1 Hi^ !!li ^'llllliiilliil Class ^i^ Book. Tfe Goi)yii^htN°_ 1 COPyRIGHT DEPOSIT. THE GRAFTON HISTORICAL SERIES Edited by HENRY R. STILES, A.M., M.D. The Grafton Historical Series Edited by Henry R. Stiles, A.M., M.D. 12mo. Cloth, gilt top In Olde Connecticut By Charles Burr Todd Frontispiece, $1.25 net (postage 10c.) Historic Hadley By Alice Morehouse Walker Illustrated, $1.00 net (postage 10c.) King Philip's War By George W. Ellis and John E. Morris Illustrated, $2.00 net (postage 15c.) In Olde Massachusetts By Charles Burr Todd Illustrated, $1.50 net (postage 10c.) In Press A History of Mattapoisett and Old Rochester, Massachusetts The Diary of Reverend Enos Hitchcock A Chaplain in The Revolution The Cherokee Indians By Thomas Valentine Parker, Ph.D. Historic Graveyards of Maryland and their Inscriptions By Helen W. Ridgely In Olde New York By Charles Burr Todd THE GRAFTON PRESS 70 Fifth Avenue 6 Beacon Street New York Boston IN OLDE MASSACHUSETTS SKETCHES OF OLD TIMES AND PLACES DURING THE EARLY DAYS OF THE COMMONWEALTH BY CHARLES BURR TODD Author of "In Olde Connecticut" "The Story of the City of New York," "The True Aaron Burr" THE GRAFTON PRESS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK FfcS' I LIBRARY of OONGRESSI ' Two Copies Roceived j JUL 2 liiWr j yOUSSi /Ol XX.c, No. j COPY b. I Copyright, 1907, By the GRAFTON PRESS. FOREWORD rr^O the sons and daughters of Massachusetts, who -*- love her history and traditions, this Httle book is dedicated. Many things given therein were dug from mines never before explored by the literary craftsman, and have the value of original discoveries. They were first printed in various journals between the years 1880-1890, which fact should be borne in mind by the reader who discovers that certain conditions portrayed in the descriptive articles no longer exist. C. B. T. May, 1907. CONTENTS PAGE I Cambridge in Midsummer (1883) . 1 II A Day in Lexington ... 8 III Concord Memories , . .14 IV Autumn Days in Quincy (1883) . 21 V Brook Farm in 1881 ... 29 VI A Visit to Plymouth (1882) . 36 VII A Day at Green Harbor (1882) . 46 VIII Salem 55 IX Another View of Salem . . 65 X MUrblehead Scenes (1885) . , 69 XI Quaint Old Barnstable . . 75 XII Nantucket Stories ... 85 XIII Nantucket's First Tea Party . 90 XrV Ships and Sailors of Nantucket . 97 XV An Anti-Slavery Pioneer . . 107 XVI The Sea Fight off MADDEtiUE- cham ..... 112 XVII A Typical Nantucket Merchant . 117 XVIII The Sea Kings of Nantucket . 126 XIX Wrecks and Wrecking . . 142 XX Nantucket Entertains the Gov- ernor 150 VUl Contents PAGE XXI The Mashpees, 1885 161 XXII Provincetown 173 XXIII Martha's Vineyard (1882) . 179 XXIV Northampton 187 XXV Historic Deerfield 195 XXVI PiTTsriELD, A Home of Poets, 1885 200 XXVII Williamstown the Beautiful (1885) .... . 204 XXVIII Monument Mountain . , 209 XXIX Lenox in 1883 , 215 XXX The Hoosac Tunnel . , 222 XXXI The Cape Cod Canal a Quarter- Century Ago 230 ILLUSTRATIONS y The Washington Elm, Cambridge Frontispiece FACING PAGE Washington's Headquarters, Cambridge 4 ^ The Bridge at Concord 14 " The Old Quincy House 26 ' Pilgrim HaU, Plymouth 36 Daniel Webster's Home, Green Harbor 48 The Custom House at Salem 66 View of Marblehead Harbor 70 A Typical Nantucket House 90 The Bark Canton 130 , The Edwards Ehn, Northampton 190 The Stone Face on Monument ^Mountain, Stockbridge . . 210 -^ Indian Burial Place, Stockbridge 214 '' The Hawthorne Cottage, Lenox , 218' IN OLDE MASSACHUSETTS IN OLDE MASSACHUSETTS CHAPTER I CAMBRIDGE IN MIDSUMMER, 1883 CAMBRIDGE in midsummer is vastly different from the Cambridge of the college year. Except for a few members of the summer classes, under- graduate life is still; professors and tutors are off to mountain or seashore; only the bursar and janitors remain, while under the classic elms, instead of grave, spectacled scholars one meets painters, glaziers, uphol- sterers, and other members of the renovating corps. Most of the wealthy and cultivated families Avho make the place their winter home have also gone, and one discovers how dull, so far as mere physical animation is concerned, a university town may be without the university life. To the dreamy or reflective visitor, however, the place presents now its most interesting aspect. He can loiter about the college quadrangles and assimilate whatever about them is venerable in history, grand in effort, or noble through association, without being stumbled over by hurrying undergradu- ates or eyed askance by oflScious proctors. Then, too, the historic houses in the town are more accessible, and 2 In Olde Massachusetts the aged citizens who remain, more chatty and gossipy than in the busier season. Could anything be more worthy or venerable, for instance, than Massachusetts Hall — a mouldy, mossy brick pile on the west of the quadrangle, built in 1718 at the expense of the Government, and christened with the name of the colony? All the glory of the State seems to invest it. Or the Old Wadsworth House, on Harvard Street, built in 1726, the home of the early