Pieces Of Mayflower Restored, On Display In Skagit Museum

LA CONNER, Skagit County - The brown and crumbly block at the Skagit County Historical Museum might look like tempting fodder for a wood-burning stove. But the word carved in its side marks this piece of wood as worthy of preservation. It reads, "Mayflower."

The museum is displaying three pieces of wood from the Mayflower, the ship that brought Pilgrims from England to North America in 1620.

"I sure hope I'm not the only person that's excited by a chunk of wood," said Pat Doran, curator and registrar for the museum.

Although not a lot to look at, the pieces represent a great event in the history of the United States and also in a monument built by Washington resident Sam Hill, Doran said.

The Mayflower set sail on Sept. 6, 1620, from Plymouth, England, and dropped anchor off what is now Provincetown, Mass. Before debarking, the Pilgrims wrote and signed a covenant for self-rule, known as the Mayflower Compact. The next November, to commemorate their landing at Plymouth Rock and to thank the local Native American tribes for their help, the Pilgrims hosted the first Thanksgiving.

The larger block of wood currently on display was sealed for 75 years inside the Peace Arch, on the U.S.-Canada border in Blaine. The block was placed there in 1921 as a symbol of the common ancestry of Canadians and Americans and the century of peace they'd shared.

"The incredible part about this whole thing is that it was just an accident, the fact that we ended up being able to have it at all," Doran said.

Recent renovations to the Peace Arch revealed that water had been leaking inside the monument and onto the block, greatly eroding it.

"This was dripped on for 50 years," said Doran. "It is really delicate. As you see, it's just flaking."

Washington State Parks personnel immersed the block in preservation fluid for two years to halt decay and then stored it properly until a permanent exhibit could be established. Doran offered to pack the treasure using an acid-free box and acid-free tissue.

Then she started thinking the Mayflower would make a nice exhibit during the Thanksgiving season, so she asked the state parks staff if she could borrow it.

"They said, `Sure, since you helped us preserve it, we'll let you borrow it,' " Doran said. "It's an unusual opportunity. It's never going to be displayed anywhere else except by the state parks."

After seeing the Mayflower chunk, Doran wondered if this was the only piece of the Mayflower left.

Sam Hill had traveled to England in 1921 to obtain the piece of the Mayflower from a village in Buckinghamshire, Jordans, where the ship had been converted into a barn in the 1600s.

Doran inquired at the Maryhill Museum on Hill's former property near Goldendale whether Hill might have kept other pieces of the Mayflower. She found that there were other pieces, but they were inside a locked Elizabethan trunk and the lock was damaged.

"They called a locksmith and he coached them and they got it open," Doran said. Inside were three small slabs of wood that match the dimensions and grain of the Peace Arch block.

Though La Conner is thousands of miles and centuries removed from the Mayflower's momentous journey, Doran harbors no doubt about the authenticity of these slabs of wood.

"I'm absolutely convinced," she said. "If I wasn't, I wouldn't have it on exhibit."

Hill filmed the ceremony in England when the Mayflower block was obtained. The film, which can be viewed at the La Conner museum, includes footage of several pieces of evidence which convinced Hill and others that a barn and cabin had been made of timber from the Mayflower.

According to a historical sketch by Richard E. Clark, one beam in the barn bears the letters ER HAR, which could have been part of the words, `Mayflower Harwith." A door on the farm is obviously a ship's cabin door, with Mayflower decorations on it. And a crossbeam in the barn bears evidence of being cracked and mended. General William Bradford wrote in his journals about cracking and mending of the Mayflower's main beam.

Taken together, the evidence is persuasive, Doran said. "Mayflower Lands," an exhibit including pieces of the original ship, will run through Jan. 12, 1997, at Skagit County Historical Museum, 501 South Fourth St., La Conner. The museum is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Admission is $5 per family, $2 for adults, $1 for seniors/children 6-12, free under 5. For information call 360-466-3365.