(lass. Book. ? 2-^ ..ykSi___ ('()|)\Tii»lil X" ( OnUU;!!!' DKI'OSIT. ROMANCE OF THE MAINE COAST I. Casco Bay. 11. Old York. 11. The SOKOKI Teail. IV. Pemaquid. V. The Land of St. Castin. MAINE COAST ROMANCE j^^ Iftomance ot HERBERT MILTON SYLVESTER BOSTON Stanbopc press 1906 LIBRARY fif CONGRFSS Twf> C"ni»« Received AUG il 1906 /^Couyri^iii Entry ai.K%% CL xxc, No. COPY B. Copyright, by Herbert M. Sylvester, 190G All rights reserved AUTHOR'S EDinuN This edition is limited to one thousand copies printed from the face type. This is No. THE ROMANCE OF OLD YORK IS IN.SCIMIJUII To THK HON. CHARLES F. LIBBY OK i'OKTLAND, MAINE, BY THE AUTHOR. THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY HA\'E inscribed the Romance of Old York, — the writing of which afforded the author a deal of pleasure, — to you, my good friend, in recognition of the cherished acquaintance which began in the days when the author stood at the doorway of a strenuous life, and when you, as well, had entered upon what has proven a notably suc- cessful and honorable career. ^ As the years have gone, experiences have multiplied; points of view have changed; but the same kindly glint is in your eye; the same sympathetic greeting in your hand ; the same accents of friendly interest, good cheer and 11 /^-^.^^ r_: THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY eiu-ouruffcnicnt fall from y )u: lii)s, as in the days when the blood ran warmer and more impetuously. A sprinkle of gray has come to each .'ince we took to the open, each to hitch his wagon to hi^ par- ticular star; yet Time has dealt kindly, whatever the remriining elemental forces may have accom- pUshed in their turn, and the retrospect may be likened to a road over which we have come, familiar enough in these days, but once strange and beset with arduous labors, with no fabled 0;dv of Dodona to drop its whispering leaves at our feet. It is fortunate that ambitions differ. Were it otherwise, the hardships of accomplishment would be something indeed discouraging. I apprehend, however, that the finest ambitions in the human life are those which seek the achievement of things which come to one's hand in a way to enable others as well as one's self to find a wholesome enjoyment in the realizing of their legitimate fruits. I apprehend, further, that the choicest pleasures have their origin in the realm of Thought, nor do I forget the admon- ishment of the Preacher, that " of makmg books there is no end; an 1 much stu ly is a wear'.ne-^s of t'.u^ flesh." Perhaps I ought to have some hesitation in the bringing of this volimie to you, but aware of your scholarly attainment and your ripe discrimmation in matters of belles lettres in these days of India paper, Roxburgh bindings, and vest-pocket editions in limp leather, I am fortified in my desire to dis- cover to you in a way my inclination. THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY 13 I do not assume to have made any startling dis- coveries in the back-lots of the pioneer days, but the rather to have plucked a patch of lichen here and there from some old memorial stone, that its mystery, sadly forgotten and neglected, might catch anew the sunlight of a familiar horizon. I sincerely hope that you may find the matter between covers more palatable than may appear at first glance, and as all good things in life are of a dependable character, no one standing l^y itself alone, so I hope "Ye Romance of Old York" may find its weak places strengthened by the remembrance of a friendship which the author reckons among the props by which his ambitions have been upheld. As to the making of these pages, the procuring the matter for them has been like the exploring of a land of f!nchantment. As to matters of history, they may be accepted as accurate, or as expressing the con- sensus of opinion of those familiar with the ancient doings of the days that made up the century following the discoveries of Samuel de Champlain, Very little of authentic record remains of the earliest years, and one is somewhat dependent upon his color box and his palette knife, which, as a lover of the fine arts, will be appreciated by yourself. It is a pleasant curiosity — of which many are ignorant or immindful — this acquaintance with the Cobweb Country, and which is to be regarded as a commendable one; for, as the good Montgomery says, " 'Tis not the whole of Ufe to Hve.' 14 THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY The sordid things in hving have their place and their use. If kept in place, they are to be endured; but with them in the saddle, I would as soon play Skipper Mitchell with Old Aunt Polly of Brimstone Hill and hor horde of im])s on my ))ack, to jje harried from Chauncey's Creek to lira'boat Harbor for a sixpence worth o' luUibut. It is better to let the odd sixpence get away occa- sionally, especially if it has a sixpence worth of good in it for one's neighbor; not that this volume is to be taken at mint rates, but the rather for what it is worth, is the desire of your good friend and well wisher, who subscribes himself, Cordialh'' j'ours, Sylvester. PREFACE r^^i-^yv ■-,4 PREFACE HE story of the coast east of the Piscataqua is the gtory of old houses long since vacated by their builders, the laying of whose sills began shortly after the visit of Capt. John Smith to the Isles of Shoals, and practi- cally contemporary with the founding of the Plymouth colony. Looking out upon this historic stream are more ghost walks almost than can be counted along the entire coastline of Maine, from Cape Porpoise to the St. Croix. I said ghost walks — not that these old roof-trees 17 18 PREFACE are haunted by the visible apparitions of these an- cients, though I am not wholly certain that they are entirely forsaken by the disembodied spirits of those whose footsteps once echoed along their ancient halls, or left the prints of their shoes along the grit of the rude roads that passed their back doors; for, these old homesteads, and their like old interiors, touch one with a quick sensibility to the charm of their old- time romances, and throw around one the spell of their ancient life. These old wide fireplaces are aglow with flame ; the song of the old spinning-wheel fills these low-ceiled living-rooms with a murmurous har- mony. Their old dwellers come again, and the life of the first half of the seventeenth century goes on, and one feels that that was never on sea or land, color- ing the images of the period with a fresh conception of the New England of the olden time. Here is a store- house of antiquities, antiquities of a most delicious and appetizing character, that lead one on and on until one is lost in the maze of quaint episode that began up the Piscataqua with the Hiltons, and on old York River with Godfrey. To go back to 1630 is like taking a jaunt into the wilderness; for the farther one gets from the civilization of to-day, the rougher grow the roads, until there are no roads at all, only a blazed trail to show one the way, to keep on until even there are no scars on the trees, only the mosses on the rinds of the Druids of the woods, or their slant silhouettes drawn by the sun across their uneven floors for a compass and a timekeeper. This coloring of the early colonial period is un- PREFACE 19 matchably rich. Many of these old houses are as perfect in their conditions, as pregnant with responsi- bihties, as in the days of those who knew them first and loved them best. Others have lapsed into senil- ity; their chimneys hang askew, like an old battered hat. Their low-drooping eaves sag like the shoulders of an old man in the last stages of decreptitude. Others yet have fallen supinely in their decay into the caverns they so long concealed, or have shrivelled into gray ashes, in the catastrophe of a defective chimney, and not one of them all without its tradition. Let us repeople these old mansions, leaving out the ghosts. Let the old brass knocker fall here or there between its carved lintels. It is the gentle way, and it is a gentle folk by whom we are likely to be entertained, and who know nothing of modernness, and who perhaps are fortunate in that respect; for social conventions are largely of the nineteenth century, along with rag- time, cake-walks, and the two-step. Instead, for a space, we are to have the times of hilarious Tom Morton and his May-pole at Merry- mount; when the softer sex were prohibited by law from the Isles of Shoals; when the constable scoured the village by-ways of a Lord's day, haling people into church, to shiver and freeze, as they would a culprit to the magistrates for judgment; whipped Quakers through every town until they were without the juris- diction; when women were branded with the letter A ; ducked in the stream to cool their shrewish ardor, or pilloried in the townhouse square; and men for more grievous sins were let off with "forty stripes. 20 PREFACE save one," or put in the stocks for a brief season; when the father of Sir WilHam Pepperrell was laying siege to Margery Bray's heart, and Winthrop was hatching his schemes for the aggrandizement of the first commonwealth, and throwing the addled Epis- copal eggs out of the nests of the New Somersetshire colonies; when people went on stilts as now, though of a different fashion, and Puritanism was the guar- dian of the public conscience; when Charles I liter- ally lost his head, and Gorges, his Palatinate; the days of stately dames, brocades, and laces; of velvet coats, queues, and knee buckles, and not infrequently good old English manners. Like pictures that have been long turned to ihe wall, suppose the author turns them again to the light, if for nothing more than the suggestion they may hold for a reverent and not wholly indifferent posterit}'. The Author. ^^^■y x^ mm I. The Voyagers. II. Accomenticus. III. The Bells of York. IV. Saddle-bag Days. V. Old Ketterie. VI. . Back-log Stories. VII. The Pleiads of the Piscataqua. PAGE Half-title 1 Vignette ^ Headband H Initial H Tailpiece li Headband, Preface 17 Initial ^"^ Tailpiece 20 Stepping-stones 21 Pictures 23 Tailpiece 28 Headband, Voyagers 35 Initial 35 Louisburg Harbor 37 23 24 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE White Island Light 40 Pemaquid 43 Map 45 Mount Desert 46 The Nubble 47 Thatcher's Island Light 48 Boon Island Light 53 Norman's Woe 54 Quotation frojn Capt. John Smith 55 Cape Ann 60 Headband, Accomenticus 63 Initial 63 The Marshes 67 Autographs 74 York River 76 Mill-dam 78 Barn Cove 83 Site Gov. Gorges' House 92 Union Bluff 95 York Marshes 103 The Barrelle Manse 104 York Jail 106 An Old Wharf 109 The Apple-tree brought from England 110 Old Woodbridge Tavern 112 Old Wilcox Tavern 113 Old Say ward House 115 Mclntire Garrison House 116 Headband, Bells of York 119 ILLUSTRATIONS 25 PAGE Initial Roaring Rock ' '"'^ First Church at Hingham 121 Boston's First Church 122 The Wooden Tankard 123 The York Meeting-house ^25 Moodij Cradle 1'^'' Remnant of the Four Elms 13^ The Sewall Tombs I'^l Coventry Hall ^'^'"^ 1 1^4 Tailpiece Headband, Saddlebag Days l'^^ Initial '^^ Quampegan Falls 1^" Shattuck House 1^1 Rebecca Nourse House 1 ^'^ Witch's Hill 1"-^' York Jail 1"^' Witch's Grove ^^^ Tobey House, Eliot 1^^ Headband, Old Ketterie 197 197 Initial . . . 201 Map Glimpse of Kittery 205 Chauncey's Creek 206 The Remick House 207 Rice's Tavern 209 21 1 Shapleigh House Parsonage, 1629 26 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Old Church, 1630 217 Kittery Cemetery 219 Some Old Stones 221 Lady Pepperrell House 223 The Massive Door ■ 224 The Knocker 22(> The Hall 227 Lawrence's Cove 231 The Gerrish House 232 The Anchorage 240 Block House, Fort M' Clary 244 Fort M'Clary from Warehouse Point 247 The Pepperrell Manse 249 Pepperrell Arms 254 Pepperrell Wharves 256 The Clavichord 259 The Bray House 267 Old Traipe Cider-press 270 Site of Champernowne' s House 272 Champernowne's Grave 2S6 The Joan Decring House 292 Water Side of Fort M'Clary 295 The Sparhawk Manse 296 Tailpiece 300 Headband, Back-Log Stories 303 Initial 303 Mclntire Block House 306 Junkins Garrison House 310 Frost Garrison House 321 ILLUSTRATIONS 27 PAGE Cutt Garrison House 325 Snow-SJwe Rock 334 Old Concord Bridge 337 Sturgeon Creek Warehouse 339 Ambush Rock 341 Where Harmon Massacred the Indians 345 Site of the Old Stacey House 346 Stacey {Parish) Creek Bridge 347 Bunker Hill after the Fight 350 Relic of Ancient Trading Days, (Stackpole's Landing) 3ol Boon Island Light 354 Frost's Hill 364 Headband, Pleiads of Piscataqua 367 Initial 367 Map 368 Fort Point 375 Badger's Island 376 Portsmouth Harbor 377 Jaffrey's Point 378 We7itworth Hall 379 By-way in New Castle 381 Puddle Luck 386 Walbach Tower 387 Fort Constitution 389 Rocks of Star Island 391 Haley's Wharf 394 Smutty Nose '^^^ The Hontvet House -^03 28 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE The Graves 409 Along Smutty Nose Shore 412 White Island from Star 414 Duck Island 415 Londoner's Island 416 Old Stone Church 417 Smith's Monument 419 Leighton's Gut 421 White Island Cliffs 424 Tailpiece 427 PRELUDE When sunsets go, and twilights come In splendid mystery To glorify the sands of York ; And Nature's minstrelsy Is but a bar of molten gold Above the crooning sea ; The incessant, low-ripphng tune The soft-voiced Naiads play Along the brooks — a limpid rune — An idyl of Cathay, Each note a bloom of scented June Plucked from the lap of May; When od'rous mists, in swirling wraiths Of loose, diaph'nous thread, Creep through the needle-eye of Dusk, Upborne along the shred, Ungarnished waste of rush and weed, On Zephyrus' footfall, sped; Boon Island Light throws out its bar Of fire. A star lets down The loose-pinned curtain of the night Upon the olden town. Where, clinging to its drowsy hem, The house lights blink and drown. THE VOYAGERS THE VOYAGERS CCORDING to Kohl, the German geographer, the first voyager to sail down the Bay of Maine, after the Norseman, was Se- bastian Cabot. He doubts if John Cabot, the father, made the voyage of 1498. The Cabots were Vene- tians. Zuan Caboto was the father, a man of reputation, an experienced navi- gator and cartographer. He came to England some- time before 1494; for, it was about that time he began those preparations with the royal consent that led to the English discoveries along the North American Coast, a part of that New World to which Columbus had sailed in 1492. Of his three sons, Sebastian surpassed the fame of his father, in a degree. As early as 1495, Henry VH had issued a patent to John Cabot and his three sons, Lewis, Sebastian, and Sancius. It authorized them to fit out five ships and to voyage across the Atlan- .35 36 OLD YORK tic — " under the royal banners and ensigns to all parts, countries, and seas of the east, of the west, and of the north, and to seek out and discover whatso- ever isles, countries, regions, and provinces, in what part of the world soever they might be, which before this time had been unknown to Christians." It further empowered the Cabots "to set up the royal banners and ensigns in the countries, places, or main- land newly found by them, and to conquer, occupy, and possess them as his vassals and lieutenants." This first voyage was made in 1497, and did not extend so far south as the Bay of Maine, nor did it accomplish much more than to locate a large body of land in the Western Hemisphere ; yet it was notable in one respect, for it was on this first voyage among the ice-floes of the North Sea that Cabot discovered the variation of the magnetic needle, which phe- nomena he gave to the world of those times, and announced his reasons for the same, as well. No particular exploration was attempted or made of the shores visited; Cabot's knowledge of this prima vista was of the most meagre sort. Cabot's first land- fall, according to Deane, was the northeast shore of Cape Breton Island. Upon his return, he was able to relate to Henry but the slender fact of his sighting land, of pushing his way through ice-laden seas as far to the north as it was safe for him to trust his small craft, and of his ultimate return. Whatever of the picturesque he may have related, must have had its source purely in a vivid imagination, or speculative conjecturing. Jolm Cabot left a considerable account OLD YORK 37 of his voyages to the New World, but, unfortunately, no trace of them has ever been available. They, like Cabot himself, have become buried under the debris of centuries. In lieu of the personal "Relations" of Cabot, one must depend upon the chroniclers of his time. One of these was Pasqualigo, a London merchant, who, August 23, 1497, writes to his brothers in Venice — "The Venetian, our countryman, who went with a ship from Bristol, is returned, and says that seven hundred leagues hence, he discovered land in the territory of the Great Cham. He coasted three hun- dred leagues and landed, saw no human beings, but brought to the king certain snares set to catch game, and a needle for making nets. The king has prom- ised that in the Spring our countryman shall have ten ships. The king has given him money where- withal to amuse himself till then, and he is now in LOUISBURG HARBOR Bristol with his wife, who is also a Venetian, and with his sons. His name is Zuan Cabot, and he is styled the great Admiral. Vast honor is paid him. The discoverer planted on his new-found land a large 38 OLD YORK cross, with one flag of England and one of St. Mark, by reason of his being a Venetian." One could imagine Cabot saying the same thing himself, so definite and incisive are these sentences of Pasqualigo. Their notable simplicity gives them the very impress of truth. Cabot must have been a most interesting topic among the Londoners; for, on the very next day, August 24, Raimondo de Soncino, envoy of the Duke of Milan to Henry VII, says, in a despatch to his gov- ernment — "some months ago, his Majesty sent out a Venetian who is a very good mariner, and has good skill in discovering new islands, and he has retiu-ned safe, and has found two very large and fertile new islands, having likewise discovered The Seven Cities, four hundred leagues from England, in the western passage. This Spring his Majesty means to send him with fifteen or twenty ships." This passage from Soncino has all the ear-marks of hearsay, and is a fair specimen of the romancing of the times, of the wonderful peoples and their more wonderful riches, the mythical Tanais, the coveted treasures of Cipango and Kathay that could not be a far dip below the Western seas. What, or where, the "Seven Cities" were, must, like the fabled city of Norombegua, re- main a legend and a dream. In some of the relations of the Cabot voyages, this preliminary visit to the New World was made as early as 1494, but it w\as fully a year later that old John Cabot went to the king with his scheme for the dis- covery of the northwestern water-way to Cathay. OLD YORK 39 Henry, at once interested, promptly gave his support to Cabot; and the result was the Patent of March, 1495, a part of which has already been cited. The burden of fitting out, the chartering and manning of the craft that was to take these adventurers into strange lands, fell upon the Cabots. Henry's con- tribution was the royal seal affixed to the royal con- sent; and it may be assumed that much time was required for the preparation that would seem impera- tive for so important an undertaking. Kohl says that, referring to Cabot's first voyage, they set sail from Bristol in the early part of 1497, with four vessels, one of which was the Matthew, whose keel was the first to grate on the sands of the first landfall, possibly on the Newfoundland coast, as designated on the map of Reynel, the Portuguese pilot, and which is believed to have appeared in 1504-5, as ''Y dos Bocalhos" (Island of Codfish). Ruysch, 1508, gives it " baccalaurus " ; and later, Kunstmann, 1514, designates it as "Bacolnaus." Newfoundland, Labrador, and Nova Scotia, are in- cluded in this generic term. It is claimed that Cabot gave this name to the region discovered by him on this first voyage of 1497; but we have only Peter Martyr's statement for that. No such name appears on Cosa's map, which is admitted to be the earliest record of Cabot's discoveries in the New World. According to Kohl, the name originated with the Portuguese, though the word is declared to be of Iberian origin. It is asserted by some authorities, that Cabot found the word here before him; that New- 40 OLD YORK foundland was well-known to the Basques; and Kohl admits that the word Baccalos, had long been in use before the Cabots sailed hither, or even the Cortereals. In fact, the word is repeated on Cabot's map, 1544, according to Hakluyt. Parkman is in- clined to the view that the Biscayans were here long before Cabot. In a recent work of Adolph Bellet, "The French WHITE ISLAND LIGHT at Newfoundland, etc.," referring to the expedi- tions of the Northmen made some five centuries before the Genoese Columbus and the bold Pinzon sailed away from Palos, and which had apparently been forgotten — the same could not be said of their cousins, the French Basques — M. Bellet says : " It is to this first landing of the whale fishermen of Cape Breton, on the shores of Newfoundland, that we should trace the true discovery of the New World, OLD YORK 41 and the establishment of the first route really com- mercial between Europe and America. Unfortu- nately, it is impossible to give a fixed date to this historical event. What we can affirm is, that it preceded by a century and a half the first expedition of Columbus; which, besides, was only organized by the Genoese navigator, upon information given by other Basques, whom the wind had driven upon the Antilles about the year 1480." M. Bellet declares the Basques to be the real dis- coverers of America; and his contention is not unrea- sonable. But, going back to the Cabots, the narrative of Peter Martyr, contained in a letter to Pope Leo X, is of especial interest. That writer says — "These northern shores have been searched by one Sebastian Cabot, a Venetian born, whom, being but in a manner an infant, his parents carried with them into Eng- land, having had occasion to resort thither for trade of merchandise, as is the manner of the Venetians to leave no part of the world unsearched to obtain riches. He, therefore, furnished two ships in Eng- land at his own charges, and first, with three hundred men, directed his course so far towards the North Pole that even in the month of July he found mon- strous heaps of ice swimming on the sea, and in a manner, continual daylight; yet saw he the land in that tract free from ice, which had been molten. Wherefore, he was enforced to turn his sails and fol- low the west; so coasting still by the shore that he was brought so far into the South, by reason of the 42 OLD YORK land bending so much southwards that it was almost equal in latitude with the sea Fretum Herculeum. He sailed so far towards the West that he had the island of Cuba on his left-hand in manner in the same degree of longitude. As he traveled by the coasts of this great land (which he named Baccalaos) he saith that he found the like course of the waters toward the great West, but the same to run more softly and gently than the swift waters which the Spaniards found in their navigation southward. Se- bastian Cabot himself named these lands Baccalaos, because in the seas thereabout he found so great mul- titudes of certain big fishes much like unto tunnies (which the inhabitants call haccallaos) that they sometimes staled his ships. He also found the people of those regions covered with beasts' skins, yet not without the use of reason. He also saith there is a great plenty of bears in those regions which use to eat fish; for, plunging themselves into the water, where they perceive a multitude of these fishes to lie, they fasten their claws in their scales, and so draw them to land and eat them, so (as he saith) they are not noisome to men. He declareth further, that in many places of those regions he saw great plenty of lacon among the inhabitants. Cabot is my very friend, whom I use familiarly, and delight to have liim some- times keep me company in mine own house. For being called out of England by the commandment of the Catholic king of Castile, after the death of Henry VII, King of England, he is now present at Court with us, looking for ships to be furnished him OLD YORK 43 for the Indies, to discover this hid secret of Nature. T think that he will depart in March in the year next following, 1516, to explore it. . . . Some of the Span- iards deny that Cabot was the first finder of the land of Baccalaos, and affirm that he went not so far west- ward." This is evidently a relation of the second voyage, 1498, and from a letter of Don Pedro de Ayala, who resided in London at that time, to Ferdinand and ^fe^r^Ss^srSL'IS^te^SSB^ PEMAQUID Isabella, dated July 25, 1498, he notes the departure of this second expedition: " I have seen the map which the discoverer (Jolm Cabot) has made, who is another Genoese like Colum- bus, and who has been in Seville and in Lisbon asking assistance for his discoveries. The people of Bristol have, for the last seven years, sent out every year, two, three, or four light ships in search of the island of Brazil and the Seven Cities, according to the fancy of his Genoese. The king determined to send out 44 OLD YORK ships, because the year before they brought cer- tain news that they had found land. His fleet con- sisted of five vessels, which carried provisions for one year. It is said one of them, in which Friar Buel went, has returned to Ireland in great distress, the ship being much damaged. The Genoese has con- tinued his voyage. I have seen on a chart the direc- tion they took and the distance they sailed. ..." This second voyage is of the greatest interest, and from this letter of de Ayala it is certain that John Cabot accompanied this fleet ; but after this, he seems to have lost his place in the line of active exploration. Little, if anything further, is recorded of him. There was a so-called Cabot map bearing the date of 1544, according to the copy of Von Martinsyi and it bears a marginal note. "This country was dis- covered l^y John Cabot, a Venetian, and Sebastian Cabot, his son, in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ, MCCCCXCIV, on the 24th of June (1494) in the morning, which country they call, primum visinn; and a large island adjacent to it they named St. John, because they discovered it on the same day." Kohl supposes this date to be a mistake, although the map bears the countenance of veracity, because it states facts which could come only from John Cabot. Richard Eden says it is authentic. Eden was a contemporary and an intimate friend of Cabot ; but Kohl describes it as largely a copy of Ribero. It was on this second voyage that the Cabots sailed down the Bay of Maine, and it is for this reason that this somewhat extended notice of the Cabots in the OLD YORK 45 opening chapter of the romance of "Old York" is allowable. It was due to the discovery of the Maine coast by them, that it was first peopled by the Anglo- Saxon; and it was from the coming of the Cabots that the unwinding of these threads of fascinat- ing story began. It is with lively con- jecture one follows the Cabots on this second visit — a voyaging that was very long after followed by Frobisher, Davis, Hudson, Fox, and Baffin, names more familiar to the school- boy, by far, than that of Cabot. The Cabots, after leaving Newfomidland, must 46 OLD YORK have rounded Cape Breton, to follow the southern coast of Nova Scotia, cutting across Fundy; and from thence, south, each day brought them into a milder and more equable climate. Undoubtedly they hugged the land, for their vessels were of small tonnage, and their anchorage was likely to be more secure among the sheltered bays that alternated with the bold and rugged headlands that reach out at intervals of a day's sail over the course southward; MOUNT DESERT for, once past The Wolves, and still farther south, with Grand Menan to the eastward, the whole coast of Maine was opened up to their wondering vision, bewildering in its scenic splendor, one vista of sea and shore opening imperceptibly and unannounced upon another, each a picture of inimitable beauty, all untamed, unbroken, and undefiled by the hand of the stranger. It was an extended panorama of imparalleled charm, and fascinating perspectives. OLD YORK 47 Once among the Isles of Mont Desert, threading their water-ways to Au Haut, and thence, into the mouth of Penobscot Bay, there was httle to remind them of the chalk cliffs of England, for here was the livid green of low-sloping shores that merged into the blue of the sea with a blending of color to which their curious eyes had theretofore been wholly unac- quainted. There was nothing in the lagoons of Ven- THE NUBBLE ice to suggest these inland-reaching marshes, which under the winds from the Crystal Hills, bent and undulated like endless webs of golden tapestries over- shot with the silver threads of the salt creeks that crept always with the lazy tides in and out their low levels. No doubt the tawny sands of York suggested golden visions, and once past the shadows of Aga- menticus and the stubby nose of Neddock, the woods of York stretched away until they were lost in the blue of the far western horizon. 48 OLD YORK According to Stevens, these visions of unrivalled attractiveness never broke upon the eyes of the Cabots and their fellow- voyagers. To quote Winsor, "Stevens does not allow that on either voyage, the coast south of the St. Lawrence was seen; and urges that for some years the coast-line farther south was drawn from Marco Polo's Asiatic coasts. . . . Dr. "f'-y- THATCHER'S ISLAND LIGHT Hale gives a sketch-map to show the curious corre- spondence of the Asian and American coast-lines." However this may be, one thinks as one likes; and one likes to think of the Cabots sailing down the Bay of ]\Iaine, the sheets of their craft bellying with the odorous off-shore winds that have blown the same way ever since, while the aborigines skulked behind OLD YORK 49 the giants of their primeval forests, or fled to their inner recesses in wonder or terror, as these winged messengers of a pale-faced race glided from head- land to headland, to disappear in the mists of the eventide, and whose course through the night was marked by a low-drifting star of a binnacle lamp. It was years after this, before the white man came again, and the reality of those strange white sails creeping down the blue of the roughened sea, had become a tradition to be passed aroimd the wigwam fires of the Etchemin, other than that the slender fleet of Verazzano, who came over in 1501, was anchored for a night in neighboring waters, supposedly about the mouth of the Piscataqua. This was in May. He had come from what is now the sheltering harbor of Newport; and after leaving his anchorage here, he sailed northward along the coast. It was a brief visit, but is worthy of mention, as being a link in the chain of discovery and exploration that was later lengthened out by Champlain, Gosnold, Pring, and Weymouth, and the three latter of whom became in a manner personally identified with its immediate^ fortunes. In the preceding volume of this series, in the first paragraph of the "Wizard of Casco," Jacques Cartier, by a typographic error is made the Spanish navigator who first designated the beautiful bay of Casco as the "Bay of Many Islands." Jacques Cartier was the French explorer of the bay of St. Lawrence. It is unfortunate that this misnomer escaped the eye of the proof-reader, but it is so obviously a reference to 50 OLD YORK Estevan Gomez, the friend of Sebastian Cabot, that the meaning is apparent. According to Reinel, who was a countryman of Gomez, the latter laid his course in that voyage of 1525 to the northward from Corunna, first encounter- ing the shores of Newfoundland; but Galvano asserts that the first landfall of Estevan Gomez was Cuba, whence he followed the coast to Cape Race. Gomez is credited with having made a minute explora- tion of the New England coast, that part of which, now known as "Maine," being afterward especially designated as "the land of Gomez." On this voyage Gomez had along with him several vessels which he crowded with savages, taking them along to Spain. Of this, Peter Martyr says : " Utriusque sexus homini- bus navem farcevit;" but other writers assume that this cargo of aborigines was disposed of in Cuba, where the planters were much in need of slaves. This ten months' voyage of Gomez is reversed by Herrera, who makes it from north to south. Gomez no doubt had many and profitable conversations with the elder Cabot, for he may be said to have taken the course of the Cabots along the coast of Maine, and his minute observation of its broken and seductive con- tours was doubtless the result of this friendship be- tween the Venetian navigator and himself. In the latter part of 1568, or to be more particular, in October, John Hawkins, an English explorer, found himself with a large crew about the shores of Florida, and short of provisions. In his emergency, lie set ashore, somewhere about the Gulf of Mexico, OLD YORK 51 a hundred of his men, more or less, and summarily abandoned them to their own resources. It was a striking illustration of the scant consideration men of those days held for their own kind. In these days, such an act would be promptly dealt with in the courts of criminal procedure, and the punishment would be swift and certain; but Hawkins seemed to have es- caped the most ordinary censure. It was the first marooning of which we have any relation. Among these, was one Jolin Ingram, who, with two companions, began the toilsome and perilous journey toward the land of Cabot and Verazzano, hundreds upon hundreds of leagues to the North. They made their way over the slender trails of the Indians, and along the curving shores of the sea, following the course of the stars by night and the slanting shadow of the sun by day, subsisting but meagrely upon succulent roots and such game as they could snare, the guests of here and there some friendly savage, the prey of the more savage wolf, foot-sore and weary, ofttimes disheartened, drenched with storms or the waters of the creeks and inlets that crossed their pathway, leaden-footed with the ooze and slime of the marshes, and leaden-brained with the odors of a luxuriant and decaying vegetation. Ever they plodded on until they had come into the territory of what is now Massachusetts; and still keeping the smell of the salty sea by them, they threaded the wildernesses of Maine until they reached the fabled city of Noromhegua somewhere among the wilds of the Penobscot. They came at last to the St. Johns 52 OLD YORK River where they found a French vessel, the Gar- garine, in command of Captain Champagne, who must have been a sparkhng, and withal jolly sort of a fellow, a boon companion, and a generous. Cham- pagne took Ingram aboard his ship, and soon after that the English wanderer was in London, where he set the mouths of the credulous Londoners agape with the story of his adventures, in which a city with roofs of gold figured largely, and which, according to Ingram's geography, was in the Penobscot country. As one goes over the sands of York to-day he may look in vain for Ingram's footprints along the marge of the sea, and on the rocks of Cape Neddock that reach over into the restless waters of the Atlantic; one may look for a spectre of the lone figure of this plucky adventurer poised upon their loftiest outlook, scanning the sea for the glimpse of a friendly sail — a darkly animated spot — against the distant sky. Here was the germ of a wild tale to which that of Robinson Crusoe is a mild dilution. Undoubtedly Ingram saw this country as he neared the end of his long and perilous journey; and no doubt his lively imagination, and the relations of his experiences among the wilds of this new world was a lively stimulus to the schemes for the Eng- lish colonization of this section of the north coast. It was almost forty years after this that Gosnold, 1602, had sailed away from Falmouth in the Concord, and following the track of Verazzano had sighted this new country, somewhere near Casco Bay — he gave the name of Northland to the place. OLD YORK 53 About twenty-five miles south, he touched land. This, according to his description, was Cape Ned- dock. Palfrey says, " It was here that eight Indians came out to his vessel in a Basque-made shallop, and with a piece of chalk drew for him sketches of the coast." Gosnold says from this place he went BOON ISLAND LIGHT to Boon Island, and thence to Cape Cod. He was after a cargo of sassafras, but none was to be found at Casco or Cape Neddock. He found, however, an abundance of that savory root at Cape Cod. Sassa- fras was believed by the English to possess great medicinal virtues, especially as a diuretic. After 54 OLD YORK loading his vessel with sassafras and cedar, he sailed for home, making a very expeditious voyage. The story of Pring's subsequent voyage, 1603, to Plym- outh, the building of his barricade, and the attack of the Indians, is full of interest to the lover of epi- sode, but for the purpose of this chapter, it is of little importance. This success of Pring's, following the romancing of Ingram, created a ferment of sea- NORMANS WOE going activity. Gosnold's voyage was made in 1602, almost a century after Verazzano; Pring's in 1603. De Costa says Pring planted seed to test the soil, and that the Indians came in numbers to see the white men, bringing pipes and tobacco, which is the first mention I have seen of there being such com- modity in these parts. This was two years before the coming of Champlain, and ten years before the Dutch sailed these waters. Seventeen years after. OLD YORK 55 came the landing of the Puritans at Plymouth; but, between the Mayflower and the Dutch, "Captyne" John Smith indulged in the sport of deep-sea fishing off these shores^ and he was quite dehghted to see " twopence, six- pence and nine- pence " on his hook as he pulled it, dripping, _ from the sea. Smith made a map, 1614, of New England, and upon it, what is now known as York, was called Boston. Agamenticus was named " Snadoun Hill." These names, however, originated with Prince Charles. Smith was the first to apply 56 OLD YORK the generic title of New England to the surrounding country. Smith was the last of the English naviga- tors to visit this immediate locality. The coloniza- tion period was about to open, under the auspices of Popham and Gorges; but the scene of their unfortu- nate ventures was to be so far away from York, that to go and come in a day's sailing would leave but little time for either morning or evening chores for the dweller in that vicinage. So far as York is concerned, the period of its dis- covery began with Cabot and ended with Smith; and out of all this voyaging of Cabot, of Gosnold, of Pring, and Smith, and later, Weymouth, comes the vision of a hirsute starveling, plunging through the Everglades of Florida, or threading the swamps of the Virginias, or hidden among the shadowy gloom of New England's primeval woods, a realm of ghostly imaginings, of dusk}' spruces, hoary hemlocks, and giant pines, the silent Bruids of an unbroken wilder- ness. It comes out the mists of the centuries, like an apparition, the spectre of a far-away romance. A pity it is, that Ingram had not been a composite Linnffius and Audubon, with an abundant supply of good white paper, some pencils, and brushes, and a box of Winsor and Newton's colors, so he might have taken notes by the way. What treasures environed his lonely journey, as he followed some savage trail, or broke out into the sunlight to keep to the trend of the sea with its alternate dazzling reaches of bleaching sands, and buttressed head- lands. What romances of Nature were trodden OLD YORK 57 iinder-foot by him, and what secrets of vegetation, of flora, of bird, and beast discovered he, and seeing, saw not ! But we have none of this. One can only let loose the reins of one's imagina- tion to riot amid so great a surplus of riches, to pluck from it all a paltry foolish tale of a Lost City, fit only for a sixteenth century fisher-wife; and yet, who can weigh the influence of Ingram's wild imaginings and boastful vaporings of adventures in the jungles of the New World! The wondering Londoners be- lieved him, and that was sufficient for all the needs of his vanity. Like all lies, well told and well stuck to, it was good until the contrary was proven. Just this legend of a fabled city is left. The greed for material riches barred all else from the minds of this commercial people. Even prebendary Hakluyt, the indefatigable recorder of those stirring times, is silent as to all except the glamour of this Oriental picture, which Ingram hung against the sunset fires that red- dened the tops of the Penobscot woods. But Ingram nmst have been a man of more than ordinary resource to have endured so severe a test. His experience seems an incredible one from the present point of view, when the average sportsman, with all the equipment that modern ingenuity can supply, once away from his camp or trail in the Katahdin woods, finds himself stricken with sudden terror that he is "lost," and, perhaps a year later, some guide stumbles upon his remnants rotting amid the ferns under the mountain shadows. 58 OLD YORK One would like to know the dreams that wove their spectral webs in his tired brain as he slept be- side the rippling waters of the Merrimac, or within the sound of the narrow, on-rushing Cocheco. We know the wonderful dream that came to him as he drank of the Penobscot when the Wand of the Wizard of Norombegue fell upon his unwitting shoulders. He may have thought himself nigh to death in his possible exhaustion, and the vision of the New Je- rusalem may have come to him. Who knows, for, "The beaver cut his timber With patient teeth that day, The minks were fish-wards, and the crows Surveyors of highway." Ingram had the whole world to himself. He was an elder Selkirk, and as he stood upon the rocks above the Piscataquay and watched and nuised, "The swift stream wound away, Through birches and scarlet maples Flashing in foam and spray," to wind imder the shadows of Strawberry Bank, or spread itself out over the yellow marshes of the Kittery shore. And then the speech of Saco Falls — "Down the sharp-horned ledges Plunging in steep cascade, Tossing its white-maned waters Against the hemlock's shade," with only the sharp cry of the dipping fish-hawk up-stream, or the noiseless sweep of the white gulls OLD YORK 59 above the gray flats below with the salt tide at its ebb. "No shout of home-bound reapers, No vintage-song he heard, And on the green no dancing feet The merrv viohn stirred." The silence, except for these songs of Nature, must have been magic to his weary body, and as the seal of sleep was laid upon his shag-guarded eyes, perhaps his oblivion was mellowed by a glimpse of what Keezar saw, when, "He held up that mystic lapstone — " and counted the coming years by single and double decades, "And a marvelous picture mingled The unlvnown and the known. "Still ran the stream to the river. And river and ocean joined: And there were the bluffs and the blue sea-line And the cold north hills behind. "But the mighty forest was broken By many a steepled town. By many a white-walled farmhouse, And many a garner brown. "Turning a score of mill-wheels, The stream no more ran free; White sails on the winding river, White sails on the far-off sea." 60 OLD YORK If Ingram discerned the prophecies of any of these things, there is no evidence that he ever mentioned them to others; or, it may have been that the more dazzhng vision that came to him by the mystic tide of the Penobscot banished it from his mind. But had he been with me on a summer day not long since, it would have puzzled him to have recalled the river that flowed at my feet as the Piscataquay of his time, with Strawberry Bank unnamed and unin- habited but by the muskrat and the nomad crow. ACCOMENTICUS ^^^-'-fT"' y^t^:— ^■•'''^:^- ^ SEWELL'S BRID3E ACCOMENTICUS ERE, about old York, one imwJttinglj^ breathes the air of ancient thhigs. One of tlie Sleepy Hol- lows of the Maine coast, this Bra'boat Harbor country, with its flats bare at low tide and its sweep of marsh grasses bendmg under the salty winds, is prolific in sug- tions of old wharves and warehouses, not as yet entirely eliminated from the landscape ; for some outline of their old foundations may be traced by the diligent observer; and here was the scene of one of the earliest endeavors at colonization along this section of the coast. Across this slen- derly-spun thread of blue water, is " old Ketterie," 63 64 OLD YORK the once bailiwick of the Pepperrells, and this tongue, or point of land that reaches out into the outer mouth of the Piscataqua River, was, in the days of old, Champernowne's Island. Away to the " s'utheas " is Appledore; and ten miles out to sea, after night- fall, Boon Island Light throws its ruddy gleam land- ward to greet the shore lights of Old York. Here is a veritable Land of Romance; for mider the shadows of old Agamenticus, with the glory of the sea massed against its base, and glimmering as far as the eye can see to eastward, flecked with the snow- white sails of the toilers of the sea, is the site of the first incorporated city of America — Gorgeana. There is nothing mythical in this relation, though at this day its walls seem as far away as those of Carthage, and their founder may well be called the Father of New England. As one follows the ruddy gleam of Boon Island Light farther and still farther to seaward, one goes over a wide trail of dancing waters to the days when this pleasant country was the roaming ground of the great Etchemin family, and when the Gorges of Wraxhall ]\Lanor, somewhere about 1566, were pursuing their peaceful English ways. The initial voyages of discovery had been made. The leaven ©f colonization was awaiting the virile touch of Cham- plain and Capt. John Smith. It was about the last- mentioned date, about the beginning of the Eliza- bethan era, that the old Clerkenwell records mark the birth of Ferdinando Gorges. One first gets a glimpse of this man when Elizabeth was sending her OLD YORK 65 English contingents over to Holland to assist Wil- liam the Silent against the Spaniards. Young Gorges was one of Elizabeth's captains, who served in that campaign. This was in 1587, and Gorges had hardly passed his majority. His education is surrounded in obscurity, though others of the family were educated at Oxford. A year after he had gone to the Holland wars, Gorges was a prisoner at Lisle. The following year he was serving in France, getting a severe wound at the Siege of Paris. The Spaniards defeated on the ocean, England began a series of marine reprisals, and in 1592, this same Gorges is a member of the Commission to take charge of the "great store of spoyle," which resulted from this predaceous policy. After this, Gorges was engaged in the Continental Wars. In 1595, he was in charge of defences then being erected at Plymouth. Upon the completion of these fortifi- cations, he became their commander. From this somewhat important post, for the war with Spain was still on, he joined Sir Walter Raleigh in an expedition against that country, which was pre- destined to disaster and disappointment. Gorges, by this, had been knighted by his queen, from whom he received a commission for the defence of Devonshire. Gorges was a comparatively young man at this time, but evidently possessing to an uncommon degree the confidence of his superiors. But these were stirring times. Ireland was in a ferment of discontent and on the verge of rebel- hon; Spain threatened England by land and sea; 66 OLD YORK France had slipped the leash of her alliance with England; Essex was conspiring; and the smell of smoke was upon Gorges' garments. The latter went to prison for a year, and Essex went to the block. With the death of Elizabeth, came the accession of James. Gorges was once more in the royal favor. The leaven of colonization was about to find its "three measures of meal." An impetus to develop the country of Cabot was slowly acquiring some- thing of motion. The boimdary of almost a century of inertia had been passed when Du Monts had weathered the inclemency of a winter on the St. Croix, 1604-5. Gorges, in his desire for wealth and a larger influence, was revolving schemes, which, if successful, could not but be of great profit; and it was, with these things in mind, he had interested Arundel and a few other choice spirits, to join with him in despatching Weymouth along the trail of Du Monts in the spring of 1605. In the early summer, Wey- mouth had made his landfall in the neighborhood of Cape Cod. He found the season at its flood, and no doubt the experiences of Weymouth and his com- panions, on this personally-conducted tour to strange lands, were of the most delightful character. The days were softly drowsy in their warmth; the nights, cool and refreshing; the skies were mild and colored with seductive prophecy; while the perfume-laden winds blew offshore, vibrant with the songs of the pine woods that made the dusky wall that parted the blue of the sea from that of the sky. New scenes OLD YORK 67 of fascinating charm broke constantly upon the vision of these adventurers with every newly-dis- covered bay or inlet as they kept the trend of the sinuous shore eastward. As he dropped anchor off the wood-rimmed coast of Norombegua, it is evident that hereabout he found much that was attractive. In fact, it was this imme- THE MARSHES diate locality that formed the basis of his report and comprised its material substance; and he carried hence the first embassy from the Etchemins to the English — five stalwart Indians — three of whom be- came the guests of Gorges, while Popham assured the entertainment of the other two. These natives were treated with grave consideration, and upon becoming familiar with the English vernacular, they began to teach Gorges the geography of the Etchemin country. 68 OLD YORK The belief in a northwest passage to the Moluccas and the treasures of Zipango and Cathay were aban- doned. These Indians described a continent, a country of great lakes, rivers, mountain- chains, of interminable woods; a country of widely-extended and diversified character, and whose story was not likely to suffer at the hands of these rude sons of Nature, whose language, peculiarly poetic, was that of Nature herself, and whose lively imaginations enabled them to see "God in the clouds And hear him in the winds." Gorges says the coming hither of these Abenake "must be acknowledged the means under God of putting on foot and giving life to all our plantations." This devout impression on the mind of Gorges was never lessened, but rather strengthened, as the years grew. April 10, 1606, was organized a definite movement for the colonization of America. It was known as the Plymouth, or New England Company. In 1609, the renewal of its powers extended its juris- diction from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the terri- tory being bounded on the north by the claims of the French in Nova Scotia, and on the south, by the somewhat uncertain limitations of the Hudson River country. Gorges may be considered the first land promoter of these parts, seconded by Chief Justice Popham. Gorges at once despatched a ship to the coast of Maine to settle the matter of location for his OLD YORK 69 colony, which was to set out later. Henry Challon sailed this vessel, but veering too far to the south- ward, he fell in with the Spaniards, who made a prey of his equipment. Martin Pring, despatched by Popham shortly after, met with better success, but the details of Pring's voyage have little reference to the fortunes of York. From this on to the sailing of the May-flower, the work of colonizing these shores had been of a desul- tory character. The nucleus of the first permanent settlement in the New England of Smith, was formed in the latter part of that year, but not where it was originally intended. But for the treachery of Jones, the Mayflower's sailing-master, the Pilgrims would have settled at the mouth of the Hudson River. Jones was paid in good Dutch money to land the Leyden contingent anywhere else but there, and he kept his contract by dropping anchor off the inhos- pitable shores of Cape Cod. The fishing-stations from Stratton's Island, eastward, could hardly be classed as settlements. The Virginias, under the influential and wealthy London Company, were prosperous, but the Plym- outh Company had so far been an ill-starred enter- prise. Gorges asked for an extension of his Com- pany's powers, to be jealously opposed by the London Company, which had the support of Parliament. This opposition of Parliament to the projects of its royal master had become so irritating that James dissolved that body, sending its members home under disfavor — what part was not sent to the Tower. It 70 OLD YORK was an impolitic proceeding on the part of James, and ultimately, a disastrous one to the Gorges inter- ests, although the powers asked for by the Plymouth Company were granted and confirmed by royal edict. With the death of James, Charles came to the throne, who extended his favor to Gorges as had his pre- decessor, Charles beheaded, and the Commonwealth of Cromwell established, it was remembered that James had been master, and Gorges, man, and the obloquy born of kingly tyranny and a like royal insolence, fell, a natural legacy, to the beneficiaries of the royal favor. Gorges was a notable instance, and upon him in part were visited the punishments deemed to be due his royal master, by a fanatic populace. But, to go back to the dissolution of Parliament, that obstructive body out of his way, James char- tered the "The Coimcil Established in Plymouth, in the County of Devon, for the Planting, Ruling, Order- ing, and Governing of New England in America." Its patentees were largely peers, as many as thirteen of them, at least, including Warwick, Lennox, Hamil- ton, and Sheffield. All were of notable influence, and distinguished in their support of the king. This charter bore the date of November 3, 1620, and it was in the bleak and wintry days of December of that year that Jones, the Mayflower skipper, had dropped his cargo of human freight on the sands of Massachasetts Bay. Discovering themselves within the limits of the Gorges patent, they made haste to obtain "such freedom and liberty as might stand OLD YORK 71 to their likings," which was confirmed to them by a patent to one John Pierce and others, by the Plymouth Council, of which Gorges was the moving spirit. At this time, John Mason was governor of English Portsmouth, and becoming interested in this new country he had acquired a land grant of territory, now a part of New Hampshire. He joined his inter- ests with Gorges, with the result that they procured from the Plymouth Comicil, of which both were members, a patent covering all that territory between the Kennebec River on the north, and the Merrimac, on the south, extending inland sixty miles. This patent included all islands within two leagues of the mainland. It was in 1625, that the death of James I occurred, but Charles I, his successor, was no less friendly to the Plymouth Company. The Plymouth Colony had taken permanent root in the meantime, and had attracted to itself a strong working con- tingent. Richard Vines, who had made a previous voyage to the mouth of the Saco River, where he had win- tered, had returned to that place and had begmi the founding of a colony. David Thompson had built a "stone house" at Odiorne's Point, in what is now Rye. Edward Hilton had pitched his tent on the banks of the Piscataqua at what is now Dover, and was planting corn across the river in what is now Berwick. The Isles of Shoals had become a con- siderable fishing station where William Pepperrell had begun, or was about to begin, his notable career. 