The character of Plymouth’s industrial life has entirely changed within a half century. Within the memory of men now living, the time was when the town boasted a fleet of seventy-five fishermen, and enjoyed prestige as a fishing port. In common with other seaport towns of New England, this industry has departed, but thriving manufactories have risen in its place and coal barges and steamships are doing business at the port, superseding the old fishing schooners which once crowded the wharves or whitened the harbor with their sails.

Plymouth’s manufacturing industries show great diversity of character, and are exceedingly prosperous. The yearly value of their total product is not far from fifteen million dollars. The great cordage works at North Plymouth are the very largest concern of the kind in the world, employing above 2,000 hands, and have built up a flourishing corporation hamlet in that quarter of the town. Their manufacturing product is over $10,000,000 a year, and their big steamships bringing from Yucatan directly to Plymouth great cargoes of fibre as raw material, give the port, as one of foreign import, rank in Massachusetts over all other ports of the state directly next to Boston. There are three large mills engaged in the production of woolen and worsted cloths, one busy concern making rugs and mats, while three extensive factories keep many of Plymouth’s inhabitants employed in the manufacture of tacks, nails, and rivets. An iron foundry does a large business in stovemaking, and at Chiltonville there is a big branch plant of the Boston Woven Hose and Rubber Company, under Plymouth management which supports quite a village of its own. Besides these are the manufactories of insulated wire for electrical purposes, zinc and copper, saw gummers and swages, barrels, boxes, kegs and kits, and numerous smaller enterprises. The Plymouth Electric Light and Power Company furnishes current to several of these establishments, besides sending current to Kingston, Duxbury and Marshfield, Middleboro and Carver for domestic and street lighting. It also lights Plymouth, having in its circuits of the several towns, nearly 40 miles of wire. The Cape Cod Canal, on both sides for its entire length, is illuminated by the P. E. L. Co., through a special system of heavy aerial conductors comprising a circuit of about 30 miles.

Plymouth’s manufactured products bear an excellent name in the markets of the world, her cordage and woolen goods being particularly well known as of the very best character.

In 1912 the town granted to Andrew Kerr a large area of the sand flats in the harbor for propagation of clams, proving a good enterprise for the town. The herring fishery, employing many small boats each autumn at the mouth of the harbor, is also a productive industry of many thousands of dollars a season.

Of late years many Plymouth residents have engaged in cranberry culture on an extensive scale, and their ventures have been exceedingly profitable, amounting to about $400,000 yearly. Together with the adjoining town of Carver, which is still more extensively engaged in cranberry raising, the two towns produce more than one-fourth of the cranberries grown in the entire United States. An industry, which is of large proportions, is the raising of brook trout and spawn for the markets.

The recent harbor improvements, and the railroad facilities which will necessarily be increased in 1920, together with the attention being centered on Plymouth in its connection with the approaching Tercentenary Celebration will be likely to attract other manufacturing and business interests to the town, while its residential advantages are so apparent, that its eligible locations are now rapidly being appropriated.