Transcriber’s Note: Italics are enclosed in _underscores_. Additional notes will be found near the end of this ebook. [Illustration: Early Explorers of Plymouth Harbor 1525–1619 by Henry F. Howe Published jointly by Plimoth Plantation, Inc. and the Pilgrim Society Plymouth, 1953 ] _Copyright by Plimoth Plantation, Inc., and the Pilgrim Society_, 1953 HENRY F. HOWE is author of _Prologue to New England_, New York, 1943, and _Salt Rivers of the Massachusetts Shore_, New York, 1951, both published by Rinehart & Co., Inc. Much of the material here presented is condensed from these volumes. The cover decoration, which is reproduced from the London 1614 translation of Bartholomew Pitiscus, _Trigonometry: or the doctrine of triangles_, shows not only early seventeenth century ships but seamen using a cross-staff and casting a lead. _Printed in offset by The Meriden Gravure Company, Meriden, Connecticut_ _Composition by The Anthoensen Press, Portland, Maine_ _Early Explorers of Plymouth Harbor_, 1525–1619 Visitors to Plymouth are often amazed to learn that the _Mayflower_ was not the first vessel to drop anchor in Plymouth Harbor. The “stern and rock-bound coast” of Massachusetts was in fact explored by more than twenty recorded expeditions before the arrival of the Pilgrims. At least six of these sailed into Plymouth Harbor. Plymouth appeared on five good maps of the Massachusetts coast by 1616, one of them a detailed map of Plymouth Harbor itself, made by Samuel de Champlain in 1605. The Harbor had been successively called Whitson Bay, the Port du Cap St. Louis, and Cranes Bay by English, French and Dutch explorers, but the name _Plimouth_, bestowed on it by Captain John Smith in 1614, was the one the Pilgrims perpetuated.