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Celebrating Pilgrim Plymouth 1769 — 1995

In January, 1769, Isaac Lothrop, Pelham Winslow, Thomas Lothrop, Elkanah Cushman, John Thomas, Edward Winslow, Jr. and John Watson, founded the Old Colony Club to avoid "...the many disadvantages and inconveniences that arise from intermixing with the company at the taverns in this town of Plymouth...” and to honor their forefathers with an annual celebration of their arrival here in Plymouth. They chose to hold their annual meeting on the anniversary of the December 11,1620, Landing on Plymouth Rock.

This celebration, originally known as "Old Colony Day" and later as "Forefathers' Day," was first observed on December 22, 1769, as Dr. Thacher reported in his History of the Town of Plymouth (Boston, 1832).

"On the morning of the said day (Dec. 22, 1769), after discharging a cannon, was hoisted upon the hall [Old Colony Hall, which once stood on Market Street south of the 1749 Court House, was built by Club member John Thomas, and was the place of meeting for the Club] an elegant silk flag, with the following inscription, 'OLD COLONY, 1620'. At eleven o'clock, A. M. the members of the club appeared at the hall, and from thence proceeded to the house of Mr. Howland, inn-holder, which is erected on the spot where the first licensed house in the Old Colony formerly stood [now the site of Sovereign Bank on North Street], at half after two a decent repast was served, which consisted of the following dishes, viz.
1, a large baked Indian whortleberry pudding;
2, a dish of sauquetash;
3, a dish of clams;
4, a dish of oysters and a dish of codfish;
5, a haunch of venison, roasted by the first Jack brought to the colony;
6, a dish of seafowl;
7, a dish of frost fish and eels;
8, an apple pie;
9, a course of cranberry tarts, and cheese made in the Old Colony."

The food selected was selected for its traditional nature and "...dressed in the plainest manner (all appearance of luxury and extravagance being avoided, in imitation of our ancestors, whose memory we shall ever respect.)" The Club president (Isaac Lothrop) sat in a chair that had belonged to Governor William Bradford, and called for a dozen toasts to honor the memory of their ancestors, and to give assent to the need for liberty and prosperity. This is the first recorded celebration of the original Pilgrim holiday, which soon became known as "Forefathers' Day". By creating a specific anniversary for the landing of the shallop at Plymouth Rock (not the Mayflower, which only arrived in Plymouth harbor on December 16), they defined it as the pivotal event in the Forefathers' story, and provided a focus for much of the Pilgrim symbolism that was to follow.

In 1770, the Club celebrated Forefathers Day on Monday, December 24, in order to avoid the eve and the day of the Sabbath. Youths paraded the streets of the town at daybreak firing a cannon and small arms. The club members assembled at ten A.M. and were joined at their invitation by many of the leading citizens. The company marched to Old Colony Hall accompanied by the local militia, where they were met by a well-disciplined group of school­boys and their master, and Rev. Chandler Robbins of the First Church. A speech was given by Edward Winslow, Jr., who recited the usual remembrance of the Forefathers and closed with "...if we, their sons, act from the same principles, and conduct with the same noble firmness and resolution, when our holy religion or our civil liberties are invaded, we may expect a reward proportionate..."

Similar celebrations occurred in 1771 and 1772. However, in 1773, the revolutionary Plymouth Committee of Correspondence met with the Old Colony Club—there was overlap in membership—and rather presumptuously informed the Club that they were determined to recognize Forefathers Day in their own way, and requested that the club "join with and conform thereto" their plans. Not surprisingly, the conservative memebrs of the Club resented this unsolicited invasion of their territory and disruption of existing plans. They voiced a suspicion that the Committee's members had no more right to interfere in such matters than it would in "regulating or altering their creed, or their catechism" and that "This partial and extra-judicial way of proceeding, we apprehend, will have a tendency to promote parties and divisions (which have already too long harassed this once peaceful town)." The Club voted to observe the holiday privately, which they did, and then disbanded. It was the Town of Plymouth that carried on the Forefathers' Day tradition in 1774, and for many years thereafter, until the Pilgrim Society was founded and took over the duty of organizing celebrations in honor of the Pilgrims.

