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The origins of one of the America's oldest unsolved mysteries can be traced to August 1587, when a group of about 115 English settlers arrived on Roanoke Island, off the coast of what is now North Carolina. Later that year, it was decided that John White, governor of the new colony, would sail back to England in order to gather a fresh load of supplies. But just as he arrived, a major naval war broke out between England and Spain, and Queen Elizabeth I called on every available ship to confront the mighty Spanish Armada. In August 1590, White finally returned to Roanoke, where he had left his wife and daughter, his infant granddaughter (Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the Americas) and the other settlers three long years before. He found no trace of the colony or its inhabitants, and few clues to what might have happened, apart from a single word-"Croatoan"-carved into a wooden post.

Investigations into the fate of the "Lost Colony" of Roanoke have continued over the centuries, but no one has come up with a satisfactory answer. "Croatoan" was the name of an island south of Roanoke that was home to a Native American tribe of the same name. Perhaps, then, the colonists were killed or abducted by Native Americans. Other hypotheses hold that they tried to sail back to England on their own and got lost at sea, that they met a bloody end at the hands of Spaniards who had marched up from Florida or that they moved further inland and were absorbed into a friendly tribe. In 2007, efforts began to collect and analyze DNA from local families to figure out if they're related to the Roanoke settlers, local Native American tribes or both. Despite the lingering mystery, it seems there's one thing to be thankful for: The lessons learned at Roanoke may have helped the next group of English settlers, who would found their own colony 17 years later just a short distance to the north, at Jamestown.

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What happened to the "Lost Colony" of Roanoke?

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The origins of one of the America's oldest unsolved mysteries can be traced to August 1587, when a group of about 115 English settlers arrived on Roanoke Island, off the coast of what is now North Carolina.

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When John White, appointed by Sir Walter Raleigh as governor of Roanoke Colony, returned to England for more supplies in late 1587, he left behind his wife, his daughter and his infant granddaughter-Virginia Dare, the first child born in the New World to English parents-among the other settlers. Upon White's return in 1590, he found no trace of his family or the other inhabitants of the abandoned colony. Over the centuries to come, archaeologists, historians and explorers would delve into the mystery of the "Lost Colony" of Roanoke, all failing to find definitive answers.

Based on the scant clues left behind, some speculated that Native Americans attacked and killed the English colonists. "Croatoan" was the name of an island south of Roanoke, now Hatteras Island, which at the time was home to a Native American tribe of the same name. Alternatively, they might have tried to sail back to England on their own and been lost at sea, or been killed by hostile Spaniards who came north from their own settlements in Florida. One enduring theory was that the settlers might have been absorbed into friendly Native American tribes, perhaps after moving further inland into what is now North Carolina.

Stock Montage/Getty Images

Two independent teams found archaeological remains suggesting that at least some of the Roanoke colonists might have survived and split into two groups, each of which assimilated itself into a different Native American community. One team is excavating a site near Cape Creek on Hatteras Island, around 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of the Roanoke Island settlement, while the other is based on the mainland about 50 miles to the northwest of the Roanoke site.

Cape Creek, located in a live oak forest near Pamlico Sound, was the site of a major Croatoan town center and trading hub. In 1998, archaeologists from East Carolina University stumbled upon a unique find from early British America: a 10-carat gold signet ring engraved with a lion or horse, believed to date to the 16th century. The ring's discovery prompted later excavations at the site led by Mark Horton, an archaeologist at Britain's Bristol University, who has been directing volunteers with the Croatoan Archaeological Society in annual digs since 2009. Recently, Horton's team found a small piece of slate that seems to have been used as a writing tablet and part of the hilt of an iron rapier, a light sword similar to those used in England in the late 16th century, along with other artifacts of European and Native American origin. The slate, a smaller version of a similar one found at Jamestown, bears a small letter "M" still barely visible in one corner; it was found alongside a lead pencil.

In addition to these intriguing objects, the Cape Creek site yielded an iron bar and a large copper ingot (or block), both found buried in layers of earth that appear to date to the late 1500s. Native Americans lacked such metallurgical technology, so they are believed to be European in origin. Horton told National Geographic that some of the artifacts his team found are trade items, but it appears that others may well have belonged to the Roanoke colonists themselves: "The evidence is that they assimilated with the Native Americans but kept their goods."

