Plymouth

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Plymouth, town in Massachusetts, site of a 1620 settlement of English religious dissenters.Unlike the Puritans who founded Boston in 1630, these were separatists, believing in total separation from the corrupt Church of England. They became known as Pilgrims, as many had left England in 1608 for the more tolerant Netherlands. In 1619, however, concerned about the corrupting influence of Dutch prosperity, they secured from the Virginia Company a land patent in America. The Mayflower sailed from Southampton, England, in September 1620 with some one hundred colonists aboard, about sixty‐five of them Pilgrims. Their intended landfall was somewhere north of Jamestown, but by November storms had carried them far north, beyond the area where their patent was valid, to Massachusetts Bay. Concluding that the isolated location would discourage interference in their religious affairs, they settled on a protected harbor they called Plymouth. The Mayflower stayed through the winter; while still on board, the adult males signed the Mayflower Compact, the colony's basic governing framework.

More than half the population perished the first winter, but by the following autumn the survivors celebrated a day of thanksgiving with the local Indians, an event remembered in the present‐day Thanksgiving holiday. For the first generation, Plymouth provided what the founders sought: a place to practice their religion freely. Plymouth lost its independence in 1688 with the formation of the short‐lived Dominion of New England and was absorbed by the Massachusett Bay Colony in 1691. The often moving and quietly eloquent journal of the colony's first governor, William Bradford (1590–1657), published as Historie of Plimouth Plantation, ranks as a classic of early American literature.
See also Colonial Era; Literature: Colonial Era; New England; Puritanism.

Bibliography

John Demos , A Little Commonwealth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony, 1970.
John D. Seelye , Memory's Nation: The Place of Plymouth Rock, 1998.

Christopher Berkeley

Plymouth city (1991 pop. 238,583) and district, Devon, SW England, on Plymouth Sound. The three towns that Plymouth has comprised since 1914 are Plymouth, Stonehouse, and Devonport. Modern Plymouth is well situated on a peninsula between the estuaries of the Plym and Tamar rivers. The southern waterfront and adjacent promenade are called the Hoe. The city is an important port and naval base. Foodstuffs and raw materials are imported, and manufactures such as machine tools, precision instruments, and chemicals are exported. Other items traded are granite, marble, kaolin, and fish. In Stonehouse is a Royal Naval Hospital (1762). The Royal Marine Barracks and Naval Dockyard (1691) are in Devonport. In 1588 the port was the rendezvous of the anti-Armada fleet. From there Sir Francis Drake, Sir Richard Hawkins, Sir Walter Raleigh, and several later explorers set forth. It was the last port touched by the Mayflower before its American voyage. Plymouth was held by the parliamentarians for four years during the civil war, when the rest of Devon and Cornwall were royalist. The first English factory to make Chinese porcelain was established in Plymouth in 1768. A tablet commemorates the arrival in 1919 of the first transatlantic airplane. Among the principal points of interest on the Hoe are the old Royal Citadel (17th cent.), the upper part of Smeaton's lighthouse brought from Eddystone , an Armada memorial, and a naval war memorial. Also noteworthy are the marine-biological laboratories, the aquarium, the City Museum and Art Gallery, the Gothic guildhall, several 15th-, 16th-, and 17th-century churches, and the Roman Catholic cathedral. The Royal Naval Engineering College is in Devonport, and technical and teacher-training schools are located in Plymouth.

Plymouth1 Uninc. town (1990 pop. 45,608), seat of Plymouth co., SE Mass., on Plymouth Bay; founded 1620. Diverse light manufacturing is important to the economy. The town, with summer resort facilities and major historic attractions, has a large tourist industry. Its harbor, now used by fishing boats and leisure craft, was the scene of the famous landing by the Pilgrims in 1620, and Plymouth was the first permanent European settlement in New England (see Pilgrims ; Plymouth Colony ). Most famous of its many monuments is Plymouth Rock, returned to its original site in 1880; according to legend, the Pilgrims stepped on this boulder when disembarking from the Mayflower. The Mayflower II, a replica of the original ship, is moored there. The sites of the first houses are marked by tablets on Leyden St., the first street laid out by the Pilgrims. A number of 17th-century houses on nearby streets are maintained as museums. Cole's Hill and Burial Hill contain graves of many of the first settlers, and Pilgrim Hall has numerous valuable relics. Near the site of the original village is the 80-ft (24-m) granite National Monument to the Forefathers (1889). Nearby Plimoth Plantation is a re-creation of the early settlement. The town also has a wax museum and a marine museum and aquarium. Myles Standish State Forest is to the south.