72 OLD YORK George Richmon had finished his voyaging to Rich- mon's Island, where Walter Bagnall had opened a trading-station. Edward Godfrey was at York Harbor; Richard Bonython at Saco; Thomas Cam- mock at Black Point; Thomas Pmxhas at New Meadows River, now Brunswick; Jolin Stratton was at Cape Porpoise. With this somewhat wide, yet sparse, distribu- tion of settlers. Gorges and Mason had dissolved partnership. Mason retained the territory south of the Piscataqua, while Gorges retained the country on the opposite bank. Mason had begun the build- ing of mills at Newichawannick, the nucleus of a prosperous settlement, when his death occurred, which practically terminated the further progress of this settlement. In 1635, June 7, the Plymouth Council surren- dered its charter, and while the powers of the old company were never renewed by the unstable Charles, Gorges was, in a way, protected in his rights in New Somersetshire, as he called his New England posses- sions; and so it came about that William Gorges came over in 1636 and established his paraphernalia of government at Saco. Three years later, Gorges had prevailed upon Charles to grant the charter which created the prior interests of Gorges into the Palatinate of Maine, but too late for him to put into its administration of affairs needful to its prosper- ous growth and importance, and especially its in- tended active espousal of the Episcopal Propaganda, the vigor necessary to overcome even ordinary OLD YORK 73 obstacles, of which the tearing down of the Puritan fences about the Massachusetts Bay Province, and the feeding of the Episcopal herds among its ver- dant fields was one. Gorges was getting along in years, and his means even then were sadly depleted by his New England ventures. The times in Eng- land were tinged with uncertainty. Charles was unpopular, and the legacy of the royal insolence and intolerance left by James, had been put at interest by the former at whirlwind rates that culminated in the triple disasters of Marston Moor, Edgehill, and Naseby. With the downfall of Charles and the ascendancy of Cromwell, the grant to Gorges was declared by Parliament to be invalid, but not, however, before Thomas Gorges was made governor, 1640, of the Province of Maine, and on the 25th of June, of which year he had established his Court of Judicature, and had incorporated the city of Gorgeana. Three years later, the influence of Gorges ceased to be a factor in New England affairs. In 1643, the title of the Episcopal Gorges passed to the Puritan, Alexander Rigby, who had purchased the Lygonia Grant. So long as the English Commonwealth stood, the Rigby titles were effective, but with the restoration, Charles II reconfirmed the Gorges titles which had been sustained by the English courts, and Massachusetts Bay was ousted from her fourteen years' occupation of Maine. Three years later, Massachusetts had acquired the Gorges title from his heir, and the tables were promptly turned, and the Puritans were, 74 OLD YORK at last, by the astuteness of Governor Leverett, able to pluck the thorn of Episcopalianism from the Puri- tan side. This is the story of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, whose ambitions were great, and whose kindliness toward the Pilgrims is an index of his greatness of character. According to Willis, a settlement was begun here on York River as early as 1632, by Edward Godfrey, but it must have been prior to that date by two or three years. York is said to have been settled as early as 1629, permanently, and by Godfrey, who, says he, was the first to open up the York lands. He built his house near the mouth of the river. In his petition to the General Court of October 30, 1654, he sets the date as 1630. The site of his house is un- known, but one may safely say "near its mouth;" for these settlers at the beginning were fond of the openings along the coast, and York Harbor, even in the days of Godfrey, must have possessed suffi- OLD YORK • 75 cient charm to have won the heart of the most pro- saic. Godfrey, Hke his compeers, had a proper appreciation of water-carriage, and would natm-ally choose a location easily reached by the shipping of the times. Doubtless, he had spied out the land before 1630, and had become familiar with its pos- sibilities, for he had been at Piscataqua several years as agent for the Laconia Company. Others fol- lowed him to York in considerable numbers, and as they came, the cabin of the settler began to reach into the wilderness up river in the search for the most available locations. This river was known as the Agamenticus, as well as the York; and a saw-mill was shipped hither by Gorges and Mason in 1634, with a mill-man to set up its machinery and to get it into "running order." The Indian name of the river was Ailghemak-ti-kees, the ancient designation of the Sacoes. According to Bullard, it was to be translated, the Snow-shoes River, taking its name from the pond from which it derives its source, and the shape of which the Sacoes likened to the shape of a snow-shoe. Ligonia was adjudged not to be a part of the Maine province. Godfrey was elected governor of the western part of Maine, and the first court under his administration was held at Gorgeana in July of the same year. In time Godfrey returned to England, where, im poverished, he was put into a debtor's prison, and finally died in great poverty. Here, at York, one may dream away the sunlit hours to the music of the sea; or revel, under the 76 OLD YORK shadows of the old York ehns, in the visions w-liich throng the story of the past, and which come to one in whatever direction the eye may turn. Whether afoot or horseback, an ancient roof-tree, liere or there, weaves its magic spell, and the broad, smooth high- ways change to the blazed saddle-path, or lightly- trodden trail of the Indian through the underbrush YORK RIVER of the mitamed forest ; or one sees the lone horse and its rider, following a long stretch of sea-sands glim- mering in the sun, where every flood of the tide irons the hoof-marks smooth again, until every hieroglyph of footprint of man or beast is washed clear from this page of Nature. What days those were, when one's nearest neighbor was miles away! AVhen the rugged settler " backed " his cow-hide bag of corn to some rude mill, like that OLD YORK 77 of John Fickermg's, who set his clumsy rough-picked mill-stones awhir to awake the slumberous glooms of Accomenticus River in 1701. This was not an un- common occurrence, and whose mill ground so coarsely that it was said the meal " had to be sifted through a ladder." Neighbors, indeed! But what neighbor so enter- taining as he who fed the wide-mouthed hopper, or caught the hot meal as it dropped into the long meal- box, feeling its fineness with an expert touch, his face aglow with kindly interest; for here all the gossip current was on tap, and the miller liked a bit of harmless chat as well as other folk! I can see the old Pickering mill perched above its rude dam of logs that stopped for a little the flood of the slender stream on its way to meet the salt tide as it came beating in from the Isles of Shoals, hiding the glisten- ing flats that lay below a stretch of grassy marge. The mill-pond lies asleep in the drowsy shadows of mid-afternoon. The shag of the hemlocks on its banks, reflected in its pellucid depths, makes the broidered lashes to this one of Nature's half-shut eyes so lazily upturned to the sky. One can hear the water rushing out the leaky pen-stock; and the plash of the paddles, on the under-shot wheel some- where in the dripping cavern under the old mill, among the huge mossy timbers, that was always a place of awesome mystery, marks the time of the miller's song. Below, the rough boulders are strewn amidstream, from edge to edge, around which the water swirls and writhes, its liquid lips rimmed with 78 OLD YORK foam, until caught in some tremulous eddy, it stops, and then, with a shiver of exaltation, it races away to the smooth levels of the marshes. Over the dam falls a thin wide ribbon that catches all the hues of sky and wood, an endless ribbon, for the loom that weaves this incomparable fabric will stop only when the springs of Accomenticus run dry. And the mill- pond, — above the sheen of this dye-pot of brilliant emerald hung the old mill; and, below, was another, its roof in the water, in the gray sides of which were ^r THE MILL-DAM little square windows, no larger than a ship's port- hole, that looked out upon this mosaic of color, each wooden casing a rude frame to hold an untranslatable poem of Nature. On the hither side, a narrow door, with its hood of rough slabs, where through the idle hours the miller drowsed i' the sun, opened out upon the clearing; OLD YORK 79 and here was the horse-block for goodwife when she came astride Dobbin, her bag of grist thrown a la pillion across the baciv of the patient animal. Then the stones began to sing a low tremulous mon- ody that drifted out the little windows, and that was lost among the somnolent leafage of the verdant tide that ran like a sea at flood to the crown of Accomen- ticus Hill. With the grinding, the goodwife's tongue "Marked the rhythm, and kept the time," tipped with, perchance, a fillip of coarse wit, or some tragic tale of wolfish raid upon the paddock; for the wolves wxre so aggressive in those days that the province paid at one time a bounty of ten dollars for a single shaggy jowl crowned with a long slant fore- head flanked by a pair of lean crop-ears. And were it not a story of wolves, perchance some Burdett of unsavory reputation might give some excuse for gossip. In 1640, one Burdett, expelled from Exeter, came here and began to preach without authority; but, it was not for long, as the York court had him "punished for lewdness," with the result that he betook himself to more congenial fields. Such hap- penings were not uncommon at a time when the Isles of Shoals, wholly manned by fishermen, was forbidden to the softer sex. Here is a quaint reminder of those days, in the fol- lowing memorial presented to the court at York in the year 1647. "The humble petition of Richard Cutts and John Cutting, that contrary to an act or order of the court 80 OLD YORK which says, ' no woman shall Uve upon the Isle of Shoals/ John Reynolds has his wife thither with an intention to live here, and abide. . . . Your peti- tioners therefore pray that the act of the Court may be put in execution for the removal of all women; also the goats and the swine." Order was issued to said Reynolds to remove his goats and swine in twenty days; and as to "the re- moval of his wife," it was "thought fit by the Court, that if no further complaint come against her, she may enjoy the company of her husband." This prohibition of the court was a general one. The ethics of domestic obligation and domestic seclu- sion were somewhat loosely strung, and the basis of so sweeping a prohibition was that the women were "owned by the men in as many shares as a boat," — a most lamentable condition of things from any point of view, and indicating a low state of moral- ity. It affords a scathing reflection upon the indiffer- ence of the times to all individual restraint, honesty, and observance of personal rights. These men were fishermen, illiterate, as well as brutal, in all their in- stincts. Their ways were rough, uncouth. Their isolation had much to do with this. Society was limited. Among the middle class were few ameni- ties. The women were not of the tender, clinging kind to grace the fore-room on state occasions, but rather for the rugged uses which the early settler and pioneer, under the most strenuous conditions imag- ' inable of daily living, were compelled to combat and overcome. She was an active partner whose OLD YORK 81 contribution to the common capital was limited only by the ]30wer of her endurance. These men and women who felled forests, opened up clearings and laid the foundations for the fortunes of a later civilization, were not of those whose status in the home country was assured, but rather the part of an element of whicli the English at home were in many instances glad to be well rid of. They were ser- vants, hirelings, who, once here, left their masters upon one pretext and another, from time to time, to "squat," or in many cases, procure grants of land to themselves. With them, might was right, and an miruly set they were ! No wonder towns reserved the right to pass upon the qualifications of a new- comer to citizenship. It became a barrier not lightly to be crossed; and evil-doers were summarily dealt with, and after a fashion that would be noisily de- cried in these more lenient days. The whipping- post, the stocks, the pillory, and the ducking-stool, were rough chastisements for minor offences; but such were necessary. Our forefathers were wise in their generation. Nowadays, one is easily possessed of the spell of peace and contentment that everywhere prevails. Never was a people swept so rapidly along by the current of events as these descendants of the old settlers of York, approximately speaking. The old days are far away. The old traditions are cher- ished by the few. Only as they are made attractive, or invested with some charm of relation, will they survive the strenuous life of to-day. 82 OLD YORK Here, along the ways of one's going up and down these roads of York, are the colors of a perfect land- scape of sea, of sky, and shore. Inland the domes of the woodlands suggest solid texture and a grace- ful contour. They are upreared into huge windrows of verdancy that topple over the scarps of the adja- cent hills, to fade away with vanishing lines into the hazy indistinctness of a limitless perspective, as these phalanxes of verdurous uplands close up, or break away into wide-open spaces of fertile farming-lands, field, meadow, and marsh, with here and there a low-pitched roof — square patches of butternut, which the hand of man has added to the larger garb of Nature. This is the handiwork of man. The pioneer made all this possible. But how different is all this from the wild luxuriance of tree and vine of the days of Pring's and Smith's voyaging up and down the coast. Pring, 1603, was probably the first to land upon the shores of Piscataqua, while Smith touched at the Isles of Shoals nine years after Du Monts saw them. Smith came after Pring, when the codfish were so plentiful that they "staled" his ships. He named these islands that now constitute the town of Appledore, Smith Islands. Isles of Shoals is cer- tainly a more euphonious and poetic appellation. I am glad someone changed it. Appledore is better still. There is a fruitiness about Appledore that suggests the idyllic summer resort, to invest these outlying reefs and ribs of seaweed with fascinating charm akin to that of old York itself, the first settle- OLD YORK 83 ment of which, according to Godfrey, was on York River, in 1629. York was not always known by that name. On Capt. Jolin Smith's map (1514) here was the first Boston on the New England coast. It was the old Quack of Indian nomenclature, some annalists have BARN COVE it, but Levett says otherwise; and this river of York was the Accomenticus of the aborigine. It was here the Queen of Quack and her husband, along with the little prince, the dog, and the "kettle" enter- 84 OLD YORK tained Christopher Level t after their short sail from tlie headlands of Cape Elizabeth. This was a very attractive country to such as got near enough to the land so they might discover its disposition. Du Monts and Champlain were at Old Orchard July 12 of 1605; and as they sailed to Cape Ann, where they arrived four days later, Champlain says they kept close to the coast, making notes of the country, its inhabitants, and their physique, their habits, and manners of life. He notes as he sails hither from the eastward that the natives hereabout are of a sed- entary disposition; that they are tillers of the soil; and he writes of the fields of maize, and pumpkins, and beans, about Cape EHzabeth. He ran into the mouth of the Saco, but he somehow does not make particular mention of the Pascataquack River, which it might seem to have deserved. Of all these voyagers, however, Capt. John Smith was the most leisurely in his visiting of these parts; and to him the English owe most, undoubtedly, for the occupation and de- velopment by the English pioneer. Rich says that Smith was the first to name the country Nova Brit- tania, and it was to this probably that the English were enabled to make valid claim to it. That it remained to Smith to do this is somewhat singular, as this trimountain elevation of Accominticus, or Agamenticus, modernized, or locally "Head o' Men- ticus," "Eddymenticus," as it comes to one from those who hve under its shadows, was visible far at sea, as it is now. Those of the aborigines who knew it best were the Pascatawayes, the Accomintas, and OLD YORK 85 the Sacoes. It is a half-hour's cHml) to its highest point, if one goes by Drake's watch; but I should use up more time than that, for I should stop to look at all the pictures, from floor to sky-line, and there are hosts of them, and all by the same artist — a wonder- ful artist, too! There is no road, or even pathway up this steep. There is the bed of a brook, dry in Summer, but as the Spring snows melt, a rollicking torrent. One can take that, or one can strike straight for the ledgy summit through the underbrush and tangle of vines and briars that always keep such places summer company. The best time is in the early morning when the air is clear, when all the capes, headlands, coves, and beaches from Cape Ann, almost to Port- land Head, are stretched upon one huge canvas, and every point of interest is brushed in with all the col- oring of a brilliant sunlight. Every pigment con- ceivable, or desirable, is here. And here is the touch of the mystic in these soft atmospheres that infold each object that appeals to the vision. The ships at sea do not look like ships. They seem to have parted with all suggestion of materialism. White wings massed on the horizon — ethereal argosies — they seem hardly to touch the water, but to float like detached bits of cloud upon an inverted sky. Off to the south is old Portsmouth, Pascataguay, "Its windows flashing to the sky, Beneath a thousand roofs of brown, " 86 OLD YORK and out at sea are the old Smith Islands, the Apple- dore of the Summer tourist, a scatter of rock, reef, and ledge, of which the chiefest is Smutty Nose, which one is like never to forget so long as the story of Annethe Christensen lingers in the mind, unless Appledore may take some precedence; but these two are the largest, and topographically, about the same size. Rye Beach is like an inlaying of gold between the sea and the land, Imninously bright under the clear simlight. One can follow the trail of the Saco and Piscataqua Rivers alike, except that the latter is nearer, hardly two leagues away. "Old Ketterie" is almost under one's hand, flanked by Champer- nowne's Island that butts up against Brave-boat Harbor where York River filters seaward through the yellow marshes, and York River has its rise along the dried-up "bed of a mountain torrent," which Drake says, he followed in his ascent of Agamenticus. But Whittier saw it all, and let him tell it. "Far down the vale my friend and I Beheld the old and quiet town; The ghostly sails that out at sea Flapped their white wings of mystery; The beaches glimmering in the sun, And the low-wooded capes that run Into the sea-mist, north and south; The sand-bluffs at the river's mouth; The swinging chain-bridge, and, afar The foam-line of the harbor-bar. OLD YORK 87 "Over the woods and meadow-lands A crimson-tinted shadow lay Of clouds through which the setting day Flung a slant glory far away. It glittered on the wet sea-sands, It flamed upon the city's panes, Smote the white sails of ships that wore Outward, or in, and gilded o'er The steeples with their veering vanes!" As one looks inland, the White Hills of New Hamp- shire loom grandly against the sky. Their hue is cyane, a massive undulation of stark bulk above the receding waves of woodland that intervene. And between, is writ the story of Darby Field, along with numerous other tales of a dead century. I am minded of IMoses when he stood upon Sinai ; only the God of men, and all things else, is otherwise revealed to an adoring spirit. One feels like removing one's shoes, for, if ever there was sacred ground, here it must be, with such a vision and such a crowding of thought upon thought against the outer walls of the mind, struggling for adequate expression which never comes. After one has a surfeit of looking, one listens to hear — what? Nothing. Even the wind trips over the crest of Agamenticus with tip-toeing steps, as if this altar of Nature were not to be Hghtly invaded. And then one dreams, and he sees the voyagers from the far North, the fair-haired Norsemen; and after them, the adventurous Basques; and long years after, the shades of Cabot, Cortereal, Du Monts, and Cham- plain; of Smith, Gosnold, and Pring, and sturdy English Weymouth who founded the first English 88 OLD YORK settlement on the immediate coast, for, Pemaquid is hardly a day's sail away. I hail them as they go up or down, "Ahoy! Ahoy!" but no answer comes down the wind. They pass like the ghosts they are — and so the day goes. Boon Island Light comes out in the dusk, a red flame in the darkening sea, and over Scarborough way is another light that may be Good- man Garvin's for aught I know ; and the evening gun that breaks the silence may be — " from gray Fort Mary's walls," — but another would declare it was as far away as Fort Williams that huddles under the Pharos-flame of Portland Head, but it is in truth from Old Consti- tution across the bay. High up on the summit of this hill, which Capt. John Smith, on his map of 1614, designates as "Schooler's Hill," after a small mountain in Eng- lish Kent of the same name, one is under the spell of its ieipressive silences; and among the legends that come, is that of St. Aspinquid, the famous chief of the Pawtuckets. It is said that up to 1780 his tomb- stone was to be seen here with its simple epitaph, "Present, Useful; Absent, Wanted; Living, Desired; Dying, Lamented." St. Aspinquid is reputed to have been born in this York country many years before Walter Neale came to Kittery as its flrst settler, and, according to the legend, the date is May, 1588. After Mission- ary John Eliot began to teach the Indians the faith OLD YORK 89 of the Nazarene, Aspinquid came under the spell of Eliot's simple oratory, and at once became a con- vert. He threw aside the hatchet, and eschewing his habits of savagery, began his pilgrimage to the far waters of the Golden Gate, telling in his rude way the story of the Man of Galilee, and showing the new way to the Happy Hmiting-grounds, teach- ing the mystery of the true Manitou. He is said to have been greatly venerated by these rude sons of Nature, who listened to him gravely, even though they did not accept his propaganda, which to them must have been of strange and awesome import. He is said to have died at the ripe old age of ninety- four, in the year 1682, and to have been buried upon the summit of Aughemak-ti-koos, with great cere- mony, and which may well be regarded as hallowed ground. No doubt here was an Indian Mecca, so long as the Indians cherished the tradition, and as one watches the winding of the mists about this wind- straked hill-top, the wraith of this St. Aspinquid is readily distinguished. If one wished to approach York rightly, he should take to the sands of Long Beach with the rugged grip of Cape Neddock's rocks still lingering upon the soles of his shoes. By road is the shortest way, but if one loves the sea, the trudge along the yellow sands is one of delight, especially at low tide. The salty smell comes to one's nostrils with enlivening quality and without a hint of dust ; nor, is one alone ; for this IS a famous drive — a mile out and another back — and the gay turnouts of the summer visitors and the 90 OLD, YORK groups of romping children, along with the endless song of the sea above which troops of white gulls dip with a suggestion of ghost-like silence, and the long lines of breaking surf, and beyond all this, the low-trailing smokes of the freighters, and the glint- ing sails of the coasters, afford a scene almost kalei- doscopic in variety and rapidity, so swiftly do these combinations of living pictures form and fade. York has been known from the earliest coming hither of the English discoverers. This hill of Aga- menticus was a landmark. It was discernible from a considerable distance at sea. In fact, it could be seen long before the huge wilderness of woods at its foot could be made out by the mariner. Smith saj's, 1614, " Accominticus and Pascataquack are two con- venient harbors for small barks, and a good country within their craggy cliffs." Christopher Levett came over here, 1623-4, and spent some time about Casco Bay, where he built a house on what is now known as House Island. He came prepared to make a permanent settlement, and gave some care to his survey of the coast, before finally deciding on Casco Bay, all of which is evident from his report on the Piscataqua region. His description is per- haps the best we have, and may be quoted with in- terest here. He says, "About two leagues farther to the east (of the Piscataqua) is another great river, called Aquamenticus." Levett could not have gone up this stream, for it is neither great nor navigable for a vessel of any considerable size. He may have dropped his anchor in Brave-boat Harbor on a flood- OLD YORK 91 tide which would have given him possibly the im- pression which his report conveys. He goes on, "There, I think, a good plantation may be settled; for there is a good harbor for ships, good ground, and much already cleared, fit for planting of corn and other fruits, having heretofore been planted by the savages who are all dead. There is good timber, and likely to be good fishing, but, as yet, there hath been no trial made that I can hear of." Levett evidently was not aware of Capt. John Smith's experience among the codfish schools of 1514 and earlier. The absence of the savages was due to a plague which shortly before had practically de- populated the Etchemin country, and from which it never fully recovered. That may have been the reason why Sebastian Cabot makes no mention of the aborigine, either upon his first voyage of 1498, or his later reputed voyage of 1515. Levett was one of the New England Council, but after his return to England in 1624, no further men- tion of him is found in local annals. This place has had several names. In 1640, it was erected into the borough of Agamenticus. A year later it was incor- porated into the city of Gorgeana. To quote Win- throp's journal, "In the summer of 1640 Thomas Gorges arrived, accompanied by the Lord Proprietor as his Deputy Governor of the Province." Drake says "1641." Winthrop should be the better authority. About 1676, the charter of Gorgeana was revoked, and the settlement was dubbed York, which name it has ever since borne. 92 OLD YORK Accominticus is a word of Indian origin. Trans- lated, it means, according to one authority, "on the other side of the river," — an apphcation thoroughly local, — but the correctness of the translation is to be doubted, as all Indian names were of local applica- tion, though topographically correct in its description of this place or country, the settlement of which may rightfully claim some of our attention. The old town, geographically, was noted on the ^X SITE OF GOV. GORGES' HOUSE old maps as in latitude 23° 10' north, and longitude 70° 40' west. The first settlement was at Kittery not earlier than 1623, and three years after the com- ing of the Mayflower there were on the Isles of Shoals three hundred inhabitants, whose sole occupation was fishing; a rough, unlettered constituency, amen- able to no one. In a westerly course, perhaps ten OLD YORK 93 miles away, was the mouth of the Piscataqua. North and south stretched away the mainland, a most attractive country to the settler, and here was the Gorges and Mason land granted them by the Plymouth Council in 1622. The settlement was begun about 1623 by Francis Norton, a lieutenant- colonel in the English army before his coming hither, which was in the interest of the patentees. Gorges was a man of ancient lineage, a favorite of Charles, and a man of much influence at Court. Important results were anticipated. Norton was sent over to manage, and with him were artificers to build mills, and cattle to populate the fields. The grant cov- ered the immense territory of twenty-four thousand acres. Capt. William Gorges came over to more particularly represent his uncle's interest. The cellar of William Gorges' house may still be seen. It was situated on the northeasterly bank of York River a few rods above Rice's Bridge. A small ladle was ploughed up here. Its duplicate was reputed to have been found at Pemaquid on the site of the Popham settlement of 1608. Not much profit was derived from this venture, and in 1639, Charles revoked the Charter to the Plymouth Council and issued a new grant to Gorges, confirming in him the title to the lands on the east side of the Piscataqua as far as the Kennebec River. A new effort was to be made at colonization. The earlier experiment was an expensive one, no less than twenty thousand pounds having been sunk in the ven- ture. Gorges' means were greatly impoverished, and 94 OLD YORK he now hoped to recoup his somewhat shattered fortunes. The officers appointed by him under his commission of March 10, 1639, were William Gorges, Edward Godfrey, William Hook of Agamenticus, Richard Vines of Saco, Henry Jossylyn of Black Point, Francis Champernoon of Piscataqua, then "old Kitterie," and Richard Bonython of Saco. This old plantation of Agamenticus was first a borough in 1640; and out of this was erected the city of Gorgeana, of which Thomas Gorges was the first mayor, who began his administration in 1641. When Thomas Gorges arrived upon the scene he found the labors of his predecessor of little avail, except that the houses were there to afford shelter; but they had been stripped of all their conveniences and furnishings. Gorges never came to America, but at his own expense he caused to be built and fur- nished what were known as the Lord Proprietor's buildings, one of which was a fine mansion which Sir Ferdinando Gorges at some day in the near future hoped to occupy himself. These, Thomas Gorges found in a "state of great delapidation." It was ''destitute of furniture, refreshments, rum, candles, or milk; his personal property was squandered; nothing of his household stuff remaining but an old teapot, a pair of tongs, and a couple of andirons." Not long ago, while tearing down a chimney in one of the old houses of York, and embedded in the back curve of one of the flues, the workmen found an old pewter teapot. The bottom of this old utensil showed signs of having been recoppered, and it bore OLD YORK 95 the marks of considerable use, the lid having been frequently mended. On the inner side of the lid were the figures " 1644" and also the letters " Fer Gor," and from these it was easy to conjecture its former ownership. To my mind there is no doubt that this is the identical teapot which Thomas Gorges found here when he came to assume the administration of the affairs of Gorgeana. This quaint relic is said UNION BLUFF now to be in the possession of Miss Mary B. Patten of Watertown, Mass. It is hoped it will sometime find its place among the treasures of the Maine His- torical Society, the proper repository of like anti- quities. Thomas selected the site for his new city under the shadows of old Agamenticus, the first city in the New World under the regime of the discoverers. 96 OLD YORK Here was the nucleus of the new enterprise, but it was doomed to suffer the fate of Norton's borough, at which Norton is said to have assisted in the driving a hundred head of cattle, all there were, to Boston, where he disposed of them for twenty-five pounds each. Whether he ever accounted to his principals is not known, as after this little or nothing is heard of him. The high sentiments of the promoters of Gorgeana were not appreciated. Illiterateness prevailed. Society was at low ebb. The community was a mixed one, made up in great degree of lawless men to whom the most moderate restraint was irksome, who WTre debased by their associations. True, they were of rugged character, hardy and inured to pioneer life, but uncouth both in mind and manners. It was this state of affairs that led to the dissolution of the interest coparcenary of Gorges and Mason in 1629. Six years later, the Plymouth Coimcil gave up their patent to acquire a new one which was al- lotted into twelve parts, the third and fourth portions, as before indicated, lying between the Piscataqua and Kennebec rivers. It was this allotment which was supplanted by the grant of 1639. This settlement maintained its foothold with vary- ing yet not over-flattering fortunes. Gorges, elated with his power, which was almost that of royalty in this New England domain, and practically abso- lute, in high favor with his king, he could discover none of the quicksands that lay everywhere about his projects. His ambition was to found a great OLD YORK 97 state, and the Church of England would be ultimately the influence to overshadow and perhaps entirely extirpate the Puritan "heresy," which, finding a con- genial soil along the rugged shores of Massachusetts Bay, was cropping out here and there in the prov- ince of Maine as it found a fertile spot, and acquiring a solidarity, that, having in mind the austerities of the sect that meted out swift punishment to the most indifferent infraction of its laws, was notable and productive of apprehension to the rigid churchmen of England. The Plymouth colony was aggressive, and perhaps the extension of its dominating influence was due to that self-same quality, a quality which was thor- oughly inoculated with the personalities of Bradford, Winthrop, and later, Sewall and Mather. It was to meet and combat these silently accumulating sec- tarian forces that had made the country south of the Piscataqua, Puritan, that the Episcopalian propa- ganda was to be planted and nourished here. Nothing ever came of it. It is interesting to note, as one refers to the admin- istration of Thomas Gorges, that one of his first acts was to clean out the Augean stables, or in other words, to exile the disreputable George Burdett. This Burdett was a minister, originally from Yar- mouth, county of Norfolk, England. One hears of him in the province of Salem in 1635, where he preached the two following years. He shifted thence to Dover, where he was but a brief period, having trouble, and from thence he moved still farther east- 98 OLD YORK ward into York, where Thomas Gorges found him practising the arts of the devil, for his story is that of a licentious man, a wolf in sheep's clothing. He made himself so obnoxious with one and another of the members of his parish, notably one Mary Pud- dington, that the latter was indicted for so "often frequenting the house and company of ]\Ir. George Burdett," that she was ordered to make "publick confession," which she did in these humiliating words : "I, Mary Puddington, do hereby acknowledge that I have dishonored God, the place where I live, and wronged my husband by my disobedience and light carriage, for which I am heartily sorry, and de- sire forgiveness of this Court, and of my husband, and do promise amendment of life and manners henceforth; " and having made this confession, to ask her husband's forgiveness on her knees. Burdett was indicted by "the whole Bench," which was constituted by Thomas Gorges, Richard Vines, Richard Bonython, Henry Jocelyn, and Edmund Godfrey. It was on the date of September 8, 1640, and the indictment described the accused as a "man of ill-name and fame, infamous for incontinency, a publisher and broacher of divers dangerous speeches, the better to seduce that weak sex of woman to his incontinent practices contrary to the peace of our Sovereign Lord the King, as by depositions and evi- dences." This inquest find Billa Vera. He was fined "Ten Pounds Sterling, to the said George Pud dington for those of his wrongs and Damage sus- OLD YORK 99 tained by the said George Burdett." This is the only decision I have found where damages have been awarded by the early provincial courts for ahena- tion of the affections of the wife or husband, though such are common enough in these modern days. The case must have been of no inconsiderable aggravation to have inclined the court to personal damages. On another indictment "for Deflowering Ruth, wife of John Gouch of Agamenticus aforesaid," he was fined twenty pounds. The wife, Ruth, was found guilty " by the Grand Inquest, of Adultery with Mr. George Burdett," and to follow the language of the sentence "is censured by this Court, that six weeks after she is delivered of child, she shall stand in a white sheet, publickly in the Congregation at Agamenticus two several Sabbath Days, and likewise one day at this General Court when she shall be there- unto called by the Counsellors of this Province, ac- cording to his majesty's laws in that case provided." The George Puddington here mentioned was one of the "Deputies for the Inhabitants of Agamen- ticus," and may, therefore, be regarded as something of a public character, and a man of some parts. Burdett found the atmosphere of Agamenticus so unwholesome and his disrepute was so bruited about the province, that he was compelled to quit the country. He finally returned to England to the wife he had there left in distress, from which time but little more is heard of him. Gorges kept to his reform with a stern hand. He 101 OLD YORK compelled parents to have their children baptized. Neglect to do this was contempt of court. It is interesting to note as well these early efforts to better the moral condition of things, as one gets from a perusal of these ancient records a fair estimate of the social side of the provincial life, and the con- clusion is not flattering to the morals of the time. It is very evident that little or nothing of the delicate consideration extended to women in these days was practised in the seventeenth century, or at least in its earlier half. There was small sympathy for their transgressions, and no disposition to pass over their overt acts of misdoing. That there were men of cultivated and refined character is true; but they were few in number and were mostly in authority; yet that the culprit was a woman emphasized the rigor of the punishment, which was usually of the severest and oftentimes the most brutal character. No doubt the ignorance and prejudice of those days demanded drastic measures, and cheating and incon- tinency were the prevailing offences. The case of William Noreman is interesting from this point of view. Noreman had a wife in England. After the fashion of the day, he married Margery Randall. Upon Margery's discovery of the fact, she petitioned for a divorce, and the court ordered "that the said Margery Randall shall from henceforth have her divorce and now by order thereof clearly freed from the said Noreman." Then the court devotes its attention to the biga- OLD YORK "S)! mist. "It is therefore ordered by this Court that the said Noreman shall henceforth be banished out of this countrie, and is to depart thence within seven days after date hereof, and in case the said Noreman be found after that time in this Jurisdiction, he shall forthwith according to law be put to death." One hesitates to make any comment. Of Gorges' Commission of 1639, Richard Bonython, Gentleman, was a most efficient and capable man. He was the local magistrate. These men all bore honorable names, and their living-places, as given, are significant as indicating the rapid advance of the English along the North Shore until — the land of Wonalancet, Sagamore of Pennacooke — is left behind, the tide still pressing farther to the eastward, and farther, still, pushing over the broad Piscataqua, Where the fog trails through the valley To the sea-coast, miles away; Where, among the dunes of Portsmouth, Stream and tide together flow, And the fort, gray-walled and moated, Guards the fisher-huts, below. Still on crept the slender trail of the Anglo-Saxon, Through Newichawannock's forest. Over bog and hill and stream, Where the muskrat leaves his ripple. And the dun owls blink and dream, 102 OLD YORK to the homes of Vines, and of Bonython, that over- look The Saco's silver wall. Eastward, where the sands of Spurwink Watch the salt tides rise and fall — where the council-fires of Squando were, in years to come, to gild the Druid hemlocks with something of a vengeful glare as he plotted for Harmon's scalp, or Mogg sued for Ruth Bonython's hand. A bit farther on hawk-eyed Jocelj'Ti had Ms garrison, while just around the ragged rocks of Cape Elizabeth — The seas of Casco glistened, And beneath the wind-blown mists Birchen slopes and barren ledges Screened its shores of amethyst ; and above w-hose vernal domes of limitless woods along the swamps of Machigonne, uprose from the brooding quiet the pillared incense of Cleeve's cabin- fires. This silent reminder, the old William Gorges cellar above Rice's Bridge, is suggestive. It is a cradle- like hollow in the riant grasses, unlike others of its kind, where a ragged heap of stone, cairn-like, a smudge of weeds lighted vip by the dull -red blaze of the sumac or the tawny flame of uncombed, scrawny birches, and similar hints of the hirsuteness of Na- ture, common to like places abandoned of men — unketh-like, unkempt — affords the only hall-mark of its forgotten occupant. If one sets about conjur- ing up the shapes of its once dw^ellers, one senses the uncanny footsteps of those, who in the days agone, OLD YORK 103 made audible approach, but invisible, noiseless now. If they still walk the rotten debris long since reverted to the soil, the old floors, the old paths — and why not ? — we may not know it. These old cellars are like the eyeless sockets in a mouldy skull, perchance a Yorick's, and not less or more pregnant to our questionings than to Hamlet's, What cavernous secrets are here in these wells of emptiness ! And yet these hollows, pit-marks on the face of Nature, make YORK MARSHES speech for those who sound their deeps. When the mists drive down the river on the wind, and the rain beats the windows, then it is one thinks of those — " Doomed for a certain term to walk the night, And, for the day, confined to fast in fires. " The earliest grant of lands here, at York, was from Sir Ferdinando Gorges to his "cozen" Thomas — five thousand acres, on the York River. The Isles 104 OLD YORK of Shoals were included as well as all of Agamenticus. This was in 1641. Delivery was made by "turf and twig" in 1642. Other grants followed down to 1653; but jealousy arose at the Court of Charles. Finally grave charges were made which Gorges an- swered, but not altogether satisfactorily to the gov- ernment. The inadequate conditions of his times made failure probable; nor, was he a man to over- come and ride down obstacles. He was ambitious to shine as a politician. He trimmed his sails to suit "t^.^^^ >> THE BARRELLE MANSE the wind, turning the prow of his ship ever away from the teeth of the gale. Wolsey-likC; he fell, and his fall was great. He died a disappointed man in 1647, at the age of seventy-four. This was two years before Charles was beheaded with the consent of Cromwell. After this, the settlers at Gorgeana were thrown upon their own resources; and they, with the Isles OLD YORK 105 of Shoals, Kittery and Wells united in a common compact for the proper administration of the local government of this first mimic Commonwealth. This was not for long, however, as will be seen by refer- ence to the old York records, which afford apt illus- tration of the old ways of doing things. " Nov. 22, ] 652. — The commissioners held their court and the inhabitants appeared, and after some time spent in debatements, and many questions answered and objections removed, with full and joint consent, acknowledged themselves subject to the government of the Masschusetts in New Eng- land; only Mr. Godfrey did forbeare, imtill the voate was past by the rest, and then immediately he did by voate and word express his consent. Mr. Nich- olas Davis was chosen and sworn constable. Mr. Edward Rishworth was chosen recorder, and de- sired to exercise the place of clarke of the writts. Mr. Henry Norton was chosen marshall there. John Davis was licenced to keep an ordinary and to sell wine and strong water, and for one year he is to pay but twenty shillings the butt. PhilHp Babb of Hogg Hand was appointed constable for all the Hands of Shoales, Starre Hand excepted." Out of this tra- vail old York was born and from this November 22, was a body corporate. All previous land grants were confirmed by Thomas Danforth, President. Massachusetts immediately assumed control of the province of Maine. The Gorgeana charter was revoked and York was incorporated as a town. In 1676, Charles II confirmed the title to the province 106 OLD YORK of Maine to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. A more orderly condition of affairs succeeded, except that the savage was not included within this em- bryo aegis of colonial liberty. One does not have to search over-diligently to come upon the monopolistic tendencies of the times. How will this do? " 1652. — At a town meeting, ordered, that Wil- liam Hilton have the use of ferry for twenty-one years to carry strangers over for twopence, and for swimming over horses or other beasts fourpence; or -^^vd/i^ '■ '■ THE YORK JAIL that one swum over by strangers themselves, he or his servants being ready to attend, and one penny for every townsman." Or this one, as well: "1701, March 21. — Petitions and offer of Capt. John Pickering, to erect a grist-mill, to grinde the corn of the town, and put up a dam, and take timber from any man's land near by. Will do it if the town will give him the monopoly of it; but shall have to lay out about one hundred and fifty pomids, for all OLD YORK 107 the toil of grinding the town's corn will not pay a man wages this seven years. Voted, to grant him the permission to build, take creek, lumber, stream, trees, etc. The mill to be built where Glengom and Gale had theirs." A quaint old structure still stands in York — the old jail. Any one passing over the old York highway must needs see it. It is "like a city set on a hill." One at a distance would take it for some antiquated relic, but upon a nearer view its solid oaken, nail- studded doors, its iron gratings, and its ponderous locks and bolts proclaim its character. It was built in 1653. This old building has an out-of-place look. There is nothing in the modern fashion-plates of house architecture that suggests such a low-browed, stolid complexioned thing as this. There is one thing about the windows — they are too liigh up from the floor — one can't see out comfortably. Perhaps its builders had that in mind, for, with the poor Joane Forde ilk, it would have been a noisy time for the town-fathers. There was little sympathy or com- passion in those days for the unfortunate in stocks and pillory. Joane was glib of tongue, though she might have suffered from a limited vocabulary; but she would have met the jibes and jeers of those out- side these jail windows with the comfortable assur- ance that she was "keeping up her end." Joane called the constable a "horn-headed rogue and cow- head rogue." She got arrested and had nine stripes at the post. Afterward, for a like offence, and she 108 LD YORK did not limit herself to the constable, but threw numerous and unworthy epithets at her good neigh- bors until they got out of patience — no doubt an example of piling Ossa upon Pelion, or of carrying coals to Newcastle — be that as it may, Joane was indicted, given a fair trial, and the court ordered ten lashes, and stood by to see that John Parker performed his duty agreeably to the opinion of the magistrate. Undoubtedly, both Stevens and Murphy were incarcerated here — the former for slaying his son, and the latter his wife. Both were held here at York, and the case of Stevens was tried in the Congrega- tional Church, and Stevens slipped the hangman's noose through "insufficient evidence." Insufficient evidence covers a multitude of sins even in these days. As one recalls the random episode, the old jail has a gruesome look. A shag of ragged, weather- worn shingles with sunlit edge accentuates the dia- phanous suggestions of shadow that lurk under its cowl-like gambrel-roof. Its walls are rain-washed and stained, suggestive of the bareness and squalor of its interior. Its windows have the indifferent stare of one used to the avoidance of his kind, or rather the set look of the dead, wide-oped, that have been thrown up by the sea. In the edge of dusk one might conjure it into a giant toad squat upon its ledge of stone above the roadside, its flat-roofed dormers for all the world a pair of bulging eyes. On either gable a stubby chimney-top is heavily poised, OLD YORK 109 deserted for good by the soot-painted swifts long ago; for if ever there was a ghost-walk in old York, this ancient jail has all the appearance of belonging to that ilk. AVith the glow of sunset on its diminutive panes, one looks for withered crones, sunken-eyed hags, broom-sticks bewitched, bats and such like, and sniffs the air for untoward smells, notably of brimstone; and the mind is under the spell of weird, AN OLD WHARF uncanny tales that were current coin by the fire- sides of the old days — When Sewall sat, in wig and gown, To judge the Devil's protegees, — Quaker and witch, in Salem town, — Whom burly Stoughton exorcised With hangman's scaffold, ill-devised Provincial edict, dearth of common sense. Law-sanctioned crime, and wickedness prepense at Beadle's Tavern. Each ruddy window, too, it a Scarlet Letter to suggest other things in scarlet, as well. 110 OLD YORK But this old hibernacle of groans and imprecations, that have long since been silenced, is but an empty- stage, deserted of its actors, a silent and forsaken remnant of a quondam civilization. But York abounds in old houses, not a few of which are rich in stores of buried romance. These, of course, are found about the old harbor where Donnell's Wharf THE APPLE-TREE BROUGHT FROM ENGLAND still answers the purposes of York's somewhat slender trade by water. This locality is classic, along with Cider Hill and the old Scotland parish, which was among the earliest parts of the town to be settled These people were Scotch Royalists, who were exiled after the fall of Charles I. Years ago, on Cider Hill, was OLD YORK ,111 an old apple-tree, said to have been brought over seas in a tub, almost three centuries ago, and which, since 1874, has been cut down by its owner by reason of the annoyance caused by the visits of the curious stranger. If that man has a trout-brook running through his meadow, I venture to remark that the gentle Walton will find a trespass notice posted at the entrance to his demesne. I hope the trout keep on up the brook, and that the meadow is a small one, and that it is not far to "go around." These old things have the smell of lavender, and make one think of the roomy old-fashioned chests of drawers, where the old-time wedding-gowns and finery were laid away securely, and which one takes, from time to time, from their sweet-smelling retreats, to romance and dream over. They go with the spin- ning-wheel and the old clumsy reel. I have one now, and some of the old yarns still cling to it, undis- turbed, except for these few, which were spun in old York, and which I have unwound, that their texture and dye might be examined and admired by those who feel the charm and romance that comes with the touching of these quaint reminders of a strenuous yet simple living. And these old houses that hold them — Rain-washed, and weather-worn and gray, With two huge chimney-stacks that stand aloof From sprawling elms that hide a low hip-roof. There are some old houses here in York, as in Kittery; but not so many. Landlord Woodbridge 112 OLD YORK had a tavern here in 1770, whose sign bore the mystery, "Billy Pitt;" below, was the significant welcome, "Entertainment for the Sons of Liberty." There were those thus early who were dubbed Tories ; evidently, whose room was preferable to their com panionship; and it w^as to this contingent this some- what inhospitable innuendo was extended. There were more or less outspoken leanings to the cause of the colonies for which John Adams stood so staunchly; and it is plainly to be seen that the genial "Woodbridge was not slow, or at all backward, in indicating his preference as to the quality of the OLD WOODBRIDGE TAVERN custom and the politics most to his taste. This old tavern in its time was a famous hostel. Among the notables who at one time and another exchanged courtesies with its landlord, who openly boasted the political heresies of Boston, was John Adams, who was here in 1770, as he followed the circuit, and it was here he met, after some years of separation, his OLD YORK 113 old friend, Justice Sewall, who afterward became as good a Whig as any. The Stacey Tavern was a famous one in its day, which was as early as 1634. No vestige of this hostelry remains. The Wilcox Tavern, a like famous P, \JHE OLD WILCOX TAVERN inn, in its time, remains as a specimen of the old houses of that day, and one cannot fail to remark its solidity, and its gambrel-roof, which smacks of a rare and bygone hospitality. If one is interested in old houses, the Sayward house should not be over- looked, for it is of interest by reason of its surround- ings, and which lend it something of isolation. Here is the ancient Barrelle Manse, to remind one some- 114 OLD YORK what of Wentworth Hall over Piscataqua way. It is a finely preserved yet rambling pile, and one won- ders what need there was, ever, of such a great house. It is good to look at, however, for it stands for the old ways wholly. And how^ simple their furnish- ings, of which the wide-mouthed fireplace was the altar! No ancient Delft or Cloisson^, Or inlaid vase from far Japan Above a carved mantel lay; No costly mats from Hindostan, Or antique clock, with face o'erwrit With mystic symbols, requisite, Marks slowly, 'side its dark, wainscoted wall, The waning moons, the sea-tide's rise and fall. No Whittier, rich in soulful rhymes And home-brewed ale of Truth was here; Or sound of Bruges' mellowed chimes. Or midnight ride of Paul Revere. A dozen books piled on the shelf Nailed 'neath the dingy clock, — itself An heirloom with the rest, — made up the store That bred no wish for other, newer lore. But these old houses by the w^aters of Bra'-boat Harbor were pleasant places, and in these days of wide verandas and lazy hammocks, one has charm- ing visions of the days of homespun linen. Go back two hundred years and see — Indoors is rest and quietude. Across the threshold cool winds blow; And, 'twixt its lintel-frame of wood Is shrined a landscape of Corot, — OLD YORK 115 A picture wrought with mystery, — The drowsy farm, the soft fair sky, Inwoven with the song of vibrant thread. Of wide-rimmed wheel, by household goddess sped. ,0n::wr- THE SAYWARD HOUSE Infinite the charm, and sweet the simplicity of so fair a picture! and yet it was all there, all of Nature that these modern days possess, and more of it, for that matter. The old stony ruts are gone, and much else, beside, that it were better to have retained. But such is th^ fate of all ancient things. Their days are like the dead leaves of th^ forest that have been and are not. No Witch of En dor may raise 116 OLD YORK their ghosts to satisfy the ambitions of seme modern Saul ; and it were best it were so. Let the rampant Commercialism of to-day go to its doom with the prayer of Dives unanswered. It will not be per- suaded though one rose from the dead. Surely, the art of El Meysar is vanished. f^ ^t,,^f^- f ^ J MclNTIRE GARRISON HOUSE THE BELLS OF YORK CAPE NEDDOCK THE BELLS OF YORK ETURN, Lord, and visit this vine," was the text of the ordi- nation sermon which, in 1662, the Rev. Shubael Dummer preached from the pulpit of the First Con- ; ,,, gregational Church, on the estab- i'li lishment of the first religious ser- vice held in this old town, a pas- torate which he held for thirty years, and until his death in 1692, when he was ambushed by the Indians and shot in the back, while his wife, the daughter of the distinguished Ed- ward Rishworth, was carried into captivity. The settlement was practically destroyed. Parson Dum- mer had his house by the sea on the narrow neck of land, known to the old voyagers as Roaring Rock, on what is now known as the Norwood Farm. The 119 120 OLD YORK site of the first meeting-house was on the northeast side of Meeting-house Creek, near the bridle-path to Sewall's Bridge. This is the initial episode in the story of " The Bells of York," and a savage episode it is: a reminder of the days when the musket and the prayer-book were ROARING ROCK boon companions; when the hoarse whoop of the lurking Indian was as like to break in upon the de- vout invocation of the preacher, as were the dulcet notes of the thrush from the not far-away woodland. There is, on one of the main thoroughfares of this beautiful old town, a wooden structure, known as the old York Meeting-house. It was founded in 1747 OLD YORK 121 — that is the date on its foundation corner-stone — and is the third in point of time and building. One may easily decipher this by a glance at the archi- tectural proportions of its gable, with its stark, staid- like tower — without reference to the numerals which make up the data on this corner-stone — that it is quite, quite old. Its style outwardly is of the old- FIRST CHURCH AT HINGHAM fashioned, unpretentious sort, which is more than compensated for by its modest and constant sugges- tion of the common sense and sagacity of its builders; for, it stands here on its grassy knoll as a substan- tial memorial of a day when things were made to last as well as to serve. Its exterior prepares one for the severe plainness, one might also say, poverty, of its interior decoration. The first New England churches were suggestive of 122 OLD YORK small barns. Afterward, they took the form of a square, with a liip-roof, suggestive of the block- house at Winslow, known as Fort Halifax. Later still, followed the pitch-roof with a two-story porch on the front gable, surmounted by a high-posted bell-tower; above all this was a tall, slender spire of octagon shape that pierced the sky like a needle, and atop of which was a wooden chanticleer or kin- dred device to indicate the way of the wind — as if that had any- thing to do with the direc- tion of the pre- valent religious leanings of the people, who, every Sabbath morning, wended their respective ways hither, but who never failed to glance upward to the veering weather-vane, while their feet kept to the green carpeting so generously supplied by Dame Nature. It is evident that "songs of praise" were heard here, for in 1769, it is mentioned that "singing was permitted to the lower floor, if persons occupying the designated pews fit them up at their own expense." According to Emery, the singers sat in the body of the house on one side of the broad aisle. Later, they occupied the south gallery, fronting the pulpit. The BOSTON'S FIRST CHURCH OLD YORK 123 deacons, like the clerks in the House of Represen- tatives, sat facing the congregation under the shadow of the preacher's desk, possibly to watch the deport- ment of the young people, who were, it is not unlikely, in need of some such restraining influence or espion- age. Congregational singing was practised, and as singmg or hynm-books were scarce, the deacons, probably in turn, "Imed" out the hymn, reading a line which was smig by the people; when the last note had died away another line was read and sung — so they went through the hymn, wliich must have had something of a lugubrious effect, especially if the tune happened to be good old "Windham," In the old days its pews were "box affairs," and as the goodman and his goodwife and the children sat in them, they could see about the church, miless the pew- walls were so liigh that the youngsters needed to crane their necks to see even their next-door neighbor. A massive mahogany pulpit overlooked the house, and a wide sounding-board hung pendant over it, after the fashion of the early New England days. Its low-posted galleries were without adorn- ment, quaint, old-fashioned, and m keeping with ONE OF THE TWO WOODEN TANKARDS OF FIRST COMMUNION SERVICE 124 OLD YORK their surroundings. On Sundays the bright sun- light fell unrestrained across the house, as now when the furnishings of the pews are lighted up warmly, and as well the carpets and upholstery about the preacher's desk. The wide, tall windows let in floods of white, colorless light. No doubt its old-time worshippers preferred this to the jangle of colors that in other churches of fewer years and fewer honors, perhaps, slants noiselessly down from diamond panes steeped in muddy rainbow dyes, set in a dusky net- work of leaden sash after an anomalous pattern known in modern art as stained-glass decoration. Fashion leads people to do things in church as well as out, that bring little of comfort, happiness, or even spiritual benefit; but I have been always of the opinion that broad daylight was at all times one of the things that men could not improve upon, unless they wished to sleep; and even then, it does not matter if one is tired enough. We are writing of the later house of 1747. On week-days, these narrow stalls or pews, straight- backed and suggestive of scant comfort, the domi- nant pulpit and the singing-seats in the organ-loft, were shut in from the outer world, of which it can be said not a single hint of ornateness lingered. No green of ivy-leaf relieved its outer wall, gray and cheerless enough, with not so much as a scrap of Nature's poetry of growing things, written across it. Its square porch midway, its clapboarded gable rose squarely and stark to its ridge-pole. A simple cor- nice broke around its top, upon which rested a OLD YORK 125 many-sided belfry, that, rounded off with a dome, supported the tapering, needle-hke steeple,- a bodkin sort of an affair which brings to mind the churches of old London. Its low-sloping roof, its windows THE YORK MEETING-HOUSE with widely generous outlooks and its old-fashioned door On the porch sides, appealed to one with quiet dignity, so different were they from what one is accus- tomed to associate with the idiosyncrasies of the 126 OLD YORK modern church-builder. This substantial meeting- house of another century would be a restful thing to look at. As to the quite ancient and more ornate edifice one sees in these days, the only thing it really lacks is a trio of wliite clock-faces to keep an eye on the town-roofs, and on the town-folk so much given to human questionings and neighborly scrutinies. I know a clock on a certain stone church-tower that has ever for me a genuine human interest. Its black hands, emaciated and long-drawn out, never point the same way more than a minute at a time, though forever travelling round and round after each other, in storm and sun, always coming back to their places of starting like a man lost in the woods. The people on the street seem always to be asking it questions with faces upturned as they go up or down, but the clock in the tower seems little to care for human affairs. Between us all and the town-pump, usually a considerable factor in municipal doings, I doubt not it notes all that is going on, and quite regularly expresses its opinions to the other clocks about town, for that matter, and after a striking fashion. Curiously enough, when it speaks, its neighbors answer from ah directions, iterating the same thing, hour after hour, day after day, the year through; but one gets to know them by their voices, and to read their messages much as a telegrapher does those which come to him over his wires, by sound. On the tower of the old York meeting-house, near its top, is a window, but why, metaphorically speak- OLD YORK 127 ing, it should always wear blinders, unless its one eye is weak, is more than I can tell. I never see it, but it suggests to me that long sleep so many have taken who were once its human familiars. There is one in the stone tower of the clock I know so well. It has occurred to me that here might be the lookout of the little old fellow who has kept house in the clock at the top of the tower ever since it has been here, and who attends to things when the clock-tinker does not, and who, possibly, has no other occupation than watching the passers-by, rich and poor, sober and otherwise, unless it is to strike the hours of day and night, which he does with such regularity, accu- racy, and good judgment, that people have come to regard him as a very reliable individual, not hesitat- ing to set their time-pieces and likewise get their dinners — a matter of great importance to many folk — by what he says. In case of fire, he is never satisfied until he has set the whole town by the ears to count the strokes of his hammer, and the bigger the conflagration, the longer he pounds away, as if he found a keen enjoyment in the increased tumult and alarm. Moreover, I doubt if the rheumatic sexton could ring the great bell away up in the belfry on Sundays without the help of some good spirit; for, I have noticed he often threw his whole weight upon its long swaying rope before the bell would respond with even the faintest of notes. It seems to me a clock on this old meeting-house of York would be great company to those who have to be abroad betimes. 128 OLD YORK The facial characteristics of this old meeting-house are all the more noticeable with so much poverty of frieze and cornice, and impart something of human interest to its exterior acquaintanceship. So simple and unpretending it is, I confess, the most beautiful and attractive church of all the town, to say nothing of the enhanced interest derived from its venerable age, its aristocratic associations, its parish pedigree, its ancient musty records, older than itself, even, and its value as a historic landmark, bring to it. It is a humiliating confession to make, that, often- times at church, one hears but little of the text or sermon, so busy is one's thought elsewhere; but I have sat within these walls when I have been alone, so far was I from realizing at the time that I was one of a half-hundred others, or that a distinguished preacher from a distinguished New England college was occupying the pulpit. I rarely step within the portals of any long-ago established church whose hall-marks are those of a similar ancient lineage, but I try to recall the earUest entry in its records, no doubt written with a quill from some ancient representative of that noble family that saved Rome by its clamor, and of the generations through which it has passed. Here the old and the new meet once a week, and, to my mind it should be a profitable meeting, for, here is the proof that men should live as they seem, to accomplish anything of profit to themselves or their kind. I have often thought as I have occupied a pew in a strange church, how concerned the minister's wife OLD YORK 129 must be in her secret thought, as she sat within the shadow of her husband's pulpit, knowing all the little weaknesses and foibles of the man who has thus been ordained as a consecrated guide-post for a small portion of the human race. I am obliged some- times, with all my affection and reverence for Chris- tian living, to think of it in some instances as a kind of humbuggery. It is a lucky thing for most preachers that their congregations do not realize how human they are, and how little of real practical value, in a worldly sense, attaches to what they say. It is the man who does, as well as says, who leaves a footprint men are apt to measure. Disagreeable as this and kindred comment may be, it has the bitter flavor of truth, that, like a spoon- ful of rhubarb, leaves a bad taste in one's mouth, but one is better for a good dose of it. I never think of my own minister in that way. He never pre- tends to be more than a man, and that is all any of us are, or may be. But one could never harbor such speculation as to the inner and more hidden Ufe of others, if one could forget one's own weaknesses and mistakes. Experience is not only cumulative, but ductile. It can be stretched out, as a shape- less mass of iron may be, into a coil of delicate wire, so that it encompasses one's local Carthage, not only, but as well, one's entire acquaintance. It is so easy to interpret the quality of those about us when we perfectly understand ourselves. But of the people who worshipped here so many years ago, only the most prominent tendencies of their times, which, 180 OLD YORK by the way, were ultra-religious, remain to make up their history. If they could have lived on to this day, they might have concluded, with a great deal of sound sense, that the Kingdom of God does not come in a generation, or even in a century, and that, after all these eighteen hundred years Jerusalem and the Man of Sorrows were not so far away, and that the second coming might not seem so near after all. It is the bare outline of the real life of two cen- turies ago one has with which to content one's self in these non-church-going days, as they may be well called, when people attend semi-theatrical perform- ances, fish, and golf, while some others attend church. The Puritan Church was planted invariably on the bleakest of wind-blown places. Its creed was as barren of spiritual beauty as the plainly-boarded walls of the edifice where it was taught; as devoid of comfort as were its pine settees and other rude insignia of churchly service. As if this were not enough, restraining statutes — Blue Laws — were en- acted for the deportment of members of religious societies, as well as for those without the gates, for Sunday, as for week-day behavior. All members of early communities were amenable to the most stringent construction of the laws in force. Like stakes set to mark the boundary-line of one's moral, and personal rights as well, a net- work of constrictive restraints was stretched about the area of early New England living much as a farmer of nowadays would string his corn with twine to keep away the thieving crows. Even the OLD YORK 131 natural and God-given rights of man were put in abeyance, or under grievous scrutiny; and the teach- ings of the Creator were subjected to revision by the early legislators of Massachusetts Bay. There was not much difference between the Mas- sachusetts Bay settlers and those in the province of Maine. They were part and parcel of the same Colonial family. As yoimg as the settlement was in those days, its morals were not of the best, nor did they differ much from their neighbors elsewhere. Its amenities were roughened and lessened by an exterior deportment of unbending dignity and re- serve among the leaders in the community. In many respects the lives of these people were barren of the commonest of creature comforts; their lines were drawn in harsh relief. Much that passes for ordinary in these times would then have been re- garded as unattainable, and would, no doubt, have been charged to the invention of the Devil, as gotten up for a snare and a delusion for mankind. Their practices were largely of self-denial, bordering upon austerity. Days of error they may have been, but of some superior manners, as well. Great deference was exacted of the plebeian by those in authority — an exaction so rigid, that a settler who forgot himself so far as to say that the magistrate's "mare was as lean as an Indian dog" was deemed to have committed a heinous offence, and was fined with commendable promptness. Theirs was a peculiar code of punishments, as ingenious as effective, that were visited upon the offenders of the period. 