The Trustees of the British Museum

A watercolor map drawn by none other than John White inspired the search at Site X (as it's known), located on Albemarle Sound near Edenton, North Carolina, some 50 miles inland. Known as La Virginea Pars, the map shows the East Coast of North America from Chesapeake Bay to Cape Lookout; it is housed at the British Museum as part of its permanent collection. White began drawing the map in 1585, two years before he became governor. In 2012, researchers using X-ray spectroscopy and other imaging techniques spotted a tiny four-pointed star, colored red and blue, concealed under a patch of paper that White used to make corrections to his map. It was thought to mark the location of a site some 50 miles inland, which White alluded to in testimony given after his attempted return to the colony. If such a site did exist, the theory went, it would have been a reasonable destination for the displaced Roanoke settlers.

According to archaeologist Nicholas Luccketti of the First Colony Foundation, which is conducting the excavations at Site X, the group has found shards of pottery that they claim may have been used by Roanoke settlers after they left the colony. Located nearby is a site that archaeologists believe might have been a small Native American town, Mettaquem. After the Roanoke colony met its end, English settlers eventually came south from Virginia into North Carolina, but the first recorded settler in the area did not arrive until about 1655. But the recently uncovered pottery is in a style called Border Ware, which is typical of the pottery dug up on Roanoke Island, as well as at Jamestown, but was no longer imported to the New World after the early 17th century, when the Virginia Company dissolved.

In addition to the Border Ware pottery, archaeologists at Site X discovered various other items, including a food-storage jar known as a baluster, pieces of early gun flintlocks, a metal hook of the sort used to stretch animal hides or tents and an aglet, a small copper tube used to secure wool fibers before the advent of the hook and eye in the 17th century. Based on his team's findings, Luccketti thinks the Roanoke colonists may have moved inland to live with Native American allies sometime after White left, and these artifacts might have been among their belongings. As reported in the New York Times, the First Colony Foundation will reveal more about its findings and theory this week in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Though the newly announced discoveries don't solve this lingering historical mystery, they do point away from Roanoke Island itself, where researchers have failed to come up with evidence pointing to the Lost Colony's fate. Archaeologists on both teams are hoping that a detailed study of their new finds will yield more clues, and-of course-that more evidence remains, waiting to be discovered, in the endless layers of dirt that surround them.

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Archaeologists Find New Clues to "Lost Colony" Mystery

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When John White, appointed by Sir Walter Raleigh as governor of Roanoke Colony, returned to England for more supplies in late 1587, he left behind his wife, his daughter and his infant granddaughter-Virginia Dare, the first child born in the New World to English parents-among the other settlers.

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John White, the governor of the Roanoke Island colony in present-day North Carolina, returns from a supply-trip to England to find the settlement deserted. White and his men found no trace of the 100 or so colonists he left behind, and there was no sign of violence. Among the missing were Ellinor Dare, White's daughter; and Virginia Dare, White's granddaughter and the first English child born in America. August 18 was to have been Virginia's third birthday. The only clue to their mysterious disappearance was the word "CROATOAN" carved into the palisade that had been built around the settlement. White took the letters to mean that the colonists had moved to Croatoan Island, some 50 miles away, but a later search of the island found none of the settlers.

The Roanoke Island colony, the first English settlement in the New World, was founded by English explorer Sir Walter Raleigh in August 1585. The first Roanoke colonists did not fare well, suffering from dwindling food supplies and Indian attacks, and in 1586 they returned to England aboard a ship captained by Sir Francis Drake. In 1587, Raleigh sent out another group of 100 colonists under John White. White returned to England to procure more supplies, but the war with Spain delayed his return to Roanoke. By the time he finally returned in August 1590, everyone had vanished.

In 1998, archaeologists studying tree-ring data from Virginia found that extreme drought conditions persisted between 1587 and 1589. These conditions undoubtedly contributed to the demise of the so-called Lost Colony, but where the settlers went after they left Roanoke remains a mystery. One theory has them being absorbed into an Indian tribe known as the Croatans.

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Roanoke Colony deserted - Aug 18, 1590 - HISTORY.com

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John White, the governor of the Roanoke Island colony in present-day North Carolina, returns from a supply-trip to England to find the settlement deserted. White and his men found no trace of the 100 or so colonists he left behind, and there was no sign of violence.

