Pilgrims - First Landing on Cape Cod

This painting, by Dr. Mike Haywood, recreates the moment of the Pilgrim's first landing in America. This is not the landing at Plymouth (Plimoth) which came later. It is the initial landing, near the place known today as Provincetown.

Dr. Haywood used Caleb Johnson as the source for his painting. From Johnson's writing, which combines his own narrative with statements from William Bradford's book, we know the Mayflower anchored off the Provincetown coast at dawn on the 11th of November, 1620:

...They took a quick jaunt ashore on November 11 (“15 or 16 men, well armed”) mostly to gather juniper to be burned (to purify the air on the ship). On November 13, they hauled their shallop ashore (which was in several pieces) so it could be fixed up and re-assembled. The carpenter made “slow work of it” (more than two weeks, actually) and so the men set out on their first expedition by foot “well armed … with every man his musket, sword and corslet” and led by Myles Standish.

That same day they also brought many others ashore simply to “refresh themselves”, and even the women and teenage girls came ashore to do laundry: The Mayflower’s captain and some of the crew and a dog were also apparently ashore, as the explorers accidentally mistook two men and their dog for being the captain and some of his men … but as they got closer they realized they were Indians, who then took off into the forest whistling the dog after them. The Mayflower is known to have had an English Mastiff and an English spaniel onboard...

A new era in the new world had just begun.

Click on the image for a substantially larger view.