  {Illustrated capital} On a 100-acre tract, formerly part of the beautiful Hornblower estate, a replica of the Pilgrim First Street (now Leyden Street) with its original nineteen thatched dwellings is being erected under the auspices of Plimoth Plantation, Inc. When complete the project will have cost an estimated million dollars. Nearby, in a bend in the Eel River, is the permanent anchorage of the Mayflower II, an exact reproduction of the original Pilgrim ship, built and financed by popular subscription in England. The idea of reproducing a full-size, 92-foot 180-ton Mayflower replica was conceived during the North African fighting in World War II by a Londoner, Warwick Charlton. His dream was to memorialize the common heritage of English-speaking peoples, and to express his country’s gratitude for American aid in times of great stress. Mayflower II was constructed of English oak and Oregon pine at an ancient shipyard in Brixham, Devon, using plans drawn up, after five years of research, by William A. Baker, shipyard executive with Bethlehem Steel. More than a quarter million English people contributed shillings and pence to the Project Mayflower fund. PLIMOTH PLANTATION IN SOUTH PLYMOUTH
The Pilgrim village is located on a park-like site sloping up from Eel River. When complete it will include a trading post, grist mill, Indian village, and a fort meeting house, as well as dwellings identical with those occupied by Governor Bradford, Elder Brewster, Myles Standish, John Alden, and the rest. The work is being supervised by Charles R. Strickland, Plimoth Plantation architect. The Plantation homes are designed to have the vertical planked siding, thatched roofs, and sheepskin parchment windows of Tudor times. They are being furnished with trestle tables, benches, trundle beds, sea chests, and the like. Women in costume working at old looms will weave linsey-woolsey, and dye it with butternut hull and hemlock bark decoctions. Mayflower II comes to its permanent berth in the Eel River after an Atlantic crossing, and exhibitions at New York and elsewhere, under the command of Alan Villiers, of grain-ship fame. The ship will symbolize the wellsprings of American democracy. It will vividly recall the ideas forever shrined in the Compact, whereby the little company of dissenters bound themselves to live together by the law and under God. All America will want to see how their nation was cradled, and so more keenly appreciate the noble tradition to which they are heir. |
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