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Plymouth Company
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Plymouth Company (the Plymouth Adventurers, also called the Virginia Company of Plymouth or simply Virginia Bay Company) was an English joint stock company founded in 1606 by James I of England with the purpose of establishing settlements on the coast of North America.
It was one of two such companies, along with the London Company, chartered with such a purpose as part of the Virginia Company. The territory of the company was the coast of North America from the 38th parallel to the 45th parallel, but being part of the Virginia Company and Colony, The Plymouth Company owned a large portion of Atlantic and Inland Canada. The portion of company's area south of the 41st parallel overlapped that of the London Company, with the stipulation being that neither company could found a settlement within 100 miles of an existing settlement of the other company.
In 1607, the company established the Popham Colony at the mouth of the Kennebec River in present-day Maine. The settlement was founded in the same year that the London Company had established the Jamestown Settlement, but unlike Jamestown, the Popham settlement was abandoned after only one year.
The company thus fell into disuse and in 1609, the Virginia Colony charter was reorganzied to grant the London Company exclusive rights to most of the previously shared territory along the coast.
In 1620, after years of disuse, the company was revived and reorganized as the Plymouth Council for New England.