presidents of the college, the headquarters of Washing- ton and Lee, the gathering place of all the patriot leaders of the Revolution — one feels that the authori- ties cannot be aware of its history, to have put it to the uses which it bears — a dormitory for students and an office for bursar and janitor. Harvard Hall is another of the time-honored structures in the quadrangle. It was built by order of the General Court in 1765, and from its roof, in 1775, 1,000 pounds of lead were taken and made into bullets for the needy Continentals. Washington was received there in 1789. In the first Stoughton Hall, also within the quadrangle, the Pro- visional Congress held its sessions, and mapped out the plan of the opening campaign. The present Stoughton Hall, erected in 1805, is notable for the many eminent men who have been sheltered within its walls; Edward Everett, Josiah Quincy, the Peabody brothers, Caleb Cushing, Horatio Greenough, Sumner, Hilliard, Hoar, Hale, and Holmes Cambridge in Midsummer 3 being among them. HoUis Hall, next south of Stough- ton, was also noteworthy in this respect; Prescott, Emerson, Wendell PhilHps, Charles Francis Adams, and Thoreau having been among its occupants. But Harvard is not all of Cambridge; there is as much without as within the campus to interest the tourist. One scarcely realizes the historical importance of the place until he stands beneath the Washington elm beside the ancient Common. This Common i^ noteworthy because here the first American army was marshaled, the American flag was first unfurled, and the raw Continental levies were organized and drilled for the attack on Bunker Hill. The elm is famous because under it Washington took command of the army, and because from a little stand built high up in its branches he could watch the movements of his antagonists in any direction. The old tree has been surrounded by an iron railing, in front of which is a granite tablet bearing this inscription, written by Longfellow: "Under this tree Washington first took command of the American army, July 3, 1775." The old relic has long been engaged in a pathetic struggle with age and decay. Nearly all of its original limbs have decayed from the top down, leaving only their stumps attached to the parent trunk, and most of what is green about it has sprung from these stumps, or from the vigorous old trunk. 4 In Olde Massachusetts Under this elm the thinker is prone to yield to Cam- bridge priority among American historic places. Lex- ington and Concord were mere cmeutes. This was the point of decision, the matrix of nationality, the birth- place of concerted, organized resistance, while Putnam, spurring here on the news of Lexington, taking com- mand of the excited, unprovided farmers, sending hourly expresses to Trumbull at Lebanon for arms, powder, provisions, and finally leading the organized battalions up to Bunker Hill, is the true liistoric figure- piece of the Revolution. No town boasts such a wealth of ancient and note- worthy houses as Cambridge. A few minutes' walk from the old oak, on Brattle Street, is a fine old-time mansion, seated on a terrace a little back from the street, which possesses a character, a dignity, that would render it a marked house even to one unac- quainted with its history. This is the old Wasliington Headquarters, better known during the last forty years as the home of Longfellow. Its history dates back to 1739, when it was built by one Col. John Vassal. In the troubles of 1775, Vassal espoused the British cause, and was obliged to flee into the English lines, whereupon Col. John Glover, with his Marblehead regiment, took possession. In July, 1775, Washington fixed his headquarters here, and remained until the following February. Madam Washington and her maids arrived in December, and held many levees and rX a ij o be ~ ■-^ ^^ -^_ « <; "* U E c/l ^ K ^ H _c •< X U' CC o T, a O "^ •^ .^^ ,^' ll j^ J^ p C^ H O ^ ;« '■■ s < 1 Cambridge in Midsummer 5 dinner parties here, it is said, through the winter. After the war several gentlemen owned it for short periods. During Dr. Craigie's occupancy Talleyrand and the Duke of Kent were entertained there. Jared Sparks resided there in 1833. Edward Everett was also a resident at one time. In 1837 Longfellow, on his return from Europe to assume the professor's chair in Harvard, took possession of the mansion, and in 1843 purchased it. Of its subsequent history it is not neces- sary to speak. The park about the house comprises some eight acres. Passing up the broad graveled walk, we sounded the old-fashioned knocker on the door, and presently a pleasant-faced matron — the housekeeper — answered the summons. To our inquiry if visitors were now admitted to the library, she replied that they were not, as the family was away, and the rooms had been closed until their return; then, seeing our look of disappointment, she inquired if we had come far, and on our informing her that we were from New York and members of the guild, she kindly admitted us to the study. From the wide hall we stepped at once into this study — a large, airy front room on the right as one enters. A round center-table occupied the middle of the room, on which were grouped the poet's favorite books, several manuscript poems as they came from his hand, his inkstand, pen, and other familiar articles. 