Video:Historical Tour of Plymouth, MA

Transcript:Historical Tour of Plymouth, MA

Hi, I’m Tamson Burgess, the senior editor of the Old Colony Memorial newspaper and Wickedlocalplymouth.com. Today for About.com we’re going to talk about the best way to experience history in America’s home town.

The Pilgrims Landed Plymouth Massachusetts

We should probably start on the Plymouth waterfront at Plymouth Rock. It’s a good place to start to get the feeling of the colonists that came to America in this spot. After you’ve visited the Rock, right next door is the Mayflower II, a replica of the ship that the Pilgrims traveled to the New World on. Also buy tickets while you’re there – because it’s owned by Plimouth Plantation – to the plantation and tour.

Museums at Plymouth Massachusetts

There are two museums in a sense – The Colonial Village where you will met role playing characters playing the people who actually lived there at that time. They live in 1627 and you won’t take them out of 1627. But while you’re there, you will also get to visit the Native American homesite. It’s time to go back to the waterfront. Down by the Rock, you’ll come to the bottom of Lyden Street, what was the first street, the same street that has been recreated at the Plantation. Now it’s time to actually walk that.

Plymouth has lots of historic homes and museums for you to enjoy. I’d start with the 1627 Harlow Old Fort House – it’s right on the main drag. You can tour that and the Howland Family House, the Spooner House, the 1749 Court House – back in Town Square, near Burial Hill – and the Sparrow House on Summer Street near the grist mill.

When you come down the hill, you can also journey back to what we now call Brewster Gardens. It is the park that goes on either side of Town Brook, which was the stream, freshwater stream, much larger at the time, that drew the Pilgrims to this site in the first place.

One of the sites along the way there is the Jenny Grist Mill on Jenny Pond which is, claims and calls itself, quite truthfully, America’s first utility.

National Monuments at Plymouth Massachusetts

It’s now time to go to Pilgrim Hall Museum, the country’s oldest continually operating museum. There are a number of really amazing items that would be difficult for most Americans to believe are still in existence – William Bradford’s bible, for instance; Miles Standish’s sword; the cradle of the first child born to the colonists. Finally, before you leave town up on a hill in a residential neighborhood not far from the waterfront – and you can see if you look carefully, looking back away from the water – is the National Monument to the Forefathers.

If you visit it last, I think you really get a grasp of what you’ve experienced during your visit to Plymouth. Thanks for watching. I’m Tammy. For more information, go to About.com