A Grim Thanksgiving

Grim Mourning and welcome to The Grimm. I'm your host, Kristin, and today's episode will be opening the gate and entering Burial Hill, located in Plymouth, Massachusetts. So grab your favorite mug, cozy up, and let's take a dig into history. Thanksgiving week is here, marking the official start of the holiday season filled with parties, gatherings and time with family. What better way to kick it off than by exploring a burial ground steeped in pilgrim history? Before we dive in, let's clear up one thing. Yes, there's another graveyard in New England, also called Burial Hill. In fact, there's many. It seems that pilgrims weren't exactly creative when naming things and many historic cemeteries or graveyards in the region share this similar title. If you're thinking did you already cover Burial Hill on the Graham? Well, sort of, but no now rich in history era and lore and even a touch of the paranormal. This burial ground is anything but boring. Yet grave fairs like these are often dismissed or overlooked. Each year, millions of Americans gather for Thanksgiving, a holiday rooted in the legacy of those buried here. Despite this connection, few consider visiting these hallowed grounds. But to me, stepping in these spaces is like stepping back in time. Each headstone telling a story that shaped the foundations of America. In episode one of the Grimm, we delve into the Miles Standish burial ground near Burial Hill and touched on the Pilgrims history. However, one of the most compelling aspects of history is how it keeps unraveling new layers and at times, new discoveries. Burial Hill, located off the coast in Plymouth, Massachusetts, just a short distance from where the Pilgrims first landed in 1620 was established in the early 17th century. It serves as the final resting place for several Mayflower passengers and founding members of the Plymouth Colony, who braved the harrowing journey to the new world. Standing on top, Burial Hill today offers a panoramic view of Plymouth, a modern town buzzing with life far removed from the untamed wilderness the pilgrims once faced. This site was initially a burial ground, however, it began as a strategic high point for the colony's first fort. The FA played a critical role, serving as the settlement's first meetinghouse and first parish church until 1677, when it was no longer needed. Its timbers were repurposed to construct Sergeant William Harlow's house on Sandwich Street in Plymouth. Remarkably, Harlow's house still stands today, preserved as a piece of living history and listed on the U.S. National Registry of Historic Places. To catch a glimpse of what the original Fort might have look like, you can visit a replica at the Plymouth Patuxent, formerly known as the Plymouth Plantation. A faithful recreation of a Plymouth Colony settlement and an invaluable window into early American life. The grounds, a burial hall are believed to have been used for burials starting around 1672, with an estimated 2000 souls interred within the first recorded burial is often attributed to John Howland in 1672. Though rumors suggest earlier undocumented burials likely occurred during this time, early grave markers were made of wood, which explains why those predating 1688 haven't survived today. The settlers then started using Stone in Slate and displaying the beautiful artworks we see today in New England graveyards. Many pilgrims sought America as a promised land for freedom, fleeing religious persecution in England. In 1608, they moved to Leiden in the Dutch Republic, where religious freedom was permitted. However, life in the Dutch Republic proved difficult. They struggled with poverty and feared losing their English identity as their children adapted to Dutch customs. This ultimately drove them to seek a new life in the new world. By this time, England had already established a colony in Jamestown, Virginia, to secure their own adventure. The Pilgrims spent three years negotiating with English authorities, resulting in a deal known as the Merchant Adventurers Agreement. They then set sail from the Dutch Republic on the Speedwell, bound for Plymouth, England, to meet up with another ship, the Mayflower. However, this people proved unseaworthy, forcing them to consolidate passengers and supplies onto the Mayflower. In September of 1620, the Mayflower finally, after years of planning, embarked on its perilous journey across the Atlantic with 102 passengers, including notable figures such as Mary Alderton, William Bradford, Edward Doty, Francis Cook, John Holden and Richard Warren. Today, these individuals, integral to the founding of the Plymouth Colony, are interred a burial hill resting in one of the most historic cemeteries in America. Of the passengers, Mary Alderton was only four years old when she made the journey. She married Thomas Cushman in 1636, a son of a prominent member of the Pilgrims congregation in Leiden. She and her husband lived to an old age and had a prosperous family in the new world. Mary passed in November of 1699. She was the last surviving passenger of the Mayflower. Many aboard not only wanted religious freedom, but also have lives without limits. An opportunity is regardless of their lives. Back in the old world, one such man that would benefit from it would be William Bradford. Bradford would eventually become the governor of Plymouth Colony when he first arrived in the New