The Truth About Plymouth Rock-- Part 2: Did They or Didn't They? Doesn't Matter

Soon, though, the rock began taking on symbolic meaning more compelling than any fact attached to it.  In 1774, with revolutionary fervor boiling in New England, some zealots in Plymouth decided to move the rock to a spot in town, where they hoped, it would stir up patriotic passions.

They accidentally cracked the rock in two, and while the lower half remained at the beach, the upper half found its way to a number of sites in Plymouth over the years.

The two halves were later mended and enshrined under a beachside temple, though the rock was trimmed to fit.  Over the years it has been carved up so often that it is estimated to be only a third of its original size.

But it remains an outsize American icon -- important not for who did or didn't step on it, but, as National Museum of American History curator Larry Bird has noted, "because of what people have turned it into."

--Cooter

The Truth About That Rock, Plymouth Rock-- Part 1

From the "Mayflower: Birth of America."

The Pilgrims may or may not have stepped on this granite boulder when they came ashore at Plymouth, but the legend is far more important than the reality.

The Pilgrims most likely noticed this rock when they came ashore at Plymouth in 1620 because it was like no other rock anywhere around that site.  Geologists call it a glacial erratic -- a glacially deposited rock differing in size and type from rocks native to the region.

In other words, it was like the Pilgrims, from somewhere else.

There is, however, no mention of the stone in William Bradford's firsthand accounts of the colony's founding.  It wasn't until 1741 that the rock was identified as the spot where the Pilgrims first stepped ashore.   That is 121 years later.

And, that assertion was made by 94-year-old Thomas Faunce, who said he'd been told of the rock's significance by his father, a Plymouth Colony settler who had arrived in 1623 and by several of the original Mayflower passengers.

Whether he was being truthful, we can not know.

--Brock-Perry