The Plymouth Colony was established when the Mayflower landed in 1620.

A second ship arrived in November 1621 named the Fortune, sent by the Merchant Adventurers one year after the Pilgrims first set foot in New England. It arrived with 37 new settlers for Plymouth. However, the ship

In July 1623, two more ships arrived: the Anne under the command of Captain "Master" William Peirce and Master John Bridges, and the Little James under the command of Captain Emanuel Altham. These ships carried 96 new settlers, am

In September 1623, another ship arrived carrying settlers destined to refound the failed colony at Weymouth, and they stayed temporarily in Plymouth. In March 1624, a ship arrived bearing a few additional settlers and the first cattle. A 1627 division of cattle lists 156 colonists divided into twelve lots of thirteen colonists each. Another ship arrived in August 1629, also named the Mayflower, with 35 additional members of the Leiden congregation. Some of the passengers who arrived on the Anne were either unprepared for frontier life or undesirable additions to the colony, and they returned to England the next year.

Contemporaneous documents indicate that the colony had almost 300 people by January 1630. In 1643, the colony had an estimated 600 males fit for military service, implying a total population of about 2,000.

The estimated total population of Plymouth County was 3,055 by 1690, on the eve of the colony's merger with Massachusetts Bay. It is estimated that the entire population of the colony at the point of its dissolution was around 7,000. For comparison, sbe about 60,000 by 1678. Plymouth was the first colony in the region, but it was much smaller than Massachusetts Bay Colony by the time they merged.

Source: Plymouth Colony | Wikipedia

The Plymouth Colony was not formally divided into counties until June 2, 1685,
when Barnstable and Bristol Counties were formed.
In 1690 The Plymouth Colony merged with Massachusetts Bay.

Massachusetts Genealogy Guide Links:
13 Originals
US Population
The Frist Thanksgiving


last updated 11 Jun 2002