Finding Captain Myles Standish: A Journey Into the Past

Finding Captain Myles Standish: A Journey Into the Past

Images of our Pilgrim Fathers have been fixed in our minds by children's coloring books; smiling men in long black coats and broad-brimmed hats; ladies in black skirts, white aprons and black bonnets. The men folk tote smoothbore muskets in one hand, fat turkeys in the other. Contented tribesmen sit nearby, puffing pipes, patiently waiting to be served from heavily laden tables by the Pilgrim women. Seldom do we read of the dying and suffering they experienced during their terrible first New England winter or that nearly half of them died before spring. This sad story deserves repetition. Several earlier English colonies had ended in utter disaster. Why did the Pilgrims succeed when others failed so miserably? It certainly was not because they came better equipped, better supported or better trained to cope with all the challenges of a primitive wilderness. Quite the opposite; the colony’s success was due mainly to one person--Captain Myles Standish, a veritable "One-Man Army."