On Tour: Pilgrims & Stuff...

Late one night, a couple years ago, Suzanne had gone to bed and I was sitting on the couch watching TV and checking email on my laptop. I was about to delete an email from Ancestry.com from my spam folder but instead, decided to open it and see what they were trying to sell me. It was a free one month membership.
I decided to give it a try.
Entering my credit card information, I wrote the date on a post-it and stuck it on my laptop, figuring I'd cancel my subscription the day before the automatic renewal kicked in.
Three hours later, after following the branches of my family tree I thought most likely to lead to something interesting (all of which dead-ended about five generations in) and about to call it a night, I decided to see how far I could shimmy out on my paternal grandmother's branch of the tree. She came from very humble beginnings so my expectations were low. I expected records would be hard to come by and my search would yield nothing of real interest - probably hitting a wall three or four generations in.
I was wrong.
In fact, four or five generations in, I had discovered and saved more birth certificates, death certificates, marriage licenses, census and military records etc. than all previous paths had yielded. It seemed the further in I got, the hotter things got.
I found a multi-paged document containing correspondence between my 3x or 4x great grandmother (and her attorney) and the federal government in an ultimately successful attempt to secure widow's benefits as a result of her husband's death as a Union soldier in the Civil War.
Another distant grandmother was murdered my a mentally disturbed fellow from down the street.

Compelling stuff.

I guess it was around six generations in that the surname Bradford appeared, which ultimately lead to William Bradford, author of The Mayflower Compact and Governor of Plymouth Colony.
Not just any pilgrim... THE pilgrim.

It took me over a year to gather all the documentation required to submit with my application to the Mayflower Society. My first application was denied and I had to gather more evidence in support of an as-of-yet unestablished link in my proposed line to William Bradford. In actuality, there was another line to WB that I could have used. My great grandfather married a cousin (yeah, I know) who was also a descendant. Her line to WB had been established and would have been an easy lift. I saw the other line as a challenge however, and really wanted to lock it down. Creating and documenting a new line to William Bradford seemed like it would be a cool and fun thing to do.
I acquired the missing evidence, satisfying the Mayflower Society's requirements and creating a newly established line in the process. My application was approved and I have been a member in good standing ever since.

All this to say that, although Suzanne and I have visited Plymouth, Ma. in the past, this is the first opportunity we've had to visit this historic location since discovering my relationship to William Bradford. Everything here seems just a little more interesting to me this time.

Anyway...

We arrived here last Friday (6/15) and will be leaving tomorrow, Saturday 6/23. The weather has been beautiful, the seafood delicious and the history fascinating. We visited the Mayflower Society headquarters and Pilgrim Hall last weekend and found both to be very interesting. Pilgrim Hall has a very cool collection of Mayflower artifacts, some of which belonged to 'Grandpa Bill'.
This was his bible...

His Chair...

William Bradford's grave site on Burial Hill...

Nice view of the harbor

Ellis Haven Campground is a very nice place with all the amenities, conveniently located just a few miles from downtown Plymouth and the waterfront. With the purchase of seven nights you get an eighth night free - hence our departure tomorrow morning. There's a beautiful lake for swimming with a long, sandy beach, a restaurant serving breakfast & lunch and plenty of wide open spaces for Travis and me to play ball.

There's a pretty little pond a hundred yards or so from our campsite where geese, turtles, frogs and blue heron like to hang out...

Sunset over the pond...

Suzanne had to fly to Newark, NJ on Monday. Her flight was scheduled to depart at 3:00pm so we left EH campground for Boston's Logan Airport at noon and I dropped her curbside a little past 1:00pm. She called me about 30 minutes later to tell me her flight had been cancelled and she'd be sitting in the airport until 7:00pm waiting for the next available flight. What a drag.

I got into some hellacious traffic making my way back to the airport Wednesday afternoon for her 3:00pm return. I've driven in LA and NYC commuter traffic on several occasions but I have to say that Boston traffic, if this was typical, is the worst. I grew up in Massachusetts and had driven in Boston commuter traffic years ago but don't recall it being anything like this.

Travis & me at the waterfront on Tuesday

Last evening we drove into town for dinner at The Waterfront Bar & Grill. I inadvertently parked in a space reserved for vehicles towing boat trailers and returned to find a $20 ticket on my windshield. Oh well.

The food at the WB&G was fantastic as was this uniquely labeled bottle of Pinot Grigio...