Henry Hornblower II started the museum in 1947 with help and support from friends, family and business associates as two English cottages and a fort on Plymouth's waterfront. Since then, the museum has grown to include a "Mayflower II" replica (1957), the English Village (1959), the Wampanoag Homesite (1973), the Hornblower Visitor Center (1987), the Craft Center (1992), the Maxwell and Nye Barns (1994) and the Plimoth Grist Mill (2013). Alongside the settlement is a recreation of a Wampanoag home site, where modern Native Americans from a variety of tribes explain and demonstrate how the Wampanoags' ancestors lived and interacted with the settlers (not in period character, but in traditional dress).