Plimoth Plantation

As planned, the whole family went to Plimoth Plantation with Beth’s school today. I think everyone had a good time. After our orientation, we went to see the Mayflower II, which is a replica of the original Mayflower. The replica was built in 1957 in Plymouth, England, but they pretty much keep it parked in Plymouth, MA now. Here it is:

The Mayflower II at Plymouth, MA

Nearby was… Plymouth Rock:

Plymouth Rock

It’s not a replica. It’s the real thing. But it looks like it has had some repairs over the years. They keep it housed in a temple-like structure, and people tend to throw coins down to it.

After that we headed back to the plantation and checked out the Wampanoag village, staffed by the Wampanoags themselves. They were dressed as if it were 1620, but they weren’t “role playing” like they do in a lot of places like this. The role players were over at the colony (which we’ll get to later). Beth said she liked their village the best. They were making a dugout canoe which was pretty cool. They also had some wigwams set up. Here’s an incomplete one:

Incomplete Wigwam

I guess we hung out there for an hour or so, but I’m not sure. I lost track of the time. Afterwards, we shuffled over to the colony. It was quite a bit bigger than the village. All the buildings were timber-framed with wattle and clapboards for siding, and thatched reeds for a roof. When the English first arrived here, they built houses the way they were built in timber-scarce England. When the Swedes arrived here, they saw all the timber and quickly realized it was crazy to build English-type houses here. So they introduced the log cabin. Those exchange labor (no need to rip hundreds of planks) for plenty of wood (and there was plenty of that available). Cool stuff.

Unfinished house at Plimoth Plantation

Most of the houses were complete though, and here’s Va and Beth inside one of them:

Va and Beth in one of the houses

We eventually made our way up to the top of the hill where they had a church/fort. Yup. The lower level was a church complete with pews and a pulpit. The upper level was decked out with half a dozen cannons facing in different directions. Not a bad place for cannons (except for it being in a church) as it commanded a respectable 360 degree view. Here’s the view of the village below with the Atlantic beyond:

Plimoth Plantation

Then we visited ye olde gifte shoppes. I didn’t get anything, but Beth bought a skeleton key, and Va picked up a coin depicting Mary Queen of Scots (who has been her main historical interest since she was a wee lass). We bugged out at about 5:30pm and then had to slog through Boston’s rush hour traffic. We finally got home at about 8:00pm.

Penny was glad to see us.