Transcripts For CSPAN3 Virtual Mayflower Project 20240711

History. In 1620, the mayflower traveled from plymouth, england, to america. And the pilgrims settled the Plymouth Colony on the coast of massachusetts. We talked to robert stone about the virtual mayflower project, which uses Virtual Reality to recreate the ship and harbor from which it set sail, using avatars and 360degree images of the Virtual World, professor stone describes what life might have been like for the pilgrims and crew. Some historic features we will see in the virtual rendering are the 17thcentury report called the barbie can century port called the barbican, plymouth castle, and a ship that was set to sail with the mayflower to america but was deemed on seaworthy and returned to port. Prof. Stone virtual 1620 has been a labor of love, to use virtual to bring a part of , plymouth, in the west of the country, back to life. So people who live there can experience what is like for the pilgrims in their traumatic journey across the atlantic in 1620. What was the last thing they saw before they got on this leaky, creaky ship and made their way out into the treacherous atlantic, centuries ago . We are going to jump in and take a look at some of those 360s. Where we are at the moment is the new key, also known as the smart key. If you move to the right you can of thet the mast speedwell. We decided we would leave the fordwell feeling very sorry itself in that part of the harbor where there were ship repairs going on. The structure you are seeing now with these fine people having a chat, this is reminiscent of an old fish market. There was a fish market in the barbican right into the 1960s. So a lot of the fish would be brought and filletted, that would be done here. Ships would be moored and delivering all their fish into would then box it up, put it onto wagons, or take it directly to stalls that would have been available outside the buildings that are right behind us. We are looking at this image. We have tried to make it look much clearer. You can see that it is quite dirty. A lot of mud. Not very hygienic. Today, most of this will be covered by paving slabs or concrete. But in 1620, there is very little of that. Woodenf wood, a lot of keys in docking areas would have been there. On the left would be the location of the bakery. Jacobs bakery still exists. It is the oldest bakery in the u. K. It would have provided snacks, biscuits, and food that the pilgrims would have taken on board the mayflower for their final journey. It still sells a variety of breads and biscuits and paste tries and piesas even today. It is a very popular bakery. Many pubs will come onto the street later on, which is renowned for its pubs, and a lot of accommodations. The people who lived in this area would have been fishermen and their wives would help them to prepare the fish, sell the fish. Ofot of the fronts pieces these houses had we had time, would have been covered with barrels and shells, selling all kinds of things from wind to fish. We are now getting closer to the gate. You can see the mayflower in the distance. The mayflower is moored in that area. And we will see the current the commissioners office. On the left, you can see the image, you can see the fish house. You see the remainders of the chain coming from the fish house. There is some argument that the chain was not around in the 16 20s but we thought it would we thought we would put it in because it is a historically important feature. If you look to your right, an area not very reputable. Just to the side of the archway, you can see where today the Harbormasters Office is. Off to the steps, the tourist office. To the left of that is a house where the pilgrims, many pilgrims, what have had the last couple of nights in england. The steps are castle steps and they would have originally gone to the castle. This was also known as damnation alley. That single route had 10 pubs. And each pub was a brothel. So not a very nice place. Obviously, when you have got sailors coming in, fishermen coming in, and obviously if they wanted all manner of relief, that is where they would head. That is certainly where they would go. The representation of island house just to the right. What we call jenny houses. Jetty houses. And behind this, the famous elizabethan house. They are called jetties because as they go up, each floor sticks out more than the one underneath. If you want to see the stores, they wouldve brought not just wives but also convicts here. There would have been stocks, some of the offenders would have been put in stocks. Moment, the Southern Harbor is at low tide. Beif that lady were to dumped, she would be dumped in mud as opposed to water. If you turn right and look up, you will be able to see the location of plymouth castle. This castle may have been more in the state of ruin then we show here ruin than we show here. Where you are looking out you can see the tower in the distance, that is an outer gatehouse, and that is the only piece of the castle that exists today. Again, you are up a hill and you can get in and see the remains of that gatehouse. So, again, i am sure it would be much prettier than this. Much busier than this. When you are Walking Around in real time, these guys are moving around and some are having an argument, and we can go to the part of the actual entry. It is a covered walkway down to the steps themselves. Again, a lot of controversy over where the real mayflower steps exist. There is talk they are still in existence underneath the ladies restroom in one pub. I am not too sure that is accurate. But we have them where they are typically placed in most of the maps that we have seen. At the base of the steps we have a little sharp, not dissimilar to the one mayflower took to cape cod, and they were able to assemble it because it was taken in the cargo bay in four pieces. They had to assemble it and then they took it onto land in provincetown, and they took it to land on plymouth at the