ermons.

Now the Pilgrims themselves, in none of their various accounts, ever
mention the incident of the landing described above, or the rock. In
fact they are so entirely silent about it that historians--besides
discrediting the pretty part about Mary Chilton and John Alden, in the
brusque fashion characteristic of historians--have pooh-poohed the whole
story, arguing that the rock was altogether too far away from the land
to be a logical stepping-place, and referring to the only authentic
record of that first landing, which merely reads: "They sounded y^e
harbor & founde it fitt for shipping, and marched into y^e land & found
diverse cornfeilds & little running brooks, a place fitt for situation:
at least it was y^e best they could find." The Pilgrims, then, were
quite oblivious of the rock, the historians are entirely skeptical
concerning it, and the following generation so indifferent to the
tradition which was gradually formulating, that in the course of events
it was half-covered with a wharf, and used as a doorstep to a warehouse.

This was an ignominious position for a magnificent free boulder which
had been a part of the untrammeled sea and land for centuries, but this
lowly occupation was infinitely less trying than the fate which was
awaiting. At the time the wharf was suggested, the idea that the rock
was the actual landing-place of the first colonists had gained such
momentum that a party was formed in its defense. An aged man, Thomas
Faunce, was produced. He was ninety-five and confined to an armchair. He
had not been born until twenty-six years after the landing of the
Pilgrims; his father, whom he quoted as declaring this to be the
original rock and identical landing-place, had not even come over in the
Mayflower, but in the Anne. However, this venerable Canute, carried to
the water's edge in his armchair, in the presence of many witnesses,
assured them and all posterity that this was the genuine, undeniable
landing-place of the Pilgrims. And from that moment the belief was so
firmly set in the American mind that no power could possibly dislodge
it. In accordance with this suddenly acquired respect, it was decided to
move the huge bulk to the more conspicuous location of the Town Square.
When it was lifted from its prehistoric bed, it broke, and this was
hailed as a propitious omen of the coming separation of the Colonies
from the mother country. Only the upper half was dragged up to the Town
Square--a