6 In Olde Massachusetts Mr. Ernest Longfellow's fine portrait of his father in a corner of the room is a noteworthy feature'. The fur- niture, table, and all the appointments of the room are as they were left by the former occupant, and we learned that it was the intention of the family to pre- serve them in this condition. Down Brattle Street a quarter of a mile further, on the opposite side, is Elmwood, the home of the Lowells for two generations, and for years the seat of James Russell Lowell. This house, too, has a history; it was built about 1760, and previous to the Revolution was the home of Lieut. -Gov. Thomas Olivers, the last of the English colonial rulers. Olivers abdicated in 1775, in compliance, as he explained, with the command of a mob of 4,000 persons who had surrounded his house. A little later it was used as a hospital for the wounded in the skirmish on Bunker Hill, and the field opposite was taken for the burial of the dead. Elbridge Gerry resided here for a term of years, his successor being the Rev. Charles Lowell, father of the poet. The house and grounds could not be quainter or more delightfully rural if they were a hundred miles in the interior. The original mansion, the great pines and elms, the old barn, outhouses, and orchard, have been preserved as they existed a hundred years ago. Another mansion notable in letters is the Holmes House, near the Common, between Kirkland Street and North Avenue, an old gambrel-roofed structure. Cambridge in Midsummer 7 with the mosses of more than one hundred and fifty years clinging to its clapboards. Here the Committee of Safety planned the organization of the army; it was also for a short time the headquarters of Washington. Some years after the war the place came into the possession of Judge Oliver Wendell, maternal grand- father of the poet, from whom it passed to the Rev. Abiel Holmes, the father of the Autocrat of the Break- fast Table. "Old Ironsides" was one of the many poems ^vritten within its walls. It is now the property of the college. The Lee, the Fayerweather, the Brattle, the Water- house, and other mansions have famous and interest- ing histories; but we have perhaps said enough to give the reader an idea of what a midsummer walk in Cam- bridge may develop. CHAPTER II A DAY IN LEXINGTON npHE drive from Boston to Lexington is one rarely -■■ taken by tourists, but is a most interesting excur- sion nevertheless, particularly if one has for cicerone one familiar v^ith the towns and their history. Getting over the Charles and beyond the suburbs, one is sur- prised to find himself in a region so wild and sparsely populated. The land is sterile, the hill pastures covered with sweet fern and whortleberry bushes, and the farmhouses few and far between. We followed pretty definitely the route of the British on the fateful morning of the 19th of April, and in an hour and a half drove into Arlington, the only considerable town on the way. In 1775 it was a little hamlet bearing its aboriginal name, but famous for its tavern — the Black Horse, — which was the meeting place of both the town committees of safety and supplies. " The floor of this tavern was stained with the first blood shed in the Revolution," observed my friend as we drove past. After Paul Revere dashed into Lexington at midnight with his note of alarm, scouts were sent down the Boston road as far as Arlington to give notice of the A Day in Lexington 9 enemy's approach. One of these videttes was nearly surprised in the tavern by the British advance, another, Samuel Whittemore by name, was shot, bayoneted, and left for dead in the street opposite, and after his assailants left, was borne bleeding into the tavern where his wounds were dressed. He eventually re- covered. Three hours after leaving Boston we drove into Lexington. The village has escaped the fate of many Massachusetts towns and is as quietly rural now as a hundred years ago. A long main street, shaded by elms, and a pretty green of perhaps an acre, surrounded by straggling village houses, are its prominent features. At the south end of the green is a tall flagstaflF, bearing aloft a motto which informs the tourist that on that spot American Freedom was born. Further north, on the mound where many of Captain Parker's men "abided the event" that April morning, stands a monument, erected by the citizens of Lexington at the expense of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in memory of their fellow-citizens. Ensign Robert Monroe, and Messrs. John Parker, Samuel Hadley, Jonathan Har- rington, Jr., Isaac Muzzey, Caleb Harrington, and John Brown, of Lexington, and Asahel Porter, of Woburn, " who fell on this field, the first victims to the sword of British Tyranny and Oppression, on the morning of the ever memorable Nineteenth of April, 1775." 