Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor 2020 Forever Postage Stamps Self-Adhesive Sheet for Commemorative Mail

This commemorative stamp marks the 400th anniversary of the arrival of 102 English passengers off the coast of today’s Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620. The passengers on the Mayflower would become known to us as Pilgrims, and the story of their colony in America would inspire future generations and become part of the larger story of the nation’s founding ideals.

Artist Greg Harlin illustrated the stamp, using a combination of watercolor, gouache, and acrylics, with some digital refining to convey a scene of desolate beauty at the end of the Pilgrims’ harrowing journey to an unfamiliar world. The stamp also features a stylized hawthorn flower printed in intaglio. In England, the hawthorn — a member of the rose family — is sometimes called a mayflower, as it blooms in May.