The Pilgrims did not refer to Plymouth Rock in any of their writings; the first known written reference to the rock dates from 1715 when it was described in the town boundary records as "a great rock of all the rocks".[2]
The first documented claim of Plymouth Rock as the landing place of the Pilgrims was made by 94-year-old Thomas Faunce in 1741, 121 years after the Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth.[3][4]
In 1774, the rock broke in half during an attempt to haul it to Town Square in Plymouth. One portion remained in Town Square and was moved to Pilgrim Hall Museum in 1834. It was rejoined with the other portion of the rock, which was still at its original site on the shore of Plymouth Harbor, in 1880. The date 1620 was inscribed at that time. The rock is now ensconced beneath a granite canopy. However, Plymouth Rock has been moved multiple times since 1620. According to Donna D. Curtin, Executive Director of the Pilgrim Hall Museum, the rock has "unquestionably" been relocated several times, including its complete excavation and relocation onto the shoreline in 1920. This fact complicates the perception that it remains in its original location, as it has been moved and altered multiple times over the centuries.[5][6]
History
Early identification
The two most significant primary sources on the founding of Plymouth Colony are Edward Winslow's 1622 Mourt's Relation and William Bradford's 1630–1651 history Of Plymouth Plantation, and neither refers to Plymouth Rock.[7] The rock first attracted public attention in 1741 when the residents of Plymouth began plans to build a wharf which would bury it. Before construction began, a 94-year-old church elder named Thomas Faunce declared that the boulder was the landing place of the Mayflower Pilgrims.[8][9]
However, modern scholarship has cast doubt on the rock’s significance as a landing site, particularly because it has been moved numerous times since 1620. Donna D. Curtin, Executive Director of the Pilgrim Hall Museum, stated that the rock has "unquestionably" been moved multiple times. This includes being raised from its original location due to the construction of a wharf, and its later excavation and relocation onto the shoreline in 1920, indicating that the rock's location has changed significantly over time.[5][6]
Meanwhile Faunce asked to be brought to the rock to say a farewell. According to Plymouth historian James Thacher:
A chair was procured, and the venerable [Faunce] conveyed to the shore, where a number of the inhabitants were assembled to witness the patriarch's benediction. Having pointed out the rock directly under the bank of Cole's Hill, which his father had assured him was that which had received the footsteps of our fathers on their first arrival, and which should be perpetuated to posterity, he bedewed it with his tears and bid to it an everlasting adieu.[8]
Faunce's father had arrived in the colony aboard the ship Anne in 1623, just three years after the Mayflower landing, and Elder Faunce was born in 1647, when many of the Mayflower Pilgrims were still living, so his assertion made a strong impression on the people of Plymouth. The wharf was built but the rock left intact, the top portion protruding from the dirt so as to be visible to curious visitors.[8]
More recent generations have questioned Faunce's assertion, alleging that he invented the story or did not have the correct facts, given that he was not an eyewitness to the event. Journalist Bill Bryson, for example, wrote, "The one thing the Pilgrims certainly did not do was step ashore on Plymouth Rock", arguing that the boulder would have made an impractical landing spot.[10] Others have pointed out that the Pilgrims landed at Provincetown to explore Cape Cod more than a month before they arrived in Plymouth harbor, which lessens the significance of where they set foot in Plymouth. In 1851, a group of Cape Cod residents formed the Cape Cod Association for the purpose of promoting Provincetown as the site of the original Pilgrim landing.[11] Such efforts eventually led to the construction of the Pilgrim Monument in Provincetown, which was completed in 1910.
