The Pilgrim Fathers disillusioned with life in England famously set off for The New World in 1620 on board the Mayflower. There were 78 men and 24 women on board the vessel captained by Christopher Jones. They landed at Cape Cod in Massachusetts and named it New Plymouth. Not all was well as reported by William Bradford in his diary of events and just a couple of months into the American winter around half of the Pilgrims were already dead due to the effects of the cold and inadequate housing conditions the fathers had built. Bradford also recorded that a native called Squanto showed them how to sow maize and cultivate the crop and that by the following summer the Pilgrims had recovered health, got plentiful supplies of food and built better housing.

Due to the unfriendliness of some of the locals, the Pilgrims built a wall around their housing which by 1622 had developed into a Fort.

Over the next few years life in England as a puritan became difficult and as such more and more puritans left for the New World colony. By 1630 sufficient numbers had landed in the colony to establish the Massachusetts Bay Company and the city of Boston. Shipbuilding, Fishing, Farming and trade became the staples for a successful community.