Leyden Street, originally known to the first settlers as First Street, Great Street or Broad Street, is where the Pilgrims began building their houses in the winter of 1620-21, and it has been the heart of the town ever since. Extending from the harbor at its eastern end to Burial Hill on the west (and including Town Square), Leyden Street is the oldest continuously occupied street in British North America.

Current building and history

Although no 17th century structures survive on the street, the existing homes are a assortment of 18th and 19th century houses that front directly onto the sidewalks. They stand close together on small lots that are roughly 49 ½ feet deep, as was allotted in the first division in 1620.

Town Square

Unlike many New England communities Plymouth has a market square rather than a green at its center. Town Square occupies the upper end of Leyden Street and is surrounded by three prominent buildings. The 1749 Courthouse on the corner of Market Street occupies the south side of the square; the stone First Parish Church (Unitarian) is at the west end and the white wooden church of the Pilgrimage (Congregational) is on the north side. A stairway up Burial Hill can be found at the northwest corner of Town Square at the entrance to School Street.

Burial Hill

Burial Hill, also known as Fort Hill, is located at the east end of Leyden Street. This was the highest hill in the area, about 130 feet above sea level, with a good view of the harbor. The Pilgrims build their fort upon the top of this hill, and in the earliest years of Plymouth there were six cannons mounted on the fort. They used the fort for their church house as well. In 1675 and 1676, the residents of Plymouth built a smaller fort in the location shown in the picture below, to protect themselves from attack. After the end of the war, tradition says the wood form the fort was sold and used to build the Harlow House, still standing at Plymouth. Shortly before King Phillip's War, the hill began to be used as a cemetery. The earliest gravestone it is claimed that some of the Mayflower passengers were buried on the hill including the supposed gravesite of William Bedford, who died in 1657. There is no original gravestone for Bradford, and the tall memorial was placed there in the 19th century.
Town square -1828 print by Benjamin Parris Barlett.
A man is seating his young son on the upper half of Plymouth Rock, moved to this spot from the waterfront by Colonel Theophilus Cotton.

Plymouth Town House, cica 1900, The 1749 Courthouse, subsequently the seat of town government from 1820 to 1953, is now a town museum. There was a market beneath the building year ago.

Site of old fort. Dr. James Thacher planted an elm tree a the center of the old fort's foundation, which was later replaced with the marble "stool."

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Show me all markers in:  Plymouth, MA  |  Plymouth County  |  02360  |  Massachusetts  |  United States of America

Plymouth Waterfront
William Bradford
Cole's Hill
1630-1930
Coles Hill
Joseph Tribble House
First House Built by the Pilgrims
Gurnet Fortifications
House of Isaac Doten
First Burying Ground of Mayflower Passengers

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