The first course of the first dinner was “ a large baked Indian whortleberry pudding.” They wished, says the historian of Plymouth, that “ all appearance of luxury and extravagance be avoided, in imitation of our ancestors, whose memory we shall ever respect.” Here is the precedent which the New York gentlemen who trace their lineage so unerringly to the passengers of the Mayflower insist upon following, - the precedent, that is, as to the day of the month whether they are equally tenacious of the whortleberry pudding, typically or literally, does not appear in the reports. The day fixed upon was the 22d of December. More than a hundred years ago, in 1769, the Old Colony Club of Plymouth was formed, and its members resolved to do reverence to their ancestors by an annual dinner. It was, probably, the late Judge John Davis, of Boston, then president of that venerable and, if history is worth anything, useful body, the Massachusetts Historical Society, who first observed this erroneous date in the reputed landing at Plymouth of the founders of New England. Are there more blunders behind ? If it shall appear that there is a mistake as to the alleged event, as well as a mistake as to the alleged date on which the alleged event (which may never have happened) is alleged to have happened, - are not these also worth looking into ? This error of a single day the later historians have corrected with more or less emphasis. But when they set up in Central Park the monument they are talking about, it would then be as well that the faithful and enduring stone should not be besmirched with blunders. No great harm, indeed, would be done, if the day may be adjusted to the dinner rather than the dinner to the day, should the older society insist that, for the sake of the unities and the sentimentalities, “ Forefathers’ Day” must fall hereafter on the 19th of April or the 17th of June. #PILGRIMS LAND AT PLYMOUTH ROCK FULL#And now that a similar body of faithful and pious pilgrims on the other bank of the East River, in Brooklyn, assemble on the 21st of December, with their shoes also full of boiled peas, to testify their veneration of the austere virtues of the Fathers, it will lead to no serious confusion if the New York brethren shall adhere to an anniversary which is a day behindhand. But dinners are perishable things, as we all know to our sorrow, nor do they make history. It eats its anniversary dinner on the 22d of December, to solemnize the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers on what an irreverent Irishman, at one of those dinners, called " the Blarney Stone ” of New England. It is not seriously disputed now that the wellknown New England Society of New York is out of its reckoning by a day on its annual gathering. The question, however, has been thought already of importance enough to be carefully discussed. On the other hand, putting aside any question of historical conscientiousness, if it has been worth while, for more than a century, to commemorate the event on each recurring year, is it not worth while to know, if that custom is to be continued, whether the date of the event is fixed on a right or a wrong day? But if that be true, and the question is of no real importance if we may continue to consider either one or the other date of an alleged incident as correct, because, heretofore, sometimes one, and sometimes the other, has been so considered then the step from unconscious historical inaccuracy to conscious historical falsehood is not a long one. Yet, doubtless, there are persons who do not consider it of the least moment to anybody whether the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth on the 21st or the 22d of December, 1620, or whether they did not land there on either of those days. For its subject is the accuracy of the date of an interesting and important event, which is usually considered one of the “ great epochs ” in American history. or if it may be accepted as a self-evident truth, then this paper needs no further apology. If this may be accepted as true on the authority of this distinguished historiographer. Freeman’s opinion, worthy of so much consideration, those which mark great epochs of history cannot be regarded as unimportant. Freeman says that “in the case of the smaller dates, those which do not mark the great epochs of history, nothing is easier than to get wrong by a year or so.” As he thought it worth while to show how these errors sometimes occur, and to declare that he could give a reason for his own choice in disputed cases and as he adds he shall be “ deeply thankful ” to any one who will point out “ any mistakes, or seeming mistakes,” that he may have made the implication is that smaller dates being, in Dr. IN his latest historical work, in which there is, perhaps, more learning to the page than is often crowded into a single volume, Dr.
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