Life at Plimoth

Life at Plimoth

Elder Brewster

How many people live at Plimoth Plantation?
There are about fifty people living in town. Most are young adult men.

What kind of food do you eat?
We are planting both our English crops, and many strange native corns and beans and pompions. We hope to have more livestock to slaughter, but the hunting and fishing are very good.

How do you store and preserve food for the cold winter months?
Most meats — especially fish and pork — are salted. Some things are pickled, and others are dried, such as grains and onions.

What are some of the children's chores?
Young lasses help their mothers, chiefly, about the hearth and in preparing and preserving our meats. The young men go with their fathers, chiefly to farming, but some to fish and to hunt. All children are busy tending livestock.

Do children go to school? Do you lead the school?
Schooling is chiefly done in the home by the parents. As the only man who has attended university, I assist the parents, letting them use some of my books, and occasionally, examining the children.

What kind of games did children play?
My boys love to play with marbles and run after each other and play hide-and-seek. They also have a ball that my wife made for them from leather and wool.

Do the children have pets?
There are some children who have a favorite dog, cat, goat, or lamb. But we English see animals for their uses to us. We do not encourage overmuch consideration of them as companions unto men.

What does your wife do during the day?
Chiefly, she looks to the housework, the cookery, the children, and the kitchen garden. Here our women must also bake and brew. There is no market where we might purchase our beer and bread.

Are the women in charge of anything besides the home?
Women milk the cattle. Women's responsibilities are generally in the home.

What kind of clothing do you wear?
We continue to dress ourselves as well as we can, as English men and women. Our clothes are chiefly of wool and linen. Hats and cloaks are necessary against the wild weathers of the land.

Why do Pilgrim men always wear very dark clothing?
We don't always wear dark clothing. Many people have colorful clothing — reds and oranges and blues.

What type of writing utensils do you have?
We use a quill and paper, or parchment, and ink that is powdered. We brought the powdered ink from England, and must mix it with water. Goose quills are best.

Do you have medicine?
Yes. Samuel Fuller, our surgeon, takes good care of our health. He has surgeons' books, herbal remedies, and tools for pulling teeth, letting blood, and mending bones. Bloodletting is a particular skill of his.

Do you pay for things with money? What currency do you use?
We trade with the native peoples, but we do not exchange money with them. In England, we would use pounds, shillings, and pence. Here, all of our goods are purchased from merchants.

Why did the Pilgrims build a palisade, or barrier, surrounding Plimoth?
Though our Pokonoket neighbors are friendly, we were threatened by other natives who live further off. We must also fear our ancient foes, the French and Spaniards.

How far outside of the plantation have the Pilgrims traveled?
We've done some exploring, because we want to trade with the Indians for beaver fur that we use to make hats. We have traveled up and down the coast from the bottom of Cape Cod to the Charles River.

Have there been any births at Plimoth this year?
There have been no births since Peregrine White was born at Cape Cod, soon after our arrival.

Have there been any deaths at Plimoth?
Most grievously, our dear Governor John Carver passed from this vale of tears in April — shortly after the Mayflower's departure from Plimoth back to England. Having survived the sicknesses of the winter, he succumbed while working in his field. His wife died a few weeks after in her grief.

Priscilla Mullins

What kind of rules are there for teenagers at Plimoth? Are the rules different for girls and boys?
All children must help their parents, and when you are 13, 14, and 15 years old, you have a lot of responsibilities. You are expected to do what you are told. Sometimes it is hard because you have the passions of youth set upon you. It is easy to become impatient. But we always must remember that our parents always know what is best for us. The boys spend their time learning from their fathers the kind of work that men will have to do. I spend time with my mothers learning all the arts of housewifery.

What are some of your daily chores? Do you ever wish you had other duties, like fishing and hunting?
I would NEVER want to go fishing! It is so dangerous, and it is very heavy work. Much more suited for a man. I already have too much work to do. I must grind the corn to make the flour. Then, I must make the bread. I must milk the goats. I need to tend the garden. I have to do the wash. I have to help bring in the harvest. My mother taught me the things that women need to know. I do not know how to do the things that men know how to do. Sometimes John will help me in the garden, but he does not know as much about the herbs as I do. And yet, Master Fuller has some skill at surgery, and he knows very much about herbs.

Did the children sit at the table or did they have to wait until the adults were finished?
Often the parents will sit at the table. The children must serve the parents. Children will go and sit on chests, or stumps, or they will stand in the corner. Older siblings will often sit at the table as well. But in the order of the world, the children should always be serving the parents. Parents get the better things, children get the lesser things.

Do you have any animals? Are any of them your pets?
I do not have any pets. When we lived in England, we could sometimes see gentlewomen driving by in their carriages with little lapdogs. All of the animals we had in England, as well as here, are for food. We have chickens, pigs, and goats. Peter Brown, my neighbor, brought two dogs on the Mayflower. They sleep in his house, and they are very good for hunting.

What is your favorite book?
I cannot read. But I do know much of the Bible. My father only owned the Bible growing up. Books are VERY costly. Master Brewster has over 200 books! Sometimes John will read to me if I ask him to. Usually he reads to me from the Bible. When I was a little girl, my father would read to me from Aesop's Fables.

At what age do you start to call on people, or date?
A father will give a young man permission to court you when he thinks the young woman is ready — because any young man who courts you could be the young man you marry. Some people in the city in England will court when they are 23 or 24. But myself being 19, that is acceptable as well. With every girl it depends on her situation and her family circumstances. Some girls from very poor families will often work many years to create a dowry for themselves.