132 OLD YORK An ok! case is recorded where a woman of question- able morals was sentenced to stand in church in a white sheet for three successive Sundays, and to afterward acknowledge her failings to the congre- gation, a chastisement that would hardly do for these enlightened days when things are not always called by their right names. No doubt there were many unruly spirits in the township where life par- took so much of the frontier, and much that would now pass without notice, would then have attracted serious attention and condign punisliment. They were an old-fashioned people, with old-fashioned and limited ideas. Their ruts were narrow, but well- defined, and well-adhered to. Radical methods of correction were necessary to restrain those who were afflicted with a grievous moral obliquity. Of the adventurers who came here, many were of the de- generate sort, who, if not needed to increase the quota of citizenship, were voted out of town; and who, if they did not depart of their own volition, were summarily ejected. These characters were thorns in the side of this ultimately Puritan com- munity, and got but little sympathy, and less mercy. For all that, it is presumed that this old town was not behind her sister communities in visiting the rigor of the law upon her recreant cliildren. In post-Revolutionary times wooden stocks were a necessity on training-days, or "musterings," as they were called, and it is recorded that even aristocratic old Falmouth, farther down the coast to the eastward, was once presented to the General OLD YORK 133 Court for not providing "stocks" and a "ducking- stool." On "muster-day" the people came from far and near to make a gala-event of the occasion, which was an infrequent episode in the then country life, and to see the motley-arrayed militia "go through" their manceuverings and evolutions with halting awkward- ness; when the butts of rum and gin were apt to be too frequently drawn upon by the "squad" and its admiring friends; when a country boy with a shilling, or even a ninepence in his pocket for spend- ing money, thought liimself immensely well off, and a trudge of ten miles to go and as many more to come, was a light task. A "pig-tail" doughnut or a square of ginger-bread, and a "swig" of hard cider, or a mug of spruce beer, was the extent of boyish dissipation. A ride homeward on the old thorough- brace wagon with the old folk was a treat; but it was more likely a long walk up hill and down dale that terminated the day's entertainment, comical enough in many ways, and that grew so farcical to the plain yeomanry of the time, who thought more of their potato patches than of their regimentals, that these annual gatherings were abolished by law with a conmiendable imanimity. Almost every country household with a pedigree has some reminder of those quaint old days with their quaint old customs, in its musty garret — a rusty musket, a cartouch-box, a faded coat with buff trim- mings sadly stained, an old three-cornered hat, or an iron-hilted sword with its black leather scabbard 134 OLD YORK ripped badly up its seam, as if the sword were too big for it — for New England times from the earliest were nothing, if not warlike. Miles Standish, with his Low Coimtry experience at arms, set a militant example that was bravely adhered to through the French and IncUan forays that after 1692 were the especial misfortune of New England pioneer life ; and the same was true of Har- mon, Storer, and Moulton, and the Pepperrells of Kit- tery. It may be on that account the people were the more boisterous and rough-seeming, and in truth, less refined in their jollity and merry-making, and more quarrelsome in their cups. Be that as it may, the pillor}^ and stocks had their place in the village square so that they might be easily accessible when men got noisy and meddlesome. These two instru- ments of torture, along with the whipping-post, stood for the climax of discomfort and obloquy. In most instances they were unsparingly used. They were a brutal trio, and strange to say they were not a long step out the shadow of the meeting-house. There was a singular consistence in the meting out of provincial punishments, for there was little distinction between the sexes. AVomen were made to stand in pillory in the village midst, hke Jane Andrews, to be jibed and jeered at. Hester Prynnes were not lacking — and brutal spectacles, were they not! Scolds and shrews were ducked midstream! nor was there any hurry to lift them out, once well out of sight, or until the constable was convinced that the shrewish ardor was abated — a harmless OLD YORK 135 and homoeopathic treatment. There was a tinge of humor about it all that lent to these castigations a peculiar grimness. It was an annealing process — one form of self-purification. Here was democracy, pure and simple. Perhaps it would be more apt to look at them as a parcel of great overgrown school-children working out the problem of self-government under the tutelage of the minister, the selectmen, and the constable. It was a tough problem in some localities, and the dunce-seat was wtII occupied most of the time; but they managed to ''put it on the board,"' and since which time numerous constitution-tinkerers have been trying to demonstrate the proposition. A man's standing in church had much to do with his influence and power as a citizen, for the early church of New England easily became the nucleus of the New Eng- land aristocracy. In this way, towns, after a fashion, became the arbiters of their corporate w^elfares, and were let pretty much alone by the province at large. In other words, the exigencies of the time welded each town into a close corporation. The settlers were of a gregarious sort by compulsion, and if they huddled together along some neck of land by the sea, it was that they preferred the "open." The sea was as good as a fort-wall. Like porcupines, they rolled themselves together, their quills pointed in all directions, trenchantly suggestive. A man could not settle in towTi without the consent of the ''folk- mote" or town-meeting. An unfavorable vote com- pelled a man to go elsewhere. There was no court 136 OLD YORK of appeal. Towns had the power, or rather assumed it; to disfranchise their own citizens. Here is a quotation from the old York records: " 1724-5. — Samuel Johnson put btj from voting." Ecclesiastical matters were entirely within the con- trol of the town-meeting, and were matters of public discussion in which all who were voters, took part if they desired. Recalling the fact that in the Indian raid of 1692 York was practically destroyed, preacher Dummer ambushed, and the other settlers killed or carried into captivity, and that for six years after, the settle- ment was without religious instruction, it is easy to locate the landmark where one may set up his theodolite and begin his survey with a fair degree of accuracy. Until 1731, the freemen of York had full control of church affairs. Father Moody came in 1698, May 10. Whether or not the barn-like structure of the time was ready for his occupancy, there is no relation that I have seen. Doubtless, the voters were duly warned, and when the day of the town-meeting came, after cUscussions numerous, pro et con, the people voted to provide a church for the eccentric preacher. " ' Build, Troll, a church for me At Kallundborg by the mighty sea ; Build it stately, and build it fair. Build it quickly,' said Esbern Snare." But there were no Trolls at old York, yet it is fair to assume that a Harvard University man,- as was OLD YORK 137 the Rev. Samuel Moody, would receive the utmost consideration, and that a substantial structure was raised for him. The records show that on April 1, 1747, the old meeting-house was ordered demolished, and such of its timber as was fit, should be used in the construc- tion of a new one. The clerk of the meeting has kept no record of what was said upon that auspicious occasion, but the proposition was "vehemently op- posed" at this last of many pre- vious meetings at which a like pro- position was de- bated. The church-folk had to "go into their pockets," as is usual in such matters; and, with the additional sum of two hundred and fifty pounds, voted to be raised "by taxation," the church was built and dedicated without the usual presence of the money-lender. This is the church one sees to- day. The present parsonage is the third one. The first was burned in 1742; the second was torn do^vn in 1859. The last parsonage erected stands on the fomidations of the first. This parish was organized under a warrant issued by WiUiam Pepperrell, justice of the peace, and bore the date of March 5, 1731. The first parish-meeting THE MOODY CRADLE 138 OLD YORK was held the twenty-seventh clay of the same month, and the management of its affairs was taken out of the hands of the town. The next year it voted to purchase a slave for the minister. In 1734, the parish assessors were given six hundred dollars with which to buy another slave for the minister; two years later the assessors w^ere ordered to sell the negro to the best advantage, and the records show no further dealing in slaves by the Church. After the death of Father Moody in 1747, the parish voted in the aggregate, sixty-five pounds to Mr. Moody's family to enable them to go into " proper mourning." These votes were, no doubt, declared by the moderator with due solemnity. The same meeting voted to pay the doctors' bills, which amounted to twenty-six pounds and seven shillings, all of which is indicative of the good feeling cher- ished for the clergy of those days. One realizes how long ago this was, wlien it is re- membered that Samuel Adams was making malt in old Braintree, and that John Hancock, the man who wrote his name with such a flourish that it w\as said John Bull could read it without his "specs," was probably in "short clothes," when the Boston Rebel, as a factor in provincial history, w^as yet to be discovered. Right here by this old church was the ancient town-house. The remaining two of the once four elm-trees a-row, mark the close vicinage of all these early reachings out after a better civilization, and are of equal antiquity. The ancient burial-gromid OLD YORK 139 is just across the way; and, altogether they make a glorious quartet. I doubt if there be a dozen, people in old York to-day who can tell the date of setting out these elms, but it was the 15th of April, THE REMNANT OF THE FOUR ELMS 1773, an old-fashioned Arbor Day; and where then were the dense, wooded lands, are now the clustered roofs and wide-spreading lawns, and reaches of open fields, that make old York one of the most delight- ful of Summer resorts; in no small degree distin- 140 OLD YORK guished as the Summer home of the gifted and cosmopoHtan Howells, and others of the guild, as it is the Mecca of the artist and the vacation idler. Its cool seas, their marge of rock and sand, the seduc- tive charm of its outdoor life, the restful quiet that broods among the tops of its incomparable elms, make a complement of aspects of a most attractive character when the heats of August flood the inlands. For so ancient a parish, the number of pastors that have filled its pulpit as regularly ordained min- isters, have been few. It will be of interest to know who they were. First came Shubael Dummer in 1662; Samuel Moody, 1698; Isaac Lyman, 1742; Roswell Messinger, Moses Dow, Eben Carpenter, John Haven, John L. Ashley, William J. Newman, John Smith, William A. Patten, William W. Parker, Rufus M. Sawyer, John Parsons, Benjamin W. Pond, David Sewall, followed in succession. The records of the old church were destroyed with the burning of the first parsonage in 1742, which was a loss indeed. A second church parish was organized in 1732, over which, on November 29 of that year, a son of Father Moody was ordained — a man of more than ordinary acquirement. Before coming to York, he had been town-clerk of Newbury, coimty register of deeds, and a judge of the court of common pleas. He was knowm in after years as "Handkerchief Moody." In 1792, a lightning-rod was ordered for the church, but when the first bell sent its clangor across coun- try on the startled winds was minuted only in the OLD YORK 141 old parish record destroyed in the fire; but it must have been sometime prior to September 20, 1744, for it was on tliis last date that it was voted "to take down the bell and hang it upon crotches, or any- thing else erected for that purpose." March 31, 1749, it was voted that "the assessors take care and hang the bell in the steeple of the new meeting- house, at the charge of the parish." Undoubtedly, this was the first bell. March 25, a new bell was ordered, not to exceed a weight of four hundred pounds. August 27, 1S21, the parish voted "to choose a committee to dispose of the old bell, the proceeds to be applied to the purchase of a new one." Requisition was also made on the parish treasury for one hundred dollars. Capt. David Wilcox, Jonathan S. Barrell, Jr., and Edward A. Emerson were a committee to act in conjunction "with a com- mittee of subscribers, for a new bell, and make the purchase of the same as soon as may be, and place the same securely in the belfry." In 1834, a still larger bell was desired, and a parish-meeting was held to discuss the matter. Emery says, " the pres- ent bell is the third or fourth one." There is a reach of salt-marsh here which goes by the name of ^^ Bell Marsh." This was granted the parish very long ago, and sold by it, to procure the wherewithal to purchase the first bronze Muezzin of old York. The bells of York. What tales are sealed within their hps! What notes of sadness, or joy, smothered mutterings of alarm, tocsins, for the gathering of the settlers for the common defence! when — 142 OLD YORK The old cracked bell in the belfry tower Awoke, with swift and clattering note, The somnolence of the morning hour, — ]\Iuttering deep in its brazen throat, — Scoured the fields with militant boom ; Jarred the bees in the clover bloom ; The oriole's nest on its pendant limb; Silenced the sparrow's matin hymn. What lyrics of the budding Spring-time have burst from its vibrant rim to fly — Far over the sunlit cape and wood — to set their fiute-toned echoes throbbing — The music of Nature's solitude! Only the flicker's sharp tattoo Drumming the apple-orchards through, answers its Sabbath matin in these modern days. What would not one give for the magic of Agrippa, to unlock tlie secrets of the rusty iron tongue ; to bid it ring out the changes of the long-gone years ! Vain regrets: for those days are done! They are lost — "In the remorseless flood of Time," along with the old sexton who lies somewhere among the obliterate mounds of the York graveyard. The church beadle of those days was not known to exist, officially, in my youngsterhood ; but the deacons within my recollection did not hesitate to perform their functions as late as a half century ago, as many a boyish acquaintance might testify, whose mirth and untimely pranks had aroused the right- OLD YORK 143 eous ire of these "pillars of the church" to the dis- turbance of churchly decorum and spiritual quietude. With such spiritual diet, the young folk grew pre- maturely staid; and — well they might— with a pastor like Parson Thomas Smith of old Falmouth, who once wrote in his journal with a quaint con- ceit: "I had extraordinary assistance; was an hour and a half in prayer.'" On another occasion, he enters the following: "Preached p.m., and was tnore than two hours and a half in sermon; preached eitein- fore, all the application, and had great help." No wonder the boys grew restive, and the old folk got in the habit of taking a nap in sermon-time — a good old custom which still survives by prescrip- tive right. The beadles must have been well occu- pied, rapping a nodding head here and there, about their barns of churches; for they were hardly more. The cattle in the barn-stalls of to-day have warmer quarters. Emery says of the oldest York meeting-house: "Previous to 1825, no idea of warming the huge structure seems to have entered the minds of any one; and in cold weather, people muffled themselves up as well as they could, taking their foot-stoves to keep themselves comfortable. The main entrance or porch was on the side next the street, and facing the cemetery; there was another door where the present pulpit now stands. The old pulpit was on the north side. A very large, arched window was directly behind the seat of the preacher, which seemed admirably adapted to keep him cool, especially in 144 OLD YORK Winter, if the upholsterer had not vouchsafed an im- mensely heavy green damask curtain, from the center of wliich was suspended a huge tassle." He does not say whether, the "tassle" was provided with a mercury bulb or not: to my mind it should have been. For all these rigors, a hale and hearty old age prevailed. Certainly, the years have brought great ameliora- tions to church-goers. Not all the churches of those provincial days possessed bells. This was true of Falmouth, where every Sabbath morning the sexton of the now aristocratic First Parish, blew a long, tin horn to send its sharp notes flying about the "clearings," and over the wooded slopes of Casco Neck and across the slodder of Back Bay, warning the people to come to church. The Second Parish, over which the distinguished Elijah Kellogg was settled, and afterward, the like distinguished Dr. Payson, used a flag to summon its worshippers. The Episcopalians had a very small bell, of which its sexton was very proud. Said the High Church sexton to his Second Parish brother, "Why do you hoist a flag?" "To let the people know your bell is ringing," was the witty reply; a remark which hints at the petty cUfferences that oftentimes held supporters of varying creeds aloof, each from the other, wherever they might be planted. Tolerance was a plant of slow growth. Attendance at church was required of every house- holder, and all under him. It was, no doubt, a pic- OLD YORK 145 turesque sight to see the people wending their several ways to the old York church. And then, out of the shadows of the wayside elms into the Summer sunlight — Through the portal of the old church, With devoutly solemn tread, Went the people as befitted, With the preacher at their head; Mistress, gay with gown and ruffle, — Slow-paced, clerkly, next the squire, — Then the goodman and his goodwife In their homely homespun wear. Bare its pine pews and its pulpit In those old Provincial days ; Quaint its habit and its worship ; Quaint its people and their ways ; Stark its beams and low walls, creviced Wide with gaping seam and stain. Through which blew the gusty sea-winds And the Summer's slanting rain. And out-of-doors, what a delightful change with the long service concluded, and the cramped hmbs feel- ing anew the leaping pulse of a welcome variety, with all the wealth of Nature crowding their home- bent footsteps, while — O'er York's white nose the sea-winds blew, i Their saltness, cool, confessing. To lightly touch the dusky pines Their foliage caressing. Each breath of Summer air a bar Of Nature's low-pitched trebles ; And in the woods, sweet tenor songs Of crooning brooks and pebbles. 146 OLD YORK Delinquents were promptly dealt with. Those living at a distance came on horseback, their dames astride, beliind. The children followed afoot, carry- ing their shoes in Summer, to the church door, where they put them on, and wore them through the service, despite the Scriptural precedent. Out of doors again, the shoes were removed and carried home, as they were brought. The wealthiest families walked with their families with a slow, stately step, wliile the servants and apprentices and negroes followed at a respectful distance behind. Slavery was a common thing in the early days of the colonies. Every Sabbath these actors appear. There is very little variation in the cast, sober enough at all events ; only the boys have come to the estate of manhood; and the older men have in turn grown into a second cliildhood. The stage is set with the same old pic- tures, unless there may be a new homestead here or there; a new lane running up or down the widening purlieus of York. The two old wharves reach out into Bra'-boat Harbor, a few more ships are moored in the slips, while folk pass on to meeting, noting these evidences of York's growing importance. In some of the old meeting-houses the custom was to put the common folk in the body of the house, while the gentry occupied the side pews. The pews farthest in front were reserved for such dignitaries as happened to be present; the negroes were by themselves in one corner — in old York a de- tested adjunct of the community. Doubtless, these ways prevailed in esrly York. They would OLD YORK 147 naturally follow any well-established precedent of the times. They were, however, in the main, an intelligent independent, refined body of citizens — these eigh- teenth century people of York — who were slowly founding families and fortimes in this coast town; a brave, generous-hearted class as one could find from Massachusetts Bay to Falmouth. Nor could they be much else, with good Parson ^Vloody to show them the way. The style of living was plain, simple, and often scant. Habits and tastes were of the most primitive sort. Display in dress was not uncommon. That the church deprecated this leaning to the vani- ties of the world is not to be doubted; but the tide was not to be stemmed. Already they had begun to grow away from the old things as the tide of pros- perity rose, old things that to-day are but traditions. The cocked hats, powdered wigs, broidered waist- coats, buckles, and gold-headed canes of the men were not out of place with the brocades, stomachers, head-dresses, and gay cloaks of the high-spirited dames in liigh-heeled shoes and slippers with throats and elbows daintily ruffled. A local historian describes a young beau of the period. "He wore a full-bottomed wig and stock- ings, shoes and buckles, and two watches, one each side." It is barely possible this type is still extant, in sentiment, if not in quaint habiliment, for nowa- days the tailor helps to clobber many a man, as he did then. If one feels like laughing at the quaint- ness of the old fashions and fantastic rig in vogue 148 OLD YORK among its more fashionably inclined, I have no doubt, were they to come among their descendants of this present day, they would be (like that hilarious crea- tion of Holmes' who burst his waist-band buttons) amused, at least, at the extravagant efforts at per- sonal adornment of one sort and another, which accumulate the fashionable attire of that fashionable animal, commonly dubbed "swell," but which the experts at the Smithsonian have not yet had time to classify. Human nature is much after the same pattern in one century, as another, dependent upon its environment, as upon its horse sense, and its pocket. With some people, to be inclined to the cherish- ing of common things, is to be "provincial," as if it were in such outrageous bad taste to foster those tilings which pertain to the old and primitive ways of living with any show of enthusiasm; but, one should thank the good Lord for simple things, simple tastes, and simple-hearted folk to enjoy them. I wish the old days might have lapped a little farther over the edge of the nineteenth centur}^ It is a pity the children of this generation are not as simple- hearted in many things as were their ancestors of a century back. The only thing that does not change is the sea. All else goes: the restless, sounding, life-giving sea tosses its foam-streaks up the Long Reach, and the surf at ebb-tide piles its rough windrows of froth across the bar at the mouth of York River, as coolly sinuous as when Parson Dummer, from his rude OLD YORK 149 porch on Savage Rock, looked, or dozed and dreamed to its monotonous lullaby. It is as glistening white under the high-light of noon, as ruddy at dawn, as bloodshot at set of sun, and as pallid-gray in the gathering twilight as the ghostly-hued reeling grave- stones in the burying-ground that looks out always over this limitless field of blue water. These bound- aries that men have set up to mark the line between the here and the hereafter, and that starkly throng this gateway to the unknown country, look always to the sunrise where the white sails blow in and out, out over the beating tides, that Magdalene-like, are ever bathing its feet with salty tears — a dumb pen- ance, perchance. They have a look of prophecy, as if of that "great and notable day," when these grass- swathed mounds shall gently part their lips, to utter the softly-comforting words of the angel who stood by an old-time tomb among the olives of Jerusalem. In this old First Parish cemetery at York are many quaint and curious stones and epitaphs. Here is larger York. It is a city of grass-grown mounds, each one a dwelling-place for some tired, worn-out laborer of the vineyard who has gathered up his or her talent-laden napkin to render the inevitable accounting; but it is hard to realize that this just discernible swell of verdure holds the invisible date of 1648, and yet it was just that long ago the first turf was upturned and its first dead, carried thither on the shoulders of sorrowing neighbors, was tenderly laid within the folds of this rough, rock-set slope. But these lichen-stained stones are, some of them. 150 OLD YORK very, very old; and some, weary of their watch and ward, have lapsed in their vigils and lie prone amid the riant blooms that give this mitilled field its only color. Here are some strange epitaphs — epitaphs to suit any taste, and that reminds one of the storekeeper who kept "two-quart jugs of all sizes." Here is an old stone. You will have to get down on all-fours and brush away the wild things that seem anxious to hide the caustic discourtesy of tliis rough-etched epitaph — a nameless, dateless memorial. Only this, and nothing more — "I am Somebody: Who, is no business of yours." With mouth agape, one catches the grim humor of this degenerate wag; the gloom of the place parts as one smooths the feathers of a momentary resent- ment to laugh and rejoice alike in the philosophy of the defunct. , Here is a fine strain of mortuary eloquence: "Mary Wainwright, 1715-1760. She was good to all." What more could one ask — a modest stone and a passport over the wall of Al Rakin to Abraham's bosom that will require no viseing on the way! Na- ture has been kind, for — see how tenderly the green- ery of Nature is folded about the ancient slab. Even the lichens have forborne to cover a single letter. OLD YORK 151 Undoubtedly, these lines glow wiih a warm phos- phorescence in the dark. They ought, at least. Here is something of a different sort. It is a model, something of the hatchet-and-can't-tell-a-lie sort, and it doubtless covers a multitude of sins. If Sam Slick had run across it, he would have appropriated i'vw/;rv''V'' THE SEWALL TOMBS it for his own. Certainly, once read, it is not easily forgotten. As a waymark it is as good as any, and bears the pleasing stamp of being the real thing. It also indicates an underlying fine strain of honesty. The briars do not grow so thickly here, yet there is a hint of shamefacedness in the tangle of swamp- 152 OLD YORK roses that holds its neighbor in a riotous embrace of color and sweet odors. Read it for yourself: "Here lies the body of Jonathan Drew, Who cheated all he ever knew ; His Maker he'd have cheated, too, But that his God he never knew." He must have been a politician who had been relegated to "the shelf." But Drew is a good old York name, a name to conjure with in years agone ■ — but names, Hke men, sometimes come to base uses. One of the most notable spots in the old yard is the "resting-place" of David Sewall, the jurist. The Sewall tomb is something of the massive sort, an antique, among its kind ; but a part of the inscrip- tion written after this distinguished gentleman of the "old school" had been brought hither, may be quoted. It appeals to me with a singular force. It is — " His house was the abode Of hospitality, and friendship." As one thinks of it, it seems to be a fine free trans- lation of that sentiment cut into the stone of Mary Wainwright. Hospitality, and friendship — it strikes one that, at the rate the commercial sentiment is overcasting human intercourse and human sympa- thies, no great lapse of time will be required to place them with other words of good old Saxon meaning, among the obsoletes oi the dictionary. A stroll along the ways of the old town does not OLD YORK 153 reveal much of the once rugged Hfe that was its por- tion. Roofs sagging under the infirmities of age are rare. Few walls are discolored or stained, for all their years of sea-fogs and salty drizzle ; but here and there are old houses toned down by that master of COVENTRY HALL, THE SEWALL MANSE all art, Time, into medleys of charming color, topped off here and there with antiquated gables and gambrel- roofs which shelter stores of family traditions. There is nothing here to remind one of Carlyle's "smells of Cologne," nor drinking-places, haunts of grievous repute. But all is sweetness and content, ^^'hat 154 OLD YORK more is needed with its famous waterside, the broad beaches that flash the sun back with every clear dawn! Yes; it is difficult to conjure up the old days, with all this paraphernalia of modernness, staring one in the face at every turn of the street; but bend your steps across the threshold of God's Acre, with the old church-steeple towering above you, silently point- ing the way these ancient people have gone, and the spell is upon you; and with the song of the sea in your ears, and speech of the bells on a Sabbath morn- ing, some rare day in June, the story of the old days of York is hke an adventurous tale from the lips of some modern Scheherazade. SADDLE-BAG DAYS ^^^ ^^^p^pf^ SADDLE-BAG DAYS HEY, who recall the travelling conve- niences of a half-century ago, even, may well regard the pace of the world a rapid one ; for the days of the ancient and time-honored saddle-bag are not so f far away after all. What, with "Flying Dutchmen," and "Empire Limited" trains for railroad travel, upon which one may eat, and sleep, at leisure, and at the same time span the globe at a mile-a-minute gait; while one takes his sunlight sifted, so thickly crossed are the telephone and telegraph wires over one's head, and which the modern wizard of Netteshiem, Marconi, proposes to send to the junk- heap; storage-batteries for electric lighting, heating, and motor-power; with Macadam roads for the horseless "Wintons"; the Brewsters and Goddards upheld upon wheels with steel spokes, and rimmed with noiseless rubber tires, pulled along by a horse that has to "go" his mile in two "flat" to get his name into the public prints, the world has even been made over. 157 158 OLD YORK When Santos Dumont gets his air-Une incorpor- ated, and horses are bred with wings, one will, it is quite likely, be beyond caring for the things of this world; but with Rontgen rays, and radium, one has no idea of the curious and startling happenings in store for pampered humanity. One neighbor has been disembowelled, had his explanatory notes elided, and still preserves the outward appearance of an unexpurgated copy; a broken neck is mended as well as a bit of broken crockery; stomachs are re- moved and thrown, along with physic, to the dogs; Chalmettes play with cobras and rattlesnakes, laugh at their envenomed bites, and prescribe their virulent poisons for the serious ills of man. In the venom of the Gila monster, Bocock has discovered a remedy for locomotor ataxia; when the anti-venomous serum is discovered to immunize against the bite of the Gila monster, humanity may be declared safe from all ills ex- cept, what is known in legal parlance, as the act of God. All these in a half-century ! The latter days of saddle-bags were invaded by the clumsy thorough-brace wagon — an affair that would now be regarded as an antique from the wilds of Borneo. The old-fashioned conveyances for stag- ing across country are almost within the memory of the present generation; but of the times when there WTre no roads, and when settlements were held together only by tortuous horse-paths, there is no one alive to relate. When Parson Dummer made his way eastward, he undoubtedly came overland across the Hampton OLD YORK 159 meadows, cutting across the head of the Boar, and swimming the Piscataqua with his horse, to find at York Harbor, probably, his first bridge, the same built by Capt. Samuel Sewall, in 1642. It must have been a tedious journey and full of hardship, and, per- haps, peril. He may have come by water, a favor- ite conveyance with the people who dwelt in the coast towns. The man who celebrated his own ordination over the First Church of York in 1662, educated at Harvard, must have had a tremendous flow of vital- ity, as of soul — a high courage and an indomitable purpose. It must have been a matter of solicitude to his Newbury friends, but he had chosen his work; he was needed. The popular preacher had not then become a factor in the moral diseases of the com- munity. He was a man for the times, and what must have been the privations of that sparsely settled fron- tier town! He may be called the first Evangelical missionary in Maine. One year more and the meagre settlement would have rounded out two generations of living; and then the Indians fell upon it, to begin a series of savage raids that for six years made York a wilderness, almost — and according to history, Parson Dummer's blood was the first sprinkled upon the altar of self- sacrifice. His story would be eminently excellent reading for a certain class of clerics. I have in mind now that most unusual spiritual allegory, painted by Sigismund Goetz, ''Despised and Rejected of Men," which one might not hesitate to nominate as one of the modern Gospels in pigment. 160 OLD YORK As has been before noted, Father Moody came to York in 1698. He, too, a Harvard graduate, saw be- fore him the same meagre prospect. The General Court allowed liim twelve poimds (sixty dollars) yearly, and it was on this pittance he wrought in holy bands among a people too poor to have a meet- ing-house, and as well, too poor to support him. This allowance from the General Court was in answer to his personal application. He had declined a stipulated salary; and there were times, it is said, in his ministry, when he and his family were at the point of starvation. This is asserted upon good authority, according to Emery. Generous in word and thought to all, and greatly beloved by all, he went in and out among his people for a half-century, lacking a triplet of years, carrying the Light of the Gospel with unvarying steadiness; for, there is no hint of stumbling in the way he came, as one goes back over it. He had the right to regard himself as the original proprietor in the spiritual field from which he was to remove the tares, a position which his sensitive temperament and over-alert conscience might constrain him to maintain at all odds, but which his endearing qualities as a man and neighbor, would not permit him to abuse. He was a partisan, undoubtedly, as were all preachers of the time, else he would not have been a good churchman. They were days when Precedent sat on the bench with Law. Precedent was an excuse appealed to without hesitation; or rather, it was a justification for much that was done in high quarters. Society went on OLD YORK 161 stilts in many ways, and the clergy mounted the tallest pair, which not infrequently carried them into the highest political and judicial positions. Nat- urally, Father Moody would be a politician for the Church, and thus easily take to himself the larger influence in temporal affairs, which were a close ad- junct of the Church; but there is no suggestion, even, that he was ever the cause of discord or heart-burning. Thedictum of the minister often carried as much weight as if it were the ipse dixit of the court of last appeal. The Ancient Charters and Laws of Massachusetts Bay abound in enactments which set forth with the rigidness of the Draconian Code the duties and liabilities of every person within its Colonial juris- diction. It may be well to quote somewhat, as every quotation will throw a luminous ray in the direction of what has already claimed our attention. Chapter XXXIX, Section 15 (1646): "AVherever the ministry of the word is established, according to the order of the gospel throughout this jurisdiction: " Every person shall duly resort and attend there- unto respectively on the Lord's days, and upon such publick fast days, and days of thanksgiving, as are to be generally observed by appointment of authority. And if any person within this jurisdiction shall with- out just and necessary cause, withdraw himself from the public ministry of the word, after due means of conviction used, he shall forfeit for his absence from every such publick meeting five shillings. And all such offences may be heard and determined, from time to time, by one or more magistrates." 162 OLD YORK This section makes it a statutory offence to be ab- sent from any church service. "Dancing in ordi- naries (taverns) upon any occasion" was punished by a fine of five shilhngs. " Whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forebearing labour, feasting, or any other way upon any such account," incurred a similar fine. Nor are there to be any idle hands — for Satan's employ; therefore, (Chap. LIII, Sec. 2) ''it is ordered that no person, householder or other, shall spend his time idly or unprofitably, under pain of such punish- ment, as the county court shall think meet to inflict." Here is a sumptuary law, Chapter XCV, *' Nor shall any take tobacco in any inn or common victual house, except in a private room there, so as neither the master of the said house, nor any other guest there shall take offence thereat, which, if any do, then such person shall forthwith forbear, upon the pain of two shillings sixpence for every such offence." These chapters begin with a preamble or argument, and some are certainly unique, especially this of Chapter CV: ''Whereas the laws at several times established by the government of this her majesty's province of Massachusetts bay, and now in force, have made good and wholesome provision for the regulation of inns, taverns, ale-houses, victuallers, and other houses for common entertainment, and re- tailers of strong liquors out-of-doors, and for prevent- ing of tippling and drunkenness, declaring that such licensed houses ought to be improved to the right ends and uses for which they are designed, namely, OLD YORK 163 for the receiving, refreshment, and entertainment of travellers and strangers, and to serve the publick occasions of the towns, and place where they are, and not to be nurseries of vice and debauchery, as is too frequently practised by some, to the hurt of many persons, by misspending their time and money in such houses, to the ruin of families." "And have also made good and wholesome pro- vision against immoralities, vice, and profaneness. " Section 5. And be it further enacted that no per- son or persons, either singly or together in company, shall presume to sing, dance, fiddle, pipe, or use any musical instrument in any of the streets, lanes, or alleys, within any town in the night-time, or make any rout, or other disturbance, to the disquiet and disrest of any of the inhabitants, under a penalty of five shillings for every person so offending in any of the particulars aforementioned, or being corporally punished by imprisonment, sitting in the stocks, or cage." " And for the more religious observance of the Lord's day: " Section 6. Be it enacted, that all persons who shall be found in the streets, wharves, fields, or other places within any town on the evening following the Lord's day, disporting, playing, making a disturbance, or committing any rudeness, the person so offending shall each of them pay a fine of five shillings, or suffer twelve hours' imprisonment, sit in the stocks not ex- ceeding two hours; all fines and forfeitures arising by virtue of tliis act, or any paragraph thereof, and 164 OLD YORK not herein disposed of, shall be to and for the use of the poor of the town where the offence shall be committed, any law, usage, or custom to the contrary notwithstanding. " And the constables of the respective towns are hereby directed and specially empowered to prevent the profanation of the Lord's day by restraining persons from walking, recreating, and disporting themselves in the streets, wharves, or fields, in time of publick worship." In Section 2 of this same chapter, the following drastic quotation may be made, "That common drunkards be posted up, at the houses of retailers of wine and liquors, out-of-doors, as the law directs, to publick houses, with a prohibition to them of sell- ing drink to any such." That there was some tendency to commit jelo de se, is evidenced by the following. It is unique in its way, comprising the whole of Chapter LXXXIX: "This court, considering how far satan doth pre- vail upon several persons within tliis jurisdiction to make away themselves, judgeth that God calls them to bear testimony against such wicked and unnatural practices, that others may be deterred therefrom: Do therefore order, that from henceforth, if any person, inhabitant or stranger, shall at any time be found by any jury to lay violent hands on themselves or be wilfully guilty of their own death, every such person shall be denied the privilege of being buried in the common burying-place of christians, but shall be buried in some common Mghway, where the select- OLD YORK 165 men of the town where such person did mhabit shall appoint, and a cart-load of stones laid upon the grave as a brand of infamy, and as a warning to others to beware of the like damnable practices (1660)." Here is a unique provision in regard to profanity; it is Section 2, of Chapter XCIV, and provides: ''And if any person shall swear more oaths than one at a time before he remove out of the room or company where he so swears, he shall then pay twenty shillings." Ten shillings, or three hours in the stocks, was the penalty for a single slip of the tongue; but in case the cow got into the garden or wandered off into the swamps just at nightfall when she should have been poking her nose through the pasture-bars, and the goodman forgot in his annoyance, the usual cow-call and substituted therefor, something of warmer tem- perature, he was in danger of being soundly " whipt, or committed to prison." If one had no cow, any- thing else would do as well, provided it was suffi- ciently exasperating. It had not occurred to Satan to institute "moving-day" and introduce the incor- rigible stove-funnel into the community at that time. I say Satan; if the delver after the odd things of those days will look over the preambles of such enact- ments as were made for the conservation of the public morals of the seventeenth century, he will find that the devil is duly estimated in some such form of ex- pression as this: "This court considering how far satan doth prevail," and from a human point of view, perhaps, these Puritans were half right; but 166 OLD YORK from a look at Chapter LI, entitled, "Acts against Heresy," one feels like revising one's opinion. After enumerating the books of the Old Testament and the New, wliich are declared to " be the written and in- fallible word of God," Section 41 begins, "Whereas, there is a cursed sect of hereticks lately risen up in the world, which are commonly called quakers — " and QUAMPEGAN FALLS ends with the following, "And if any person or per- sons within this jurisdiction shall henceforth enter- tain and conceal any such quaker or quakers, or other blasphemous hereticks (knowing them to be such) every such person shall forfeit to the country forty sliillings for every hour's entertainment and con- cealment of any quaker or quakers, etc.," and as to the poor Quakers themselves, they were to be taken before the nearest magistrate, when apprehended, OLD YORK 167 and upon his warrant properly directed to the con- stable, they were to be stripped "naked from the middle upwards, and tied to a cart's tail, and whipped through the town, and from thence immediately con- veyed to the constable of the next town towards the borders of our jurisdiction as their warrant shall di- rect, and so from constable to constable till they be conveyed through any the outwardmost towns of our jurisdiction." In 1661, this was amended by the addition "pro- vided their whipping be but through three towns: and the magistrates or commissioners signing such warrant shall appoint both the towns and the number of stripes in each town to be given." Upon the return of a Quaker once whipt out of town, " they shall be branded with the letter ' R ' on their left shoulder and be severely whipt and sent away as before." Satan must have rubbed his hands after a gleeful fashion, wliile these devout Puritans drove the stakes and put up the ecclesiastical bars in their religious fences. One feels to exclaim with Whittier: " and these are they Who minister at thy altar, God of Right Men, who their hands with prayer and blessing lay On Israel's Ark of light!" Cassandra Southwicks were numerous in those old days, and one would feel to say with Goodman Macy, to the warning of the Puritan priest — "' The church's curse beware! ' ' Curse an' thou wilt,' said Macy, ' but _ Thy blessing, prithee, spare.'" 168 OLD YORK But old York seems to have escaped the stain of these summary proceedings against " liereticks." As one pores over these old statutes, along with Mary Fisher and Ann Austin rise up the provoca- tions offered the staid procurers of the Puritan Com- monwealth, with Lydia Wardwell laying aside her clothing to walk into Newbury meeting-house, and Deborah Wilson walking naked through the streets of Salem. And so it happened that one August day three drum-beats were heard in Boston, and two men and one woman hung pendant from as many gallows- ropes, while Endicott, Bellingham, and the Rev. Mr. Wilson stood by to see "the devil exorcised." These were Quakers, "Sabbath-breakers and witches — hereticks." So AVilUam Robinson, Marmaduke Stevens, and Mary Dyer won the distinction of being the first upon the martyr-list of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, a list that was to be grievously lengthened through the imbecile credulity of Sewall and Stoughton at Salem. These laws seem very cruel to us ; but all laws are cruel, though necessary. Had these come to York it is a question whether the results would have been the same. The woman who stood in a sheet for three Sabbaths in succession, to make public con- fession of her sin on the last day of her penance ; and in a Scarboro meeting-house, too; and possibly, like Hester Prynne, she wore the first letter of the alpha- bet, in scarlet, sewed to her garb; would remove any lingering doubts we might have on the subject. These laws were not of a reformatory character. OLD YORK 169 They were wholly punitive; and Uke a searing-iron brand, they made the individual a moral leper for life and created for their unblamable posterity a peerage of disgraceful antecedent that generations of ex- emplary citizenship could not utterly obHterate. It might be well named, " The Heraldry of Satan." Lovers of Hawthorne, and admirers of his best work, undoubtedly his "Scarlet Letter," will appre- ciate the unvoiceable and unnamable terror that smote the heart of Hester Prynne as she mounted the scaffold steps to face the jibes and jeers of her once-time friends and neighbors. The statute which made such debasement of woman- kind possible — wholly indefensible from any point of view because it devitalized the soul and killed the heart — is Chapter XXVHI, of the Ancient Charters and Laws. With Hawthorne's heroine before one, the scene of her daily livings all wrought with the exquisite art of which Hawthorne was master, is so vivid that one seems to be a component veritably, of Hester Prynne 's time and place, and the act, itself, in the original, like a weather-vane, hales one's atten- tion to that olden day, "Though you untie the winds and let them fight Against the churches — " Here is one of the guide-posts of the Puritan civili- zation: "And if any man shall commit adultery, the man and woman that shall be convicted of such a crime before their majesties assize and general gaol delivery shall be set upon the gallows by the space of 170 OLD YORK an hour, with a rope about their neck, and the other end cast over the gallows, and in the way from thence to the common gaol shall be severely whipt, not ex- ceeding forty stripes each ; also every person and per- sons so offending shall forever wear a capital A of two inches long, and proportionable bigness cut out of cloath of a contrary colour to their cloathes, and sewed upon their upper garments, on the outside of their arm, or on their back, in open view;" and if found thereafter " without their letter," they were to be " pubhckly whipt, not exceeding fifteen stripes, and so, from time to time, toties quoties." This is the law of 1692; but here is the law earher of 1634, Chapter XVIII, Section 9. " If any person commit adultery with a married or espoused wife, the adulterer and the adultress shall surely be put to death, Levit. 20. 19, and 18. 20. Deut. 22. 23, 27." The second state is worse than the first, and like Lady Macbeth one cries, "Out, damned spot! Out, I say!" but it will not out, along with that other delusion, that Law was a healer of moral delinquencies, incor- porated in Section 2, of the same chapter, " If any man or woman be a witch, that is, hath or consulteth with a familiar spirit, they shall be put to death, Exod. 22. 18, Levit. 20. 27. Deut. 18. 10, 11." Strange and inhuman laws when — - "Scale of dragon; tooth of wolf; Witches' mummy; maw and gulf Of the ravin 'd salt-sea shark; Root of hemlock digged i' the dark; OLD YORK 171 Liver of blaspheming Jew ; Gall of goat ; and slips of yew, Silver'd in the moon's eclipse; Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips; Finger of birth-strangled babe, Ditch-deliver'd by a drab," made a potent brew of which old black Tituba of Salem must have imbibed inordinately to have filled old Salem meeting-house on that memorable first day of March, 1692, with a gaping, aghast crowd of men "! y v^^. THE SHATTUCK HOUSE, SALEM and women who had come to the trial of Sarah Good and Sarah Osburne, both poor old wrinkled women, alleged witches, with Jolm Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin on the bench to render judgment for the Com- monwealth. The trial opened with a prayer by the Rev. Sanmel Parris who invoked Divine guidance for the Court, the slave-master of Tituba, whom he had purchased in the Barbadoes. 172 OLD YORK Sarah Good was first arraigned. ''Have you made a contract with the devil? " was Hathorne's query. "No," came tremulously from the old woman's lips. The witnesses were called; seven girls of them, of whom Abigail Williams, eleven years of age, was the youngest ; and of whom the eldest were EHzabeth Hubbard, EHzabeth Booth, and Sarah Churchill. These three were eighteen years of age. Two servant girls made eleven — a " cloud of witnesses." "Children, is this the person who hurts you? " "Yes; she is sticking pins into us! " whereupon the girls made a tumult of crying out as if in great bodily pain, which they kept up as the examination proceeded. "Why do you torment the children?" "I do not." Nowadays, the word of an elderly person of sound mind and good repute is almost incontrovertible, but it is evident that to the deluded Hathorne, this old woman, whose hands were already groping for that other Unseen Hand, was not believed; and Sarah Osburne was bade to stand up, to be tortured in her turn. "Sarah Osburne, have you made a contract with the devil?" "I never saw the devil." "Why do you hurt the children?" " I do not hurt them." "She does! she does!" shouted the girls in general outcry. OLD YORK 173 Then came Tituba's turn. "Tituba, why do you hurt the children?" "I do not." "Who is it, then?" "The devil, for aught I know." "Did you ever see the devil?" "Yes; he came to me and bid me serve him. Sarah THE REBECCA NOURSE HOUSE Good and Sarah Osburne wanted me to hurt the chil- dren, but I would not." "How does the devil appear when he comes to you?" " Sometimes like a hog, and sometimes like a great black dog." "What else have you seen?" 174 OLD YORK "Two cats; one red, and the other black. I saw them last night, and they said ' Serve me; ' but I would not." "What did they want you to do?" "Hurt the children." "Did you not pinch Elizabeth Hubbard?" "Yes; they made me pinch her, and wanted me to kill her with a knife." "How do you ride when you go to meet the devil?" " On a stick. I ride in front, and Sarah Good and Sarah Osburne behind me. We go up over the trees and in a short time are in Boston or anywhere else." It is reported that this Barbadoes negress narrated many other strange things about her acquaintance with the devil. She had seen him frequently in a tall black hat. An imp of the devil came into Mr. Parris' house one night and stood a long time by the fire. He was hairy, about three feet tall and had a long, hook nose. She had a fertile imagination like most of her race, and doubtless enjoyed her promi- nence in the affair. Yes, she was a witch, for she cor- roborated the girls and they her; so, the people cried out against those two old decrepits, to remind one of the scene before Pilate ; and the girls kept to their mewing, creeping, barking, and convulsions and out- cry, until Martha Corey and Rebecca Nourse were haled in for condemnation. Then the old cart began to rattle up Witch Hill ; but, of all the judges who sat in these cases, Sewall was the only one into whoee soul filtered the light of Truth; the accusation against Mrs. Hale of Beverly broke the spell; and the law OLD YORK 175 against witchcraft had added the name of Giles Corey tortured to death under a heap of stone because he would not plead to the indictment against him, to those of Robinson, Stevens, and Mary Dyer — all ineradicable tragedies, or rather blotches upon the WITCH HILL otherwise fair fame of the Puritan colonies. These were grossly awry times; but such made the laws, some of which, even at this far cry, glower from out the fogs of Bygone land like the one eye of Cyclops from his Sicilian fastnesses. And these laws were those of York, whose first court under the domination of Massachusetts, was held right here in old York Village March 17, 1680, twelve years before the Salem Witchcraft Trials began. Thomas Danforth was appointed President; and the Rev. Shubael Dummer preached the election sermon. Such authentic records of earlier York as exist out- 176 OLD YORI side the meagre and prior town records, may be said to date from this time. How far away it all seems! and how broken its narrative, and how barren its episode of humble life and living! Yet, the link that connects the Now with YORK JAIL the Then, is a very short one. If one goes by the age of the world and its dwellers, it is but a hand's span. We are not so much different from our forbears. It is only a question of adaptations of things to present uses — the more things, the more uses one finds for them. The settler had no time to go on voyages of discov- ery along the lines of na ural phenomena. Outside of Franklin and his kite, the chart of Nature was as obscure as the maps of the Arabian cartographers, OLD YORK 177 or that of Toscanelli, and his conjectural location of Zipangu. Nature had not been recognized as the store-house of Art, to which all processes were akin. They had pre-empted the eternal hills, and the bowls of verdure that lay between, for their herds and flocks. There, their study of Nature's chemistry stopped. The rainbow chasers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had given up their search af.er mythical Eldorados because they had no legacies of Nature's secrets to bequeath. Their descendants took from their estates only the alchemy of toil. The differences are simply comparative. The rude and rugged conditions still exist in the back- woods of Maine that were once the share of the early York settler. One does not find much variation in similar locaUties. The tan of Nature on the un- painted house of to-day is the dun-hue that marked that of Parson Dummer's parsonage on the edge of Savage Rock, and that overlooked the marsh grasses of York River. The hedges have the same characteristics of growth. The birch throws its yel- low fringe to the same idly-blowing winds. The sumac burns as brilliantly in its shadow, to touch elbows with the scrawny dwarfs that huddle along the edges of the woodland. Like lines, hatched care- lessly, the purple briar stems mingle and mix with the hues that blend into a harmony of tones and half-tones, like the notes of a musical composition. If the old settler saw these things, he has never men- tioned it. He was better acquainted with creeds and polemics, if the literary products of his time are 178 OLD YORK to be taken as a criterion. Literally, the old Anglo- Saxon cotset is admirably applicable to the general conditions which made up the environment of the earliest comers. The same wild grasses paint the hillsides with emerald now, as then. The same delicate lichens, THE WITCH S GRAVE with their parti-colored dyes of gray, brown, and olive, streak the ledges of Agamenticus; and it is the same with men. One man's corn or grain differs not much from his neighbor's. His acres may have yielded more, a condition dependent on soil, treatment, labor processes, and farm economics. Once in the garner, they find the same market and a like price. One man goes one way, another, and another, to overtake one the other, or to meet at the fork of the OLD YORK 179 roads. The surprise is mutual; but so long as the old ruts are at one's feet, it is natural men should prefer them to newer and untried ways. An old rut is like an old shoe — " dreffle easy t' the fut." Doubtless there are some old ruts in the York of to-day; and should one saunter down to the old Don- nell Wharf, or into the old burying-ground, one might find there some things which are not suscepti- ble of the theory of integral calculus. These old days, with their formalities and restric- tions, are like worn-out fields that have run to " spear grass" and seem hardly worth the mowing; but turn them up with the plough, and harrow them up and down, and one gets a rich return of storied tradition, once real enough, but now illumined and softened by that distance that — "lends enchantment to the view;" meanwhile the legends grow, and the heart fills and goes out to the gentle-mannered dames, and the "old- school" gentlemen who fill in the middle-ground be- tween the amenities of aesthetic, art-environed to- day, and strenuous, horny-handed yesterday. I wish I might find that old journal which Parson Moody must have kept, for it was the habit in those days for the educated man to preserve some record of his own accomplishments, not so much, perhaps, for the pleasure it would give to unborn generations, as, that by so doing, events would be fastened more se- curely in his mind, trivial enough in their day, with here and there a random thought which would po- 180 OLD YORK tently reflect the manners, feelings and sympathies of those with whom daily contact was not only a duty but a profitable pleasure. It would make mention of many things that have forever passed the scope of the most industrious scrutiny. I should have sup- posed he would have written something of the beadle, whose care was that the boys " are jiiuilty of no mis- demeanors at the Meeting-house on the Sabbath/' a needful provision, if one accepts Longfellow, that, "A boy's will, is the wind's will," and the good old poet ought to have known ; for he lived on the hither edge of the days these pages are in some degree delineating. Old Father Moody must have had many a spell of unconscious cerebration, and no doul^t many a latent thought of his would have found place on one page and another as it passed under his hand. But those cold, blustering, winter Sabbaths! The fireless, roughly-boarded old church, the slow-sing- ing of the ''lined-out" hymns, the prayer and sermon dragging their slow lengths along the frost-laden air, called for not only a fortitude, incomprehensible to the modern devotee, but a loyalty to religious observance which certainly required a fine of five shillings and costs to give it proper stamina. The youngsters must have been a stolid set not to have thrashed about a little bit, with so great a prov- ocation under foot. For, I much doubt if the women shared their foot-stoves with anybody; and queer clumsy-like things they were — square boxes of sheet- OLD YORK 181 iron, punched with holes, in the bottom of which was an ash-pan filled with live coals from the home fireplace. It is doubtful if these meeting- houses had so much as a huge hearth from which these foot-stoves could be replenished, and which took the place of the soapstone of to-day. The men were hard- ened to the cold, and the women as well; and the cliildren were toughened, bit by bit, into uncom- plaining types of their elders. In those days, and even at the beginning of the last century, churches were without fires. Full of windows, the rough wintry winds smote their loose rattling sash, and their low gables, and crept through every crack and crevice, of which there were many, in these rude structures. One recalls here, that the old Pejepscot meeting-house, now used as a town- house, was sheathed with birch bark. Certainly, church-goers must have been stoics, and of unlimited patience. Whether the hard bare benches, a zero atmosphere, long, interminably long prayers and ser- mons then in vogue, were conducive to a "lowly and contrite heart," may well be doubted; but the absence of any amenities in their worship was in perfect con- sonance with the strength and ruggedness of the char- acter so evidently possessed by the founders of this old York settlement. The sure result of these old-time experiences and teachings was patience. Patience begat courtesy; courtesy, gentleness of manners ; and out of this latter came grace, good-breeding, a delicate consideration for others, and a reverence for good things. 