A Storied Brooklyn Church Holds a Treasure That Dates Back to The Pilgrim's Very First Thanksgiving

On a quiet street in a quiet Brooklyn neighborhood sits Plymouth Church, a storied institution which holds a treasure dating straight back to the nation's beginnings and the very first Thanksgiving.

Follow Lois Rosebrook, the church historian, down an old hallway built by a deceased Williamsburg coffee baron, to perhaps the largest chunk of the Plymouth Rock, outside Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Here's how this piece of the "door stone of American Liberty" came to rest so far from the Atlantic shore.

Here's the Story of Brooklyn's Own Piece of the Plymouth Rock:

Beyond Plymouth Church's ownership of this significant token of American history, the church has also come to share in great American moments.

For decades it was the home of the silver-tongued abolitionist, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. His sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, was a member and visited often. The church enjoyed visits from Abraham Lincoln, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Several of its congregants joined Mark Twain on his famous journey to the Holy Land memorialized his book, The Innocents Abroad.

Perhaps the church's moment of which Rosebrook and the congregation is most proud, however, is the role it played in the Underground Railroad, helping escaped slaves flee to Canada to freedom. It was such a nexus of the abolition movement it became known as the Grand Central Depot of the Underground Railroad.

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