woman's life. They sorrowed for the women friends who had been left
behind,--the wives of Dr. Fuller, Richard Warren, Francis Cooke and
Degory Priest, who were to come later after months of anxious waiting
for a message from New-Plymouth.

The family, not the individual, characterized the life of that
community. The father was always regarded as the "head" of the
family. Evidence of this is found when we try to trace the posterity
of some of the pioneer women from the Old Plymouth Colony Records. A
child is there recorded as "the son of Nicholas Snow," "the son of
John Winslow" or "the daughter of Thomas Cushman" with no hint that
the mothers of these children were, respectively, Constance Hopkins,
Mary Chilton and Mary Allerton, all of whom came in _The
Mayflower,_ although the fathers arrived at Plymouth later on
_The Fortune_ and _The Ann_.

It would be unjust to assume that these women were conscious heroines.
They wrought with courage and purpose equal to these traits in the
men, but probably none of the Pilgrims had a definite vision of the
future. With words of appreciation that are applicable to both sexes,
ex-President Charles W. Eliot has said: [Footnote: Eighteenth Annual
Dinner of Mayflower Society, Nov. 20, 1913.] "The Pilgrims did not
know the issue and they had no vision of it. They just loved liberty
and toleration and truth, and hoped for more of it, for more liberty,
for a more perfect toleration, for more truth, and they put their
lives, their labors, at the disposition of those loves without the
least vision of this republic, or of what was going to come out of
their industry, their devotion, their dangerous and exposed lives."