Interior House Painter Plymouth MA

Plymouth
Town
Left–right from top: Plymouth Rock monument, Plimouth Plantation, National Monument to the Forefathers, Burial Hill, Town Center, First Parish Church in Plymouth
Flag Seal
Nickname:  America’s Hometown
Location in Plymouth County in Massachusetts
Plymouth Location within the United States Show map of Massachusetts Plymouth Plymouth (the United States) Show map of the United States
Coordinates: 41°57′30″N 70°40′04″W / 41.95833°N 70.66778°W / 41.95833; -70.66778Coordinates: 41°57′30″N 70°40′04″W / 41.95833°N 70.66778°W / 41.95833; -70.66778
Country	United States
State	Massachusetts
County	Plymouth
Region	New England
Settled	1620
Incorporated	1620
Named for	Plymouth, England
Government
• Type	Representative town meeting
• Town Manager	Derek Brindisi
• Chairman of the Board of Selectmen	Richard J. Quintal, Jr.
Area
• Total	134.0 sq mi (347.0 km)
• Land	96.5 sq mi (249.8 km2)
• Water	37.5 sq mi (97.2 km)
Elevation	187 ft (57 m)
Population  (2020)
• Total	61,217
• Density	634.4/sq mi (245.1/km2)
Time zone	UTC-5 (Eastern)
• Summer (DST)	UTC-4 (Eastern)
ZIP Codes	02345, 02360–02362, 02381
Area code	508/774
FIPS code	25-54310
GNIS feature ID	0618349
Website	www.plymouth-ma.gov

Plymouth (; historically known as Plimouth and Plimoth) is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, in Greater Boston. The town holds a place of great prominence in American history, folklore, and culture, and is known as “America’s Hometown”. Plymouth was the site of the colony founded in 1620 by the Mayflower Pilgrims, where New England was first established. It is the oldest municipality in New England and one of the oldest in the United States. The town has served as the location of several prominent events, one of the more notable being the First Thanksgiving feast. Plymouth served as the capital of Plymouth Colony from its founding in 1620 until the colony’s merger with the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1691. The English explorer John Smith named the area Plymouth (after the city in South West England) and the region ‘New England’ during his voyage of 1614 (the accompanying map was published in 1616). It was a later coincidence that, after an aborted attempt to make the 1620 trans-Atlantic crossing from Southampton, the Mayflower finally set sail for America from Plymouth, England.

Plymouth is located approximately 40 miles (64 km) south of Boston in a region known as the South Shore. Throughout the 19th century, the town thrived as a center of rope making, fishing, and shipping, and was home to the Plymouth Cordage Company, formerly the world’s largest rope making company. It continues to be an active port, but today its major industry is tourism. The town is served by Plymouth Municipal Airport and contains Pilgrim Hall Museum, the oldest continually operating museum in the United States. It is the largest municipality in Massachusetts by area, and the largest in southern New England. The population was 61,217 as of the 2020 U.S. Census. It is one of two county seats of Plymouth County, the other being Brockton.

History

Pre-colonial era

Prior to the arrival of the Pilgrims, the location of Plymouth was a village of the Wampanoag tribe called Patuxet. The region was visited twice by European explorers prior to the establishment of Plymouth Colony. In 1605, French explorer Samuel de Champlain sailed to Plymouth Harbor, calling it Port St. Louis. Captain John Smith was a leader of the colony at Jamestown, Virginia, and he explored parts of Cape Cod Bay and is credited with naming the region “New Plimouth.”

Two plagues afflicted coastal New England in 1614 and 1617, killing between 90% and 95% of the local Wampanoag inhabitants. The near destruction of the tribe from disease resulted in their cornfields and cleared areas being vacant for the Pilgrims to occupy.

Colonial era

Plymouth played a very important role in American colonial history. It was the final landing site of the first voyage of the Mayflower and the location of the original settlement of Plymouth Colony. Plymouth was established in December 1620 by separatist Puritans who had broken away from the Church of England, believing that the Church had not completed the work of the Protestant Reformation. Today, these settlers are better known as the “Pilgrims”, a term coined by William Bradford.

The Mayflower first anchored in the harbor of Provincetown, Massachusetts on November 11, 1620. The ship was headed for the mouth of the Hudson River (which was in the notional territory of the Colony of Virginia at the time, before the establishment of New Amsterdam) but it did not go beyond Cape Cod. The Pilgrim settlers realized that they did not have a patent to settle in the region, so they signed the Mayflower Compact prior to disembarking. They explored various parts of Cape Cod and eventually sought a suitable location for a permanent settlement to the westward in Cape Cod Bay. They discovered the sheltered waters of Plymouth Harbor on December 17. From the protected bay they found a site for the new settlement after three days of surveying.

The settlers officially disembarked on December 21, 1620. It is traditionally said that the Pilgrims first set foot in America at the site of Plymouth Rock, though no historical evidence can prove this claim.

First winter

The Plymouth colony faced many difficulties during its first winter, the most notable being the risk of starvation and the lack of suitable shelter. From the beginning, the colonists depended on the assistance of Native Americans. One colonist’s journal reports: