What You Think You Know
Plymouth is not America's oldest city,1 not even the first English colony,2 nor the site of the Pilgrims' landing(!).3 The Pilgrims didn't endorse religious freedom,4 didn't dress all in black,5 didn't even host the first Thanksgiving(!!).6 As for the fabled Rock, it's highly unlikely their feet touched it (!!!) and anyway, why is it so small?
Our present tale concerns what locals call, The Pebble.
It is no bad thing for a nation to be founded on a rock.
— Rose T. Briggs
In The Beginning
There are two contemporary accounts of the Pilgrims' arrival in December 1620: Governor William Bradford's diary and Edward Winslow's. Both describe the search for a landing site, but neither mentions the egg-shaped glacial erratic on the sandy beach.
In 1623 the ship Anne arrived in Plymouth colony. On board was 15-year-old John Faunce. He lived among Mayflower passengers until his 40’s, passing away when his son Thomas was 6. In 1741, a very elderly and disabled Thomas heard of a new wharf to be built below Cole’s Hill. He insisted on being carried there from Manomet to say a tearful goodbye to the rock upon which the original Pilgrims had trod, according to a story his father had told him nearly a century ago.
Wait—the Plymouth Rock legend rests on a 94-year-old's recollection of second-hand info he learned as a child that was otherwise unknown and unrecorded for 121 years? Yet people respected Thomas Faunce as Elder of their church and the town’s record keeper. Another 6-year-old witnessed the proclamation and remembered every detail. More decades passed as he grew up to be called Deacon Spooner and repeated the story in 1769. At that point, as they say, the legend was written in stone.
From 1774–1880 the upper half of the Rock was elsewhere in Plymouth while the bottom remained in situ on Hedge’s Wharf.
Up And Away
The pebble was 2 or 3 times bigger then: a 20-ton granite boulder resting 10ft above the sea. It was so prominent that the town used it as a boundary marker. In 1749 Isaac Lothrop did build a wharf over and around the rock taking care not to bury it.
As the revolution approached in 1774, the local Sons of Liberty literally dragged the Rock into the debate when they transported it to Town Square, set it beside a Liberty Pole, and used it as a stage for speeches. The move took place on a symbolic date: December 22 aka Forefathers Day, the anniversary of the First-Comers. The spectacle was orchestrated by Colonel Theophilus Cotton, commander of the Plymouth County militia. With 20 pair of oxen and a crowd standing by, the massive stone was lifted, then unexpectedly “split in two, horizontally, like a bagel” (says writer John McPhee). The townspeople took this as a portent of the coming split with England and they left the Tory half in the ground.
War broke out the next year and Captain William Coit used the site to humiliate some British sailors he’d captured running supplies into Boston. He brought them ashore on the wharf, made them stand on the Rock and give three cheers to America.
Bicentennial
Forefathers Day continued to be celebrated irregularly, drawing regionally-renowned speakers such as John Quincy Adams and in 1820, Daniel Webster. His lengthy and passionate Plymouth Oration brought national fame to both himself and the Rock, thereby cementing its primacy in the country's origin story.
19th-century artists took up the theme with epic poems and grand paintings. Visitors wanted to stand upon the great symbol and take a chip home. Both the Town Square boulder and “Mother Rock” at the waterfront grew smaller. Tourists would inquire inside Phineas Wells’ grocery, where staff kept a broom to sweep off the base as well as a hammer and chisel for keepsake collectors.
In 1834, the top portion of the Rock was relocated from Town Square to a fenced enclosure in front of Pilgrim Hall.
The Pilgrim Society was founded at this time. By 1824 they had built Pilgrim Hall to preserve documents and artifacts of the Forefathers. By 1834, they’d prepared their front lawn to house the storied stone.
On The Road Again
Another significant date was chosen: July 4, for its service of Liberty. Another crowd gathered, to parade the esteemed relic from Town Square down Court St. Another fall off the carriage happened, with another catastrophic cleavage. This time the rift was vertically across the face. Additional bits were lost off the sides and bottom, but only the two main segments were mortared together to form the scar you see today. “1620” was painted on in big black numerals, then the treasure was encircled by a 5-ft tall iron fence.
The Pilgrim Society next focused on Hedge’s Wharf. They bought the Wells warehouse and tore it down. Eventually they owned and cleared the entire area. Hammatt Billings designed a worthy shelter for the base, constructed between 1859–67 (he also planned the Forefathers Monument, whose cornerstone was laid on the same day). Meanwhile, the lower Rock was lifted out of its bed and sat unprotected on the wharf beside the work site. Despite its ongoing weight loss, when the shrine was complete, it needed even more trimming to fit inside. (One such slab migrated to the front of Harlow House as a doorstep; when discovered in the 20th century, it was divided for display at Pilgrim Hall Museum and the Smithsonian.) Still the souvenir-hunters wouldn’t stop, so iron gates were installed here too.
Its very dust is shared as a relic.
— Alexis de Tocqueville
The two halves were finally reunited in 1880. Much modified during their century of separation, they required much masonry to rejoin them. The painted-on date was replaced with dignified engraving. While the canopy existed from 1867–1920, the iron gates allowed access for modern pilgrims to put their own feet on the landmark. Ancient bones which had emerged from Cole's Hill were conserved in the upper vault.
Three's A Charm
As its 300th birthday loomed, Plymouth’s waterfront was dramatically transformed for the year-long gala commemoration. Eight wharves, no longer active in the early 1900’s, were all demolished. The sandy shoreline was sculpted with landfill and riprap to create the present double-lobed park which converges at a more monumental portico. The shape of Cole’s Hill was also refined, with statues added, plus a sarcophagus for the earliest Pilgrim remains.
December 21, 1920: Top and bottom stacked together behind Massachusetts dignitaries Calvin Coolidge (then Governor and Vice President-Elect), his wife and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge.
To erect its new sanctuary, the Rock had to be lifted up once more. Three guesses what happened... yes, it broke apart a third time, into its 3 component pieces! More whittling was done to improve articulation, then it was stored under guard in a warehouse while construction proceeded. The original setting was excavated down to the water so tides could symbolically wash it. As it’s placed now, the lower half is under the sand, but at ground level you can clearly see the cemented joint.
Plymouth’s tercentenary events received unprecedented funding from Congress. Speakers at the portico’s dedication included President Harding, Vice President Coolidge, Governor Cox, Senator Lodge, and the British and Dutch ambassadors. Guardianship of the Rock passed from the Pilgrim Society to the State of Massachusetts.
Since 1921, life has been fairly quiet for the enduring icon. From time to time its old fractures need repair (geologists blame its weaknesses on quartz veins and the faulting that occurred when the glacier ripped it from the bedrock). In 1970 it was listed in the National Register of Historic Places. When you make your own pilgrimage to The Cage (another local moniker), you can no longer touch it with your hands or feet. But you'll be in the know when someone exclaims, “Why is it so small?”