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.
History of Plymouth with the purpose of establishing settlements on the coast of North America. A few years later, Plymouth was also the departure point of the "Mayflower" in 1620, aboard which the Pilgrim Fathers set sail for the New World, establishing the second permanent English colony in the United States of America. They eventually landed at a site which Captain John Smith had already named New Plymouth in a map published in his 1616 work "A Description of New England" and the Pilgrims accepted this name. Twin flags of the US and UK now fly at the Mayflower Steps to commemorate the