Visit Plymouth in Massachusetts

Travel with Bennett-Watt and discover the city of Plymouth in Massachusetts.

Visit Plymouth in Massachusetts Male: Across from Cape Cod, the pilgrims find a landing spot. Plymouth is a relaxed little seaside town comfortable in its present but proud of it's very historic past. The Plymouth Rock marks the arrival of the pilgrims here plus their numerous monuments, statues and attractions relating to the first settlers. Along with the replica of May flower. But the most significant and historic reason to visit Plymouth is here. Female: I’m standing here in the oldest continuously operating museum in America. The pilgrim society was formed in 1820 at the time of the 200th anniversary of the landing of the pilgrims at Plymouth and there was so much interest at that time and so many people in town have artifacts in their parlors and their attics that pilgrim society decided to found a museum. It was built in opened at 1824 and have been here as a museum ever since. We really have here the artifacts that represent the beginnings of America. We are the museum that has the original artifacts that belong to those May flower passengers of 1620. We have William Bradford’s bible. We have Myles Standish's Sword. We have the cradle of Paraguay. Portrait of Edward Winslow. The list just goes on and on. We have two bibles here that came on the May flower, the top is a Geneva Bible published in 1592 that belongs to William Bradford. The Geneva bible was the bible that was produced by the English separators. This is the portrait of Edward Winslow. It’s the only portrait of a pilgrim that was actually done from life. We have no idea of what any of the other pilgrims absolutely looks like. And the other pictures that you see of pilgrims are imaginary. That is a book that was published in 1628. We know that pilgrim William Brewster had a copy of that particular book. The cup belongs to the long-time governor of one of the colony, William Bradford. It was made in England in 1634 and it has the governor’s initials on it. That was his personal cup and the bible is a second division of Elliot Bible that was dated 1685. It’s the bible translated into the Native American language. In a bit, the pilgrims have then portrayed in a story, in song, televisions, and snoopy specials with those Hallmark cards, in every textbook imaginable. Sometimes, it's wonderful it does, turns the pilgrims into a two-dimensional tales for thoughts and they lose their complexity. They lose their depth. They lose their ability for modern people to relate to them. That’s not who the pilgrims are. They were very complex people. They were facing very difficult issues. They didn’t know how there story was going to end and so what I hope will happen when people visit Pilgrim Hall Museum is that they will become engaged with the pilgrims by interacting in a way with the artifacts that we have of the pilgrims, that they will get curious about them and that we will do further reading for the research or want to learn more about these magnificent people. Male 1: Massachusetts produces about a third of all the cranberries drawn in the world, contributing over 200 million in payroll for the state economy. Male 2: They grow in a vine that grows differently than any other commodity. The harvest is nothing like it with any agricultural commodity. We grab the bars; we beat them off the vines. We track them into here and clean on them and that’s a very efficient way to harvest. The old fashion way, people on the hands and knees or scoops and later on with dry-harvest machines – that doesn’t exist anymore except a few with the machines with the purpose of selling those berries as fresh fruit into the holiday market. This time of the year, what growers progress mostly want to harvest and they bring those berries in here to be cleaned where we separate the rotten and the debris from the good berries, washed it off with clean water and put in the bins, put into the freezer for future use. Male 3: We can go from 18,000 pounds to 30,000 pounds. It depends on the flow we need for the day and also the proof quality. After that first table there, we’ll beat it out; we’ll get a lot of the vine out and some of the loose leaves that might come in. That’s the blower that you see in the background. The next table that you can see that next to Engel, resides the berries before they go into berry separators. In 1923 it’s called the bounce board. There are seven layers in there, the first volume, berries through, the next door you can it and the next one is wrap. Anything that does not bounce ends up in the blue bin and then after the belly board will automate one more time, they’ll go through a color sorter room, we can pick out what we want. So, the next machine is called the UV machine. It takes out the poppies. They’ll still bounce but they’re full of juice. We don’t want that in the bag. We want the nice solid fruit. The next stage there is we still do a physical inspection even though we have the machinery. We’ll have to just double-up, check it if they’ll roll, look for a soft one, there might be a vine that comes through. It might be a taller one that actually goes through. Then, next stage, it elevates one more time into a packing roll. Which again 26 comes up. Through a packing machine we have a couple of - wraps. Then we bag them into the boxes and off they go, stack them up on a pallet and into the trailer. Male 1: The riches area at the late 1600’s stayed with Salem and in fact been embraced by the community with enthusiasm generated by curious endowers. The local graveyard and miscellaneous rich museums and attraction do hauntingly good business leading up to the season finale of the Halloween which is not worth standing. The community has a rich history in the development of America. At one time, it was the sixth largest city in the country with one of the wealthiest and the busiest ports in North America. The national park service operates a regional visitors’ bureau here just across the street from one of New England’s most respected institutions, the Peabody exclusive casino. Testament to the community’s vast riches and success, a remarkable collection of pre-20th century architecture including many from the 1700’s. Here too, in the complex of several historic homes, The House of the Seven Gables, an inspiration for Nathaniel Hawthorne book. The oldest building in town, the famous Corwin or Witch House from the mid 1600’s.