Plymouth Harbor at low tide

When the explorers returned to the Mayflower with the good news they had found a harbor they liked, one passenger wrote it "did much comfort their hearts."  The Mayflower lifted anchor and sailed towards Plymouth, to bring everyone there.  Unfortunately the wind did not allow them to make it in.  The next day, December 16, they were able to sail into Plymouth Harbor.  Now everyone could see the harbor, which one passenger remembered as being "compassed with a goodly land, and in the bay 2 fine islands uninhabited, wherein are nothing but wood, oaks, pines, walnut, beech, sassafras, vines, and other trees which we know not."  December 17 was a Sunday, so they did not work.

On Monday, December 18, they sent another group of men out with Master Christopher Jones and several sailors, and they walked along and examined about 7-8 miles of coastline, looking for the best place to build the colony.  They did not see or meet with any Indians, but did see some old, long-abandoned cornfields.  They had hoped to find a large river, but only found about five streams.  That evening, they returned aboard the Mayflower.  The next day, another party went to explore: this time, half went by land, and half coasted the shoreline in the shallop.  The group on land found a nice stream, and followed it up into the woods about three miles.  Then they explored the island again.  At night, they again returned to the Mayflower, and had a long discussion and debate about where to settle.

Some liked the area with the long stream that they had followed up for nearly three miles.  It had lots of surrounding woods, so they would have an easier time to build houses and gather fuel for their fires.  Others, though, worried the woods could be full of "savages", and that clearing the land for planting corn would be a lot more labor-intensive.  Also, the place seemed to be far from any good fishing spot, from which they hoped to get some profit.  Others liked Clark's Island, because it could be very easily defended, and was closer to larger Cape Cod bay, providing quicker and easier access both to ships and the fishing grounds.  But Clark's Island, others argued, had a limited supply of trees, a rockier ground that might not be as good for growing crops, and had no supply of fresh water except for a few stagnant ponds.

On December 20, the Pilgrims more carefully viewed the two places, intending to make a final decision that evening.  As one passenger remembered, "After our landing and viewing of the places, so well as we could we came to a conclusion, by most voices, to set on the mainland, on the first place, on a high ground, where there is a great deal of land cleared, and hath been planted with corn three or four years ago, and there is a very sweet brook running under the hillside, and many delicate springs of as good water as can be drunk, and where we may harbor our shallops and boats exceeding well. ... our greatest labor will be fetching of our wood, which is half a quarter of an English mile."  They decided upon a spot that had been named "Plimouth" on a 1614 map (see part of the map at right) made by Captain John Smith (more famous for his adventures with Pocahontas at the Jamestown Colony in Virginia).

December 21 and 22 were so stormy, the Pilgrims could do nothing but wait onboard the Mayflower.  Finally, the storm broke, and on December 23, they managed to get ashore and began chopping and hauling timber for the houses they were going to build.  December 24 was Sunday, so they did not work.  Christmas Day, December 25, they returned to work "so no man rested all that day," cutting down the trees, sawing, and preparing them for building.  The Pilgrims did not celebrate Christmas: that was a Catholic ritual that was never mentioned in the Bible and was not celebrated by the early Christian churches they were attempting to emulate.  But not everyone was 100% "Pilgrim" when it came to rejecting Christmas.  The Mayflower's master, Christopher Jones, decided that since it was Christmas, he would share some of his extra beer with the passengers, who had already run out of their own and were just drinking water.

Over the next few weeks they cleared the hill, allotted and staked out where each families house would be, gathered thatch for roofing, and began building their houses and a 20ft x 20ft storehouse.  Their work was continually hampered by poor weather, making it a very difficult time.  William Bradford and others got extremely sick, and on January 12, Peter Brown and John Goodman got lost in the forest and spent a freezing night there before they could find their way home, frostbitten and tired.  On January 20, they finished a shed to store their goods, and through the month of February they continued to build their houses.  It was not until the end of March that everyone was living ashore--some, especially women and children, had been living onboard a ship (either the Speedwell or the Mayflower) since they first left Holland back in July ... eight months ago.