Guide to Historic Plymouth: Localities and Objects of Interest

The Rock

A. S. Burbank

“A rock in the wilderness welcomed our sires

From bondage far over the dark rolling sea;

On that holy altar they kindled the fires,

Jehovah, which glow in our bosoms for thee.”

Illustrated capital

Continuing our way along Court Street a little farther, we come to North Street, at which point the name of the main thoroughfare changes to Main Street, the business section of the town. Turning down North Street, leading to the water, in a little distance we come to the brow of the hill. On the left, Winslow Street winds northward, and on it we see an old mansion, partially hidden by two noble old linden trees. This house was built by Edward Winslow, brother to Gen. John Winslow in 1754. He had the frame got out in England and brought over for this purpose. The trees in front were planted by his daughter about 1760. Additions were made to the house in 1898, which is now owned and occupied by Mrs. C. L. Willoughby.

WINSLOW HOUSE, BUILT IN 1734.

Descending the hill to the harbor front at our right a short distance we see a beautiful and artistic structure of granite in the shape of a canopy, supported on four columns, and under this is the Rock, now world-famous. (At this writing in 1919, the comprehensive plans of the Tercentenary Commission contemplate displacing commercial structures and improving the harbor front in the vicinage of the Rock.) The upper portion of the renowned boulder, nearly all of that which is now in sight, was for one hundred and six years separated from the original Rock, and during this long period occupied localities remote from the Landing-place. In 1774, during the series of events leading to the Revolution, an attempt to raise the Rock for transportation to Town Square disclosed the fact that the upper portion had become separated from the lower, probably through action of frost. It was taken to the Square where it was deposited at the foot of a liberty pole from which waved a flag bearing the motto, “Liberty or death.”

NORTH STREET.

CANOPY OVER PLYMOUTH ROCK—COLE’S HILL.

It remained there until 1834, when at a celebration of the Fourth of July it was carried in procession to Pilgrim Hall, deposited in the front area, and inclosed by an iron fence. Here the separated part of the Rock remained forty-six years, its incongruous position away from the water not being understood by visitors without lengthy explanation. Mr. Stickney, the gentleman by whose liberality the alterations in Pilgrim Hall were being made in the summer of 1880, recognized the impropriety of this condition, and proposed reuniting the parts at the original Landing-place. The Pilgrim Society readily acceded to this proposition, and accordingly on Monday, Sept. 27, 1880, without ceremony, this part of the Rock was placed beneath the Monumental Canopy at the waterside, the reunited pieces, after a separation of one hundred and six years, probably now presenting much the same appearance as when the Pilgrim shallop grazed its side. As to the identity of this Rock, and the certainty of its being the very one consecrated by the first touch of Pilgrim feet on this shore, there is not the slightest loophole for a doubt. Ancient records, now accessible, refer to it as an object of prominence on the shore, before the building of the wharf about it in the year 1741. Thomas Faunce, the elder of the church, who was born in 1647 and died in 1746, at the age of 99, was the son of John Faunce, who came over in the “Ann” in 1623. At the age of ninety-five years hearing that the Rock, which from youth he had venerated was to be disturbed, he visited the locality, related the history of the Rock as told him by his father and contemporary Pilgrims, and in the presence of many witnesses declared it to be that upon which the Forefathers landed in 1620. Thus it has been pointed out and identified from one generation to another, and from the days of the first comers to the present time. Not a shadow of distrust rests upon it as being the identical spot where the first landing was effected on the shore of Plymouth.

About a century and three-fourths have elapsed since Elder Faunce gave his personal testimony, and the lives of two or three elderly people cover that period, so the evidence is of positive rather than traditional character.

The Rock was originally a solid boulder of about seven tons, and undoubtedly a glacial deposit. It is greenish syenite, very hard, and bears high polish when its fragments are worked for various purposes.

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