I wrote The Last Pilgrim across the tapestry of Plymouth’s history – its leaders, economy and growth, interactions with the native populations, wars, disease and continuous threats to its survival. She lived to see her 83 rd year (1699), as the oldest surviving passenger of the 1620 voyage. Mary lived through the entirety of the colony’s history, first as Isaac Allerton’s daughter and then as Thomas Cushman’s wife.

She held the honor of being the Mayflower’s youngest passenger until the birth of Oceanus Hopkins. I chose to focus on one woman, Mary Allerton Cushman, who was only four years old when she sailed from England. Then, after a year of studying for the role, I became one of the first tour guides at the re-creation of the early Pilgrim village at Plimoth Plantation. Under the direction of the indomitable Rose Briggs, I learned the goodwife arts of cooking on a hearth, making candles, and the washing, carding, spinning and dying of wool at the Harlow House. Costumed in period clothing, I portrayed various girls and young women in the weekly reenactments of the Pilgrims’ progresses up Leyden Street. Growing up in Plymouth, Massachusetts, I was steeped in Pilgrim history. The Last Pilgrim attempts to capture this. Despite the vital role these women played, historians and writers of historical fiction have largely ignored their contributions.

The thin shoulders of the Pilgrim women bore much of the work to ensure the survival and growth of the early Plymouth colony.

The Last Pilgrim by Noelle A. Granger