Pilgrims, Plymouth and pilsner

We all have these schoolday images of the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock (which, if you have ever seen it, is pretty small) because they believed they had found the promised land where they could freely practice their religion. (We tend to overlook the fact that by their religion, they meant only theirs, because they would not let anyone else settle there later, not even Quakers.)

Anyway, a friend recently pointed out this interesting fact about why they landed where they did. It is taken from an account written by leaders of that hardy band:

From Mourt’s Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, 1622:

“That night we returned again a-shipboard, with resolution the next morning to settle on some of those places; so in the morning, after we had called on God for direction, we came to this resolution: to go presently ashore again, and to take a better view of two places, which we thought most fitting for us, for we could not now take time for further search or consideration, our victuals being much spent, especially our beer, and it being now the 19th of December. After our landing and viewing of the places, so well as we could we came to a conclusion, by most voices, to set on the mainland, on the first place, on a high ground, where there is a great deal of land cleared, and hath been planted with corn three or four years ago, and there is a very sweet brook runs under the hillside, and many delicate springs of as good water as can be drunk…”

Well, I guess it is good they found water.