Thanksgiving Saved by a Great Iron Screw
Retrieved my copy of William Bradford’s History of Plymouth Colony. I periodically review it with fresh interest, as the years pass. Accrued life experience allows a richer and deeper interpretation of Bradford’s words. Yes, these were Englishmen, my ancestors by blood and by religious heritage. Their tale is similar to immigrant tales of our day, forged in desperation, a “do or die” venture against formidable odds. I recognize that my sense of agency, and of selfhood, —the product of a liberal democratic society, make these refugees to Cape Cod appear austere, superstitious, and violent by comparison with 
myself. Would I enjoy making acquaintance with many of them? No. Yet, the society which presently sustains me—for better or for worse is built upon the foundation of their lives. Their ghosts continue to be a subtext for the comity and the conflict of life in the 21st century.
Here is William Bradford’s description of an episode, Mayflower sea passage to Cape Cod, Fall of 1620. As a topographical contrast I’ve juxtaposed images from a Thanksgiving table 2016.
After they had enjoyed fair winds and weather for a season, they were encountered many times with cross winds and met with many fierce storms with which the ship was shroudly shaken, and her upper works were made very leaky; and one of the main beams in the midships was bowed and cracked, which put them in some fear that the ship could not be able to perform the voyage. So some of the chief of the company, perceiving the mariners to fear the sufficiency of the ship as appeared by their mutterings, they entered into serious consultation with the master and other officers 
of the ship, to consider in time of the danger, and rather to return than to cast themselves into a desperate and inevitable peril. And truly there was great distraction and difference of opinion amongst the mariners themselves, fain would they do what could be done for their wages sake (being now near half the seas over) and on the other hand they were loath to hazard their lives too desperately. But in examining of all opinions, the master and others affirmed they knew the ship to be strong and firm under water, and for the buckling of the main beam, there was a great iron screw the 
passengers brought out of Holland, which would raise the beam into his place; which being done, the carpenter and master affirmed that with a post put under it, set firm in the lower deck and otherways bound, he would make it sufficient. And as for the decks and upper works, they would caulk them as well as they could, and though with the working of the ship they would not long keep staunch, yet there would otherwise be no great danger, if they did not overpass her with sails. So they committed themselves to the will of God and resolved to proceed.