182 OLD YORK I remember a fashion, a remnant of these manners, worn-out almost in my short-clothes clays, how the school-children, whenever the minister came along the highway, stood arow by the roadside, with hats and wide-brimmed bonnets doffed, while the object of all this gentle courtesy and deference walked or jogged his horse complacently past in his two- wheeled chaise — one of the same kind " That was built in such a wonderful way It lasted a hundred years to a day — " deeply buried, no doubt in theologic abstractions, or lost in perplexing calculations of a temporal character as became the chairman, ex-officio, of the parish com- mittee on ways and means ; with but a scant word of recognition for the rusticity that did liim so much ad- olescent courtesy. But the charming simplicity of that time has passed away. Quality, weight, and measure, from the stocks and bonds pomts of view, are the gauge of nowaday courtesies. Men respect others for what they are, and what they are able to get for themselves, and not so much for the positions they command by family influence or the prestige which has been passed to them by a Court of Surro- gate. As for the young folk, they spend their time in growing a set of knobs and protuberances to be knocked off later in life, which, well-rid of, graduates them into the staidness of a settled career. I have m mind an old-school clergyman who was settled over an up-country parish years ago. He was an old man when I knew him first and of whom OLD YORK 183 Father Moody might have been a near-by prototype ; with the difference, that the courtly short breeches, knee-buckles, long figured waistcoats and sugar-loaf hat, had been conjured by fashion into the more pro- saic garb of the nineteenth century; and who, with his people, quaint and olden in their habits, manners, and living, had been picked up bodily by some wan- dering Roc and dropped a half-century inland. All else was much the same, and delightfully old-fash- ioned. Like the typical Puritan of Hawthorne, he was tall, lank and raw-boned; big of frame and sparse in flesh; but abundant in conscience and untiring de- votion; whose suit of doeskin, rusty and threadbare, bore marks of long wear, with, here and there, a tell- tale patch of economy — indicative of a pinched stipend, or what was more likely, an active sympathy for the parish poor. He was, in truth, a leader of the church militant; and the patches on the knees of his much mended trousers, were to him the scars won in many a prayerful battle with the Father of Lies. He was a man of long prayers and longer sermons. Whatever of kindliness he bore to others was masked under a long-drawn, solemn visage, and a most dig- nified and serious demeanor. Not in the least an ascetic, he was inwardly all piety and love. A half a hundred years, probably he held his pas- torate, to die at last as do others; but old parson Richardson could go about his parish, and in and out its hillside homes, in garb of ancient cut and sad dilapidation, or drive along the highway behind his like ancient nag in his old leather-topped chaise, and 184 OLD YORK no one laughed at him or his turn-out; but his more youthful successor could not. Dress had come, after all, to have a value in the average country mind, and there were no presumptions in favor of the new- comer. The minister of the "saddle-bag" period never outgrew his parish; nor did the parish ever get res- tive or uneasy, or long for the flesh-pots of Egypt. Once settled, he was the patriarch of his flock. Stern of countenance, austere of greeting, and even eccen- tric in his manner, he might be. He was a University man if the parish were Congregational. He was loved, respected, and in his extreme age venerated. His people were his flock: he was their shepherd; and when the light began to fail along his path, he was solici- lously cared for. When the light was utterly blown out, his last word was cherished as a henedicite. Those were the good old saddle-bag days, when Things did not move so rapidly as to-day, or get to jogging elbows disagreeably in church matters. There are numerous meeting-houses scattered through New England, doubtless contemporary with this ancient structure at York. They were, from an architectural point of view, built along the same lines, and in their day regarded as models of elegance and structural beauty. I have one in mind, now abandoned for a newer; but the elder is superior to its successor from every point of view. Its pews are of the straight-backed sort. The family seat faced the l3ody of the church. To occupy it was to feel that one was the object of much staring; but it was OLD YORK 185 a vantage-point from which to see all that was going on; and many a sly wink and grimace were indulged in, though a gentle nudge was sure to follow. This pew was occupied every Sabbath of the year, almost, ''rain or shine." Old Parson Richardson usually reached his limit somewhere around the " and, thir- teenthly " — numerically; that was about as far as he ever got — as if that were not enough; and all of which was taken with a wholesome awe antl pro- found respect. However, when the "and lastly" was reached, a bustle of gratified expectancy ran over the church as the women-folk began to fuml^le for their "Watts and Select," or fingered their pockets for a bit of sugared calamus root with which to clear their throats, and the men got out their l)ig red hand- kerchiefs with which to blow their individual noses by way of climax to the closing of the sermon. One would need but a single experience to realize how restful it was, the rising and singing of that last hymn, with every face turned to the singing-seats in the narrow gallery that spanned the front gable of the church, where the crowded choir, aided by "ye little and ye big fiddles," sang with an unction and a volume of sound ; but , what a commotion when these "worldlie" instruments came first to be used in the old church! Old ties were like to be split asunder; but good sense prevailed then, nmch as in these later days. The preacher's trenchant voice did not admit of much dozing or sleeping in the congregation, as is somewhat the fashion in these times; and the deacons 186 OLD YORK were ever on the alert for the skitterwit boy who indulged in obstreperous misbehavior. They did not hesitate to take such to their own pews, much to the chagrin of the thoughtless urcMns who were so unfortimate as to get caught. High, rough-plas- tered walls, wide-staring windows looked down upon this scene. Among the cramped pine seats of the singing-gallery, dangled the bell-rope from the belfry, which always creaked and scraped loudly when the sexton rang or "set" the heavy bell. Crooked, rust- eaten fimnels towered crazily above the stoves, and then, turning a sharp angle, stretched the entire length of the church to disappear in the ceiling over the huge mahogany- veneered pulpit. Exceeding steep flights of steps ran up from the dais on either side, and up which, every morning and afternoon, an old man climbed slowly and unsteadily to over- look the well-filled pews. It is something to be able to live over the old life, if only in one's thought. It is much to have such to relive. It softens the harsh lines; and like the old tasks, long ago laid aside, their irksomeness is gone. Outside the Sunday services, other than the quarterly conference, which was sometliing of a visit- ing episode, and that rounded out the clerical year, was getting the minister's wood and the donation j)arty, customs now grown obsolete in a great meas- ure, yet something of a vogue in the "back" parishes where the minister takes to preacliing to eke out a scanty farm-living, with, perhaps, though not often, it is to be said, to the credit of the cloth, a bit of OLD YORK 187 horse-trading, now and then ; which was not supposed to interfere with the pastoral duty, unclerical as it might seem. It is almost a generation and a half since I went to the last of these charitable happenings in my coun- try life. The wood question, hauling the minister's wood, came earliest in the season. It was followed about midwinter with a "donation." After the first snows came, — and it seems as if they came earlier and deeper then, — the menfolk turned out with their oxen, sleds, and axes, and driving into the wood- land of some generously disposed parishioner, the onslaught among the beeches and maples began. A dozen axes made sharp music, and the minister's woodpile grew apace. For all tliis, he was to be pitied; for often, while liis neighbors' fire was ablaze with summer-seasoned wood, cut and split while the March snows were settling, and seasoned with scents of apple blossoms and the songs of sunmier, and stored in the ample sheds, the August sunshine filling its fibres with crackling heats, the parson sat beside his slow-burning fire of frostbound sticks, coaxing now and then a tardy blaze with which to set liis thin blood aglow. Sometimes a load of well-seasoned birch in rags and tatters of snowy, sun-bleached bark for swift kindling, found its way into the parsonage outhouse. Then the old man's heart glowed like the cheery flame that lay within the secret cells of wood. Sometimes at noon when the school was out the larger boys would chop at the minister's wood-pile, but his axe, 188 OLD YORK like some of his sermons, was very dull, and the boys would get discouraged, and then he would have to take a hand himself, or fare worse. I have thought, sometimes, if they who show the way knew more of the work men do with their hands they might get nearer the people than they do. The "donation" was as likely to occur on a Febru- ary night as any other, when "Half the corn and half the hay " had gone with Candlemas Day, But there was a grim sequel to this coming of the good people of the parish, with their buttered bread and doughnuts, their black pots of baked beans, and loaves of rye bread baked in wide-flaring, ten-quart tin pans, that came with the cleaning up of the "left-overs," with crumbs of all sorts trodden into the carpets, and the pantry all askew. Money was not over-plentiful; "four 'n' six" a day for rustic labor might be taken to indicate its ratio of value to other things. Giving " things " was easier than giving money. But this was a much talked of event. It meant an outing for the young folk at a time when cards and dancing and parties were not countenanced among the strictly orthodox, — an evening of sober enjoyment and social inter- course for their elders. It was an informal reception at which the youngest was as welcome as the eldest. But, somehow, the best was always thought too good for the parson's family; so whatever went out of these many households into his, was such as would be the least missed from the home larder. OLD YORK 189 It was "early candlelight," hardly, on this Feb- ruary afternoon when the folk began to gather at the parsonage. As team after team drove up, the lan- tern lights dodged in and out, or swung up and down like so many will-o'-the-wisps, faint and grimm^ring. The snow creaked in a cheery way under the sleigh runners; the barn doors rattled a noisy welcome; the house doors flew open with every fresh alarm of jing- ling bells, letting bars of nebulous light out into the biting night wind that brought down hosts of fine snowflakes from the roofs to pile the drifts in the narrow yard still higher. Later, the parish folk are all here. The parish includes the entire neighbor- hood, unless the contingent of corner grocery habi- tues, who are never to be found elsewhere so long as the trader will contribute lights and fuel, and who lounge about the hacked settees, are excepted. The parson's wife is sent into the best room to assist her husband in receiving; and the neighborhood matrons take possession of the kitchen, where everything is being made ready for the feast, a sort of mysterious procedure, along with much voluble comment and critical sampling individual contributions. Every room glows with open fires and the mellow light of home-made candles ; the stairways creak with the young folk going up and down, laughing and romping at will through the house, which really en- joys this lapsing from its customary staidness. Oc- casionall}^ the wind swoops down against the north gable, with a buffet that makes the roof-tree quiver with shrill weird notes of complaining; the nails in 190 OLD YORK the clapboards snap loudly; while Jack Frost, with his proverbial lack of manners, peeps in at the cor- ners of the windowpanes, and wherever his breath touches them gather tufts of queerly shaped wrin- kles, that grow into wonderful ferns and clumps of foliage. But this was not all. The apple-trees and the lilac bushes in the front yard whistled softly to each other as the wind jumped off the low roof, or whirled around the white gable ; and they wished th3m- selves grown-up folk, so they might shake the hand of the good old parson and his sweetfaced wife, but all they did was to rub their scrawny limbs against the side of the house with a rough caressing, that no doubt took the will for the deed; for from the outside the parsonage seemed on the broad grin, with so many flashing firelit windows, and such a continuous trail of ruddy sparks scurrying away from its low chim- ney tops. The sleigh-bells had a great time, talk- ing back and forth, as the horses took up one foot after another, only to put them back again into the crisp snow, and thoroughly discontented with noth- ing better in view than a rickety board fence that served as a boundary line and a hitching-post alike. The old parsonage seemed "possessed," and fairly shook with laughter, with all its pent jollity. Time went, on this night, if it never did before ; and it was not long after "grace" that the supper was eaten — the children were served last — when the little Gothic clock on the kitchen shelf struck ten halting strokes, each one a thin-timbred, high-pitched note — as if long ago worn out with so much iteration. Then OLD YORK 191 the parish folk said, "Good-night" one by one, to go out into the dark, leaving the parson and his wife to rake up the smouldering coals with tired, tremu- lous hands, covering them deep in the gray ashe\ That done, they sat down to count the cost. This having to count the cost, was the bane of the old- fashioned donation-party, when those who came, ate up all they brought, as was often the case. No doubt any one of the good old pastors of this ancient church of York could have told the story much better, and I should very much prefer to have used quota- tion marks in the relation, but, "Where to elect there is but one, 'Tis Hobson's choice; take that, or none." The minister of the old days was looked upon as a man of superior education ; and the York ministers were not one whit behind the best men of the times. All, conscientious disciples of the Man of Galilee, their labors were of arduous and unremitting char- acter, and their lines were cast amid rough waters. What would not one do or where would not one go, to find that journal of neighborhood happenings, quaint pen-pictures of current events, in which as much was written about himself as of his neighbors and their doings, which each of these stewards of the vineyard must have kept! Stories of earth- quakes, the untimely frosts of 1794; the poverty year of 1815 with its heavy snow of June 9, and the great snowfall of February 20, 1717, when the houses were buried, and Boston's cow-lanes were clogged with a single fall of six feet of snow, would have had perti- 192 OLD YORK nent mention. There were no wagons in those days — nothing but bridle-paths along the sands, out through the swamps, up over the rugged hills, and threading the dense woods, and which were dignified by the General Court as "roads," for which appropriations were made and expended. Old York was indicted for neglect of highways in 1664, and this was the "road" ordered by the General Court to be cut from the head of Roger's Cove to Bra'boat Harbor, "and on unto the little marsh near unto Captain Camper- nowne's house, and so to William Hilton's at Ware- house Point, the inhabitants of Gorgeana to cut unto a cove near to John Andrew's and the inhabitants of Pascataquack from William Hilton's, and to be done by 30 Oct., 1649." These roads were hardly more than foot-paths from house to house, often impassable in winter; and it was through these blockades the minister went if he went at all, when he made his visits to his pa- rishioners, and where he was always, if report be true, a welcome visitor. What a dearth of neigh- borhood calls there must have been in those days! But this was not all. Provisions were scanty; famine stared the township in the face more than once, with so many men away fighting the Indians, and so much of danger threatening those who ven- tured into the fields to plant them, or to gather their crops. It might well be called the Iron Age here- about, with so much of exposure and hardship, and so little with which to do. But amid all, with all the changes that came to his people, moved the pastor OLD YORK 193 with self-conscious integrity, and benign countenance, holding to the tenure of his service for a hfetime — which is so uncommon in these days of uneasy and changing pastoral relations, as to be worth the re- cording. These loosely-spun yarns of the days of pillion and saddle-bag would not be complete without some ref- erence to the preparations for the Sabbath, which was not only a day of worship and religious reflec- tion, but a day of quiet, seeml}^ rest from labor of the field. This was an interregnum during which no "idle" recreating, walking or disporting of one's self in public was allowable or permitted. "Thou shalt keep the Sabbath day holy," included the ox as well as his master; and this enforced seclusion outside of attendance upon public worship, begot extra toil for the day preceding. It is within the memory of the writer, that in the old-fashioned ortho- dox family, all food for Sabbath consumption was prepared on Saturday, so that nothing of a " worldlie " nature, or care, or annoyance, should interevene to distract the mind of the devoutly-inclined household from a "profitable meditation of the Word;" and all secular reading was tabooed or locked up in the little cupboard in its "Sailor's Snug Corner" of the sitting-room. Only the black leather-covered Bible, Baxter's "Samt's Rest," or dear old Bunyan, were available for mental refreshment, unless Young's "Night Thoughts" was permitted to share with "Watts and Select" the scanning of the poetically inclined. 194 OLD YORK These were the days when things were seen dimly, as through the perforated square tin lanterns of the time, whose single candle-flame, and limited powers of illumination, barely suggested the way one's feet should keep; and whose tiny holes, outlined in scrolls and other simple devices, let out slender and doubt- ful threads or rays of light, that were, after all, but intimations; and, so it was they groped their way toward the larger day which they were allowed to see afar off, as Moses viewed the milk and honey land from Pisgah's top. As if one were astride the ass of Al Borak, these pictures are limned with every raising of the eye- lids; and they change, and come, and go, as the shift- ing shadows of the leaves where the sunlight filters brokenly with every varying breeze. TOBEY HOUSE, ELIOT OLD KETTERIE OLD KETTERIE NDOUBTEDLY the first Englishman to sail up the channel of the Piscataqua River was Pring, who sailed over here in the Speedwell in 1603. The Speed- well and the Dis- coverer made up Pring's fleet, whose sails, belly- " ing with the pine- flavored winds of the Maine coast, bore southward until the wide mouth of the beautiful river opened up before the prows of his vessels, where he willingly dropped anchor, and like many others who have been charmed with its varied and romantic scenery, began to write of what he saw. He was evidently much attracted b}^ this river, for he not only followed its 197 198 OLD YORK course inland some distance, but he describes its natural disposition of land and water, its vegetation, and its four-footed dwellers, but does not mention that he saw any of the aborigines. He was looking for sassafras, but it was not indigenous to the sur- rounding country. Doubtless it was his search for that savory root that led him up-stream; and it is certain that he found the land pleasant to look upon, as did many others, who a quarter of a century later began to follow in his footsteps. The first comer here was one David Thompson. He did not settle at Kittery, but across the river on the New Hampshire side, probably. His settlement has been located at Rye; also at Thompson's Point, which latter is most likely to be the place, else it would not have taken his name. Stackpole locates him at Little Harbor, better known in these days as Rye. This writer says his house site has been " lo- cated at Odiorne's Point." It matters little as to the exact spot that marked his stay of hardly three years; but that he was here in this neighborhood makes a human landmark from which one may begin to run his l)Oundary lines as he makes his survey. In the Public Record Office in London may be seen a patent to Thompson and two other men bearing the date of October 16, 1622, "for a pt of Pascataqua river in New England;" which was an infringement upon that of Gorges and Mason, August 10 of the same year. Upon the arrival of Neal as agent for Gorges and Mason, Thompson departed for the Boston colony. It seems that Christopher Levett was his OLD YORK 199 guest, in 1623; and his place may have come into some prominence as a convenient shelter for the fishermen who began coming to these waters after cod. Smith was here at the neighboring Isles of Shoals in 1614, and, after his coming the fishermen were numerous. Thompson's "stone house" may have been hardly more than the rudest shelter of the times; but it was undoubtedly well known, because Thompson was not here alone, but had employees or servants. These, many of them, naturally re- mained, as Neal came prepared for a permanent stay. He pre-empted Thompson's house, and after a brief three years returned to England. In 1631 a ship came over with a relay of other laborers. It is prob- able that Capt. Thomas Cammock, Chadbourne, the builder of "Great House," at Strawberry Bank, Thomas Withers, Thomas Spencer, and Thomas Crockett, all early landmarks, came at the same time. They were contemporaries here and their names appear with frequency. Ambrose Gibbons, who came with Neal, was Mason's manager, and a house had been built for Mason at Newichawannock, prob- ably in 1632, as Mason writes Gibbons under date of December 5, 1632, "We praie you to take of our house at Newichawannock, and to look well to our vines; also, you may take some of our swine and goates, which we praie you to preserve." This was the first attempt, doubtless, at systematic farming in the province, and it was ultimately suc- cessful; for Francis Norton, a later agent of Mason's widow, drove one hundred beeves to Boston after- 200 OLD YORK wards, where he disposed of them readily, at a good price. But Mason's interest here was short, and very few titles of to-day can be traced back to his grant. Henry Jocelyn assumed Neal's functions as ]\Iason's provincial governor, and at Mason's death established himself at Black Point to the eastward. The Mason property at Newichawannock met the fate of the garments of the Nazarene. After Nor- ton had taken what he desired, the servants fell to and appropriated the residue, — the neat stock, stores, and provisions, and, as well, the houses. This was the end of the seductive dream that possessed j\Iason's mind of an English manor in New England. Mason as well as Gorges was bound to fail ; but both builded better than they knew. Their immediate loss was the ultimate gain of others who were to come after them. If one cares to examine the New England His- torical and Genealogical Register for 184S, a list of ]\Iason's stewards and servants will be found, and which is reputed to be an accurate copy of an ancient document which is accepted as reliable. The names of fifty individuals are given, and it concludes, — "Eight Danes, Twenty-two Women." The men were expected to work; and the women to marry. Wives were in demand. Gibbons wrote Mason August 6, 1634, "a good husband with his wife to tend the cattle, and to make butter and cheese will be profitable; for maids they are soon gonne in this countrie." A comely English maid once off ship found it a short road to the Justice of the Peace and a rude but comfortable home. Then began the OLD YORK 201 202 OLD YORK building up of the households; and how they grew! And the houses kept pace, too; and a lively pace it was with so many childish feet thronging their thres- holds, for the good old English fashion of big families was brought along with the rest of the good old things common in bonnie England. As these settlers pros- pered, and the choice fruits of their adventurous courage, their energy, and their indomitable industry were garnered, their intelligence and mental training demanded and obtained for them, the position and influence that the New England character has always stood for. The men and women of the old days were heroes and heroines; and out of the realities of their times are woven the finest fabrics of to-day's romance. Their traits were all of the hereditary sort; and these people of Kittery were loyalists as well as liberalists. On general principles they were as God-fearing antl as jealous of the rights of the individual as the Puri- tans of Massachusetts Bay. They differed, it is true, in their motives in coming to this new country, but it was a creditable difference. Their object was land, primarily, and lumber; fishing was the first and most important factor; but that industry took second place as the settlements grew and the clearings widened. The foundation of all this perilous and rugged endeavor was the acquisition of material wealth, in the accumulation of which they were not behind the Plymouth colony. With wealth came power and local importance and a generous outlook. Go into the old houses of older Kittery, and you have the proof of this in the ample halls, the OLD YORK 203 low broad fireplaces, the carved wainscotings that reach from floor to ceiling; the wide staircases with their carved balustrades, the shuttered windows, and the antique furnishings that at this day are wonders of art. There is hardly one of these old houses that has not on its walls a Copley, or did not have at some time in its history, along with a tall clock in mahog- any, and a set of brasses for every fireplace, that would put a connoisseur on pins and needles imtil he might call them his own, or gather them into his already fine collection. They were the days of fine tapestries, laces, and old china, and of like fine ways and manners. What was the odds if the founder of this family made his mark or could not write his name! Those who came after him could, and what was more, they coukl point with a great pride to the achievement of their ancestor who lived in a time when brawn of muscle and native wit and a heroic cast of mind were the hall-marks of manhood; and when reading, writing, and spelling would hardly keep one's scalp on one's head in an Indian raid; or clear the lands, turn up the black furrows for the flax and the corn; or defend the sheep that afforded them their garb of homespun. The schoolmaster came as soon as room could be made for him, and the meet- ing-house as well. The Rev. Jeremiah Hubbard was here as early as 1667, and in the Rev. Mr. New- march was happily combined both preacher and school- master. At this time Kittery was a busy place with its ship-building and its increasing commerce, all of which stood amply for the quality of its citizenship. 204 OLD YORK If one saunters leisurely along the shore road of the Kittery of to-day he will find much food for thought, for he would find the actualities of the Old "mingled With the marvels of the New," and as well, "A vast and ghostly cavalcade," keeping even step with his own, over these old bridle- paths that have widened out somewhat with the usage of centuries, touching elbows, or nudging one i' the ribs, as one comes to an ancient roof or a hollow in the ground once dignified by an old-time mansion and a human occupant. If one stops to listen, faint foot- falls come and go, or beat with an irregular pulsing upon the sleepy airs that hereabout seem always to blow from Nowhere, — for here at Kittery Point is a veritable patch of Poppj^-Land. Whether one takes a hammock swing when the heavy dews lie along the fragrant grasses, or later in the day when the roads are but tremulous threads of glimmering heats, or still later, when the lengthening phantoms of the Kit- tery elms creep noiselessly athwart the sward, and the shadows of the headlands paint the sea a swarthy gray, or inlay it with mosaics of mother of pearl, one is under the spell of the "legends and runes Of credulous days, odd fancies that have lain Silent from boyhood taking voice again, Warmed into life once more, even as the tunes That, frozen in the fabled hunting-horn, Thawed into sound;" OLD YORK 205 as if one had paused to "eat the lotus of the Nile And drink the poppies of Cathay." Old Kittery, like poor Rip, went to sleep long years ago; but if one cares to hear the rime of the inland Catskills, one needs but to catch the sound of the sea along the Kittery shores, with the dull thunder of its /a.'' i^*Ai */ '■ ^— '^K y^SL w^ "*" ^k*i "lis ^^ >«?^w&ar ^^-^ at V*" A GLIMPSE OF KITTERY surf breaking over Whale-back, and with Irving's tale in mind, the vision grows, and the Kittery sands "are traversed by a silent throng Of voyagers from that vaster mystery," whose company we would recall for a little span. If one would see old "Ketterie" as it came to me, I should say, Here are the glasses, sir; you will have to use them as they are, for the mechanism of their adjustment to the promiscuous vision is some- what out of repair, — "mebbe they'll do you!" as 206 OLD YORK my friend Bellamy, Avho lives in the Sir William Pep- perrell house, remarked to me one lazy summer after- noon of not long ago. While I scanned the sunlit waters that lay over and beyond Fort Constitution, he told me how to make a witch bridle; and somehow it seemed that the days of old Aunt Polly were returned and she was taking me up and dowTi the roads of here- about, croaking her stories of the people she once knew into my ears, and who were wont to climb Brim- CHAUNCEY'S CREEK stone Hill to pay to her their tributes of fish, tobacco, and snuff, and one knows not what else, — good-will offerings, the purchase money for the devil's forbear- ance. She showed me the furrow in the mud of Chauncey's Creek where she " teched " the Vesper ; and told me how she rode old Captain Perkins to York and back one stormy night. She said, " Mary Greenland were a pore, deluded woman, an' no witch ; but 'n them days folk hed t' hev witches, an' mebbe she'd do fer Deb'rah Lockwood an' Ann Lin. Fer OLD YORK 207 sitch nigh folk 's Cap'n Mitch'll an' Cap'n Perkins, it needed suthin' made i' the dark o' the moon/' — From the inner shag of the yellow-birch ; Hair from the tail of a piebald horse; A poop of tow, from a swingle-staff Cut from the limb of a witch-burr tree; Looped through a yoke, limber and slim As ever a witch-bridle yoke could be. It was on a July afternoon that I made my way to Kittery. I left the train at Kittery Junction, from THE REMICK HOUSE whence one gets a first look at this country of By- gone, where every cove and outreacliing slielf of rock owns some legend or tradition. Across the river — for it was up these waters that Pring turned the prows of his craft toward Quampegan Falls — is old Straw- berry Bank, and midstream is old Withers' Island, 208 OLD YORK now known as Badger's. Both these are landmarks as ancient as any hereabout ; for here was an ancient ferry kept by Woodman, and which spanned the Pis- cataqua from Withers' Point to Strawberry Bank, as travellers to east or west, signified their desire. I can almost see the cliimney top of the Remick house, built in 1777, near the overhead bridge north of the railway station, and which is an interesting example of the clwellmg of its period. Hardly has the smoke of the tram into Portsmouth cleared away up river than one's dreaming begins ; for turn wliichever way one will, the spell works, and one's feet are following th? same trend of the worthies who wrought these ways up and do\ATi the olden town, keeping to the water-side. From the station the shore runs south- east, and as one goes one finds the outward aspect ' of things to be much like that of any other coast town, except that, to the right, below Badger's Island, are those of Puddington and Fernald, oc- cupied by the present Navy Yard. The strip of water between, is Crooked Lane, at the head of which was the early mansion of Robert Cutt; and as one keeps on, down the mainland, it ends in old-time Gunnison's Neck, where Spruce Creek makes in to widen out northward. Opposite, and exactly east, is Crockett's Neck, which makes the north land- wall of Crockett's Cove a narrow strip of flats at ebb tide, but a charming and picturesque bit of water at flood. Between the mainland and Iiittery Point, Spruce Creek is compressed into the shape of a bottle- neck, across the mouth of which the Piscataqua cuts OLD YORK 209 squarely, to sweep grandly down to the sea between Great Island, with its gray roofs antl ancient church towers of olden New Castle, and the Kitteryof Cham- pernowne and the famous Pepperrells. Once over Spruce Creek from Gunnison's Neck one is in an en- chanted country. All the way from the railway station hither, one has been walking over or past old cellars, liut unless one has stopped for a glanc3 at the RICE'S TAVERN old Rice Tavern, nothing of a material character has met the eye other than what one sees in the mod- ern village. Nor is this hostelry very ancient, as its building was somewhere about 1806; but it was here before the days of bridges, and marks the landing- place of the ferry from Portsmouth. This, and the old Remick house by the railroad, are the two surviv- ors of the early settlement days on the hither side of Spruce Creek, unless one goes up Eliot way for a glimpse at some old houses, where he is likely to begin 210 OLD YORK with the structurally quaint Tobey roof-tree, planted as early as 1727. Eliot has some very old houses. The Shapleigh house, built in 1730, is regarded as a fine specimen of the colonial type. The huge chim- ney of this old mansion was shaken down by the earth- quake of November 1, 1755, — "That was the year when Lisbon town Felt the earth shake, and tumbled down; " and it was the identical day on \Aliich Lisbon was destroyed. This digression to Eliot emphasizes the rarity of the house of the ante-Revolutionary period along Kittery Foreside; but Eliot was in those days kno^ii as Kittery Middle Parish. Referring to its ancient places, one should not miss the Frost Garri- son house, which is now stored with the family fuel instead of powder and shot, for the wily savage. With a parting glance up the river I get a gUmpse of the green uplands of Withers' Island, and I recall an old court record in wliich he figures somewhat. He was one of the settlers induced by Mason to go to liis province of New HampsMre. He came here in 1631, and was a councillor imder the Godfrey government in 1644. After the submission of the Maine province to the Massachusetts Bay colony he was made a commissioner. He was a represen- tative to the General Court in 1656. He was in high favor and obtained many grants of land, so that his acquisitions were considerable, and he was regarded as a landed proprietor of quite extensive hokUngs. But for all these evidences of abmidance OLD YORK 211 Baxter says he fell into "disrepute." According to the records of the court in 1671, John (undoubtedly this was a mistake in the Christian name, and Thomas was meant) Withers was presented " for an irregular way of Contribution, by putting in money to leade on others to do y"* hke, & takening of his own money, if not more, out againe, w"" by y"" lyes some suspi- cion of fraud." Mr. Baxter says, "With this last ^ ' 1 irr -J. K**: 4/^,_fik.ali' ^ _-■ SHAPLEIGH HOUSE curious yet sad record we are obliged to complete the biography of the man." Stackpole gives quite an extended description of Withers' possessions," ai:d places the date of his death in 16.S5. He had no sons, and was the only man of his name among the early settlers. Mr. Baxter assumes "John" to be Thomas Withers, and he is undoubtedly correct. Of his three daughters one married John Shapleigh, another Thomas Rice, and the third was married 212 OLD YORK twice, — first to Benjamin Berry, and lastly to Doda- vah Curtis. Stackpole says, " Thus the name Withers perished with the first settler, but Ms descendants are many in the Shapleigh, Rice, andalUed famihes." The island granted to Withers in 1643 has followed the name of its subsequent owners, and once called Langdon, is now Badger's. The quotation from this court record is made simply to throw a sidelight on the manners of the times. Withers was undoubtedly reacliing the child- ish period of his life, in wliich the ruhng passion gets the advantage of Ms sense of the proprieties, a not uncommon happening among elderly folk, as I have had occasion to make note of at one time and another ; but "The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones." However tliis may be, Thomas Withers played well Ms part, and was an important factor in the growth and prosperity of Kittery's earher days. That the early name of the island that was among the first of his possessions was not retained is to be regarded as unfortunate. These old names are linked closely with the years that gave to Ivittery its largest importance, nor should they become obsolete or forgotten. Withers' son-in-law, John Shapleigh, was the grand- son of Alexander, who came from Ivingsweare, on the Devon. He was a merchant in the fisMng trade. He had a son Nicholas, who is to be remembered for the humanity he possessed in a large degree, and wMch he exMbited in Ms attitude to the Quakers, OLD YORK 213 who at that time wore under a ban, and which caused his expulsion from the Kittery board of selectmen in 1659. Gorges granted him five hundred acres at Kittery Point, and he was honored with the invest- ment of " magistratical powers throughout the whole county of York." He was a member of the God- frey Coimcil in 1652, and was one of the signers of the submission of Maine to Massachusetts. Baxter says, "It is not known that he favored their peculiar tenets," referring to Shapleigh's treatment of Quakers, but it is indicative of liis liberality and forecast. In 1658 he was one of the commissioners to "pitch and lay out the cUviding line between York and Wells." Before the "submission" Kittery was Episcopa- han in all matters rehgious; afterward, the churches succumbed to Congregationalism. There was natu- rally much discontent, much discussion among folk as they came together in one place and another, and, as well, much opposition to the domination of Massachusetts. About 1654 militia companies were organized about tliis part of the country from Kittery to Wells, and Shapleigh was appointed commander over them. Stackpole describes the Shapleighs " as an old English family. Their coat of arms was, vert, a chevron between three escallops argent. Crest, an arm vested gules turned up argent hold- ing in hand proper a chaplet vert, garnished with roses of the first." He was the son of Alexander who settled here with the earliest. He located at Kittery Point in 1635. 214 OLD YORK In this enchanted country of Ejttery Point, fol- lowing the east trend of its shore one gets a fine and ever-widening 'sdew of the Piscataqua and its detour seaward. If one is curious as to the derivation of tills name, essentially Indian, he may find himself in doubt, as WilUamson says the meaning of the word is right angles; and to be sure, as the stream makes the turn to the southward aroimd Great Island, the angle is sharp; but I prefer the dicta of Potter in his discussion of the language of the Abe- naquies. He says it is derived from pos (great), at- iuck (deer), auke (place); or in other words, Grea Deer Place. Mr, Baxter coincides with Potter, and ro my mind it is the preferable derivation. It is certainly delightfully suggestive of hunting exploits and smoking venison steaks and all the out-door romance of primitive life. What deep and vitaUzing breathings of ozone these early settlers must have taken in, and what feastings of nature must have garnished their rude boards, with such an abundance of fish, fowl, and game, and no fish and game warden to bother, with a surety of being mulcted by the local magistrate! An old saying that has come down with every generation is, "Fishing and berry- ing are free," and one thinks of it as a pleasant fiction in these days of "posted" brooks and enclosed blue- berry patches. Only the plainslands are left to the impecunious berry-pickers of to-day, and even the private trout-stocked pond comes within the ban of close-time. But these curtailments of personal Ub- erties are the adjuncts of the civiUzation of the Now, OLD YORK 215 and are to be regarded complacently, as coming within the democratic proposition of "the greatest good for the greatest number." Here on Kittery Point, following what was once the bridle-path thoroughfare toward York Harbor, leaving Brewhouse Point and Spruce Creek to the left, one cuts across lots, as it were, with the feel of the gravel under foot that once cut the soles of old THE PARSONAGE, 1629 Hugh Gunnison, for here was his demesne as of fee in 1650, to run up against the gable of a sim-tanned, two-story h^u-e built in 1629, and ever since known as the "Parsonage," and close by is its Idndred spirit, the Kittery Point Church, built the following year. The parsonage is a good-sized, apparently roomy house, against whose gray gable, when the sun is right, falls the shadow of a goodly tree, once a riding- switch, so the legend runs, of good old Parson Hub- bard, who when he had done with it stuck it in the 216 OLD YORK ground, and lo! it grew and waxed great. One feels a real friendship for this ancient shade-maker, and touches its rough rind as one would shake hands with the man who planted it so carelessly, as if it were possessed of some astral quality. One puts an ear to its trunk, and some would say it was but the whispering of the leaves, no doubt curious as to who this may be at its root who is so familiar on short ac- quaintance; but to me comes something else. There are unfamihar names of men and women, mingled with serious admonition, passages of Scripture, and something more about "man and wife," a brief prayer, some goodly advice, a low, reverently voiced benediction, and then I know, — for two people a new life has begun. The sash of the windows in this westerly gable are thrown up to let in the cool wind that blows down the river, and one can even hear the squeak of the goose-quill pen across the sermon sheets, ])ut never a word until the deacons have quieted the congregation of a Sabbath morning, when the sleepy airs of the Point fly wide-awake with the High Church service that at that time prevailed here, its chants, and intonings of litany and hymn, and the trench- ant exposition of the Word. It is not at all hard to get into the atmosphere of these old things, with such ancient environment, for Kittery Point, externally, does not show the iconoclastic tendency so apparent, once one gets across to Crooked Lane. Unless it be the modern hotel on Warehouse Point, one may look for a suggestion of modernness, to find it in the up-to-date monolith of polished granite that OLD YORK 217 marks the resting-place of Christian Remick, and that shows its ghstening apex over the top of the broken stile that gives entrance to the ancient ceme- tery, where sleep in unmarked graves the great and the obscure of this old parish. Vandal hands have been at work on this old church. It has been "im- proved," and I trow there is not a man or woman in all Kittery but feels as they pass it by that a virtue THE OLD KITTERY CHURCH, 1630 has gone from it that can never be replaced. Van- dalism is a good name for it ; and vandalism it was in its quintessence. These old relics are in a sense, pub- lic property. They are silent pages to be read rev- erently; and they are rich in lessons of sturdy living, self-denial, heroic persistence, a high, inflexible cour- age, and a patriotic purpose. They are the landmarks by which the epochs of New England's high civiliza- tion are to be counted; the silent memorials of your fathers, and mine, alike, — silent, yet their windows 218 OLD YORK glow with the soul-lights of those who first used them; and their thresholds are still tremulous with the tread of the feet that first tried their mysteries. All over them are the prints of hands long stilled, but the. magic of their touch, here and there, remains to bind one under the spell of their golden speech. Not one, but has been hallowed by birth and reconsecrated by death. One goes to Egypt for obehsks, but here are sometliing other than pagan memorials, and richer and worthier. When the last one has mould- ered or burned away, one will have but the memory of their rugged lines; and the iconoclast will have had his way. Money is well enough; but money without the finer strains of patriotism, without the impetus of public spirit, without hereditary tradi- tions, or a love and reverence for such, Avill set the hands on the clock of to-day, back even beyond the hour when these old garrison-houses of Ivittery and York were born. Keep the hand of the man with money and less wit, who has an itch to "do sometliing," off these old landmarks. Send Mm to the country of the Goths and Vandals, whence he came, and tell your geese to set up their mightiest outcry if by a happen he come upon you miaware. Could one spare a bullet-mark off the stones in the old Copp's Hill burying-ground, or a splinter from the old North Church tower, or a fine from the traditions of Concord and Lexington? These are the memories that make the blood leap and one's muscles rigid. Not one of these old hiber- nacles of wood scattered about old Ivittery but thrill OLD YORK 219 the heart and bring a fresh glow to the eye, and may- hap a quivering of the Hp or a choke in the throat. It is hke going back to the home hearth to look into these old Uving-rooms; and yet how unhke they are to those we know best to-day! Across from the old church is the cemetery. Go THE KITTERY CEMETERY through the stile. No need to wait for its turning, for it is broken and one easily goes through; and witliin this enclosure, for it is surrounded by a low wall of flat stones evidently gathered along the shore of Lawrence's Cove, one is surprised at the poverty which prevails in headstones. Here is a populous 220 OLD YORK community, but door plates seem to be wofully lack- ing. Those who have come after the dwellers in these grassy hillocks, some of wliich are but faintly discernible, are as well forgotten with those who have gone before. There are but few stones with names and dates on them, speaking comparatively, and these, with the exception of a half dozen, perhaps, are mostly of the nineteenth century. Here is a massive memorial of the Remick family. Here are the slabs of Mr. Robert Cutt antl his wife Dorcas, but the stone is so soft and the teeth of Time have been so sharp that the date is obliterated. The Rev. Benja- min Stevens and Mr. Robert Cutt Whipple, 1761, are easily distinguished. On a stone upon which is etched the name of Elizabeth Fernald, bearing the date of 1816, one may read the following simple epitaph: "By my request, Let this dust rest." Here is the stone of John Morse. It bears the date of 1741, one of the most ancient stones in the enclosure to give any information, outside that of Mr. Robert Cutt. The stone of Dorcas Cutt bears date 1757. An- other, that of Thomas Jenkins, bears date, Sep' em! er 19, 1740. The oldest stone, a slab of flat slate evi- dently picked up alongshore, is that of Nicholas Sever, which bears the date of October 27, 1729. There is a quaintly pathetic line untlerneath all, and the letters are most rudely and irregularly cut, and OLD YORK 221 altogether, to me, it was the most fascinating spot in the yard. It is close to the westerly wall, just where the crest of sward breaks down abruptly to the shore. One can sit on the rough edge of the SOME OLD STONES IN KITTERY GRAVEYARD wall and scan tliis memorial at leisure. The line referred to is, "old & STILL." What infinite rest and quietude in that last word ! I must confess that I find in them a strange insistence, for they follow me wherever I go. I seem to see them, as I saw them on that old lichen-stained rock, ' and there is a peaceful, thin old face, out of which 222 OLD YORK the glow has faded, turned toward me. It is "old and still," yet it is singularly beautiful, more beau- tiful than ever before with the hght which was never upon sea or land illumining it. John Morse was buried here in 1741; and down on the extreme edge almost by the sea is the stone of Moses McClintock, 1814. You will find these lines upon it: — "Behold all men as you pass by, As you are now, so once was I ; As I am now, so must you be, Prei^are foi" death and follow me." Rather an ingenious epitaph and hterally true. Here is something which falls within the line of obituary poetry: "Margaret Hills Consort of Oliver Hills. 1803. I lost my hfe in the raging seas; A governing God does as he please; The Kittery friends, they did appear, And my remains they buried here." I beheve tliis covers all the epitaphs in tliis old cemetery. I made a very dihgent search, but most of the graves have but a rude stone such as might be picked up along any pasture side; but I should judge the greater part possessed not even that. The old cemetery is embowered in a mass of foliage from the many deciduous trees growing within its boun- dary hne, as well as those which hedge it about. It is a quiet, secluded place, and has in very shght OLD YORK 223 degree the garish suggestion of the modern city of the dead. If one should turn cne's back to the broken stile that gives entrance to the cemetery, with one's face to the old church, at the left, witliin a stone-throw PART OF LADY PEPPERRELL HOUSE is the Lady Pepperrell House. According to Drake, wlien he saw it, it was in an exceeding dilapidated condition, with its great door hanging by a single liinge, its window panes broken, and its chimney tops sadly awry. I anticipated finding it in a still more advanced stage of ruin; but what was my sur- 224 OLD YORK prise to find it aglow in the light of the morning sun, and outwardly suggestive of all its pristine glory and importance. What wand of magic had been laid upon it I did not inquire, but there were no signs of decay, from either a physical or moral THE MASSIVE DOOR' point of view. As I looked at its massive door I would not have been surprised had it been thrown wide open for Lady Peppenell, or to have seen that proud dame step out upon its single wide flag that hugged its threshold, for a stroll about the lawn that spread away on either side of the walk that OLD YORK 225 led to the street. But there was no grande dame, nor even poor, harmless Sally Cutts, of whom Drake writes so eerily; only three girls in very short dresses played at "liide and go seek," among the syringas and flowerless Ulacs, to lend a beautiful color to my imaginings. The robins were singing in the trees over by the parsonage, which made a pleasant treble to the alto voice almost at my elbow, chanting, slowly, "Hinty, minty, cuti-corn, Apple-seed and briar thorn; Ten mice in a clock; Sit and sing, by the spring Where my father used to dwell; There are diamonds; there are rings; There are many pretty things, — 0-U-T, out goes he." And then there was a scurrying of httle feet, and the sharp cry of, "Goal ! " That was the way I myself felt as I asked the eldest of the trio, "Do you think I can have a look at the hall and the fore-room, httle woman?" "Do you draw pictures?" was the Yankee-like reply. " Sometimes." "May I see how you do it?" with a wistful glance at the sketch block under my arm. "Certainly," extenchng my hand to the quaint- est specimen of a door-knocker I had ever seen. "Oh, you needn't wake the neighborhood with that thing," she exclaimed with a silvery laugh, "I'll 226 OLD YORK let you in!" Off she scampered, with the others at her heels, and a moment later the great door opened from the inside, and I had stepped within the gracious portals of this famous house. In a way I was preparetl for the quaint beauty of the interior. Drake's reproduction is very like, yet I sketched it for myself, with my young friend peeping over my shoulder, wliich instead of being an annoyance was in a way an inspiration. After the wide hall, with its grand staircase, its carved balustrade, and curiously wrought balus- ters, its liigh wainscoting and square-panelled doors, and the huge parallelogram of original wall-paper, that had been preserved and framed within a band of warm color when the paper-hanger came to renew the wall decorations, the fore-room with its small fire- place seemed a dainty affair. Its lurni.