Historical Commission’s Monthly Tales of Our Town
Plum Island Gathering: West Newbury’s “Great Play Day of the Year”
December’s tale recalls summer’s highpoint between the mid-19th century and the late 1930s, when West Newbury’s “Plum Island Gathering” served as the Town’s collective vacation day. According to Leonard Woodman Smith, who was born here in 1844 and attended the outing well into his 60s, West Newbury Day at Plum Island was “the great play day of the year,” eagerly anticipated by young and old. Early in the morning of the appointed day, all manner of carriages and horse-drawn conveyances carrying most of the Town and makings for a picnic lined up for the slow procession through Newburyport and on to the island. In a space between the dunes, the women laid white tablecloths in a long line end-to-end, and hundreds of townsfolk at each side of the makeshift table enjoyed the feast—and each others’ company during a day out at the beach.
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