Pilgrims Land at Plymouth

December 21, 1620

After a miserable Atlantic crossing and a month of coastal scouting, a shallop of Mayflower passengers waded ashore at a sheltered harbor on Massachusetts Bay. Half of the hundred and two settlers would die before spring. The survivors called the place Plymouth and planted what would become New England, though only the kindness of the Wampanoag kept them from perishing entirely.