10 In Olde Massachusetts "The die was cast. The blood of these martyrs, In the cause of God and their country, was the cement of the Union of these States, then colonies, and gave the spring to the spirit, firmness, and resolution of their citizens. They rose as one man to avenge their brethren's Blood, and at the point of the sword to assert and defend their native rights. They nobly dared to be free. The contest was long, bloody, and affecting. Righteous Heaven approved the solemn appeal. Vic- tory crowned their arms; the Peace, Liberty and In- dependence of the United States was their glorious reward." Some of the local incidents of the fight, as narrated by my friend, are given in the books and need not be repeated here; to others, however, he imparted so novel and realistic a tone that I shall venture to repeat them. Leading me to a spot on the Common a little north of the site of the old meeting-house, he remarked : " Right here fell Jonathan Harrington. His wife stood in her door yonder watching him, and saw him fall, partly rise and fall again, with the blood streaming from his breast; at last he crept across the road and died at her feet. The ammunition was stored in the meeting- house, and four men were there filling their cartridge boxes when the firing began. One of them, Joshua Simonds, cocked his musket, and ensconced himself beside an open cask of powder, declaring that he would blow the building to pieces before that powder should A Day in Lexington 11 charge His Majesty's muskets." "Another instance of resolution is found in Jonas Parker, who had often sworn that he would never run from the British. As they appeared he loaded his musket, placed his hat with his ammunition in it on the ground before him, and remained there loading and firing until killed with the bayonet." "In the old glebe house yonder, on Hancock Street, then occupied by the Rev. Sylvester Clark, John Hancock and Samuel Adams watched the progress of the fight; they would no doubt have taken part in it had they not been restrained by a guard of a sergeant and eight men. As the British left the town, marching toward Concord, they withdrew to a hill partly covered by forest southeast of the house. Wait- ing here, Adams, from the bare summit of a rock, observing the commotion in the town below, remarked with a prophet's insight, ' What a glorious morning for America is this!'" There is quite a history and some romance connected with the presence of the two patriots in Lexington that morning. On the arrival, a short time before, of King George's orders to hang them in Boston, if caught, they became proscribed men, and sought a refuge with the Rev. Mr. Clark, of Lexington, a relation of Han- cock. Mrs. Thomas Hancock, widow of the great merchant, and aunt of the Governor, with her pro- tegee. Miss Dolly Quincy, then affianced to the Gov- ernor, were also present. Miss Dolly was the belle of 12 In Olde Massachusetts Boston, very beautiful and wilful withal, and on this occasion the cause of some trouble to her somewhat elderly lover, for against his urgent entreaties she per- sisted in viewing the fight from her chamber window. Learning that their capture was one of the objects of the expedition, the two patriots, as the British passed on, retired to the house of the Rev. Mr. Jones, in Woburn, the ladies accompanying them. Next day the wilful Miss Dolly proposed returning to her father, Judge Edmund Quincy, in Boston, but Mr. Hancock said decidedly that she should not return while there was a British bayonet in Boston. "Recollect, Mr. Hancock," she replied, "that I am not under your control yet: I shall go in to my father to-morrow." She was overruled, however, and the whole party, a few days later, passed down through Connecticut to the seat of Thaddeus Burr in Fairfield, where, in the following August, Miss Dolly and the Governor were married. Tradition says they rode on this occasion in a light carriage drawn by four horses, with coachmen and footmen in attendance. Meanwhile, in Lexington the Committee of Safety had dispatched a swift courier to Watertown, with news of the morning's affray, and the committee there at once commissioned a messenger. Trail Bissel, to alarm the colonies. I have seen the credentials which this messenger carried, stating that the bearer. Trail Bissel, was charged to alarm the country quite to Con- A Day in Lexington 13 necticut, and desiring all patriots to furnish him fresh horses as needed. From indorsements on it by the committees of the various towns it appears that it left Watertown at 10 a.m. on April 19th (Wednesday), reached Brookline at 11 a.m., and Norwich at 4 p.m. on Thursday; New London at 7 p.m., LjTne on Friday morning at 1, Saybrook at 4 a.m., Killingworth at 7 a.m., Guilford at 10 a.m., Branford at noon. New Haven in the afternoon, Fairfield at 8 a.m. on Saturday, New York on Sunday at 4 p.m.. New Brunswick the next day at 2 a.m., Princeton at 6, and Philadelphia in the afternoon. CHAPTER