Pilgrim Exploration Route

Via Laura Kelly...

This map shows the approximate routes that the Pilgrims took around Cape Cod between November 10th to Dec 16th 1620.

From: Maps of Early Massachusetts, by Lincoln A. Dexter 1979.

Notes:

- Bourne, even then, was flyover territory.

- The Mayflower, 300 years before beaches became recreational for most Americans but amazingly just like a July 2020 Saturday day tripper, suddenly had her smooth commute slow to a crawl as she moved through Bourne. She didn't hit Cape traffic, she just had rudder problems.

- Corn Hill was actually a dune/bluff with burial mounds on them when the Pilgrims visited. Some were graves, some were corn. The Pilgrims raided these, gaining the enmity of the local Nausets. They paid up 6 months later, with Squanto as an intermediary.

- Saquish may likely have been an island when the Pilgrims sailed by.

- Truman Capote lived on Clark's Island for a summer. Local legend said he wrote In Cold Blood there, although it was actually Breakfast At Tiffany's. He used to be rowed into Duxbury for supplies, shading himself with a parasol.

- Clark's Island is where the first on-land religious service went down. It happened at Pulpit Rock. Local historian snobbery requires calling this "the real Plymouth Rock."

- The Pilgrims were supposed to go to Virginia. Pollock Rip Shoal (3 miles east of Monomoy) teamed with rotten New England weather to turn them around and keep them in Massachusetts.

- No one knows exactly how deep into Duxbury Bay the Pilgrims went, but Duxbury Beach (especially the bay side) is a fair cutoff point for their northern terminus. The Mayflower was anchored off of Saquish, and they went into Duxbury Bay on a shallop.

- If you ever go to First Encounter Beach, your enjoyment of the amenities there may be enhanced by knowing that the "first encounter" involved theft and gunfire. The English had been in these waters before, and were not averse to kidnapping or shooting the occasional native. The locals fired a few arrows at the Pilgrims, who shot back with guns and chased them into the woods. The English then stole some corn and beans.

- Samoset had a better first encounter. He was from Maine, had picked up some English from fishermen, and walked- pretty much nude- into Plymouth, greeting the Pilgrims in English. They didn't fully trust him until he started asking for beer.

- The maps above and below show the Manomet and Scusset Rivers, which would be merged to form the Cape Cod Canal. Myles Standish was an early proponent of a Cape Cod Canal.