Pilgrim prestige

Exclusive society gathers to acknowledge heritage

PLYMOUTH - For more than a decade, John Talcott tried unsuccessfully to prove that he was a descendant of the Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower. His goal: to join the General Society of Mayflower Descendants.

Earlier this year - at age 100 - Talcott finally succeeded.

He and a genealogist located obscure paperwork linking him to Pilgrim James Chilton. Pedigree proven, Talcott received his official membership certificate, sealing his identity as a Yankee of the first order.

Not that it came as much of a surprise to him.

"I had always thought that maybe I was a descendant," Talcott said, seated amid oil portraits of his ancestors and English antiques inside his sprawling Plymouth estate. But "it's nice to know."

Talcott will join more than 400 members of the national Mayflower Society's Triennial Congress, which begins today at the Mayflower Society's house in Plymouth. The five-day conference will include a garden party on the manicured lawns and in the gardens of the society's historic estate overlooking Plymouth Harbor. There will be a reading of the Mayflower Compact, family meetings among clans with names like Doughty, Sampson, and Warren, and gatherings to discuss arcane topics such as "William Brewster: The Road Not Taken."

If it conjures up images of people sipping Pimm's Cup and nibbling cucumber sandwiches by the sea, it should.

It's about "prestige," said Virginia Mucciaccio, past governor of the Massachusetts Mayflower Society. "There's certain bragging rights that go along with [membership], even if you don't go around telling everyone about it."

Of course, even the proudest member is 12 to 16 generations removed from his or her Pilgrim forebears. And not everyone attending the conference will be landed gentry.

The General Society of Mayflower Descendants was formed 250 years after the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts. Largely a middle-class endeavor, it was created mainly in response to new waves of immigrants coming to the country.

Today the society has more than 27,000 members worldwide and receives more than 100 membership applications a month. Three past presidents who were members have added to its cachet. Yet even by the society's estimates, as many as 35 million people today can claim direct descendancy from one of the original 26 Mayflower Pilgrims.

That fact has not deterred today's members, however, from a little name dropping.

Edward Delano Sullivan, the leader of the national society, says he has several family connections to Mayflower Pilgrims John Alden and Priscilla Mullins, but asked that his middle name - Delano - be noted. It links him to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But even that powerful connection did not grant him entry to the society, because the Delanos came on a boat that followed the Mayflower.

Sullivan, a retired Army lawyer, said these are the kinds of details that distinguish society members. Members often learn that they have connections to more than one Mayflower Pilgrim, giving them more status within the society.

"I explain it to people this way: There was a small [Pilgrim] gene pool," he said. "And no TV at night."

Judy Swann, a retired California State University financial officer, has 16 family connections she has traced back to the Mayflower. On a family tree 5 feet wide and 6 feet tall, she has linked herself to Pilgrims John Howland, John Tilley, John Alden, William Bradford - longtime governor of Plymouth Colony - and others. Swann flew from California to Boston last week for the conference and as part of her visit, she will attend the Howland family reunion, one of the conference's biggest gatherings.

Swann said she joined the society in 1991, after reading about it in her local newspaper one Thanksgiving. Since then, she has not missed a single Plymouth conference. There's pride in seeing Howland Street, for example, and knowing it is named for her kin.

"It is a little trite, but for those of us who are Mayflower descendants, it's like coming home," Swann said. "It's gorgeous here and I get to see the trees and look out over the ocean, and it's just a part of me."

Such emotions stir some participants to dress in authentic Pilgrim garb.

Organizer Priscilla Usher of Bristol, R.I., said one descendant of Bradford insists on dressing up like him and leading a procession to Cole's Hill, the site where the Mayflower Pilgrims are thought to have buried their dead in unmarked graves. (Half of the 102 Mayflower passengers died within a year of the voyage.)

Attendees can visit nearby Plimoth Plantation, where they can meet reenactors dressed as their ancestors. There is an auction of Mayflower memorabilia, a banquet at the Taunton Inn, and a lecture by Nathaniel Philbrick, author of the bestseller "Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War."

Delegates to the conference will also take care of society business, including a review of bylaws and a proposed increase in membership dues. Usher expected very little disagreement.

"It's not an excitable group," she said.

Usher, a 12th-generation descendant, said she called her family "flop Yankees," or poor Pilgrim descendants. She said her family was a severe group that worked as fishermen and spread out across New England.

"They worked hard and they didn't give you anything unless you earned it," she said.

Wigmore Pierson, current governor of the Massachusetts Mayflower Society, said his leadership position is a natural fit: He is a descendant of William Brewster, "one of the leaders" of the Mayflower group.

"He was considered the most well read, he brought with him a library," said Pierson, who joined the society in 1969.

Pierson recently mounted a campaign for a seat on the society's national board of governors' assistants and plans to hand out pens to attendees that say, "Win with Wig," at this weekend's gathering.

"I've been a leader all my life. . . . I was president of my college fraternity, and I've run for public office in Newton and Cohasset," he said. "I haven't won because of my somewhat prickly personality. I can be a little too straightforward sometimes for my own good."

Talcott, the 100-year-old who is among the society's newest members, said he had always been fascinated with the Pilgrims' legacy. Raised in Connecticut by a family of woolen mill owners, he decided as a young man to move to Plymouth and start a cranberry growing company. The move was a lucrative one, and the company remains in business. And Talcott sold some of the land he bought to the Old Colony Golf Course and gated subdivision, a tony private neighborhood with a gatekeeper.

Talcott said he never took his inability to obtain membership to the society personally. He said he had long admired the Pilgrims's devotion, as well as their ability to persevere.

"I figured I may as well" join, Talcott said with a chuckle. "I don't know how much longer I'll be alive."