III CONCORD MEMORIES /^ONCORD is, or should be, the Mecca of the cul- ^-^ tivated; one might search far in the Old World or the New and not find a town of such varied literary and historic interest. Memories of Hawthorne and Emerson, of Thoreau, Channing, and Margaret FuUei- invest it, and there still remains the scholarly society that properly-accredited visitors have long found so pleasant. One cannot walk far in the old town without finding something to please the fancy or stir the pulse. The goal of most tourists is the river and its famous bridge — a half-mile from town ; but on the way thither one meets a structure quite as famous in its way — the Old Manse of Emerson and Hawthorne. It is quite old, and stands mossy and stately behind an avenue of elm and maple, with its numerous narrow-paned windows in front, and one lone outlook from its quaint dormer; still habitable and inhabited, although nearly one hun- dred and twenty years have passed since its stout frame was raised. A pretty green lawn surrounds the house, and an apple orchard slopes in the rear to the The Bridge at Concord Showing the Monuments at Each End ol' tlie Bridge Concord Memories 15 Concord. The house was built for the ministers of the town, and, save a short interregnum filled by Hawthorne, has always been occupied by them or their descendants. The room above the dining-room is the most notable. There Emerson wrote many of his best poems, and there the "Mosses from an Old Manse" were put into form and sent out to de- light the world. From its northern window, it is said, the wife of the Rev. William Emerson watched the fight on Concord Bridge. It is but a stone's tlirow — a few steps along the road, a sharp turn to the left, and down a little knoll through the gloom of somber pines, until, under two ancient elms that saw the volleys of 1775, appear the river and the bridge. It cannot be said that the people of Concord are in- different to the preservation of their historic places. Two monuments mark the battleground, and when the old bridge became unsafe they built a new one — an exact copy of the old. On the hither side of the stream is a plain granite shaft, erected in 1836, bearing this inscription by Emerson: "Here on the 19th of April, 1775, was made the first forcible resistance to British aggression. On the opposite bank stood the American militia, and on this spot the first of the enemy fell in the war of the Revolution, which gave independence to these United States. In gratitude to God, and in the love of freedom, this monument was erected A.D. 1836." But after many years it was per- 16 In Olde Massachusetts ceived by the people of Concord that to commemorate with monuments the spot where your enemy fell, and leave unmarked the ground where your patriot fore- fathers bled, was neither appropriate nor patriotic, and Mr. D. C. French, a young sculptor of the town, was commissioned to design a bronze statue to commemorate the minute-men's stand for liberty. Few statues of historic meaning are so simple and appropriate. The central idea is the minute-man in toil-stained attire, with ancient flintlock firmly grasped. The stern, tense visage of the man is admirably shown. The figure leans upon an old-fashioned plow, and stands on a simple granite base, on which are chiseled Emerson's well-known lines: " By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's sun unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood. And fired the shot heard round the world." The two British soldiers left dead on the ground were buried on the afternoon of the Concord fight, by the stone wall near by. The grave is now protected by a raiUng, and marked by the inscription, "Grave of British soldiers," on a stone in the wall above it. Except the Old Manse, the houses of literary in- terest are all on the other side of the town. If from the village green one strolls down the Lexington road, a leisurely walk of five minutes will bring him to a fork in the road, facing which, on the right, is a plain. Concord Memories 17 square country house, painted white, with the tradi- tional picket fence in front, and sundry pines and maples bending protectingly over its square roofs. A drive leads through the road to a yellow barn in the rear, and flanking this is a garden of half an acre, in which, in their season, roses and a rare collection of hollyhocks may be found. This was for many years the home of Emerson. It has received and entertained the notables of two generations. The left branch of the fork — the old Boston Road — leads in an eighth of a mile to Wayside, the former home of Hawthorne. The house pleases the esthetic taste rather more than that of the philosopher. It is nestled under one of the sharp spurs that define the Concord Valley, and deep groves of pines on the hill- side and at its base contrast prettily with the green of the lawn and the neutral tints of the cottage. The house was later occupied by George P. Lathrop, the son-in-law of Hawthorne. The Orchard House, the former home of the Alcott