Where the Pilgrims landed

The first thing we did was go straight to Plymouth on Saturday morning from our hotel in Sharon.

We first saw the Richard Sparrow House...

Richard Sparrow, his wife Pandora, and son Jonathan, left their home in England, and arrived in NewPlimoth by 1633.  As a freeman, Richard was granted a house tract of six acres in 1636, which required him to construct a house within four years.   The original two-story house contained one room on each level and utilized cross summer beam construction.  With its large rooms, leaded glass windows and paneled walls, it was a grand home on the banks of what is now known as Town Brook. For starters, the well intentioned residents of Plymouth who first set out to preserve the symbolic rock in 1774 had the unpleasant experience of watching the rock split in two when a team of oxen attempted to raise it. Only the upper portion of Plymouth Rock left the waterfront originally for display in the Town Square. Souvenir seekers who desired to bring home a "piece of the rock" caused further deterioration until Plymouth Rock was moved to safety inside an iron fence at the Pilgrim Hall Museum in 1834. It had a rough trip to the museum, though, falling off its conveyance and obtaining its distinctive crack. Remember the bottom part of the rock that was left behind at the waterfront? The Pilgrim Society acquired the other half of Plymouth Rock in 1859, and in 1867, a Plymouth Rock canopy structure was completed at the waterfront to house it. Unfortunately, the canopy was not large enough to hold the whole rock, so a few pieces had to be hacked off and sold as souvenirs. Finally, in 1880, the upper chunk was united with the lower piece of Plymouth Rock--cement did the trick! And "1620," the date of the Pilgrims' arrival in Plymouth, was permanently carved into the rock.

After Daddy was done taking photos and determining that the "6" in "1620" looked more like an "8" but from the side was, in fact, a "6", we walked up the road a bit and saw a horse and carriage.  Daddy paid for the three of us to take a little carriage ride, and the nice driver told us all about the area what there was to do. Mommy said it was really no more than a running advertisement for other businesses, the way the man carried on.

We took some pictures on the carriage and then we walked along the harbor and stopped for lunch in one of the restaurants.

It was too hot to stick around much longer, so we made our way back to the car and drove to our next destination (see next entry)