What is the name given to the spot in Massachusetts where the Pilgrims are said to have landed?

Plymouth Rock is the traditional site of disembarkation of William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims who founded Plymouth Colony in 1620. The Pilgrims did not refer to Plymouth Rock in any of their writings; the first known written reference to the rock dates to 1715 when it was described in the town boundary records as "a great rock." The first documented claim that Plymouth Rock was the landing place of the Pilgrims was made by Elder Thomas Faunce in 1741, 121 years after the Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth.

From that time to the present, Plymouth Rock has occupied a prominent spot in American tradition and has been interpreted by later generations as a symbol of both the virtues and the flaws of the first English people who colonized New England. In 1774, the rock broke in half during an attempt to haul it to Town Square in Plymouth.

Today, Plymouth Rock is managed by the Department of Conservation and Recreation for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as part of Pilgrim Memorial State Park. From the end of May to Thanksgiving Day, Pilgrim Memorial is staffed by park interpreters who inform visitors of the history of Plymouth Rock and answer questions.

More Info: en.wikipedia.org

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33 Comments

Martha Prefontaine

Lauren Therese, Do you know about or understand OCD. If Tesla has a problem, why does it bother anyone? Just scroll on past and be kind.

Been there when I was a kid.

TEETH2U

Love the history!!

wandajaneburlinson

I had an ancestor on the Mayflower.

Ralph A. Caya

I thought it was Buick Stone

GreedyJoel

Alane, the crucial part of the question is “said to”. Said to, by the myth makers, who often write the fables called history. Columbus discovered America. He discovered a continent (for a European power) that had millions of Native peoples already living there!

Alane Holmes Nuzum

In actuality, the Pilgrims initially landed at the northern tip of Cape Cod near present day Provincetown. The weather conditions were not good and they had to winter there before continuing to the Massachusetts mainland at Plymouth Rock. My husband is descended from two Mayflower families and has researched the entire history. If you visit the museums at Plymouth and Provincetown, you will learn these facts to be true.... yes, they founded their colony at Plymouth, but their landing in the “New World “ was at Provincetown.