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the world book web site offers an encyclopedia

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and curriculum guides. world book is publisher of the world book encyclopedia.

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The World Book web site offers an encyclopedia, dictionary, atlas, homework help, study aids, and curriculum guides. World Book is publisher of the World Book Encyclopedia.

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Jamestown Colony, first permanent English settlement in North America, located near present-day Williamsburg, Virginia. Established on May 14, 1607, the colony gave England its first foothold in the European competition for the New World, which had been dominated by the Spanish since the voyages of Christopher Columbus in the late 15th century.

Origins (1606-07)

The colony was a private venture, financed and organized by the Virginia Company of London. King James I granted a charter to a group of investors for the establishment of the company on April 10, 1606. During this era, " Virginia" was the English name for the entire East Coast of North America north of Florida. The charter gave the company the right to settle anywhere from roughly present-day North Carolina to New York state. The company's plan was to reward investors by locating gold and silver deposits and by finding a river route to the Pacific Ocean for trade with the Orient.

A contingent of approximately 105 colonists departed England in late December 1606 in three ships-the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery-under the command of Christopher Newport. They reached Chesapeake Bay on April 26, 1607. Soon afterward the captains of the three ships met to open a box containing the names of members of the colony's governing council: Newport; Bartholomew Gosnold, one of the behind-the-scenes initiators of the Virginia Company; Edward-Maria Wingfield, a major investor; John Ratcliffe; George Kendall; John Martin; and Capt. John Smith, a former mercenary who had fought in the Netherlands and Hungary. Wingfield became the colony's first president. Smith had been accused of plotting a mutiny during the ocean voyage and was not admitted to the council until weeks later, on June 10.

After a period of searching for a settlement site, the colonists moored the ships off a peninsula (now an island) in the James River on the night of May 13 and began to unload them on May 14. The site's marshy setting and humidity would prove to be unhealthful, but the site had several apparent advantages at the time the colony's leaders chose it: ships could pull up close to it in deep water for easy loading and unloading, it was unoccupied, and it was joined to the mainland only by a narrow neck of land, making it simpler to defend. The settlement, named for James I, was known variously during its existence as James Forte, James Towne, and James Cittie.

First years (1607-09)

Most Indian tribes of the region were part of the Powhatan empire, with Chief Powhatan as its head. The colonists' relations with the local tribes were mixed from the beginning. The two sides conducted business with each other, the English trading their metal tools and other goods for the Native Americans ' food supplies. At times the Indians showed generosity in providing gifts of food to the colony. On other occasions, encounters between the colonists and the tribes turned violent, and the Native Americans occasionally killed colonists who strayed alone outside the fort.

On May 21, 1607, a week after the colonists began occupying Jamestown, Newport took five colonists (including Smith) and 18 sailors with him on an expedition to explore the rivers flowing into the Chesapeake and to search for a way to the Pacific Ocean. On returning, they found that the colony had endured a surprise attack and had managed to drive the attackers away only with cannon fire from the ships. However, when Newport left for England on June 22 with the Susan Constant and the Godspeed-leaving the smaller Discovery behind for the colonists-he brought with him a positive report from the council in Jamestown to the Virginia Company. The colony's leaders wrote, and probably believed, that the colony was in good condition and on track for success.

The report proved too optimistic. The colonists had not carried out the work in the springtime needed for the long haul, such as building up the food stores and digging a freshwater well. The first mass casualties of the colony took place in August 1607, when a combination of bad water from the river, disease-bearing mosquitoes, and limited food rations created a wave of dysentery, severe fevers, and other serious health problems. Numerous colonists died, and at times as few as five able-bodied settlers were left to bury the dead. In the aftermath, three members of the council-John Smith, John Martin, and John Ratcliffe-acted to eject Edward-Maria Wingfield from his presidency on September 10. Ratcliffe took Wingfield's place. It was apparently a lawful transfer of power, authorized by the company's rules that allowed the council to remove the president for just cause.

Shortly after Newport returned in early January 1608, bringing new colonists and supplies, one of the new colonists accidentally started a fire that leveled all of the colony's living quarters. The fire further deepened the colony's dependence on the Indians for food. In accord with the Virginia Company's objectives, much of the colony's efforts in 1608 were devoted to searching for gold. Newport had brought with him two experts in gold refining (to determine whether ore samples contained genuine gold), as well as two goldsmiths. With the support of most of the colony's leadership, the colonists embarked on a lengthy effort to dig around the riverbanks of the area. Councillor John Smith objected, believing the quest for gold was a diversion from needed practical work. "There was no talke, no hope, no worke, but dig gold, refine gold, load gold," one colonist remembered.