Bibliography: See E. A. Stratton, Plymouth Colony (1987).

2 Village (1990 pop. 50,889), Hennepin co., SE Minn., NW of Minneapolis; inc. 1955. There is diversified manufacturing in Plymouth, which is a rapidly growing residential suburb of the twin cities of Minneapolis–St. Paul.

Plymouth owes its importance to the magnificent estuary into which drain the rivers Plym and Tamar. The original settlement was at Sutton, the name Plymouth being attached to the harbour. Sutton Prior was a borough in the 13th cent. and Plymouth developed from a small fishing village. By Leland's time, in the 1530s, it was ‘very large’ with ‘a goodly rode for great shippes’. The war against Spain in Elizabeth's reign brought Plymouth into national prominence. Drake and his colleagues sailed from the Hoe to defeat the Armada and Essex left in 1596 with his expedition against Cadiz. During the civil wars, Plymouth was of great strategic importance as a parliamentary bastion in a predominantly royalist region and resisted repeated attempts to subdue it. After the Restoration it increased with the growth of the navy. The royal citadel, to strengthen the defences, was begun in 1666 and the dockyard at Devonport was developed in William III's reign. In the course of the 18th cent., it passed Exeter in population, though Plymouth, Stonehouse, and Devonport were brought under one administration as late as 1914. As a vital naval base, within easy bombing range from occupied France, Plymouth suffered heavily in the Second World War, and the subsequent replanning did not command total enthusiasm. The population in 2002 was 250,000.

J. A. Cannon

Plymouth, Montserrat, Tobago, UK, USA 1. UK (England): formerly Sudtone, Sutton, and Plymmue ‘(Place at the) Mouth of the (River) Plym’ from mūtha ‘mouth’ and the river name which is itself a back‐formation from Plympton ‘Farmstead of the Plum Tree’ from the Old English plȳme and tūn. The first two names meant ‘Southern Farm’. The Plymouth Brethren, a Christian group founded c.1828, take their name from the city where their first centre was established.2. USA (Massachusetts): founded in 1620 as the first permanent European settlement in North America, the Colony of New Plymouth, and named after the port from which the settlers had sailed, Plymouth in England. At least seventeen states have cities with this name, many after the Massachusetts town.

Plymouth owes its importance to the magnificent estuary into which drain the rivers Plym and Tamar. The original settlement was at Sutton, the name Plymouth being attached to the harbour. By Leland's time, in the 1530s, it was ‘very large’ with ‘a goodly rode for great shippes’. During the civil wars, Plymouth was of great strategic importance as a parliamentary bastion in a predominantly royalist region and resisted repeated attempts to subdue it. After the Restoration it increased with the growth of the navy. As a vital naval base, within easy bombing range from occupied France, Plymouth suffered heavily in the Second World War, and the subsequent replanning did not command total enthusiasm.

Plymouth City and port on the Tamar estuary, Devon, sw England. In 1588, Sir Francis Drake set out from Plymouth to attack the Spanish Armada, and the Mayflower sailed for America from here in 1620. Plymouth was severely damaged by bombing in World War II. It is an important naval base, and has ferry links with France and Spain. Industries: China clay, machine tools, precision instruments. Pop. (1994 est.) 255,815.

Plymouth Plym. Plymmue 1230. ‘Mouth of the River Plym’. OE mūtha with a river-name formed from the next name by the process of ‘back-formation’.

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