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!

The Pilgrim Society is now 200 years old, and we’ve been preserving rare and evocative artifacts, documents, and artworks that tell the story of Plymouth Colony for centuries.

Now we need a little help from our friends! Please celebrate our 200th birthday year (and Plymouth’s 400th anniversary) by helping to conserve some uniquely Plymouth artifacts.

PRESERVING OUR TREASURES!
Bradford-Warwick Patent, 1629/1630, England
This state document issued to Governor William Bradford provided Plymouth Colony with permanent status for the 1st time. A cloth backing now threatens to destroy the original vellum surface.

The Warren Family Napkin, ca. 1620, The Netherlands
Cherubs, canal bridges, buildings, and boats decorate this fine Dutch linen napkin, traditionally associated with Richard Warren of the Mayflower. It was carefully saved by generations of women in the family, some of whom added their own names to the historic heirloom.

Your gift in any amount to Pilgrim Hall Museum’s Conservation Fund directly supports the conservation of our historical collections.

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.