Updated October 1: Just received this note from Michele Pecoraro, Executive Director of Plymouth 400: “After the registry visit I can take people on a tour of the monuments and we can have the “Rock Talk” that DCR does at Plymouth Rock. It’s only 10 minutes and has a great deal of information that isn’t known to most. I

I will also bring them to Forefather’s Monument, which is a little known and very impressive (large!) monument to the Pilgrim Fathers in a really residential area. Most people don’t go up there. We can do it all in about an hour.”

Updated September 29: The events arranged at the Pilgrim Hall Museum and the Registry of Deeds described below have been put together for our group. Thanks to the folks at the Pilgrim Hall Museum and at the Registry of Deeds, and to Michele Pecoraro, Executive Director of Plimoth 400, for arranging such an interesting day.

We had originally intended to include Plimoth Plantation, but we discovered that they weren’t able to offer anything other than would be available to daily visitors or those who choose to go on a standard tour.

Pilgrim Hall Museum

The museum, founded in 1824, is the oldest continuously operating public museum in the country.

The museum’s collection includes a wicker cradle that once held the first baby born on the Mayflower, Peregrine White, son of William and Susanna White; the only known portrait of Mayflower Pilgrim painted from life, which is a portrait of Edward Winslow, Mayflower passenger and 3rd governor of Plymouth County; and, the earliest known American-made sampler, which is also the earliest known sampler with a verse and was made by Loara Standish, daughter of Captain Myles Standish.

Executive Director Donna Curtin and Associate Curator Rebecca Griffith will be our guides for our “behind-the-scenes” experience at the museum

Your registration fee covers your admission and tour.

The museum’s featured exhibit is Wampanoag World: Patuxet to Plymouth, which tells the 10,000 year history of the Wampanoag people of Patuxet through to the founding of Plymouth Colony in 1620.  If you wish to spend more time in the museum, you can arrive before the tour and return later in the day.

The 17th Century Archives at the Registry of Deeds

By special arrangement, we will see the first land deed ever written on the continent and signed by William Bradford, the first documentation of a trial by jury on the continent, the last will and testament of Myles Standish, and several other documents from the 17th century.

We are not being charged for this visit. Please consider making a donation.

Thanks to John Buckley, Registrar of Deeds, for making this possible and to Michele Pecoraro, Executive Director of Plimoth 400 for her suggestions and help with this special outing.

When and where

Our schedule for Saturday, October 20:

10:30 am – 11:45 am — Pilgrim Hall Museum, 75 Court Street, Plymouth—Park here and leave your car through lunch.

noon – 12:45 pm —Tavern on the Wharf, 6 Town Wharf, Plymouth

1:00 pm – 1:45 pm    Plymouth County Registry of Deeds, 50 Obery Street, Plymouth

Registration

Registration is $9. Spots very limited.