Stories of Thanksgiving with a SeacoastNH Twist
INDEX TO OUR ARTICLES & IMAGES

NH FIRST FAMILY GETS NO RESPECT
No plaque, no statue, no historic site for the 1623 foudners. All they get is a monument placed over 100 years ago that almost no one can find in Rye, NH. Why is the state of New Hampshire so reluctant to give praise to the Thomson family?

DAVID THOMSON VERSUS THE PILGRIMS
He founded New Hampshire only three years after the landing at Plymouth. Did you know he was a Scott, a gentleman, an apothecary, kept slaves, sold fish to the Pilgrims, befriended the Indians, landed in Rye and died mysteriously? It’s all true, so read on.

SOUVENIRS OF PLYMOUTH ROCK
We hate to tell that it’s fake, but it is. Still that does not make it less interesting. America’s "first rock star" is just a lump of stone, but it has inspired millions of school essays and attracted millions of tourists to a little spot by the sea in Plymouth, MA.

PLIMOUTH PLANTATION PIX
A few quick November photos of the historic reconstructed village in Plymouth, MA. If you want to really know what it felt like to live in New England in 1628, this is the place to go. They even have a reproduction of the Mayflower.

TRACKING PASSACONAWAY
Before the Pilgrims and David Thomson there was Passaconaway, the Indian Sagamore who ruled peacefully over the surviving regional tribes. He is an elusive character today, but legend says he lived 100 years and enforced a peace that allowed European settlers to colonize safely.

PLYMOUTH NATIONAL WAX MUSEUM
If you think our founding fathers and mothers were stiff in real life, check out these wax impressions. SeacoastNH.com tours one of the most popular tourist spots in New England where wax figures act out the legends of the Pilgrims arrival in the New World. Sadly,
this wild and crazy museum is now closed.

TURKEYGATE: THE THANKSGIVING SCANDAL (humor)
Sure we made this up, but that’s what history is all about. If things had turned out a little different, we might be eating broiled codfish for Thanksgiving dinner, not turkey. And it turned out as it did – in a small way – thanks to the New Hampshire settler who went to Plymouth and caused a second Thanksgiving, the story not told I in the history books.

PANNWAY MANOR, NH’S FIRST SETTLEMENT
Today it is called Odiorne’s Point, a lovely stretch of coastline in Rye, NH. In 1623 it was reportedly the site of the first European settlement in the Granite State. There is a little monument nearby, if you can find it, but no real tribute to David and Amias Thomson. This is an early account by Charles Brewster from 1869.

PILGRIMS IN PORTSMOUTH
A photo from the 1940s at the Rockingham Hotel shows a local hostess dressed in "pilgrim" clothing. During those days, the Rocking ham was a segregated hotel

WHAT MARTIN PRING WAS REALLY AFTER
Two decades before the first NH settlement explorer Margin Pring sailed up the Piscataqua River – we think. He was not looking for religious freedom. He was not even looking to fish. He wanted something of even greater value back in England, a cure for a horrible disease that was ravishing the land.

PILGRIMS ONLINE
Before you visit the colony, visit the cyber settlement. We went to both and even had dinner served by modern Pilgrims using recipes fit for 1628. The Plimouth web site was created right here in good old Portsmouth, NH.