family, adjoined Wayside on the north. Mr. Alcott removed from it as the in- firmities of age came on, and resided in the village with a widowed daughter, Mrs. Pratt. In the winter Miss Louisa M. Alcott also made her home with them. In the same yard with the Alcott house stood a little, vine- wreathed chapel, in which the lectures and discussions of the School of Philosophy were held. The only house in Concord that can be said to have 18 In Olde Massachusetts been distinctively Thoreau's home was the little shed on a sand bar of Walden Pond, which he built as a protest against the follies and complex wants of society. This house contained one room ten feet wide by fifteen long, a closet, a window, two trap-doors, and a brick chimney at one end. Its timbers were grown on the spot, the boards for its covering were procured from the deserted shanty of a railway laborer, and the whole cost of the structure did not exceed $30. In this house, through the most inclement season of the year — from July to May — the philosopher lived at an expense of $8.76 — a striking reproof of modern folly and extrava- gance. The house on the Virginia road where Thoreau was born was standing in 1883, and the house where he died was later the residence of the Alcotts. Perhaps the tourist will derive his most novel and permanent impressions of Concord from the cemeteries. The Hill Burying-ground, rising directly from the town square, is the most ancient, its oldest stone bearing date of 1677. Major John Buttrick, who commanded the patriots at the bridge, and the Rev. William Emer- son, who by example advocated resistance to tyrants that morning, are interred here; and here Pitcairn stood to watch the fight and direct the movements of his troops. No other yard, I think, can furnish such novel and distinctive epitaphs. There is one, for in- stance, which shows when white marble, emblematic of purity, first began to be used for memorials, the Concord Memories 19 favorite material before that having been red sand- stone. Here is the inscription: "This stone is designed by its durabihty to per- petuate the memory, and by its color to signify the moral character, of Miss Abigail Dudley, who died January 4, 1812, aged 73." The epitaph to John Jack, an aged slave who died in 1773, is said to have been wTitten by the Rev. Daniel Bliss, a former minister of Concord: "God wills us free; man wills us slaves. I will as God wills; God's will be done. Here lies the body of John Jack, a native of Africa, who died March, 1773, aged about sixty years. Though born in a land of slavery, he was born free. Though he lived in a land of liberty, he lived a slave; till by his honest though stolen labors he acquired the source of slavery, which gave him his freedom. Though not long before death, the grand tyrant, gave him his final emancipa- tion, and put him on a footing with kings. Though a slave to vice, he practised those virtues without which kings are but slaves." It would be difficult to imagine a more charming resting-place than Sleepy-Hollow Cemetery, Concord's modern place of interment. Originally it was a natural park of liill and dale, shaded by forest trees, with a beautiful hollow of perhaps an acre in extent in the center. The grounds were laid out in 1855, art being content to adorn rather than change nature's plan. 20 In Olde Massachusetts Most of Concord's famous dead are buried here. Hawthorne, Thoreau, and Emerson He on the same ridge, and almost in adjoining plots. Ascending the Ridge Path from the west, Thoreau's grave is seen on the brow of the ridge, beneath a group of tall pines. The lot is unenclosed. A brown-stone slab marks the author's grave; the grave of his brother John, a youth of great promise, is close beside, and those of his father, mother, and two sisters share the lot. "May my life be not destitute of its Indian summer," Thoreau once prayed, and one learns from the stone that he was cut down before the summer had fairly come to him. Hawthorne's tomb is but a few steps away, covered with myrtle, and marked by two small stones, one at the foot and one at the head. There are but two other graves in the plot — those of his grandchildren, Francis H. and Gladys H. Lathrop. Emerson was laid on the same hill summit, a short distance south. CHAPTER IV AUTUMN DAYS IN QUINCY, 1883 THE illustrated magazines in their wide search for topics seem to have missed Quincy — most prolific in subjects for both pen and pencil. The town is almost in sight of Boston, but seven miles away, with its granite quarries and manufactories, a town of to- day; but in its ancient churchyards and fine old man- sions hidden in the suburbs a wealth of interesting historical material lies buried. Take, for instance, the ancient mansion of the Quincys, a half-mile north of the village, on the old road opened to connect Plymouth Colony with Massachusetts Bay, one of the first high- ways of the nation. The house stands in a sunny hollow on the banks of a little brook that enters, a short distance beyond, an arm of the