Cole's Hill

About this property

Cole's Hill is a National Historic Landmark containing the first cemetery used by the Mayflower Pilgrims in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. The hill is located on Carver Street near the foot of Leyden Street and across the street from Plymouth Rock. Owned since 1820 by the preservationist Pilgrim Society, it is now a public park. Cole's Hill rises steeply from the shore of Plymouth Bay, near Plymouth Rock, the traditional landing site of the Pilgrims in 1620. It is now bounded by Water, North, Carver, and Leyden Streets. The hill is landscaped with grassy areas, low shrubs, and some trees, and trails wind their way around the hill. A granite staircase rises from Water Street to the summit of the hill. A number of monuments and memorials are on the hill, most of which date to the tercentenary (300-year anniversary) celebration of the Pilgrim landing in 1920. These include a Cyrus Dallin statue of the Wampanoag sachem Massasoit (c. 1581–1661), whose support was critical to the Pilgrims' survival. At the southern end of the hill stands a granite sarcophagus erected by the General Society of Mayflower Descendants in 1920. It contains skeletal remains accidentally disinterred from the hill in the 18th and 19th centuries, which are believed to be those of Mayflower settlers buried here in the winter of 1620-21 when 52 out of 102 died. Two stone benches, one placed by the Pennsylvania Society of New England Women, the other by the Society of the Daughters of Colonial Wars, face seaward. The Pilgrims built their first houses on Leyden Street rising from the side of Cole's Hill to Burial Hill, and the hill was used in 1620–1621 as a burial ground during their first winter in New England. It is not known whether Cole's Hill was used again as a burying ground between that winter and 1637 when the main town cemetery was established at what is now called Burial Hill. Among those whose remains may have been interred on Cole's Hill are John Carver, Elizabeth Winslow, Mrs. Mary Allerton, Rose Standish, Christopher Martin, Solomon Powers, William Mullins, William White, Degory Priest, Richard Britteridge, John and Edward Tilley and Thomas Rogers. The total burials may have been between 45 and 50. Cole's Hill was later deeded to Samuel Fuller (c. 1580–1633), a church deacon and the colony's physician. It afterward became the property of James Cole, who arrived in 1633 and kept a tavern on the hill in the 1640s. It is from him that the hill's name derives: "Cole's Hill" first appears in town records in 1698. Older oral tradition, however, maintained that the first burying ground of the Pilgrims was here. The hill soon lost its identity as a cemetery. Its commanding view of Plymouth Harbor made it a natural site for defensive works. In 1742, the General Court of Plymouth granted a sum of money to the town to erect a battery here. In 1775, the old defense having gone to seed, a new one was built and manned and continued to be kept up during the Revolutionary War. In 1814 still another fort was thrown up here and its commander was placed in charge of companies of soldiers who were billeted in the town.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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