famed plymouth rock. And then in the virtualreality demonstration you can see the fish house there. You can see the chain. Even though it may not have been there in the 1620s it was the most important part of the fortification. So that observers from plymouth castle could look down and if they thought there was a threat, pull the chain up. And that would protect them from the french and spanish. You are taken out in this leaky and you are able to see theund, to last view of plymouth that the mayflower pilgrims would have seen. The system will take you up onto the ship itself. And we have various pilgrims and crew. The guy directly in front of you , as you will see, is not very well. He is not at all well. And that is bad news because they ship has not left harbor yet, so he is not going to very well going to the americas in the coming days, the coming weeks, the coming 66 days these guys and gals were at sea. We can look back into plymouth. Then in the barbican. The castle in some state of ruin, but that is probably the last view they would see before sailing out across plymouth sound. When you look at the map there may have been a beacon or a wind mill. We dont know. Drakes island right to the atlantic. And on to the americas. The guy you are seeing here with the bouffant hair style is our representation of edward winslow. We decided to put, with the time we had, just one avatar that was representative of unknown character of a known character. And winslow obviously because the present day [indiscernible] if you have the opportunity to go forward we would be able to go into places like that captains cabin. And christopher jones. I would like to do a avatar ofality christopher jones, the captain, and get them to explain their stories. William brewster, bradford, a woman who gave birth during the actual transit. Also john howland. He was a servant of the governor on board the ship and he has amazing stories. He fell overboard during the 66day crossing of the atlantic, but managed miraculously to grab a rope and pulled himself back on board. If he had not done that, George W Bush and george bush would never have existed because they are descendants of john howland. The relatives and descendants, if we can make avatars tell their story, how fantastic that would be. So we are going into the stern of the ship. Thats that particular toucture, which is designed pull wires and ropes, sort of secure the ship and various pieces of cargo coming onto the ship. This is the main deck, where the steerage office is paired that steerage office is. That is called a capstan. You can see the stick on the left. That was a very small, relatively small stick, that controlled the rudder, the steerage of the ship. Then you have the captains cabin, obviously the best cabin on the ship. He had his own little bed. This is where we believe that the main flower compact, in which bradford had a large hand in, this is where where you see the picture, they are all signing the compact before they set sail to provincetown and plymouth. This is where the compact would be drawn up and signed. Above the captains cabin on the poop deck is another tiny office. I say office. It is a little cabin which would contain weapons, would contain maps. And one thing we hope to do in the future, while you can go actually go downstairs, go below, it is very empty at the moment. It was nowhere near as spacious as this. The gap between the ceiling and the floor is about five feet. You can see the capstan coming through. We need to put in what would have brought in the anchors, and many more beds, many more pieces of cargo, spinning wheels, cribs, furniture, animals. This is the area where most of the 102 passengers would have stayed. And it is tiny. It is absolutely tiny. It looks quite spacious here. Sadly, we did not have time to finish it off. But if you look at the capstan, for example, that was something i specifically photographed at plymouth plantation to get the accuracy. You can see just behind the ladder, you can see the mechanism of the tiller coming down from the deck above. And then the complex wooden beam that goes to the stern and controls the rudder. Again, a lot of things going on, a lot of armaments, weapons. I cannot even get my head around what would it would have been like to have been cramped in that for 66 days. Very rarely would they go on deck. It was calm and then stormy and extraordinarily dangerous. Inen towards the front nautical terms, towards the bow, there is another area you can go to. There, right in the bow of the ship, is where most of the 30 sailors would have slept. They would have slept in the stern as well although that was reserved for officers. And that is where most of the cooking would have been done. There is a brickwork kiln there. Hanging meat. Again, not particularly hygienic. Some of the water and beer because obviously beer was a much healthier drink than water because water was badly infected. That would be brought up from the cargo hold in the depths of the ship and brought into here. Into that particular cabin for preparation. We have done a fraction of the things. We would love to get sponsored to do more. If you look to the top of the deck, you can see what looks like a small cannon. This is called a swivel gun. I was not aware he had these weapons until plymouth plantation. They had two original weapons in a couple of the recreations of the houses at plymouth plantation. These were filled with small, tiny, miniature cannonballs. The idea was that they would be used to repel boarders if they were attacked at sea. Lots of detail we can do more with in terms of making this a more educational and historical tool, and we live in hope. Before we exit the 360, can you talk about what the crossing would have been like . You mentioned they would have been below deck most of the time. What other details, if you did game this out, would you want to include . Prof. Stone one of the original ambitions of the virtual mayflower