Burial Hill overlooks Plymouth Harbor and is one of the oldest cemeteries in America. The Pilgrims built their first forts atop this hill with cannons facing the harbor. The first winter, only about half of the Pilgrims survived, and the deceased were buried in unmarked graves because they didn’t want the indians to know how many they had lost. There are gravestones from the 1680s including the gravesite of William Bradford, the governor of Plymouth colony, (It’s the tallest one pictured, set 2) They are in the process of repairing some of the earliest gravestones as many are falling down or are broken. You can see this on the gravestone of Edward Gray from 1681. The stone with the green vines on the lower right is of Alexander Scammell 1747-1781. He taught the public school on this site and was also a Colonel and General in the Continental Army, mortally wounded at Yorktown. Adjacent to Burial Hill is the First Parish in Plymouth, a Unitarian church built in 1620. Burial Hill is a beautiful place to visit with a peaceful setting amongst the trees and a view of the harbor and town below.