-^hings were unique and ancient. The effect was singularly light and airy. The gairish light of the mid-summer sim was tempered by a northern exposure, and the wain- scoting was immaculate in its whiteness. If the fire- place was small, its antique brasses shone with a mild glory adequately suggestive. Except for its antique mantel, and the panel work which extended THE KNOCKER OLD YORK 227 from floor to ceiling, it did not differ from others of its kind of a much later date. I returned to the hall. I was interested in that patch of old paper brought originally from England. The figure THE HALL OF THE LADY PEPPERRELL HOUSE was large, and set in broken panels, and of a gray effect, an old castle in each panel. I went at my sketch again, and the girl was at my elbow; meanwhile, "The wonder grew," and when I had finished it, woman-hke, she criticised it : "That's real nice. Looks just hke it. I'll draw 228 OLD YORK it myself, some clay!" and I doubt not a bit but she will try it. With an expression of the pleasure I had received from my little hostess, I was out in the simshine again, studying the dolphins over the front door. I missed the anchor, otherwise I should have taken the house to be an ecUtion de luxe with the Picker- ing imprint. It is one of the flowers of old Ivittery, and has the lavender odor, suggestive of high coif- fures, brocades, Watteaus, quilted skirts, and high- heeled shppers; and I doubt not but there was an antique chest of drawers in some one of the upper rooms, wliich, with a bit of rummaging, would have revealed just such a host of treasures, with a wedcUng dress of grandma's throwTi in. It was once said, "All roads lead to Rome." The same would have been true of old Kittery, and York might well be included. In the early days there was but one road to the eastward, and that was along the marge of the Hampton meadows, across Great Boar's Head, and over the sands of Rye to Strawberry bank. Once across the Piscataqua, the trail was down Kittery Point ten miles to York Harbor, by the way of Champer- nowne's Island; while beyond the sands and flats, was the road to Ogunquit, the Saco of Bonython, the Black Point of Cammock and Vines, and the lands of Trelawney, into the country of Cleeve and Tucker, by the way of the Cape EHzabeth shore. Tliis was the way of the saddle-bags, and the foot traveller, as well. It is upon tliis thoroughfare that OLD YORK 229 the Lady Pepperrell house faces ; and doubtless, when this mansion was finished, and its first notable occu- pant had moved in, what is now a statute carriage road, an average country liighway, was then a bridle path. There was need for notliing better. A stout horse and a saddle, or a pair of good sturdy legs, were the only means of locomotion common to the time. The sea sands were the great highway. They were ironed smooth with every tide; when the tide was out only the headlands offered obstruction to the traveller's progress. They were safer. The outlook was wider, and there was less chance for ambush. Tliis old trail was Uke a slender thread, along wliich were strung the sparse clearings and the little hamlets, hke Ivittery and York, hke isolated beads. But the people of those days were grega- rious; they were inter-dependent; and a common interest of life and property hmited their activities to a narrow field. To get beyond the sound of the long tin horn of the settlement, or of the block-house, was to court the isolation of the hermit, and possible annihilation. Tliis liighway that runs the length of Kittery Point, and thence to York Harbor, is a magnificent picture gallery, and for those who delight in scenic beauties here is a charm and fascination miequalled in its variety or its swift unfolcUng of panoramic effects. It is the land of the dreamer and the poet, the home of romance, and the ideal camping-ground for the nature lover. The painter here needs to daub liis palette with all the colors of the rainbow 230 OLD YORK would he accomplish even a faint approximation to the dyes that drip from the slant rays of the sun over the wide reach of sea and shore that is lost finally in a Umitless perspective. Here is sometliing better than the Uffizi or the Palazzo Pitti of the Ponte Vecliio. These are the works of the Master of all masters, works that are re- touched every day by the hand of the Infinite, the pigments of wliich were wrought and blended in the crucible of the creation. Everytliing in tliis royal exliibition is lumg "on the hne," and the sign manual is the same that Belshazzar saw on the walls of liis banquet hall. There is no functionary here in gilt braid to exact a tariff before one can pass the portal, or to relieve one of one's umbrella. These pictures are for the poor as for the rich, and every day in the week is a "free day." Whatever of rule or regulation there may be, is that of the "law and the prophets," that having eyes, you see; that having ears, you hear; and that running, you read as you run. Then you will realize that you are in the presence of the Author of these marvels, for each is an apparition of the Deity. Nor does one need to carry the Rosetta Stone in one's pocket to find the key to the translation of these mysteries of sound and substance and color; but one must have drunk of the sherbet of Pahlul to have the Khalsa of Nature opened to liim. Tills locahty in the immediate vicinage of the Lady Pepperrell house, the burial ground, the meeting- house, and the parsonage, is notable as being the OLD YORK 231 first settled portion of Kittery. It is Warehouse Point, and as the name indicates, it was from the first, the business end of the town or settlement. The old wharves here are eloquent, with their cobbled logs and rock ballast. The antiquary should begin right here, for chronologically ffittery was founded with the cellar of the father of Nicholas Shapleigh, and that cellar is within a stone's throw of the lower edge of the graveyard. On the west side of tliis enclos- LAWRENCE'S COVE, WAREHOUSE POINT — THE SPARHAWK WHARVES ure is a lane, which is quite English in its kirk- yard wall and embowered coolness; this lane runs past the Lady Pepperrell house, straight to the edge of the bluff that overhangs the west curve of Law- rence's Cove. Here is the Gerrish house that stands on the upper side of the lane and faces the sea, as do most of these old Kittery houses. This was known as the " Piggin" house in the ancient days. The style of its arclii- 232 OLD YORK lecture was peculiar and won it that appellation. It has suffered the usual ills common to tilings that get out of style, or rather it has suffered in the acquaint- ance that has been forced upon it; and yet the anti- quated stoop^ the little peaked porch gable, and a long, low sloping roof betray its hneage, and assert its THE GERRISH HOUSE claim to notabiUty. Under its roof-tree are to be found treasures. There are some bits of old times worth seeing, that is, allowing that you are granted the opportunity. Kittery, after a fashion, is a Mecca for the lover of old and quaintly interesting tilings. They abound here, and these old houses are their places of usual containment, — houses famous for the people who built OLD YORK 233 them, lived, prospered, and died in them; and it was all so long ago, and the tilings they did were so un- usual, and the ways of their doing as well. They are still occupied, and in some instances by the de- scendants of their builders. The dwellers in these old relics have been much annoyed by strangers, and the mistress of the house opens her door nowadays but slowly, if the face be a strange one. You would Uke to just see the inside of the house. From a few of these your refusal will be abrupt and final. The dis- position is Idndly, but you fail to realize that many others may have taxed your hostess' energy in ad- vance of your coming; that if you have an abim- dance of time, she has not; and more than that she is hkely to class you with that half-dozen who called the other day, and who hacked her carved mouldings for souvenirs, tore the paper that came from London off the walls of the great hall, kicked a baluster off the grand staircase, and smuggled that off the premises. Honest folk, once in the atmosphere of these old things, seem to lose their tempering, and they be- come vandals, despoilers, thieves. No wonder the face of a stranger is not welcome. For myself I have no complaint to make. I found the people just what they should be to hve in the at- mosphere that seems continually to enfold the place. I did not see but one incUvidual in a hurry in my whole sojourn. He was a hotel proprietor, and had just come in from Boston. He was awake, to be sure, but how long he would stay so, once home in tliis som- nolent environment, would simply depend upon how 234 OLD YORK frequently he jumped the Kittery fences. But this Gerrish house is as quaint interiorly as it is quaintly suggestive from the outside. Its windows command a charming outlook upon the harbor waters of the Piscataqua, and when the twihght comes the myriad hghts of New Castle are doubled, for the sea mirrors them in lance-like points of fire that are never still, but always dropping from some invisible sieve of flame. It is so cosily ensconced witliin a snuggery or cowl of fohage as to be almost wholly secluded on three sides. There is some suggestion of Mother Goose poetry here, — "There was an old woman Lived under the hill; If she is not gone, She lives there still." And in fact, these lines occurred to me as I looked at the porch gable, wliich smacks of senility. Were it a nose on a face, I should say some one had thrown a brick. Tills old relic has a neighbor just across the way. It hangs by its teeth, as one might say, to the edge of the bluff inland ; it presents a one-story gable, wliich still bears the paint-denuded Gerrish signboard above the plain double doors. I pushed the door ajar and entered. The interior was plain, but suggested great sohcUty. I picked my way down a pair of steep, nar- row stairs to the floor below. The worn floor was deeply stained as with oil, and it opened cUrectly upon the best preserved of the four wharves that once made Lawrence's Cove a considerable place for OLD YORK 235 shipping. A look at this seaward gable shows two stories. On tliis gable is the mystery, — "ship stores & MEDICINES," a curious juxtaposition of tarred rope and physic, which arouses something of humorous conjecture; but that was before the days of " Maine law," when rum was an aristocratic adjimct of every social func- tion from the christening to the grave, and not a "medicine." I wish it could be called sometliing be- sides "Maine" law. It would be better to call it Maine "politics." The color of the sign is a dim gray, the soft silvery color of the gable, a color wliich the stain makers have succeeded quite well in imitating. There is notliing hke a sea fog and a salty drizzle to temper the colors that men grind and mix. But this old warehouse of the Cutts will stand two hundred years longer, and more, for its timbers are huge and sound as the day they were cut and squared with broadaxe up in the Dover woods. It sits level and stands plumb; but levels were not used two hun- dred and fifty years ago. These timbers were laid and levelled with a tub of water and a floating chip, a clumsy device, yet simple in the extreme. If you should cut a lemon crosswise, in either half you would have the contour of Lawrence's Cove. On the westerly point were the Cutts and Cove wharves ; and on the easterly point were the Sparhawk wharf and its old red warehouse. Between, were the ways where sliips were built, the foundations of wliich are 236 OLD YORK even now discernible. Ships were built here at a very early clay, and here was a large West India carrying trade for the times. The out-going cargoes were of dried fish and lumber rafted dowTi river from up Dover way, and the return cargoes were rum and molasses. The Cutt wharf is in fair con- dition, but the Cove and Sparhawk wharves are in the last stages of dilapidation. The latter is a mere buttress of loose stone, and no vestige of the old red warehouse remains to tell of the fortune that its proprietor accumulated here. And here on tliis point is the old Shapleigh cellar, a faint undulation in the sward that grows more shallow with every year. Here is a court record, — "1650, Oct. 15; Forasmuch as the house at the river's mouth where Mr. Shapleigh's father first built, and Mr. Wilham Hilton now dwelleth, in re- gard it was the first house there built and Mr. Shap- leigh intendeth to build and enlarge it, and for further considerations it is thought fit it should from time to time be for a house of entertainment or ordinary, with this proviso, that the tenant shall be such an one as the inhabitants shall approve of," is conclusive as to the fact stated. Wilham Hilton had a tavern here in 1648. He had probably been here some considerable time, as is evidenced by the deposition of Frances White, who was an old woman at the time the deposition was taken, wliich was in 1687 or 1688. She was the wife of Richard White. She says " that about forty-sixe years past (1642) shee Uved in a house at lottery poynt that stood OLD YORK 237 then between the house that was Mr. Morgans & the house that Mr. Greenland afterward hved in, which house above sayed the deponent's husband, WilUam Hilton, did hyer of Major Nicholas Shap- leigh." The Greenland here mentioned was the husband of Mary Greenland the alleged witch. Greenland was banished the town. He wiis the first physician in these parts; but what might be his quahfications for healing are somewhat obscured by Ms reputation as a htigious neighbor and as a man who delighted to stir in poHtical waters when charity and an unruffled surface were most desirable. He was complained against, and after a trial at the old house of John Bray, he was mulct in a fine : he was banished from the Massachusetts jurisdiction in 1672, a precedent for the modern fasliion of disposing of the " hobo," or any other undesirable individual, with tliis excep- tion, that the magistrate stands for the unwritten law of exile from the municipahty. Phyllis' Notch is here midway of Warehouse Point. It is a httle hollow in the shore, a most convenient ferry landing. It is said it took its graceful cogno- men from a negro woman who lived about here in other days. If you wish to locate the cellar of the Shapleigh house, do as Stackpole says; stand at the "opening of this notch, facing the water; on the left may be seen the site of the first house built in Kittery." Here was the red warehouse and the old tavern. Alexander Shapleigh built it in 1635. As one follows the trend of Lawrence's Cove, a sea- 238 OLD YORK wall, substantially laid up, still remains, and it was necessary, to save the shore from erosion by the continual action of the undertow. Hugh Gunni- son followed Hilton as the Ivittery Boniface at this old inn, in 1651. There was another inn here at the Point as early as 1644, kept by one Mendum. Competition was hvely, and it is doubtful if these two tapsters ever broached a pot of ale together, for in 1650 the rec- ords of the local court make mention that Men- dum's wife was fined five pounds for saying, "The devil take Mr. Gulhson and his wife." Doubt- less Goody Mendiun was the household barometer, as some strong-minded wives are, and, John Allen hke, spoke for her husband, as in a way for herself. Gunnison not only kept the tavern, but ran a brewery. Shapleigh sold tliis warehouse and tavern prop- erty in 1662; and the following court record appears as of 1661, July 5th. "Whereas there is a demand for a house of entertainment at the place called the Poynt, where sometimes Hugh Gunnison did reside, and whereas there is constant necessity for trans- portation across the Piscataqua River at that place the Court orders that Robert Wadleigh keep an ordinary there and take charge of the ferr}^ over to Capt. Pendleton's side." With the builcUng of the wharves and warehouses here, and the coming of the ships. Warehouse Point was a busy and a populous part of the early Ivittery community. There must have been considerable OLD YORK 239 hitherwards, as in 1672, or about that time, John Bray set up an inn just beyond the Peppeirell warehouses and wharves, farther down tlie Ettery Point shore. He did not swing any sign, and the court ordered him to put one up, wliich doubtless he did. Bray was the father of Margery Bray, mother of the baronet. Sir WilUam Pepperrell. But going bacli to Warehouse Point ; Robert Cutt came here from the West Inches, and built sh'ps here at Warehouse Point. He died in 1674, and liis widow became the wife of Francis Champernowne. His house was at Wliipple Cove. Stackpole says the brewery was one of the "first buildings erected." It was regarded as a pubhc necessity. Ale and beer were the national Enghsh drink, and the old Shap- leigh house, as a well-regulated tavern, was well pat- ronized; and West India rum and beer were sold imder the direction of the court. As early as 1670 Klttery was really the capital of the province of Maine. Fleets of vessels loaded and unloaded here; and with the ferry between Phyllis' Notch and Great Island and Strawberry Bank, travel was of growing proportions. Here was the thoroughfare to York, called a "road," which was laid out in 1649, and wliich for years after was only a pathway for horses. On the back side of the Point, up Spruce Creek, were numerous sawmills. The elegant, old-time mansions were going up, and little by Uttle the Ivittery Point highway was planed down, and widened. The first streets built were those to the wharves and ware- houses. It was the tribute that trade always exacts. 240 OLD YORK — improved facilities. Its population was largely of the artisan class; as for that, all were workers, those who held the helm and furnished the wind, as those who fished, or laid the bottoms of the ships that were to carry the harvest of the seas over water to far countries. These were some of my ruminations as I sat on one of the sun-bleached stringers of the old Cutt wharf. It was a royal seat, and as I rubbed my hand along its surface, pohshed to the smoothness of glass by irf-- THE ANCHORAGE the salt spray that had dashed over it so many years, it seemed something like Aladdin's lamp, to bring to my mental vision pictures of the days when here was a scene of rude activities, along wdth the sound of ham- mer and saw, and the " Yo-heavc-o ! " of the sailors getting up their anchors, or letting the sails go on the run as the ships swing to the tide with taut cables. Here is an idyllic spot for a sun bath, under the fast asleep gable of the warehouse, silent but for the scolding of the wrens in the tree tops at one's back and the sleep-distilUng swash that marks the rhythm of the sea rim as it breaks on the shale of Lawrence's OLD YORK 241 Cove. The wind blows from the southwest, and now one hears a roulade of bugle notes from Fort Consti- tution, a far-off sound that brings to mind the song of the veery at twilight as it comes up from the sea of woodland that laps the foot of the upland homestead I call my own. A white sail flaps idly in the offing, and there is a low trail of smoke on the horizon. The light-towers on Whaleback and nearer Fort Point stand stark and gray, spectre-hke, in the haze of the sea. White Island tower is not visible. With Apple- dore and her sister isles, that on the map look like the clustered Pleiades, they might be as far away as the seven cities of Marco Polo, for all one can see. Fort Constitution is but a low gray wall on the water, the forearm of Great Island, where the roofs of New Castle ghmmer in the sun, and its windows flash searchhght rays to the mainland from countless domes of verdurous tree tops. A half mile to the eastward is a green mound in the sea, with its single low-roofed house, the Anchorage, and this is Ravi- stock Island, the owner of wliich is reputed to be somewhat of an antiquarian; it would be a matter of wonderment to me, were he not, with so much of old Ilittery before him from morning until night ; for if the old Pepperrell wharf were long enough it would strike his cliimney amidships. But I presmne he prefers liis boat; at least, I should. But it is time to go; and within the cool shadows of the warehouse, I stumble up the steep stairs; and through the open door in the front gable, the tawny streak of the roadway shows the track of the newer 242 OLD YORK civilization. Here by the door is what was used as the coimting-room. There was a dingy sign, "No- tary Public," tacked to its outer side. It had an ancient appearance, and was suggestive of manifests and bills of lading. An old table was huddled in one corner, and an old broken stool completed the furnish- ings. Here was really the end of all things. Out- side of these, its other adjuncts were a musty atmosphere and an extreme dinginess, only reheved by the marvellous tapestry that hung at its single win- dow, the maker of which was snugly tucked away in the central design of tliis dainty hammock. I think it was the largest and most perfectly spun web I have ever had the good fortune to see. As I admired it, it seemed a Penelope-like creation, as if the apparently sole occupant of the place had essayed the liistory of this old hamit; but not having Abdallah Baba's magic box of ointment, I had to leave it as I found it, its mystery unravelled. Its story was a sealed book, except that its geometric lines were the untrimmed pages, and the fog-stained frame of the window its rigid bincUng. It occurred to me, that as a cover design for a book this suggestion of Nature was sometliing hardly to be improved upon, even from the poster point of view. Out again upon the Via Appia of the ancient roadmaker, one's trend is to the eastward, and one's ears are startled by the honk of an automobile, and one is reminded of the opening hues of Sldpper Ire- son's ride, — OLD YORK 243 "Of all the rides since the birth of time, Told in story, or sung in rhyme, — On Apuleius's Golden Ass, Or one-eyed Calendar's horse of brass, Witch astride of a human back, Islam's prophet on Al Borak, — The strangest ride that ever was sped," is the horseless wild thing that has just scurried like an autumn leaf before the wind, down the road to Fort M'CIary, leaving beliind a swirl of dust, hke what Betty Booker and her coterie of hags might have raised when she rode Skipper Perkins down^to York and back that wild November night if the tempest had not been abroad. What would Mather or the Salem sheriff have thought with such a fear- some thing abroad in the days of Tituba! But the world has grown fearless, if Dobbin has not. Like the arrow of Abaris, there is magic in the modern apphances for man's conveyance about the world. Perhaps Andre is still circhng about the North Pole in liis balloon. A five-minute walk brings one to the site of one of lottery's block-houses. It is a famous landmark hereabout, and is pitched upon what seems Kittery's highest outlook. It has a base of stone, and is surmoimted by a wooden garrison house of the old- time type, and is of the same character as the block- house at Winslow, on the Kennebec, long known as Fort Hahfax. It is hexagonal, with ample ports, and is patterned after the one first built here. It has an overhang above its base of spht granite, after 244 OLD YORK the manner of the garrison houses of the early period ; and as compared with its sohd foundation presents a manifest incongruity as a means of defence. It was known as Fort William as early as 1690, and as against Indian foray it would have a sufficient place of refuge; but a single shot from a modern Krupp would demoUsh it entirely. Here is a gov- ernment reservation of fifty acres or more. A rude board fence separates it from the highway, over which one chmbs to plunge through the tangle of low birch and alder, to come out upon an elevated plateau, where tons of igneous rock have been blasted out of the solid ledge to make way for the granite bastions and angles broken here and there by em- brasures for heavy guns which have yet to be OLD YORK 245 mounted. Here is a suggestion of a road, and as one follows it one comes to its extreme easterly scarp, where by a flight of steps of spht stone one reaches the highest level of the work. Here are the maga- zines and the barracks, and the crazy wooden bridge or steps on the landward side by which one mounts to the doorless entrance of its second story. It is a barren interior, stripped of every vestige of its once familiar appointments. A winding stair leads to the lower regions, where are dog-holes of sohd masonry occupying its central area, which may have been intended for the stowing away of ammunition or recalcitrant humanity. Tliin ribbons of subdued hght came through the numerous shts in the walls, which were for musketry, and as I stood there idly gazing I momently expected to hear the ominous jangUng of keys or the hail of the guard; but the place was silent, deserted utterly. I mounted the wentletrap —steep and narrow it was — with a feel- ing of pleasing relief. In my rummaging I found another stairway. This led to the garret, for I could hken it to notliing else; and from its four dormer windows that were built into its hip roof, I got a far- away view in as many directions that repaid me for my venture across the rotten, swaying stair outside that was as suggestive of the bridge of Al Sirat as anything, for it bent and swayed under my weight ominously. From one of these cock-loft dormers, I saw "The hills curve round like a bended bow; A silver arrow from out them sprung," 246 OLD YORK the gleaming reach of waters that flow in and out of Crockett's Cove; the wider span of Spruce Creek that twists ingratiatingly inland to the northward, and wooded Mils as far as the eye can go. From another there was a gUmpse of "Old roads winding, as old roads will. Here to the ferry, and there to the mill; And glimpses of chimneys and gabled eaves," and the huge bulk of Champernowne's Island of old; and away beyond, the woods of York, and the silver threads of the salt creeks and the yehow marshes between. Witliin another is framed, " The blink of the sea, in breeze and sun," and the widening mouth of the historic river; and beyond the low wall of Fort Constitution, the light on Fort Point, and the gray roofs of olden New Castle, Portsmouth bar; the oasis of Ravistock in its turquoise setting of the sea; and farther out, the low spine of Whale's Back, with its single Pharos; and nearer the dip of the horizon, the spectral figure of White Island's beacon, indistinct in the purpUng mists, that overlook Appledore and Smutty Nose and their ragged kindred, as if each were under the ban since the dark tragedy that forever hnked to- gether the names of Louis Wagner and Annethe Christensen; a group of gUstering sails that fade away under the immaculate sky, argosies to Any- where; while almost within the shadows of these weather-beaten window ledges, are the classic roof^ of the Pepperrells and their ancient contemporaries. - OLD YORK 247 Old Fort M' Clary is a riiin. The government work was long ago abandoned. The old derricks have rotted down. Only the huge piles of split gran- ite and three heavy somewhat modern ordnance mounted on massive steel carriages indicate the scene of acti\ity that at one time prevailed here. Down near the landing is a tier of heavy guns, unmounted and prone amid the lush grasses that half hide them. FORT M'CLARY FROM WAREHOUSE POINT The sea-wall is of massive proportions, but unfinished, as if the work had been dropped suddenly for lack of energy or money. The real reason was, undoubtedly, that the advance in the mysteries of destructive pro- jectiles was more rapid than the wit of the naval board could forecast; and perhaps it was thought best to wait until the cHmax of these bloodthirsty inventions was in sight. It is a commanding site and covers the whole entrance to the Piscataqua; 248 OLD YORK but as sunken batteries seem to be the trend, it is doubtful if the location ^\ill be further utihzed. A barnlike structure of brick seems to have been used as a barrack. At either end are comfortable fireplaces, the chimneys running up the outside of the gable ; and I note that the woodwork of one fire- place is entirely gone, and the other has lost its man- tel. The first decorates the den of some souvenir crank, probably, and the latter may make up the litter that this sort of vandalism is always sending garret-ward. The gunracks are suggestive, and the door opens out directly upon the parade, which com- mands a magnificent view of the Piscataqua harbor and its points of interest. Fort M'Clary's story is of the past, as is that of Major Andrew M'Clary, the gallant leader of his rustic troops at Bunker Hill. He should have had a Uveher memorial, whose asso- ciations should have some part in the present at least. Suppose we call at the old Pepperrell house, built by William Pepperrell, or Pepperrelle, as it was also spelled, in 1682. Pepperrell was born probably at Old Plymouth, England, Ravistock parish, in 1646, and was possibly of Welsh origin. There are no accu- rate data as to his ancestors, but it is kno^\Ti that in youthful years as an apprentice, after the Enghsh fashion, he went on a fishing vessel that made tripj to the fishing-banks of New England, and in tliis man- ner he undoubtedly became familiar somewhat with the country he in after years made liis own. We first hear of Mm in the fishing business at the Isles of Shoals. He carried on tliis industry here for some OLD YORK 249 time, and was evidently a shrewd man, as it is known he prospered in his business, so that in time he married the daughter of John Bray, whose old house still faces the sea all these people hereabout evidently loved so well. If mention of the fact has not been THE PEPPERRELL MANSE made before, it is worthy of a casual allusion, that all of these old houses face the sea, and the road to York Harbor passes their backdoors instead of those in front. This is true of the old Bray house and the Pepperrell mansion as well. Old John Bray was a tavern- keeper, and a man of a large landed property. When 250 OLD YORK Margery Bray married William Pepperiell, her father gave liis son-in-law a strip of land on the northwest side of his house, and there this now ancient dom- icile was erected, a great house for the times and the locaUty. Its builder no doubt had in mind the old manor-houses he knew as a boy in England. He was a provincial Midas, for everything he touched seemed to turn to gold, or its equivalent. His accumulations were rapid and extensive. He was an enthusiastic investor in real estate, and his holdings were very considerable. He was, in a way, one of the wealthiest men in New England. After this house was built he erected a wharf at the foot of the lane that ran from his front door down to the shore, and on it were ample ware- houses in which were stored the cargoes and imports which constituted Ms local trade, which was large and lucrative. He built a sliipyard here, and the keels of many a vessel were laid here and completed and sent out to all parts of the then commercial world. Here is ample sea-room, and it is said that a hundred sail have been anchored here at one time; more than could be seen to-day at the wharves of almost any Maine port. His wealth and business sagacity brought him prominence in local affairs, and he was for tliirty odd years the local magistrate, and from 1715 he was judge of the court of common pleas. He was sometliing of a miUtary man, for he was in com- mand of the forces at old Fort Wilham, now Fort M 'Clary, as captain, and ranked in the provincial mihtia as lieutenant-colonel. As one of the found- OLD YORK 251 ers of the Congregational Church at Kittery, liis in- fluence was cast along the lines of the liighest moral standards, and the people among whom he went out and in, could not but feel the force of his example. His interest in religious matters was strong and abid- ing, and when he came to the disposing of his estate he remembered liis church, as among the in- terests to be cared for when liis mantle should fall upon another. Tliis came on the fifteenth of Febru- ary, 1734. If one would see the spot where tliis njost remarkable man of Kittery lies, one has but to stand under the shadows of the gable of the house he built, and cast a searching glance about for a clump of ever- greens; and it is there witliin their Druid-like circle, marked by a massive sarcophagus of granite and marble, the place will be located. It is less than a minute's walk, and one is in the old Pepperrell or- chard, and beside the slab, whereon may be read the brief story of this man's career, w^hich is accentuated by the coat of arms afterward achieved by the Con- queror of Louie burg. Here was the beginning of the Pepperrell name. Humble enough, was it not? a fishing-lad without an ancestry, in a new country, liis only capital his native wit, the culmination of whose thrift and industry made him the largest landed proprietor in Ms province, the manipulator of the most exten- sive diversified interests, and gave him an honored place on the provincial bench. The story over again of Dick Whittington. He was ahke honored in his son, who became Sir 252 OLD YORK William, and who lived in the paternal home until the death of his father. The wife, Margery, out- lived her husband some seven years. Here is a quotation of one of the Boston papers of the time: "She was, through the whole course of her life, very exemplary for imaffected piety and amiable virtues, especially her charity, her courteous affability, her prudence, meekness, patience, and her unwearied- ness in well-doing. She was not only a loving and discreet wife and tender parent, but a sincere friend to all her acquaintance." With such a helpmeet, what might not a man accompUsh ! and to what heights might not her children climb ! Margery Pepperrell's portrait is worth looking at. It is a thoroughl}^ English face, and its lines are of the royal type, reminding one of the Stuarts. There is a fine mingling of proportions, and the head is perfectly balanced. There is, too, something of the Sibyl, as if possessing a rare and faultless dis- cernment. The neck and shoulders are those of Venus de Milo. Every quality of womanhood men- tioned in the above quotation is stamped unmis- takably on tills face, which is that of un grande dame. Wilham Pepperrell, who was knighted after the capture of Louisburg, was born June 27, 1696, and was the sixth child. His brother Andrew was the oldest, who died without male offspring. Four girls came between these two, and two girls followed Wilham. It was a goodly-sized family of eight, all of whom married in time; neither Andrew nor OLD YORK 253 William left male descendants, and with the death of Sir William Pepperrell the family name was extinct. Young William Pepperrell's education was slender. He was trained to business, for he could sell goods, sail a ship, survey a lot of land, scale timber, and manage men. He went into land speculations and made a great deal of money. His real estate greatly exceeded that of his father, and at one time he is said to have been able to ride from Kittery to Saco on his own land. Saco was once known as Pepperrell- borough, and why the name should have been changed is easily accounted for by the short word that supplanted the lengtliier. He was the evident possessor of some popularity, for he was a captain of cavalry at twenty-one, and a justice of the peace. At tliirty he was a full- fledged colonel and commanded the Maine militia. He was made a member of the governor's council shortly after, wliich office he held for over tliirty years. Eighteen years out of the tliirty he was presi- dent of the council. In 1726-27 he was a member of the General Court, and from 1730 until his death in 1759, July 6, he was chief justice. In 1734 he took up his father's work in the Kittery chm'ch, and was prominent in church matters. At one time the preacher, George Whitefield, was his guest at Pep- perrell House. He was a man of amiable char- acter, as it is said he never lost the sympathy or ccmpanionship of liis to^vnspeople. The above is a brief summary of the career of the man, a man in many ways distinguished above his 254 OLD YORK fellows, with the additional prestige acquired in his exploit as commander of the Louisburg expedition in 1745, the result of wliich was the capture of that hitherto regarded impregnable fortress. The siege was a brief but impetuous one, to the expenses of wliich Pepperrell personally contributed five thou- sand pounds. It won him a baronetcy and a coat of arms. Nimierous of Ms townsmen were with him in tliis glorious venture, and doubtless the tales of THE PEPPERRELL ARMS his prowess gilded many an after-evening by the firesides of Ettery and Berwick with the halo of romance; for he had fifty Berwick men with him under the immecUate command of Capt. Moses Butler. He was honored with a commission in 1756, in the royal forces, as lieutenant-general. Drake says, Whitefield, on his visit to the lottery church, and while a guest of Pepperrell, gave him the motto for his banner, " Nil Desperandum ; Christo Duce. " OLD YORK 255 As one recalls the story of this Church Mihtant, it seems as if his eloquence and spiritual power had been dipped in the essence of the same creed. Pepperrell married Mary Hirst, of Boston, evi- dently a woman of fine culture and a similar per- sonahty. She survived her husband, and after the mansion at Warehouse Point had been completed by her son-in-law, Captain Sparhawk, she removed from the first Pepperrell house, into this. There she continued to reside until her decease, which oc- curred November 25, 1789. This fine old house has, fortunately, suffered no change. It is the same as in the days when its aristocratic mistress moved through its halls and ample rooms; and in the lower hall and fore-room may still be seen the same fur- nisliings as when her comely and graceful presence adorned them. Her portrait is suggestive of the famous Nell Gwynn. Why she should have left the old home is something she could have explained, had there been need of it; but with her ample fortune she undoubtedly insisted upon more modern and elegant surroimdings in which the stately traditions of the nobihty so recently ac- quired tlii'ough her husband's knighthood might be better sustained. Here is Fernald's story of the house built by the husband of sweet Margery Bray. He says, "It was a square house about forty- five feet long and of the width that it now is, and had two chimneys, with a sharp roof. Colonel Pepperell carried on the fisliing business. At his decease, his 256 OLD YORK son, Sir William Pepperell, took possession of the estate. He made additions of about fifteen feet on both ends of the house, and altered the roof, to the present form, and revised it throughout, and built the wharf and four stores, and built a tomb, and extended his land from the partition wall between Capt. Jolin Underwood, now Joanna Mitchell, and the now Thomas Hoyt, from this line westward up to the lane i«l---«iSif' THE PEPPERRELL WHARVES leading down to Capt. Robert Follet, now J. Law- rence. On the north of the Mansion House was the Great Orchard, so called, in the middle of wliich he built a tomb. After the war commenced. Sir Wil- liam Pepperell's estate was called Tory property, and many thought that they might destroy it at pleasure. In the year 1774 my father moved into the Mansion House, so called, to take care of it. Colonel Sparhawk having previously built a house for Lady Pepperell, so called, widow of Sir WilUam. Said house OLD YORK 257 is owned by Capt. Joseph Cutts, where she lived the remainder of her days and died there. At the end of the Revohitionary War, all Sir AViUiam's estate was considered confiscated, or Tory property, because it belonged by wiU to William P. Sparhawk, who had fled liis country and joined our enemies. Therefore, our government had orders to sell at public auction all the land and buildings formerly belonging to Sir William Peppereil as Tory property. Beginning with the Mansion House about the year 1790, as well as I can remember, Capt. Samuel Smallcorn bought the Mansion House and the two lots, one on wliich the house stands, and the other owned now by Capt. Dan- iel Frisbee, together with the wharf. In the same or next year, Thomas D. Cutts bought the said Man- sion House of Captain Smallcorn, and commenced tavern, and carried on fishing and built the store that Capt. Daniel Frisbee now occupies. Major Cutts set out all those elm-trees around the premises. He flourished for some time, but there was a leak under the house, and in a few years it leaked out and by mortgage became Richard Cutts' property. He carried on fishery and foreign trade for many years, but trusting too much to other people's honesty, he fell in the rear and sold the house and lands to Elder J. Meader and Capt. Jesse Frisbee. Captain Frisbee in a few years was lost at sea. Elder Meader sold the house to Charles G. Bellamy, Esq., and Mr. Thomas Hoyt in the year 1848. They divided the land and took off the bend, or room, from each end of the house, and left it in the same form on the ground that a 258 OLD YORK Col. William Pepperell built it. It is now (1849) owned by Charles G. Bellamy, Esq., who has made a very large repair, and it is hkely it may stand another century, excepting fire, as it has stood through all the past." A quaintly told story, in which everybody seems to be a captain and to smack of salty winds, and the wholesome smell of fish, except that Squire Bellamy and his clerical grantor add sometliing of a piquant flavor to the "leak" under the house. Referring to the Lady Pepperrell house once more, Drake says, "It was nothing but a wreck ashore." He was writing of it about tliirty years ago, a genera- tion, but it is a finely preserved mansion without the shghtest vestige of decay about it. The " fluted pilas- ters on either side" of the door, were "rotting away" in Ms day, but strange to say in the beginning of the twentieth century they are as sound apparently and as handsome as the day when, imder the direc- tion of Colonel Sparhawk, they were put in place. He found the old rookery "haunted"; so I did, but by three little misses who were as amiable and as charming in their manners as Lady Pepperrell was reputed to have been. The exterior is as fresh as a corn-color pigment well laid on, can make it, while the interior is delightfully cool and restful, finished en- tirely in "dead white," that, to use an old pro\incial expression, "looked clean enough to cat off." I wish Drake could have a pair of the Mormon's gog- gles, and could see it as I did. But that was in the days of poor Sally Cutts. OLD YORK 259 Fernald's story is suggestive of the indifference of the owners of the old Pepperrell house, as it has come to one and another of them, to its liistoric value as the hibernaculimi of old-time traditions, and of a glory that has forever passed away. It is a ruth- less hand these mutations have shown; and it is unfortunate that nhe bend or room" at each end of the house could not have been left intact. The Bellamys still occupy the house, descendants of THE CLAVICHORD Squire Bellamy. They are loth to open it to strangers, nor do I much blame them, now that I have seen the destructive marks of the souvenir- hunter. I foimd the great hall of the same style as that of the mansion house of Lady Pepperrell. The balustrade and the wainscoting was of the same panelUng; the same patterns of hand-carved balusters, four to a "tread," and each unhke the others; the same fluted hand-rail, the same newel- post surmounted by an armorial device appurtenant to the Pepperrell coat of arms. At the first landing of the very wide stair was an ancient clavi- 260 OLD YORK chord. I raised its lid, nor did its keys look over- yellow with age, yet this old instrument was brought from over the seas, long, long years ago, in the days of the first Pepperrell. I did not touch those keys. I could not, as I thought of the hands, silent for over a century and a half, the fine sympathetic touch of Margery Pepperrell that once awoke its slender wealth of harmony. It was a silent ghost of former actuaUties. I knew the sound it would give forth, had I pressed do\\Ti a single white key. The sharp wail of the fox, coming on the night-wind from the deeps of the woods, has the same tonic weirdness, the same cry of the forsaken. These old strings, awake them, no ; rather let them sleep as Margery Pepperrell and the other Margery have slept these many years. There are some tilings one should not touch, and this is one of them. An old chair or two, of unmistak- ably Enghsh make, are here to accentuate the flavor of the atmosphere ; most of the balusters in the beauti- ful balustrade are gone, and in their place are the common round supports such as might have been run through a dowel-machine. Perhaps a third, numerically speaking, of the originals are here; but the others have been kicked out and smuggled out of the house, from time to time, by visitors and sight- seeing vandals. Great scars are here, in the hand- carven mouldings, where considerable pieces have been hacked out by these predatory bipeds and slyly pocketed. The Messrs. Bellamy told me that with a party of si dozen in the old house it was impossible to prevent it. The stranger must needs have some OLD YORK 261 other motive than mere curiosity to have the privi- lege of treacling the floors that once echoed to the footfalls of the Pepperrells. Below stairs, the rooms are square but do not impress one as over-large. The old-fasHoned fire- places went when the old cliimneys were taken down and rebuilt; but the interior decoration is the same; the bases of the new cliimneys were extended so as to fill the space occupied by those first built. When the "bends" were taken off the ends of the old house, and the space of fifteen feet was removed, the walls of the original gables, with the inside finish, were set in that distance, and finished up; so that the house, with the exception of the roof, is the same that was built by the first Pepperrell. The old wine closets are all here. I am told the kitchen is the same, and which is small. Here, when the elder Bellamy was aUve, Judge Nathan Chfford was accustomed to come as an honored and intimate guest during Ms lifetime, and here many a story of the old time has been broached, wliich, could they have been preserved, would have been worthy of a binding of their own. To sit in one of those old chairs is to dream as did De Quincey, with fantasy upon fantasy crowding the mind. Mine host brought out an ancient long fowHng-piece, that had come down with the house. With its butt on the floor, a man of six feet in height could barely look into its black muzzle. It had a ma-^sive flintlock, and I wondered if Mr. Henry Joe lyn had ever drawn bead along its long barrel. He was a notorious Nimrod, and frequented Ivittery 262 OLD YORK more or less. He went a-fishing down the harbor and out upon the fisliing-grounds once surely. He says, ''Having Imes we proceeded to the fisliing- banks without the harbor, and fished for cod, but it not being the proper time of tide, we caught but two." He was at that time president of the province. Con- sidering liis wonderful adventures in Casco Bay with Michael Mitton, with the tritons and mermen so famiUar, he must have considered the sport at Pis- catnqua rather uneventful. Tliis old manse is beautifully situated and its gray roof is barely to be discerned amid the domes of its towering elms. The liighway passes its back door, so nearly that one can almost get the feel of its weather-stained clapboards, a stain of such delicate shadings of gray and pearl, with just a suggestion of vert where a hchen has attached itself, as to defy the art of the color maker. Here are some studies for the water-colorist. Only the mysteries of Winsor and Newton, and the teclmique of Alfred Bellows, or Swain Gifford, can approximate to the flexibihty of tones and values that lurk in these marvellously evasive combinations of constantly changing color. But if one cannot have them on a sheet of What- man, one can come and see them occasionally, and then go home and dream about them, wliich, perhaps, is more intoxicating. One leaves tliis ancient Hving-place, once the home of two judges and a baronet; and later the tavern stand of landlord Cutts, and now the quiet abiding- place of the Bellamys, with mingled feeUngs of Uvely OLD YORK 263 interest in its famous associations and of pleasure at having made its acquaintance. Closely allied with it, and wliich should have a place here, is the tomb in "the Great Orchard." The tomb is here, but no vestige of the orchard remains. Tliis last resting- place of the Pepperrells is less than two minutes' walk from the manse. It is Mdden within an encir- cling rim of dark firs. Just without tliis Druid circle is a diminutive red slate stone, hardly twenty inches high and perhaps a foot wide, wliich marks the grave of Miriam Jackson, 1720. How she came to be the only one of the name to be interred outside the Pepperrell circle, a grand-daughter of the first Pepper- rell, might be a source of some curiosity to the indi- vidual of inquiring mind. Miriam Jackson's mother was the tliird daughter of the first Wilham Pepper- rell, and tliis babe, Miriam, died tliirteen years be- fore her grandfather. Probably this old stone was set some years before the Pepperrell tomb was brought liither from London and put in position, and it was left in its original location. The top plane of the tomb is of marble, and is upheld upon a heavy granite base, that is as stable as the hillock whose apex it surmounts. On the slab, somewhat discolored and hchen stained, one may read a modest tale — "Here lies the Body of the Honorable WILLIAM PEPPERRELL, Esq. who departed this life the 15th of Feb., Anno Domini 1733, in tlie 87th year of his Age. With the Remains of great part of his Family." 264 OLD YORK This simple annal stands for the whole of the Pep- perrell posterity wliich is absorbed in the personality of the original ancestor. The only suggestion of the baronet is in the coat of arms which is very ornate, and which takes up about one third of the marble. Its situation is isolated, yet there is a mute compan- ionsliip in these encirchng firs, that lock arms so closely, with not a dead tree or a break of foliage among them all. There is sometliing kindly, too, in the pall-Uke hovering of their perpetual coolness, as if here were a veritable Shadow-land; and when the winds blow, as they do most of the time, Nature pulls the stops of her great organ wide open, and a solemn dirge beats the air tremulously. At this place in our story there comes to mind a tale of love, — a bit of the romance of the old days, when a comely, capable young woman was a grand prize in the lottery of life, who could have her choice among the young men of her vicinage. Mar- gery Bray was without doubt betrothed to Joseph Pearce; and had he not sailed out to sea as he did, she might not have obtained so notable a place in the early history of Kittery as her marriage with William Pepperrell brought to her. Eleanor Pearce took a great interest in th's yoimg woman. To quote Stack- pole, " She made her will in 1675 and named a son Joseph who died at sea about 1676, and left all his estate to Margery Bray." Margery Bray's father married a sister of tliis Joseph Pearce. Her name was Jane. A glance at a few extracts from the Kit- tery court records will be interesting. OLD YORK 265 Richard Row, deposes 1 Oct. 1678: " of Kittery, aged about 40; that in the latter part of year 1676 Jos: Pearce hving then in liittery came to me and Jolm Andrews both of us togeather and desired of us very earnestly, begging of us both to take notice of his words that after his decease w" all liis debts was payed, that y^ remaind"" of his estate hee freely gave unto Margery Bray daughter to John Bray of lottery sliipwright & further begging very Earnestly of this Depone* that hee would not forget it, that shee might not bee cheated of Jt & further sayd tliis shall bee my last will & testame*." Samson Wliitte, aged 23, deposes likewise, adding that Joseph Pearce "went last to sea." Likewise, John Andrews, aged 26. July, 1679; "To settle estate of Jos Pearce late of Ivittery deed first one-third to be delivered to Saraih Mattown sister to said Pearce — " "Saraih Mattown alias Jones or Pearce not living with her husband." 1681; "Complaint of Rupert Mattown Saraiah Joanes aHas Pearce since married to said Mattown, — relating, to a divorse between both parties." The complaint was allowed and the divorce was decreed, the second, perhaps, in the province of Maine, and the entry is properly minuted upon the docket. 1684; "WilUam Pepperly, (note the spelling of Pepperrell's name), is Plaintiff in an action of the case for witholding of an Estate given unto Mar- gery the wife of sd Plaintiff Contra Hene: Seavey 266 OLD YORK Defend* The Jury mids for the Defend* Costs of Court 8^ 6^ " Sargent says Eleanor Pearce "was the widow of John Pearse, who removed from CharlestowTi to Kjttery, and died in 1673 leaving an estate appraised at £154. . . . The above notes considered collec- tively furnished a long-sought clue to the grand- mother of the Baronet, Sir Wilham Pepperrell, the wife of John Bray. Her Christian name is given in the Wentworth Book, I. 307 n., as Jane, and it was correctly surmised that she was a Pearse, sister to the above Joseph. York Probate Records, I., 40, affords the proof positive in an agreement between John Braey and Micom Macantire, dated April 7, 1699, in which they describe themselves as ' sons- in-law to John Pearce.' "Thus by the fortunate mention of the proportion awarded by the Court above, after its decision that what Joseph Pearce intended should be Ms nmicupa- tive will, was too long anterior to Ms death to be per- mitted to go upon record as such, are we enabled to decide that there were three of Ms sisters ; Sarah, the eldest, who had married, 1 Jones, 2, Rupert Mat- toon; Jane, wife of Jolm Bray, who had certainly predeceased both her mother (not being mentioned in her will above) and her brother Joseph, leaving an only cMld Margery (who became the mother of the baronet); and Mary who married Micom Macantire." Here is a story of a first love ; a domestic f alHng out ; a serious charge against the wife, of a prior, concealed marriage, and Mattoon's desertion, he going to the OLD YORK 267 Barbadoes instead of the D; kotahs, find ultimately, the modern panacea — divorce; a protn cted property litigation, and a perversion of the property to pur- posely ignored heirs. What a tale for the romancer! This is probably Pepperrell's only appearance in court. The old John Bray house stands beside that of the ,,'ni|'w#. THE BRAY HOUSE Pepperrells, a massive old affair, where tliis Margery Bray was wooed and won by the Isles of Shoals fisher- man. But the wooing of a maid in those days was a very serious affair. The young folk did not have the liberty accorded to the summer girl of the present period. It is not probable that they were allowed to watch the sea under the moonlit sides, that are nowhere fairer than here at Ivittery, for long, unmo- 268 OLD YORK lested, if at all. It was not considered "meet" for the colonial maid to be much out of her elders' com- pany with a determined lover about, laying desperate siege to her favor with every opportunity. But doubtless William Pepperrell was as industrious in liis love-making as in the curing of liis fish in his yards. Jolin Bray watched these young people jealously, I have no doubt; but love had its way, as it generally does, with a fair chance; and Mar- gery Bray, after her father had been properly spoken to, married, and as one may beheve, happily. She became the mother of a large and promising family, one of whom was the famous baronet, the conqueror of Louisburg. This Bray house is roomy, and in the day of its building by tliis earhest of Ivittery's sliip-builders and innkeepers was a luxurious abode. It was erected in 1662, and is said to be the most ancient house in present Ivittery. Ten years after its build- ing, Jolm Bray extended his good-natured hospital- ity to the travelling public. A fine old inn it must have been, for liis custom became so extensive that the court ordered him to advertise his wares of polite- ness and good cheer by hangmg a sign. Local historians do not make any mention of what it was; whether it was copy of one that attracted his atten- tion in old Plymouth, or one of his indi\4dual incuba- tion, has not been thought to be of much interest. Stackpole says there is no record of Bray's being in Kittery before 1662; and, as the daughter was born in 1660, he tliinks she came over from Plymouth OLD YORK 269 with her father. She was a daughter by his first wife. He was one of the first to engage in ship-buikhng here, thus laying the foundation for the Pepperrell fortune. The connection of tliis old house with the Pepperrell name, and its prestige as having been in the old days, the place of holding the court of the province, give it its importance. It is in a fine state of preservation and is worth a visit. Its gable is adjacent to that of the Pepperrell manse, and both look down on the Pep- perrell wharves and storehouses that are to-day in con- stant use. I noticed that these old laying-by places for vessels were apparently as sohd as when they were built two hundred and more years ago, and that their usefulness was to be still further perpet- uated. Piles were being driven for an extension of the main pier upon which a half-score of men were ac- tively engaged. Here is a fine beach athwart which was the hull of a large coaster burned to the water's edge three or four years ago, and half submerged by the tide. It is a suggestive adjunct to these old relics, and if one did not know that a cargo of Rockland lime was at the bottom of this disaster, one might conjure up a score of tales of sliipwreck, any one of which would fit out the charred ribs of this old hulk with a garb of thrilling romance. Here was the scene of the principal activities of Kjttery in the days of the Pep- perrells. Hides were tanned here, the site of the old tannery being just west of the manse. It was near the water; and these sands are known to-day as Tan House Beach. The baronet had a park here, where he had a herd of moose and deer. There is a house 270 OLD YORK here, also, known as the Park House ; and a little far- ther to the westward was a finer mansion even than the Sparhawk, which was built by the baronet for another daughter as a wedding present. Unfortu- nately, after the War of the Revolution closed, this was taken, ultra vires, by the returned Continentals, piecemeal, for their own use — a species of dras- tic confiscation that ended in the complete dis- OLD TRAIPE CIDER-PRESS integration of what was once the finest colonial resi- dence ever built in New England. Langley and Hooke were nearby neighbors of Bray on the west, but nothing remains but the court records to show where their tents were pitched. On the east were the Deerings. The Joan Deering house is here, and across Deering's Guzzle is an old Wolfert's Roost, but the stepping-stones are gone. They went when the elec- OLD YORK 271 trie power-house came in. Deering's Guzzle has lost its freshners and its old-time charm. Where were once the stepping-stones at low tide over which the Kittery folk were wont to pass dry-shod, as it is re- corded the Israelites made the passage of the Red Sea, is the power-house dam; and where the marsh grass and the meadow blooms swayed or nodded in the wind is the debris of the ash heap, a dump of coal-screenings, and a low-walled temple of mystery, which, taken literally, might be made to stand for anytliing from an official perquisite dovm to a five-cent fare; and for the piping of the plover, the yeap of the snipe, and the flap of a duck's wing on the water, is the insistent purring of dynamos in this ready- made hghtning factory. What a flamboyant, megaphone-gifted, ubiquitous something that never was, and never will be, but al- ways is, is this creature To-day! How one would like one of those old-fashioned Yesterdays, for a bit of vacationing, the days of lavender scents and can- dle-dips, and pitch-lmots ablaze on the wxle hearth, with the weird tale or two out of the New England Nights' Entertainments, washed down with a mug of foam'ng spruce beer, to take the "current hterature " taste out of one's mouth! But here, looking out upon the waters of Chami- cey's Creek is a modern shore cottage of attractive and ambitious architecture, that as one gets a glimpse of it through the trees might be taken for the House of the Seven Gables. It may have more gables than that, for aught I know, I never counted them; but 272 OLD YORK it has more than a passing interest attached to it, for, here is the site of the manse where Francis Champer- nowTie Uved mostly. It is on the point of land made by the coming together of Chauncey's Creek and Deering's Guzzle. This creek was once known as '^. J r SITE OF CHAMPERNOWNE'S HOUSE Champernowne's. It had been better had it kept its first name. If one is to keep even pace with Champernowne, one should go hence, eastward, as far as Brave-boat Harbor, then retrace his steps leisurely. The stranger in these parts would naturally look for sign- boards to indicate the way; the roads precede the waymark, usually. Suppose we try to discover the road. OLD YORK 273 "To the Select Men of the Town of Kittery. Gent^". — Whereas therenever was yet any High way Laid out from Champernoons Island so-called I therefore desire yould lay out a Road for y<^ Benefit of y*' Inhabitants thereof (from A Bridge that Joyns on y*^ Man) from the North end of s'^ Bridge to York High Road that leads to Kittery Point, and youl oblige Your Hum' Serv*^ Tim° Gerrish. "By the Request of Co'' Tim° Gerrish Esq'. We the Subscribers being appomted by the Rest of the Selectmen of y*^ town of Kittery we have laid out a heigh way from York heigh Road that leads to Kittery Piont South two Rods wide to be left open at the North end of Co" Gerrish's Bridge that is now standing over the Creek for the benefit of y^ Inhabi- tants thereof that is to say two Rods wide one Rod out of Mr. Cln-istopher Mitchells Land and one Rod out of y^ Land on y'' west which Land is now in possession of Mr. Sam Ford by Consent of both partys they being present the Road to go as it now lays open between them. Kittery, March 2 1737 Thomas Hutcliings, Select Rich Cutt J' men Highway laid to Co" Gerrishes Island 1738." Here is the road we are to follow, if we keep the footprints of Champernowne in sight. There had long been a bridlepath or trail, as these old settlers always took the most direct course, whether over a 274 OLD YORK steep hill, or through a swamp wliich had to be cor- duroyed to make it passable. Up hill or down, it mattered not, so that folk kept to their direction, but the Kittery Point roads must have been laid out by the convivial friends of tapster Bray after an evenmg of story-telling at the inn, as they wended their ways, with something of dubious footfall, home- ward. They are as crooked as a Boston cowpath. But these early footprints of the settler were always by the sea. Perhaps it was because the settler had been used to the sight of the salt water, and the vigorous savor of its briny winds. Did you ever go through a long, a seeming interminably endless stretch of wilderness, to come out into the "open" among the fields; and do you recollect what a delightful sensation of freedom swept over you from head to foot, and how restful the shag of the hills was to the pent vision of a verdurous woodland lane? Did the sky seem ever so near, or so dear, with its brooding peace and promise? And the speech of that famihar landmark over there, across the valley, the lone pine on the Mil that marks the liidden home slopes, were ever the words of a friend sweeter? I expect that was what the sea and the open lands along shore meant to the settler. The water was his larder, his fish and game preserve, and the winds were to him the one-eyed Calendar's metal boatman, and they carried him whichever way he trimmed liis sails. So these old roads kept the sea, or a bit of yellow marsh, in sight ; with here and there a head- land as a relief to the eye, or an outlook. OLD YORK 275 The approach to luttery from York Harbor is more interestmg than from the Junction; and a foot jaimt through the by-phices of Champernowne's Island, now yclept Cutts', and across the head of Chaimcey's Creek, and westward, along shore into the Enchanted Country of Deering's Guzzle and Warehouse Point is at once cheering and restful. One's starting-point is the old bridge over York River, and Major Samuel Sewall of old York could have left no better memorial of himself than this first framework of piles set in the black mud of the Brave-boat Harbor flats. It was built in 1761, a hundred and tliirty years after the first settlement of the "Ancient Plantations," and wliich was the model, as Drake says, "of those subsequently built over the Charles, Mystic and Merrimac." The super- structure was set up and afterward floated into place, and the supports were firmly impaled in the river bottom. And SewalFs old bridge is here to-day, after a service of almost a centmy and a half. At the first footfall on tliis old span the visions begin to crowd in upon one's mind! It is as if one were threacUng the deserted streets of a city in the dead of night, when the answering echoes to one's stac- cato footfall become the fighter tread of its familiars of the gairish day, and the bricks are crowded to the curb with the ghosts of a hurrying, jostling hmnan- ity — as if one were ever alone ! It is vibrant somid, this footfall of to-day across tliis remnant of yesterday; and with it comes the sliivery, psychological sensing of a numerous yet 276 OLD YORK invisible company of quaintly-garbed people, whose steps keep pace wdth my own. One's ear-drums are tremulous with the somids of that ancient yesterday; and the mind is alert to this astral companionship that comes unbidden — an old-fashioned folk, whose grosser selves were long since absorbed in the mute caress of the Antsean mother. Here is the easterly boimdary of Kittery, where the tide makes up along an exceedingly picturesque shore, and wliich affords a pleasant introduction to the charms of lottery's varied landscape and the storied landmarks that fasten one's attention at almost every turn of the road. From York Harbor westward down the Point is suggestive. One's thoughts stray unwittingly from the present. One reads, Indian-Hke, the ground at his feet, to find strange and unfamihar footprints. They were left here, the oldest of them, as early as 1623, since which time the path has been beaten out smooth. Here were the stamping-grounds of the rude forefathers, the peasantry who made all things possible for their posterity. What stories of the rough needs of those days are told by the cumbersome things that made up the furnisliings of their interiors ! Mahogany was plenty in those days, and the real thing was the only tiling, whether it grew in the back lot, or came in the old Anglesea from the Barbadoes. Their colors were as real as the woods they filled. Red, yellow, black, and white, completed the gamut. Barbizon Millet could have done sometliing even with that limited palette, and what a pity there was no Millet OLD YORK 277 of those clays to have preserved a few Hodges at their toil afield, with their ironboimd ploughs and clumsy implements by which these new lands were made to bestow their riches as the meed of tliis strenuous pioneer hving! They must have been of Herculean strength to have manipulated the tools of the time. I have an ancient snath and scythe that was in use as late as a century ago; and how any profitable labor could be accomphshed with it, is wholly a matter of conjec- ture. In its time it was, imdoubtedly, the best at hand — rude, crude, and unwieldy, to make one think of huge settles and high-posted bedsteads, of long, stout-armed cranes that spanned the wide throat of the family fireplace, of dingy pot-hooks, and skillets with swivelled bales and wide-mouthed tin ovens, and spits that went with a crank. It was the iron age hereabout, and men were, perforce, fire- worshippers. It did not do to let fire get out on the hearth; for to borrow Uve coals from a neighbor was much more easy than to transport them hence. The gentry comprised a limited few, and large accretions of wealth were at the disposal of but few. The luxuries of Hfe were commonplace in many respects. Travel was an arduous and slow enter- tainment, even to those who had the leisure for such diversion, and hamlets were far apart. The en\dron- ment was exceeding narrow; social amenities were practised mostly by those who affected the better manners of the times. The general demeanor was staid, and such as held provincial office exacted a 278 OLD YORK deference that nowadays would afford prolific inspi- ration for the cartoonist. Personal liberty was cramped; everybody