On the sandy shore of that harbor, close to the water's edge, was a little granite bowlder, and on this, according to tradition, the Pilgrims stepped as they came ashore, December 21, 1620.

To this harbor the _Mayflower_ was brought, and the work of founding Plymouth was begun.

The winter was a dreadful one, and before spring fifty-one of the colonists had died.[1] But the Pilgrims stood fast, and in 1621 obtained a grant of land[2] from the Council for New England, which had just succeeded the Plymouth Company, under a charter giving it control between latitudes 40 deg.

and 48 deg., from sea to sea.[3] It was from the same Council that for fifteen years to come all other settlers in New England obtained their rights to the soil.
[Footnote 1: In the trying times which followed, William Bradford was chosen governor and many times reelected.

He wrote the so-called "Log of the Mayflower,"-- really a manuscript _History of the Plymouth Plantation_ from 1602 to 1647,--a fragment of which is reproduced on the opposite page.] [Footnote 2: This grant had no boundary.