Plymouth plans 200th birthday bash

PLYMOUTH – The Village of Plymouth will show off its heritage as the place that manufactured Silver King tractors, locomotives and the first Plymouth automobile when it celebrates its 200th birthday from Aug. 1 to 8.

The Plymouth Improvement Committee has been planning the schedule of bicentennial events for months, said president Susan Root Moore.

"We have a ton of activities scheduled for each day," Moore said.

The celebration will open Aug. 1 with a walk to Pioneer's Rest Cemetery, where notable Plymouth residents "will speak from their places of last rest," Moore said.

A concert by Elvis impersonator Mike Albert and the Big "E" band is planned for 7 p.m. the same evening.

Official opening ceremonies will start at 1:45 p.m. Aug. 2 on West Broad Street. That kick-off will include a Civil War band, honor guard, speakers and the crowning of a Bicentennial King and Queen.

Competitors will line up for a beard-judging contest that afternoon.

"Plymouth Rock," a very large boulder former mayor Keith Hebble helped acquire for the village, will be dedicated.

Herietta McGinnis, 105, will serve as honorary marshal for a parade that day. Over a 45-year period with some time off to have children, McGinnis "was pretty much everybody in town's sixth grade teacher," Moore said.

Descendants of Solomon Billstein Spear will help unveil an old family photo as an addition at the Heritage Center. Solomon Spear, owner of a dry goods store around the end of the 19th century, emigrated from Germany. He and wife Augusta and were active members of Plymouth's thriving Jewish community at that time.

Gospel concerts will be held at 6 p.m. Rex Kilgore, Matt Kennard, The Tacketts and Ruby Combs will be featured performers.

The day will be capped off by a fireworks display.

Several events will continue throughout the week, including a quilt show, scavenger hunt and trivia games at the Plymouth library branch, and a barn display and old coffee shop by Nancy's.

On most weekday evenings during Bicentennial week, entertainment events have been scheduled for early evening. That includes a local talent show at the mobile stage, from 7 to 9 p.m. Aug. 4.

Other highlights during bicentennial week:

• A performance by the Eric Sowers Band, starting at 8 p.m. Aug. 5.

• Entertainment by the Mike Combs Band at 7 p.m. Aug. 6.

• An appearance by an Abraham Lincoln impersonator who will walk through Plymouth from noon to 7 p.m. Friday, Aug. 7.

• As Bicentennial week draws to a close on Aug. 7 and 8, an alley close to the Heritage Center will be used to host several special events or displays, ranging from a Revolutionary War encampment to a diorama of the Battle of Gettysburg.

Attractions there also will include a cannon demonstration, model train display, chain saw carver, organ grinder, steam pump, cabin made from wood taken from old Ohio barns, treadle sewing machines and washboard tubs.

• A mini-tractor pull is planned for noon Saturday, Aug. 8 (with pretrials at 7 p.m. Aug. 7) and tractor drag racing at 4 p.m. Aug. 8.

Plymouth's Bicentennial will coincide with the annual Plymouth-Silver King Festival, to be held Aug. 6 to 8, behind the police station.

The Plymouth Volunteer firefighters' chicken barbecue also will will be held during bicentennial week. The barbecue will start at noon Aug. 7.

The Plymouth Improvement Committee raised more than $24,000 to hold its 200th birthday celebration — a respectable amount for a town of 1,850 people, Moore said.

"I think we did pretty well," she said.

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The village of Plymouth sprang up in the early 1800s, situated along the Wyandotte Trail - which stretched from Pittsburgh through northern Ohio, guiding settlers west.

Abraham Trux was the town's first settler, in 1815.

The village was laid out a decade later. Plymouth became an incorporated village in 1834.

Satirist David Ross Locke - who wrote under the pen name "Petroleum Vesuvius Nasby" - worked in the village, co-founding the Plymouth Herald in 1855. before moving to Bucyrus, then purchasing the Toledo Blade. President Abraham Lincoln cited the journalist as a favorite political commentator.

In 1910, the J.D. Fate Co. (which later became Fate-Root-Heath) began building small railroad locomotives in the village.

It changed its name in the 1950s to Plymouth Locomotive Works, then to Plymouth Industries, before production was moved to Bucyrus in the late 1990s.

The company designed and built the first automobile known as a Plymouth. Chrysler Motors, later marketed cars under the name Plymouth - losing a court case in which it had sued for name infringement, but lost the case and eventually purchased use of the name.

Local legend is that the naming rights went to Chrysler for $1, "but I don't believe that," Moore said.

Silver King tractors were manufactured in Plymouth from the 1930s throughout the 1950s.

Restored Silver Kings show up in the village annually during the Silver King Festival.