A fact from Council for New England appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 28 February 2004. The text of the entry was as follows:
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The Plymouth Council for New England did not grant a patent to the Plymouth Colony, as the Council only received its royal patent in November 1620, when the Mayflower was already arriving in the area north of Cape Cod. Its patent was from the London Company of Virginia, which had founded Jamestown. They planned to settle around what is now New York Harbor, as the London Virginia Companiy's charter gave it rights to settle as far north as the 41st parallel (which runs north of most of Long Island and through Manhattan Island. As they were forced to settle in the area of what became called Massachusetts Bay, they had no English patent (land grant) for their settlement. The Massachusetts Bay Colony initially got a grant from the Plymouth Council for New England in 1628 but then sought its own direct royal grant as the Massachusetts Bay Company. It received its royal grant in March 1629 (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Bay_Colony#Legal_formation_of_the_colony) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chilangabacho (talk • contribs) 20:01, 20 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
