From its pattern and workmanship, which are of a period antedating the “departure from Delfshaven,” and the ancient tradition which is traceable to Brewster’s time, it appears altogether probable that what is known as “Elder Brewster’s chair” came with him on the ship.  There is even greater probability as to one of his books bearing his autograph.

The sword of Myles Standish, in possession of the Pilgrim Society, may claim, with equal probability, may-Flower relation, from its evident antiquity and the facts that, as a soldier, his trusty blade doubtless stayed with him, and that it is directly traceable in his descendants’ hands, back to his time; but an equally positive claim is made for similar honors for another sword said to have also belonged to the Captain, now in the keeping of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

The Peregrine White cradle “is strongly indorsed as of the may-Flower, from the facts that it is, indubitably, of a very early Dutch pattern and manufacture; that Mrs. White was anticipating the early need of a cradle when leaving Holland; and that the descent of this one as an heirloom in her (second) family is so fairly traced.”

The pewter and the silver flask of Winslow not only bear very early “Hallmarks,” but also the arms of his family, which it is not likely he would have had engraved on what he may have bought after notably becoming the defender of the simplicity and democracy of the “Pilgrim Republic.”  Long traceable use in his family strengthens belief in the supposition that these articles came with the Pilgrims, and were then very probably heirlooms.  One of Governor Bradford’s books (Pastor John Robinson’s “Justification of Separation"), published in 1610, and containing the Governor’s autograph, bears almost ‘prima facie’ evidence of having come with him in the may-Flower, but of course might, like the above-named relics, have come in some later ship.

In this connection it is of interest to note what freight the may-Flower carried for the intellectual needs of the Pilgrims.  Of Bibles, as the “book of books,” we may be sure—­even without the evidence of the inventories of the early dead—­there was no lack, and there is reason to believe that they existed in several tongues, viz. in English, Dutch, and possibly French (the Walloon contribution from the Huguenots), while there is little doubt that, alike as publishers and as “students of the Word,” Brewster, Bradford, and Winslow, at least, were possessed of, and more or less familiar with, both the Latin and Greek Testaments.  It is altogether probable, however, that Governor Bradford’s well attested study of “the oracles of God in the original” Hebrew, and his possession of the essential Hebrew Bible, grammar, and lexicon, were of a later day.  Some few copies of the earliest hymnals ("psalme-bookes")—­then very limited in number—­there is evidence that the Holland