sea. Looking on it from the street between two fine old English lindens that grace the entrance and rows of elms beyond, one can but consider it one of the finest specimens of colonial domestic architecture extant — an impression which the interior, with its broad hall and gently ascending staircase, with carved balustrade, the wide but low-studded rooms, with their ancient furniture 22 In Olde Massachusetts and relics, heightens rather than diminishes. Its occu- pant, when we visited it, Mr. Peter Butler, had made a study of the history of his dwelling, and placed the date of the erection of its earlier portion in 1635, on the authority of the venerable Josiah Quincy, President of Harvard College, who died in 1864, aged ninety-six, and of his son, the late Edmund Quincy of Dedham, an accomplished antiquary. Its builder was that Edmund Quincy who came to Boston in 1633 with John Cotton, and became the ancestor of the Quincys who later figured so prominently in the history of their country. He died in 1637, shortly after the allotment of a large tract of land in Braintree, now Quincy, had been made him. His son Edmund enlarged the origi- nal structure, and lived in it to a green old age, dying in January, 1698. He too was a notable citizen, repre- senting his town many times in the General Court, acting as magistrate, and serving as lieutenant-colonel of the Suffolk regiment. "A true New England man," said Judge Sewall of him, in his diary, "and one of our best friends"; while another writer pictures him as reproducing "the type of the English country gentleman in New England." It is in the famous diary of Judge Sewall, under date of 1712, that we find the first printed mention of the old house. He is noting a journey from Plymouth (where he had been holding court) to Boston, made in March of that year, and proceeds: "Rained hard Autumn Days in Quincy 23 quickly after setting out; went by Mattakeese meeting- house, and forded over the North River. My Horse stumbled in the considerable body of water, but I made a shift, by God's Help, to set him, and he recovered and carried me out. Rained very hard and we went into a barn awhile. Baited at Bainsto's, dined at Cushing's, dried my coat and hat at both places. By that time got to Braintry; the day and I were in a manner spent, and I turned into Cousin Quinsey. . . . Lodged in the chamber next the Brooke." A pleasing glimpse of the "free-hearted hospitality" of that day this little extract affords; "the Brooke" is still there, and the chamber too, but little changed in general appearance since the distinguished guest left it. Judge Sewall's chamber was a corner room, with an outlook on both the turnpike and across the brook over the fields on the north. The adjoining room is still known as " Flynt's chamber," and the room beneath, connected with it by a narrow, winding stair, as " Flynt's study," from a former occupant, Henry Flynt, known to his contemporaries as "Tutor Flynt," from his having filled the office of tutor at Harvard College for fifty- five years. His father was the Rev. Henry Flynt of Dorchester, and his sister Dorothy married Judge Edmund Quincy, and became the ancestress of a long line of noble sons and daughters. There was a personality about Tutor Flynt that caused him to figure quite prominently in the diaries 24 In Olde Massachusetts and notes of the men of his day. Judge Sewall relates an adventure that occurred to the tutor and himself while they were journeying from Cambridge to Ports- mouth, Sewall being at the time an undergraduate. "After dinner we passed through North Hampton to Greenland, and after coming to a small rise of the road, the hills on the north side of Piscataqua River appearing in view, a conversation passed between us respecting one of them, which he said was Frost Hill. I said it was Agamenticus, a large hill in York. We differed in opinion, and each of us adhered to his own idea of the subject. During this conversation, while we were descending gradually at a moderate pace, and at a small distance from Clark's tavern, the ground being a little sandy, but free from stones or obstruc- tions of any kind, the horse somehow stumbled in so sudden a manner, the boot of the chair being loose on Mr. Flynt's side, as to throw him headlong from the carriage into the road; and the stoppage being so sud- den, had not the boot been fastened on my side, I might probably have been thrown out likewise. The horse sprang up quickly, and with some difficulty I so guided the chair as to prevent the wheel passing over him, when I halted and jumped out, being apprehen- sive from the manner in which the old gentleman was thrown out it must have broken his neck. Several persons at the tavern noticed the occurrence, and im- mediately came to assist Mr. Flynt, and after raising Autumn Days in Quincy 25 found him able to walk to the house; and after wash- ing his face and head with some water found the skin rubbed off his forehead in two or three places, to which a young lady . . . applied some court plaster. After