The passengers on the
Mayflower, on account of great privations and exposure in their winter houses at New Plymouth, sickened, and a large number of them died before the warm spring weather of 1621 arrived.
They were buried near the rock on which the great body of the Pilgrims landed.
Lest the Indians who might come there should see their weakness by the great mortality, the graves were seeded over, and the rock remained the enduring monument and guide.
Thomas Faunce, who died in 1746, was a ruling elder in the first church at New Plymouth, and knew some of the
Mayflower's passengers, who showed him the rock on which they landed.
On hearing that it was about to be covered by the erection of a wharf, the venerable man was so affected that he wept.
His
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tears probably saved that rock from oblivion, a fragment of which was carefully preserved at New Plymouth.
Before the revolution the sea had washed up sand
and buried the rock.
This sand was removed, and in attempting to move the rock it split asunder.
The upper half, or shell, was taken to the middle of the village.
In 1834 it was removed from the town square to a position in front of Pilgrim Hall, where it was enclosed in an
iron railing, lost all its historical interest, and was reduced to a vulgar stone.
In September, 1880, the citizens wisely took the fragment back and reunited it to the other portion, when it resumed its original dignity and significance.