Movements
Col. Theophilus Cotton (son of Plymouth magistrate Josiah Cotton) and the townspeople of Plymouth decided to move the rock in 1774. It split in two, however, so the bottom portion was left behind at the wharf and the top portion was relocated to the town's meeting house.[citation needed]
Captain William Coit wrote in The Pennsylvania Journal of November 29, 1775 that he brought captive British sailors ashore "upon the same rock our ancestors first trod".[citation needed]
The 1867 monumental canopy that housed Plymouth Rock until 1920
A large portion of the rock was relocated from Plymouth's meetinghouse to Pilgrim Hall in 1834. In 1859, the Pilgrim Society began building a Victorian canopy designed by Hammett Billings at the wharf over the portion of the rock left there, which was completed in 1867. The Pilgrim Hall section of the rock was moved back to its original wharf location in 1880, rejoined to the remaining portion, and the date "1620" was carved into it.[9]
In 1920, the rock was temporarily relocated so that the old wharves could be removed and the waterfront landscaped[7] to a design by architect Arthur Shurcliff, with a waterfront promenade behind a low seawall in such a way that, when the rock was returned to its original site, it would be at water level. The care of the rock was turned over to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and a new Roman Doricportico was constructed, designed by McKim, Mead and White for viewing the tide-washed rock protected by gratings.[9]
During the rock's many journeys throughout the town of Plymouth, numerous pieces were taken and sold. Today approximately a third remains.[12] It is estimated that the original Rock weighed 20,000lb (9,100kg). Some documents indicate that tourists or souvenir hunters chipped it down, although no pieces have been noticeably removed since 1880. Today there are pieces in Pilgrim Hall Museum and in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.[9][13]
This Rock is become an object of veneration in the United States. I have seen bits of it carefully preserved in several towns of the Union. Does not this sufficiently show that all human power and greatness is in the soul of man? Here is a stone which the feet of a few outcasts pressed for an instant, and this stone becomes famous; it is treasured by a great nation, its very dust is shared as a relic.[15]
While the rock is currently situated beneath a granite canopy at Pilgrim Memorial State Park, it has been moved several times since the 18th century. Experts such as Donna D. Curtin of the Pilgrim Hall Museum and Dr. Simon Engelhart of Durham University's Department of Geography confirm that Plymouth Rock has been relocated multiple times, with its current location differing from its original position in 1620. This movement highlights the evolving narrative and physical journey of this historical symbol.[5][6]
Plymouth Colony was the first permanent English colony in New England from 1620 and the third permanent English colony in America, after Newfoundland and the Jamestown Colony. It was settled by the passengers on the Mayflower at a location that had previously been surveyed and named by Captain John Smith. The settlement served as the capital of the colony and developed as the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts. At its height, Plymouth Colony occupied most of what is now the southeastern portion of Massachusetts. Many of the people and events surrounding Plymouth Colony have become part of American folklore, including the American tradition of Thanksgiving and the monument of Plymouth Rock.
William Bradford was an English Puritan Separatist originally from the West Riding of Yorkshire in Northern England. He moved to Leiden in Holland in order to escape persecution from King James I of England, and then emigrated to the Plymouth Colony on the Mayflower in 1620. He was a signatory to the Mayflower Compact and went on to serve as Governor of the Plymouth Colony intermittently for about 30 years between 1621 and 1657. He served as a commissioner of the United Colonies of New England on multiple occasions and served twice as president. His journal Of Plymouth Plantation covered the years from 1620 to 1646 in Plymouth.
Plymouth is a town and county seat of Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. Located in Greater Boston, the town holds a place of great prominence in American history, folklore, and culture, and is known as "America's Hometown". Plymouth was the site of the colony founded in 1620 by the Mayflower Pilgrims, where New England was first established. It is the oldest municipality in New England and one of the oldest in the United States. The town has served as the location of several prominent events, one of the more notable being the First Thanksgiving feast. Plymouth served as the capital of Plymouth Colony from its founding in 1620 until the colony's merger with the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1691. The English explorer John Smith named the area Plymouth and the region 'New England' during his voyage of 1614. It was a later coincidence that, after an aborted attempt to make the 1620 trans-Atlantic crossing from Southampton, the Mayflower finally set sail for America from Plymouth, England.
Francis Cooke was a Leiden Separatist, who went to America in 1620 on the Pilgrim ship Mayflower, which arrived at Plymouth, Massachusetts. He was a founding member of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and a signer of the Mayflower Compact.
Provincetown Harbor is a large natural harbor located in the town of Provincetown, Massachusetts. The harbor is mostly 30 to 90 feet deep and stretches roughly 1 mile (1.6 km) from northwest to southeast and 2 miles (3.2 km) from northeast to southwest – one large, deep basin with no dredged channel necessary for boats to enter and exit.
