Plymouth Rock

57 Water Street, Plymouth, Massachusetts

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Plymouth Rock is a boulder in Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States, which was claimed to have been at the site where the Mayflower Pilgrims landed to found Plymouth Colony in December 1620. The Pilgrims did not refer to Plymouth Rock in any of their writings; the first known written reference to the rock dates from 1715 when it was described in the town boundary records as "a great rock".

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The story of Plymouth Rock

Free previewStop 4 of Plymouth Walking Tour: Plymouth Rock and the Pilgrims

The Rock Nobody Mentioned for a Century

You're on Water Street, at the edge of Plymouth Harbor, and in front of you is a granite portico with columns, built like a little Roman temple. Walk up and look down through the grating. That grey boulder sitting at water level, with 1620 cut into its face, is Plymouth Rock. Here's the strange part: the people who supposedly stepped on it never said a word about it.

The two most significant accounts of Plymouth's founding are Mourt's Relation, from 1622, and William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation. Neither one mentions a rock. The first time anyone wrote it down at all was 1715, in the town boundary records, which call it simply "a great rock." A property marker, nothing more.

Then, in 1741, the town made plans to build a wharf that would bury it. That's when a church elder named Thomas Faunce spoke up. Faunce was 94 years old.

That's the opening. The rest plays at stop 4 of Plymouth Walking Tour: Plymouth Rock and the Pilgrims (3 min in all). Unlock the tour to hear it all, or try stop 1 free first.

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Visiting

Admission

Free.

Tip

Under the granite portico on Water Street, in Pilgrim Memorial State Park on Plymouth's waterfront. The Mayflower II is a short walk along the harbor. Stop 4 of the Plymouth walk.

Checked November 2026. Check the official site before you go.

Plymouth Rock: questions people ask

Is Plymouth Rock real?

It's a real boulder, but neither of the Pilgrims' own accounts mentions it. The claim that the Mayflower passengers landed on it was first made in 1741 by 94-year-old Thomas Faunce, 121 years after they arrived.

Where is Plymouth Rock today?

On the shore of Plymouth Harbor in Pilgrim Memorial State Park, under a granite portico built for the 300th anniversary in 1920–21. You look down at it from the portico; the date 1620 was carved on it in 1880.

Why is Plymouth Rock so small?

It broke in half in 1774 when townspeople tried to haul it to the town square, and souvenir hunters chipped off hundreds of pounds over the years. The top half spent 1834 to 1880 at Pilgrim Hall before rejoining the rest.