"What constitutes a state?
Not high raised battlements or labored mound,
Thick walls or moated gate."
Plymouth is the American Mecca. It does not contain the tomb of the Prophet, but the Rock of the Forefathers, their traditions, and their graves. The first impressions of a stranger are disappointing, for the oldest town in New England looks as fresh as if built within the century. There is not much that is suggestive of the old life to be seen there. Except the hills, the haven, and the sea, there is nothing antique; save a few carefully cherished relics, nothing that has survived the day of the Pilgrims.
Somehow monuments—and Plymouth is to be well furnished in the future—do not compensate for the absence of living facts. The house of William Bradford would have been worth more to me than any of them. Even the rusty iron pot and sword of Standish are more satisfying to the common run of us than the shaft they are building on Captain's Hill to his memory. They, at least, link us to the personality of the man. And with a sigh that it was so—for I had hoped otherwise—I was obliged to admit that Old Plymouth had been rubbed out, and that I was too late by a century at least to realize my ideal.
A, Joanna Davis House—Cole's Hill; B, Plymouth Rock and Wells's Store; C, Universalist Church; D, First Church; E, Church of the Pilgrimage; F, Post-office—Site of Governor Bradford's House; G, Samuel D. Holmes's House—Site of Common House; H, Town Square; I, Town-house; J, Court-house Square.
1, Court Street; 2, North Street; 3, Middle Street; 4, Leyden Street; 5, Main Street; 6, Water Street; 7, Market Street.
The most impressive thing about Plymouth is its quiet; though I would not have the reader think it deserted. There are workshops and factories, but I did not suspect their vicinity. Even the railway train slips furtively in and out, as if its rumbling might awaken the slumbering old sea-port. Although the foundation of a commonwealth, the town, as we see, has not become one of the centres of traffic. It has shared the fate of Salem, in having its commercial marrow sucked out by a metropolis "opulent, enlarged, and still increasing," leaving the first-born of New England nothing but her glorious past, and the old fires still burning on her altars.
Court Street is a pleasant and well-built thoroughfare. It runs along the base of three of the hills on whose slopes the town lies, taking at length the name of Main, which it exchanges again beyond the town square for Market Street. If you follow Court Street northwardly, you will find it merging in a country road that will conduct you to Kingston; if you pursue it with your face to the south, you will in due time arrive at Sandwich. Trees, of which there is a variety, are the glory of Court Street. I saw in some streets magnificent lindens, horse-chestnuts, and elms branching quite across them; and in the areas such early flowering shrubs as forsythia, spiræa, pyrus japonica, and lilac.
Many houses are old, but there are none left of the originals; nor any so peculiar as to demand description. On some of the most venerable the chimneys are masterpieces of masonry, showing curious designs, or, in some instances, a stack of angular projections. The chimney of Governor Bradford's house is said to have been furnished with a sun-dial.