was bitted, and not a few sad- dled; the right of way was hereditary, and education bushed it out, carried the wliip, and held the reins. Precedent was good law, and was seldom called to a halt. The superstitions that made the Salem trials a possibility were a good barometer of the intellectual capacity of the average mind, wliich was cloudy most of the time, and indicated doubtful weather. They were the days when Toppan wrote to Cotton Mather of a double-headed snake at Newbury — a curious reptile that had one head where a head ought to be, while the other wagged where its tail should have been. "Far and wide the tale was told, Like a snowball growing while it rolled. The nurse hushed with it the baby's cry; It served in the worthy minister's eye To paint the primitive serpent by. Cotton ]\Iather came galloping down All the way to Newbury town, With his eyes agog and his ears set wide, And his marvellous inlv-horn by his side; Stirring the while the shallow pool Of his brains for the lore he learned at school, To garnish the story, with here a streak Of Latin, and there another of Greek; And the tales he heard and the notes he took — " And such was the atmosphere, mentally, and other- wise, and naturally productive of the peculiar char- acteristics that endowed whatever these people did OLD YORK 279 with that quaintness that stamped everything ^^ith a hall-mark that did not admit of infringement. They were the times when the timorous goodman "Nailed a horseshoe on the outer door, Lest some unseemly hag should fit His own mouth with her bridle-bit," and the housewife's churn refused, "Its wonted culinary uses Until with heated needle burned, The witch had to her place returned." Strange and soul-troubhng vagaries, these! TMs ancient road that runs the length of luttery Point, the gray, worn roofs of a schoolless architec- ture, strewn like pearls along its marge at uncertain intervals, and the quaint and humble doings of those who made their exits and their entrances over their like worn and sagging thresholds, have had their translations at the hands of annalists like Purchas and Palfrey and their ilk; but as one goes, one scans the story in the original, and translates for himself as freely as the scope of his imagination will allow. As to many tilings, one sees darkly, as through a glass, and longs for the Mormon's goggles. As to others, Time has set a wall as impassable as that of Al Araf, but over which one may look into the De- batable Land, and that only. But of many other tilings replete with fascinating charm, he who can read, may. Geograpliically, here is the southernmost limit of 280 OLD YORK Maine, if one excepts that portion of the Isles of Shoals of wliich Smutty Nose and breezy Appledore, Duck, and Cedar Islands are a part. The hne of demarcation follows the main channel of the Piscata- qua River, leaving Great Island, Star, Wliite, and Londoner's Islands to the south. Here is the begin- ning of Maine's varied and romantic coast. From the Pepperrell manse to, "gray Fort Mary's walls," past the cabin smoke of Cleeve, and still on, leaving beliind the stone heaps of Pemaquid, until one hears the flap of Castine's wigwam door, still past the smoldng embers of St. Saviour's Mission to the land of Evangeline, is the Thule of the painter, the tourist, and the summer dawdler, and which has its eastern limit at West Quoddy Head; or, if one makes the turn of the granite nose of this headland, he may keep on up the St. Croix to Devil's Head, over a reach of water rich in liistoric lore, and where one may find many a stirring romance written in the uneven Unes of its sinuous shores. The entire Maine coast trend is a storehouse of surprise to the lover of the pictur- esque. From Kittery to Devil's Head are nubbles and headlands of buttressed rock frescoed with brilliant oxides, the reds and yellows of igneous ingots from the smelters of preliistoric ages; the soft shimmer of the softer shales; the gUttering lustres of the micas; or the gray gloom of the massive granites, their feet sandalled in the emerald of the sea, or snooded with OLD YORK 281 bands of dusky kelp and devil's apron that undulate with the tide like the sinuous spine of some sea mon- ster. It is a panorama of Nature, wonderfully and im- pressively beautiful. Where in the world is another Frenchman's Bay or another Mount Desert ! Here is the Mediterranean of the western hemisphere. It is a Riviera, only that for solid Italian dirt under one's feet one has the limpid waters of the famous Penobscot. Alw^ays witliin the range of the vision are the hooded capes dyed with the deeper emerald of the ocean, that seaward shows a limitless horizon. Here and there the trees have been combed and sculptured and twisted into fantastic shapes by the vagrant winds, or buffeted into stark nudity by the bleak storms that swoop dowai from the northeast. Sleep- distilling, pine-laden odors are coaxed offshore by zephyrs that steal with noiseless footfall across the golden floors of the wide salt marshes, or that, with more hurried pace, weave them into webs of riant color. Deep bays break the seemingly endless con- tour of these rugged lines with spacious anchorages that could take at a single gulp the navies of the world, almost; and here are hosts of inlets and creeks that make inlayings of silver inland, and that lie most of the time fast asleep in the sun after a vagabondish fasliion, and wiiere even the wildest gales beget hardly more animation than the gray rifle of broken waters. As one looks out over this feast of Nature, the heart breaks into song as one sees — 282 OLD YORK "the mighty deep expand From its white hne of gUmmering sand To where the blue of heaven on bluer waves shuts down; " and with tliis heart melody comes the deeper tone from the huge organ loft of the sky, while, "in foam and spray wave after wave Breaks on the rocks which, stern and gray, Shoulder the broken tide away, Or murmur hoarse and strong through mossy cleft and cave." No wonder men set up their easels along these ribs of sun-bleached sands to catch "The tremulous shadow of the sea," — but the transcription of their mysteries and their in- terpretations are beyond the puny effort of the most gifted pen or brush, and imequalled by any other coast line of similar extent anywhere. Had the Mayflower followed the track of Pring, and once bathed her face in the brine of the Piscataqua, or even the whirlpools of Hell-gate, the history of New England would have read differently. But that was not to be ; yet it is not to be doubted, had the folk from Leyden made their land-fall here, the council of Plymouth would have given priority to their occu- pation, and the grant to Gorges and Mason, in 1622, would have been somewhat restricted. Ettery would have retained the name given to York origin- ally ; here would have been another Manhattan. For the shahows of the classic Charles and the mud of the Mystic would have been the deeps of the New Hamp- shire estuary, with its miles of frontage by stream and OLD YORK 283 by sea, and which the government experts were not slow to take advantage of for the building of a fighting marine. Here is one of the most available navy yards on the United States coast. Famous ships have been built here at the old Puddington Island. At Withers' Island, the Ranger, of Paul Jones fame, and the frigate, America, seventy-four guns, presented in 1782 to France, were built and fitted out. Here were laid the keels of the old Alabama, the Santee, the Co?i(/re.ss, afterward rammed at Hampton Roads by the Merrimac, the Franklin, and the illustrious Kearsarge. Since the steel battlesliip has come in, tliis famous old yard has been simply a repair shop and a hospital for the senile Constitution of glorious memory. A new dry dock is building here, wdiich, when completed udll be sufficiently ample to take the largest vessels afloat. What a berth tliis would have been for the commerce of New England's metropohs! and Bunker Hill Monument would midoubtedly have towered above the ruins of Fort M'Clary. The coast of Maine abounds in magnificent harbors, Jocelyn speaks of Kittery in his time as "the most populous of all the plantations in the Maine Province." Drake rightly says, "this Island of Champer- nowne's is one of the headlands of history." The tides of Bra'boat Harbor lap its northeastern edge, and Chauncey's Creek on the northwest fends it from the ma:"nland; and here was the grant of Gorges to Arthur Champernowne, December 12, 1636. It was estimated to contain five hundred acres, and was 284 OLD YORK designated as Dart'ngton in the grant. That was the name of the English manor of Champernowne's. Northeast of Bra'boat Harbor was another grant of the same date. This was in York, and was yclept Godmorrocke. These wide acres came to Arthur Champernowne's son, Francis, by inheritance. The Champernownes were an Enghsh family of aristo- cratic I'neage. Yomig Champernowne was a cousin of Sir Ferdinando Gorges; and it is hkely it was in that way the former became interested in the devel- opment of the Gorges and Mason province. He had distinguished himself in the English navy as a cap- tain; and he is located at Greenland in New Hamp- shire in 1640, where he had a considerable estate. He came to Kittery about 1657, and built liis first house on his island in the vicinity of York River. In 1665 he bought three hundred acres on the mainland of John Archdale, "between the land of Thomas Crockett & an house formerly the Sayd Capt. Champernownes." Tliis was October 20; and July 17, the next year, the to\\Ti of Kittery granted Mm five hundred acres "adiojneing to the house where Capt. Lockwood now Uveth. Neare the lower end of the Town by the water side, that runneth towards Braue boat Harbour." The grant was "to begin next Major Shapleigh's land, & not two much breath by the water side, to the Preiudice of the Inhabitants toward Braue Boate Harbour." Stack- pole says ChampernowTie had two houses. He lo- cates one at the eastern end of the island, the original site of wliich, Stackpole says, is occupied by the OLD YORK 285 John Thaxter residence. It is a sightly place, and is part and parcel of the fashion in the old days, to plant the roof-tree where it would have an abundant sea- way; but to my mind the outlook from the "lower house" was by far the finest. Here one gets a wide view from the mouth of Chauncey's Creek where Deering's Guzzle comes in, and here is the old well that undoubtedly supplied the Champernowne house- hold. The wide mouth of the Piscataqua is before one, with its low-lying ribs of "sland verdure studding the restless waters, and along shore are slender scarps from the mainland reaching out toward them like so many fingers of a huge hand, that lengthen with the ebb of the tide, or shorten as it makes to its flood. Here is an abundance of form and color, as if Nature began her labors here when she was possessed of a plethora of good things and had no mind to stint her work. In 1648 Champernowne sold this estate to one Walter Barefoot, and thus he parted with h's main- land property. The eastern end of the 'sland came finally into the hands of Richard Cutt, s'nce which time the island has taken the latter's name. The mainland estate in 1661 was conveyed by Barefoot to one Harbert, since which time it has been the sub- ject of numerous conveyances. If one likes to look out upon the picture from Champernowne 's original point of view, anywhere about the Keene cottage will answer the purpose; for it was in th's immediate vicinity that not many years ago could have been seen the sight depression that marked the location 286 OLD YORK of this "lower house." He laid down his life work in 1687, at the ripe age of seventy-three; but shortly before that, he took unto himself the widow of Rob- CHAMPERNOWNE'S GRAVE ert Cutt. Unfortunately, h's good old English name died with him, for he died childless. That he left no posterity is greatly to be regret- ted, having in mind hs wealth and social station in wh'ch he outranked his contemporaries at Kittery. Pearce's Neck once belonged to this man, but a con- veyance to Jolin Pearce of Noodle's Island gave way OLD YORK 287 to another apology for the further obUteration of the Champernowne name. No part of modern K ttery is known or distinguished by this p'.oneer among its early people, except a rough p'le of rock, a rude ca'rn, which is shown to the curious, as Champernowne 's grave. It is a bit east of the s'te of h:s old home, and is enclosed by a like rude wall of stone gleaned from the rocky slopes of Cutt's Island. Nature has written his epitaph with kindly hands in the multi-colored lichens that have found lodgment on the rough faces of these fragments of rock; and overhead, the foliage of the birches wave their pliant arms with every breeze in delicate obeisance to his indifferently cher- ished memory. Local pride, it seems to me, should lend some stimulus to the proper recognition of his name and his old-time connection with the laying of the Kittery corner-stone. This getting beneath the surface of current events, to touch elbows, as it were, with the things that were in days when others made the conveniences of the present possible, the quaint things the like of which have passed from the memory of man in their actual- ity, may not be so interesting to the world at large as the excavations of Pompeii and Cyprus, or their brilliant frescoes and licentious mural decorations; but they are of far richer fruitage, if one goes by the amount of pleasure gained. To get any good from anything, one must use the mental pick-axe and shovel ; and a few days among these old by-ways gives one a longer lease of life, a better digestion, and a larger fund of self-respect, and withal, a HveUer patriotism. 288 OLD YORK In leaving Champernowne, perhaps it might be in- teresting to quote a Hne from the Massachusetts ar- chives. In these eastern settlements, as the fight grew more acrid between the Puritan and the Royal- ist, the political interests of Massachusetts Bay col- ony and the settlements east of the Piscataqua be- came more sharply defined. The commissioners of Massachusetts were astute politicians, as were the men behind them; and what to them were the Au- gean stables, were cleaned out in July, 1668. Among these, were: "Henry Josslin Esq' of good parts & conuersation well-beloved of the inhabitants and allways A uindi- cator of Engly Government both cuill & Eclesiati- call liueing at Black Point. " Capt. Champernowne of Piscataqua a man allways for the King, and was Comd*" at sea in the same sliip under the Lord of Marlborough many years agoe." Among others of the proscribed, appear the names of Francis Hooke, Robert Cutt, Capt. Wincall of Piscataqua and "M"" Edward Rishworth, both men without Schandall in Reference to Life & Conuersa- tion & now are associates for Boston which is a Small majestraticall Power they haue." Banks, in a note to the extract from wliich the above is quoted, says, "Tliis paper was undoubtedly prepared as a sort of private memorandum by Ed- ward Randolph, about 1680, for his own use and for the information of his political friends in England." Quoting somewhat farther from tliis paper of Ran- dolph's, he says, — OLD YORK 289 " Men that are Enimies to m Gorges interest, lining In the Prouince of Mayne : "Major Bryan Pembleton (Pendleton): A man of Saco Riuer of Great estate & uery independent, be- loued only of those of his fraternity being both an Enemy to the King's interest & M" Gorges Interest, all so a great Ringleader to others to utmost of his Power. "Capt Raines of York'', M^ Neale of Casco Bay, Arthur Auger of Black Poynt, Andrew Brown of Black Poynt, Francis Littlefield of Wells, Henry Saw- yer of Yorke, Peter Wyer, (Weare) of Yorke, — these are men of indifferent Estate & are led by Maj'' Pembleton & of the same independent way of under- standing Httle but what he tells them in Law or gos- pell." Edward Rishworth was a pohtician of the first water. He managed to keep in good trim with both sides of the controversy. His "Apology" shows the sting of the party whip; and as well Rishworth's pUancy, and skill as a political tumbler. Here it is, and it is in its way a curiosity. "To the Hono^** Generall Court now assembled at Boston. I being chozen Deputy by the majo' part of the freemen of Yorke to attend the publique service of the country at this Gener'^ Court vnto whose accep- tance I stood uncapable through some affronte which I had given to y** same for whose satisfaction these may satisfy all whom It may Concerne, that through 290 OLD YORK fears of some future troubles, & want of Indemnity in case this Hono""^ Court had not relieved in tymes of danger, I being prsuaded that by his Majestys letter I was discharged from my oath, taken to this authority, I did accept of a commission before apply- cation to the same w"^ in I do acknowledg I did act very Imprudently, & hope through God's assistance I shall not do the like agajne, but for tyme to come shall Indeauor to walke more cerumspectly in cases soe momentous craning pardon of y"" honord Court for tliis offence, & yo'' acceptance of this acknowledg- ment of your unfayned servant May: 12; 1670: Edw: Rishworth" Rishworth's artless explanation, and liis saying he would try to be very good, found the "Deputyes Judge" in a complaisant mood; and after due con- sideration, his offence was remitted. The apology intimates the offence, and, as a case of discipline, it proved eminently effectual. As a sidelight on the exactions of the primitive machine that steered the political craft of Massachusetts in 1670, the inference is easy that its stones ground exceeding fine, even as they do in these latter days. There was no trouble with Rishworth after that. The winds of York blew the same way they blew in Boston; and his weather-vane was as delicately adjusted to their pos- sible variation as the finest chronometric mechanism. It is not recorded that he ever lost step with the Mas- sachusetts leaders after that, and honors were easy. But in these days just anterior to the war of the OLD YORK 291 Revolution, as well as wliile its issues were being set- tled, Kittery was growing in size and importance; and doubtless there were no inconsiderable property interests represented within its borders. It must have been so, for it is apparent that there was a sense of insecurity abroad. The following from the Kittery records would suggest as much. " To the Selectmen of the Town of Kittery, We the Subscribers being Freeholders and Inhabi- tants of said Town Request you to Coll a meeting Imeediatly of the Freeholders & Inhabitants of the Affores'^ Kittery at Such Place as you Shall think best then & there for S*^ Inhabitants to vot Such a Number of Sutabel men to Keep a Watch at Kittery Point & other Sutabel Place or Places As they Shall think Proper & Said Persons to be paid a Reasonable Sum by the To\\ti as no Person have of Late Ap- peared to keep a Watch at the Afores*^ Point we think It Extreemely Dangerous to the Inhabitants of this whole Town for Said Place to be without a Gard Es- pecialy by Night and to Pase any Vote or Votes Re- lating to the Premises as they shall think fitt. Kittery, June 3, 1775." This petition was signed by William De?ring and seventeen others. Going back fifty years over these records, one finds the minutes of a warrant to the town constable. It reads like a page from a mediaeval transcript, and is singularly suggestive of the ahnost inquisitorial 292 OLD YORK power the towns of those days assumed over the indi- vidual who had incurred something of local disrepute. Compared with the trend of opinion as to the scope of personal liberty of the Now, when unions and federations of workingmen assume to stop the THE JOAN DEERING HOUSE wheels even of the commerce that brings to people the necessities of hfe, the indications are that one is not so far away from the time of Peter Matthews, only the stage has changed managers; and for the selectmen, has come the baton of the federate presi- dent or an irresponsible district deputy. OLD YORK 293 Suppose you look over this old record with me. "York ss: To the Constable of the Town of Kit- tery, Greeting: " Whereas, Complaint is made to us y" Subscribers By Severall of the Inhabitants of this Town that Peter Matthews of York is come to Reside in this Town of Kittery afors*^ '' You are hereby Required in his Maj^ Name to give Personall notice to the said Peter Matthews that he forthwith Depart this Town on Penalty of Being Sent out as the Law directs. Hereof fail not and make due Return of this warrant under your hand of your Doings herein unto us the Subscribers of Some of us within Seven Days after the Date hereof. Dated in Kittery y'' 20th Day of June, 1726." " This warrant was subscribed by the five selectmen of Kittery, of whom John Dennett was the chairman, and the constable makes his return. "Pursuant to the within warrant to me Directed, I have Given Personal Notice to y** within Named Peter Matthews to Depart this Town. Samuel Lebbey, Constable." . This authority was vested in towns under the law of 1693. Coming down these records to May 10, 1734, one finds the list of Quakers who were allowed to reside in Kittery, that year. They were twenty-four in number. 294 OLD YORK East of the Piscataqua the temper of the inhabi- tants toward this persecuted sect was much more passive than on its southern side. They were under a mild but distinctive surveillance; or in other words, they were, under certain conditions of behavior, toler- ated. They were not allowed to hold public meet- ings, but they taught their doctrines here and there, in some private house, where they were in a way surreptitiously entertained. The Massachusetts authorities were jealous of the liberties accorded this, by them, proscribed people; but hereabout, in Kittery and its sister towns, the townspeople were not over-zealous in their adhesion to the Puritan laws where it was not for their peculiar benefit, either as incUviduals, or as an aggregate. The latitude allowed alleged witches hereabout is notable, as compared with the Salem folk. Burroughs was complained of at Salem ; and I think it is safe to say, had it been left to the people of Wells to take the initiative, the preacher among the garrison houses of Wells and Scarborough would have wrought to the end in his own way. There is no doubt but Massachusetts found a poor soil in the province of Maine for the growth of her peculiar religious tenets. The people of this part of the country had good memories. Those who were not alive to tell of the indifference of the Massachusetts commissioners, in 1592, to the welfare and safety of its settlers, when the IncUans began their raids south of Falmouth, had left the story as one of the items of traditional legacy, handed down with every re-telling of the devilish OLD YORK 295 and savage reprisals of those dark and treacherous fourteen years that preceded the Peace of Utrecht. If the truth were to be told, it was a case of the " devil take the hindermost." Haverhill was nearer Boston than Wells, and the Dimstan tragedy, with five hun- dred French and Indians at the gate of Storer's i > THE WATER SIDE OF FORT M'CLARY Garrison in Wells, less than a hundred miles away, was suggestive of the possibility that these Tarratine hornets might invade the gables that looked out over the placid waters of the Mystic. When the Peace of Utrecht came, the General Court assumed its domination over this ravaged stretch of shore from the Piscataqua eastward, as if the pestilent hordes of Castine and Madockawando had never left their Penobscot lair. They who had kept their garrison 296 OLD YORK houses, and had sustained hfe through those days that made Scarborough the "bloody ground" in local annals, had reason to remember how completely they were abandoned to their own resources by the Puritans of Boston. In the years after, when some- thing of prosperity had re-vamped the footgear of these settlers, it is not singular that they should resent a too close supervision of their local doings by the law-makers of Massachusetts Bay, because THE SPARHAWK MANSE these same perils had made them not only self- reliant but notably independent. Perhaps it was good policy to let these imperilled settlers run to the best cover they could find, but to my mind it was the quintessence of selfishness, with possibly a taint of cowardice — a harsh analysis of events, but Boston was human. It is with reluctant steps one turns from these old haunts; but one must linger a moment longer to OLD YORK 297 saunter up the lane between its verdurous maples to the ancient lindens, brought from England by Bar- onet Pepperrell and planted here, and that stand guard over the wide entrance to the old Sparhawk Mansion, Cerberus-fashion. These are huge trees, and their age is not doubtful. Their gnarled bodies suggest the experience of those who knew them first. Of the turdy Enghsh type, they remind one of the pencils studies of the English masters. They are essentially Enghsh in form, tone values, and effect. I speak of these things because I see them and I enjoy them, for they are to me the choicest settings in which these rehcs could be framed; and they who hved by them for years saw them as I see them, only with a larger affection, because they were more closely identified with them as a part of their surroundings. I have no doubt but all the young folk of the neighborhood had kno\Mi at one time and another the coolness of their grateful shadows; and I am sure the Pepperrell uncles, cousins, and aunts, and grandchildren, and the baronet, as well, have patted these huge trimks when they were smaller, with something of the feeling that here was some genuine British fibre, whose juices were chstilled from the mother-land itself. These people were not oblivious to the poetry of things, the things of Nature, else their home interiors would have shown the dull edge of their sense ; but it was otherwise. If you wish for the aesthetic in its purity, go through the old Sparhawk manse, and if you do not see anything else, do not forget the Dutch tihng of the broad fireplace in the roomy hbrary, — a 298 OLD YORK single touch that makes the world aldn are those ancient tiles of washed-out blue. As the hall-mark of intellectuality, an excellent good taste, and a just appreciation of the true and the beautiful in art, they are imimpeachable testimony. Why not ? Their days were the days of Sir Peter Lely, Huysman, Vandevelde, and Vosterman; their immediate predecessors were Rubens and Vandyke. But these Hndens were set somewhere around 1742. That was the year that Elizabeth Pepperrell married Capt. Nathaniel Sparhawk. This mansion was a wedding gift, and so must date from about that time. Passing between these massive trees one is at the wide entrance to the house. It is the residence of Hon. Horace Mitchell, who takes goodly pride in his possession, wliich is, so far as one can see, exactly as the yomiger Sparhawk left it in his flight to England. That it has been so well kept through all the vicissi- tudes of the succeeding one hundred and sixty years is a matter of congratulation; for here is one of the most perfectly appointed mansions of its time to be fomid in New England. Its interior is of finer and more elaborate workmanship than either the old Pep- perrell manse or the Lady Pepperrell house. The paper on its hall walls is the same brought from Lon- don at the time of its building, with which an interest- ing story is connected. But this story has a^.ready exceeded its limits. One of the quaint tilings one is likely to notice in the wide hall is the lifelike wooden hawk, hand- carved, the claws of which hold in a firm grasp a like OLD YORK 299 carved wooden spar. This device depends from an iron rod pendant from the ceihng over the newel-post. In the long fore-room, that takes the whole of the eastern gable, is a wonderful fireplace, whose wain- scoted mantel reaches to the high ceiUng, that is flanked on either side by ample buffets of a hand- carved shell pattern. The balustrade in the hall is identical in design with those of the other Pepperrell houses. Here are some of the canvases, once among the Sparhawk possessions, stiU on the walls; and they too are interesting. In fact, the mind finds much here to beget reflection; for, as one lingers, the a'ert Now is forgotten in the dreams of long-ago Yester- days. But all things have an end; and as one's stay here- about is in a degree subject to mundane influences and necessities, one hails the first passing electric, and with a parting look leaves liis Dreamland to others. It is a delightful sojourn one makes here, whether it be long, or short; and the memory of its old houses, its sinuous roads, and its river, and the hospitality extended to myself will l^e cherished "So long as Nature shall not grow old, Nor drop her work from her doting hold.". No lack of goodly company is here whether one chats with mine host Mitchell on the breezy veranda of the Champernowne awaiting the boom of the sun- set gun from the walls of the fort across the river, where the windows of olden New Castle gleam ruddily 300 OLD YORK as the day dies; or loses himself in silent reverie as he takes his sun-bath under the lee of old Cutts wharf, for "he who drifts Is one with him who rows or sails; And he who wanders widest lifts No more of beauty's jealous veils " than he who wanders nearer home. BACK-LOG STORIES BACK-LOG STORIES T was my good fortune, when a young lad, to live in one of those old-fash- ioned houses affected by the aris- tocracy in the early eighteenth century. Like im house set upon a hill, it was visible for many miles aroimd; and its ample roof was quaintly suggestive of good cheer and the material comforts of life, after the manner of the times when roomy fireplaces, long, low and wide hearthed, were capable of generous, glowing heats and pregnant hints of a hospitdity that is now among the 303 304 OLD YORK lost arts. There were four spacious rooms below, and a like number above, which were reached by a straight flight of stairs, pitched at a most comfortable angle. On their outer rim or edge was a slender, carved hand- rail, which was upheld by pilasters, delicately propor- tioned, square, and hardly larger then one's finger. The newel-post was of the same sylph-like design, and the long hall was wainscoted about one third of the way to the ceiling by a single strip of finish got out in the days when the pine-trees were huge, knot- less, and sapless, with hearts as yellow as nuggets of gold. All the rooms were wainscoted alike, and in each room was a fireplace surmounted by a hand- carved mantel so narrow as to make one think of the bridge of Al Borak, so far as they might be of use. The windows were wide, and the shafts of light which broke through them were broken into numerous lesser shafts as they fell athwart the yellow-painted floors. Over all spread a low hip-roof, topped by a pair of sturdy cliimneys; and above these was a broidery of foliage through the summer days that made the drapery of the huge, wide-armed elm that held all in its coohng shadow; and that, when the wind blew, sang a low-pitched monody to the liigh treble of the orioles whose homes hung pendant from many a slender twig. In the living-room was the largest fireplace. It was huge in its proportions, so large that a cord- stick would find ample room against its back wall, and a wide slab of rived granite, worn smooth by years of use, afforded an ample hearth. It was here, OLD YOBK 305 before this black maw of sooty brick, that the family gathered as the shadows of the winter evenings fell, when the firelight flashed brightly athwart the quaintly-patterned paper that adorned the walls; and it was here that all the neighborhood happen- ings were gone over, along with a store of other lore, in which hob-thrushes and Robin Goodfellows and other spectral marvels played uncanny parts. And not least among these back-log tales were the stories of Indians and bears and catamounts, stories of hunt- ing and fishing, and of the early clearings and their adventurous experiences, until the youthful mind was crowded with strange pictures and its owner was fain to steal up the creaking stairs to bed with his heart in his throat, and one eye cast backward over one shoulder, apprehensively, and each indi- vidual hair on his youthful head "on end." In these days of bricked-up fireplaces and departed inspi- rations, one has to go to the printed page; for the story-teller of the fireside has gone the way of things that were, or grown dull and forgetful and of sleepy wit, and the neighbors visit but infrequently. The back-log romancer is a legend and a tradition, and hke the headlands of old-time episode, is every year buried deeper in the fogs of forgetfulness. Materiahsm is the iconoclast of the times. But that old homestead, recalled as one recalls much else, that like an old worn shpper, fits so com- fortably into the mosaic of one's experiences, bears outward semblance in small degree to this low- browed garrison house which one finds here at Cape 306 OLD YOBK Neddock. Here was the early home of the Mcln- tires, and its fame goes back to and beyond the obhteration of old Falmouth, when the hordes of Castine swept down upon it. It is one of the two remaining in York to-day; in 1711 there were twenty-one. This old Mclntire block house was built about 1640, and is on the east- MclNTIRE BLOCK HOUSE erly bank of York River. One of its contemporaries , the Junkins garrison, and which is in its near neigh- borhood, may yet be seen, but in a dilapidated con- dition. After the Indian outbreaks, which began as early as 1676, the number of block houses increased so that York was well supplied with these houses of refuge, and each had its billet of settlers ; nor were they over large ; and at such times as the long tin OLD YORK 307 horn sent its note flying across country, they must have found their individual capacities somewhat strained. It is difficult for one to convey a likeness of one of these old forts, for the eye sees only the shell of an old house. Timbers hewn, dove-tailed and tree-nailed, gave it a redoubtable massiveness. The seams were calked like those of a sliip, loop-holes were cut in the sides for small-arms, and the second story was pro- vided with an overhang, or set-off, and in the floors of this projection, which followed the outer wall around the building completely, openings were made for offensive as well as defensive piu"poses. It was a favorite trick with these aborigines to push carts of straw or other inflammable matter against the house of the settler, and in such a case from these projec- tions could be poured water to extinguish any con- flagration possible. In the second story was a loft, and here were loopholes from which a watch could be kept. And it was to such places the women and cliildren fled at the first alarm. That is what one sees with the outward eye. But there are other things here that have the hu- man touch. The cliimney-back is painted with soot stains, and the walls are dyed a deep sepia by the un- ruly smokes, and there is a smell of creosote, sugges- tive of advanced age. There are signs of decrepitude. The windows have a bleary aspect. The roofs are ragged and out at the knees, and even their rigidity betokens weariness at having to stand so long. There are weeds and briars choldng the old footways, as if 308 OLD YORK Nature were making ready to shortly assume charge of the remains. Tliis is especially true of the old Jun- kins garrison house, not far from the Mclntire home- stead. But here are some old andirons, twisted and bent and eaten up, almost, by the ravenous fires that have long ago burned themselves out; and here is some wood, and an old pine knot that is so "fat" that it shows the varnish of its resinous saps, and is as rich in its coloring as the back of some old violin made in the days of Stradivarius. I do not see the rusty tin tinder-box, in wliich was always kept the flint and steel and a bit of punk, that ought to be at one end of the rude mantel over the fireplace; but the ill- smelling brimstone match will do as well, except that the flint and steel and its old-fashioned appli- ances would have given me time to gather my wits, wliich is quite an important consideration, if one is to indulge somewhat in romancing. But let me hght this pitch-lmot and set the old broken hearth ablaze. The smoke chokes a moment in the old Junkins chimney throat, and then the flame leaps, and the hght dances up and down the time- stained walls; the backlog crackles and croons a song of the wilderness woods. The old voicings come, and the looms in the brain begin to work; the sleys go up and down as the shuttle flies back and forth, and the web grows eerily to the rhythm of the incom- ing tide, and the rough sibilance of the wet, salty winds that are "blowing up a storm," and that, like Endor's witch, crowd the empty spaces about our OLD YORK 309 fire with many a ghostly figure. How they do troop in like so many children ! for here is old Trickey, and old Aunt Polly who Uved on Brimstone Hill; and Mary Greenland and Easter Booker, with her witch- bridle over her shoulder, with hag-harassed Skipper Perkins safely noosed and considerably blown after his rough journey hither from Chauncey's Creek with a horde of hob-thrushes on his back. Here is Skipper Mitchell, who sailed the Vesjyer from Pepperrcll's wharf about the time the baronet was building the Spar- hawk manse; and over in the darkest corner, half- buried in the dun shadows of the dusk is a lone woman. No, it is not Hester Prynne. This woman never heard of her other sister in misfortune, but she has the red letter A on her left sleeve. I cannot re- call her name just now, but we will have to ask ques- tions, and I trow Betty Booker can tell; if not, Skipper Mitchell will know, for she has come over here from Kittery Point, and it may be she has a witch-bridle about her neck, too. If she has, you may be sure the old hag Polly holds to one end of it. Aunt Polly is from Kittery way. She used to make witch- bridles, and famous ones. But how the winds buffet against the gable of the old garrison house! That is old Trickey who has just stolen out the door. The two shag-bearded men under the little square window by the farther corner are Junkins and Mclntire, and if you get near enough to catch their whispers between their generous pulls at the quart stoup of steaming rum between them, you will hear the story of old Trickey, a story that is 310 OLD YORK still told along the sands of York when the winds are high and the sheeted rain drives in from the east. Perhaps it is well to say right here that among the ancient New England settlements no place is more abundant in legend and tracUtion than the reaches of shore, the strips of sand and ragged headlands of this broken coast of York, and by York I mean that JUNKINS GARRISON HOUSE from Pascataquack to the easterly boundary of In- dian Mogg's possessions. These tales of the early times, hereabout, are rich in the suggestions of the hardsliips of hving, the strenuous character, and the dogged temperament of those who gave them cre- dence, and among whom was found fertile planting ground, — a harvest of lore waiting for the reaper. But, this must be visitors' night, for here are Har- mon and Frost and a dozen others; if we are patient OLD YORK 311 we will get a word with each. But how in the world these two witches got out from under the heavy stones that were piled into their graves is more than I can imagine; but one need have no fear, for Mother Earth has long ago drunk up all their saps and juices, and these dim shapes that seem to enjoy the genial warmth of the open fire are but scraps of memory. Old Trickey? Yes, but it is one of those old tales that come up with the kelp and devil's apron about Cape Neddock when the wind comes from the east- ward, dripping with wet. Trickey was a fisherman, and as rough and unruly of disposition as the wildest eea he ever rode out. He lived at the mouth of York River, but just where, no one seems to know; but there were Trickeys in Kittery. He was as prickly and irritable as the saltest brine; and Ms ugliness and generally dis- reputable character for wickedness and malevolence were nowhere to be questioned. All these made of him a privileged character, who without let or hin- drance, wrought in the devil's vineyard after his own inventions. After he died it was said that on account of his misdeeds done in the body, the devil condemned him to stay about the region of Bra'boat Harbor, and he was supposed to haunt the vicinity constantly. The curse was upon him, and his doom was to bind and haul sand with a rope until the devil was satis- fied. Curse as he would, and fume and fret, it was useless mi til liis task was done. The devil had ex- acted so much sand, and so much he would have. 312 OLD YORK SO old Trickey got at his work when the storm began to gather and the sand dunes inshore grew in size and number. When the brew of the gale wet the nose of Cape Neddock, the wraith of old Trickey would come shrieking along over the marshes and then he was at his Sisyphus-like labor, when the air was filled with his wailing cries, "More rope! More rope! More sand! More sand!" and there he wTOught amid the rack of the storm. As the dusk deepened the figure of old Trickey grew and grew, until racing inland with liis load of sand he strode over the cabin roofs to disappear until the coming of the next gale. In the morning the sands had shifted strangely, and as the sun shot its hght across them, the \nllage folk could not but observe the tremulousness of the atmo- sphere above them. It was old Trickey struggling with the devil over the scene of liis labors of the night before, and after dark these sands were as much to be avoided as the graveyard a little way up the Mil Nowadays, when the fogs roll in, and the sea and sky are one, and the winds begin to rise, and the growl of the surf on the harbor bar grows louder, the fisherfolk say, "Old Trickey is binding and hauling sand to-night ! God save the fishing-smacks from harm!" The old jail at York is now used as a museum for such antiquities as the people there are able to keep from taking wings and flying away. Among the treasures there shown is the Bible once owned by Trickey, a cherished curiosity, and an eerie thing, if what one may hear is to be taken without salt. It OLD YORK U3 is said there is a spell upon it. It is ancient enough, and its joints are stiff and dry. As one opens it, the binding is somewhat reluctant in its yielding, and like many books made to-day it will not stay opened, but flies shut with a vicious snap; and some say they cannot push its black covers apart; and so, it must be haunted, or ''cursed." If old man Trickey had used it more frequently liimself, the old tome would have been more pliable, doubtless. However, it is an interesting rehc, and as one fumbles at its discolored leaves, the story of its owner of long years before smacks of reality, and out of the moaning of the sea and the wailing of the wind is readily conjured the tortured and maddened outcries of this devil-doomed sand-man. Poor Mary Greenland seems to be in a fidget about sometliing. It may be that this air does not agree with her, or her husband is inclined to object to her rambhng about nights, as it was said she was wont to do in her yoimger days. She was reputed to have a famihar spirit, but she was twenty years in advance of the times. She died soon after, 1684, quietly and decently; but had she not been in such haste, she might ultimately have been considered at the Min- istry House at old Salem village, and her earthly exit would probably have been no less certainly accomplished, but with it would have come the fame of martyrdom, and the seal of a high, oflicial sanction. If the Greenland woman had not been born so soon, I think the depositions of Deborah Lockwood and Deborah Phenix, wives of reputable men of 314 OLD YORK Ejttery, would have made her eligible to the Nineteen Club of Salem. "These deponents testify that Mary Pearse did say when Alexander Jones did sail out of Piscattaqua River with Ellinor and Sarah Pearse and John Pearse about November or December last a violent storm did arise and Mary Greenland ye wife of Henry Greenland did then appear or ye devill in her Ukeness, that she was known by hir voice, namely, Mary Greenland further saith ye sd Mary Pearse did say that liir father did se ye sd Mary Greenland start out of a bush wch made liir fathers haire stand on end for feare." This "hearsay" was taken February 18, 1669. Ann Lin, "being summoned saith that this depo- nent being at her mother Lockwoods house Mary Pears was there and this said Mary Pears was talk- ing about some witches that should be about Alix- ander Jones boat when they were going to the south- ward and Mary Pears did say after tliis discourse that her father goeing out to seeke liis cowes that Mrs. Greenland did start out of a bush and did fright her father, or the devill in her Ukeness, and further saith not." This was incubated in the following March. Greenland was shortly after banished the town, and imdoubtedly this deposition-ridden woman went with liim. Greenland was a contentious sort of a fellow, and no doubt wherever he went about Kit- tery he found foul weather brewing. Mistress Greenland's reputation as a witch fades into the commonplace beside that of Aunt Polly OLD YORK 315 and the Booker woman. Aunt Polly's hut was in a secluded part of the town, the immediate vicinage of which was known, in doubtful euphony, as witch- haunted, malodorous Brimstone Hill. Here she held malignant sway, and it was here the credulous folk of her time came with their good-will offerings of what the old hag was supposed to be most fond of, all the time taking good care to keep beyond the noose of her famous witch-bridle. From time to time I caught furtive glances in her direction, on the part of Skipper Mitchell, as if his experience at her hands were not utterly forgotten, and he seemed to be going over those days when he had the Vesper beached, and with liis ship's crew was hurrying her repairs for his summer fishing cruise. She of all the fleet hereabout had been left behind, and the skipper spent the most of his time in storming and urging and cursing the slowness of the work. " Dod-gast it, th' Vesper wunt git oot o' Chauncey's Cove 'n all summer!" he roared. "To work, marlin- spiks! to work!" AVork as they would the Vesper hugged her muddy berth, until one day came when the boys got word there was to be a jollification at Bra'boat Harbor. They wanted to go, but the sldpper ob- jected ^vith a roar and an outburst of fury that made his previous rhetorical pretensions tamely flat and innocuous. "Dod-gast it, th' Vesper '11 sail on th' fust tide,, termorrer!" 316 OLD YORK So the men wrought, with here and there a murmur, as the calking-hammers lapsed in their rhythm. When night came the Vesper was ready for sea. By sun-up of the following day the skipper betook himself to where the Vesper lay idly at anchor, and he forgot for the once his raucous objurgations in his amaze. The tide was well out, and there lay the Vesper without shore or spur, with a brace of heavy spars outreaching from her larboard rail, on which were huge fish-tubs filled with water. And then he stormed up and down the mud; and the neighbors came to see, while the tide crept still farther do^\T:i the flats, until the Vesper's keel could be made out its length; and still the staunch schooner sat erect, when the weight to larboard should have throwTi her with a disastrous crash upon her bilge. And so the Vesper stood, as jauntily as if the tide were at its flood, her garboard streak showing above the mud, while the wind whistled crazily through her rigging. Then some one said, "Skipper, she ' teched,' sure." "Dod-gasted, ef she haint, er she'd a bilged afore this!" "Thet 's ol' Polly's wuk," whispered another. And the Skipper Mitchell bethought himself of his crew. But they were all at Bra'boat Harbor, and as the sun went down, they turned up to a man; and when the tide was full, they emptied the tubs and housed the spars, and with a jolly "Heav.-o!" up came the anchor. The sheets were braced, and the Vesper swung her nose to seaward, and at dusk she was far away in the offing. OLD YORK 317 Sure enough, they had consulted Aunt Polly. She told them to go to the jolhfication; "she'd tek keer o' th' schooner." This is one of Aunt Polly's liveliest traditions, and credence is given to the tale by some of the Battery sea-dogs, who, if one will listen, will spin many another queer yarn, with their voices pitched to the subdued key of a spinning-wheel's murmurous song. And one always catches the name of Betty Booker, once the flush-board is off the dam. These two skippers, Mitchell and Perkins, were both Kittery salts, but of the two. Skipper Perkins was the worst curried. Old Betty Booker wanted some fish, and she suggested her need to the skipper, " Bring me a bit o' hal'but, skipper, when you git in—" "Show me your sixpence, ma'am," was the thrifty reply. And with an ill-boding scowl, and a shake of — "Her wicked head, with its wild gray hair, And nose of a hawk, and eyes like a snake," she watched the skipper sail away. The sea beat him up and down. The gale tore liis sails, and the fish sheered away from his trawls. His men got sick, and his schooner came home poorer than she went. Then it got bruited about that Betty Booker was making a witch-bridle for the skipper, and was going to ride him down to York some wild night; whereat, the skipper, when it came to his ears, got into a mortal terror. He was sure to be at home, 318 OLD YORK always, before dusk; and his doors were barred double, and he quaked and shivered and shook until the sun came up. Finally Betty sent the skipper word that the first stormy night she would ride him to York. Then he waited for the storm, and the storm came. The rain drove across Chauncey's Creek in blinding sheets; the winds WTenched and tore at the trees along shore, shaking the gables of the houses. Folk huddled about their slow fires with so much wet coming down the chimneys, and whispered awe- somely that the witches were out. Skipper Perkins not only barred his door double, but he piled all the movable furniture in liis rooms against it, and then he waited for Betty Booker; nor was she long in coming. An unearthly wail came down the wind, and there was a scratching of a hmi- dred witch-claws on his door, and above all sounded the cracked notes of Betty Booker's voice, — "Bring me a bit o' hal'but, skipper!" But the skipper piled the furniture higher against the door, and pushed against it with all his strength. "Bring me a bit o' hal'but, skipper!" With cry of the hag, the gale rose higher, and with rougher buffetings it smote the old door that was built to look out on the sea; and then it began to open so the skipper felt a spatter of rain on his face. He heard the wild chatter of the witches, but he still held to his pushing, until he felt himself sliding along the rough floor. He made a leap for his bed, winding himself about in its coverings; the door OLD YORK 319 flew open and in trooped the witches. They pounced upon the skipper, and stripped him to his skin; and while he cowered in his fear, old Betty bridled him and got upon his back, while the other witches climbed upon hers, and off they raced through the gale to York Harbor. When he lagged, they pricked him with their claws to make him go the faster; and so they rode him as long as they wished, to get him back to Kittery before cock-crow, more dead than alive. "Don't say sixpence, skipper, to a poor old woman, again," was Betty Booker's parting admonition, as she and her familiars vanished into the mists of the darkest part of the night. After that the skipper took to his bed, where for three weeks he nursed his wounds and told Ms story to liis neighbors. In one of the old houses of Ettery, a part of which was being torn down not long ago, an old witch- bridle was found between the lathing and the outside boarding. It was made of the hair of the tail of a horse, strands of tow, and the inside bark of the yellow birch. A woman who happened to be pres- ent loiew what it was, and seizing it with the tongs threw it into the fire. That there were such things seems to be well authenticated. There were witches in York, but they seem to have been of the harmless sort, who never raised anything but a heavy gale to break down the corn or topple over a chimney. One hears about black Dinah and her "weather-pan." Black Dinah Hved 320 OLD YORK in York, and her hut stood on a rock at the inter- section of three roads, and it overlooked the okl mill-dam on York River. Her warming-pan when she put it over the fire was productive of great atmospheric disturbances. It was a Pandora's box of the whole gamut of tempestuous phenomena, — flooding rains, hurricanes, and even earthquakes. She was here in York as early as 1770, and was an object of avoidance by the credulous. Easter Booker was her contemporary in York. She slept at night with her head in Kittery and her feet in York. Emery speaks of her as bearing a striking resemblance to the biblical portrait of Lucinda, the Endor woman of Saul's acquaintance. In later years, Easter Booker disappeared and was never afterward seen. She may have been the Betty of the Skipper Perkins yarn; but that does not matter much. The yarn holds its dye just the same. It must have been a quaint people to have absorbed so much of these quaint tales, according supernatural powers to a bit of hair, some tow, and a strip of birch bark; but the taint is in the blood of their posterity after a fasliion even now. As has been before noted, in 1711 there were twenty-one garrison houses in York. There were in 1690 ten garrisons in lower Kittery; in upper Kit- tery there were eight. A hst of them has, fortu- nately, been preserved. In the upper part of Kittery was the Frost garrison, and doubtless there was an old place of defence on the site of what is now Fort M'Clary. In its early days, this was Fort WilHams, OLD TORE 321 and here was a substantial block house, but it was probably of later construction. William Pepperrell's and the Widow Champemo^vne's were two of those in lower Kjttery. The establishment of these garri- sons was important; and it is undoubtedly due to the fact that so many were maintained, that the settlers of this portion of the province were able to THE FROST GARRISON HOUSE maintain a footing, and to preserve some semblance of occupation of this end of York. Accorchng to the town records in 1722, there were thirty-six garrisons. These were established by the military officers of Kittery, and there seem to be twelve of them, and among the names appear those of William Pepperrell and William Pepperrell, Jr. Until 1675 these settlers had lived in peace with the savages, though there is a tradition extant that in 1648 — another date of 1650 is given — Nicholas 322 (^LD YORK Frost's wife and daughter were killed in Berwick, upper Kittery. This is to be doubted, however, as there was at that time no Indian outbreak; nor is there any mention of the occurrence in the Kittery records. To follow the tradition, Nicholas Frost and his son were away from their home on Leighton's Point, and in their absence the women were spirited away. When the Frosts came home and discovered what had happened, they set out in hot pursuit, over- taking the savage marauders. A fight took place, and the son, Charles, a boy of seventeen, shot two of the Indians, one of whom was a chief. The next day the wife and daughter were found tomahawked and scalped. How much truth there may be in the tale, or any other tale of a similar character, and of a happening so far away, is hardly worth the discuss- ing. They were rough times, and there are always isolated cases which are classed among the excep- tions. The outbreak, instigated by King Philip, came in 1675. It was in June the first blow was struck at the Plymouth people. From thence it crept by quick repetition along the line of the frontier, until it reached Richard Tozier's, who lived a bit above Salmon Falls. Tozier was away with Captain John Wincoll, but the garrison house was close by, and the fifteen people who happened to be in the house stole from the door at its rear and made for the garrison, while an eighteen-year-old girl held the door until it was de- molished by the hatchets of the savages. The girl was tomahawked and left behind, to recover and OLD YOllK 323 live to tell the tale for maii}^ years after. The result of this raid, the first of many in this section, was the capture of one woman, and the slaughter of a three- year-old child. The next day, the smokes of Win- coil's home went rolling off over the Berwick woods. This was the beginning hereabout of a series of savage reprisals that only ended with the death of James Pikernell in 1812, who fell almost across his own threshold. Tradition has it that his wife was slain at the same time. Berwick seemed to be the point upon which these attacks were principally focussed. That was due, perhaps, to its being more thinly settled, it being upon the outskirts of Kittery, which at that time was a populous and prosperous settlement. Through- out this entire Indian warfare, lower Kittery suffered least of her neighbors. But the story of the Indian warfare that ebbed and flowed intermittently about the frontier of upper Kittery, and thence along toward the marshes of Scarborough, are as much the story of York as of the immediate locality of the savage episode. Authentic records of many of the most stirring events of the times are not to be had; but their lines were painted in such ruddy hue as to have been trans- mitted to succeeding generations along with the ruddy life-currents nursed from the bosoms of mrny a heroic survivor of those far-away midnight raids, when a wild whoop, or a glare of flame on the sky, carried the tale of butchery and devastation, Marconi- like, far over the tops of the woods to other isolated 324 OLD YORK cabins, whose inmates, driving their stock afield, shouldered their children and hastened to the near- est garrison house, there to await the onslaught that was sure to come; and woe betide the laggard whose slow wit or whose bellicose disposition lost time in so doing. Once behind these stout walls, the settlers were comparatively safe from a foe that rarely showed itself, imless \dctory were so certain that the added element of terror at the sight of the painte;! devils would make the paleface a readier prey. The Indian was a skulker; an aboriginal bush- whacker; a blood-besotted malignant of the devil; and had Pope met one of these fiends on the warpath, it is doubtful if he would have perpetrated, — "the poor Indian, whose untutored mind Sees God in the clouds and hears Him in the wind." He would at least have thought it something of a strain on his conscience, w^hich hardly poetic hcense could justify, especially after the hair-raising possi- bilities common to the unfortunate captive. To look over the ground at this day, it is a wonder that a smgle wliite person east of the Piscataqua River should have survived the devilish ingenuity of Moxus, and the military skill of Portneuf and Labocree. These garrison houses were their salva- tion, and they were scattered at short intervals the length of the coast from the Piscataqua to Falmouth. They were built by the settlers at their owti expense, and Massachusetts showed little anxiety as to their probable fate. In Kittery the people were so im- OLD YORK 325 poverished by their efforts to protect themselves, that after the peace the General Court was asked to abate the taxes by the selectmen. East of Wells the province was laid waste. There were fourteen years that Falmouth was deserted, and in that time it had relapsed into a wilderness. Going back to the locality of the Tozier cabin, in CUTT GARRISON HOUSE, KITTERY October of 1675, out of the s'lonce of the autumn afternoon burst the whoops of a hundred savages. The family was surprised, and overwhelmed by numbers, notwithstanding Tozier made a brave re- sistance. He was killed and his son carried into captivity; and through the painted woodlands of Berwick filtered or drifted the smokes of his rude home. Lieut. Roger Plaisted was in command of the 326 OLD YORK garrison house, and sent out a reconnoitring party of nine men. They had not gone far into the under- brush, when a hail of shot fell about them, and just a third of their number dropped, while the other six got their legs, and made the garrison safely. The day following, a relay was despatched for the bodies. It w\as a cart dra^Mi by oxen, with an escort of twenty men. They must have presented a curious sight in such a time of peril to have gone in such a foolhardy way about the enterprise. The result was what might have been expected. A cloud of musket smoke rolled away from the wall and over the tops of the bushes, and the Uttle party was almost entirely annihilated. Plaisted himself was cut down by a hatchet. It was twenty against a hmidred, and this was the way the settler was to make the acquaintance of the Indian method of making war. Just before these men left the garrison, Plaisted and one John Broughton made up an appeal for aid, and had sent it out by a rmmer. What happened to the garrison after that can only be conjectured, as it reciuired but one or two more foolish expeditions of the sort to render it defenceless. As one goes over the railroad bridge at Salmon Falls, a look out the car window to the northward will show a pleasant hillslope. This is a part of the old Plaisted estate, and if one were making a foot ' jaunt along the yellow thread of the highway that creeps over and beyond its crest, one might see the memorial that brings the gruesome tale to mind. Any one who is at all acquainted with the history OLD YORK 327 of that period will recall the capture of Major Wal- tlron of Dover in his bed, and how the Indians crossed out their several accounts with him, but they may not be so well acquainted with the stimulus to this midnight vengeance. Waldron, and Captain Charles Frost, who Hved in upper Kittery, by strategem cap- tured two hundred Indians at Cocheco. They got up a sham fight; invited the savages, and this was Waldron's ruse. They were sent to Boston to be dealt with; some were executed summarily for the out- rages in which they had been engaged, but the larger portion of them were disposed of to the slave-dealer. It is a matter of history how Waldron met his fate; as for Frost, his turn came in time. The Indian memory is famous, as famous as liis hate; and like the Harmons of York, he was doomed as certainly as if he had midergone the solemnity of a trial, and had been remanded to the jail to await his execution. Not long after the Tozier tragedy, a peace was en- tered into which lasted until 1689, when the deposing of James II., and the espousing of the cause of the legitimacy by Louis XIV., led to a declaration of hostilities between the English under William and Mary, and the French interference. It was the op- posing of Jesuit to Protestant. The colonies became involved, and the French interests in Canada were only too eager to take advantage of so advantageous an opportunity to set the savages of eastern Maine at the heels of the English settler, whose area of occupation east of York had increased notably through the preceding ten years of security. 