project was to almost recreate part of the ceiling sailing virtually. To do it handinhand with navy schools in massachusetts. Navy schools in the plymouth area. Because it would be great if we could then use the mayflower and in plymouth to show schools in the u. S. What it was like on the early part of the journey. Then we could work with schools and institutions in massachusetts, so they could show us what it was like when the mayflower arrived. The crossing itself would have been horrendous. We know there was one baby born. We know one person died. We know john howland had been overboard. We know one of the main beams split during the most difficult storms. Fortunately, they had a jackscrew, they were able to put the beam back and keep it intact. If that had gone, the whole ship would have been compromised. There were all kinds of events, and just the hardships of being stuck in that tiny area. The seasickness would have been horrendous. The hygiene would have been horrendous. Again, it is very glamorously portrayed when you see the pilgrims kneeling and praying next to plymouth rock, but they must have been so glad to get off that ship. Really, they must have been glad. The mayflower project is not actually your first foray into recreating historic ships. How did you get started in that . Prof. Stone the first project, six years ago, was undertaken, again, as a labor of love, for the Shipwreck Museum in hastings, on the south coast of england. We put together a project to build 3d version. To build a 3d version. The fact that we were able to fly a drone and use augmented reality, see the ship from the air, on its final resting place. When you fly the drone you can map onto the ship itself, first. As a result, we were invited to a lot of maritime conferences and meetings including the mayflower 400 trail towns across england that were homes of the pilgrims before they made their way to london to set out for for plymouth, to board the ship. We were invited to consider whether we could do something similar for the mayflower, with the 400 anniversary close on the horizon. What did some early models look like . Prof. Stone they were quite basic. Fortunately and this is a great thing about Virtual Reality there are a lot of really good assets you can buy or Download Free of charge online. We were able to find two basic models, one of the mayflower and one of the ship that accompanied the mayflower, the speedwell. The speedwell never made it. She was leaking like a sieve. Two ships into a Virtual Reality harbor. Then we could put that into the Virtual Reality headset and allow members of the public and schoolchildren, and people involved in the trails Town Committee to experience what it might be like if we were given free reign and take in the project to its ultimate conclusion. Were you given free reign . Prof. Stone we were given everything, we got zero funding for this project. All the early presentations and demonstrations came to nothing. The money had been spent extensively elsewhere. But being born and bred in plymouth, and i am currently living in the home of a guy called edward winslow, one of the key pilgrims who sailed on the mayflower, it became a labor of love. We are going to do this, somehow. Sure enough, we were able to do it. So we had free reign. We were not at anyones beck and call. We managed to deliver it by september 16 this year, on time to take part in the commemorations. What was your Research Like . Prof. Stone very tricky, very difficult. There are so few documents you can turn to. There are maps of the area we were focusing on, the southern area, the harbor, that really was the beginning of plymouth tower and ultimately plymouth city. But the maps were not specific to 1620. They were either in the 16th century, the century before, or the century after. It was not clear what buildings had fallen into ruin, what level the street was. So it was a long series of Mini Research studies. Consulting with historical experts. Of our team,one provided us information that was incredibly valuable. Unlike our other Virtual Reality projects, we did not experience trouble, but these heritage projects rely on a certain amount of interpretation. And when you only have scant resources to go by, then, yes, you are never going to get it 100 right and there will always be controversy and criticism, but we did the best we could with the resources we had. Talk a bit about your trip to plymouth, massachusetts. Prof. Stone well, after we decided we were going to do the mayflower project, it seemed sensible to me to try to find as much information as we could not just about the original mayflower, but the mayflower ii. It was built in the village around the corner from plymouth, england, in 1957, and given to the United States as a gift. It was sailed across the atlantic in 1957 to commemorate the landing of the pilgrims. The mayflower ii has recently come out of the Mystic Seaport major eastern coast after multimillion dollar refit. I was lucky to be able to find a few pennies in my pocket to go over to boston, traveled to plymouth. I got a fantastic reception from the crew of mayflower ii. And the guys and gals who run plymouth plantation. And without that visit, we would not be able to put together the detail that we have. So i spent time on the mayflower ii with a series of 360degree panoramic cameras, trying to get as much information about the different tax as i could. We had one camera in the crows crows nest to get a nice view of the ship from above. I was taken to plymouth plantation, where they have a have this fantastic wardrobe. The assets and antiquities they have at this place, as well as plans relating to the original mayflower ii build and design. I came back with more photographs than you can imagine. And we have been using all of these photographs. They even gave us access to a fabulous laser scan of the entire ship that was taken when she was in Mystic Seaport. To be able to resolve the detail of the timbers