What kinds of songs do you sing?
I sing rounds. I know a round of Three Blind Mice. Sometimes I will sing ballads. They are very long with many verses. And they often tell a story. Sometimes I will sing psalms. I like the psalms, because sometimes they comfort my heart. I know some drinking songs! But I do not walk down the street singing them. There are lots of songs about drunkenness, but my father did not favor to hear me sing them.

Do you or your friends wear jewelry?
I wish that I were a wealthy gentlewoman! I would have pearls sewn into my clothing, and fine gold thread on my silk. Some people in my village do have rings. These rings were given to them in friendship, or, often, when you attend a funeral, the family will give you a ring. Some men and women have rings in their ears. But I do not think that you should poke holes in your body, or corrupt that body that God has given you. It is well if you are a gentleman, and you would wish to sport a pearl hanging from your ear. But for common people like ourselves, it would be foolish.

How far outside Plimoth are you allowed to go?
Well, there's nothing around but wilderness. I walk to the fields to help with the planting and the harvesting. There are many wolves. I do not feel safe venturing too far. I would get lost in the woods. When Goodman Stephen Hopkins and Master Winslow went to visit King Massassoit, they needed an Indian guide. King Massassoit lives two days' journey from here--about forty miles. There are no roads here like there are back in Dorking, which was my town in England. You are all welcome to come and visit me at Plimoth Plantation. Hopefully John and I will have our own house by then. And I hope that God will bless us with many children.

John Alden

How did you get your drinking water? From the ocean? If so, wasn't it salty?
One of the reasons we settled here in New Plimoth was for the springs all about the place. The water is fresh and clear. Though we would prefer beer, we drink mostly water. We lack beer because barleycorn — from which beer is made — grows poorly in this place. It is right surprising that we have been as healthful as we have, even for the lack of beer.

How do you like being a farmer? What types of food do you harvest?
Being a farmer is a completely new sort of work for me, but the sort of farming we're doing here seems more like gardening. It's an odd thing to look at. For instead of plowing a field and sowing seeds, as you would for English corn — like barleycorn and wheat corn - you dig holes in the earth and put fish into it to manure the soil. It looks like you're trying to grow fish! Then you mound up the dirt above it, and after a fortnight [two weeks] — to allow the fish to rot — you plant your seed corn in. You must often mound the dirt around it. This type of corn grows very heavy, and if you don't mound the dirt, the corn could fall down in the wind. Some of my neighbors also plant peas, beans, wheat, rye, and barley in their fields.

Do you hunt for food?
In this place there is so much waterfowl that it seems to blacken the sky. Duck and goose, swan, turkey, and eagles — as well as deer — are abundant.

How do you preserve your food over the cold winter months?
Some things can be dried, like herbs. Things like fish and pork, you would salt. Onions you would plait together [braid], and hang them in your house. Pompions [pumpkins] you could pack in straw. Of course some things like venison must be eaten fresh.

How did you build your house? Was it hard?
Though my trade is to work with wood, I am not a house carpenter. There is a mystery to that trade that not every man does know. If I were to frame a house myself, it would be jiggy joggy [crooked].We do have some carpenters with us and they have framed most of our houses. After the frame is built, there are some fellows who have skill for thatching a roof — by drying rushes, bundling them, and then stitching them onto the roof. The rest of building a house takes no great skill and can be done by most any man and his family. The walls are made of wattle and daub — which is clay, mud, dung, ash, straw — all mixed together and set upon sticks in the wall. If we had lyme to mix with this we could make a proper plaster that would harden. But we do not so we set wooden clapboards on the outside of our houses to keep the walls from washing away.

What did you do about furniture?
Most of the finer furniture that I have belonged to my wife's father and are things that he had brought with him from England. Cruder things like benches and tables, I have fashioned myself.

How many people live in your house? Just you and your wife?
Just myself and my wife and two boarders. Since many men here are not yet married, have left their wives behind in England or Holland, or have lost them to the sickness of last year, the governor has asked families to take these men into their houses as boarders.

What do you wear every day, and where did you get your clothes?
What I wear is that which I brought with me. I have breeches [pants that end just below the knee], shirts, a cassock [a loose overshirt worn for working], shoen [shoes], woolen hose [socks] with garters to hold them up, and a hat and a coat, depending on the weather of course. I do have finer clothes which I wear on the Sabbath day [Sunday] or on finer occasions like the day I was wed.

How come the Pilgrims took a bath a few times a year?
I wash my hands and face and feet each day, but to immerse yourself in water is not healthful. I bathe when it is needful, but it is not something I do regularly.

What do you use for silverware?
Most families in New Plimoth have not things made from silver. For eating, we use spoons, knives and, of course, our hands. Spoons are made from pewter [a kind of metal], wood, or horn.

What is the most important thing you brought back from England?
I am not certain what is the most important thing. This place is a wilderness, and we wish to bring order and civility to it. To do so — to make this place more like England — we need tools, seed for herbs and English corns, clothes, pots, muskets, armor, spices, sugar. Truly there is nothing here, so all things that we need to live we must bring from England.

What kind of medicine do you use when you get sick?
As young girls, women have learned which herbs are good for certain sicknesses and how they are to be prepared. These are called simples. Some herbs are good against the bites of venomous beasts, others for broken bones and others for fevers.