Transcriber’s Note: Cover created by Transcriber from the materials in the originalbook, and placed in the Public Domain.
Miles Standish
THE
PURITAN CAPTAIN.
BY
JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.
NEW YORK:
DODD & MEAD, No. 762 BROADWAY.
1872.
AMERICAN PIONEERS AND PATRIOTS.
Miles Standish,
THE
PURITAN CAPTAIN.
BY JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.
ILLUSTRATED.
NEW YORK:
DODD & MEAD, No. 762 BROADWAY.
1872.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by
DODD & MEAD,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
Middleton & Co.,
Stereotypers,
Bridgeport, Conn.
Press of Lange, Little & Hillman.
108 Wooster St., N. Y.
TO THE DESCENDANTS OF
CAPTAIN MILES STANDISH,
NOW NUMBERING THOUSANDS,
THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED;
WITH THE HOPE THAT NO ONE OF THEM MAY EVER DIM
THE LUSTRE OF THAT NAME,
TO WHICH THE VIRTUES OF THEIR DISTINGUISHED ANCESTOR
HAVE ATTACHED IMPERISHABLE RENOWN.
JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.
i
PREFACE.
The adventures of our Pilgrim Fathers must everbe a theme of absorbing interest to all their descendants.Their persecutions in England, their flight toHolland, their passage across the stormy ocean, thisnew world, as they found it, swept by the storms ofapproaching winter, their struggles with the hardshipsof the wilderness, and conflicts with the ferocioussavage,—all combine in forming a narrativereplete with the elements of entertainment and instruction.
Fortunately, there can be no doubt in referenceto the essential facts. All these events have occurredwithin the last three hundred years, a periodfully covered by authentic historical documents. Ingiving occasional extracts from these documents, Ihave deemed it expedient to modernize the spelling,and occasionally to exchange an unintelligible, obsoleteword for one now in use.
For a period of about forty years, Captain MilesStandish was intimately associated with the Pilgrims.iiHis memory is inseparably connected with theirs.It has been a constant pleasure to the author to