Plymouth memories of an octogenarian

by William T. Davis

Plymouth Memories of an Octogenarian, published in 1906, is the recollection of William T. Davis, a lawyer and local historian born in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1822. Rather than retell the Pilgrim story, which he had covered in earlier books, Davis sets down what he himself saw and heard over eighty years: the streets, wharves and houses of the old town, its shipowners, ministers, schoolmasters and eccentrics, the coming of the railroad, the Pilgrim Society celebrations, and the gossip and anecdote that attach to every corner of a small New England port. He writes, as his preface says, to rescue from oblivion what dies with a witness, and the result is an unhurried, affectionate record of a town across the nineteenth century. The full text is available to read online in your browser on Vinteuil, and the first chapter is free.