Plymouth Mass

A Day in Plymouth
We got up late this morning and then spent most of the day in Plymouth the home of the Pilgrims. They arrived here on the Mayflower as you know in 1620 and from the beginning had a bad start. First they arrived three months late and because of that they were not able to built their houses in Sept when the weather would have been ok but in Dec in a very harsh winter.
The first year half of them had died along with half of the ships crew that brought them. So many died in fact that they were buried in unmarked graves at night so that the Indians would not know how bad it was for them.
After that obviously things got better and they were able to establish a colony for trading and for commerce. Mostly through had work and what we now call the puritan ethic.
We saw the Plymouth rock which is supposed to be where they first came ashore but this is not entirely true and in fact the rock has even been moved on occasion.
The first public meeting house which was used as a courtroom for many years is still there and the Pilgrim Church.
There is only one home left that a Pilgrim actually lived in and that is now a museum. The stream where they got there water from and the reason for choosing this place for a settlement still runs thru the town and is now sort of a park area.
I toured a replica of the Mayflower which is berthed at the dock here. There really wasn’t much room on board for 100 people and their things and life on a voyage of that nature was certainly rugged. Right from the meals to the cramped quarters and most of the voyage the Pilgrims were seasick you can imagine what that must have been like.
After that we went to a Cranberry Festival to see what that was like. Kind of an old fashioned small county fair and the weather was really nice. Cranberries are grown on a loamy bog like soil and when they are ripe the field is flooded. Because the cranberries are lighter than water they float slightly up form the plant. Next a bog vehicle with large paddles comes along and cuts the berries from the plant while they are in about 3 feet of water. After that they float to the top of the now pond. Now it is simply a matter of sweeping them up an then with large suction hoses they are put into trucks to be processed.
Mass used to produce most of the cranberries in the country but now Wisconsin actually grows more of the berries.
Well tomorrow it is on the Plimoth Plantation to see how the early Pilgrims actually lived.
1 The Mayflower
2 The Plymouth rock
3 The last pilgrim home
4 Cranberry bog
5 Cranberry harvester