Plymouth, Mississippi

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Plymouth, Mississippi
Cemetery at Plymouth Mississippi.jpg
Cemetery at Plymouth
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Plymouth
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Plymouth
Coordinates: 33°31′23″N88°30′06″W / 33.52306°N 88.50167°W / 33.52306; -88.50167
Country United States
State Mississippi
County Lowndes
Elevation
210 ft (60 m)
Time zone UTC-6 (Central (CST))
  Summer (DST) UTC-5 (CDT)
GNIS feature ID710094 [1]
Plymouth, Mississippi
USA Mississippi location map.svg
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Usa edcp location map.svg
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Nearest city Columbus, Mississippi
Area210 acres (85 ha)
NRHP reference No. 80002288 [2]
Added to NRHPApril 22, 1980

Plymouth was an early settlement in Mississippi in present-day Lowndes County. Plymouth was located on the west bank of the Tombigbee River at the mouth of Tibbee Creek. [3]

Contents

History

Local tradition holds that Hernando de Soto camped near the site Plymouth and Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville erected a fort here in his campaign against the Chickasaw. [4] The community of Plymouth was formed around 1819, developing around the fortified house of John Pitchlynn, the U.S. interpreter for the Choctaw Agency. Pitchlynn's home was surrounded by a stockade during the Creek War and was known as Fort Smith, in honor of Captain George Smith. Smith served under Colonel John McKee, who used Fort Smith as a base to carry out attacks on the Red Sticks who lived along the Black Warrior River. [5]

Multiple stores and cotton warehouses were built in Plymouth. [4] The low-lying site of the village was prone to repeated flooding. While both Plymouth and its sister town of Columbus across the river had high bluffs, Plymouth's landing site did not have easy access to the bluff heights.

The community incorporated in 1836 and reached a peak population of 200. [3] After incorporating, street grids were laid off into squares. By the 1840s, the village site was abandoned, as most of the residents had moved across the river to the better site of Columbus. [4]

A post office operated under the name Plymouth from 1833 to 1855. [6]

The Plymouth Academy operated in Plymouth from 1837 to 1866. [7]

Today, the site of Plymouth is just west of John C. Stennis Lock and Dam on the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway. A 210-acre (85 ha) area was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. It includes a village site and a cemetery. [2]

Plymouth Bluff

Plymouth Bluff, just downstream of the village site, is now occupied by the Plymouth Bluff Environmental Center, operated by the Mississippi University for Women. [8] It occupies land owned by the Army Corps of Engineers. The complex serves as the local center for ecological studies, as well as a retreat and conference center. [9]

Multiple fossils have been found in the Bluffs, including a hadrosaur. [10]

Related Research Articles

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Lowndes County is a county on the eastern border of the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 58,879. Its county seat is Columbus. The county is named for U.S. Congressman William Jones Lowndes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Columbus, Mississippi</span> City in Mississippi, United States

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tombigbee River</span> River in Alabama and Mississippi, United States

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Stoddert</span> U.S. colonial fort (1799–1814) in present-day Mount Vernon, Alabama

Fort Stoddert, also known as Fort Stoddard, was a stockade fort in the U.S. Mississippi Territory, in what is today Alabama. It was located on a bluff of the Mobile River, near modern Mount Vernon, close to the confluence of the Tombigbee and Alabama Rivers. It served as the western terminus of the Federal Road which ran through Creek lands to Fort Wilkinson in Georgia. The fort, built in 1799, was named for Benjamin Stoddert, the secretary to the Continental Board of War during the American Revolution and Secretary of the Navy during the Quasi War. Fort Stoddert was built by the United States to keep the peace by preventing its own settlers in the Tombigbee District from attacking the Spanish in the Mobile District. It also served as a port of entry and was the site of a Court of Admiralty. While under the command of Captain Edmund P. Gaines, Aaron Burr was held as a prisoner at the fort after his arrest at McIntosh in 1807 for treason against the United States. In July 1813, General Ferdinand Claiborne brought the Mississippi Militia to Fort Stoddert as part of the Creek War. The 3rd Infantry Regiment was commanded by General Thomas Flournoy to Fort Stoddert following the Fort Mims massacre. The site declined rapidly in importance after the capture of Mobile by the United States in 1813 and the establishment of the Mount Vernon Arsenal in 1828.

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John Pitchlynn served as the official U.S. Interpreter at the Choctaw Agency during the early federal period. Of Scottish-American descent, he had been raised among the Choctaw people. He facilitated relations between the government of the United States and the Choctaw Nation. He was appointed by President George Washington after the United States achieved independence, and served through the administration of Andrew Jackson.

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References

  1. U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Plymouth (historical)
  2. 1 2 "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
  3. 1 2 "Plymouth". Historical Marker Database. Retrieved April 12, 2023.
  4. 1 2 3 Rowland, Dunbar (1907). Mississippi: Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions, and Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form (PDF). Vol. 2. Southern Historical Publishing Association. p. 438.
  5. Bunn, Mike; Williams, Clay (2010). Battle for the Southern Frontier: The Creek War and the War of 1812. Mount Pleasant, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing. p. 56. ISBN   9781625843814.
  6. "Lowndes County". Jim Forte Postal History. Retrieved April 12, 2023.
  7. "Plymouth Academy School Records, 1837-1866". Mississippi Digital Library. Retrieved April 12, 2023.
  8. U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Plymouth Bluff (historical)
  9. "Plymouth Bluff Environmental Center". Mississippi University for Women. Retrieved April 12, 2023.
  10. Ward, Rufus (March 13, 2021). "Ask Rufus: The Lost World of Plymouth Bluff". The Dispatch.