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That Bright Dawn When Mayflower I First Sighted Cape W.Sears Nickerson, a Mayflower descendent, discussed in his book, Land Ho!-1620: A Seaman's Story of the Mayflower, Her Construction, Her Navigation and Her First Landfall, the controversial questions as to just what part ofCape Cod the Mayflower first sighted and where she spent her time between thatfirst sighting and her final anchoring in Provincetown Harbor. He warns readers that one must allow for the change in the calendar when studying data on thatfirst landing ; to the Pilgrims they first saw land on 9 November 1620; by today's calendar , it was November 19. Nickerson left no notes for IrThat Bright Dawn,l' but his sources are clearly Dwight B. Heath, ed., Moun's Relation A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, William Bradford, Bradford's History "Of Plimoth Plantation,l' and Nickerson's own Land Ho!-1620. I have combined and freely and silently edited three articles: IrFirst 'Town Meeting' Held On Mayflower OffCape Tip, l' IrLand Ho!-1620. Pilgrimr Progress Along the Backside of the Cape, l' and "That Bright Dawn When Mayflower I First Sighted Cape.l' Most ofus have heard of the voyage ofthe Mayflower and the landing of the Pilgrims. How many of us have given a thought as to what it must have been like on board that good ship when she first sighted the coast ofAmerica? It was about 6:30 on that morning of Thursday, November 19, 1620,1 when the first streak of daylight hove up clear over the rim of a slick sea on the back side of Cape Cod. A waning quarter of the old moon hung high in mid-sky overhead. Twenty-five minutes later, at 5 minutes of 7, the splendor of the rising sun flooded the east with softest 75 76 The Coming ofthe Mayflower rose and spilled westward until it broke against the lone ship lazily lifting and listing to the sleepy ground swell. One moment she stood out weird and spectral against the backdrop of night; the next, lifting her high poop up out ofa trough of shadows into the wake of the morning, every rippling fold of her idle canvas became a shimmering cloth of gold radiance; windowed galleries changed to sunbursts , and a weathered scroll, crusted with salt and bedimmed by the night's dew, turned to luster under the magic touch and blazed back the legend, Mayflower ofLondon. Captain Jones, straightening up from dreaming over the taffiail about his little Chris and Joan back there in Rotherhithe, stretched as a strong man does to shake offthe lethargy ofthe night watches. This was the 65th consecutive day since clearing from the Barbican in Plymouth in Old England that he had pounded his ship to the southwest across the Western Ocean. Unavoidable delays had hindered the start, and contrary winds dogged the westward passage. Unknown to him as to every navigator of his day, the set ofthe GulfStream had at times pushed him astern faster than his ship forged ahead through the waters. Scurvy was showing its hideous symptoms among the crew and passengers alike, and already one ofthe his own men had been buried at sea, followed in a few days by young Billie Butten, the first ofthe Pilgrims to go.2 One mother had already given birth to a baby boy on this long, overdue voyage, and another's time was nearly Up.3 Water was so low in the butts that none could be spared to the women for washing their clothes.· There was no firewood left even for cooking, and every westerly now came with the bite ofwinter in its maw. And still no land was in sight. A lesser man than Captain Christopher Jones or a less determined company than his Pilgrim passengers would long since have turned tail and made a fair wind ofit for the English Channel. At midnight the deep sea lead had found no bottom at 100 fathoms, nor had it at 4:00 when the watch was changed again. Then came the dawn of a new day, fair and clear. In the growing daylight, it almost seemed that the Indigo blue ofthe offshore depths was giving way to the emerald green of the coastal shelf, and perhaps a whiffofland was on the morning breeze. Sailors tend to forget the miseries of dark days at sea in the lure of the promise just over the horizon ahead. As the sails of the Mayflower...

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