Plymouth Cordage Company

The Plymouth Cordage Company was a rope making company located in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The company, founded in 1824, had a large factory located on the Plymouth waterfront. By the late 19th century, the Plymouth Cordage Company had become the largest manufacturer of rope and twine in the world. The company specialized in ship rigging, and was chosen among other competitors in the early 1900s to manufacture the rope used on the USS Constitution.

The Plymouth Cordage Company served as the largest employer in Plymouth for over 100 years. It went out of business in 1964 after over 140 years of continuous operation. By the early 1960s, the company could no longer withstand competition from more advanced synthetic-fiber ropes, and subsequently declared bankruptcy. It was bought out by the Columbian Rope Company in 1965. Parts of the original machinery are now on display at Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut.

The Plymouth Cordage Company played a small role in the Sacco and Vanzetti case. Bartolomeo Vanzetti worked at the company in the early part of the century. Upton Sinclair's historical novel "Boston" has several chapters devoted to the company when his elderly heroine goes to work for the factory.

Plymouth Cordage also operated a factory in Welland, Ontario. A detailed history of Welland operations can be found at the Welland Public Library Local History site.

Read more about Plymouth Cordage Company:  Cordage Commerce Center

Famous quotes containing the words plymouth and/or company:

    In clear weather the laziest may look across the Bay as far as Plymouth at a glance, or over the Atlantic as far as human vision reaches, merely raising his eyelids; or if he is too lazy to look after all, he can hardly help hearing the ceaseless dash and roar of the breakers. The restless ocean may at any moment cast up a whale or a wrecked vessel at your feet. All the reporters in the world, the most rapid stenographers, could not report the news it brings.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    We are imprisoned in life in the company of persons powerfully unlike us.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)