Plymouth Colony most of them in two or three months' time". By November 1621, only 53 pilgrims were alive to celebrate the harvest feast which modern Americans know as "The First Thanksgiving". Thirteen of the 18 adult women died the first winter, while another died in May. Only four adult women were left alive for the Thanksgiving. Several of the graves on Cole's Hill were uncovered in 1855; their bodies were disinterred and moved to a site near Plymouth Rock. The autumn celebration in late 1621 that has become known as "The First Thanksgiving" was not known as such to the Pilgrims.
Plymouth, Massachusetts Plymouth was established in December 1620 by English separatist Puritans who had broken away from the Church of England, believing that the Church had not completed the work of the Protestant Reformation. Today, these settlers are much better known as the "Pilgrims", a term coined by William Bradford. The Mayflower first anchored in the harbor of Provincetown, Massachusetts on November 11, 1620. The ship was headed for the mouth of the Hudson River near Manhattan, which was part of the Colony of Virginia at the time, but it did not go beyond Cape Cod. The Pilgrim settlers realized that they