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John Gaquin John Gaquin is offline
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First recorded activity by BoatBanter: Jul 2006
Posts: 62
Default Visiting Old Ironsides......what else to do in Boston?


"Calif Bill" wrote in message news:ZxnRg.431

They are not even sure it is the correct rock, and it has been moved over
the years.


It has certainly been moved, broken in two, repaired, relocated, buried in a
landfill pier, recovered, chiseled down in size by souvenir hunters and, in
time, revered. Nathaniel Philbrick, in his history 'Mayflower', relates
what seems to be a well researched account of the rock from about 1741
onward. The crux is, of course, that the consideration that this is "the
rock" is based solely on the 1741 testimony of one Thomas Faunce, then aged
95, who claimed the rock was shown to him as the landing point by his
father, who had arrived in the colony in 1623. Civic leaders and civic
groups took it from there, and the legend of Plymouth Rock was off and
running. It may be true, and it may not. The story is only two steps
removed from a primary source, but those steps can loom huge.

In any event, even if the famed Plymouth Rock is the first footfall at the
Plymouth Colony, it certainly was not the place where the Pilgrim travellers
first set foot on New World soil. That, as another pointed out, was at
Provincetown.