Historic Sites in Plymouth County

History of Plymouth County

Plymouth County, on the South Shore, is where Plymouth Colony began: the Mayflower Pilgrims settled here in December 1620. The colony ran its own affairs until it merged into the Province of Massachusetts Bay under the charter of 1691. Plymouth County itself was incorporated in 1685.

Plymouth Rock and Pilgrim Hall, which opened in 1824 and is the oldest continuously operating public museum in the United States, anchor the town. Myles Standish is remembered in Duxbury, where his burying ground survives, and Daniel Webster farmed in Marshfield. Inland, Brockton became one of the nation's great shoe-manufacturing cities in the 1800s. Plymouth Light, on Gurnet Point, guards the harbor mouth.