Later Forefathers' Day dinners were marked by sermons, orations and poetry in honor of the first Plymouth Colonists. The most famous of the early addresses was given by Daniel Webster, then a rising young lawyer in Congress, at the Plymouth bicentennial celebration in 1820 in the new County Court House. His oration is pervaded by the optimism of the early nineteenth century. As he looked back to the American successes leading up to the Revolution and the greater ones that had occurred in the subsequent thirty years, Webster was struck by the positive character of what had become of the nation he saw as beginning with the Landing of The Pilgrims. He evoked a sense of great promise for the United States, which he felt, had been built on firm foundations from the past. This secure beginning made it possible to look forward confidently to when "Erelong the sons of the Pilgrims will be on the shores of the Pacific".1

An aim expressed at the formation of the Pilgrim Society had been the erection of a monument to the Pilgrims. In 1849, this topic was raised again, but nothing was done until 1853 when it was decided to have an August celebration commemorating the anniversary of the departure from Holland "...for the purpose of creating public interest in the monument enterprise."2 It was hoped that this celebration, the first one to aim at a national appeal, would finally make possible the construction of the monument. The extensive invitation list included not only Massachusetts and New England dignitaries, but President Pierce and his predecessor, Millard Fillmore; Senators Crittenden of Kentucky and Seward of New York; representatives from the Plymouth Church (Southwark, Surrey) and Southampton, England; from Delftshaven and Leyden; and the presidents of the various New England Societies across the country. Admittedly, most of these dignitaries did not attend, but the concept of a broad national, indeed international, interest was introduced.  

The whole town was decorated with banners, bunting, evergreen boughs, and appropriate mottos; from "Times ain't now what they used to was" (Capt. Turner), "August 1—Forefathers' Day thawed out" (Wm. Barnes), "The Moral Electricity of the Pilgrims: May the Matrons of the Earth take a shock from the Leyden jar." (Mrs. Barnes); to more restrained sentiments such as "Ever green in our Memory" (William S. Russell) and "PILGRIM HALL: While on the waste of ocean, One hoary rock shall stand, Be this its latest legend, Here was the Pilgrim's land." (The Pilgrim Society).3 In memory of the bicentennial in 1820, several businesses, including Ballard's Saloon and the Plymouth Bank, displayed busts of Daniel Webster. An impressive parade wound through the decorated streets of Plymouth to a tented pavilion on the Town Green, where a meal was prepared for twenty-five hundred guests. There a number of flowery speeches extolling the Pilgrims, their religious and moral inspiration, and the successful progress of the nation they had initiated.

This climate of opinion made the time ripe for the crea­tion of the memorial. A competition with a prize of $300 was held to solicit designs for the proposed monument, but the actual contract was awarded to Boston architect Hammett Billings in 1854 for a grand design which included both a monumental canopy over the segment of the Rock remaining at the waterfront and erection of allegorical statuary at another site a mile and a half away. The plan was estimated to require $325,000, and Mr. Billings was authorized to solicit and receive subscriptions in the name of the Pilgrim Society at $120 a share or a fraction thereof. Enough money was raised by 1859 to begin construction. 

The laying of the cornerstones of both the Plymouth Rock canopy and the Forefathers' Monument was planned for August 2, 1859. An extra day was added to the Departure anniversary because the first of the month fell on a Monday, which would necessitate work and travel on the Sabbath. "The committee decided on the following plan for the celebration: The laying of the cornerstone of the canopy by the Masonic order; a procession; the laying of the cornerstone of the National Monument with Masonic ceremonies; a dinner provided by J.B. Smith of Boston in a tent, capable of holding twenty-five hundred persons...fireworks and a ball in the evening in Davis Hall."4 The parade included over thirty groups of militia units, bands, Masonic and Templar lodges, historical societies, fire departments, and "...six groups on flats representing the Landing, Indians, advance of civilization, the thirty-three states, different nations, and the marine interests of Plymouth."5

The canopy was finished in 1867, and contained not only the lower portion of the Rock, but a number of bones found on Cole's Hill when a sewer was being laid in 1854. These were identified by Dr. Ol­iver Wendell Holmes as the remains of white persons, and presumed to be those Pilgrims who had died the First Winter. The upper part of the Plymouth Rock was eventually removed from in front of Pilgrim Hall and reunited with its lower half in the canopy in 1880.

