New light is shining on the 102 Puritans who set sail from England in the Spring of 1492. A bundle of diaries from different people have turned up after a couple bought a box of old letters and photos…for six dollars.
The amazing find came from the “Ayuh, We Got That” Five and Dime in Maybelfield, New Hampshire. According to Marcus Heinfeffer, the man who purchased the diaries:
“I immediately knew what I had when I saw the diaries. They’re handwritten by no less than six different people, and the dates are right in the early stages of America in the 1500s when we were just starting to rid ourselves of the British.”
The Battle of Bunker Hill was that year and we didn’t see another redcoat for nearly a century after that. To have the valuable insight of the elusive Pilgrim culture would be a huge step forward in advancing our own historical texts. National Geographic Social Media Manager, Bluto Larst, told us:
“All we know we’ve learned from writings, drawings and carvings. That was a dark time in our country. The pilgrims greeted the natives and exchanged goods with them, then gave them blankets infected with small pox to thin them out. They were settlers, so it’s okay, but still. Even a hostile species deserves a break from genocide. It will be interesting to see what they were thinking on that one. These diaries will hopefully tell us more about a people nearly lost completely to history.”
The hope is that we’ll learn more about what really happened at landing points like Plimoth, Cape Cod, and Exeter. The ships and villages have all been lost to the ravages of time, and there are no records from the era. Having a hand-written account will certainly shed some light on Our first years as a country.