World, had held no notable leadership position. He was an example of this opportunity that one could achieve. Upon landing in Providence Town Harbor, Bradford volunteered for exploration parties eager to help secure a future for the settlers. During his first expedition, he encountered the local natives in an unexpected and dangerous way by being caught in a deer trap that nearly left him hanging upside down. On his third excursion, a fierce winter storm nearly capsized the boat, but Bradford and his companions managed to reach Clark's island. But their ordeal didn't end there. They endured severe exposure to the cold before finally being able to find a suitable location for the settlement, the site of what is now downtown Plymouth, Massachusetts. Its tragedy struck when Bradford returned to the Mayflower to learn his wife, Dorothy, had died. She had fallen overboard and drowned while the ship was anchored in the harbor. Historians speculate that her death may have been a suicide, possibly driven by despair from the harsh conditions and uncertainty they faced. The cramped, unsanitary conditions aboard the Mayflower were already taking a grim toll on the passengers, with many succumbing to illness before the colony even started. That led to death. Once Plymouth was underway, another blow came when the colony's first governor, John Carver, collapsed and died in the fields during a hot day in 1621. Bradford was chosen to succeed him and went on to serve as governor on and off for the rest of his life. His leadership was instrumental in shaping the colony's survival and growth. Bradford is best remembered as the father of American history for his detailed chronicle of the colony's early years. His journal, later titled Off Plymouth Plantation, provides a firsthand account of the settlers struggles and achievements. Up to 1646, during the British occupation of Boston, his writings went missing, only to resurface in London in the Bishop of London's Library at Fulham Palace. After considerable negotiation, the manuscripts were eventually returned to Massachusetts, where they rightfully belonged. Bradford passed away on May 9th, 1657, and while he's buried at Plymouth Burial Hill Cemetery, a cenotaph also honors his memory. His legacy endures as both a leader of the colony and a historian who preserved the story of its perilous beginnings. Not everyone aboard the Mayflower was a peaceful settler in search of religious freedom, though. Among the passengers were indentured servants and tradesmen wrote to us strangers by the Pilgrims. One such individual was Edward Doty, a servant to Steve Hopkins and signer of the Mayflower Compact. Tony left a significant mark on the colony, not for his virtues, but for his fiery temper and questionable behavior. Dottie's first notable incident was a dispute with another servant from the Hopkins household, leading to the first recorded duel in New England. Armed with a sword and dagger, the two fought on June 18th, 1621. Their punishment was particular. They were both bound together at the head and feet for 24 hours without food or water. However, Steve Hopkins successfully pled for their release despite his frequent troublemaking, including over 20 court cases involving fraud, slander, assault and theft between 1632 and 1651. Doty managed to avoid severe punishment. Instead, he became a wealthy landowner and lived in the colony the rest of his life. Today, he rest within Burial Hill. But no one's quite certain where his actual grave is. So a stone memorial commemorates him standing atop Ariel Hill. The view over the town below feels timeless. It's hard to imagine New England and untamed wilderness. Yet men like Frances Cook, another Mayflower compact signer, played a key role in shaping it. Cook was an unseemly and unremarkable passenger, just an ordinary guy, but helped survey roads and layout highways, working till his seventies to contribute to the growing community. Every passenger on the Mayflower, no matter their role, laid the foundation of what would become of America. Their journey was fraught with disease, starvation and brutal winters, making survival itself a remarkable achievement. However, the so-called promised land held grim surprises. On their excursion, settlers found the area littered with skeletal remains. Evidence of a devastating play that had struck the region between 1650 and 1619. Historians suspect this plague, which decimated the buttocks, a tribe inhabiting the western coast of Cape Cod, may have been caused by leptospirosis, a bacterial infection spread through contaminated water or soil. The toxic tribe had prior encounters with Europeans, but their decimation left a lane eerily empty, a grim reminder of the cost of colonial expansion. This devastation likely explains part of the initial wariness of the neighboring tribes toward the pilgrims. Plymouth Colony's history is often romanticized, but its true story is often a complex tapestry woven with Pressler vision, sacrifice and profound loss. History books often omit that Europeans ventured to the New world long before the Pilgrims not only to fish or gather furs, but to also exploit resources, including human lives. While textbooks frequently romanticized the European conquest of the Americas as the creation of a civilized society from our barbaric land, the truth is far more unsettling. Under the guise of trade, Europeans would learn