328 OLD YORK The storm burst upon Salmon Falls and Quam- pliegan, and quoting from the letter of William Vauglin and Richard Martyn, one gets the local flavor and a sensing of the deep feehng of desperation which pervaded the hearts of these people. This letter was written the day following the butchery at Salmon Falls. It bears date "March 18, 1689-80," and a full quotation is given. "Yesterday we gave accot of ye dreadful destruc- tion of Salmon ffalls the perticulers whereof please take as followeth; ''The enemy made their onset between break of the day & sunrise — when most were in bed & no watch kept neither in the fort nor house they presently took possession of ye fort to prevent any of ours doing it & so carried all before them by a surprize, none of our men being able to get together into a body to oppose them, so that in the place were kild & taken between fourscore & 100 persons, of wch between twenty & Thirty able men, the fort & upards of twenty houses burnt, most of the Cattle burnt in the houses or otherwise kil'd which were very con- siderable from thence the Enemy proceeded to Quamphegon where lived onely Thomas Homes who upon the Alarm retired from his house to a small garrison built near his saw mill wheither also some of Salmon Falls yt made their Escape fled, about 30 of the Enemies surrounded Homes house, but met with noe opposition there till fourteen men of ours came up from ye lower parts of ye Town, & unde- scryed by ye Enemy, made a shot upon ye party of OLD YORK 329 Indians at homes houe, Sundry of ym standing before the door, at wch shot they say thre of the Enemy fell, ye rest run mto the house & broke through ye backside thereof, & being more numerous than ours forced our men to retire, nine of them got safe home & five Escaped to Holmes Garrison, only one of ours woimded in the Encounter, then the Enemy burnt Holmes house & proceeded about a mile lower down, and burnt the ministrs house wth two more & As- saulted Spencers Garrison but were repel'd and so retir'd. James Plaisted who was taken at Salmon falls was sent by Hope Hood (Commandr in chief of the Indians) wth a flag of Truce to Tho. Holmes for ye surrendr of his Garrison — promising liberty to depart upon his soe doing, but Plaisted returned not nor was ye Garrison surrendered. "The sd Plaisted who was in ye Enemies hands many houres Informed yt he saw of ye Enemy one hundred & fifty men well accoutred & Guesses them to be about one half ffrench; upon their taking possession he saith that ten of them ffrench & Indians made A dance wch Hope hood told him were all officers, he also told him that his brother Gooden who lived in Loves house was going to be tryed for his life by A Councill of Warr; for yt in their takeing Loves house the said Gooden had kil'd one ffrench man & mortally wounded another & further that there was Eight ffrench ships designed for Pascataque River to destroy ye same. '' The Alarm being given to all adjacent Towns in ordr to their releife we sent about thirty men from 330 ^LD YORK this Town, as many went from Dover, & a party from Yorke together wth wt could be got from their own town, but before they could unite their force it was neare night & then they marcht wth about 100 men under Command of Capt Jo. Hammond Comandr of ye upper part of Kittery, the scouts yt went before just as they came within sight of Salmon falls dis- covered one of ye Enemy who was binding up his pack & staying behinde his Company fell into our hands wch proved to be a ffrenchman whose exam- ination in short we herewth send to you & to- morrow morning mtend to send the persons towards you by land, none by Water being just ready to goe; our fforces proceeded in pursuit of ye Enemy & about 2 mile above ye ffort of Salmon falls at the farther house up in the woods there discovered them about ye setting of ye sunn, our men presently fell upon them & they as resolutely oppos'd them, in short the fight lasted as long as they could see friends from Enemies, in wch we lost two men, one of York another of Cocheco kil'd upon ye place & 6 or 7 woimded some is feared mortally; wt damage we did the Enemy we. can't at present say. Tliis is all ye accot we can at present Give ; tomorrow mtend you shall hear againe from us; we Intrem Subscribe ourselves, — " This is- known as the m.assacre of Newichawannock. Hartel was at the head of the French, and Hopehood, chief of the Kennebecki, led the savages. Twenty- seven cabms were burned in the raid; two hmidred cattle slaughtered: thirty-four persons were slain, and fifty-four women and children were carried into OLD YORK 331 captivity. The settlers of York, Kittery, and adjoin- ing settlements made a brave defence against tre- mendous odds ; and in those days they always seemed to have the odds to contend with, so isolated were their homes and so limited their means for taking the needed precautions. Every cabin above Quamphegan Falls had been destroyed, and the country thereabout deserted or depopulated. It was evident, however, that the savage lurked about the locality through the summer; for cabins were burned at Newichawannock and their dwellers scalped the followmg May, and later in September. After this there was an apparent cessation of this predatory surveillance; the leaves had dropped and the snow had hidden them. Other snows came, and the winter was on. The Indian had forsaken the trail of the settler. East of Wells the country had been stripped of the English. Not a garrison house remained, and only those of York and Wells had escaped the general disaster of this savagery. These block houses were of the most sub- stantial character, and presented outwardly the characteristics of impregnability, with the means of offensive assault limited to the axe antl the musket. Most of them were without the palisade, Larra- bee's, perhaps, being the only one of that kind. Most of them were under the direction of experienced and resolute men, whose guidance and courageous exam- ples were an incentive to a like spirit among those upon whom they depended for assistance. The women of the times, like their husbands and brothers, 332 OLD YORK were fertile in resource and abundant in heroic spirit. There were in Wells perhaps a half dozen of these strongholds; in York twice as many. In Kittery there were perhaps as many as in York and Wells together. But the scene of these butcheries was soon to be shifted from the rim of these settlements to their centres. York was a considerable place, possessed of local prominence m the province. Its people were pros- perous and of an intelligent and progressive char- acter. The prestige of old Gorgeana still attached to it, and as a settlement of the earliest days it pos- sessed a stability that was well represented by the Se walls and other families of like scholarly pretensions. This was what would have been the conclusion of the observer on the fourth day of February of 1692. By sunrise of the following day the old town was in ashes and practically destroyed, and of its population one hundred and fifty had fallen by the tomahawk or had been carried into captivity toward Canada. The winter had been a severe one; the snow lay deep, and the drifts were piling higher every day. Along the white sea of the cleared lands stood the dark green of the woodland agamst the sky, that with the coming of the winter season had lost its sinister suggestion. In these days of deepening cold it could afford but little of comfort or safety to the lurking savage who found its leafy coverts in summer so con- venient to his ideas of warfare. With no likelihood of ambush, of treacherous musket shot or predatory force, the settlers had lapsed into a feeling of mid- OLD YORK 333 winter security. There were signs of dawn along the eastern sky. Here or there, perhaps, an isolated thread of smoke unwound its spiral mystery from off the spindle of the cabin chimney, as its dweller had raked open the coals of his rude hearth. Otherwise the settlement was wrapped in slumber. The sharp report of a musket shot broke the frosty quiet — the signal for simultaneous attack upon the scattered houses of York. There was no time for all to reach the garrisons, yet perhaps one half succeeded in so doing. The savages had come in upon snow-shoes, like dusky spectres; an hour later every house out- side the four block houses was in ashes, and the Indians and French had drifted away with their human prey as noiselessly as they had come. This was York's first savage visitation of any importance, and its desolation was supreme. It was during the winter of 1692 that the Indians hovered about the settlements of southeastern Maine, to the great terror of the settlers, but York at that time had not been scourged to its utmost. There was always a feeling of security with the deepening of the winter snows, and the settlers relaxed some- what of their usual vigilance. The woodland was clogged with repeated snowfalls; but one morning young Bragdon left the York hamlet to go into the forest upon some errand of need, or perhaps to look after his traps. Making his way softly among the bent foliage of the evergreens, he came, much to his surprise, upon a stack of snow-shoes. A granite boulder marks the place. A single glance sharpened 334 OLD YORK his wits, and their Indian fashioning was sufficiently convincing. He immediately retraced his way, floundering through the snow-smothered under- growth of brush, making speed for Indian Head as the nearest hiding-place. He gained the shelter of the rocks, and while regaining his wind discovered an Indian dog nosing at his heels. The cur's muzzle SNOW-SHOE ROCK was tied with thongs to prevent the animal from giving tongue, and thereby betray the presence of the savage horde undoubtedly at his back. Young Bragdon again fled, making for the river, which he followed, the dog still trailing after. Fear lent wings to his feet, and he kept on until he found a boat into which he leapt, and was soon across the river. The Smith cabin was close by, and as he fell across its threshold, he told his tale breathlessly, and the alarm OLD YORK 335 was given, so that those on the south side of the river escaped. A moment later and the whoops of the Indians echoed across the stream. The attack had begun. Few settlers on the east side escaped. Among those who got away was young Jeremiah Moulton, who afterward, with Captain Harmon, planned the raid on Norridgewack, in 1724, which resulted in the death of Rasle and the destruction of that nest of conspiracy. There was safety nowhere. Danger lurked within the shadows of every hedge or weed-garnished fence. After a time the settlers made a practice of carrying the gun, and while thus armed were seldom attacked. The savage was wary. His first care was to avoid personal injury to himself. Next to that were the scalps, the number of them, and the importance of their former owners; and to the accomplishment of these, the settlement must not be alarmed. To attack an armed settler was to provoke a conflict; a musket shot in those days was a danger signal that sent the women and children to the garrisons and the men to scouring the woods for the cause. As the days went the settler lost his fear of the Indian. He fought him as he would a wild beast, in self-defence, until the Indian found in the pale-face the hunter for the hunted. So the savage preferred the silent axe, or the knife, sped on its fatal mission in the hesitation of a terror-stricken surprise. It was in this way that two years after the tragedy of York, the savages betrayed their presence about Spruce Creek, when three settlers, two men and a woman, were slain in 336 OLD YORK the field while laboring amid their crops. Four days afterward eight others were killed and scalped at Long Reach. Capt. Joseph Hammond went across lots in search of a stray cow that had failed to come up with the herd the next day. He found the cow and the Indians foimd Captain Hammond. It was a savage ruse, and after lying in the open on Raitt's Hill over night, securely bound, his captors took him along w^ith them, after an unsuccessful assault upon his garrison. Here is the quaint relation of the matter by Captain Frost, who was a party to "Waldron's Ruse," and who in less than two years was to follow Major Waldron, though not in so brutal and bloodthirsty a fashion. Frost's letter bears date, Sept. 7th, 1695. " On Lords day last the enemie alarmed Wels by shotting of many guns in the woods nere the garisons; on Monday A party of Souldiers from Berwick & York went out, noe signe of them, only secerall Cowes wanting that were wont to Com home. On Wensday mornmg last the Indianes beset Capt. Hammonds garison at Kittery, a bout thirty of them as they Judge, wonded one man in the garison throu both thies. they being Close imder the garri- son, put his gun throu a Little Craves of the polosa- does, there being but fower menn in the garison at that time: they beete them of Soe they went a waie into the woods, Carrying a waie three of thire wonded menn. Left behind them a french pistol, hatchet, a small bag in which was his beads, Cruisefix, Ahna- OLD YORK 337 nick, & som other trumperey; leaving much blood behind them a bout the garison. The same day they were on the upper end of York, and a bout the Same number: our menu have bin rangin the woods: Cannot meete with them: som scoulking Indian have bin sen since in our towne: guns heard go of in the if OLD CONCORD BRIDGE woods: this I thought it my Duty to Informe yo'r Honour:" July 4, 1697, came on the Sabbath, but the bell-ringers of Philadelphia had not at that time cracked the Liberty Bell to round out the historic episode of Concord Bridge. There was a church at Great Works, on what was called in the ancient deeds Little Newichawannick River. It was here that Chadbourne, Mason's agent, in 1634 built the first mills in the new province of Maine. After Mason 338 OLD YORK died, and Francis Norton had driven off the cattle to Boston, and the servants had completed the strip- ping of the estate, the mills lapsed into disuse and decay. Nothing was done here after that until 1651, when the towii vested in Richard and George Leader, the use of the water-power and the lands on either side of the river within a ciuarter of a mile. George Leader settled here the same year. Ten years after, Joseph Mason brought a suit for damages in the Norfolk County Court against Richard, "for build- ing and erecting certaine houses on our lands at Newitchewanick ... & for cutting downe our tymber there to erect a saw mill in our Antitnt pos- sessed place whereon wee formerly began and doe intende to pceedinye like worke imeadiately." The Leaders had built a serviceable saw mill and put in the first gang-saw ever seen hereabout. There were nineteen saws in the gang, which created great wonderment, so that the neighborhood described the mill as a place where "great workes" were to be done. So the place became generally known as Great Works ; and the name attached itself to the river as well. One finds it so recorded in the records of the town as early as 1663. Eighteen years after the building of this mill, its projectors were dead. The over-shot mill-wheels were silent, and the stream began to run free once more. Here is the inventory, made in 1669, as one will see by a glance at the York records — " A broaken house ready to fall, & a barne much out of repayre, two orchards without fence with a Tract of Lands lijing OLD YORK oo; on both sides the River esteemed at foure hundred Acers more or less granted by the Town, Meddow at Tottanocke & at boabissa pond, & Whittes & Parkers Marsh, the broaken mill with the Irons & Vtensills, the Falls & Tymber grant, the Smyths shopp with bellows Anvell, beckhorne vice Sledg Hannner & STURGEON CREEK WAREHOUSE some ould Irons, ffoure halfe hundred weightts, An Iron beame, an ould Copper & an ould kettle, & two ould Iron potts," all of the value of £493. This was old Quamphegan, better knowTi in these hurrying days, as South Berwick. It was here that church s rvice was first inaugurated, for John Mason sent over with his pioneer colonists (which was in 1631), a communion set, also a "great Bible and twelve Service Books." The service was of the Episcopalian order, and I have no doul^t but the ser- 340 OLD YORK vice of the Church was read, and that the laborers joined in the saying of the responses and the creed with bowed heads and an accompanying reverence. As early as 1640 fines were imposed for such viola- tions of the Sabbath as occurred, which may be taken as an indication of the sanctity with which this day was thus early clothed. This, in 1668, was known as the parish of Unity. Stackpole concludes that the first meeting-house here was built about 1659; but the service seems to have been of a somewhat desultory character, as this parish was presented to the court four several times in as many years, ''for not providing a minister." It was from this old church that Captain Frost was returning on that summer morning of 1697, in com- pany with Dennis Downing, Jolm Heard and his wife Phoebe. They had reached a point in the bridle- path of those days, opposite a huge boulder, which was about a mile away to the north from the Frost garrison house. The sharp reports of three gmis broke the silence. Captain Frost and Downing were killed instantly. The Heard woman, although sorely wounded, tried to regain her saddle but was unable to do so. Falling back into the path, Spartan-like she urged her husband to ride for the cabin and place the children in safetj^, which he did, notwithstanding the savages chased him and shot his horse under him just as he got to the garrison. He saved his house and his children. Heard was a great Indian fighter, and the Indians were desirous to obtain his scalp. They lurked about his place OLD YORK 341 to finally come across him in the woods. Heard ran and the Indians gave chase. He remembered a hollow log in the woods and made for that, into which he crept, thereby evading his pursuers. He had killed his dog, so he might not be betrayed by .15? //^^/ ^^ AMBUSH ROCK that faithlul animal, and while thus concealed the savages came to the log. Here they sat down to get their wmd, and he listened to what they would do to John Heard when they caught him. The body of Frost was decently buried, and the night after these ghouls of the woods had opened the 342 OLD YORK grave and taken the body to the crest of Frost's Hill and impaled it upon a stake. Such was their hatred of the man who helped to plan and carry out the trick which has come down in history as AYaldron's Ruse. This boulder still cleaves to its pasture side and is known as Ambush Rock. Both Waldron and Frost paid their debt dearly. For the next year there were a half-dozen isolated cases of savage assault and butchery in the neigh- borhood of Spruce Creek; and then came a period of peace that lasted about four years, wdien the conflict known as Queen Anne's War began, and Kittery was again infested. The previous depredations had im- poverished the old town. A severe drain had been made upon its man and womanhood. Many had been killed or carried into captivity. Property had been destroyed; houses and barns and cattle in con- siderable numbers had been swept away. Wher- ever religious services were had, the rattle of the musket stock could be heard against the rude floors; the men as they went to and from church carried their guns, while the good wife carried her Bible. On one of the last days of the first month, 1704, a mornmg attack was made on the Andrew Neal garri- son. Captain Brown, who was in charge, made a vig- orous defence, and the Indians w^ere repulsed with some loss. A girl was killed, a boy was shot, but got away. Several houses were burned and many cattle destroyed. Penhallow says nine Indians were killed "on the spot," and many more were woimded. In the following May a descent was made on Spruce OLD YORK 343 Creek, in which York was inckicled, but this was about the last inroad of a serious character until 1712, when twenty-six persons were killed or carried away captive in Wells, York, and Kittery. It was a desul- tory warfare, and difficult to oppose successfully, owmg to the character of the offending savage. After the attack on York, in 1692, the savages do not seem to have been accompanied by the French. The de- vastations committed after that date seem to have been the work of small parties of roving Indians, whose glut of blood and fire was apparently never to be satisfied; and it is to the zeal of the French Jesuits at Norridgewack and on the Penobscot that this savage deviltry and fiendish butchering of women and children, this half-century reign of terror to the settler, is chargeable. As late as 1745 the settlers carried their gmis as they went to divine service; and almost every third house had been made over into a garrison. There is hardly a headland, point, or re- cess of shore along the York coast that has not its tradition or legend of Indian foray. If one should try to relate them all, an ordinary volume would not suf- fice. It was a lurid stage, and the scenes shifted with the hands on the clock face, from the somid of the moanmg tide to the purling of some woodland brook ; from the clustered roofs of York hamlet to the iso- lated cabin in the wilds of Quamphegan. . A new act was ushered in with every new scene, and the tragedy went on amid a chorus of discordant yells, intermit- tent musket shots, and the riotous crackling of burn- ing houses. 344 OLD YORK York and Kittery were communities of fortified houses, and at last the colonial government gave as high as fifty pounds bounty for a single Indian scalp, and at an ultimate cost of above a thousand pounds. Utter extermination of the Indian became the recog- nized policy of the colony. Old York did not suffer in proportion as did the settlements about it. Wells, on the northeast, took the brunt in that direction; on the south and west Kittery and Berwick extended a sheltering barrier. North of Berwick was a wilderness which made a most convenient covert for the predatory and cow- ardly savage, from which he could emerge and to which he could as swiftly retire after having wreaked his vengeance, to be practically beyond pursuit. In the later years of the Indian warfare, pursuits were organized and relentlessly persisted in. The settler once having learned the trick, fought the Indian after his own fashion, and with a fair meed of success, and the latter became more cautious in ex- posing himself to the imerring bead of the settler's rifle. Here at York, in 1750, and where the old j^arsonage stood, was a picketed fort, flanked by bastions, and which offered a formidable exterior. Elsewhere about the town were other forts and numerous forti- fied houses that offered but slender prospect of suc- cessful inroad. York's geographical situation was fortunate; and with the raid upon Cape Neddock in 1676, when all the settlers were killed or carried away captive, some forty or more, the surprise of OLD YORK 345 York in 1692, the empty alarm of 1700, and the in- cursion of 1712, with an isolated butchery in adjacent localities, the tragedies of York are historically enum- erated. The hatred of the Indian for those who bore the name of Harmon was proverbial and inveterate, as WHERE HARMON MASSACRED THE INDIANS it was to all such as had at any time offered affront to the race. This enmity toward the Harmons, and, by the way, the Harmons were all good Indian fighters and Indian haters, had its foundation in what was kno\^^l as the "Harmon Massacre," which occurred in the earlier days of the York settlement. The tradition is, that there was an old rookery in earlier York known as the Stacey house. It was located 346 OLD YORK near the gouthwest end of Parish Creek Bridge, and on the crest of the hill which overlooks this stream. Emery notes that it had many legends connected v/ith its history, but of them all, I have but this one. He describes it as' a quaint "old wooden structure, abounding in projections and sharp angles, with an enormous chimney in its center, resting on the de- SITE OF THE OLD STAGEY HOUSE clivity of a hill." The house was at the upper end of the mill-pond, where vessels were wont to come in until the dam was stretched across the stream below. The man, Stacey, who lived here, was an officer under the famous Paul Jones; and the lower portion was reputed to have been used as a trading-place as early as 1630. When the house was demolished in 1870 a human skeleton was found under the hearth. It was said by some, to have been one of Harmon's OLD YORK 347 Indians, which gives this digression something of interest. The Harmons Hved dovm by the sea on the lower side of the settlement. The men were of seafaring habit, hardy and vigorous in physique, and of great personal courage. On one of their sea voyagings, and while they were absent from home, a party of Indians made their way to the Harmon cabin, and STAGEY (PARISH) CREEK BRIDGE while there conducted themselves after an unseemly fashion, so that the women of the Harmon house- hold took serious offence. When the men came in from their trip, the women, still incensed at the untoward behavior of the savages, related the occur- lence, with the result that the culprits and some of their friends of the tribe were invited to a "powwow" on the point near the old Barrelle mill-dam. The 348 OLD YORK Indians came, and what with eating and drinking of rum a great debauch ensued, and which, accord- ing to the tradition, lasted into the night. After getting the Indians into a drunken stupor, the Har- mons killed their guests to a man. The next dawn ushered in the Sabbath, meanwhile the tidings "flew the town," and Father Moody made the tragic episode the subject of his morning discourse in part; and like Elijah, he prophesied in his righteous wrath, that the Harmon name would disappear from among men. It may have so happened in York, but elsewhere the name is common and of good repute. This tragic episode happened in close prox- imity to the old Stacey house, and in a degree is attached to it as part and parcel of its traditions. The name of Harmon will go down with the endur- ing history of the raid upon Norridgewack, and the death of Rasle, and the consequent destruction of that nest of conspiracy against the English settler. One story is often related of Harmon of Norridge- wack fame, and who was for many years the dread of the Tarratmes and Norridgewacks, when their sharpened hearing was alert with the query, " Steals Harmon down from the sands of York, With hand of iron, and foot of cork ?" He was conducting an expedition up the Kenne- bec; like himself, his party of rangers were trained Indian-fighters. Their progress was slow and cau- tious. His foe was as keen of eye, as acute of ear, and as soft of footfall as a wood-cat. Single file, OLD YORK 349 they threaded the dim woods, cutting the shadows of the foliage with a vision as keen as the edge of a knife, stiUing the beats of their hearts as they lis- tened, and then came the smell of a wood fire. It was like the silken strand of Ariadne to lead Harmon straight to the Minotaur of these wilderness woods. Harmon and his men kept to the trail of the smoke, and parting the underbrush he saw twenty Indians stretched upon the leaves, asleep. The light of their fire betrayed them. Mute signs from Harmon indi- cated his plan, and a moment later twenty muskets sent their messengers of death abroad, and the sav- ages, every one, had crossed into the Happy Hunting- grounds. Old York to\\7i has always been notable for its high and generous sense of public duty, its loyalty to right, and its patriotism. In 1772 the freemen of York met to deliberate upon the action of the mother country in matters of taxation, and to pro- test against such infringement on personal rights. The result was a lively protest. In January, 1774, they protested more vigorously yet. In October following they made a substantial contribution to the poor of Boston. On June 5, 1776, the men of York voted to pledge their persons and their money to the Declaration of Independence, should the Con- tinental Congress declare such to be th^ final course of action. The news of Lexington reached old York in the evening of April 20, 1775. There was not a minute- man in town. Twentv-four hours later there were 350 OLD YORK sixty-three such, and accoutred with guns and sup- plies, they were across the Piscataqua before dusk, and were hurrying on to Boston. That April night when the post-rider came in from Boston with his stirring news was a memorable one. He left his horse and his message, and upon a fresh mount, sped away to the eastern towns, as did Paul Revere through the Fells of Middlesex, arousing the silence of the night with his startling cry, ''To arms! To 3UNKER HILL AFTER THE FIGHT arms!" while the rest of his story trai'ed through the dust behind, to be read by the light of the sparks from the hoofs of his flying steed. Johnson Moulton was the leader of this company, the first raised in the Maine province, and to York must be given the honorable distinction of so notable an activity. Moulton was a prominent man in York. He knew something of warfare, having been a captain in the French and ndian conflict. Undoubtedly it was his activity in former times of stres? and hi^ local influence that enabled him to OLD YORK 351 gather so many of the sons of York in so limited a space. After his return from Boston he was lieu- tenant-colonel in Col. James Scammon's regiment. He was in the siege of Boston, imder Col. William Prescott, and later in the Long Island campaign, under Gen. Nat. Greene. After the War of the Revolution had closed he was sheriff of his county Like many a patriot whose deeds have made the A RELIC OF ANCIENT TRADING DAYS fame of others secure, Moulton is forgotten, except as he may be recalled by some scant mention of his name where it may chance to be. Only the anti- quary or the historian can tell one that such an individual ever lived. Just across from Warehouse Point is Jaffrey's, or Fort Point, where Capt. Jolm Mason m the early days of the Gorges and Mason occupation caused a fortification to be erected where ten cannon were moimted in 1666. This armament was of brass 352 OLD YORK ordnance, contributed by the merchants of London. Later a new fort was erected here, and it was this fort that was captured by the "Liberty Boys" of Portsmouth a day or two after Paul Revere made his famous midnight ride through the Fehs of Middle- sex. These "rebels" carried off its armament and its munitions of war, and out of these, one hundred barrels of the king's powder were sent to the Boston provincials, who distributed it hot, with great en- thusiasm, to the Red Coats at Bunker Hill. This empty fort was soon after reoccupied by the British, but in 1775 it was abandoned by them voluntarily. The present lonely and dismantled Fort Constitu- tion was built, partly on the foundation of the original provincial fortification. Near this is a curious cairn of brick, a ruin it is, that has the flavor of mediaeval days, and reminds one of feudal times and moated castles. It is commonly known as the Martelle Tower, as it is modelled after that fashion. A closer inspection will show casemated embrasures, and if one clambers over the debris that fills its entrance a small magazine will be discovered. Its builder was John DeBarth Walbach; before that an officer in Prince Maximilian's Royal Alsace Regiment. In after years he was the commander of this fort. This tower mounted one gun, which seemed to be suffi- ciently effective, as no attack was ever made on the place. It is a quaint relic of the early days hereabout, when the great Pepperrell estate had been confis- cated, and when most of the early settlers of York and Kittery had become traditions. When the sea OLD YORK ooo is still aromid Jeffrey's Point, the old tower is renewed in its emerald deeps, and as one looks at its pictured sombreness, one expects to hear the sharp challenge of its sentinel long ago silenced. But our fire is getting low, and the night is counting its way along by increasing strokes. If one is to stay here longer beside the ancient Junkins hearth, another pitchloiot must go on the fire. I wonder if that woman with the letter A on her sleeve is here. Some of our visitors have slipped out noiselessly, but others have dropped into their places, so one has not missed them. Now I remember it, the last I saw of Betty Booker she had mounted the back of Skipper Perkins and was making off in the direction of Se wall's Bridge. Over m the corner where I thought I saw Mclntire and his two cronies, and caught some- thing of the story of the devil-dighted Trickey, is naught but the dancing of shadows up and down the wall; even the table of deal and the steaming stoup of rum have disappeared. The woman of the red letter has drawn up to tha fire, so I get a fair glimpse of her troubled features. They are fair enough, but there is a suggestion of sullenness and defiance, as if she had not yet forgotten the taunts and jeers that beset her unwillmg ears as she stood in pillory on that day of long ago. There is a swift flooding of this old livmg-room with a flare of flame, and the ear catches off to the westward the muttering of the storm spirit; a low rumbling of thunder that throbs and beats brokenly along the upper marge of Spruce Creek over Kittery 354 OLD YORK way. There is a dash of rain on the roof, whose worn thatch of shingle is so thoroughly weather- seasoned that each, like the belly of a violin, responds audibly to the touch of the rain or even the noise- less footfalls of the wind. They are like sounding- boards, to repeat with a monodic vibration all the notes in the gamut of Nature. I look out the sea- ward window, that is more like a port-hole than any- thing else, and Boon Island Light flashes its ruddy BOON ISLAND LIGHT flame over the waste of waters between, to dwindle to a red stain on the gathering murk, as the rhythm of the rain on the roof begins to mark time with thickened beat. This light tower was built in 1811. With that in mind I recalled that it was one hundred and one years before that that the Nottingham galley, a hundred and twenty ton vessel, carrying ten gims, and a ship's complement of fourteen men, went to pieces on its ragged rocks the night of December 11. OLD YORK 355 It was in the midst of a wintry gale that John Dean, master, reached this part of the coast, on his way to Boston. The Nottingham had come from London, and a day's sail, with a fair wind, would have taken Dean into port; but that was not to be. The gale drove him off his course. The sky was thick with rain, snow, and hail, and the storm swooped down from the northeast with increasing fury, to choke and smother the night into impenetrable obscurity. Boon Island is seven miles off shore from Cape Neddock, the nearest mainland. It is a low reef of ledge, submerged in heavy storms, so the keepers of the light are driven into the tower for safety. Boon Island Ledge is three miles farther out, and is one of the most dangerous reefs on the coast. It was here on Boon Island that the Nottingham struck. All of the men got to the rock safely, but before morning some of their nimiber had succumbed to the incle- mency of the season and the exposure incident to their shelterless condition. They were here ma- rooned, as it were, for twenty-three days, without fire or food other than that afforded by the bodies of their dead companions, which they were forced to consume raw, after the fashion of beasts of prey. Like the sailors of Ulysses on the island of Circe they became transformed into brutes ; and on January 3, 1710, when they were finally discovered by the peo- ple on the York shore, and taken from their perilous situation, they were so emaciated not one of them could stand erect. No other wTeck of such horrible detail has occurred off the York coast. 356 OLD YORK Not far from this old garrison house is Roaring Rock, where there were fortifications in the Revolu- tionary times. There was a fort here in 1812. One can see their scars along its slopes to this day. There was a mythical cave under Sentry Hill, in which are stowed away numerous legends ( f pirates. On Stage Neck was a beacon in the early days which was supported upon a stout pole. Emery relates a humorous tale which is appurtenant to this shore. One dark night a sloop was wrecked here. One of the survivors, questioned as to the cause of the disaster, replied: "The vessel struck, turned over on her side, and the skipper and another barrel of whiskey rolled overboard." The jury brought in their verdict: "We find that the deceased fell from the masthead and was killed; he rolled overboard and was drowned; he floated ashore and froze to death, and the rats eat hun up alive." And no wonder the poor man succumbed to his untoward fate. Th' fire dulls, but I upturn the brands and it breaks out once more into a lively flame to light up tliis antiquated interior anew. Perhaps you have never seen this old Junkins garrison. If such is the fact, let me tell you something about it, and when I have done, perhaps the woman with the scarlet letter will let me into her secret. If the sun were up one could see that this ancient place of refuge has a wide outlook. From its vantage point of hilltop the river and the lowlands that make its pleasant marge are in sight. The lands break away in all OLD YORK 357 directions in these days, for it is like a city set on a hill that cannot be hid. In its early days the woods hereabout were more compact, more dense; and doubt- less the view was not so charming or i-uggestively bucolic. It was, however, from its location not easily approachable from any point, without dis- covery by the alert sentmel, who it is not milikely was on the watch for savage incursion in the troublous times that held this region for almost three quarters of a century in bands of lively terror or anxiety. It is an old rookery as one sees it now, and the rain and snow beat in upon its rough floors, and the winds make weird noises as they search out the nooks and crannies that widen with the years. Its huge chim- ney and its great square lum-head have the appear- ance of great stability and ancientness of construc- tion. It must date from somewhere about 1640, though some annalists do not accord it so great an age, yet it must have been contemporary with the buildmg here of the Mcln tires. The argument is put forward that this early date is not to be accepted, because the Indian outbreaks did not occur until many years after the middle, even, of the seven- teenth centuiy. But that does not hold, as one finds in the older portions of Massachusetts in these mod- ern days relics of the times before King Philip's War whose style of architecture is similar to that of th?se York garrison houses. They have the same projecting roofs and widely ( verhanging upper storias. One can see them in Boston, of which, per- hap3, the most notable specimen is the I ouee of Paul 358 OLD YORK Revere, on old Salem Street. Nor is there anything unreasonable in ascribing the building of this Junkins house to so early a period, though Drake is inclined to believe otherwise. These early settlers but fol- lowed the style of the old houses they knew in the motherland, except that perhaps they might have been of larger and more cuml^rous construction. Its great chimney is a curiosity in its way; and the great fireplace that even now disports its ancient crane, and the great timbers that everywhere stick out or protrude like the libs of a lean horse, keep it consistent and suggestive companionship. If one should happen hither of a tempestuous night, as I have, and perchance kindle a fire upon its broken hearth, they might, like myself, see strange sights and hear strange and uncouth sounds. If one had a piece of aloes and the magic word of Gulnare, this crackling blaze would be all needed to bring hither its familiars after a more substantial fashion than the vagaries that haunt the brain after the intangible fashion of dreams and such like empty imaginings. No doubt it would be a startling experience, yet one is not entirely free from his sensing of the uncanny, as he searches the footmarks of a long-dead race, or listens, with a stilled breathing wrapped about with the thick shadows of the night tide, for a long-silent footfall. Tliis old Jimkins garrison is a forsaken thing, the quintessence of lonely dejection, at least in appear- ance. But my fire is dowTi once more, and the room grows OLD YORK 359 gray. It is the gray of dusk. The rain has swept far to seawartl, and my visitors as well have returned to the uncanny seclusion of the graveyards here- about, all except this strange woman with the scarlet letter. As the light of the fire dies, and only the blinking embers are left, that letter on the sleeve grows more luminous, as if it had caught the glow of another, never-dying flame, and Magdalen-like, the weary head of her who bears it has dropped forward upon the palms of a pair of thin hands, and a flood of graying hair that reaches to her knees hides the out- line of the troubled face utterly, of this poor cowering outcast. I stir the ashes anew, and my silent visitor cowers closer yet to the soot-stained jambs, as if, with the going of the flame, her spirit was being forsaken of its life and warmth. I am moved somewhat to probe the secret of her life, but as I glance again toward her corner, she has disappeared. " I wonder who it could be?" you exclaim. Frankly, I never thought to ask. Amit Polly, of malodorous Brimstone Hill, knew her. She was a Kittery girl; but more, I do not know, though it oc- curred to me I would like to know more of her history. I felt a bit chary about quizzing her, for she might have been sensitive about it; that is, if she had re- tained much of womanly feeling after that benmnb- ing hour in the pillory, with the rough-edged comment and the merciless jeerings of those perhaps no better than herself, but who were more fortunate in the con- cealment of their intrigues, ringing in her tortured 360 OLD YORK ear. I wonder if she has forgiven her betrayer, and if the stripes on her back redden and burn, as she thinks of the grievous wrongs her sex has alway suf- fered at the hands of her brothers. Now that these eerie folk have got away, my mind has cleared of the fogs that came with the storm, and the spectral influences that dommated and colored my mental vision, and I remember. In 1651, there lived in Kittery a mmister by the name of Stephen Bachiller, whose mclmation to one marital experience after another gave opportu- nity for satirical reflections, akin to those which in- spired Alexander Pope, who was born thirty-seven years later, to exploit, in pmigent verse, the alliance of January and May. This Stephen Bachiller was born in England, 1561, and by reason of his Non-Conformist belief was com- pelled to take asylum in Holland. Some years later, he returned to London, and March 9, 1632, he sailed for New England on the William and Francis to join his daughter, Theodate. Reaching Boston, he went to Ljoin, where this daughter lived with her husband, and there he began to preach. It was not long, how- ever, before he was complained of for preaching without legal authority, and the Court required him " to forbeare exercising his gifts as a pastor or teacher publiquely in our Pattent." In 1636, he went to Ips- wich, where he had a land-grant; but he had in mind the establishment of a church in Yarmouth, for which place he set out afoot amid the severity of the winter of 1637 — a journey which comprised nearly a hun- OLD YORK 361 drecl miles. His project was a failure. He next appears at Newbury, from whence he went with his daughter and her husband to Hampton two years later. He was here in Hampton when he was called to act as referee in a matter in litigation between George Cleeve of Casco and John Whiter, Tre- lawiey's factor at Richmond Island. He was about eighty years old at this time "when he committed a heinous offence, which he at first denied, but finally acknowledged, and was excommunicated from the Church therefor." Not long after, he was re-admitted to Comnumion, but debarred from preaching. Baxter says he was invited " to preach at Exeter in 1644, but the General Court would not permit him to accept the call. " In 1650, he was in Portsmouth, where at the extreme age of eighty-nine, a wintry age, he contemplated takmg to himself a third wife. Experienced m marital matters, he decided that " A stale virgin with a winter face" would not be to his taste. Had one been within ear- shot mayhap some echo of his soliloquy would have inspired an earlier Pope to this: "My limbs are active, still I'm sound at heart, And a new vigor springs in every part. Think not my virtue lost, though Time has shed Those reverend honors on my hoary head ; Thus the trees are crowned with blossoms white as snow, The vital sap then rising from below; Old as I am, my lusty limbs appear Like winter greens that flourish all the year." 362 OLD YORK Endowed with the fervent belief that "A wife is the peculiar gift of Heaven," he forthwith married one Mary — the surname is lost — for his third spouse, and her age is given as " twenty years." As woman sometimes will, with or without provocation, Mary Bachiller erred in becoming enam- oured of a worthless fellow by the name of George Rogers, who was somewhat a disciple of the Arts of Ovid, and whose untimely and scandalous behavior with the girlish, and, no doubt, charming wife of this foolish old man, was such that both were brought "to book" in October of 1651. It was a swift disil- lusionment for the poor wife; for upon their indict- ment and presentment to the Court, as appears by Book "B" of the York Records, they were duly sen- tenced. Rogers, man-fashion, got off with "forty stroakes save one at ye first Towne Meeting held at Kittery, which he could cover up with his coat; while the girl-wife was adjudged to "receive forty stroakes save one at ye first Towne Meeting held at Kittery 6 weekes after her delivery, & be branded with the letter A," and which was to be " two inches long, and proportionable bigness, cut out of cloath of a contrary colour to 'her' cloathes, and sewed upon ' her' upper garments on the outside of ' her ' arm or on 'her' back, in open view," and if found there- after without her letter, she was to be " pubhckly whipt." Here was a Hester Prynne, forsooth, with the difference, that she got her name legitmiately, and OLD YORK 363 not under the magic wand of the romancer. Poor Mary Bachiller! forever branded, on that fateful fifteenth of October of 1651! whose untoward career may have afforded Hawthorne the material for his famous "Scarlet Letter." Her husband at this time was ninety years old, and this same year took ship for England. Once there, and undivorced from his third wife, he was married to a fourth wife, with whom he lived to the end of his days, which occurred in 1660. What a commentary on the ways of those far-off times, the checkered career of this one man affords! Here is another presentment of the same day as that of Mary Bachiller. "We present Jane, the wife of John Andrews, for se'ling of a Firkin of Butter unto Mr. Nic. Davis that had two stones in it, which contained fourteen pounds, wanting two ounces in A^>ight. This presentment owned by Jane Andrews and John Andrews, her husband, in five-pound Bond, is bound thus: Jane h"s wife, shall stand at a town meeting at York, and at a town meeting at Kittery, till two hours be expired, with her offense written in Capital Letters, pinned to her forehead. This in- junction fulfilled at a Commiss'n Court according to Order Jan'y 18, 1653." I wish that these odd shapes and sizes of ghost-folk might have shown less haste in their going, for there were many other matters concerning which I was anxious to be informed; and while I was mildly chiding myself upon my unprofitable display of modesty, mj^ lack of tact or courtesy to my guests, 364 OLD YORK the sharp challenge of a cock-crow echoed from a neighboring barn-loft. I knew then that it was no fault of mine that these waifs of other days had so abruptly flown. A glance out the little window that revealed the lurid edge of the storm, and as well the cheery blaze of Boon Island Light, shows a streak of pallor low down on the rim of the sea to eastward. The light on Boon Island has changed from red to white against the luminous sky. The ash of the rose is strewn over the nearer waters, while farther away, the roses bloom on every shifting crest of their ever-widening waste. The day-break has leapt from the sea with a bound, and the land of ghostly, and other traditions, is left behind with one more day that will never return. FROST'S HILL THE PLEIADS OF THE PISCATAOUA u^-. v V THE PLEIADS OF THE PISCATAQUA EN miles offshore, and in sight of White Island Light, are the Isles of Shoals, seven sister-islands grouped closely, like the Ple- iads of the Constella- tion of Taurus. These islands, lying off the mouth of the Piscata. qua, have been well- known to voyagers along the New Eng- land coast since the sailing hither of Champlain. Smith mentions them first, and they appear first, cartographically, upon his rude map of 1614; and first knoAvn as the Smith Isles, they afterward were christened anew, by whom I know not, or when; but it is to be admitted that their present appella- tion is peculiarly appropriate, and smacks abund- antly of the romance and poetry of the sea. Their 367 368 OLD YORK low, black ribs make the setting for the emeralds of verdure that crown them with a certain comeli- ness, and lend to them suggestions of breezy cool- )^at-bor ^Td§ ut[hr ness when the heats of summer hold the mainland in bands of sweltering hu- midity. Here is the home of ro- ~~' mance, of le- gend, and of tragedy. Suppose we mount the Indian's Enchanted Horse and give the peg in his neck a slight turn; with our faces to the rising sun, we are, with the ciuiclmess of thought, beside the blue waters that hold the Isle of St. Croix in their crooning embrace, where Pierre du Guast, Sieur de Monts, one of the first gentlemen of France, and a favorite officer of the royal house- hold of Henry VII, passed the winter of 1604-5. Du Guast was an experienced navigator, and pos- sessed the confidence of his royal master to so great a degree, that before sailing hither, Henry had named OLD YORK 369 him his lieutenant-general in this new country which he was to possess himself of in the name of his king, and colonize. This commission was dated at Fon- tainebleau in 1603, and was further established by the uncouth sign-manual of Henry. A splotch of yellow wax, known as the royal seal, reenforced this important document, by which Du Guast was authorized to colonize Arcadia. The limits of Arca- dia were defined as lying between the parallels of 40 and 46, which on the New Brmiswick coast would strike in about Georges Bay, to run westward across the backwoods of Maine to touch the northern skirts of old Katahdin. Its southern limit would cut into the northern suburbs of the Quaker City. This stretch of coast-line, reaching from the upper end of Nova Scotia to the shallows of New Jersey, was the ocean boundary of New France, and from the time of Henry VH, Du Guast's limitations were the bases of the French claims to the territory, which, fifteen years later, were to be contested by the Eng- lish by actual occupation and appropriation of the soil -about Massachusetts Bay, which is spanned by parallel 42. It was here at Isle St. Croix that Du Guast formu- ated his plans, and as the spring opened he set sail, pointing the prow of his little bark to the southward along the coast, ever seeking for a " place more suit- able for habitation, and of a milder temperature," than the snow-bound, fog-beset shores of the St. Croix. His commission vested in him full discre- tionary powers to colonize this Arcadia, to which 370 OLD YORK distance had lent something of enchantment, but which, in its reality was a rugged country, beset with perils, and whose high emprise was to be achieved only by centuries of strenuous warfare not only with Nature, but with the aboriginal possessor. Du Guast was its first monopolist. For a decade of years, the sole right to the emoluments of its commodities of skins and furs was to be his; and, autocrat-like, his was the power to make war or peace — sovereign powers, to be sure. Under Du Guast were a small number of adven- turers, who, at home, within the purlieus of the French Court, were denominated gentlemen. Twenty sailors made up the crew, but the most distinguished of all was Samuel Champlain, the geographer of this expedition of combined exploration and colonization. Champadore was pilot, who was to be assisted by the Indian Panounias and his scjuaw, who accompanied Du Guast as he left the waters of the St. Croix behind him. It was about June 15, of this year 1605, that Du Guast and Champlain began a minute examina- tion of the Maine coast, but the larger portion of his contingent was left at St. Croix. They were here at the Isles of Shoals about July 15, after having cast anchor in the mouth of the Saco, and given a cursory glance at the fairly spacious estuary of the Kennebunk River, still following the trend of the coast — which was low, marshy, and sandy — south- ward from the bold headland of Cape Elizabeth, until they had sighted Cape Ann. Champlain does not show this group of islands on OLD YORK 371 either of his maps. Perhaps he did not regard them of sufficient importance; and, again, De Monts may have left them so far to the eastward as that they appeared but a broken reef of rocks. The wide mouth of the Piscataqua to the west afforded an abundance of sea room, yet he mentions three or four islands of moderate elevation. He locates the anchor- age of the French bark clearly enough. "Mcttant le cap au su pour nous esloigner afin de mouiller I'ancre, ayant fait environ deaux lieux nous appercumes un cap a la grande terre au su quart de suest de nous ou il pouvoit avoit six lieues; a Test deux lieues appercumes trois ou quatre isles assez hautes et al'ouest un grand cu de sac." From this, one makes the Bay of Ipswich; the head- land of Cape Ann; and these "trois et quatre isles" are the Isles of Shoals. That he says, three or four, is conclusive that no minute examination of their exact number or character was made. Pring men- tions some islands about the 43d parallel, within the shelter of one of which he cast anchor ; but they were as likely to have been those of Casco Bay, as those lying off the mouth of the Piscataqua. The seven islands that make the Isles of Shoals group would hardly be taken by a mariner of Pring's experience as a "multitude." I apprehend the "taking of the sun" with so rude an instrument as a jackstaff in those days, was not so absolutely accurate, as that the designation of any particular parallel by those old voyagers could be taken as exact. Their instru- ments were rude, and subject to error. 