In the context of the political drama in modern elections a short consideration of the Pilgrims and their practical application of democratic principles is appropriate today during our celebration of Dutch-American Heritage Day—principles that to a large extent had a Dutch origin.

Pilgrim men did not wear black breeches, square white collar and cuffs, wide buckled belts, black steeple hats with a buckle, nor did Pilgrim women wear full black skirts, white aprons and dark capes. Puritan adults in Boston may have worn these clothes on formal occasions after 1632, but in 1621 the Pilgrims wore entirely different clothing. Pilgrim adults and children wore bright solid colors since their religion did not object to colorful clothing. They had many dyes so that red, green, beige, burgundy, blue, violet, as well as brown and black were worn.

Setting people straight about Thanksgiving myths has become as much a part of the annual holiday as turkey, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. But should historians bother? Jane Kamensky, a professor of history at Brandeis, thinks not. She asks on the website "Common-Place" (in 2001) whether it's worth while "to plumb the bottom of it all - to determine, for example, [...] whether Plymouth's 'Pilgrims' were indeed the grave-robbing hypocrites that UAINE describes [i.e. United American Indians of New England]. [...] Was the 'first Thanksgiving' merely a pretext for bloodshed, enslavement, and displacement that would follow in later decades? Combing period documents and archaeological evidence, we might peel away some of the myths [...]

Very little is known about the ship which brought the Pilgrims to New England. No name is given in Bradford's History Of Plimoth Plantation, nor in the other early accounts. The first mention occurred in a document of 1623, which assigned to the individual colonists an acre of land apiece. The list of people was subdivided by ship name, and the first group came under the heading, "The Falles of their grounds which over in May-Floure, according as their lotes were cast .1623." Bradford in his History stated only that she "...was hired at London, of urthen about nine scoure,..." A later passage concerning John Howland's fall from the Mayflower and subsequent rescue refers to his catching hold of a topsail halyard, thus indicating that topsails were present.

Modern history easily confuses the Mayflower Pilgrims with the Puritans who followed later in the 17th Century.

The Map Center at Ancestry.com offers a large collection of free, printable maps. Some which are pertinent to Pilgrim History are: "Localities in England Connected with American History" (includes Pilgrim villages); "The Netherlands at the Death of Elizabeth I - 1603"; "Grants to the London and Plymouth Companies of Virginia 1606 & Council for New England 1620"; "Plymouth Plantation 1620-1630"; "English Coast, 1625-1642: Piscataqua-Pemaquid Region Showing Plymouth Colony Cushnoc Trading Post"; "New Netherlands 1609-1664"; and "Early American Tribes and Cultural Areas."

"This is the Good News." That's how I would conclude the reading of the Holy Gospel on a Sunday morning. I don't know how my Pilgrim ancestors, my Pilgrim clergy brothers, concluded their readings.

"This is the Good News." I have to speculate whether this afternoon's Gospel lesson comes to us, 21st century, upper middle class, white Americans living in one of the wealthiest areas of our wealthiest of all nations. How did that sit with you: Don't worry about anything - not what you eat or drink or wear. What's the good news about advice like that when every morning the financial pages of our newspaper show our stocks on a roller coaster ride, our quarterly mutual fund reports display graphs with falling lines, our salaries are frozen while our kids' tuition and our real estate taxes and the price of the drugs that keep us reasonably healthy keep going up and up, and our pension funds continue to shrink? It doesn't cut any ice with me that this summer the National Bureau of Economic Research announced cheerily that what weve been experiencing as a recession officially ended two years ago. Tell it to my creditors. Tell it to the hundreds of thousands who are out of work and out of options.

The history of Pilgrims and Puritans in 17th century New England reflects events in the reformation of English politics and religion. Summarizing the time-line of the English Reformation is the easiest way to show how these groups evolved in both England and America.

For the second year in a row, Jesse A. Miller has written a playlet for our Annual Thanksgiving Evensong Service. This year it was held on November 19, 2000 at the 1744 St. Peter’s Church in the Great Valley in Malvern, PA, The Rev. Nathaniel T. Reece, Assistant Rector and SMDPA Elder, the Rev. Judith A. H. Meier, Pastor, Gulph United Church of Christ, Gilph Mills, PA, celebrating.