natives into their grasp, only to capture them and transport them across the Atlantic. One such individual known to history as Squanto, found himself in this very situation. He was taken aboard a ship bound for Spain, where owning Native Americans was technically illegal. However, the rise of the African slave trade some saw opportunity to exploit legal gray areas for profit. Upon docking in Malaga, many captured natives were sold into servitude. Historians believe it was an intervention of friars opposed to slavery that allowed Squanto to escape a life of bondage. Evangelist Squanto made his way to London, where he lived for several years before securing passage back to the New World. Tragically, upon his return, he discovered his entire Spartacus tribe had been wiped out, likely by disease brought by Europeans, which was assumed first. Squanto, now the sole survivor of his people, became instrumental in the survival of the pilgrims and the relations with local tribes, particularly the Pocono. As an interpreter, guide and advisers, quinto's knowledge of English and the land was invaluable. He taught the settlers how to plant and fertilize native crops, facilitate the fair trade, and brokered peace between the pilgrims and neighboring tribes. His efforts were crucial to the colony's revival during the most challenging of times when the colony faced shortages and failing crops. Squanto joined the governor, William Bradford, on a trading expedition. During the journey, he fell ill with what settlers called an Indian fever. Bradford stayed by his side, nursing him for days, but Squanto ultimately succumbed to his illness. Bradford mourned his death as a profound loss to the colony, documenting it heavily in his journal. Squanto, whose real name is believed to bend to his quantum, is interred in Burial Hill. His life marked by resilience and tragedy highlights the complex and often overlooked realities of early colonial history. After enduring the first harsh winter, the Plymouth Colony, with the assistance of Squanto and neighboring tribes, enjoyed a relatively abundant harvest in the fall. This prompted a giving of the banks, a religious practice common among the pilgrims who often observed days of thankfulness to God. However, Thanksgiving as a concept wasn't unique to Plymouth Colony. Settlers in Virginia in 1619 celebrated with a religious observance as dictated by their charter from the London company. After they first made land, the modern idea of Thanksgiving, centered around a feast originates from Plymouth Colony. Governor William Bradford organized the event alongside the Wampanoag people, and it lasted for about three days. According to the Wampanoag descendents, the natives weren't initially invited to the celebration. Instead, they arrived fully armed after mistaking the settlers celebratory gunfire for an attack. Once they were there, they then were invited to join their festivities. However, the legacy of Thanksgiving is fraught with complexities. While Americans often celebrate its day as a camaraderie and friendship, the truth is much darker. The settlers stole the land, desecrated Wampanoag graves, and took food from the very people they later celebrated with. For the descendants of the Wampanoag, the Pilgrims interred at Burial Hill represent a painful and conflicted history that resurfaces each year with this holiday. It's not, for some, a day full of thankfulness that needed to be recognized. On this episode of The Grim Burial, Hill serves as a resting place for the dead. Since the earliest of settlers and even prior with the Native Americans. With burials continuing until 1957. This long history presides over a wide range of interment dates within his grounds, its origins as a burial grounds site for victims of a plague or epidemic. Set the stage for his reputation as a highly haunted location. The dark side of settling the new world was marked with death and fear, casting a grim shadow over the area. Even the dead weren't spared indignities. Some graves were robbed, while others were disturbed and macabre ways, such as corpses being propped up at guarding posts to disguise them as the living. Perhaps as this history of unrest and desecration that compels the spirits to linger on in burial Hill. To this day, one of the area's creatures at a heart burial hill is the quirky rooted in Wampanoag lore and later adapted in the Harry Potter universe. These small, apelike beings are known for their hairy humanlike features and their unsettling ability to appear and vanish at will. Far from friendly, Portuguese have a reputation for toying with humans, asking visitors in a low hiss to come out and play in chilling encounters. The most common experience, though, is far more subtle, yet no less disturbing. Visitors often report catching a fleeting, shadowy figure out of the corner of their eye, a glimpse of something not entirely of this world. Watching and waiting. For many believers in the paranormal, hauntings are the energy of those unwilling to leave the land of the living are normally here for a reason. Maybe unfinished business or a subtle, tragic death. And perhaps that's where the next claim within the grounds come from. A haunting tragedy unfolded in Plymouth Harbor, leaving behind restless spirits that are said to wander Burial hill to this day. Their story stems from an ill fated voyage of the Brigadier General Arnold, which