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Arms and Armor of the Pilgrims, 1620-1692 cover

Arms and Armor of the Pilgrims, 1620-1692

Chapter 7: PLIMOTH PLANTATION
By Harold L. Peterson
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About This Book

A detailed study of the weaponry and protective gear used by early New England colonists, organized into defensive armor, edged weapons, and projectile arms. It catalogs helmet forms such as the cabasset, morion, burgonet and pikeman’s pot, and describes corselets, gorgets, breastplates, tassets and complete pikeman’s suits, including testing marks and surface finishes. The text explains how armor thickness corresponded to pike, pistol or musket threats, how firearms also supplied food and trade goods, and how practical needs and mobility led colonists to move from heavy plate toward buff leather and quilted protection over time.

PLIMOTH PLANTATION

Plimoth Plantation was founded in 1948 as a non-profit educational organization to foster public understanding of the Pilgrims of Plymouth. To this end the corporate organization, Plimoth Plantation, is re-creating the Plimoth Plantation of 1627, the farming community from which sprang the Old Colony of New Plymouth. It is a functioning village, over half completed (in 1969), in which guides and hostesses in Pilgrim dress carry on the tasks necessary for daily living and sheep and chickens wander the narrow street. It is open to the public from April through November and is visited by more than 250,000 people per year.

The Plantation also owns and exhibits two re-created Pilgrim houses near Plymouth Rock, the Mayflower II and a small sailing craft—a Shallop—of the type used by the Pilgrims for coastal trading.

These public exhibits are backed by a strong research and publication program covering the European background of the Pilgrim story to the end of the 17th century.

The Plantation seeks the support of all who wish to help perpetuate the Pilgrim tradition. Those interested in membership should address the Membership Director, Box 1620, Plymouth, Mass. 02360.