Plimouth Plantation

Simple wooden houses line the narrow, unpaved streets. Men in knee britches and women in long skirts tend gardens, spin yarn, and do other chores. They smile at visitors and gladly stop to explain their work. This is Plimoth Plantation, a recreation of one of America’s first English settlements.

New Plymouth was founded in 1620 by 102 English colonists, now known as the Pilgrims. They crossed the Atlantic Ocean in a small ship called the Mayflower to find religious freedom. Today, visitors to Plimoth Plantation can see how the Pilgrims lived. Actors in seventeenth-century costumes reenact the settlers’ daily activities. They use replicas of Pilgrim tools and housewares, and show visitors through homes and storehousess that are duplicates of the Pilgrims’ original structures.

Just outside the main plantation is Hobbacock’s Homesite, a model of a Wampanoag home of the 1600s. The Wampanoags were Native Americans who helped the Pilgrims through their first years. Nearby, visitors can see the Mayflower II, a replilca of the ship that brought the courageous colonists to the New World.

Archaeologists digging at Plimoth Plantation have found more than 350,000 Pilgrim artifacts. These objects have served as models for the creation of tools and housewares used at Plimoth Plantation today.