Pilgrim Hall Museum - Welcome Page

The Pilgrim Story — the hazardous Mayflower voyage, the 1620 landing, the fearful first winter, the First Thanksgiving at Plymouth — is one of America’s enduring founding narratives. This dramatic saga of courage and perseverance has inspired generations as an iconic immigration experience and was the reason our organization was established in 1820. As the nation’s oldest continuously operating public museum, we embrace a commitment to telling this story with historical accuracy, inclusion, and renewed recognition for histories that traditionally have been submerged, silenced, or erased.

Pilgrim Hall Museum houses an unmatched collection of Pilgrim possessions, revealing the stories of ordinary yet determined men and women building new lives and homes for their families in a new world. On display are William Bradford’s Bible, the only portrait of a Pilgrim (Edward Winslow) painted from life, the cradle brought by expectant mother Susanna White on the Mayflower, the great chair of the colony’s spiritual leader William Brewster, and the earliest sampler made in America, embroidered by Myles Standish’s daughter, Loara.

At Pilgrim Hall Museum, our core focus encompasses the presence and experiences of the Wampanoag, "People of the Dawn," the Indigenous People who inhabited this area for over 13,000 years before the arrival of the English colonists and who are still here today. Exhibitions and programs trace the story of the interrelationship between the Wampanoag and the early colonial settlers from first encounters through the disastrous conflict of the 1670s, known as King Philip's War.

For 200 years, our organization has fostered knowledge and new understandings of Plymouth Colony’s beginnings - and never more so than today, during the extraordinary challenges of our own times. We invite you to explore this history with us, and uncover a storehouse of resources on four centuries of Plymouth’s past.

Online Store Open— your purchase helps support Pilgrim Hall!

Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth, MA, announces a major capital project to replace a failing roof and skylight directly over its original 1824 gallery full of iconic New England artworks and artifacts. Our museum is one of the nation’s oldest public museums, built in 1824 by the Pilgrim Society (established 1820). After rain was discovered falling inside the original 200-year-old gallery, a temporary rubber roof was installed to prevent immediate damage to irreplaceable collections. In late June 2023, the Pilgrim Society Board of Trustees endorsed a $6.4 million campaign to replace the roof and skylight, install new museum quality lighting, upgrade HVAC systems, and steward historical materials during the extensive construction required ahead. The project includes the restoration of monumental artwork and innovative exhibit redesign for a transformative impact on the visitor experience.

Right now in the summer of 2024, our urgent need is for funds to remove and conserve the massive, irreplacable artwork which has lived on the walls of the Main Gallery since the 19th century. Please help us with this phase of the project! All donations for conservation received this year will help us meet a significant matching grant, and we thank you!

It's on! As of early August, work has begun. Follow our progress here on Facebook!

Learn more about the history of Pilgrim Hall Museum's venerable main building, the issues facing us, and what we plan to do to fix them in this PAC-TV presentation, and short Light the Way history video:

We need (more than) a little help from our friends to Raise the Roof and Light the Way for Pilgrim Hall's future! Please become part of our future - your tax-deductible gift in any amount will help Pilgrim Hall Museum and its irreplaceable collection enter its third century sturdy, stable, beautifully lighted and dry!

Connecting with community at PHM! Enjoy videos highlighting community partners, public audiences, and local historians.

Fred Rogers invited kids into an unforgettable world of characters and local color in the famous PBS series, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. William T. Davis created an equally fascinating historical world of old Plymouth in his memoirs and other works published in the late 19th century and beginning of the 20th century. Meet the denizens of Mr. Davis’s neighborhood in a tour guided by historian Donna Curtin, Executive Director of Pilgrim Hall Museum. Filmed live on Burial Hill, Plymouth on August 6, 2022.

The Plymouth Antiquarian Society and Pilgrim Hall Museum co-host a free public tour series of Plymouth’s historic Burial Hill. This popular program has returned to a live, in-person format for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic. A limited series of four themed history tours will be offered in person at Plymouth’s ancient burying ground at 1 PM on the first Saturday of every other month from April to October. The event will not be simultaneously streamed or broadcast live; however, an enhanced and audio-corrected digital version of each tour will premiere online the month following each live event. More information here.

Explore local funeral practices and mourning traditions between 1785 and 1820 with Stephen O’Neill, Executive Director of the Hanover Historical Society. This free tour was filmed at Burial Hill in Plymouth, MA on June 4, 2022.

Pilgrim Hall Museum and the Plymouth Antiquarian Society recorded a free virtual program on Thursday, March 24, 2022 at 6:30 pm.
“Fact & Myth: Dorothy May Bradford Remembered” features presentations by two scholars who explore the impact of literature and film on our understanding of 17th-century women’s history. Dr. Kari Miller, Professor of English at Georgia State University’s Perimeter College in Atlanta, discusses the influential Pilgrim fiction of American author Jane Goodwin Austin (1831-1894). Dr. Miller focuses on the story “William Bradford’s Love Life” to explore the ways Austin used fact, fiction, and speculation in her work and how that impacted not only her legacy, but also American culture. Dr. Stacey Dearing, Teaching Assistant Professor of English at Siena College in Loudonville, NY, discusses how Dorothy May Bradford’s death in December 1620 has been represented in pop culture. Using National Geographic’s 2015 miniseries Saints & Strangers as a case study, Dr. Dearing argues for the importance of telling Bradford’s story — and those of all the women of the Mayflower — while also clearly demarcating facts from myths.

Many of the individuals memorialized on Burial Hill travelled widely in their lifetimes. What took them away from Plymouth? How did they get to their destinations? Hear the travel accounts that illuminate their experiences on the road with Dr. Anne Mason, Executive Director of the Plymouth Antiquarian Society. This free, one-hour tour was recorded live on Burial Hill, April 4, 2022.

What's the scoop from a decade-long archeological investigation of downtown Plymouth, Massachusetts? Dr. David Landon of UMass Boston's Fiske Center for Archaeological Research has been doggedly searching for Plymouth Colony's earliest structures - and this summer's excavations on historic Burial Hill turned up amazing finds!

Long Road to Freedom: Plymouth & Racial Justice
from Pilgrim Hall Museum on Vimeo.

A Local Look at the Long Road to Freedom: a mini-history of racial injustice in the Plymouth area produced for Martin Luther King Day, January 18, 2021, a virtual celebration presented by the Plymouth No Place for Hate, Barnstable No Place for Hate, and Bethel AME Church of Plymouth.

Book Launch: Stephen C. O'Neill, The Life of Peregrine White, February 21, 2021
from Pilgrim Hall Museum on Vimeo.

The Life of Peregrine White Virtual Book Launch. Author Stephen C. O’Neill traces the journey of Mayflower baby Peregrine White through a lifespan that paralleled the history of Plymouth Colony itself. Hosted by Pilgrim Hall Museum and the Marshfield Historical Society.

Women's Suffrage Centennial Flash Mob
from Pilgrim Hall Museum on Vimeo.

Women’s History Month Look Back! – our socially distanced 2020 flash mob celebrated 100 years of U.S. women’s suffrage, created with partnering organizations, the Plymouth Area League of Women Voters, Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe, Indivisible Plymouth, Plymouth Antiquarian Society, and Plymouth 400.