Above Main and Market streets we enter Town Square, shaded by its noble elms, planted in 1784. On the corner of Main Street, a large building was built in 1875 by Mayflower Lodge I. O. O. F., covering the spot on which stood the house of William Bradford, so many years, the Pilgrim governor. It was burned January 10, 1904, and the “Governor Bradford Building,” a handsome brick structure with stores and offices took its place. A bronze tablet calls attention to the locality.

Above this is the Congregational Church, known as the “Church of the Pilgrimage.”

The present building was erected in 1840, and stands very near the site of the First Meeting-house in Plymouth, built in 1638. A tablet on the front of the church bears the following inscription:—

This tablet is inscribed in grateful memory of the Pilgrims and of their successors who, at the time of the Unitarian controversy in 1801, adhered to the belief of the Fathers, and on the basis of the original creed and covenant perpetuated, at great sacrifice, in the Church of the Pilgrimage, the evangelical faith and fellowship of the Church of Scrooby, Leyden, and the “Mayflower,” organized in England in 1606.

Opposite is an old building, now the Town House, on which is a historical bronze tablet. It was built in 1749 as a court house, the town contributing a part of the cost for the privilege of using it. When the new court house was built, in 1820, this old colonial building was purchased by the town and in it most of the town officers are located, also public sanitary conveniences. At the head of the square is the First Parish Church, the original church of the Pilgrims.

The first “Meeting-house,” as the Pilgrims called church edifices, to distinguish them from houses of worship of the established church, has been proved, by the investigations of Mr. W. T. Davis, to have stood on the north side of the square, near the spot occupied by the present Governor Bradford building. Of this we know but little, except that it was erected in 1638, (the Forefathers before that time worshipping in the fort on the hill), and had a bell. In 1683 a new building was erected, not on the same lot, but farther out at the head of the square. This was forty-five by forty feet, sixteen feet in the walls, had a Gothic roof, diamond window glass and a bell.

In 1744, still another church was built on or near the same site. This remained until 1830, when a Gothic edifice was erected. This stood farther up the hill than the previous one, and was destroyed by fire Nov. 22, 1892. The present stone building was completed and dedicated on December 21, 1899, and has on its front, tablets designating it as the first church. Its entrance portal is a fine reproduction of the arched doorway of the old church at Austerfield, England, in which Gov. Bradford was christened.