Edward Winslow was a Separatist and New England political leader who traveled on the Mayflower in 1620. He was one of several senior leaders on the ship and also later at Plymouth Colony. Both Edward Winslow and his brother, Gilbert Winslow signed the Mayflower Compact. In Plymouth he served in a number of governmental positions such as assistant governor, three times was governor and also was the colony's agent in London. In early 1621 he had been one of several key leaders on whom Governor Bradford depended after the death of John Carver. He was the author of several important pamphlets, including Good Newes from New England and co-wrote with William Bradford the historic Mourt's Relation, which ends with an account of the First Thanksgiving and the abundance of the New World. In 1655 he died of fever while on an English naval expedition in the Caribbean against the Spanish.
William Brewster was an English official and Mayflower passenger in 1620. He became senior elder and the leader of Plymouth Colony, by virtue of his education and existing stature with those immigrating from the Netherlands, being a Brownist.
Peregrine White was the first boy born on the Pilgrim ship the Mayflower in the harbour of Massachusetts, the second baby born on the Mayflower's historic voyage, and the first known English child born to the Pilgrims in America. His parents, William White and his pregnant wife Susanna, with their son Resolved White and two servants, came on the Mayflower in 1620. Peregrine White was born while the Mayflower lay at anchor in the harbor at Cape Cod. In later life, he became a person of note in Plymouth Colony, active in both military and government affairs.
Degory Priest was a member of the Leiden contingent on the historic 1620 voyage of the ship Mayflower. He was a hat maker from London who married Sarah, sister of Pilgrim Isaac Allerton in Leiden. He was a signatory to the Mayflower Compact in November 1620 and died less than two months later.
John Billington was an Englishman who travelled to the New World on the Mayflower and was one of the signers of the Mayflower Compact. He was also the first citizen of the Plymouth Colony to be convicted of murder and executed.
James Chilton was a Leiden Separatist passenger on the historic 1620 voyage of the ship Mayflower and was the oldest person on board. Upon arrival in the New World, he was a signer of the Mayflower Compact. James Chilton was one of the earliest to die that winter, perishing within the following month.
The Pilgrim Hall Museum at 75 Court Street in Plymouth, Massachusetts is the oldest public museum in the United States in continuous operation, having opened in 1824.
The Pilgrim Monument in Provincetown, Massachusetts, was built between 1907 and 1910 to commemorate the first landfall of the Pilgrims in 1620 and the signing of the Mayflower Compact in Provincetown Harbor. This 252-foot-7+1⁄2-inch-tall (77.0 m) campanile is the tallest all-granite structure in the United States and is part of the Provincetown Historic District.
Cole's Hill is a National Historic Landmark containing the first cemetery used by the Mayflower Pilgrims in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. The hill is located on Carver Street near the foot of Leyden Street and across the street from Plymouth Rock. Owned since 1820 by the preservationist Pilgrim Society, it is now a public park.
Edward Tilley traveled in 1620 on the historic voyage of the ship Mayflower as a Separatist member of the Leiden, Holland contingent. He was a signatory to the Mayflower Compact, and died with his wife in the first Pilgrim winter in the New World.
William White was a passenger on the Mayflower. Accompanied by his wife Susanna, son Resolved and two servants, and joined by a son, Peregrine, on the way, he traveled in 1620 on the historic voyage. He was a signatory to the Mayflower Compact and perished early in the history of Plymouth Colony.
Resolved White was a passenger on the Pilgrim ship Mayflower. In 1620, he accompanied his parents, Pilgrims William and Susanna White, on the journey. He married Judith Vassall, daughter of William Vassall, a founder of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Later in life White became a notable person of Plymouth Colony.
Signing of the Mayflower Compact (1922) is a fifteen-figure, bas-relief sculpture by Cyrus E. Dallin located at the base of Monument Hill below the Pilgrim Monument in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The sculpture is one of three major commissions he received as part of the Pilgrim Tercentenary in 1920. The other two were the statue of Massasoit in Plymouth, Massachusetts and the Pilgrim half dollar, which featured renditions of a pilgrim and the Mayflower under sail.
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