The Pilgrims arrived in the New World in November 1620.  Of the 102 who had set out from Holland and England, only half were still alive the next spring.  Their survival was extremely tenuous for the next two years.  They were constantly on the verge of starvation as they strove to learn how to deal with the new land, with sickness, with the dangers that Indians presented, with cold and little shelter, and with how to start life anew with virtually nothing.

It wasn’t until 1623 that they finally  mastered the art of raising corn which was crucial to their survival.  The crop was looking good, but “early in the summer a drought had set in and continued for weeks, with not a drop of rain, till even the most sanguine lost hope.  Their corn and beans wilted on the stalk and turned brown.  In desperation the Saints appointed a ‘solemne day of humiliation.’  They assembled in the morning and prayed eight or nine hours under a hot clear sky, and it seemed that the drought was ‘as like to continue as ever it was.’  But the meeting had no sooner adjourned, so Winslow reported, than clouds began to pile up on the horizon and during the night—and for two weeks thereafter—’distilled such soft, sweete, and moderate showers ... as it was hard to say whether our withered corne or drooping affections were most quickened and revived.’  Hobomok and other Indians had noted their preparations for the meeting, and as it was not the Sabbath, had inquired the reason for it.  When they saw the results, they were most impressed.  It showed them, said Winslow, ‘the differance between their conjurations and our invocation on the name of God for rain, theirs being mixed with such storms and tempests as sometimes, instead of doing them good, it layeth the corn flat on the ground to their prejudice, but ours in so gentle and seasonable a manner as they never observed the like.’  The Pilgrims promptly set aside another day to thank the Lord for his ‘mercies towards his Church and chosen ones.’

“Whatever the cause, ‘ye face of things was changed to ye rejoysing of ye harts of many.’  All had raised enough to carry them through till the next harvest.  Some of the more industrious had corn and other produce to sell, and Plymouth never again knew ‘any general wante or famine.’”

—Saints and Strangers, by George F. Willison, Reynal & Hitchcock, New York, 1945, pg. 240.