Cole's Hill

Cole's Hill is a National Historic Landmark containing the first cemetery used by the Mayflower Pilgrims in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620.

A number of monuments and memorials are on the hill, most of which date to the tercentenary (300-year anniversary) celebration of the Pilgrim landing in 1920.

These include a Cyrus Dallin statue of the Wampanoag sachem Massasoit (c. 1581–1661), whose support was critical to the Pilgrims' survival.

At the southern end of the hill stands a granite sarcophagus erected by the General Society of Mayflower Descendants in 1920.

It contains skeletal remains accidentally disinterred from the hill in the 18th and 19th centuries, which are believed to be those of Mayflower settlers buried here in the winter of 1620-21 when 52 out of 102 died.

Among those whose remains may have been interred on Cole's Hill are John Carver, Elizabeth Winslow, Mrs. Mary Allerton, Rose Standish, Christopher Martin, Solomon Powers, William Mullins, William White, Degory Priest, Richard Britteridge, John and Edward Tilley and Thomas Rogers.

A summary of these was provided by John A. Goodwin: In a storm of 1735 a torrent pouring down Middle Street made a ravine in Cole's Hill and washed many human remains down into the harbor.

These found a new grave on Burial Hill; but the other relics, with barbaric taste, were placed in the top of the stone canopy over Forefathers' Rock.

In 1879, during some work on the southeast side of the hill, many more bones were unearthed, and some, with questionable taste, were carried away by the spectators in remembrance of their "renowned sires"...[7] The fact that some of the skeletons were laid out on an east–west axis with heads to the west—a long-standing tradition with Christian burials—is taken as evidence that these were not Wampanoag Indian remains.

There was once a granite slab on the hill at the foot of Middle Street, describing the discovery of the bones and the location where they had been found.