Professor Conant Assists Plymouth restoration Work

Kenneth J. Conant '15, professor of Architecture, is helping build the town of Plymouth, as it looked in 1623.

A group of civic-minded Plymouth residents are behind the plan, which they hope will give tourists "something more satisfying than a stone on the beach" when they visit the old home of the Pilgrims.

The 20th-century version of the home town of Myles Standish, William Bradford, and John Alden will go up three miles from its original site, however, to avoid "doing violence" to present day Plymouth.

Historical Data

Conant has been gathering data for the Plymouth restorers, who have already erected one sample Pilgrim home. He remarked that Plymouth was a "rarity among historical sites in that it possesses its architectural birth certificate in the form of trustworthy documents and archeological research to prove the number, type, location, and ownership of the original dwellings."

The immediate goal of the Plymouth citizens is to have a scale model of the first settlement ready for exhibition by May 30. The finished reproduction will be on the line of the restoration of colonial Williamsburg in Virginia.