Free previewStop 8 of Plymouth Walking Tour: Plymouth Rock and the Pilgrims
The Surveyor Who Came Late
You've come down from Burial Hill to Summer Street, and the old house in front of you is the Richard Sparrow House. Locals have long called it Plymouth's oldest surviving house. Take a good look at it from the street, because the man who built it is the reason it's here at all.
Richard Sparrow was an English surveyor. He was not on the Mayflower. He reached Plymouth in 1636, sixteen years after that ship came in. By then the colony had buried its first dead on Cole's Hill, laid out First Street, and settled into a second, quieter chapter. Plymouth was growing, and new arrivals needed land.
So in 1636 the colony granted Richard Sparrow a tract of about 16 acres. That land was Wampanoag homeland, granted by English settlers to one another. Around 1640, Sparrow built this house on it.
That's the opening. The rest plays at stop 8 of Plymouth Walking Tour: Plymouth Rock and the Pilgrims (2 min in all). Unlock the tour to hear it all, or try stop 1 free first.
