Brewster family members tour historic cemetery at Brewster's Neck in Preston
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Nov. 26—PRESTON — Descendants of Mayflower passenger Elder William Brewster were on the phone a few weeks ago, planning a reunion, a bit disappointed that COVID-19 scuttled plans last year for the big 400th anniversary celebrations of the Mayflower landing.
"I looked at the calendar and said, 'Oh my God, we have the 400th anniversary of original Thanksgiving coming up!'" said Bill Endicott of Bethesda, Md., recalling the phone call with Dr. Russell Bingham of Old Lyme.
About 15 descendants of the Mayflower Brewster are marking that anniversary with a three-day tour of historic sites, both for the family and the country.
On Thursday, the group gathered for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner at the historic family homestead, the Mumford House in Salem. The 252-year-old house, which has remained in Brewster-Bingham families hands, hosts many family visits and reunions.
Chef Joseph A. Hanson, 37, a professional chef at Superfine Restaurant in Brooklyn, N.Y., cooked the 10-hour brined turkey, traditional bread stuffing, squash and honeynut squash soup. Anne E. Bingham of Salem made Indian pudding, and Anne Bingham Pierson of Old Lyme brought 48 jars of four flavors of jam — quince, marmalade, spearmint and blueberry.
Another 16 family members joined from afar in an online Zoom session.
On Friday morning, the cool November rain did not slow down family members, as they loaded into a white van and carpooled to the historic Brewster's Neck Cemetery at the former Norwich Hospital in Preston.
Jonathan Brewster, eldest son of William Brewster, arrived in the New World one year after the Mayflower landing. He settled in New London in 1648-49, and soon moved to the east bank of the Thames River, a spot that became known as Brewster's Neck, where the Mohegan tribe granted him 50 square miles with the proviso that he operate a trading post with the Native residents.
Jonathan Brewster, who died in 1661, and many descendants are buried in the cemetery, with some gravestones dating to the late 1600s and early 1700s.
Russell Bingham scouted the cemetery two weeks before Friday's tour. He guided the visitors to the tall Brewster monument, erected by family descendants in 1855 on the spot of Jonathan Brewster's grave. The monument includes imbedded "broken fragments" of his original gravestone, an engraving on the monument states.
"This part of the stone was the original gravestone from when he died in 1661," Bingham said, as several family members leaned in for a closer look. The name, Jonathan Brewster, remains legible on the bronze-colored fragment.
"In Memory of Lucretia Brewster, one of the Mayflower Company in 1620," another side of the monument states, describing Jonathan Brewster's wife. "A noble specimen of an Enlightened, Heroic Christian Gentlewoman, deceased near the year 1671."
Grasping umbrellas, family members wandered through the small cemetery and located other legible Brewster stones. Eloise Bingham Goddard of East Hampton, Mass., and her son, Sameer Hiram Goddard, noticed two simple rounded stones with large capital letters that filled the entire space, some words carried over to the next line. She noted the name was spelled BRVWSTER on a 1709 stone.
"I want a gravestone like that," she said, "so that people 200 years from now will be looking at it, laughing, like we are today."
Following the cemetery tour, members of the Mohegan tribe joined the Brewster family at the cemetery to talk about history and the future.
Mohegan Gaming & Entertainment, the tribe's development entity, is scheduled to take ownership of 393 acres of the former Norwich Hospital property in Preston once the town completes an environmental cleanup. The tribe plans a major non-gaming commercial, retail, sports and entertainment complex there.
Mohegan Tribal Councilor Mark Brown said prior to meeting with the family that the Brewster cemetery and three other historic cemeteries at the former Norwich Hospital property would not be part of the transaction. Brown said the tribe will ensure that natural buffers shield the cemeteries and that access by cemetery visitors will be maintained.
Brown called Jonathan Brewster "a friend of the Mohegans."
Brewster family members will continue their Thanksgiving weekend tour Saturday with a trip to Plymouth, Mass., where the Mayflower company settled in December 1620 after first landing at the tip of Cape Cod. They will visit a museum that contains Brewster artifacts, tour the Mayflower II replica ship and have "a big group lunch," Endicott said.
The group won't have time to trek to Provincetown, where a small park and plaque mark the Mayflower's first landing place. He hopes to make that part of a future family gathering.
"We have to get there," he said.
