Book Review 7/10/2007 Tony Lawrence

Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick

(Amazon Link)

A while back Linda and I were out with one of our neighbors and while driving back, Janet, the woman of the couple, mentioned something about her distant ancestor Elder Brewster. I laughed and then explained that my family is also related to that well known Pilgrim minister.. turns out that Janet and I are distant cousins. That's probably not unusual: if any part of your family tree was here in the 1600's or even fairly later, you are very likely to be somehow related to someone else with a similar provenance.. there just weren't that many people here, so they probably inter-married somewhere.

I'm sure you learned about the Mayflower and the Pilgrims in school. Unless you had far better teachers than I did, I'm sure you would learn and unlearn a tremendous amount from this book. As a resident of Middleboro, you'll also be interested in how places you probably drive by frequently figured in early Massachusetts history. For example, did you know that Monponsett pond was the site of an "insult" that probably had a lot to do with the later start of King Philips War?

The Pilgrims don't come off quite as wonderfully as they probably did in your fifth grade history book: these weren't nice people. The Indians aren't the perfect "Noble Savages" either, though they do seem a lot nicer than most of the Pilgrims. This is a good read, entertaining, educational and fun.

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