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I am working on the final edit of Weaker Vessels, the Women and Children of Plymouth Colony, my second book about the Pilgrims. John Winthrop would not approve, as evidenced by this quote from his Winthrop’s Journal, History of New England, 1630-1649:

“[Entry] April 13 [1645]: Mr. Hopkins, the governor of Hartford upon Connecticut, came to Boston, and brought his wife with him, (a godly young woman, and of special parts) who was fallen into a sad infirmity, the loss of her understanding and reason, which had been growing upon her diverse years, by occasion of her giving herself wholly to reading and writing, and had written many books.

“Her husband, being very loving and tender of her, was loath to grieve her; but he saw his error, when it was too late. For if she had attended her household affairs, and such things as belong to women, and not gone out of her way and calling to meddle in such things as are proper for men, whose minds are stronger, etc., she [would] had kept her wits, and might have improved them usefully and honorably in the place God had set here.

“He brought her to Boston, and left her with her brother, one Mr. Yale, a merchant, to try what means might be had here for her. But no help could be had.”

Mrs. Hopkins might have felt much better in the home of her brother, where her literary aspirations may have been supported and encouraged. Turns out her nephew was Elihu Yale, who was the founder of Yale University.

I’ve been reading Daniel Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year, about the bubonic plague in London in 1665. Published in 1722, the book purports to be one man’s experience during the epidemic.

The plague was spread by fleabites, but of course the citizens of London didn’t know that then. As the disease spread from parish to parish across the city, the wealthy packed up and left for their country homes. It was the poor who were the worst hit. Really, the only strategy to combat infection was to lock up the homes where one person became sick. The entire household was quarantined under guard, which virtually insured all would soon become sick.

To deal with the tragic number of deaths, the “dead cart” would come at night, load up the bodies, and take them to the churchyard, where large pits had been dug as mass graves. There was little official acknowledgement of the scope of infection and it was only through studying the bills of deaths from each parish that the progress of the plague could be guessed. However, it was not always made clear if the death was caused by the “distemper” or something else.

Comparisons with COVID 19 are startling. As it was nearly 400 years ago, dependable statistics elude us. Our best defense today is the same it was for Londoners – to stay at home. Then as now, quack cures were promoted. We can only guess how and when it will be safe to assume our old routines. In London in 1665, when people began to go out again, another wave of plague struck.

But the one similarity I most identified with is the itch to leave the house. Defoe’s narrator lasts about two weeks in total confinement when curiosity moves him to venture out and walk about the city. He sees for himself the effects of the plague and how the city has changed, and he returns home to ponder on what he has seen and write in his journal. It is the stimulation of being out among people that I miss the most.

When the Mayflower landed near what would become Plymouth Colony on November 11, 1620, among the passengers were William and Dorothy Bradford. William would later become governor of the colony. They left their son, John, about three or four years old, behind in Leiden.

It had been a rough crossing, and the new colonists were tired and sick when they arrived. It was probably scurvy, but also perhaps pneumonia. More than half the new colonists died that first winter, men, women, and children. Among the women was Mary Allerton, who died in childbirth along with her newborn. Three of the four More children died, one of whom, Jasper, died on December 6. He was about the same age as little John Bradford, and his death may have triggered feelings of despair for Dorothy, his mother.

The next day, December 7, Dorothy Bradford fell overboard while the Mayflower was at anchor and drowned. Governor Bradford later wrote of the event: “William Bradford his wife died soon after their arrival.” There was no further explanation and her passing is still debated today – was it an accident or a suicide? It is not hard to imagine that a mother separated from her child, facing a bleak future, surrounded by illness and death, might have taken her own life.

John Bradford would eventually make it to Plymouth Colony and be reunited with his father sometime after 1627. He married twice, but had no children. William Bradford remarried to Alice Southworth and they had three children.

On June 10, 1641, a Day of Humiliation was called by the church of Plymouth Colony, a day set aside for prayer and privation, “for the healing of a bloody cough among children.” The cough was probably whooping cough, also known as “chin cough,” which could cause hemorrhage of the throat. The disease, caused by bacteria, was spread through droplets sprayed into the air when an infected person coughed or sneezed.

It would be two hundred years before microbes would be discovered and the germ theory of disease would be developed. With only herbs, roots, and turpentine oil to use as treatments for the bloody cough, many children died. In 1659, Reverend Danforth of Roxbury wrote, “the Lord sent a general visitation of children by coughs and colds, of which my three children, Sarah, Mary, and Elizabeth Danforth died, all of them within the space of a fortnight.”

A broadside published in 1736 entitled “Awakening Call to the Children of New England,” warned children to “set always God before your eyes,” because a “grievous and mortal sickness” could take you away at any time.  To drive the point home, the author describes a pitiful deathbed scene as parents attend their sick child: “With weeping eyes they will lament to see your little breast, heaving and panting up and down while you can find no rest. O my dear father cried the child, and loving Mother too, by Death I must be snatched away, and never more see you. … My heavenly father bid me come and I must obey the call.”

Today, as it was 400 years ago, contagious disease is terrifying. We are very much like the colonists in that so little is known about the corona virus at this time. Unlike them we understand how it is spread and can take precautions.

April 12, 2020

Friends, as I write we are dealing with the corona virus pandemic and most of us are staying at home in an effort to control the spread of the disease. My first book, Diverse Gashes: Governor William Bradford, Alice Bishop, and the Murder of Martha Clarke, Plymouth Colony, 1648, has just been published. Under normal circumstances, I would be out talking about my book, but that is not possible at this time. Instead, I will use this blog to share what I have learned about the Pilgrims, especially the women and children. I do hope you will enjoy this. Donna