March 7, 2025
Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry features relics (family heirlooms) from Mayflower families that were exhibited at the 1876 Centennial International Exhibition. Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.
In 1876 the Centennial International Exhibition was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from May to November. It was the first time the official world’s fair was held in the United States, and its celebration coincided with the centennial anniversary of the Declaration of Independence’s adoption in Philadelphia on 4 July 1776.
For one of the Exhibition’s highlights, it was decided to create an exhibit featuring relics associated with the early Pilgrims. A call for these historic pieces went out across the country and Mayflower scions answered.
While some relics were authentic in origin, others were not.
Before I begin here is an example. One relic housed at Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts, seems to have a proven provenance. It is the Allerton-Cushman families’ wooden cup, which came into their collection in 1998 by the family of the late Mercy Ramsey Carl of Texas.
The cup was passed down the female line to daughters named Mercy, starting with Mercy Soule Cushman, wife of Noah Cushman, who descended from Mary Allerton, Thomas Cushman, Robert Bartlett, and Mary Warren.
A probate inventory in 1633 reveals that Mary Ring left a “footed cup” to her neighbor Elizabeth Warren. Elizabeth’s daughter married Robert Bartlett, and Noah Cushman was one of their descendants. The Allerton-Cushman families’ wooden cup may well have been Mary Ring’s “footed cup.”
For the Centennial International Exhibition in 1876, a replica of a New England cabin was built and filled with articles of furniture and household items dating back to the 1600s.
The cabin was furnished by the fair’s Women’s Commission, organized by Emma (Southwick) Britton (1834-1922) of Peabody, Massachusetts, along with her 15 assistants. Emma is the daughter of Phillip Rowell and Ameline (Dexter) Southwick, and wife of Dr. Jeremiah Bernard Britton.
It is no wonder that Emma was attracted to preserving the colonial era: she descends from early New England families like Southwick, Ingersoll, Pope and Nurse.
Among the period pieces that were on display in the cabin was a writing desk purported to be owned by Mayflower passenger John Alden, indicated by the red arrows in the stereoscopic picture below.
The desk was on loan by Rev. William Hyde Alden (1858-1934), a direct descendant of John and Priscilla (Mullins) Alden.
Rev. Alden married Carrie Louisa Tufts (1862-1934), daughter of John Tappan and Eunice (Belcher) Tufts.
Below is a photo of Rev. William Alden and his wife Carrie with their six children and their son-in-law: (front row, seated left to right) Rev. William Hyde Alden and his wife Carrie Louisa (Tufts) Alden; (2nd row, standing left to right) Eunice Tufts Alden, Priscilla Alden; Gertrude Winifred (Alden) Simmons; Rev Karl Richardson Alden; (back row, standing left to right) Julius Williams Alden, Samuel W. Simmons (husband of Gertrude Winfred Alden Simmons), and William Hyde Alden Jr.
Rev. Alden’s Lineage:
- John Alden and Priscilla Mullins
- John Alden and Abigail Hallett
- John Alden and Hannah Briggs
- Briggs Alden and Mercy Wadsworth
- Major Judah Alden and Welthea Wadsworth
- Dr, Samuel Alden and Mary A. Hyde
- Ezra Hyde Alden and Mary Esther Smith
- William Hyde Alden married Carrie Louisa Tufts, a direct descendant of Nantucket founder Tristram Coffin and Newbury settler Edmund Greenleaf
A newspaper clip from 1905 entitled, “Relic of the Mayflower. Historic Desk Once the Property of John Alden of Colonial Fame” reveals that Rev. William Alden responded to the search query for interesting relics and brought forth the desk – and it was immediately sent to the Exhibition.
This article reads:
Philadelphia. – A historical desk in the possession of Rev. William Alden, of this city, was once owned by no less a personage than John Alden, of colonial fame. It came over on the Mayflower.
On this desk letters were written to Priscilla [Mullins, his future wife], [adding to the romantic lore of the great love triangle celebrated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow].
When John Alden was married it went to the new home in Duxbury, [Massachusetts], and there it stayed for many years, loved and prized by the couple and their children.
In 1876, when search was made throughout the country for interesting relics, this desk was brought to the front, and sent to the exposition here, where it stood in a prominent place in the New England kitchen cheek by jowl with Peregrine White’s cradle.
However, the cradle that was part of this exhibit is not the one that rocked baby Peregrine White in 1620 – that one can be viewed at Pilgrim Hall Museum.
The one featured in the 1876 Exhibition became part of the Wallace Nutting collection, later purchased by J. P. Morgan and donated to the Wadsworth Atheneum in Connecticut.
And there is still another cradle attributed to the Mayflower families known as the Fuller cradle.
In 1860 the Fuller cradle was mentioned in a Massachusetts newspaper.
Lewis Ellingwood Noyes (1823-1916), son of Jacob and Olive (Edson) Noyes, was a direct descendant of Dr. Samuel Fuller; and his wife Lucy Ann (Briggs) Noyes (1828-1903) was a descendant of Mayflower passengers Edward Doty, Francis Cooke, Edward Winslow, and William Bradford.
This cradle would go the heirs of Henry Augustus Noyes (1820-1889), brother to Lewis Ellington Noyes, who lived in Omaha, Nebraska, and would return to Plymouth and rock a Noyes great grandson at the tercentenary commemoration of the landing of the first Pilgrims in 1920.
And this cradle would be rocking a great debate, riveling the one placed in the 1876 exhibition… so stay tuned!
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Note on the header image: “Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor,” by William Halsall, 1882. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
