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 624 PLYMOUTH The town has a fire department, water works, six hotels, two national banks with a joint cap- ital of $450,000, two savings banks with about $2,500,000 deposits, one high, three grammar, and 22 graded schools, three private schools, two weekly newspapers, and 16 religious soci- eties. It is a place of considerable summer resort. Plymouth is the oldest town in New England. The pilgrim fathers landed here Dec. 11 (O. S.), 1620. A portion of the rock on which they first stepped has been placed in front of Pilgrim hall and surrounded by an iron fence. The rock itself is in Water street, and is covered by a handsome granite canopy. The national monument to the pilgrims, the corner stone of which was laid Aug. 1, 1859, will be ready by October, 1875, to receive the colossal statue of " Faith " by which it is to be surmounted. PLYMOUTH, a town and the capital of Wash- ington co., North Carolina, situated on a small creek, a few miles S. of Roanoke river, where it enters into Albemarle sound, 105 m. E. of Kaleigh; pop. in 1870, 1,389, of whom 807 were colored. Early in 1862 Plymouth, with the neighboring region, fell into the hands. of Burnside's North Carolina expedition, and was retained till April, 1864, when it was invested by the confederates under Gen. Hoke. On the 20th the iron-clad ram Albemarle ran down the river, sunk one Union gunboat at Ply- mouth, and drove off the other. The garrison, 1,600 strong, being cut off from communica- tion with the fleet, surrendered after a severe conflict, in which the confederates lost heavily. On May 5 the Albemarle, with a tender, emerged from the river, and at- tacked the Union gun- boats in the sound, but was driven back, her tender being captured. On the 25th an un- successful attempt was made to destroy the Al- bemarle by a torpedo. In October Lieut. W. B. Gushing formed a plan to blow up this vessel, which at that time formed the prin- cipal defence of Ply- mouth. On the 27th, with a party of 13 men, he embarked in a tor- pedo boat, crept up the river, put the torpedo in place, set fire to it just as he was discov- ered, and entirely de- stroyed the Albemarle. His boat was filled with water flung up by the explosion. He and his men sprang overboard and tried to swim to the shore amid a fire of musketry. Of his party all but himself and one companion were killed or captured. Though slightly wounded, he gained the shore, hid himself until night in the thickets, and then found a skiff in which after eight hours' pad- dling he reached the Union vessels at the mouth of the river. On the 81st the fleet was moved up the river, and Plymouth was occu- pied without resistance, the confederate force in North Carolina having gone to Virginia. PLYMOUTH, a fortified seaport of Devon- shire, England, at the head of the sound of the same name, on the river Plym, 190 m. W. S. W. of London; pop. in 1871, 68,080. The sound, about 3 m. long by 3 m. wide, is an in- let of the English channel, and receives the estuaries of the Plym and the Tamar. Its coast is generally rocky and abrupt, and the rocky island of St. Nicholas rises out of the water at its head, near the N. shore. On the W. side is Cawsand bay; and further up in the N. W. corner of the sound is the estuary of the Tamar, which is called Hamoaze, and forms the harbor for ships of war. The estuary of the Plym or Laira forms another harbor, which is called Catwater ; it is capable of containing 1,000 ordinary vessels, and is generally used as a harbor for merchant ships and transports. The Catwater opens into the N. E. corner of the sound, and is not so deep as Hamoaze. Button pool is a tide harbor, also used by mer- chant vessels ; and a pier at Mill Bay, on the opposite side of the town, accommodates the largest steamships at all states of the tide. The harbor of Hamoaze is 4 m. long, has moor- ings for nearly 100 sail of the line, and 15 fathoms of water at ebb tide. A breakwater 1,700 yards long protects the sound against gales from the southward. (See BKEAKWATEE.) Guildhall, Plymouth. Taken in its widest sense, the name Ply- mouth comprehends what are called the " Three Towns," viz., Plymouth proper, Devonport, the seat of the great naval dockyard and ar- senal, and Stonehouse. Plymouth proper is very thriving and handsome, covering about 1