During the colony's second summer, President Ratcliffe ordered the construction of an overelaborate capitol building. This structure came to symbolize the colony's mismanagement in the minds of some settlers. With growing discontent over his leadership, Ratcliffe left office; whether he resigned or was overthrown is unclear. John Smith took his place on September 10, 1608. To impose discipline on malingering colonists, Smith announced a new rule: "He that will not worke shall not eate (except by sicknesse he be disabled)." Even so, the colony continued to depend on trade with the Indians for much of its food supply. During Smith's administration, no settlers died of starvation, and the colony survived the winter with minimal losses. In late September 1608 a ship brought a new group of colonists that included Jamestown's first women: Mistress Forrest and her maid, Anne Burras.

In London, meanwhile, the company received a new royal charter on May 23, 1609, which gave the colony a new form of management, replacing its president and council with a governor. The company determined that Thomas Gates would hold that position for the first year of the new charter. He sailed for Virginia in June with a fleet of nine ships and hundreds of new colonists. The fleet was caught in a hurricane en route, however, and Gates's ship was wrecked off Bermuda. Other ships of the fleet did arrive in Virginia that August, and the new arrivals demanded that Smith step down. Smith resisted, and finally it was agreed that he would remain in office until the expiration of his term the following month. His presidency ended early nonetheless. While still in command, Smith was seriously injured when his gunpowder bag caught fire from mysterious causes. He sailed back to England in early September. A nobleman named George Percy, the eighth son of an earl, took his place as the colony's leader.

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Jamestown Colony | History, Foundation, Settlement, Map, & Facts

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Jamestown Colony was the first permanent English settlement in North America, located near present-day Williamsburg, Virginia. Financed and organized by the Virginia Company, the colony was originally a private venture that had been granted a royal charter by King James I. In 1624 it became a royal colony.

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Jamestown Colony - Facts, Founding, Pocahontas

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The Jamestown Colony was the first permanent English settlement in North America. It was founded on the banks of Virginia’s James River in 1607.

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History of Jamestown | Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, VA

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History of Jamestown, Virginia, settled in 1607 by the Virginia Company of London.

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the world book web site offers an encyclopedia

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and curriculum guides. world book is publisher of the world book encyclopedia.

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The World Book web site offers an encyclopedia, dictionary, atlas, homework help, study aids, and curriculum guides. World Book is publisher of the World Book Encyclopedia.

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Plymouth Colony - Location, Pilgrims & Thanksgiving

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Plymouth Colony was a British colony in Massachusetts settled by travelers arriving on the Mayflower in the 17th century. It was the first colonial settlement in New England and was the site of the first Thanksgiving.

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Plymouth Colony, America's first permanent Puritan settlement, was established by English Separatist Puritans in December 1620. The Pilgrims left England to seek religious freedom, or simply to find a better life. After a period in Holland, they set sail from Plymouth, England, on Sept. 16, 1620, aboard the , its 102 passengers spending 65 days at sea. Passengers, now known as the Pilgrim Fathers, included leader William Brewster; John Carver, Edward Winslow, and William Bradford, early governors of Plymouth Colony; John Alden, assistant governor; and Myles Standish, a professional soldier and military advisor. The Mayflower dropped anchor near present-day Provincetown on Nov. 21, 1620, and 41 male passengers signed the Mayflower Compact, an agreement to enact "just and equal laws for the general good of the colony." The Pilgrims finally landed at the site of present-day Plymouth, Mass., on Dec. 26, 1620.

