It was in the month of December in 1620 that the Pilgrim Fathers landed on Plymouth Rock and proceeded to establish the first permanent white settlement in New England. But the Pilgrims had not set out for America to establish their new home in New England-far from it-they had a charter permitting their settlement in the northern portion of the Virginia plantation, and it was toward Virginia that the little band of passengers aboard the Mayflower thought they were heading. The story of how they happened to come to the stern and rockbound coast of New England and of how they happened to stay there and carve out of the wilderness a great commonwealth is told here.