met its doom during a fierce winter storm in 1778. The ship set sail on Christmas Eve under the command of Captain James McGee. However, a brutal blizzard soon engulfed them at sea, hoping to escape the storm. McGee navigated to her Plymouth Harbor. Yet the storm's ferocity kept local pilots from reaching the ship to guide it safely past the harbors, treacherous shoals and sandbars without aid. The General Arnold ran aground as the tide forced it onto the icy flats, damaging the ship's hull. Trapped by the ice, the crew endured the storm with no heat and little protection from the freezing winds. When the people of Plymouth discovered the ship's plight, they mounted a desperate rescue effort, lashing together ice floes and creating a makeshift bridge to reach the vessel. By the time they arrived, the scene was grim. 70 crew members had had already succumbed to the cold. Of the 33 survivors, nine more perished after being brought ashore. The tragedy left a chilling mark on Plymouth. The town courthouse served as a temporary morgue and some bodies were so frozen that they had to be lowered into the town brook to thaw. The dead were later laid to rest in a mass grave on Burial Hill. Captain McGee, even though he survived, was deeply affected by the disaster. Years later, he requested to be buried with his crew in Plymouth. Upon his death today, legends tell of McGee's ghost walking burial hill alongside the souls of his ill fated sailors. These spirits are said to be some of the most active and haunted Plymouth Horror, a sobering reminder of the harbour's icy tragedy. He's not the only one walking the grounds at night, though. Along the path, the Victorian couple is seen paying their respects to their lost daughter, Elizabeth Spear. When visitors come across the spears, the area is said to be overwhelmingly filled with sadness and the air hangs heavy. The couple is seen most commonly walking the pathways and approaching the graveyard from Summer Street. Darcy Lee in her book Ghosts of Plymouth, Massachusetts, suggests the burial hill is watched over by Native American spirits. One particularly eerie feature she describes is a tree with roots representing hands. According to local lore, a Native American Guardian spirit is said to sit by this tree observing visitors. Those who act as respectively or behave inappropriately might find themselves confronted in a frightening manner by this protective spirit. At the base of burial, Hill stands the John Carver Inn, named after Plymouth Colony's first governor. However, this site harbors a much darker history. During the American Revolution, a house once occupied this location, serving as the residence for medical students who engaged in a macabre practice under the cover of darkness, the students would reportedly climb Burial Hill to steal corpses from freshly dug graves. The bodies were then used for their studies and experiments. Turning the peaceful graveyard into an unwilling source for their grim pursuits. The cemetery is home to an array of early stone markers, many of which are regarded as a remarkable examples of folk art. These gravestones not only memorialize the individuals, they honor, but also showcase the artistry and symbolism of the era. There are pieces of art that tell stories about the people who lived, loved and died in early New England at Brooke Gray's gravestone. The oldest in this cemetery dates from 1681. Feels like a connection to a distant past. A simple, yet endearing reminder of the first settlers, the Goddard Children's headstone with its three cherubs each uniquely crafted, captures the heartbreak of lives lost too soon. But also the tenderness of those who remember them. Hannah Cooper's Medusa Stone is striking an almost mystical whities flowing, intricate design that feels alive even centuries later. Perez Tillerson's headstone, with its expressive winged face carved by the talented Ebenezer Sully Senior, seems to offer a sense of hope and transcendence, as if the soul it represents is soaring to something greater. And then there's patience. Watson Stone a rare, deeply personal portrait of an individual, not just a generic figure, making it feel like you could almost meet her if you looked close enough. The stones are just grave markers. They're symbols of love, loss and faith crafted by hands that wanted to make sure that these lives and their stories would never be forgotten. Burial Hill is a place where history and legend intertwine, offering glimpses into both the triumphs and tragedies of early America. As we gather with friends and family this Thanksgiving. It's worth reflecting on the complex legacy of the Pilgrims and the land they settled from the spirits of those who helped shape the nation to the lingering echoes of forgotten souls. Burial Hill is a testament to resilience, sacrifice, and perhaps unresolved mysteries. So the next time you find yourself in Plymouth, consider taking a walk through this historic graveyard. Let its stories remind you of the humanity, courage, and even the flaws that built the foundations of the holiday we now celebrate. The grave ground for Burial Hill was a campfire file from Willing Co Café for more honorary grinds in the area, please visit the Dash Grammy.com. For now, we're closing the gate on Burial Hill. We hope you enjoyed our dig into history. If you did subscribe today to join us next time when we open the gate. The Grim.