January 6

"Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into thin air."

John Quincy Adams, 6th President, 1825-1829-Delivered at Plymouth Massachusetts, December 22, 1802, in Commemoration of the Landing of the PilgrimsThe Pilgrims reached Massachusetts in November of the year 1620. They sent out different scouting parties and eventually chose Plymouth, setting anchor on approximately December 16, 1620. Adams, from Massachusetts, was a descendant of Pilgrims, John Alden and Priscilla Mullins, both members of the original Mayflower party... "...Under every species of discouragement, they undertook the voyage; they performed it in spite of numerous and almost insuperable obstacles; they arrived upon a wilderness bound with frost and hoary with snow, without the boundaries of their charter, outcasts from all human society, and coasted five weeks together, in the dead of winter, on this tempestuous shore, exposed at once to the fury of the elements, to the arrows of the native savage, and to the impending horrors of famine. Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air. These qualities have ever been displayed in their mightiest perfection, as attendants in the retinue of strong passions...Children of these exalted Pilgrims! Is there one among you ho can hear the simple and pathetic energy of these expressions without tenderness and admiration? Venerated shades of our forefathers! No, ye were, indeed, not ordinary men! That country which had ejected you so cruelly from her bosom you still delighted to contemplate in the character of an affectionate and beloved mother. The sacred bond which knit you together was indissoluble while you lived; and oh, may it be to your descendants the example and the pledge of harmony to the latest period of time! The difficulties and dangers, which so often had defeated attempts of similar establishments, were unable to subdue souls tempered like yours. You heard the rigid interdictions; you saw the menacing forms of toil and danger, forbidding your access to this land of promise; but you heard without dismay; you saw and disdained retreat.