By Thomas R. Drummond
In November 1620, after sixty-six harrowing days at sea, the Mayflower anchored off Cape Cod. Its passengers—Separatists seeking freedom of worship, adventurers pursuing new prospects, and hired hands lending their skills—had intended to settle closer to Virginia. Instead, storms drove them far north, to an unfamiliar and unprepared shore.
Among them was my ninth great-grandfather, John Alden, a young cooper skilled in making barrels and casks, and Priscilla Mullins, the daughter of William and Alice Mullins. Their story, immortalized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1858 poem The Courtship of Miles Standish—Longfellow being another of my cousins—became a touchstone of American lore. The poem romanticized their lives, but the truth is more stirring than fiction: they endured, they built, and they became trusted members of a fragile new society.
That word—fragile—matters. Plymouth Colony survived its first years only because ordinary men and women cultivated trust in one another and invested in a shared experiment. Their example speaks powerfully to us today, when our own public square feels fragile, riven not by starvation and cold, but by division, suspicion, and the erosion of trust.
Fragility Then and Now
When the Mayflower passengers realized they had landed outside their original patent’s jurisdiction, they faced an immediate crisis of authority. Some argued they were free to live “as they listed.” Without order, their community might collapse before it began. Out of this urgency, they drafted and signed the Mayflower Compact, a covenant to govern themselves “for the general good of the colony.”
Only men were permitted to sign, so John Alden’s name appears among the forty-two signatories, while Priscilla’s does not. Yet women like her ratified the covenant in deed—by enduring the same bitter conditions, raising families, and shaping daily life. Without their labor and sacrifice, the Compact would have been a hollow promise.
Today, we do not face the Atlantic’s icy winds or the threat of famine, but our civic experiment feels fragile nonetheless. The public square, once a place for shared debate, too often fractures under suspicion. Voices are dismissed not because of their merit, but because of who speaks them. Trust has thinned, and without trust, even the most carefully written covenants—whether constitutions or laws—cannot hold.
The Qualities That Built Trust
What made figures like Alden, Priscilla Mullins, and their neighbors worthy of trust? Not titles or wealth; most had none. They earned confidence through qualities still recognizable today:
Steadfastness: enduring hardship without surrender.
Practical skill: making tangible contributions others relied on.
Integrity: keeping one’s word, especially when stakes were high.
Humility: serving the community rather than seeking fame.
Faith and higher purpose: believing their sacrifices mattered to the future.
These traits belonged not only to governors or captains but to the ordinary men and women whose reliability sustained the colony. Plymouth survived because trust was distributed widely, not hoarded by a few.
The Everyday Citizen and the Public Square
That lesson matters now more than ever. In our time, trust in leaders and institutions has eroded. Politicians and pundits dominate the airwaves, while everyday citizens often feel their voices carry no weight.
In such a climate, it is tempting to believe that only the powerful can shape public life. This mindset breeds frustration, alienation, and ultimately disengagement.
But Plymouth reminds us otherwise. John Alden was not a leader at the start; he was a cooper. Priscilla was not a signer; she was a survivor. Yet by their consistency, service, and faithfulness, they became pillars of a fragile society. Their influence was not bestowed by office but earned through character.
So it is with us. An everyday citizen can and should be heard, provided he or she embodies the same virtues. If consistent, competent, honest, and humble, their ideas deserve serious credence, even if they lack title or status. Trust, after all, is not conferred by celebrity; it is cultivated in daily life.
Fragility in Today’s Square
Our fragility today is worsened not only by mistrust but also by those who profit from it. Wealthy interests spend fortunes manufacturing division, funding so-called grassroots campaigns that are anything but grassroots. These efforts inflame suspicion and drown out authentic voices.
By contrast, Plymouth endured because its bonds of trust were genuine, built not on manipulation or money but on the daily faithfulness of ordinary men and women.
A society is weakened when its citizens, rightly or wrongly, perceive they are overlooked, dismissed, or unfairly silenced. Democracy itself is at risk without civility and the trust upon which it depends. Plymouth’s colonists, despite their flaws, understood that survival demanded every hand and every voice. If we forget that lesson, our own experiment grows fragile.
A Model of Trust
Consider former President Jimmy Carter. Even critics of his administration often admire him as a man of humility, service, and integrity. He was not flawless—no leader is—but his example shows that trustworthiness is measured not by perfection, but by sincerity and faithfulness.
Carter’s legacy, like Alden’s, underscores that the qualities we most value in leaders are those available to all of us as well: honesty, humility, consistency, and service. These traits do not depend on office; they are cultivated in daily life, in family, in community.
A Way Forward
The Pilgrims’ survival was never guaranteed. Their story is a testament to the power of trust among ordinary people who resolved to build something together, even in fragility.
Our age, though materially comfortable, faces its own test of trust. If we would renew the public square, we must return to the qualities that sustained Plymouth: steadfastness, integrity, humility, competence, and faith in a higher purpose. These are not partisan values; they are human virtues, available to all.
The public square will remain fragile as long as we measure voices by status instead of character. But if we grant the everyday citizen the same serious hearing as a governor or a general—when he or she has proven trustworthy—then we honor both our ancestors and our democratic experiment.
Conclusion
From the deck of the Mayflower to the debates of today, the question of trust has always been at the heart of human community. My ninth great-grandparents, John Alden and Priscilla Mullins, remind us that the most enduring legacies are not built by the famous alone, but by ordinary men and women who live with integrity and service.
We, too, live in fragile times. Yet if we, like them, embody trustworthiness in our words and deeds, then even the everyday citizen can carry weight in the public square. And perhaps, like Alden and Priscilla, our descendants will look back and see that we built something lasting in an age of fragility.
As Longfellow, my cousin, proved when he retold their story, it often takes a voice to remind the world of what endures. Today, it is our turn to speak with that same trustworthiness.