By legend the Pilgrims stepped ashore at Plymouth Rock; their records do not mention this landmark. Settlers began erecting buildings and rough shelters for the winter. But harsh climate and illness took their toll. By the end of winter half the colonists had died. The colonists encountered the Indian Samoset, who surprised them by speaking English, learned from English traders on the coast of Maine. Samoset introduced the colonists to Massasoit, chief of the Wampanoag Indians, who signed a peace treaty with the Pilgrims. Squanto, another English-speaking Indian, acted as guide and interpreter, and with his help the colonists learned to plant corn, catch fish, and gather fruit. The Pilgrims invited the Indians to celebrate their first harvest in 1621, an event now celebrated as Thanksgiving Day. After Massasoit's death, the Wampanoag joined a tribal coalition to eliminate English settlers, but in the ensuing King Philip's War the Wampanoag were nearly exterminated. The colony gradually grew in size, and the original settlement known as the Plimoth Plantation expanded as settlers built houses in the area. Plymouth Colony retained its independence for over 70 years, and by 1691 its population exceeded 7,000. It was integrated with the Massachusetts Bay Company's much larger colony to establish the royal colony of Massachusetts — now the state of the same name.

Here are some topics to explore that relate to the Plymouth Colony. Looking at the articles, images, and other materials in this Research Starter may give you more ideas. Each topic has one or more articles to start you on your research, but remember that it takes more than one article to make a research paper. Continue your research with our list of articles below.

The reasons the Pilgrims emigrated from England.

The voyage of the Mayflower.

The impact of the colonists on the lives of the Indians.

Daily life at Plimoth Plantation.

William Bradford's History of Plimoth Plantation, 1620-1647.

Plimoth Plantation
www.plimoth.org
An informative Web site with information and many illustrations depicting life in the original Plymouth Colony.

U.S. Gazetteer: Plymouth, Massachusetts
http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/gazetteer-tbl?
city=plymouth&state=ma
From this page, either display a map with general census data for this area, or view and download more detailed census tables.

Native Americans and the Environment
cnie.org/NAE
Site contains hundreds of bibliographic entries and links to many Internet resources relating to North American native peoples. Resources are classified by tribal groups. Includes a clickable region map to help readers find information.

WWWVL: American Indians — Cultural Resources
www.hanksville.org/NAresources/indices/NAculture.html
An extensive list of links to Web sites that provide scholarly and commercial resources on North American native peoples.

NativeWeb Home Page
www.nativeweb.org
An excellent site for material on the native peoples of the Western Hemisphere and Australia/Oceania.

NMAI Exhibitions
www.nmai.si.edu
This Smithsonian Institution site contains information about the museum's exhibitions and research as well as an annotated listing of other Native American sites on the Internet.

Ethnologue
www.ethnologue.com
Contains the most authoritative classification database of the world's languages currently available. Searchable by language name, language family, and country; general search option also provided.

Internet History Sourcebooks Project
www.fordham.edu/halsall
From a historian at New York's Fordham Univ., a broad collection of mostly public-domain texts, arranged by sourcebooks on ancient, medieval, and modern history. Other history sourcebooks available here cover regions, religions, science, and women.

The World-Wide Web Virtual Library: Literature
www.internetbookinfo.com
The portion of the World Wide Web Virtual Library devoted to literature, writing, publishing, and related subjects. Comprehensive annotated links to related sites, especially for contemporary writing and publishing.

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This content resource helps students who are beginning to write a research paper. The focus is on Plymouth Colony. Students will find a wealth of information on why Pilgrims emigrated from England and how they affected the lives of Indians. A glossary of topics and terms makes this a great research starter.

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Plymouth Colony facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about Plymouth Colony

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Get information, facts, and pictures about Plymouth Colony at Encyclopedia.com. Make research projects and school reports about Plymouth Colony easy with credible articles from our FREE, online encyclopedia and dictionary.

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the world book web site offers an encyclopedia

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and curriculum guides. world book is publisher of the world book encyclopedia.

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The World Book web site offers an encyclopedia, dictionary, atlas, homework help, study aids, and curriculum guides. World Book is publisher of the World Book Encyclopedia.

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King Philip's War - Native American History - HISTORY.com

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Find out more about the history of King Philip's War, including videos, interesting articles, pictures, historical features and more. Get all the facts on HISTORY.com

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King Philip's War, (1675-76), in British American colonial history, war that pitted Native Americans against English settlers and their Indian allies that was one of the bloodiest conflicts (per capita) in U.S. history. Historians since the early 18th century, relying on accounts from the Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth colonies, have referred to the conflict as King Philip's War. Philip ( Metacom), sachem (chief) of a Wampanoag band, was a son of Massasoit, who had greeted the first colonists of New England at Plymouth in 1621. However, because of the central role in the conflict played by the Narragansetts, who composed the largest Native American group then in southern New England, some historians refer to the conflict as the Great Narragansett War.

