Leyden Street

Leyden Street, originally known to the first settlers as First Street, Great Street, or Broad Street, was where the Pilgrims began building their houses in the winter of 1620-21, and it has remained 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, it is the oldest continuously occupied street in British North America. Although no 17th century structures survive there, the existing homes are an assortment of 18th and 19th century houses set close together on small lots roughly 49 1/2 feet deep, as allotted in the first division in 1620. At its upper end, Town Square serves as Plymouth’s market square and is surrounded by the 1749 Courthouse on the south side, the stone First Parish Church at the west end, and the white wooden Church of the Pilgrimage on the north side, with a stairway to Burial Hill at the northwest corner. Burial Hill, also known as Fort Hill, rises about 130 feet above sea level and offered a commanding view of the harbor; the Pilgrims built their fort there, mounted six cannons on it in Plymouth’s earliest years, and also used it as their church house. In 1675 and 1676 the residents of Plymouth built a smaller fort there for protection from attack, and after the war tradition held that wood from the fort was sold and used to build the Harlow House. Shortly before King Phillip’s War, the hill began to be used as a cemetery, and it is claimed that some Mayflower passengers were buried there, 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. The 1749 Courthouse later served as the seat of town government from 1820 to 1953 and is now a town museum, and a market once stood beneath it, while at the old fort site Dr. James Thacher planted an elm tree at the center of the foundation, later replaced with a marble stool.

Plymouth, Massachusetts · United States