Rosie the Pig and a Walk Thru History

Jill's Journal: Today was our last full day in Plymouth. The girls and I started our explorations at a 90-acre petting zoo/farmer’s market run by the Plymouth County Sheriff’s Department and the correctional facility’s inmates. The girls wanted to buy every pumpkin in sight and giggled hysterically at the antics of the chickens, turkeys, goats, sheep, rabbits, and cows. But it was Rosie the Pig who really got their attention. She was a talkative pig and a friendly one too, with the added pig bonus of being caked with mud. The girls had just jumped in puddles and petted every other animal in reach, but refused to touch Rosie the Pig because she was “too dirty.” I had to laugh at that.

Rob was able to join us in downtown Plymouth for a wonderful walk through history. First it was the lovely Brewster Gardens, on the site where prominent Mayflower Pilgrim William Brewster built his home. The Town Brook, the Pilgrims’ handy source of fresh water, flows through the park. The easy accessibility to fresh water is a big part of the reason the Pilgrims settled in Plymouth. Remember the story about the Indians teaching the Pilgrims to catch herring and plant some with their seeds of corn to use as fertilizer? This is where they caught those herring.

It is a short walk along the banks of the brook to the Jenney Grist Mill, the oldest mill (1636) in the U.S. It was also the source of the first free market by settlers in America. Everything else had been communal up to that point and the mill’s flour product was the first “industry,” the first good that was sold in America.



A lovely guide, “Leo the Miller,” took us on a private tour and taught the girls all about water power and gave them a working demonstration of how a water wheel, grinding stone, and mill works. They learned a lot and so did we! The original owner of the mill, 1623 immigrant John Jenney, lived next door. His home, where he started America’s first microbrewery in the basement, still survives. He is also unique in that three presidents can trace their family tree to him: Franklin D. Roosevelt and both Bushes.

We continued our walk past the Richard Sparrow House. Built in 1640, it’s the oldest surviving home in Plymouth.






Here’s the Howland House. Built in 1666, it’s the only house still standing where a Mayflower Pilgrim actually lived.






A walk down Leyden Street is tremendous. Many of the current homes have placards stating which Pilgrims originally lived on each site. First a dirt street, it was paved in the 1700s. The original paving stones lie underneath today’s asphalt. The street is named for the town in Holland which gave the Pilgrims refuge from religious persecution in England before they moved to the New World.

Cole’s Hill was next. This place is enough to give a person goosebumps. The Pilgrims’ first winter in 1620 was agonizing. Their number was cut in half by death, but the survivors didn’t dare let the Indians know how badly their numbers had dwindled. Every time they lost another person, they’d bury him or her in the dead of night on this very hill overlooking the bay. Corn was planted over the unmarked graves to hide the number of dead.

In the 1700s and 1800s, those first Pilgrims’ bones were discovered. They now rest together in a sarcophagus on Cole’s Hill. This is also where Native Americans have gathered on every Thanksgiving Day since 1970 in a “National Day of Mourning.” Thanksgiving to them represents the genocide of their people and the theft of their land and culture.

Only feet away is a statue of Massasoit, the chief of the Wampanoag tribe that eventually befriended the Pilgrims and certainly aided their survival.








We ended our walk with one more stop at the Rock (the girls’ request!).







The weather did turn markedly chillier today. With only hours left in Plymouth, there was clearly one thing we had to do: have a final, divine lobster roll and yet another bowl of clam chowder. Dad, this one’s for you. :)