Mayflower Descendants Settle in Laguna

El Morro Principal Chris Duddy looks on as a student tries out the punishment meted out in the Plymouth Colony. Students at El Morro Elementary who participated in Colonial Days this week experienced sample of early American colonist life, with hands on candle making, home-baked goods, weaving, corn grinding, metal and leather working, and other crafts essential to building a life in the New World.

For a few students, though, the experience was part of their family history: Katrina Graham, in second grade, and her brother Kalle, in first grade, are direct descendants of John Alden, a hiredhand on the Mayflower and the last surviving signer of the Mayflower Compact.

Alden, who worked as a cooper on the ship, embarked with the pilgrims for the New World in September 1620 when he was about 21 years old. The ship arrived at Cape Cod, far north of its intended destination, a land grant from the Virginia Company of Plymouth, Mass.

El Morro students Katrina and Kalle Copeland can trace their family lineage back to John Alden, a passenger on the Mayflower and assistant to the governor of Plymouth Colony. Since the pilgrims were out of the jurisdiction of the Virginia Company, they drafted their own political document, the Mayflower Compact, written out of fear that some would attempt to strike out on their own, according to Encyclopedia Britannica. Essentially it was an agreement to stick together and follow the group’s rules to survive. They barely did. The pilgrims settled in a former Native American village that had been wiped out by an epidemic, and the brutal New England cold, sickness and lack of food killed 45 of the 102 Mayflower passengers.

That first winter, the Wampanoag, local Native Americans, mercifully gave the pilgrims instruction on surviving in the area and cultivating crops. The first successful harvest was celebrated with a feast shared by pilgrims and the Wampanoag, the origin of today’s Thanksgiving tradition.

Amid the tribulation a love triangle emerged that resulted in the most fertile pilgrim family ever, immortalized in the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem, “The Courtship of Myles Standish.” Standish, a widowed English military captain hired as a colony advisor, fancied Priscilla Mullins, whose parents and brother had died from malnutrition. He asked his friend John Alden to propose to Mullins on his behalf, as was common at the time. When Alden did, the young lady famously replied, “Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?”

Though details are sketchy, Alden soon married Mullins and ultimately had 10 children, 69 grand children and nearly 500 great grandchildren, according to Alden.org

Alden was an influential man in Plymouth colony, becoming the assistant to Plymouth governor William Bradford and serving as deputy governor twice in Bradford’s absence.

One of Alden’s granddaughters, Sarah Bass, married William Copeland. Twelve generations later Sarah Copeland married Jonathan Graham, and the pair moved to Laguna Beach in 2007. Sarah attended college in Western Australia and craved the weather and lifestyle she found there. Her husband works as a software engineer in Newport Beach.

“This is the kind of place I wanted my kids to grow up,” she said, adding that, although most of her family is still back east, her sister Katherine, her husband and kids will spend Thanksgiving here.

“This is really special for the kids to be together. My kids are really excited to show our cousins what it’s like out here, wearing shorts, walking in the parks at the end of November,” she said.

They even started surfing.

While much of the rest of the nation joins in celebrating Thanksgiving, the tradition for the Graham kids’ is woven in their personal history. At Colonial Days Katrina even wore a Pilgrim dress her great grandmother had made for a similar event that was worn by her mother when she was a girl in Tiverton, Rhode Island. There, elementary students visited Chase-Cory House, a historical landmark that served as a home 17th century whaling captains.

Sarah, then in fourth grade, made candles and colonial food much like the El Morro students did this week.