The war's proximate cause was Plymouth Colony's execution in June 1675 of three of Philip's warriors. They had been tried and found guilty of murdering John Sassamon, a Harvard-educated "praying Indian" convert to Puritanism who had served as an interpreter and advisor to Philip but whom Philip had accused of spying for the colonists. His murder ignited a tinderbox of tensions between Indians and whites that had been smoldering for 55 years over competing land claims (including disputes over the grazing of colonial livestock on hunting and fishing grounds), interracial insensitivities, and English cultural encroachment on Native America. That was the case even with a somewhat intertwined Native American-English economy and the conversion to Christianity by some Indians.

Over the next six months, colonial militia and Native American raiding parties ranged over modern-day Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and even coastal Maine. Although the Narragansetts had attempted to stay neutral, individual Narragansett warriors had participated clandestinely in raids on colonial strongholds and militia. Soon colonial leaders deemed the Narragansetts in violation of a series of peace treaties, leading the United Colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Connecticut to amass the largest colonial army assembled to date in New England, consisting of 1,000 militia and some 150 Indian allies. In November 1675 Gov. Josiah Winslow of Plymouth Colony marshaled the colonial militia and rendezvoused in Rhode Island territory. The objective was to attack the Narragansett before they could muster a spring offensive. The militia burned abandoned Indian villages along the way.

Beginning on the morning of December 19, during a bitterly cold snow storm, the militia and its Indian allies began their attack on the Narragansetts' main fort, situated on an island amid a frozen swamp in what is now West Kingston, Rhode Island, an attack henceforth known as the Great Swamp Fight. By evening, the militia had overrun the fort and begun burning the homes and food supplies of the Indian defenders. Although determining numbers of casualties is always difficult, perhaps some 150 Indian inhabitants, many of them women, children, and the elderly, were killed or burned alive. Others escaped across the swamp, though many of them then died from exposure. The militia suffered about 70 dead and 150 wounded, some of whom died from their wounds. In the wake of the attack and ensuing slaughter, the Narragansetts wholeheartedly joined the anti-English war effort, albeit in a weakened state.

Meanwhile, raids by the English-allied Mohawks damaged Philip's diplomatic entreaties to expand the conflict by enlisting other regional Indian groups. A colonial expedition after the Great Swamp Fight had some success but did not end the conflict. The Indian coalition, having come under the leadership of the Narragansett sachem, Canonchet, then embarked on a late-winter offensive in 1676 that pushed back most of the colonial frontier in the Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Rhode Island colonies. In fact, much of the war's extraordinary damage occurred during that phase of the conflict. The Narragansetts, for example, destroyed all white settlements in Rhode Island on the western side of the bay, including Providence, which they burned in March 1676. In the end, however, Native American opposition in Rhode Island was eradicated, and nearly all of the colony was opened to white settlement. Connecticut claimed most of the southern part of the colony by right of conquest for having defeated the Narragansetts.

By late spring 1676, other colonies began to follow Connecticut's lead by incorporating friendly Indians into their forces. Benjamin Church's Plymouth command, a non-Connecticut exception, had utilized Indian allies since the beginning of the war, and he succeeded in killing Philip in August 1676. By September the colonists and their Indian allies had destroyed much of the Native American opposition in southern New England, killing thousands of Native Americans and selling many into slavery and indentured servitude. Some 600 English soldiers had been killed in the conflict and 17 white settlements destroyed; some 50 additional settlements had been damaged. Only Connecticut emerged unscathed from the conflict, because of its unique relationship with local Native American groups.

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King Philip's War | Cause, Summary, & Facts

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King Philip's War (1675-76), war that pitted Native Americans against English settlers and their Indian allies that was one of the bloodiest conflicts (per capita) in U.S. history. Philip (Metacom), chief of a Wampanoag band, was a son of Massasoit, who had greeted the colonists at Plymouth in 1621.

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gallery museum of pilgrim and native american artifacts

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Pilgrim Hall Museum - About the Pilgrims - King Philip's War & the Continued Presence of Native People

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Pilgrim Hall, built in 1824, is a gallery museum in the center of historic Plymouth, Massachusetts. The nation's oldest continuously-operating public museum, Pilgrim Hall houses an unmatched collection of Pilgrim possessions.