Pilgrim Republic eBook

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. Shortly after the completion of the manuscript of this book, its Author laid down his pen forever. Though not full of years, yet honored and esteemed by all who knew him, on the twenty-first day of September, 1884, he found that which he had ever sought, - "More Light," - in the presence of the immortal Forefathers and their eternal Leader.

Mr. Goodwin, though long an enthusiastic student and an acknowledged authority on the subject of Pilgrim History, was better known to the generality of persons as a public speaker and official, a parliamentarian, a journalist, and to some few also as the teacher, mariner, and traveller that he was in early life; all of which varied experiences proved of rare value in later historical researches. Himself a descend ant from many of the Pilgrim band, he came by birthright to the desire that a broader justice should be awarded those sufferers for conscience sake, "without whose lives his had not been;" and bringing to the task no mere scholastic zeal or, as is so common, an enthusiasm warped by partiality and egotism, he quietly wrought-out together this his magnum opus and the declining years of a goodly and gracious life.

Few historians have given a more loving zeal to a more worthy subject than this "beloved disciple" of the Fathers; for after decades of careful, conscientious study and recording, the final strength of his very life was expended in a last visit to that green Plymouth mount where sleep so many of his ancestors, and where associations dearest to his heart ever most thickly clustered.