Plymouth is a very interesting community, it dates back to well before the Revolution, in fact some records indicate a birth to the Collins on February 4, 1745, in Plymouth North Carolina. Plymouth was the site of three Civil War Battles and has many preserved land marks to bear that out. It is located on the Roanoke River, just a few miles up stream from the Albemarle Sound. It is about sixty miles inland from the ocean and Roanoke Island where Sir Walter Raleigh set up the first white settlement, in the new world.
Just a short distance up stream from the town of Plymouth and on the opposite side of the river, were the remains of the cypress piling that supported a dock, said to be used during the Revolutionary War.
The early 1880’s saw Plymouth as a major shipping point for the State of North Carolina. The principal exports were tobacco, shingles, and barrel staves. The barrel staves were shipped to the West Indies and were made into barrels to hold Rum and Molasses. All along the river bank were piles of rocks that were thought to be the ballast from ocean going ships that came to get tobacco for shipment to Europe. Those rocks had to have been imported because there was not a natural rock, like those, within miles of Plymouth.