"Upon the Sabbath-Day wee rested, 20 December, 1620."
Eighteen of the Pilgrims thus "rested," after their shallop, in making the shore, had been almost shipwrecked. The next day they sailed across the bay to the mainland, their first landing being then made at Plymouth, and upon the second day, December 22d, the entire company came ashore and the settlement began.
Within the Pilgrim Hall, a fireproof building upon the chief street, are kept the precious relics of the "Mayflower" and the Pilgrims, with paintings of the embarkation from Delft-haven and landing at Plymouth, and old portraits of the leaders of the colony. Among the interesting documents are autograph writings, establishing a chain of acquaintanceship connecting the original Pilgrims with the present time. Peregrine White was the first child of the new colony, the infant being born on the "Mayflower" after she came into Cape Cod Bay, in November, 1620, and he was only a month old when they landed. The baby, surviving all their hardships, lived to a ripe old age, and "Grandfather Cobb," born in 1694, knew him well. Cobb, in his day, lived to be the oldest man in New England, his life covering space in three centuries, for he exceeded one hundred and seven years, dying in 1801. William R. Sever, born in 1790, knew Cobb and recollected him well, and living until he was ninety-seven years old, died in 1887. These three lives connected the Pilgrim landing almost with the present day. The old cradle that rocked Peregrine White on the "Mayflower," and after they landed, is preserved—an upright, stiff-backed, wicker-work basket, upon rude wooden rockers. One of the chief paintings represents the signing of the memorable "Mayflower Compact." There are also in the hall some of the old straight-backed chairs of the Pilgrims, with their pots and platters, and among other relics Miles Standish's sword. In the court-house are the original records of the colony, the first allotment of lands among the settlers, their deeds, agreements and wills, and the patent given the colony by Earl Warwick in 1629. There are also shown in quaint handwriting, with the ink partly faded out, records of how they divided their cattle, when it was decided to change from the original plan of holding them in common. Signatures of the Pilgrims are attached to many of these documents. Governor Carver died the first year, William Bradford succeeding, and there is preserved in Governor Bradford's writing the famous order establishing trial by jury in the colony.
THE PLYMOUTH ROCK.
"The breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock-bound coast."
Thus begins Mrs. Hemans' beautiful hymn on the landing of the Pilgrims. Unfortunately for the poetry, however, sand is everywhere about, and scarcely a rock or boulder can be seen for miles, excepting the very little one on which they landed. Down near the water-side is this sacred stone, worshipped by all the Pilgrim descendants, the retrocession of the sea having left it some distance back. It is a gray syenite boulder, oval-shaped, and about six feet long. It was some time ago unfortunately split, and the parts have been cemented together. At the time of the landing this boulder lay on the sandy beach, partly embedded, being almost solitary on these sands, for unlike the verge of Manomet to the southward, and the coast north of Boston, this sandy shore is almost without rocks of any kind. Dropped here in the glacial period, and lying partly in the water, the rock made a boat-landing naturally attractive to the water-weary Pilgrims when they coasted along in their shallop from Clark's Island, so they stepped out upon it to get ashore dry-shod. The rock is in its original location, but has been elevated several feet to a higher level, is surmounted by an imposing granite canopy, and is railed in for protection from the relic-hunter. The numerals "1620" are rudely carved upon its side, and a sort of fissure in its face seems like the impress of a foot. Surmounting the canopy is a scallop shell, the distinctive emblem of the pilgrim. The scallop has been called the "Butterfly of the Sea," and in the time of the Crusades, a scallop shell fastened in the cap denoted that the wearer had made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Thus it is said in the Hermit:
"He quits his cell, the pilgrim staff he bore,
And fixed his scallop in his hat before."
Behind the Plymouth Rock rises the bluff shore into Cole's Hill, having its steep slopes sodded, this having been the place up which the Pilgrims climbed after the landing. A view to the front shows the wharves, and across the bay the narrow sandspit protecting the harbor, while on the right hand is the long ridge of Manomet, and over the water to the left appear distant sand-dunes along Duxbury Beach. Off to the northward rises the "Captain's Hill" of Duxbury, surmounted with the monument to Captain Miles Standish, erected in 1889, rising one hundred and ten feet. Upon Cole's Hill was the first burial-place of the Pilgrims, and here were interred about half the intrepid band, who died from the privations of the first winter. Their bones were occasionally washed out by heavy rains, or found in digging for the foundations of buildings, but all have been carefully collected, and, with several of the dead thus exposed, were again entombed in the canopy over Plymouth Rock. A little way to the southward is Leyden Street, running from the water's edge for some distance back up the slope to the side of the "Burial Hill," the first cemetery. This was the earliest highway laid out in New England, although it did not receive its present name until long afterwards. Upon this street the Pilgrims built their first rude houses, the lots extending southward from it to the "Town Brook," a short distance beyond, which supplied them with good water, and was the chief feature inducing them to select this place for settlement.