New England – Fall 2010 – Day 17: Hyannis to Boston via Plymouth.

We set off early intending to pick up breakfast on the way out of Hyannis, after two false starts at local delis we were again at a Dunkin Donuts but this time they got the order correct. We needed an early start because we wanted to use our last day with the car to visit the Plimouth Plantation and Plymouth Rock.
We arrived at the Plimouth plantation, which is a replica of the first settlement which has been overtaken by the development of the town of Plymouth. The spelling Plimouth is to recognise the original spelling and to distinguish between the two places.
We arrived at the plantation and paid for tickets which gave us access to the plantation and Mayflower II which is docked in Plymouth.
We watched a short video before setting off into the plantation, partly to get our historic bearings but also to avoid the party of school kids who arrived at about the same time as us. The video told us that there were two major parts to the plantation. The first we would come to was the Native American, Wampanoag, village, which represented the traditional ways and life-style of the Wampanoag. It is staffed by modern Native People from a variety of nations (not in period character, but in traditional dress) who explain and demonstrate how the Wampanoag's ancestors lived and interacted with the settlers but also answer questions regarding their modern lives. We would then progress to the largest open-air section of the museum which is called the 1627 English Village, and it approximates the assumed layout of the original settlement, which is generally accepted to have been built 2.5 miles to the northwest, along today's Leyden Street and Burial Hill. This area is staffed by actors who have the characters and vocabulary of the original settlers.
The video and notices on the way to the Wampanoag village urged us to be respectful of the Native American heritage and suggesting that we did not greet them with “How” or call anyone “Chief”, it struck us as significant but depressing that these warnings were needed.
At the village we saw Native Americans making canoes, drying pelts of animals and cooking food. It was incongruous to get modern answers from them, and the school children asked some very interesting questions. While we were in this area it was also strange to see a party of Amish visitors doing exactly what we were doing. We also wondered how they had travelled there as there were no horse-drawn carriages in the car park.
We moved on through brilliant scenery alongside a lake and then up a hill to arrive at the plantation. Here it really felt like a step back in time despite the appallingly behaved school kids. If you asked one of the inhabitants a question they answered in old English dialect but, more impressively, they only answered within the limits of the understanding of the times they represented.
Someone asked, “Did you come over on the original Mayflower?”
He replied, “Aye, that was the name of the ship but I warrant there have been many ships of that name.”
We saw men thatching a building and others tending to animals but the most impressive character was a gentlewoman who told us that she had come to the New World because she had four daughters and in the normal course of events there was no prospect of producing a dowry for all four thus leaving two or three unmarried. The voyage to America had been a calculated gamble and she was aggrieved that having landed in New England rather than Virginia where they held title to lands, they were being charged extra money for every improvement they brought to the village. She also replied that the furniture in her house was English brought from her home but she had sold four times as much to raise the money for the voyage and provisions. She was upset that an entire bedroom’s furnishings had been spent on a musket and ammunition which they would have had no use for in England.
All through the village the school children ran wild, it must have annoyed the actors but in their characters they would have found it impossible to believe! Then we reached the church/strongpoint which doubled as a place of worship and the redoubt where the villagers would have retreated to in the event of being overrun by the Native Americans. On the upper storey of the building canons from the ship had been run out through gaps in the walls, here I watched a kid climb along the barrel to hang outside. He returned in his own time and nobody seemed concerned.
We decided to move on to Plymouth Rock. We parked on the sea front and walked back towards the Rock and Mayflower II. One was much more impressive than the other. To quote the web:
Visiting Mayflower II is an extraordinary experience. The details of the ship, from the solid oak timbers and tarred hemp rigging, to the wood and horn lanterns and hand-colored maps, have all been carefully recreated to give you a sense of what the original 17th-century vessel was like. Come aboard and learn about the 1620 voyage of the Mayflower, the perils of maritime travel, and the tools of 17th-century navigation. Explore the cramped quarters of the ship's passengers. Peer down into the lower level "hold," where the food, clothing, furniture, tools and other items necessary to start a colony were stored. Admire the "spacious" Master's cabin, and compare it to the wet and windy accommodations of the common sailors. You will also hear the tale of a modern Englishman's dream to build and sail Mayflower II as a symbol of American and British unity after WWII.
Mayflower II has many stories to tell and many people to tell them. You will meet staff in modern-day clothing who speak from a present-day perspective. They can talk with you about the original Mayflower as well as the reproduction vessel Mayflower II. Along side are reproductions of a 17th-century shallop and a ship's boat. On board, you may also meet role players in period costume who will share their personal accounts of shipboard life, playing the part of Mayflower passengers (popularly known as the “Pilgrims”) or sailors.
We have to agree with the above it was remarkable. Before we got onboard we learned about the Mayflower II, which is a replica of the 17th century Mayflower, celebrated for transporting the Pilgrims to the New World. The replica was built in Devon, England, during 1955–1956, in a collaboration between Englishman Warwick Charlton and Plimouth 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 Atlantic Ocean, under the command of Alan Villiers. The ship is seaworthy and sailed to Providence, Rhode Island in 2002. We noted that within a few details (electric lights added and ladder replaced with a lower-deck staircase), the ship is considered a faithful replica, with solid oak timbers, tarred hemp rigging, and hand-coloured maps, but the British Coast Guard insisted on a wheel being fitted to steer the ship rather than the arrangement which had served well for the first Mayflower.
Onboard we met the only in-character actor; he played the part of one of two master mariners employed on the voyage. He was bitter about the poor decisions taken by the company. Having set off twice at suitable times the Mayflower had turned back due to problems with the ship, they set off for the third time too late in the year. If they had set sail in summer it would have taken about six weeks to cross the Atlantic but travelling later meant a rougher voyage which took nine and a half weeks. Having arrived so late, it was harder to build a settlement and the during the winter the passengers remained on board the Mayflower, suffering an outbreak of a contagious disease described as a mixture of scurvy, pneumonia and tuberculosis. When it ended, there were only 53 passengers, just more than half, still alive. Likewise, half of the crew died as well. In spring, they built huts ashore, and in March 1621, the surviving passengers left the Mayflower. On April 15, 1621, the Mayflower set sail from Plymouth to return to England, where she arrived in May 1621.
Ironically there was nothing special to recognise about the Mayflower so it was not preserved, in fact in 1623, a year after the death of Captain Christopher Jones, the Mayflower was most likely dismantled for scrap lumber in Rotherhithe, London.
We enjoyed the Mayflower II but I had always assumed that Plymouth Rock referred to an area or a significant rocky outcrop used for navigation, instead we found it to be, well, a rock and putting it in a temple-like setting still made it a rock!
We made tracks towards Boston, the SatNav got confused when we were very close to our hotel but the Mark One Eyeball spotted our route and we were soon parked outside the Omni Parker House. We were very impressed by the OPH but I will leave that for the next chapter. We were able to check in and take our baggage to our room before setting off to return the car to the Hertz Rental Centre.
I am always impressed by the slickness of car hire and return these days, a quick scan of the car and a signature on our paperwork and we were free to go. We took the shuttle towards the airport and alighted at the underground station and were quickly back to the hotel.
We found ourselves very comfortable in the hotel and only ventured out later to eat, the hotel prices were such that we couldn’t even consider eating there. Within two blocks we found the Beantown Pub and we enjoyed a reasonable and filling meal.