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"The Pilgrims' Landing and First Winter," an excerpt from Of Plymouth Plantation

Reprinted in Eyewitness to America

Published in 1997

Edited by David Colbert

"But that which was most sad, and lamentable, was, that in two or three months the half of their company died, especially in January and February, being the depth of winter, and wanting houses and other comforts;"

In 1607, a year after the Virginia Company of London party embarked for Jamestown, the Virginia Company of Plymouth prepared for an expedition to Maine, which was the place that Bartholomew Gosnold (d.1607) had so glowingly praised. Gosnold's party had seen the region only in the summertime, however, and the Plymouth group were planning to stay permanently....