Weighing about 180 tons, and only about 106 feet long, the overcrowded Mayflower must have had a rough voyage. The Pilgrims sailed across the north Atlantic to avoid pirates who frequented the more temperate latitudes. No one knows exactly what the original Mayflower looked like, but this reconstruction of a typical ship of the time and class is probably very similar.
THE SHALLOP
Small groups of Pilgrims explored Cape Cod and Clark’s Island before selecting Plymouth as the site for their settlement. They plied between the Mayflower and the shore in a shallop, a large open boat which could be rowed and/or fitted with sails.
INDIAN WIGWAM
This reconstructed wigwam and its contents are like those encountered by the Pilgrims during their first explorations. The bark huts of their Algonquian Indian neighbors soon became familiar shelters to the Pilgrims, whose descriptive accounts allow us to understand much of the native way of life which fast disappeared in New England.
CONSTRUCTING A HOUSE AT PLYMOUTH
Members of the group early agreed that each family should build its own house, “... thinking by that course men would make more haste.” Roofs were thatched with bundles of rushes and grass, which provided a good watershed but could easily be fired by a spark from the chimney, as is graphically described in Mourt’s Relation.