372 OLD YORK I am inclined to give Smith the distinction claimed for him. Drake says Gosnold must have seen these islands, and adds, " but he thought them hardly worth entering in his log." There is neither rhyme nor reason in such a conjecture. Smith was the first to exploit these islands and the riches of their waters, and he has the rights of an inventor to his patent. It was Smith's report of them that first sent the English fishermen hither; and it is as true that from Cham- plain's sighting them in 1605, to Smith's locating and giving them a name in 1614, one finds no special mention of them. To Smith clearly belongs the pres- tige, if there be any, of their so-called discovery. Drake suggests that Smith left no evidence that he ever landed on them. It strikes me that his descrip- tion of them, his locating of them on his map, and his giving them a name is as good evidence as one could expect. He could have conceived no idea of their value or importance, had he not sailed in among them; and had he not valued them according to his observa- tion of them, he would have hardly given them his name ; which he did, and which Charles I confirmed. His accomit of them, to his king, must have been of a somewhat extended and flattering character, also, to have attracted the royal complaisance. Every circumstance points to Smith's accurate and extensive knowledge of them. Gosnold's unconscious cerebrations do not weigh much against Smith's activities. As to De Monts, his accomplishment was small. He conducted a voyage which Champlain has appropriated by reason OLD YORK 373 of his " Relations." De Monts, stripped of his endow- ments by his fickle master, a descendant of line of kings whose fickleness was proverbial, is forgotten, while Champlain's story of the voyage of 1605 will perpetuate his memory so long as the St. Croix shall flow seaward, or Cape Ann hold apart from Massachu- setts Bay the waters of Ipswich. His is the first de- tailed and discerning account of this coast; and it was the story of a fairly good observer. Christopher Levett was here in 1623. He says, " The first place I set my foot upon in New England was the Isle of Shoals, being islands in the sea about two leagues from the main. " Upon these islands I neither could see one good timber-tree nor so much good ground as to make a garden. "The place is foimd to be a good fishing-place for six ships, but more cannot well be there, for want of convenient stage-room, as this year's experience hath proved." He seems to be the only Englisliman up to that time who mentions them, with any directness, after Smith, who preceded Levett's visit by seven years. According to Levett, these islands were then Imown as the Shoals, and one would gather that fishermen were there before him. Undoubtedly, there were fisliing-craft at the islands at the time of which he writes, as he designates the number of vessels that may find accommodation. Levett had but one vessel, so the inference may be taken for a fact. As to the fishermen, as early as 1615, according to the Whit- 374 OLD YORK bourne Relations, referred to by Purchas, the former is quoted: "In the year 1615, when I was at Newfoundland .... there were then on that coast of your Majes- tie's subjects, two hundred and fiftie saile of ships, great and small. The burthens and tonnage of them all, one with another, so neere as I could take notice, allowing every ship to be at least three-score tim (for as some of them contained lesse, so many of them held more), amounting to more than 15,000 tunnes. Now, for every three-score tun burthen, according to the usual manning of ships in those voyages, agree- ing with the note I then tooke, there are to be set doune twentie men and boyes; by which computation in these two hmidred and fiftie saile there were no lesse than five thousand persons." With so many "saile" about the shores of New- foimdland, there would be a disposition to seek out nd occupy new fishing-grounds that were to be profit- able. The water about the Isles of Shoals was deep, and the cod were abundant; and the spines of these islands offered a most excellent drying-place for the industry. If one notes the fact, it was on the island slopes that these fishermen spread out their catches to the sun. The farther they were from the main- land, the more desirable the location, with fathoms of water in plenty, and cod likewise abundant; and the less likelihood there was of molestation. Poutrincourt, in 1618, declared the New World fisheries, even then, to be worth annually, a "million d'or" to France. Immediately after the visit of OLD YORK 375 Levett, the Isles of Shoals were permanently occupied by the fishermen, a rough, boisterous set; so that among the early restrictions of the Province was one that women were not to be allowed to live there; and which was based solely on moral gromids. The case of Jolm Reynolds and his wife, who went there to live as late as 1645, is in point. But the exigency of the FORT POINT earlier days being somewhat abated, Mrs. Reynolds was allowed to remain, pending the further order of the Court. As Drake says, these islands have something of an inhospitable aspect; but their rugged character com- ported with the rude and uncouth salients of their dwellers, whose isolation surrounded them with a shadow of obscurity, accentuated by their infrequent contact and limitary intercourse with the mainland. The sea was a natural barrier to such; an Al Araf to keep Nature's bounty of the fields and meadows 376 OLD YORK apart from the mystery of these sea-scarred ribs of semi- verdurous rock. I made my visit to these islands after much the same fashion of other folk. I went by a comfortable little steamer, that swung out its Portsmouth dock with the morning tide; and I saw, as I sailed, what every one sees who goes to the Isles of Shoals by water. What interested me most were the stories of the old days that were written along the city roofs, BADGER'S ISLAND on one side, and along the marge of the Kittery shore, opposite. There was not much activity on the river; the olden commerce of the Port of Ports- mouth having long ago forsaken it for the shallows of Boston harbor. The ferry plied its trade with Kittery; and here and there the black smoke of a collier blew down the channel between Great Island and Kittery Point; the asthmatic wheeze of a donkey- engine, hidden among the shadows of a huge coal- bunker along-shore, straining at its task, throbbed and beat against the morning air. Troops of gulls OLD YORK 377 swept outward over the rough floor of the river with curving, spectral flight. These flights of the gulls to seaward remind one of the old saw — " If at morn the gulls to sea take flight, The sun will shine from morn till night," and the fisher-craft sail out into the farthest haze to drop their lines, assured of fair weather; but, with A BIT OF PORTSMOUTH HARBOR the gulls hovering along the flats, the fishermen look to their boats to see that their moorings are taut and ready for wind and rain. It is then they say — " When the sea-gull hugs the inner shore, The rain will drive, and the winds will roar. " There was the sound of a creaking capstan and a rattle of mast-hoops as the sails of the four-master under our lee went down on the rim. I thought of old Skipper Robinson of New Gloucester, who originated this type of sailing vessel in 1713, and which he dubbed on the spot, a "scooner;" and I 378 OLD YORK wondered what he would have said to the modern six-masted craft of the Bath shipyards. Off the Navy Yard, the traditions crowd each the other; but here is AVarehouse Point, where Spruce Creek comes in; and the pleasant slopes of the Enchanted Land where the names of Champernowne, Chamicey, Pepperrell and Cutt are as good as guide-boards to show one his way about. Each of these nooks and corners of Kittery verdure is a page whereon one reads as he sails — whether it be a headland, creek, an old-time rookery, or a manse, or the greenery of God's Acre that fronts the old parsonage — all are to be interpreted by one according to his own fashion. Here is a delightfully suggestive environment, with all of old Kittery to sunrise-ward, and quaintly olden New Castle on the westerly and opposite side of the main channel of this historic waterway. If one should hug the shore of Great Island after turning the needle-like Jaffrey's Point, another entrance to OLD YORK 379 Portsmouth would be discovered. This is Little Harbor, but it is a shallow strait; for at low tide it is unavailable for other than craft of the lightest draught. But one needs to skim these shallows if one is to Imow Portsmouth from her sea approaches. Once well mto this charming nook of Little Harbor, the artery by which Great Island is connected to the mainland, is discovered a trio of old-fashioned bridges, and Great Island is at the end of them all. WENTWORTH HALL Here is the quaintest of all, New Castle. Opposite, across the shallows, at the mouth of Sagamore Creek' one gets a glimpse of clustered chimneys, as it were' of some old-tune inn, so many are there of them. The native knows it for olden Wentworth Hall, a ram- bling old house spacious enough to quarter a company of dragoons in, horses and all; for its subterranean excavations are barn-like in their extent. A queer old affair is AYentworth Hall, which has the appear- 380 OLD YORK ance of two old houses wrought into one by an inter- vening structure of even more ample proportions, having a semblance of a trio of roof-trees. None of these three resemble each the other, for each is as unlike the other in design and architecture, as the periods in which they were evidently built. The only way to get well and thoroughly acquainted with a place is to go without guide-book, or even guide. One does not need the scent of a ferret, but the Yankee-like trait of asking questions must needs be put into exercise; and with one's nose for a guide-board, one's curiosity is apt to be amply re- warded. Nor does one make the best venture with a lively horse and a rubber-tired Brewster, but one must trust wholly to " Shank's Mare " to get the most profit- able results. The foot jaunt must be of a somewhat aimless character, for more of directness is apt to avoid many a charming by-way and gabled quaint- ness; and then the acquaintances one makes, here and there are among the richest of one's experiences. Horse-talk does not admit of a more than limited vernacular, but every wayside meeting afoot is likely to enlarge and savor one's vocabulary with the most delightful of local flavors. Everythuig that smacks of locahty, its human types, their garb and dialect, adds to the zest of one's explorations. A gentle word of appreciation and a kindly courtesy at first greeting will open the roughest chestnut burr, and a flood of old-time lore is on tap. One makes no note of time, for the eye and ear are one; and both are OLD YORK 381 alertly vibrant with riches, to which the makers of guide-books are utter strangers. If one goes afoot about this old fishing-port of New A BY-WAY IN NEW CASTLE Castle, he is sure to wander down to the Point of Graves. One can see it from the steamer deck, or rather where it is; for to see it in truth is to thread its 382 OLD YORK corrugations with reverent tread, for here is an ilhi- minated page of local history with headband, initial, and tail-piece, ready for the reading. It is a quaint picture of the Past these black slabs make, stark-set amid a host of verdant mounds so many years blown over by the salty winds from the sea, and saturated with the Piscataqua fogs. It is a story, as well as a picture, written in wavering, broken lines of living green, with these old headstones, quaint, moss-gro\Mi, lichen-stained, and storm-etched, for punctuation marks; for one makes longer stay at some than at others. Here is one to set one's wits agog, for among these old memorials is that of old Samuel Wentworth. One can see him now in his tavern door under the shadow of his sign of "The Dolphin," greeting or speeding his guest with the jovial stirrujD- cup of the time. He was the father of Jolm Went- worth, the first Governor Wentworth; likewise the grandfather of Governor Benning Wentworth, whose nephew. Sir John Wentworth, was the last of the New Hampshire colonial governors of that name — surely a remarkable family, a sturdy and a note- worthy. Bennmg Wentworth was twice married. With his first marriage the reader is not concerned. Before his first wife died, a slip of a girl, whose sharply angu- lar shoulders and slender ankles gave scant promise of the wonderful beauty of after years, was running about the streets of old Portsmouth, the great-great- grand-daughter of pioneer Hilton, who is said to be the first to have planted corn on Maine soil. OLD YORK 383 This was Martha Hilton, and Longfellow has painted her portrait. Here it is: "Barefooted, ragged, with neglected hair. Eyes full of laughter, neck and shoulders bare, A thin slip of a girl, like a new moon, Sure to be rounded into beauty soon. A creature men would worship and adore, Though now in mean habiliments she bore A pail of water, dripping, through the street, And bathing, as she went, her naked feet; " and so scandalized was Mistress Stavers, the inn- keeper of Queen Street, that she chided the child. And then Martha Hilton laughed, and tossed her yoiing head, and from her tongue flew the saucy quip — "No matter how I look; I yet shall ride In my own chariot, ma'am;" and she did; for when the time came, and Governor Benning Wentworth had tired of his lonely livmg in his great manse, he made Martha Hilton, his then serving-maid, mistress of Wentworth Hall. When tiie knot was tied, "On the fourth finger of her fair left hand The governor placed the ring; and that was all; Martha Hilton was Lady Wentworth of the Hall." It was a charming romance, and had Mistress Stavers been alive she would doubtless have taken the Earl of Halifax into Iier confidence, who had so long maintained a discreet silence that he might well have been trusted with this. It is a charming 384 OLD YORK story Longfellow has woven from this romance of Martha Hilton, but she was worthy of it; for if all accounts are true, she was a great beauty, and graced the ampUtude of the great house with its fifty-two rooms, to uphold with credit the character of its distinguished occupants; of it all, Lady Went- worth was the pearl of great price. But this is not all this old memorial of Samuel Wentworth tells me, though his own story is of the most meagre sort — a name, a date, and that is all. But one goes back far beyond the times of the land- lord of "The Dolphin"; beyond the time when Thompson had built him a house at Odiorne's Point. As one stands here one hears the leaves of Sherwood Forest singing to the winds, as they sang to Robin Hood, Little John, Friar Tuck, and Allan-a- Dale, and where was the more ancient and grander Wentworth Hall. Walter Scott says "the ancient forest of Sher- wood lay between Sheffield and Doncaster. The remains of this extensive wood are still to be seen at the noble seat of Wentworth," and from whence is to be reckoned the ancestry of the English and American W^entworths, a notable family tree from which much goodly fruit has been shaken. Perhaps the most notable of all was the Marquis of Rockingham, whose opposition to the infamous Stamp Act links his name to that of the great Chat- ham. What a bimdle of etchings one has here in this old headstone of Samuel Wentworth's ! And if one is of a mind to linger longer before it, there are OLD YORK 385 others that will repay one's waiting. Richard-like, one sees a train of ghosts, with the unfortunate Earl of Strafford at their head; for he was a Wentworth, like those who came after, along with Lady Byron, who later in life assumed the title of Baroness Went- worth. But this old manse on Sagamore Creek is a famous house. Drake's description of it is meagre at best, when one has once crossed its threshold. Its pic- tured story would need an entire volume by itself; but the rambling pile carries outwardly no sugges- tion of the treasures of which it is the unassuming possessor. One must needs see more than the jumble of its low-sloping roofs and its low-topped chimneys that peer at one from out its broidery of foliage. But the sun falls across the water to make a silver ribbon that loses itself amid the greenery of Saga- more Creek; and one comes back to the Present by the way of it, and the Point of Graves is left beliind with its ghostly dreams and traditions. The wind blows freshly, and is laden with the scents from the woodlands up river, and I note the smoke from the boat goes hurrying seaward even faster than myself. It hangs away from the black nuizzle of the smokestack like a dingy banner, and anon its fibre untwists, and it is drimk up by the Sim. This olden New Castle was once a fishmg- towii, as one may know with a single glance mto Puddle Luck, for here are rude wharves and fish- houses, all in numerous stages of senility and dilapi- dation. Here were once fishflakes by the acre. 386 OLD YORK Like the headstones at the Point of Graves, these old shacks are but the scant memorials of a larger and more active importance. Everywhere are rot- ting timbers as suggestive as the ribs of a long mould- ering skeleton from which all vitality has long since departed. But they are fertile for all their decay, and of much interest. They make the uncouth yet pathetic PUDDLE LUCK, GREAT ISLAND frames for hosts of snappy sketches of the days when a sailor in pigtails and petticoats and a cutlass was as common as is the Ingersoll watch of to-day, for the charter of the old town dates from 1693, which one may see if one cares to go over to the selectmen's office. Bellomont, who opened up the way to Captain Kidd's piratical career, with a com- mission to make reprisal upon the enemies of the English, was here along with Admiral Benbow, and Bellomont reported to the Lords of Trade at London OLD YORK 387 as early as 1699, "It is a most noble harbor. The biggest ships the king hath can lie against the banks at Portsmouth." One notes the Martello tower on its rocky hump, that has for so many years looked to seaward, for it dates back to 1812. There was an older fort of 9W/(Sf^ thirty guns here as early as 1700, but Bellomont con- demned it as incapable of serviceable defence against an invasion of the river. It was known as old Fort William and :Mary, but it has disappeared to its last vestige. The low granite fortress one sees here on Jaffrey's Point is nearly a century old. Its date of construc- tion goes back to around 1808. Fort Constitution, 388 OLD YORK for these walls of brick and stone are so called, is of slender importance. Like its contemporaries, Gorges, Scammell, and a few others, it is but a reminder of the days when war was child's play com- pared with that now famous conflict of the Korean peninsula. Before getting out of sight of Wentworth Hall altogether, one recalls Martha Hilton. In good time Benning Wentworth died, and Martha did not cling to her widowhood for long, for she married a rake, known in his time as Michael Wentworth of the Royal army. After the dashing colonel had run through with his property, he is said to have ended his life by suicide. He furnished his own epitaph, — "I have eaten my cake." The narrows of the river have been left behind with their suggestive ridges that indicated the loca- tion of the batteries of the Revolutionary period. This water-way is a dimmutive Hell Gate, and no wonder the spur of land that juts into the river here should be christened by the unwashed as Pull-and- be-damned Point. With the out-going tide boiling and seething through this gap the sailor finds his up-river trip a tedious and difficult proposition on a light wind. But the way has opened up; the scene- shifter has thrown the roofs and spires of Portsmouth into the background; in fact, they have disappeared behind the urban mysteries of ancient New Castle, whose dockless shore narrows and loses itself in the sea where the low gray wall of antiquated and dis- mantled Fort Constitution lies, sluggard-like, in the OLD YORK 389 flood of the Piscataqua. On the outermost extrem- ity of the fort wall is the Pharos of the inner harbor, while just ahead are the twin towers that rise out of the sea from the tide-submerged spine of the Whale's Back. The old Pepperrcll Manse and its black warehouses and dock are a good mile astern; and Odiorne's Point, where settler Thompson had his cabin before the occupation of ]\Iason's agent, is to starboard. Champernomie Island of the olden time FORT CONSTITUTION is to leeward. Chauncey's Creek opens its mouth with a yawn, while Deering's Guzzle is lost in the soft contour of the Kittery shore. Now one gets a glimpse of the Pleiads of the Piscataqua, the Smith Isles, better kno^^^l as the Isles of Shoals. They were just discernible in the sea mist that held the horizon in a purple swathing- band. As we steamed comfortably over the inter- vening reach of blue water, Ipswich Bay and the pug-nose of Cape Ami broke their bonds of mystery and stood out fairly distinct. From this pomt of view their appearance was not much different from that of the year 1605, when Du Guast sailed his little 390 OLD YORK bark perhaps over the very course which our steamer is taking. As I looked Cape Ann-ward my vision followed that of Champlain, but it went beyond that of Champlain 's; for I saw, as by revelation, the roofs of towns that, like so many pearls, were strung along the thread of the North Shore, until they were lost in the dim smokes of what was once Winthrop's bailiwick. I could even see the gallows on Witch Hill. A bump against the pier of Star Island wakes me from my re very; for here we are, j^erhaps at the very place where Levett anchored his craft in 1623. There is nothing here but a rib of rock, and a shore- house for summer tourists. If one wants wind and water only, here is as good a place as any; but as for seclusion, it is wholly of the veranda sort. As for the atmosphere, it is savored abmidantly with purest salt, and much of the time, water-logged. One's only resource is a boat. One's impression here is of being en voyage, for the swash of the tide is dinning in one's ears always. After all there is something very restful in this isolation ; for if one can handle an oar, one can get out of ear-shot of his kind almost immediately. With the first grip of the rocks of Star Island on my boot-soles, my inclination is to get by myself in some comfortable nook, toper-like, to have it out with Nature. But get where I may, in one corner of the veranda, or another, I hear the chitter-chatter of young magpies in comfortably short skirts; and the wild whoop of a contingent of kids in knickerbockers; a sort of thing I like well OLD YORK 391 enough at times; but, like a nursling at Nature's pap, I was inclined to greediness. Several years before my visit to the Isles of Shoals, I had read Drake, critically, being something of a lover of the quaint and olden; and I said to myself, with something of a reservation, that he was a man after my owm heart. I should like to have been his companion in his walks abroad. I would have '^^^ >/5^^"^ ROCKS OF STAR ISLAND "swapped" glasses with him occasionally, Yankee- like. In going over this ground, I have some recol- lection of him, and his way of putting things, and of observing. He seemed to enjoy a brilliant sunset, and many things else. I realize that he found the path worn by others, as I to-day find here and there an ear-mark of his; and it makes me feel much as I used, when, reaching the trout-brook of an ancient meadow whose '' swinuning-holes " were once places 392 OLD YORK of boyish delight, I found, to my annoyance, that the dew had been brushed off the lush grasses along the stream by some earlier fisherman. There was nothing to do but to trudge after, lazily, the more lazy-like the better, landing a trout, here, or there, as I could. It did not matter much, however, for, somehow, I managed to bring home a goodly basket of red-spots. I have, before now, met the "other fellow" whipping the stream back, and upon a "show- down," surprised him into envious silence. To digress briefly: several years ago, I wrote a book or two, in one of which I alluded to the canoe- birch. When the volmne reached the critics, one, who evidently had attended a late supper, in whose mouth still lingered that disagreeable "dark brown taste," shrieked himself hoarse with the exclama- tion: "Who is this, that writes of the canoe-birch, after John Burroughs?" Well, I was heartily sorry for the fellow, for it indicated his shrunk stature, and the Blondin-like slenderness of his stamping-groimd ; but I had the consolation of knowing that that glorious vestal of the New England woods, to a considerable patch of which I personally had a suggestion of title, had many a golden-lined cup of good cheer for her lovers ; and that many a gracious tribute would be hers, even after the gifted pen of Mr. Burroughs had bequeathed its legacy to others. I hope the reader will not shrug his shoulder too strenuously, if by chance I should happen to write of something that Mr. Drake saw; or if, perchance, my shoe should unwarily press one OLD YORK 393 of those vagrant and infrequent blades of grass on Smutty Nose, or Appledore, which, after a generation, still shows the heel-mark of my genial predecessor. Among the things to which the law of copyright does not extend, is Nature, and as well, the translation of her mysteries. If a man is pleased to sing, let him sing; provided he shifts his key sufficiently often, so that one can get away from its idem, sonans occasionally. One cuckoo croaks "dry weather" on the hills; another croaks "rain" m the meadows. It is the croak of the cuckoo, hill, or valley. As if the dazzling sun of yesterday had exhausted all the mj^steries of to-day! or the sunset of to-day had drained *the untold to-morrows of all their pig- ments. But it is high noon. I do as others do, indulge in the prosaic satisfying of the inner man. The next thmg is a savory cigar, one of the choicest companions for the seashore. It helps one to deliberate. Its fragrance suggests Cathay, Zipango, and numerous romantic heresies; and one starts off, like Marco Polo, on a journey of discovery. Chartering a dory, I push out into a choppy sea, with about as much direct- ness as did the Three Wise Men in a Tub. After a squint over my shoulder, my oars catch the water and the rhythm of the surf on the rocks, and I am off, en voyage. It is with something of the spirit of a freebooter of the days of Kidd and Dixey Bull, that I pull out for the little haven of Smutty Nose wdiere Haley built 394 OLD YORK his rude wharf. The water slaps the nose of my dory audibly, and as I glide into the smooth water of Haley's dock, there is something of restful quiet brooding over it. There is nothing of an attractive character about Smutty Nose Island, for its name does not belie its general appearance. This island in days agone was of some considerable importance, '^I/^^-^ HALEY'S WHARF and was somewhat populous. Williamson says: "They once had a Court-house on Haley's (a name occasionally given to Smutty Nose) Island; and in so prosperous a state were these Islands that they contained from four to six hundred souls. Even gentlemen from some of the principal towns on the sea-coast sent their sons here for literary instruction," These islands off Portsmouth Harbor comprising the Isles of Shoals, were once deemed of so much value that a Royal Commission was appointed in OLD YORK 395 1737 to survey and set the line of demarcation be- tween the two Provinces, that is, the Massachusetts ProA'ince, south, and the Province of Maine, north of the Piscataqua River. The Court decreed " that the dividmg Hue shall part the Isles of Shoals, and run through the middle of the harbor, between the islands, to the sea on the southerly side; and that the south- easterly part of said islands shall lie in, and be ac- counted part of, the Province of New Hampshire; and that the northeasterly part thereof shall lie in, and be accounted part of, the Province of Massachu- setts Bay; and be held and enjoyed by the said Prov- inces respectively, in the same manner as they now do and have heretofore held and enjoyed the same." This was the old line between the two Provinces es- tablished by the division of Laconia, between Mason and Gorges, and confirmed to them by their respect- ive charters of 1629 and 1639, but this decree of 1637 was appealed from, and on ]\Iarch 5, 1740, was affirmed by his Majesty's order. The charter of William and Mary, 1691, confirmed the old Mason and Gorges division, and so it has always remained, leaving the islands of Appledore, Malaga, Smutty Nose and Duck, as a part and parcel of Old York. On November 22, 1652, the proprietary govern- ment of Gorges ended, and Massachusetts Bay usurped the jurisdiction. It based its act upon its charter of 1628, which related: "All those lands which lie, and be, within the space of three English miles to the northward of the river Merrimac, or to the northward of any and every part thereof," evidently 396 OLD YORK meaning a line drawn from a point three English miles to the northward from the source of that river, and of which Clapboard Island in Casco Bay was the east- erly boundary. This jurisdiction continued until about 1664, when Charles II took the management of the Province to himself and his Royal Commis- sioners, which was Usurpation II, in that, that the claims of Gorges as w^ell as those of Massachusetts Bay were each and severally ignored by this succes- sor to the Cromwellian Commonwealth. In 1667, the Massachusetts Bay Province purchased of the Gorges heirs the charter of 1639, and thereupon assumed that charter of government, and as Lord Proprietor of the Gorges Grant, and as successor under the purchase, governed the Maine Province until 1691, when, under the charter of William and Mary, the Maine Province became an integral constituent of the Bay Colony, and so continued as a part of the Common- wealth until the Dominion of Maine was endowed in 1820 with statehood. In recapitulating, it is easy to follow the several governments which have exercised authority over this earliest of the habitable coast of Maine. The first was the Proprietary Government of Gorges under his charter of 1639, and which continued until 1652. Then followed the Government of Massachusetts Bay, whose cycle of authority may be divided into four segments — namely, under the charter of 1628,, or by usurpation which extended down to 1677, with the exception of the four years from 1664 to 1668, during which time the Royal Commissioners of OLD YORK 397 Charles II held the Provmcial reins; under the Gorges charter, 1639, by purchase, from 1667 to 1691; under the charter of 1691, from that time to the Com- monwealth; under the Commonwealth to the erection of the Dominion into the State of Maine in 1820. When the census was taken in 1852, there were nineteen people upon these islands on the Maine side of the line. When Louis Wagner rowed from the foot of Pickering Street, Portsmouthside, to Smutty Nose in Burke's dory, that March night of 1873, there were four people living on Smutty Nose. Suppose one goes back to the beginning of the York Court Records — I think they began with the settlement, and most that happened of any conse- quence they seem to have taken cognizance of. On one of these musty time-yellowed pages one finds this: " At a court holden at Wells by the Justices of the Peace for the Province of Maine, appointed by com- mission from the Right Hon. Sir Robert Carr, Kjiight, George Cartwright, and Samuel Maverick, on this 10th day of July, fourteenth year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord, the King, in the year of our Lord 1665. "Ordered by the court that an exact injmiction issue out by the Recorder, prohibiting all persons whatsoever, after the receipt hereof, to sell by retail any small quantity to any person whatsoever, at or on the Isle of Shoals, in any part thereof belonging to this counte, viz.: Smutty Nose Hog Island, &c., wine or strong liquors, under the penalty of ten pomids for every such offense." 398 OLD YORK This is the first application of the Prohibitory Law, for which Maine has become famous in one way or another, in the province, and it is notable that the penalty is about the same as in these more modern days when money is easier, and values are more elastic. Glancing over another old volume I find this: "At a court of pleas, houlden for the Province of Mayne, at Yorke, under the authority of his majesty, and subordinately, the heirs of Sir Ferdindo Gorges, Kt., by the worship'll John Daviss, Major, Capt. Josua Scottow, Capt. Jon Wincoll, Mr. Fran. Hooke, Mr, Samuell Wheelwright, Capt. Charles Frost, and Edward Rishworth, Recor., Just. Pe., and Counsellors of tliis Province, April 6, 1681. . . . " For the better and more peaceably settling of all matters, civil and criminal, at the Isles of Shoals, this court do judge, meete, and do appointe a court of sessions to be holden at Smutty Nose Island, upon the first Wednesday of June next ensuing, where- unto Mayor Davis and Capt Fran Hook are ap- pointed to repair and invest it with power to join with the commissioners of these Islands, Mr. Kelley and Mr. Dyamont, to keep a court for trial of actions as high as ten pounds." I find in the same time- yellowed tome: "At a Court of Sessions holden at Smutty Nose Island upon the Isles of Shoals belong- ing to the Province of Maine, by Edward Rishworth, Justice, and Mr. Andrew Fryer, Commissioner by the appointment of General Assembly at Wells, Aug. 10th, 1681, upon the 9th day of November, 1681. OLD YORK 399 "We have called said Court at the time prefixed, several persons presented. Thomas Harding, Nicho- las Bickford, and Augustine Parker, summoned by Mr. Thomas Penney, constable; but said Harding appeared not; the others referred themselves to the court and were fined ten shillings each person, by the province, and ten shillings fees to the Marshall and Recorder, which Mr. Kelley stands engaged to pay in their behalf. Edw. Randall appeared and fined five shillings to the province and five shillings officers' fees, which Mr. Fryer engaged in his behalf to pay Mr. Kelley. Eyers Berry owneth a judge- ment of twenty shillings due from him to Hugh Allard to be paid him on demand. "Robert Marr complained of by Mr. Kelley for abusing of said Kelley and his wife, by way of oppro- brious language, which was proved by sufficient evidence. The Court considering the premises, do order the delinc^uent for his miscarriage herein, either forthwith to make public acknowledgement of his fault for defaming Roger Kelley and his wife, or upon refusal to receive ten stripes well laid on at the post and to pay costs of Court, seven shillmgs. "Robert Marr made public acknowledgement of his fault in open Court for defaming Mr. Kelley and his wife, which he declared his sorrow for, promising amendment for the future. "The Court further requires ten pounds for his good behavior for future. Robert Marr came into Court and owned himself bound in a bond of ten pounds to the treasurer of this Province to be of 400 OLD YORK good abearance and behavior to Roger Kelley and Mary his wife, and ah other his Majesty's subjects, unto the next Court of Pleas holden for this Province." From the same volume, one gets another glimpse at the happenings of the times hereabout: "At a General Assembly, holden at York, for the Province of Maine, this 25th day of June, 1684, by the Honor- able Thomas Danforth, Esq., President of said Prov- ince, Major Jolin Davis, Deputy President, Mr. No well. Assistant, Joshua Suttow, John Wincoll, Frank Hook, Charles Frost, Edward Tynge, and Ed- ward Rishworth, Recorder, his Majesty's Justice of the aforesaid Province. . . . For the better settling of persons and matters in that part of the Isles of Shoals, being the Western Islands belonging to this province, it is hereby ordered by this Court that Mayor Jolm Davis, Mr. Edward Rishworth, Capt. Francis Hook, and Capt. Charles Frost, or any three of them, shall and hereby are appointed with all con- venient speed to repair unto Smutty Nose Island and there to hold a Court of Sessions for the Western Islands for trial of actions, and to make diligent inquiry into the state of the people, and to require their attendance to their duties to his majesty's authority established in this province according to law." In the same • year, James Vanderhill was " ap- pointed for a Grand Juryman for these Northern Islands for the year ensuing, and Mr. Diamond is ordered to give him his oath." So it is seen that however deserted and barren these OLD YORK 401 islands may now seem, hedged about by the Atlantic- tides, here was once a populous appurtenant to old Yorkshire, the first county erected in this province. Under the Massachusetts Bay jurisdiction, the Isles of Shoals were erected into a town known as Apple- dore, and in 1672 were annexed to the county of Dover. Yorkshire was incorporated in 1652, and SMUTTY NOSE when Maine became a state, these "Northern Islands" became a part of the old county of York once more. Th shores of Smutty Nose are ragged and black- ened with seaweed. In fact, they are of forbidding asp-ct, and from this old dock where Haley once moored his boats the outlook is a barren one. A quartette of wan, unpainted, weatherbeaten huts l:>reak the line of its low and somewhat irregular horizon, and it is toward one of them I make my way over the rough path that leads upward from the sea. 402 OLD YORK I hardly think I should have taken the trouble to have rowed hither, had it not been for one of these old houses, and which particular house I connect very vividly with the dark tragedy of a generation ago, when Louis Wagner added to its traditions of wreck, of smuggling, and of piracy, the more authentic epi- sode that has given to this dorsal of dingy rock a lasting place in the local history of crime. Whatever of credence one might give to the story of old man Haley's finding four huge ingots of silver under a flat stone among the nubbles of Smutty Nose, or the raid- ings of the pirate Low upon its hardy fishermen, or its more notorious familiars Bradish, Bellamy, and Pound, is dependable; but the ruddy stain left by Wagner among its snow-patched hollows will come with every setting of the sun. But these were not all, for there were Hawkins, Quelch, and Phillips, the latter of whom was killed by one John Fillmore, of the fishing-crew of the Dolphin, sailing out of Cape Ann. Fillmore was an Ipswich man, and he rebelletl against the enforced outlawry exacted of him by Phillips after the latter's capture of the fishing- smack. Fillmore brought the pirate's craft into Boston. From Drake one learns that this John Fillmore was the great-grandfather of Millard Fill- more, the president of pro-slavery days. These islands were said to have once been the lounging-place of the celebrated Captain Kidd, and that he buried vast treasures here; but these tales are mere far-away traditions to tell the children at nightfall to the low moanmg of the near-by sea. OLD YORK 403 Recalling the Wagner tragedy, one comes dow^l from the days of old-time lore to the not far-away year of 1873, which was the year following my admis- sion to the bar, and which perhaps accomits for my interest in what happened in an adjoinmg county at that time. When the stor}^ of Annethe and Karen Christensen came to my breakfast table, the fragrant coffee and its accompanying roll were forgotten in the perusal of the minute and horrifying details that has ever since given to this locality a sinister color and a tragic association. I had always desired to see the Hontvet rookery so minutely described to the jury by poor Mary Hontvet, and who, by the way, never returned to it after her husband, John Hontvet, found her among the frost-bitten rocks of Smutty Nose on that March morning, and among which she had hidden as the moon was setting over the roofs of Portsmouth but a few hours before. Kindly disposed were those black ribs of granite for once. I had a morbid curiosity to see what could be seen from that window out which Annethe Christensen leapt to meet the murderous axe of Lends ^^'agner; 404 OLD YORK for this Mary Hontvet had painted a ghastly picture with the accused Wagner m the dock, who was one of her most attentive Hsteners. I thought I might be able, standing within its narrow ledge, to see it in its actuality. I hauled the dory ashore, and it oc- curred to me that it might have been right here that Wagner landed on that March midnight m the dory he had stolen from Burke, when he had ascertained from Jolm Hontvet that the women were to be alone that night while he — Hontvet — remained with Annethe Christensen's husband, baiting trawls in ]\Irs. John- son's Portsmouth kitchen. No doubt he had made directly for the Hontvet house, for he believed there was money there to be had for the taking. Mary Hontvet, Annethe and Karen Christensen were the only occupants of the island. Wagner's object was robbery. He told Hontvet the afternoon before the commission of the crime that he had to have money, if he had to murder for it — and he did. It was a grim remark to make to the man whose house he was to enter so soon, feloniously. The old house came more clearly into view^ as I got a bit up from the dock; and as I drew near it I saw that it had l^een sadly shorn and neglected. The shingles seemed to still cleave to its sagging roof, but falteringly; but the clapboards were going the way of the blood-stained wall paper and the window sash. The souvenir hunter had been here in force, and I doubt not but by this time the whole house has been distributed after a fashion. The lintels of the door were doorless, and the winds from the OLD YORK 405 sea had been blowing over this deserted threshold for many years. I went into the house, through which the storms of years had likewise surged, drench- ing its silent floors with wet, and as I stood amid the broken shadows of its blanched walls, I had no diffi- culty in recalling the crime and its details with photo- graphic distinctness. First of all was the crowded court room and its tediously selected panel of twelve jur}Tnen; the distinguished and scholarly justice who presided, the Hon. Justice Barrows; and below, about the bar, the like distinguished counsel and its on- looking members; and behind the somewhat con- tracted space occupied by the lawyers, the awed and gaping adjimct of humanity whose curiosit}^, or resentment, had overflowed the bounds of capacity and comfort alike. From the challenge to the array, the motion to "quash" the indictment, because the allegation of the place where the offence was com- mitted was indefinite and uncertain and not in con- formity to law, to the final "Yes " of the foreman and his associates upon the jury, when asked upon their oaths to say whether the prisoner was guilty of murder in the first degree, the picture is as dis- tinctly drawn as the landscape framed within this old window through which Mary Hontvet saw the act which she so simply and yet so graphically described. Through it all filtered the low moan of the waters on the outer rocks, the same that sounded through that fearful night. All that was needed to repeople the house with the Hontvet woman and the two Christen- 406 OLD YORK sen girlp, and the low-browed Prussian, Wagner, was the pale light of the moon and the glittering snow above the blackness of the sea, and the otherwise weirdly oppressive silence of the hour when ghosts are said to be abroad. This night of the fifth and sixth of March, 1873, was brilliantly moon-lit. There was a light snowfall a short time before, and Smutty Nose lay along the dusky plane of the sea, a mass of glittermg luminous- ness. These three women were the only occupants of this isolated island. By the clock on the kitchen mantel it was bedtime, and the lights were blo^^^^ out. The old house was asleep, and its dwellers as weh. Mary Hontvet and Annethe Christensen oc- cupying the sleeping-room, while Karen, the sister of Evan, Annethe's husband, made up a couch on the lounge imder the kitchen mantel. The little clock ticked on and on, until seven minutes past one. Mid- night had gone. There was a shrill outcry from Karen, and Karen and the clock fell to the floor together. When the clock fell, it stopped to mark the time when the first murderous blow fell upon the helpless Karen. Sometime before the lock on the house door had been broken, and the intruder had no difficulty in going into a house with the mterior of which he was well acciuainted, for he had lived with these Hontvets somewhat in days gone. Undoubtedly it was a matter of surprise to Wagner, when he found Karen in his pathway. Karen must be killed, if he was to get Jolm Hontvet's money, which he knew was OLD YORK 407 in the house. Hontvet had told Wagner he had stocked six hundred dollars on his winter trips fish- ing, and that was what he had rowed from Ports- mouth for. Dead women, like dead men, tell no tales, and with his hand to the plough, the red furrow must be turned. The tumult in the kitchen aroused the older women ; but let Mary Hontvet say it for me, just as she said it to the jury: "As soon as I heard her (Karen) halloo out, 'John killed me!' I jumped up out of bed, and tried to open my bedroom door. I tried to get it open, but could not; it was fastened. He kept on striking her there, and I tried to get the door open, but I could not; the door was fastened. She fell down on the floor under the table; then the door was left open for me to go in. When I got the door open, I looked out and saw a fellow standing right alongside of the window. I saw it was a great, tall man. He grabbed a chair with both hands, a chair standing alongside of him. I hurried up to Karen, my sister, and held one hand on to the door, and took her with my other arm, and carried her in as quick as I could. When I was standing there, he struck me twice, and I held on to the door. I told my sister Karen to hold on to the door, when I opened the window, and we were trying to get out. She said, ' No, I can't do it, I am so tired.' She laid on the floor on her knees, and hanging her arms on the bed. I told Annethe to come up and open the window, and to run out and take some clothes on her. Annethe opened the window, and left the window open, and run out — jumped out of the window. 408 OLD YORK "I told her to run, and she said, 'I can't run.' I said, you halloo, might somebody hear from the other islands. She said — ' I cannot halloo.' AVhen I was standing there at the door he was trying to get in three times, knocked at the door three times, when I was standing at the door. When he found he could not get in that way, he went outside, and Aimethe saw him on the corner of the house. She next hallooed, 'Louis! Louis! Louis!' a good many times, and I jumped to the window and looked out, and when he got a little further I saw him out at the win- dow, and he stopped a moment out there. It was Louis Wagner. And he turned around again, and when Annethe saw him coming from the corner of the house, back again with a big axe, she hallooed out, 'Louis! Louis!' again, a good many times she hallooed out, ' Louis,' till he struck her. He struck her with a great big axe. After she fell domi he struck her twice." What a graphic story, this of Mary Hontvet! In her terror she leapt from the same window, leaving the wounded Karen by the bed. Once safely away she burrowed among the black rocks of the shore, as the moon was going down beyond the roofs of Ports- mouth, and where John Hontvet was still baiting his trawls. When his trawls were baited, John Hontvet and Evan Christensen pushed out the Portsmouth dock to see, still afar off on the rocks of Smutty Nose, the isolate form of a woman etched against the dawn. It was Mary Hontvet. His wife led liim to the house. In telling his story OLD YORK 409 to tlie jury, he said: "I found Annetho Christenpon lying on the floor with her face up, a heavy IdIow under her eyes, a cut near her ear. I found a chair all broken up, and the clock was down from the shelf, and a mark on it where it was struck with something; it lay on the lounge, face down, and stopped at seven minutes past one." One of the coroner's jury adds: "Around the throat was tied a scarf or shawl, some colored woolen garment, and over the body some article of clothhig w\as thrown loosely." Karen was found not the less brutally beaten. As I stood by that window I saw it all, and I heard the cry, "Louis!" as plainly as did Mary Hontvet, so 410 OLD YORK potent was the spell of the locality. I say I heard the cry — I thought I did, and that was all. That cry convicted the murderer, as it ought. There are some old graves here that I recalled as I turned from the old house, dun colored and weather stained, and this was all there was to suggest the swarthy AVagner and the tragedy of Smutty Nose on that bright sunny afternoon. As for the graves, I knew the story of the Sagimto, but there were so many tales of wrecks at hand, that, with a swift sur- vey of the haunted rookery of the Hontvets, I has- tened back to my dory, to find the tide had turned, and that my craft a few moments later would have left me in the lurch. Away from the shingle that glistens under the slant glory of the sun the sea is again swashing against the thwarts of my dory and sending the fine spray into my face. I saw a sail in the ofhng which I thought might be that of the bold Captain Kidd; and as I looked over Appledore way I thought I saw " Old Bab," the pirate spectre, signalling Kidd that there were strangers about. I saw the sail, and there was the figure of a man limned against the not far-away horizon of Appledore. Farther I cannot vouch. During the Revolutionary War the Government ordered the inhabitants of the Isles of Shoals to va- cate the islands, which they did, taking with them not only their household goods but their dwellings. Old Parson " John Tucke's house was taken down by his son in law and carried across water to York in 17S0, " so the Gosport records have it. Gosport OLD YORK 411 was the name of the fishing village here. This island was once fortified, boasting a slender armament of four-pounders, but one can hardly discover at this day where the ground was broken for the old fort. That was in the early days of the French occupation, when sorties by sea out of Quebec were not infrequent, and when the shore to^vns eastward w^re more or less harried. The site of this ante-Revolutionary defence was at the western end of the island. A faintly drawn wrinkle along the impoverished sward but meagrely suggests the scant panoply of war com- prised in its nine small cannon that once looked out toward the setting sun. Its construction undoubtedly followed the fashion of those described by Hutchin- son in his ]\Iassachusetts history. In 1660 there were forty families here; in 1661 the General Court of the Bay province incorporated these islands into the towTi of Appledore, and here, among its earliest ministers, came John Brock, whose memory is linked with traditions of miracles, two of which will bear the retelling. There was, in Ms time, at the Isles of Shoals a fisherman who possessed much kindliness of feeling toward his neighbors, and whose boat was always at the service of the people on the adjacent islands who "kept church." A storm came up and swept the boat away. The fisherman sought his pastor, into whose sympathetic ear he poured his tale of loss. "Go home contented, good sir. I'll mention the matter to the Lord. To-morrow you may expect to find your boat," was Parson Brock's encouraging 412 OLD YORK reply; and he supplemented his assurance with a heart-felt prayer. The following day, the parson's prophecy was ful- filled; for the lost boat was brought up from the depths of the sea on the fluke of an anchor of an in- coming vessel; and not only was the heart of its ALONG SMUTTY NOSE SHORE owner made glad, but his faith was strengthened and made sure. Another instance of the good minister's miraculous powers is afforded in the tradition of the healing of the Arnold child. This little one fell ill and wasted away until death came, apparently. The parson called on the sadly bereaved parents and bade them OLD YORK 413 to be of good cheer. He then prayed for the restoration of the child's hfe, of which a part has come down through the years. And here it is : " Lord, be pleased to give' some token before we leave prayer that Thou wilt spare this child's life! Until it be granted w^e cannot leave Thee!" These closing words were uttered with all the fervor of a soulful faith. Strange to relate, the child sneezed, to afterward regain its full health. These islands possess much of scenic grandeur, especially under the stress of a furious storm, when the gloom of the sky hugs their black rocks and the indriven mists and the spray soften their hard lines. Then the barren ribs of these islands seem to grow more virile; and one can feel them throb under the pounding of the huge waves that roll in from the outer seas. Then it is that the imagination warms up, and the old tales that hang, as it were, by shreds to this nakedness of earth-denuded granite, clothes them with the impalpable, and strange sounds vibrate on the ear. It is as if a host of disembodied spirits hover at one's elbow to weave anew the spell of the old days, and one sees a half score of quaint hulls of fishing-vessels within hail; inbreathes the savory odors of the fish drying on the flakes that cover these island slopes; sniffs the pungent smokes from the huddle of chimneys against the horizon blown down the freshening wind, and singles out the shouts of children from those of the men about the old- time fish-houses. One rubs his wits, as Aladdin did 414 OLD YORK his lamp, and their servants rehabilitate these silent shores with their ancient picturesqueness; and up and down the by-ways of old Gosport one sees Parson Tucke wending his way, serenely, dropping here and there a kindly word, as was his reputed fashion. But there is always the incessant surge and sound of the sea. Each rocky buttress is a huge mailed hand to smite back these waters that momently return the challenge with redoubled tumult. But of these seven stone heaps in the sea, what might be said of one is pertinent to all, except as to area; for of them all Appledore is the largest, and yet it seems always to have held the lesser place in history and tradition. Strike a circle about the Isles of Shoals and its axis would he somewhere within the southern half of Appledore, and from thence to any point of its periphery would be a scant two miles and a half. Star Island, though somewhat south of this axis, was OLD YORK 415 evidently the most favorable location for the centre of its commerce. From Duck Island on the north to White Island Light on the south it is about five miles, as the crow flies. All these islands are boldly marked b}' broken shores, softened by their broideries of a few sea flora ; bastioned with crag-like or castellated piles of solid rock; striated, gullied, fissvu-ed, and rent and seamed with rudely sculptured galleries and shadow-haunted caverns that resound to the constant bass of old .-W^ DUCK ISLAND ocean, the warp into which are woven the lighter notes, the Glorias and Te Deums of Nature that are ever throbbing on the air hereabout. Nor can one say they are at all alike, for they are physically unlike. If one makes their close acquaintance it is to rec- ognize their individual charm and fascination, and their power to beget dreams and ruder fancies under the influence of their picturesque environment. Each has its own lore of tradition, and each after a like fashion becomes one's famihar; and one's errant foot- steps are clogged with a color of regret, as if these 416 OLD YORK secluded retreats held some long-sought panacea for the unrest that is the heritage of all humanity. After one's mid Shoals jaunt by water, one natur- ally gets back to Star Island, as one is likely to reach it first as one comes hither. My dory buries its nose again in the drift of kelp and devil's apron that seems ever sliding up and down these wet rocks with the lapping of the tide, and I am ashore to find here the same multi-dyed lichens as on Appledore and Smutty LONDONERS ISLAND Nose. The patches of grass in the hollows between the out-cropping ledges possess the same brilliancy of coloring of intense emerald, to the bleached-out stuffs whose color fabrics are made up of vagrant weeds. Here is a huge bull thistle, the only one I have found, thickly armored with dangerous spines, surmounted, Hessian-like, by a like huge pompon of softly luminous pink, to make one think of an inland hillside pasture. I imagine this verdure later in the season will have ripened into sharper contrasts of color; but with the blue water and the cyane of OLD YORK 417 the sky there are hints of tone values here that give one an itching for a few colors, a brush, and a bit of Whatman paper, so lively is the desire to catch and hold permanently something of this elusive yet luminant flood of sun and shadow. There are some remnants of the human touch here on Star Island. Here is an old stone church, a huddle of graves which one would hardly take for such, ex- cept for a pair of weather-worn slabs which are about OLD STONE CHURCH the only things translatable into memorials of an older people; for this old graveyard is a closed book, strewn as it is with rough boulders, nameless, date- less, that mark the almost obliterated mounds. Whatever of annals it ever had are now comprised in the stones that tell one that here lie the remains of the Rev. John Tucke and Parson Josiah Stevens. The epitaph on the stone of the former is suggestive of a life of great piety and loving labor, and all for a stipend of a quintal of winter fish per year from each islander, and wood enough for his needs. Parson 418 OLD YORK Tucke was the teacher of its schools, which attained to some celebrity, and he was likewise physician, as well as preacher. It is safe to assume that when the Lord of the vineyard came he gave ten talents for one. He was of the class of 1723 at Harvard, and began his ministry here nine years later. He was here until his death, which came in 1773. Upon Star Island's windiest knoll is the memorial to Capt. John Smith, whose marble shaft points upward always, along with the quaint tower on the meeting-house close by, that makes one think of the days of New Amsterdam and the gables of the days of Peter Stuyvesant, better known among his com- peers as "Hard koppig Piet," — Headstrong Peter, — and by others as "Old Silver Leg." This little church tower is as well suggestive of Dutch tiles and windmills and the lazy boats of Holland; but it overlooks the sea in all directions, and has seen more than it can ever tell, begin its tales as soon as it may. There is a grim companionship in these remnants of an older day, and one looks at them all expectantly, but they are all alike silent and in- scrutable. Little or no romance outwardly attaches to this pillar that so vividly recalls the adventurous career of Capt. John Smith, the navigator and seeker-out of new comi tries; and although his name did not stick to the "Islands off Cape Ann," yet it was to Smith the credit was due for their swift recognition, and it is to him New England owes her name. If Du Monts gave these islands a name, his misfortune OLD YORK 419 was as great as that of Smith, and better deserved. Except for Chainplain, his sailing hither would have been regarded as uneventful. Drake does not seem inclined to give Smith the credit he so clearly deserves. Smith blew his horn somewhat loudly, but legiti- mately, as might any man who dealt in results, rather CAPT. SMITH'S MONUMENT than in long-distance perspectives, as did Du Monts and Gosnold, having reference to their sighting of the trois et quatre islands that made up this after- ward famous fishing-ground of the Isles of Shoals. Du Monts and Gosnold were content to sail past them, while Smith knew the feel of their gritty rocks. He knew them as intimates; he so spoke of them. For 420 OLD YORK more than a centur,y the miportance of their fisheries justified Smith's estimate of them and their value. I confess I like "Isles of Shoals" better than the nominis umbra of "Smith's." But to hear the former is to recall with lively interest the husband of Pocahontas. Smith may not have ranked as a gentleman after the French standard, with some annalists, but according to the Anglo-Saxon estimate, he was a man of notable achievement, with whom personal aggrandizement was not the underlying motive. At least, he was never in the way of becom- ing a monopolist in fish and furs. His career is firmly fixed in one's mind, if for nothing more than his illustrious example of hardy and courageous man- hood, to whose uprightness of character and tem- perate administration of matters intrusted to his charge much praise is due. Smith's loyalty to his enterprises and to his king was notable as well. If one goes over this island of Star, as one would saunter down the midway of one of our great na- tional fairs, on the lookout for a two-legged calf or an exponent of some anti-lean society, or some other marvel or monstrosity of nature, he would find him- self peering into so-dubbed Betty Moody's Hole, whose legend reminds one of the smothering of the princes in London Tower; for it is related that it was in this shallow cavern that Betty Moody hid away from the Indians, and to prevent her children from betraying her with their outcries, strangled them. According to Hutchinson the Indians were here in 1724, when they carried away two shallops. OLD YORK 421 If one can feel of nature's pulse to catch its beat, now and then, these strange forms of massy rock, THE RAGGED LINES OF LEIGHTON'S GUT their wild gorges and impassive crags, human asso- ciations would hardly be suggested. Humanity is puny beside these ragged lines of nature's writings 422 OLD YORK or hieroglyphics, and massive sculpturings and the labelling of their untamed and untamable char- acteristics with one tradition and another, for which there is no semblance of authenticity, does hardly more than remind one of some gairish circumstance, the like of which the guide books use for padding. One of the most delightful surprises in store for the saunterer among these rocks is a tiny spring from out which bubbles a crystal tide. If one takes Star Island for one of nature's rugged odes, here is its choicest line, and with which the tradition of Betty Moody's Hole is as sounding brass. To drink of the sparkling waters of this spring, is to quaff a Circe's cup. Ulysses might have drimk of its magic cordial without the "Pe-eep" of King Picus shrilling in his ears. It is not unlikely that Capt. John Smith knew the taste of its sweet flavor, and was un- doubtedly the first white man to partake of its bomity. Christopher Levett, who was here in 1623, one may assume, filled liis water casks from it after his strange voyage hither; and what could have been more pal- atable after the stale juices of his English springs, than the cool wholesomeness of its pellucid pleasures ! Mayhap, Jolm Winter, who wrote Trelawney in 1641 from the Isles of Shoals, the Isles assez hautes of Champlain, 1605, was not a stranger to this original and most delicious "Star" water. The islands that make up this group, known as the Isles of Shoals, have been aptly described as ''mere heaps of tumbling granite in the wide and lonely sea." It may be said, as truthfully, that these tree- OLD YORK 423 less ribs of rock are an anomaly in nature. There are eight or nine of them, if one coimts everything above water, and they are boldly poised amid-seas, craggy, and dyked with lava streaks; seamed with gneiss and trap; weirdly modelled mto jagged cliffs whose rough faces are ever wet with the flymg spray; and recessed with noisy caverns that, intermittently choked and drenched with the restless tides, gurgle and roar their discontent with deafening riot. There is some verdure, but the grass is stunted. Here and there are patches of dwarfed wild roses that lend a touch of suggestive color and a rarely delicious odor to the picture. In the early spring one finds clusters of elderberry blooms that in the autumn have donned the purple of Tyre, and their heavy droops of juicy fruitage smack of the wine-press and the vine-clad slopes of France. Towards the mainland, when the summer sun has drunk up the mists along shore, one may scan a long stretch of coast that reaches from Cape Ann ; and at nightfall, one can count the glowing flames of the nine beacons that light the sea-frrer hereabout through the night. Topographically, it is interesting to know something of this famous island group. Appledore is the largest. If one goes its length, one finds it a mile tramp; if its breadth is to be spanned, it is a third less. Smutty Nose has almost the same area as Appledore. Cedar and Malaga might be declared a part of Smutty Nose at low tide, as they are accessible from the latter, dryshod, with the tide well out. Star Island is about one half as 424 OLD YORK large as Appledore; and from Star, a half mile across water, is White Island, a huge pile of stone that rises out of the sea in wildly picturesque disorder, and which owns a massive grandeur, about the base of which an endless procession of inrolling waves offer countless and elusive surf studies for the painter, WHITE ISLAND CLIFFS that defy the most rapid technique or the most reck- less essays of impressionistic art. Wherever one may stand, whichever way one may look, there is ever the glamour of the sea. Here, one's mental canvas conveniently disposed, with a bit of imaginary charcoal, or a brush wet with some choice pigment, sketch after sketch is fastened upon the memory, until one's portfolio is filled to its limit. The Isles of Shoals was one of the many painting- OLD YORK 425 places of the beloved Wliittier, and here is a canvas or two of his filling : "And fair are the summer isles in view East of the grisly Head of the Boar, And Agamenticus lifts its blue Disk of a cloud the woodlands o'er; And southerly, when the tide is down, 'Twixt white sea-waves and sand hills brown The beach birds dance and the gray gulls wheel Over a floor of burnished steel." Ever these sketches grow, and the poet hangs them on the walls of his library for his friends to enjoy, and as they look and listen, he dreams anew, and paints as he dreams — "So, as I lay upon Appledore, In the calm of a closing summer day, And the broken hues of Hampton's shore In the purple mist of cloudland lay, The Ri vermouth rocks their story told, And waves aglow with the sunset gold. Rising and breaking in steady chime Beat the rhythm and kept the time "And the sunset paled and warmed once more. With a softer, tenderer afterglow; In the east was moonrise, with boats offshore, And sails in the distance drifting slow ; The beacon ghmmered from Portsmouth bar, The white Isle kindled its great red star;" and the glory of the twilight, and the glow of the "Sunset fires along the clouds burned down," that merged the dusky sea into a ruddy flood, faded away. But Whittier was not alone in his enjoyment 426 OLD YORK of these marvellous legacies of nature; for all dream and paint, as did he, differing only in degree; except, perhaps, that we turn our sketches to the wall, as if we would enjoy them alone, but really, because of their crudities. For all that, nothing one does with all one's heart can be without its interest and value to some other. What would not one give to catch a few bars of the many songs that are unsung, or a sentient glimpse of the pictures the painter in the bram paints as one sleeps! But dreams are slender things, more slender than the cobwebs that make the fields of a dewy morn- ing into webs of green and silver; and yet it is out of just such sleazy stuffs that Art is born. But is it a true note the poet strikes, when he declares that "All passes. Art alone Enduring, stays to us. The bust outlives the throne ; The coin, Tiberius." Does the poet forget that all things revert to the bases of their creation, nature? for the bronze will corrode, the marble crumble, and Cresar's efifigy pass, from its disk of gold as the moisture of one's breathing on his mirror. But one associates the pacts with thes^ Isles of Shoals, as one does the facile touch of Cham plain, or the resounding tread of Smith; and though Whit- tier, the greatest of them all, has passed through the gates of the Great Silence, his pictures still glow and pulse with the realism of his technique as softly tender as the moonrise, and as delicate as the coloring of the vagrant blossoms at his feet. OLD YORK 42' Stretched at length under the afternoon sun, along some verdurous coverlet of grass that softly lines the cradling hummocks of these islands, with the cool sea winds blowing up from the indigo waters, he un- doubtedly saw, as I did, the phantasmagoria of these and the adjacent shores in the days of old, troop, like a flight of swallows before the rain, over and across his field of vision. It is a Delectable Land one looks out upon — these buried centuries — and. Moses- like, one can look, and looking can but covet the dervish's ointment that their treasures might be revealed to him. S 11 I50i LIBRARY OF CONGRESS