I woke up with the pain and fatigue of a bad sunburn and no appetite, so I stopped at a nearby diner and had some comfort food before heading out. I thought I would be sad to leave the Cape, but I was ready to head north along the coast. My first stop was Plimoth Patuxet (formerly Plimoth Plantation), which is a reconstruction of the original settlement. It is not a publicly owned site, and the admission was relatively expensive. It offered three places to visit and a number of gift shops, in addition to some village reconstructions, but it did not offer an orienting narrative of the people or place. I started at the gift shop, and learned about the purple/white wampum beads used by the local Wampanoag people. The site includes a reconstruction of one of their villages, ca. 1620, but you have to navigate it with little information. I stopped at a craft house, then another gift shop, then the English settlement village.
I presumed that the main structure represented a fort and the houses along the perimeter were reconstructions of settler homes, but there was little to guide me. Reenactors were available, and they answered questions; I listened to other tourists ask intelligent ones and learned from them. At some point, I overheard a guide asking a tourist about whether the story is well told at the site–maybe they know what they need to improve.
I drove to the Gristmill, which was included in my ticket, feeling very tired and was slow moving. There, the enactors provided background. Ethan
discussed how the mill worked, and that it was established by an early, non-Mayflower settler. I was struck then how little I have retained from school about the Mayflower and early settlement history aside from the broad strokes of the Thanksgiving story.
I found my way into Plymouth town, and parked just along the water. The final site included in my ticket was a reproduction of the Mayflower. I was delighted to learn there was an orientation film, but it turned out to cover the story of building the replica and preserving it, rather than the story of the original and its moment in history. I wandered along
the decks and, again, learned from the smart questions of my fellow travelers that about 100 people and their animals lived on the bottom of the boat as they crossed the Atlantic to Massachusetts. It was smaller and more fragile than I imagined. I headed off the boat into another gift shop.
My ticket exhausted, I headed over to a large, neo-classical pavilion along the coast on a hunch that it housed Plymouth Rock. That hunch proved to be right, and a state tourist official provided background on the rock and the settlement. He noted that the
sourcing on it the rock was all oral, not documentary. I imagined early settlers gigging over all the fuss being made by the Americans that followed them.
From there, I walked up Burial Hill. The Courthouse Museum provided a drawing of the original settlement, so I was finally able to connect the reconstruction with the existing town. The fort stood on what is now Burial Hill. This information came totally free and was some of the most useful of the day. I had little energy for climbing the hill on this hot day, but just as I was about to give up, I learned that the oldest marker is in stone from 1680 and near the top.
The original markers were in wood and have long since deteriorated; heavy rains and floods in Plymouth sometimes include settler bones.
My historic duties discharged, I wandered the town and then found my way to Plymouth Bay Winery as the rain began. This part of the trip was excellent, as I had a very nice pourer and the winery has some interesting wines and jams. I had to walk off my buzz after, so I stopped at an ice cream shop on Water Street for a healthy
meal that included macaroni and cheese and peanut butter cappucino ice cream.
Rather than press on to take in some evening in Boston, I lingered at Plymouth harbor as my my parking meter ran, calling friends and catching up. In the early evening, made my way to Boston, where I had a large and quiet room. It had been a day of unexplained history, sunburn, fatigue, and wine. I settled into bed with no plan for Boston, just grateful for a good night of rest.