Plimoth Patuxet

Henry Hornblower II, son of Ralph Hornblower, started the museum in 1947 with help and support from friends, family, and business associates as two English cottages and a fort on Plymouth's waterfront. Since then, the museum has grown to include the Mayflower II, a 1957 replica of the Mayflower, the English Village (1959), the Wampanoag Homesite (1973), the Hornblower Visitor Center (1987), the Craft Center (1992), the Maxwell and Nye Barns (1994), and the Plimoth Grist Mill (2013). Alongside the settlement is a recreation of a Wampanoag home site, where Indians from a variety of tribes explain and demonstrate how the Wampanoags' ancestors lived.

The museum grounds at Plimoth Patuxet also include Nye Barn where historical breeds of livestock are kept, a crafts center where many objects are created for use in the village exhibits, a cinema where educational videos are shown, a Colonial Education site for youth and adult groups, and a visitors' center with indoor exhibits and educational programs. The two houses on the Colonial Education site were built for the PBS show Colonial House, which was filmed in Maine. Following the filming, the museum disassembled the houses and reconstructed them at on their current site. The roof of the Cooke House was destroyed by a fire from a fireplace on November 19, 2011, and the building had to be demolished.

Mayflower II is docked near Plymouth Rock and is also under the care of the museum. Museum employees in modern dress interpret history to guests from a third-person perspective.

Name change

In July 2020, officials announced that the museum would be renamed, noting that their plan, "for some time, has been to announce a new name for the Museum later this year as we commemorate the 400th anniversary (1620–2020) of the Pilgrims' arrival on the shores of historic Patuxet." It coincided with a wave of name changes caused by the George Floyd protests that year meant to be more inclusive. While the word "plantation" historically referred to a type of colony, and this was the sense intended for Plimoth Plantation, it soon came to refer to a type of farming estate established to grow cash crops, and in the modern era has become popularly associated with those plantations that employed slave labor, especially in the South. Officials stated that discussions had been ongoing for more than a year to assess whether the existing name reflected "the full, multivalent history that is at the core of the museum's mission." While a new name was not yet revealed, the museum began using a new logo that read "Plimoth Patuxet" instead of "Plimoth Plantation".