New Bedford is one of the oldest towns in the United States, dating back to 1652, when settlers from the Plymouth Colony purchased it from the Wampanoag Native American tribe. The area was first explored by Europeans fifty years prior to that, when a British ship landed in Cape Cod. New Bedford played an important role in the development of the area, and was a popular destination for immigrants from all over Europe. In the novel Moby-Dick, Herman Melville wrote that it was the dearest place to live in, in all New England. A major whaling center in Melville's time, New Bedford was recently mentioned in national headlines when a fragment of a nineteenth century bomb lance possibly manufactured in the town was found in a whale off the coast Alaska. In 1838, the freedman and abolitionist Frederick Douglas settled in New Bedford, which had a small but active African-American community in the mid-19th century. Today, New Bedford is a fascinating destination for visitors with an interest in American history.