and the rigging, it was without the kind and generous donations of knowledge and images from plymouth plantation, we would have had a lot of problems. How do you translate details you found in plymouth, massachusetts to a Virtual World . Prof. Stone we were able to of theotographs of some actors and actresses they have on board performing the duties of a crew or the behaviors of the pilgrims. We could take those and use them to take our virtual humans, our avatars as we called him, and put them in relatively accurate dress and clothing, and get them doing things on board the ship or Walking Around the harbor. That was one thing we could do. We would directly map from photographs of the people in plymouth, massachusetts, onto the virtual humans. We were able to take pictures of the wooden beams, for example. Again, we can use the pictures to map onto our 3d models to make them look more realistic. We were able to use some of the 3d information. We have ways we can convert different forms of 3d information, for example the laser scan. We can convert that into 3d and put in more detail. Every piece of information gets used. Nothing is wasted. How were you able to come across the same type of detail for the town . That is a big part of the project as well. Prof. Stone the town and area of southern claw in plymouth, it was very difficult. We used a combination of resources. Obviously the maps already described gave us some degree of confidence that the potential layout of that part of the town in the 16 20s. The buildings were predominantly medieval. That is quite fortunate because there are some very good sites online where you can buy medieval buildings. They are fairly basic. So we could use the 3d structure and take some photographs of older buildings. Some of the buildings that exist in Southern Harbor today. And match those images, the brickwork, the blocks, and give them some degree of authenticity. Again, a lot of interpretation and a lot of advice from historians to make sure we do not go over the top with something that looked completely out of place. What was plymouth like in 1620 . What type of town was it . Prof. Stone it was smelly. It was dirty. It was suffering from cholera. There is a theory that some of the water taken on board from plymouth onto the mayflower was probably cholerainfected. There is a story that they may have gone to a fishing town in cornwall called newland before they sailed across the atlantic. A big controversy there. Was plymouth the final departing point . Some great rivalry in the part of the world. There was a lot of it was unsanitary. A lot of gullies taking waste away. Apparently mayflower sailed on a sunny day, but you can bet your Bottom Dollar the harbor would have been smelly, dirty. Steam coming off the water. In general, not very nice. And a lot of trade. A lot of trade in fish. It was a huge fishing port. And wine, wool, coal was being delivered into plymouth from different parts of england at that time. Treasure, obviously, from galleons that were attacked, and their treasure was taken. Quite a hustling, bustling little town. But dirty, filthy nonetheless. What it have been familiar to the pilgrims . Would it have been familiar to the pilgrims . Prof. Stone no. It would not have been familiar to the pilgrims. There were pilgrims from plymouth that joined the mayflower. But most of the pilgrims came from lincolnshire, and the north and east of plymouth, where the puritans, or saints, as they ofalled of the one the 152 passengers, 50 were pilgrims and the other 50 were called strangers. So they were not particularly strong in terms of their rejection of james the firsts church of england. So the puritans came from places where they illegally set up a church of worship, before they went to holland. They would have had some people from holland who wouldve come over and joined the ship, possibly in southhampton, possibly in london. Plymouth would have been their final calling port. Many of them stayed in some of the buildings like ireland house. Or what to dots with the passengers on board the speedwell who were obviously not going to travel on the speedwell. Some of them want back home, some went to holland, and some got on the crowded mayflower. It would have been an unfamiliar and alien place from those people who came from a [indiscernible] background. How long had most of them been away from england before they set sail . Prof. Stone many years, many years. They had tried to escape england and james the first once before but were captured and brought before the king and were chastised. Then they managed to get away to lyden a few years and after that were people like william brewster, and william bradford, and other guys, who are very who were very passionate, very staunch practitioners of the puritan faith. So they were led back into england by james the first, who then gave them his blessing to get them out of the country. He said they could go to the new world. They could go to the americas. Thatding, i think he said, they carried themselves respectably. They were in and out of england and then down to the ships. Fortunately, not being chased or executed by the king, but gently encouraged to go somewhere else. Professor bob stone, thank you so much. Great pleasure. Thank you. This is American History tv weekend,3, where each we feature programs exploring our nations past. Next, we hear the story of 1620ilgrims crossing in and the origins of the mayflower compact. We will also tour the mayflower ii, a reproduction of the original ship, to see what life was like on board. Richard i am richard pickering, deputy executive director of Plimoth Patuxet museums. We are at state pier in plymouth, massachusetts. Mayflower ii is behind me, a fullscale reproduction of the ship that brought the pilgrims to new england in 1620. A writer by the name of Albert Matthews gives them the name of pilgrim fathers, which still in the United Kingdom today they are called the pilgrim fathers