trading with the Indians and white settlements that were made on Cape
Cod and along the Kennebec.

Soon after 1630 the families of Captain Standish, John Alden, and
Jonathan Brewster (who had married the sister of John Oldham), Thomas
Prence and Edward Winslow were settled on large farms in Duxbury and
Marshfield. This loss to the Plymouth settlement was deplored by
Bradford both for its social and religious results. April 2, 1632,
[Footnote: Records of the Colony of New Plymouth In New England,
edited by David Pulslfer, 1861.] a pledge was taken by Alden,
Standish, Prence, and Jonathan Brewster that they would "remove their
families to live in the towne in the winter-time that they may the
better repair to the service of God." Such arrangement did not long
continue, however, for in 1633 a church was established at Duxbury and
the Plymouth members who lived there "were dismiste though very
unwillingly." [Footnote: Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation,
Bk. 2.] Later the families of Francis Eaton, Peter Brown and George
Soule joined the Duxbury colony. Hobomok, ever faithful to Captain
Standish had a wigwam near his master's home until, in his old age, he
was removed to the Standish house, where he died in 1642.

The women who had come in the earlier ships and had lived close to
neighbors at Plymouth must have had lonely hours on their farms in
spite of large families and many tasks. Wolves and other wild animals
were sometimes near, for traps for them were decreed and
allotted. Chance Indians prowled about and the stoutest hearts must
have quailed when some of the recorded hurricanes and storms of 1635
and 1638 uncovered houses, felled trees and corn. In the main,
however, there was peace and many of the families became prosperous;
we find evidence in their wills, several of which have been deciphered