Plymouth rock, imposter
Plymouth rock, imposter
The ersatz little chunk that looms in our national consciousness
Plymouth rock is an imposter.
No way was this the first terra firma the Pilgrims planted foot upon in the “New World” – that was some vanished swath of sand in Provincetown Harbor.
Even when they left the Mayflower and took a little shallop across the bay a month later, exploring for a good place to set up shop, there is no report that they saw this rock, let alone clambered upon it, let alone took significance from it.
Yet the rock – sitting within a portico like a slouched, forlorn baby circus bear in a cage, cemented together after being broken into chunks, its face carved with “1620” like a bad tattoo -- looms in the American imagination. Even when Provincetown built a monument jutting into the sky to try to remind the world that the Pilgrims came there first, that little silly chunk of faulty Dedham granite could not be displaced.
In 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville was roaming around the United States pondering this young democratic expression, He mused about our weird fascination. You can see him shaking his head in bemusement:
“This Rock has become an object of veneration … I have seen bits of it carefully preserved in several towns in the Union. Does this sufficiently show that all human power and greatness is in the soul of man? Here is a stone which the feet of a few outcasts pressed for an instant; and the stone becomes famous; it is treasured by a great nation; its very dust is shared as a relic.”
What do people see in this chunk of glacial debris that makes them muse and thrill about our place in history?
Whatever it is, we know about the first person stricken by the rock’s aura. That was in 1741, 120 years after the Pilgrims arrived. We have Thomas Faunce to thank for beginning what has been a long, rocky relationship.
Elder Faunce, as some called Thomas, earned the moniker by 1741. He was 94 or 95 years old, depending on the historian, born in the mid-1640s.
He still had wits about him. When word reached Faunce that there were plans to erect a wharf at the site of a granite rock where family lore told him the first white arrivals had come, the old man became agitated. According to historian James Thacher, writing in 1835, Faunce had been in the habit, once a year, “of placing his children and grandchildren on the rock, and conversing with them respecting their forefathers.” If a wharf was built, that no longer would be possible.
Faunce decided to make what might be his last visit to the rock. He gathered family, and as many townspeople as would come. Living three miles from the harbor, he couldn’t walk it anymore; a chair was produced, he was carried to the performance.
Wrote Thacher, “Having pointed out the rock directly under the bank of Cole’s Hill, which his father had assured him … had received the footsteps of our fathers on their first arrival … he bedewed it with his tears and bid to it an everlasting adieu.”
Faunce family lore sank into town culture, so much so that as revolutionary fervor was building 30 years later, in 1774, the Sons of Liberty, agitating for independence, seized on the rock as a symbol. The firebrand group pulled together a team of 20 oxen, by one historic account, and set about trying to drag the rock to what they called Liberty Pole Square, high ground in the town center.
The rock split in two. There was a fault line in the granite.
Undaunted, the Sons of Liberty took the split as a divine symbol that the colonies were meant to break away from England. They hauled the top part of the rock up the hill, leaving the bottom on the waterfront.
Plymouth rock had been subdivided.
It was the bottom part that next received notoriety. In 1775, war with England was not yet formal but raids were sparking along the coast. A “privateer” named William Coit already was working for George Washington, based in Plymouth. In November, Coit captured two British ships coming from Nova Scotia, laden with geese, cattle and hogs, meant to feed Brit troops in Boston. Coit forced his British prisoners to land on what remained of Plymouth rock, and made them offer up three cheers for the Americans. The account carried around the colonies, causing much merriment.
After independence, the divided rock did what rocks do – not much. The piece along the harbor remained embedded near a working wharf, while the piece dragged to the town square was dragged yet again, in 1835, placed in front of what is known as Pilgrim Hall. This time an axle broke in transit, the rock tumbled, and once again broke in pieces.
Fragmented, it became yet more popular. People were chipping souvenirs, carrying them across the country as cherished mementos for families who had headed West and South but relished Yankee roots. Pilgrim Hall stalwarts built an iron fence as protection, but they also felt their rock was a prodigal and deserved to return to its proper home.
The Pilgrim Society began buying property around the harbor, including the old wharf that had infringed on the rock’s solitude. By 1859 they cleared the area, and laid the foundation for a fancy canopy that would enclose the infamous rock. By 1880, the top half was picked up yet again, dragged down to the harbor for what was the stony equivalent of a family reunion.
The traveling portion had been abused, broken and chipped so many times it no longer fit with its fraternal twin. Cement was employed, the pieces mashed together. Perhaps to draw attention away from this minor detail, the movers decided that some additional chiseling was in order, so carved the infamous date, 1620, onto the granite face.
Plymouth rock was no more than half its original size, maybe a third, scarred and fractured. Yet still it wasn’t allowed to rest. As 1920 approached it was moved yet again, this time so the moribund waterfront could be cleaned up. The state took control of the thing, and commissioned one more portico to cover and protect it. The façade that now surrounds the rock was paid for by an eminent group known as the National Society of Colonial Dames of America.
But does this history account for the power of this poor remnant to draw people from all over the world? Does it explain why “pieces of the rock” still appear for sale, with letters of authenticity to show that these little chips were chiseled off a rock that itself is an imposter?
Certainly not.
We must agree with de Toqueville. The rock is proof “that all human power and greatness is in the soul of man.” Because if our collective imagination can turn this paltry slug of granite and cement into an object worth venerating, then we humans can do pretty much anything.
NEXT: THE GREAT RETURN OF THE TURKEY — AND THAT’S NOT LEFTOVERS!
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