#ThrowBackThursday: Samuel de Champlain’s 1605 Map of Plymouth Harbor
Photo: Pilgrim Hall Museum
Recognize this place?
Samuel de Champlain, the French explorer who founded New France and Quebec City in 1608, created this map of Plymouth Harbor after running aground here on his journey southward along the New England coast in 1605.
Here’s his personal account of the area, in which he describes what we now call Long Beach:
The circuit of the bay is about a league. On one side of the entrance to this bay there is a point which is almost an island, covered with wood, principally pines, with sand-banks, which are very extensive all about. On the other side, the land is high. There are two islets in this bay, which are not seen until one has entered, and around which it is almost entirely dry at low tide. This place is very conspicuous from the sea, for the coast is very low, excepting the cape at the entrance to the bay. [Samuel de Champlain’s Voyages, Volume II, Part VIII]
Although Champlain wasn’t the first European to explore this area, he was the first to record a detailed account of Plymouth. Read more from Pilgrim Hall Museum.
