Elder Brewster, owned by the Connecticut Historical Society, was not improb ably his, but that it had any may-Flower relation is not shown.  A fragment of a chest claimed to have been “brought by Edward Winslow in the may-Flower” is owned by the Pilgrim Society, and bears considerable evidence of the probable validity of such claim, but proof positive is lacking.  Boxes of several kinds and sizes were part of the Pilgrims’ chattels on their ship, some of them taking the place of the travellers’ “trunks” of to-day, though “trunks” were then known by that name and find early mention in Pilgrim inventories, and there were no doubt some upon the Pilgrim ship.  A few claiming such distinction are exhibited, but without attested records of their origin.

“Andirons, fire-dogs, and cob-irons” (the latter to rest roasting spits upon) were enumerated among the effects of those early deceased among the Pilgrims, rendering it well-certain that they must have been part of their belongings on the may-Flower.  Fire-tongs and “slices” [shovels] are also frequently mentioned in early Pilgrim inventories, placing them in the same category with the “andirons and fire-dogs.”

In “Mourt’s Relation,” in the accounts given of the state reception of Massasoit, “a green rug and three or four cushions” are shown to have performed their parts in the official ceremonies, and were, of course, necessarily brought in the may-Flower.

Spinning-wheels and hand-looms were such absolute necessities, and were so familiar and omnipresent features of the lives and labors of the Pilgrim housewives and their Dutch neighbors of Leyden, that we should be certain that they came with the Pilgrims, even if they did not find mention in the earliest Pilgrim inventories.  Many ancient ones are exhibited in the “Old Colony,” but it is not known that it is claimed for any of them that they came in the first ship.  It is probable that some of the “cheese fatts” and churns so often named in early inventories came in the ship, though at first there was, in the absence of milch kine, no such use for them as there had been in both England and Holland, and soon was in New England.

Among cooking utensils the roasting “spit” was, in one form or another, among the earliest devices for cooking flesh, and as such was an essential of every household.  Those brought by the Plymouth settlers were probably, as indicated by the oldest specimens that remain to us, of a pretty primitive type.  The ancient “bake-kettle” (sometimes called “pan"), made to bury in the ashes and thus to heat above and below, has never been superseded where resort must be had to the open fire for cooking, and (practically unchanged) is in use to-day at many a sheep-herder’s and cowboy’s camp fire of the Far West.  We may be sure that it was in every may-Flower family, and occasional ancient specimens are yet to be found in “Old