drive me crazy quicker than you can say “oil of marjoram”.

 

All this being said, we are really looking forward to sharing what we’ve discovered first with our fellow interpreters in training, and then with our museum visitors. There will be some new (to us) Psalms being sung in the Village this season, as well as more musical events like our Valentine’s Day spectacular. In the future, we’ll be giving this same treatment to some Church of England Psalms, and investigating further the secular music of the period in order to enable us, as an exhibit, to create an even more accurate soundscape. So, please feel free to expect more blog posts on music – they’re on their way!

 

Do you have an interest in Ainsworth’s Psalms? Are you expert (or not-so-expert) in the music of early modern England? Do you play the lute, or the cittern or the virginal? We’d love to hear from you, share knowledge and resources, or begin a discussion!

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Posted in Music, Pilgrim, Plimoth Plantation, Psalms | 12 Comments

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