A Beaver Pelt
A beaver pelt stretched within a wooden frame commemorates a connection between Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Augusta, Maine. Its handwritten inscription records a voyage from Plymouth to Augusta in 2003, marking the 375th anniversary of the opening of the Cushnoc trading post.
Presented to the Pilgrim John Howland Society by the trustees, members, and staff of Old Fort Western, the pelt is a modern commemorative gift. The material chosen for that gift recalls a commodity that played an important role in Plymouth Colony’s finances.
In 1628, Plymouth colonists established a trading post at Cushnoc on the Kennebec River, in what is now Augusta. There they exchanged goods with Native traders for furs, connecting the colony to an inland trading network and the European market.
Beaver fur was particularly valuable because it could be processed into felt for fashionable hats. Profits from the trade helped the Plymouth colonists meet obligations to their English financial backers and obtain supplies.
The trading post also reveals how far Plymouth’s economic interests extended beyond its settlement. Its prospects depended partly on waterways, trading relationships, and markets reaching from the Kennebec Valley across the Atlantic.
The commemorative pelt brings that wider history into a single object. Its inscription records a twentieth-first-century act of remembrance, while the pelt itself recalls the trade that linked two communities centuries earlier.
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