The Pilgrims arrived on these shores in 1620 in hopes of making a better life for themselves and their children while being able to worship freely and in peace. Their perseverance laid the cornerstone of a new Nation. The Pilgrims were Separatists. They believed that membership in the Church of England violated the biblical precepts for true Christians, and they had to break away and form independent congregations that adhered more strictly to divine requirements. They rejected Christmas, Easter and the various Saint’s Days because they had no scriptural justification, and in their worship services, they rejected hymns, the recitations of the Lord’s Prayer and creeds for the same reason. As Pastor Robinson expressed it, even two or three “gathered in the name of Christ by a covenant [and] made to walk in all the ways of God known unto them is a church.”

Then, Thomas Morton arrived. He established a small colony of Mount Wollaston; Morton renamed the village Mare Mount (Merrymount) “[T]hey fell to great licenciousnes, and led a dissolute life, powering out them selves into all profanenes.” “And Morton became lord of misrule, and maintained (as it were) a schoole of Athisme. And after they had gott some good into their hands, and gott much by trading with ye Indeans, they spent it as vainly, in quaffing & drinking both wine & strong waters in great exsess, and, as some reported, 10li. worth in a morning.” “They allso set up a May-pole, drinking and dancing aboute it many days togeather, inviting the Indean women, for their consorts, dancing and frisking togither, (like so many fairies, or furies rather,) and worse practises.” “As if they had anew revived & celebrated the feasts of ye Roman Goddes Flora, or ye beasly practieses of ye madd Bacchinalians.” The Pilgrims sent Myles Standish to take Morton by force. Morton was then sent to England. This event is also recounted in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘The Maypole of Merrymount.’ It was first published in The Token and Atlantic Souvenir in 1836.