Our Ancestral Thanksgiving

I now know that this Caleb White, who should be designated as Caleb White, Sr., was the father of Caleb White, Jr., Hosea White, and Dexter White, all sons of his, who were part of the Marlow Settlement in the old Stanstead Township in the very early 1800s. I also know now that this Caleb White, Sr., followed his sons up to Stanstead and settled into the community of Griffin's Corner later on. This invasion, I affectionately call the invasion by the White Tribe, for it was 4 families in total that came here from Marlow NH.

On the tombstone of Caleb White at the Griffin Hill Cemetery are written these words: "Fourth in descent from peregrine White b. on Mayflower, 1620." This was always an intriguing mystery to me, and I would imagine to the many other of my relatives who visited this cemetery. We accepted this statement as fact, but we never really knew the details. Hey, we never even knew who this Caleb White was anyway, but that he was somehow connected to our family.

However, the other thing I know now is that Caleb White, Sr.'s tombstone inscription was wrong. It was not from Peregrine White that our family line comes, but from his brother, Resolved White. Regardless, this White family was one of those Mayflower families. It was an honest mistake on Caleb's part, for Peregrine was equivalent to a Mayflower celebrity. Peregrine was the first Englishman to be born at this Plymouth Rock settlement, in November 1620. His bassinet is one of the few original articles displayed at the Pilgrim Hall Museum, in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Peregrine was born on the Mayflower while it was anchored in the harbour, and the Mayflower ship was the home of all the passengers for about 5 months.

Peregrine was Caleb's great granduncle. However, Resolved White, who was 5 years old at the time, was Caleb's great grandfather. This would make Susanna White (nee Fuller), the mother of these two boys, Caleb's 2nd great grandmother. Their father, William White, died that winter along with about half of the passengers on the Mayflower. Let us say this much about the Mayflower passengers, what they endured was hardly a picnic in 1620-21.

There were 102 passengers leaving on the Mayflower. Yet, when the first "Thanksgiving" was celebrated in November of 1621, there were only 53 passengers left of the original 102. Almost half of them died of scurvy or lung disease. Since William White and his two male servants were among those who died during this terrible winter, this made Susanna White, a widow with two very young sons, in a desperate way.

But a recent widower who lost his spouse on this voyage too, Edward Winslow, who survived this troubling time, asked for her hand in marriage, and thus, Caleb's 2nd great grandmother married a second time and her sons acquired a stepfather. This made another first for the Mayflower colony - the first marriage. So the Winslow/White family became a prominent family out of these Mayflower passengers. Since Winslow's male servant also survived the first winter, this also helped to ease the burden. Winslow later became governor of the colony and became a wealthy land owner, and a servant of Oliver Cromwell's government in England.

I am sure that the average cynic thinks the first Thanksgiving, taking place in November of 1621, is really a myth. But it really did take place, and 3 of our ancestors took part in it: Susanna, and her two sons Resolved and Peregrine. It may not have been called Thanksgiving in that year, since its roots go back to the old English harvest festivals that took place every Fall for centuries. But when we see scenes of First Nations and Pilgrims celebrating this time, it is a true picture. This is exactly what happened, and there are at least two independent accounts that corroborate this. In fact, it really was through the generosity and benevolence of the First Nations people that these Pilgrim immigrants survived. Our 9th great step grandfather, Edward Winslow, was a principal party in treaty negotiations with the First Nations that allowed the Plymouth Colony to prosper. Our 8th great grandfather, Resolved, was in good hands.