Plymouth, Massachusetts - Pilgram's landing site

 Mayflower II is a replica of the 17th century ship Mayflower, celebrated for transporting the Pilgrams to America  The replica was built in Devon England, during 1955–1956, in a collaboration between Englishman Charlton and an American museum,Plimoth Plantation, combining the American museum's ship blueprints with construction by old traditional methods of English shipbuilders.  On April 20, 1957 recreating the original voyage, Mayflower II was sailed across the ocean and arrived in American.

The ship is 106 ft long by 25 ft wide, weights 236 tons, and 4 masts (mainmast, foremast, mizzen, sprit), and 6 sails.

William Bradford, the Captain of Mayflower had tried several spots to land his passengers, the Pilgrams.  Most of the spot were heavily settled by Native Americans, especially the site of  modern day Boston, which had a great harbor, but were packed with Native American villages. He finally found the Plymouth site where they were only about 2000 Wampanoag, and thus this site was chosen.

One of the passenger on the Mayflower was Edward Leister, and my children are related to him from their mother side.

The site where the Pilgram landed is called the Plymouth Rock, the actual rock is said to have been passed from generation to generation. When plans were afoot to build a wharf at the Pilgrim's landing site in 1741, a 94 year old Elder of the church named Thomas Faunce, identified the precise rock his father had told him was the first solid land the Pilgrims set foot upon. The rock is located about 650 feet from where it is generally accepted that the initial settlement was built.

When the townspeople of Plymouth decided to move the rock in 1774, the rock was split into two halves, and it was decided to leave the bottom portion behind at the wharf and the top half was relocated to the town's meeting-house. In 1859 the Pilgrim Society began building a Victorian canopy, designed by Hammatt Billings, at the wharf over the lower portion of the rock. Following its completion in 1867, the top of the rock was  moved from Pilgrim Hall back to its original wharf location in 1880. The date "1620" was carved into the rock. In 1920, the rock was relocated and the waterfront rebuilt to a design by noted landscape architect Arthur Shurcliff, with a waterfront promenade behind a low seawall, in such a way that when the rock was returned to its original site, it would be at water level. The care of the rock was turned over to the Commonwealth of  Massachusetts, and a new very sober Roman Doric portico were build for viewing the tide-washed rock protected by gratings. During the Rock's many journeys throughout the town of  Plymouth numerous pieces of the Rock were taken, bought and sold. Today approximately 1/3 of the top portion remains. It is estimated that the original Rock weighed 20,000 lb (9,100 kg). Although some documents indicate that tourists or souvenir hunters chipped it down, no pieces have been noticeably removed since 1880.