Here’s a Turkey Day treat for you, and it’s all true.

As we’ve all been taught, the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620. Their leader, in spiritual and temporal matters, was William Brewster, who guided them through those first two decades in the New World, including that terrible first winter when half of them perished from cold and starvation. As it happens, his direct descendant, Bill Brewster, lives in Orinda.

“He wasn’t ordained, but he assumed that role,” says Bill about his ancestor, whom the Pilgrims called Elder William. “There were two boats that left England that day, and the ordained minister, Reverend Robinson, was on the other one, the Fortune, which sprang a leak and had to turn back, and the Mayflower had to go on by itself.”

Elder William got away just in time.

“T

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