from Richard II. In 1435 sixty-five cargoes were imported, and in the reign of Elizabeth it rose to be the foremost port in England. The 18th century saw a great development of trade with Virginia and the West Indies, resulting in the establishment of a sugar-refining industry that was maintained until a recent date.
In 1749 the “town’s water” was carried to the Barbican to supply shipping. The port of Plymouth, as at present constituted, embraces “the waters of Plymouth Sound and the Hamoaze, including all bays, creeks, lakes, pools, ponds and rivers as far as the tide flows within or to the northward of a straight line drawn across the entrance of Plymouth Sound from Penlee Point on the west to the Shagstone on the east.” The chief water area within the limits of the port is the Sound with its inlets, the Catwater (200 acres), Sutton Pool, Mill Bay, Stonehouse Pool and the Hamoaze. The Sound itself covers an area of 4500 acres and is sheltered from south-west gales by the breakwater completed in 1841 at a cost of 112 million sterling. It lies 212 m. south of the Hoe, and is nearly a mile long, 360 ft. wide at the base and 45 ft. at the top. Its cants bend inwards at angles of 120° at the western end is a lighthouse and at the eastern extremity is a pyramidal beacon with a cage capable of accommodating several men.
The town is served by the Great Western and the London & South-Western railways. The former company has a main line entering from the west through Devonport and going east to Exeter having Dartmoor on the west; the latter com any has a terminal station in the eastern quarter of the town, and its route to Exeter is by way of the Tamar valley, and the western and northern moorland districts.
The industries of Plymouth include soap manufacture, preparation of artificial manure and sulphuric acid and paper staining. The water supply, inaugurated by Drake in 1590, and drawn from the Dartmoor watershed, is the most important municipal undertaking. The service of electricity both for lighting and tramway traction is in the hands of the town, but the gasworks belong to a private company.
Plymouth, the Suton of Domesday, was afterwards divided into the town of Sutton Prior, the hamlet of Sutton Valletort and the tithing of Sutton Ralph, the greater part belonging to the priory of Plympton. The market, established about 1253, became in 1311 town property, with the mayor as clerk of the market. In 1292 the town first returned members to parliament. In the 14th century it was frequently the port of embarkation and of disembarkation in connexion with expeditions to France, and suffered considerably at the hands of the French. In 1412 the inhabitants petitioned for a charter, which, after strenuous opposition from the priors of Plympton, was granted by Henry VI. in 1439. In the discovery of the New World it played a part of great importance. Cockeram, a native of the town, sailed with John Cabot in 1497. Sir John Hawkins and his father William were also natives, the former being port admiral and (in 1571) M.P. From Plymouth in 1577 Drake set out on his voyage round the world; in 1581 he became mayor and represented the borough in parliament during 1592-1593. Sir Humphrey Gilbert (M.P. 1571) sailed on his second colonizing expedition to America in 1583 from the port, and hither Drake brought the remnant of Raleigh’s Virginian colony. Plymouth supplied seven ships against the Armada, and it was in the Sound that the English fleet awaited the sighting of the Spaniards A stone on a quay at the Barbican records the fact that this was the last port touched by the Pilgrim Fathers on their voyage to America.
During the Civil War Plymouth was closely invested by the Royalists, whose great defeat is commemorated by the monument at Freedom Park. It was the only town in the west that never fell into their hands. It early declared for William of Orange, in whose reign the neighbouring dockyard was begun.
Authorities.—Histories of Plymouth by Jewitt and Worth; Wright’s Plymouth with its Surroundings and Story of Plymouth; Whitfeld, Plymouth and Devonport, in times of War and Peace, Municipal Records (Plymouth Corporation); Worth, "Notes on Early History of Stonehouse" (Plymouth Instit. Proc.). (H. G. de W.)
PLYMOUTH, a township and the county-seat of Plymouth
county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., in the south-eastern part of
the state, on Plymouth Bay, about 37 m. S.E. of Boston. Pop.
(1905) 11,119; (1910) 12,141. It is served by the New York, New
Haven & Hartford railway, by inter-urban electric lines and
in summer by steamers to Boston. The harbour is well sheltered
but generally shallow; it has been considerably improved by
the United States government and also by the state, which
in 1909 was making a channel 18 ft. deep and 150 ft. wide from
deep water to one of the township’s wharves. The township
has an area of 107·3 sq. m., is 18 m. long on the water front and
is from 5 to 9 m. wide. Plymouth is a popular resort for visitors,
having, in addition to its wealth of historic associations and
a healthy summer climate, thousands of acres of hilly woodland
and numerous lakes and ponds well stocked with fish. Morton
Park contains 200 acres of woodland bordering the shores of
Billington Sea (a freshwater lake).
Few, if any, other places in America contain so many interesting landmarks as Plymouth. The famous Plymouth Rock, a granite boulder on which the Pilgrims are said to have landed from the shallop of the “Mayflower,” lies on the harbour shore near the site of the first houses built on Leyden Street, and is now sheltered by a granite canopy. Rising above the Rock is Cole’s Hill, where during their first winter in America the Pilgrims buried half their number, levelling the graves and sowing grain over them in the spring in order to conceal their misfortunes from the Indians. Some human bones found on this hill when the town waterworks were built in 1855 have been placed in a chamber in the top of the canopy over the Rock. Burial Hill (originally called Fort Hill, as it was first used for defensive purposes) contains the graves of several Pilgrims and of many of their descendants. The oldest stone bears the date 1681; many of the stones were made in England, and bear quaint inscriptions. Here also are a tablet marking the location of the old fort (1621), which was also used as a place of worship, a tablet showing the site of the watch-tower built in 1643, and a marble obelisk erected in 1825 in memory of Governor William Bradford. Pilgrim Hall, a large stone building erected by the Pilgrim Society (formed in Plymouth in 1820 as the successor of the Old Colony Club, founded in 1769) in 1824 and remodelled in 1880, is rich in relics of the Pilgrims and of early colonial times, and contains a portrait of Edward Winslow (the only extant portrait of a “Mayflower” passenger), and others of later worthies, and paintings illustrating the history of the Pilgrims; the hall library contains many old and valuable books and manuscripts — including Governor Bradford’s Bible, a copy of Eliot’s Indian Bible, and the patent of 1621 from the Council for New England — and Captain Myles Standish’s sword. The national monument to the Forefathers, designed by Hammatt Billings, and dedicated on the 1st of August 1889, thirty years after its corner-stone was laid, stands in the northern part of the town. It is built entirely of granite. On a main pedestal, 45 ft. high, stands a figure, 36 ft. high, representing the Pilgrim Faith. From the main pedestal project four buttresses, on which are seated four monolith figures representing Morality, Education, Law, and Freedom. On the faces of the buttresses below the statues are marble alto-reliefs illustrating scenes from the early history of the Pilgrims. On high panels between the buttresses are the names of the passengers of the “Mayflower.” The court-house was built in 1820, and was remodelled in 1857. From it have been transferred to the fireproof building of the Registry of Deeds many interesting historical documents, among them the records of the Plymouth colony, the will of Myles Standish, and the original patent of the 23rd of January 1630 (N.S.).
Modern Plymouth has varied and important manufactures comprising cordage, woollens, rubber goods, &c. In 1905 the total value of the factory products was $11,115,713, the worsted goods and cordage constituting about nine-tenths of the whole product. The cordage works are among the largest in the world, and consume immense quantities of sisal fibre imported from Mexico and manila from the Philippine Islands; binder-twine
