Venture Out to Braintree's Thayer House, Plymouth Rock and the Derby Street Shops [VIDEO]

Up for a quick trip? Head to Braintree, a mere 15-minute drive from Canton.

Across from in Braintree, behind the rusted cannon, is a home built way back in 1720. It was constructed by Nathaniel Thayer, was added to over the years, and is best known as the birthplace of General Sylvanus Thayer, "The Father of West Point" and namesake of , also nearby.

Today the house is owned and operated by the as it was in the late 18th century, for visitors on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Saturdays are particularly special, with costumed tour guides available, but each tour brings comprehensive and stimulating information about the times.

"You really get to see 1785," as BHS program director Norah Kyle put it on a recent tour.

"Sixty percent of the major timbers of the house are original," BHS reports on its website. In addition, replacements were made with the same types of tools of old, using the same kind of wood. "The house contains a wide variety of furnishings, cooking and dining implements and other items that would likely be found in a middle class American country home of the late 18th or early 19th century."

Please enjoy our multimedia tour of the Thayer House. And note that the video tour is just a portion of what visitors can see and experience on multiple levels in the home.

For a short road trip from Canton, head to Hingham.

One of the finest shopping areas of the South Shore sits right off Route 3 in Hingham at the , a less-than-30-minute drive from Canton.

Made up of 78 retailers, including clothing stores, delicious restaurants and boutique shops, visitors like Derby Street because it accommodates shoppers of all ages.

“They have ice cream, they have cake, they have all kind of great shops to go into,” said Jackie Dowding, a Hingham mother.  “The kids get to walk around and they have some of their favorite places to go. We just love it.”

Besides the variety of stores on Derby Street, tourists can visit the "Serenity Garden" located behind Barnes & Noble, and the “Hidden Pond” behind Burton’s Grille for a quiet place to take a break from shopping or to have a picnic lunch. The Derby Street Shoppes also have a bocce court in the summer months and a skating area during the winter.

Pack up the car and take a day trip to check out Plymouth. In less than an hour, you will be ready to explore the South Shore.

What does really mean?

The most common response from people who view Plymouth Rock for the first time–"That's it?"

It is not an impressive rock. So why do people travel to see it? Most do not know why. Once nothing more than the foundation for a wharf, it serves as a reminder of the foundation of the country.

Good arguments exist that at least some of the Mayflower voyagers stepped onto this piece of rock on their way to the first deadly winter in Plymouth. It occupied a spot on the coastline that, at high tide, might make a good place to step from a boat to the shore. At low tide, anyone would choose the adjacent beach.

But, no one considered it. The first of the passengers to come ashore in Plymouth did so in what is now North Plymouth. An expeditionary group crossed Cape Cod Bay in a small boat and clearly described where they set foot on land, three miles north of Plymouth Rock. They sailed and rowed back to end of Cape Cod and reported they had found a good spot.

The Mayflower sailed across the bay and the same small boat, ferried the healthiest passengers to shore, Dec. 21, 1620, the middle of a harsh New England winter. Did ice cover the rock? Did icy water make it a more attractive spot to step on?

We have only the testimony of Elder Faunce. When, in the 18th century, a group of shippers proposed building a new wharf, Faunce objected. Sympathetic townspeople brought the old man to the waterfront in a chair. He pointed to the rock and declared his grandfather told him his ancestors stepped onto the shore via the rock.

The town had such affection for the artifact: It built the wharf with the rock as a part of the foundation. The rock has travelled about town, adopted by a variety of causes. Revolutionaries wrested it from the wharf, leaving half of it behind, and leaned it on a tree in Town Square. The Pilgrim Hall Museum claimed it, put it inside a portico too small for its already reduced girth, chipped away and began to make it a national monument. In 1921, for the 400th anniversary of the landing, a year late, the town reunited the top portion to the bottom part where it sits today under a grand granite canopy.

Cities and towns across the country have pieces of Plymouth Rock, some as large as the piece that sits under the grand canopy in Plymouth.

The rock means nothing. Itis a granite composite stone dropped here by the last ice age that has been chipped away at for three centuries.

Wherever they stepped ashore, the Mayflower voyagers did so knowing they had a chance against their bad odds because they had signed the "Mayflower Compact."

The 102 passengers split 50/50, the church members naming the two groups "saints and strangers." The "saints" wanted to separate from the Church of England and have the freedom to establish their own minimalist religion. The "strangers" helped pay for the trip and wanted an opportunity to escape the old world for the promise of the new.

Young William Bradford, with Plimoth Colony Governor John Carver, drafted a brief agreement between the two groups. It declares they will govern themselves in a "bodie politick." That was the first act of democracy in the New World.

Carver would die within weeks. Bradford would succeed him as the longest serving governor of Plimoth Colony, the second colony of what would become the United States.

The original document was lost long ago. The rock, or a piece of it, remains as a reminder.

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