The Village of Merry Mount
Within
five or six miles of where stands our village,
had been, a few years before, a settlement which one
Captain Wollaston began, and, tiring of the enterprise,
went back to England, leaving there some few of his
followers, who were ungodly people.
This Thomas Morton, believing himself held in too
close restraint at Plymouth, sought out these people at
Wollaston, and became one of them, to the shame and
reproach of all godly-minded people in this New World.
He changed the name of the village to Merry Mount;
was chosen leader of the company there, and made of
the place a perfect Sodom.
It is said, so I have heard my father say, that they
had no religious services, save now and then, when in a
spirit of wickedness this Thomas Morton read from
the prayer book. He increased the number of his
following by enticing the servants away from the good
folks of Plymouth.
It gave much offence to them that such a village
should be in the land where they had come to set
up the true worship of God, therefore Captain Miles
Standish, a soldier of Plymouth, went with a force of
men to Merry Mount, seized this Thomas Morton, and
sent him to England that he might answer for his
crimes to the London Company.
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