In 1870, the 250th anniversary of the Pilgrims was held on December 21, the Pilgrim Society' newly-determined date for Forefathers' Day. There was a special train from Boston for the out-of-town guests and reporters, who then joined a parade down Court, North, Water and Leyden Sts. to the First Parish Church. This was led by the Standish Guards and the Plymouth Brass Band, and brought up by Gilmore's Band from Boston, who also played at the evening ball. As the procession passed the Rock, a salute was fired from the U.S. Revenue steamer Mahoning

Despite the enthusiasm, the plan for the National Monument to the Forefathers' was found to be too ambitious for the funds that could be raised. In 1874, Billings, with the approval of the Pilgrim Society, reduced the scale of the monument by slightly more than half. The idea of an internal area was dropped, and the over­all height set at eighty-one feet. Hammett Billings unfortunately died in 1874, and was succeeded by his brother, Joseph. In November 1888, the Monument was finally completed and paid for. The Pilgrim Society decided to have the formal dedication on the following August first anniversary in 1889. On August first, the Masonic lodges gave their ritual imprimatur to the completion of the monument. The subsequent dinner was the occasion of an impressive oration by the Hon. William C. Breckinridge of Kentucky.

The 275th anniversary of the Landing in 1895 was marked by a special Forefathers' Day observation, with exercises (but no parade) held in the Standish Guards Armory and a dinner at the Samoset House. The address at the Armory was made by Senator George F. Hoar, who was the driving force behind the restoration of Gov. Bradford's manuscript history when it was returned by the British government to the State of Massachusetts in May 1897. Arthur Lord, then President of the Pilgrim Society and others, addressed the dinner.

Another Plymouth celebration occurred in 1896 and `97 The First Parish Church (Unitarian) burned down on November 22, 1892. Because of the historical importance of the First Parish church, the project to replace the structure drew widespread support of many religious and patriotic societies throughout America, which donated the memorial stained glass windows and other elements of the construction. The cornerstone of the present church was laid on June 29, 1896, and the dedication took place on Forefathers' Day, 1899. The Town of Plymouth gave its support by holding a fund raising "Historical Festival" in the summers of 1896 and 1897. This included an exhibit of Plymouth antiques (admission 15 cents) at the Winslow House on Winslow St., (now the Mayflower Society House) which was then owned by Miss Rose Briggs' father, George Russell Briggs, and a historical pageant written and directed by Margaret MacLaren Eager.

The climax of the enthusiasm concerning the Pilgrims came in 1920 and 1921, with the Tercentenary Celebration. Preparations began with the appointment of a state Tercentenary Commission in 1916. It was proposed that the entire face of Coles Hill should be cleared of houses (as had been done to the northeast section following 1856) and a Memorial Hall erected above a new canopy over Plymouth Rock. All of the "unsightly wharves, coal sheds and other buildings"6 on the old commercial waterfront were to be demolished. Houses on School St. and South Russell St. that backed onto Burial Hill were to be removed as well.            

The Tercentenary Celebration was the grandest of the many celebrations that Plymouth has dedicated to the Pilgrims, and attracted the largest audience of all. The Tercentenary officially began on Dec. 21, 1920, which was declared "Pilgrims' Day" by President Wilson, to "...observe throughout the Union with special patriotic services, in order that great events in American history that have resulted from the landing of these hearty and courageous navigators and colonists may be accented to the present generation of American citizens." A celebration on Forefather's Day observed by the Massachusetts Tercentenary Commission, which drew many visitors. The buildings were again decorated with flags and bunting in traditional fashion. Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and other notables came by train and gathered at the Old Colony Theater where a program was held that included a telephone call to Governor Stephens of California. The call was put through coincidentally just as Senator Lodge finished quoting the part of Webster's 1820 oration which read: "...the voice of acclamation and gratitude, commencing on the Rock of Plymouth, shall be transmitted through millions of sons of the Pilgrims, till it lose itself in the murmurs of the Pacific seas...” a coincidence that greatly impressed the audience.   

The Tercentenary at Plymouth was the ultimate celebra­tion of the Pilgrim Story. It was both a commemoration of the first year of Plymouth Colony and a reenactment of the symbolically dramatic elements that had accrued to the bare facts of Pilgrim history. The central event was the "Pageant of the Pilgrim Spirit" by George P. Baker, which mobilized 1,300 participants and a 300-member chorus as well as an orchestra. It was enacted below Cole's Hill on a flat piece of ground where a number of wharves and buildings had been leveled in preparation for the event. Seats for 10,000 spectators were erected on Cole's Hill. The pageant was enacted a dozen times, beginning at 8:30 each night, on July 13 - 16, July 30 - Aug.3, Aug.10 - 13. The largest crowds came on Aug. 10, when over 15,000 people from all over the country poured into Plymouth to see the pageant. It was altogether an impressive affair, which had as its high point the visit of President Harding on "Plymouth Day" (Aug.1), and the Grand Parade which included a number of historical floats and marchers was considered "the finest in every way ever seen in this part of the world", which was undoubtedly true.

