The Minor Family of Somerset

A History of the American People, Vol I, "The Swarming of the En
glish, Woodrow Wilson, 1901, Ch V. The Expansion of New England
, p 148
"It had been no easy matter to struggle through the dense tangl
e of the almost pathless forests all the long ninety miles whic
h lay between these new regions and the Bay;there were cattl
e to be fed and driven all the long way; there were women and ch
ildren to be thought of a spared; and those who made the hard jo
urney spent weeks of weary travelling and lonely camping in thos
e vast forests, which seemed to spread everywhere without borde
r or any limit at all. Even boatscould not be expected to mak
e the journey round about by sea unless they chose their season
; for when winter came the river was apt to be choked with ice
. But these Puritans were not men to be daunted, as the Dutch f
ound to their cost. The journey was made again and again and ag
ain, by party after party, as if there were no obstacles which e
ven the women need dread.
"Uneasy congregations were not the only people to quit the Bay i
n that Day of eager movement, when men came by the thousands ou
t of England....Many a man, many a family who found the rule o
f the Massachusetts magistrates over irksome, turnedtheir eye
s (Westward)...."