Before construction began, a 94-year-old church elder named Thomas Faunce declared that the boulder was the landing place of the Mayflower Pilgrims.

According to Plymouth historian James Thacher: A chair was procured, and the venerable [Faunce] conveyed to the shore, where a number of the inhabitants were assembled to witness the patriarch's benediction.

Journalist Bill Bryson, for example, wrote, "The one thing the Pilgrims certainly did not do was step ashore on Plymouth Rock", arguing that the boulder would have made an impractical landing spot.

[citation needed] Captain William Coit wrote in The Pennsylvania Journal of November 29, 1775 that he brought captive British sailors ashore "upon the same rock our ancestors first trod".

In 1859, the Pilgrim Society began building a Victorian canopy designed by Hammett Billings at the wharf over the portion of the rock left there, which was completed in 1867.

The Pilgrim Hall section of the rock was moved back to its original wharf location in 1880, rejoined to the remaining portion, and the date "1620" was carved into it.

[9][13] A 40-pound (18 kg) piece of the Rock is set on a pedestal in the cloister of historic Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims in Brooklyn Heights, New York.

[15]Today, Plymouth Rock is managed by the Department of Conservation and Recreation for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as part of Pilgrim Memorial State Park.

[16] While the rock is currently situated beneath a granite canopy at Pilgrim Memorial State Park, it has been moved several times since the 18th century.

Experts such as Donna D. Curtin of the Pilgrim Hall Museum and Dr. Simon Engelhart of Durham University's Department of Geography confirm that Plymouth Rock has been relocated multiple times, with its current location differing from its original position in 1620.