Pilgrims First Landing
The Mayflower Pilgrims settled in Plymouth—but only after rejecting Cape Cod as unsuitable. On November 9, 1620, these emigrants from England sighted the Cape, the first land they had seen in the 2 months since they left Holland. Though they had intended to continue south and settle in the Hudson River area, they decided, because of treacherous waters off the Cape, to stay. They sailed around the northern end of the Cape, set anchor off what became known as Provincetown, and drew up the “Mayflower Compact,” an agreement by which the group of 102, a bare majority of whom were Pilgrims, would govern themselves. During the next month 3 different small groups made “discoveries” of the area. They found a freshwater spring in the Truro area, encountered a few Indians, and discovered several baskets of Indian corn buried on a hill near the Pamet River. On December 6 a group of 19 men led by Myles Standish left the Mayflower in a shallop, or small boat, camped for the night in Eastham, and crossed Cape Cod Bay to the mainland. They decided this would be a good place to settle and returned to the ship. On December 16, the Mayflower dropped anchor in Plymouth Harbor, and the story of a new English settlement in the New World began. A few passengers and their offspring later settled in the Cape’s Eastham area.
The Mayflower, a 90-foot square-rigger, left England on August 15, 1620, with a smaller vessel called the Speedwell. Both vessels carried English exiles from Holland and England, but the leaky Speedwell caused two aborted departures. An overcrowded Mayflower finally left the docks on September 6, making the arduous Atlantic crossing in a sluggish 65 days.
The Mayflower arrived at Plymouth from Provincetown on December 16, 1620, after failing to cross December 15 because of bad weather. The Pilgrims came ashore on December 18. A few of them and their offspring later settled in the Cape’s Eastham area. Graves of Mayflower passengers Constance Hopkins Snow, Giles Hopkins, and Joseph Rogers are in Eastham’s Old Cove Burying Ground.