The Pageant was the high point of the Tercentenary celebrations, but there were also a number of dedications of more lasting monuments erected during this time. The most important were the construction of a new Canopy over Plymouth Rock, the gift of the Colonial Dames, and the dedication of Cyrus Dallin's statue to Massasoit on Cole's Hill, which was unveiled Sept. 5, 1921 by the Improved Order of Red Men and the Daughters of Pocahontas.7 Other monuments included a sarcophagus placed on Cole's Hill into which was placed a number of bones found there which were presumed to be those of the settlers who had died the First Winter. These had been lodged in the old Billings canopy before the new structure was dedicated to them.   

The last of the major celebrations before the present year was the 350th anniversary in 1970. Times had changed since the earlier celebrations, and the political atmosphere surrounding the 1970 observation was quite different from that which had made the earlier events widely popular national events. Contemporary radical protests and the receding hegemony of the old "Establishment" which occurred in the late 1960s were inauspicious for a simple patriotic celebration of the Pilgrims. The Plymouth leadership of the 350th Anniversary Committee was eventually given to John Talcott, who assumed the position of chairman. There was also a Plymouth-Provincetown Celebration Commission, established by the Federal government in October 1970, and headed by George C.P. Olsson, who was appointed in February 1971.8 On March 30, 1971, the two major groups met together and Martha Reardon was appointed Executive Director for the celebration.

The celebrations extended for 15 months from September 12, 1970, to Thanksgiving Day, 1971. Similar observations were held in Provincetown, Plymouth, England, and Leiden, Holland. In Plymouth, a grand parade, fireworks and a ball were held on September 12 to open the celebration. Other events included a pageant written by Charles Hull Wolfe, which was produced twice in 1970. Suggested events and actions, such as the construction of a Pilgrim fountain on the waterfront, or the purchase of the old railway yard for parking, were dropped.

One aspect, which met with considerable criticism at the time, was the perceived failure to acknowledge the Native American contribution. Wampanoag leader Frank James was prevented from delivering a historically cogent if partisan address by the authorities in charge of the celebration that led to some bitterness and the establishment of a permanent protest, the Day of Mourning, each Thanksgiving. In 1970, this protest led to a raid on Mayflower II and the unceremonious jettisoning of the manikin of Master Christopher Jones into the harbor.

The closest approach to the old centralized and tradi­tional celebrations were a Pilgrim Thanksgiving Clambake at the Mayflower Inn (on November 26), and the Thanksgiving Parade (on November 27). These old fashioned events, and the publication of Dr. Bartlett's The Pilgrim Way, Peter Gomes' new edition of Thacher's History of Plymouth, the conservation of early records and books, and the restoration of the 1749 Court House were the most traditional expressions of Pilgrim interest in the myriad events that have since come to characterize attempts to retain the old pieties in a changing world.

The 375th Anniversary Celebration (under the able management of Brian Alosi), was far less contentious, and through the auspices of Plimoth Plantation’s Wampanoag Indian Program, was able to balance the concerns and encourage participation from both the “colonial” and the Native communities. Events began with a visit from the Lord Mayor of Plymouth, England on April 22, 1995, and extended through the summer and fall to the Pilgrim Society’s Forefathers’ Day observance on December 21st.  Plymouth’s usual Fourth of July events, coordinated by Bruce Arons and Kenneth Tavares, included parade floats with anniversary themes and there was a waterfront music festival in mid-July. A series of events, including Mayflower II’s sail to Provincetown, a pageant on the legend of Maushop by the Aquinnah (Gay Head) Wampanoag and a public traditional Wampanoag clambake, a re-enactment of the “First Landing” by Plimoth Plantation, several parades, concerts and a bicycle road race. The high point of the celebration was the Landing, a Historic Regiments parade and the induction of 102 new citizens (for the 102 Mayflower passengers) by Supreme Court Justice David Souter, organized by the Pilgrim Society on July 23.

It is the aim of the 400th Anniversary Committee to prepare a celebration that will far surpass the smaller inter-centenary events and equal if not surpass the 1920-21 Tercentenary observation. Over the next 12 years, Plymouth citizens will be working with representatives and committees on the local, state, national and international level to create a truly memorable commemoration of Plymouth’s founding and Pilgrim heritage, not only with transitory festivities but also by making a permanent contribution to the town’s community development.