Forefathers' Day

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Forefathers' Day is a holiday celebrated in Plymouth, Massachusetts. It is celebrated on December 21, the day the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, the event the holiday commemorates.

The background of Forefathers' day, is when James I came to the throne, and he adopted a moderate Protestant religious policy. Both Catholics and Puritans were forbidden to practice their religions. Many extreme Puritans left England and fled to Holland where Puritanism was accepted.

In 1607 Walter Raleigh had founded the English colony of Virginia in America and companies had begun trading between the colony and England.

Forefathers' Day is a well known and well celebrated holiday in Plymouth. Forefathers Day is also known as when the Pilgrim Fathers landed on Plymouth Colony on December 21st and established their own living Government.

Thirty-five members of the radical, Puritan, English Separatist Church, who had fled to Holland to avoid persecution, were recruited by an English Stock Company to go to Virginia to protect their business interests. The Stock Company financed the venture which, when it left England, included 102 men, women, and children.