Plymouth Rock is a boulder in Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States, which was claimed to have been at the site where the Mayflower Pilgrims landed to found Plymouth Colony in December 1620. The Pilgrims did not refer to Plymouth Rock in any of their writings; the first known written reference to the rock dates from 1715 when it was described in the town boundary records as "a great rock". The first documented claim of Plymouth Rock as the landing place of the Pilgrims was made by 94-year-old Thomas Faunce in 1741, 121 years after the Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth.
Plymouth Rock has been moved multiple times since 1620. In 1774, the rock broke in half during an attempt to haul it to Town Square in Plymouth. One portion remained in Town Square and was moved to Pilgrim Hall Museum in 1834. Over the years, people chipped away at the portion of the Rock that remained on the shoreline, removing hundreds of pounds of stone as souvenirs. The rock first attracted public attention in 1741 when the residents of Plymouth began plans to build a wharf that would bury it. Before construction began, a 94-year-old church elder named Thomas Faunce declared that the boulder was the landing place of the Mayflower Pilgrims.
Faunce eventually asked to be brought to the rock to say a farewell. According to Plymouth historian James Thacher: