The Pilgrim Mother Fountain
Standing near Plymouth’s waterfront, the Pilgrim Mother Fountain honors the women who crossed the Atlantic aboard the Mayflower and helped establish Plymouth Colony. While the colony’s governors, ministers, and military leaders are frequently remembered by name, this monument turns attention toward the women whose courage and endurance were equally essential to the settlement’s survival.
The Mayflower’s women endured the same crowded voyage, uncertain arrival, and desperate first winter as the men, while also caring for children, preparing food, nursing the sick, and attempting to create homes in an unfamiliar place. Their losses were devastating. Of the 18 adult women who arrived aboard the Mayflower, only five survived that first winter. Several continued caring for children whose own mothers had died.
The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution commissioned sculptor Carl Paul Jennewein to create the memorial for Plymouth’s 1921 tercentenary. Rather than portraying a young maiden, Jennewein created a mature woman whose calm expression and steady bearing were intended to suggest faith, devotion, gentleness, and strength. Her clothing was modeled on examples of seventeenth-century English dress then held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The figure was carved from Knoxville marble, while the fountain’s column, bowl, and basin were made from granite quarried on Deer Island, Maine. Water rises above the broad upper bowl and falls around the figure into the circular pool below. The names of the Mayflower women known when the monument was created were inscribed on the fountain, preserving individual identities within a memorial dedicated to their shared experience.
Restored in preparation for the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower’s arrival, the Pilgrim Mother Fountain continues to recognize a part of Plymouth’s history that can easily be overshadowed. It reminds us that the survival of the colony depended not only upon its recognized leaders, but also upon women whose daily labor, sacrifice, and perseverance helped sustain their families and community through its most difficult beginning.
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