which we had among us two or three single bowls of lemon punch made pretty sweet, with which we re- freshed ourselves, and became very cheerful. ... I was directed to pay for our bowl of punch and the oats our horse had received, after which we proceeded on towards Portsmouth. . . . The punch we had par- taken of was pretty well charged with good old spirit, and Mr. Flynt was very pleasant and sociable." This interesting character died in 1760 and was buried in the cemetery at Cambridge. Edmund Quincy, a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, inhabited the old mansion in the days preceding the Revolution. His daughter Dorothy was the belle of Boston society in those days. John Hancock, at one time a resident of Quincy, wooed and won her in this very house. In its parlor we saw the quaint French paper placed on its walls in honor of her ap- proacliing nuptials. The marriage did not take place here, however, but in Fairfield, Conn., nearly two hun- dred miles distant. Hancock and Samuel Adams, as is well known, early became the special objects of British vengeance. They were in hiding in Lexington at the time Pitcairn marched against the town (Mrs. Hancock and Miss Quincy being also in the village), 26 In Olde Massachusetts and escaped to a neighboring farm, where news was brought of the approach of the enemy, it being sup- posed then that their capture was one of the objects of the expedition. After the melee the four drove in a carriage down through Connecticut to the mansion of Thaddeus Burr, in Fairfield, a friend of Hancock's, where the ladies spent the summer, and where, in the autumn, on Hancock's return from presiding over the Continental Congress, the lovers were married. A few years after the Revolution the old mansion passed from the family, being purchased, with the twenty-five acres of lawn and field that now comprise the estate, by a gentleman named Allayne, who came to Boston from Barbadoes, where his family held large possessions. He was probably attracted to Quincy by the fame of the old mansion, and by the fact that here was an Episcopal church and rector — one of the very few places in New England at that period where that church had gained a foothold. Two other gentlemen resided here before Mr. Butler came into possession, so that five families in all had then occupied it. Among the furniture were two chairs, formerly be- longing to Governor Hutchinson, two which had held the portly form of Governor Bowdoin, and two brought from France by the Huguenots in 1686. There was also a gun, picked up in the retreat from Lexington, bearing the initials of the soldier who dropped it, either in the hurry of flight or at the command of death. The 2 o^ ^^ 4 q :-i /-N ■^ ^"*' »^.'' •^ ^:^ Autumn Days in Quincy 27 paper on the parlor, which, as we have remarked, was placed there in honor of the approaching marriage of Dorothy Quincy to John Hancock, had some features of interest. It was covered with quaint designs and was laid on in squares, the papermaker of that day not having hit on the device of winding his product in rolls. There was also an interesting collection of Websteriana — the great statesman's wine-cooler, some of his silver- ware, two snuff-boxes, one of which was presented by the father of the late Sam Ward, a shot-gun, several portraits, and the cane presented by the citizens of Erie, Pa., in 1837. There was a pewter carving-dish that belonged to an earlier age, the wine-cooler of General Gage, and the punch-bowl of Governor Eustis, last used, it is said, when it was filled in honor of Lafayette. There was here, too, the secretary of Governor Hutchinson, and one of the original Franklin stoves. In the library, with its narrow, winding stair leading up to " Flynt's study," stood a tall, brass-faced clock of ancient design, an oddity in clocks, from having but a single hand, the hours being divided into sections of seven and a half minutes each. Several autograph letters of John and John Quincy Adams remind us that we are but a few steps from the old Adams family mansion, which might be seen across the meadows on the west but for the trees. From the Quincy mansion we paid it a visit, turning the corner, then up a side street, across the deep cut of the railway. 28 In Olde Massachusetts just beyond which we reached it: a fine old double house, set in a pretty park, with a long piazza in front, two entrances and halls, and on the west a detached, vine-covered brick structure — the library. It had sheltered two Presidents and their families, and was for years the home of Charles Francis Adams. We were admitted to the parlor, as a special favor, and shown the fine portraits of John Adams and liis wife Abigail, by Stuart, and of John Quincy Adams, by Copley, and to the dining-room, where hung the por- traits of George II. and his Queen, by Savage. Then we went out along the piazza to the entrance on the west, and on the left entered the "Mahogany Room," the favorite apartment of the Presidents; so called because it is finished in panels of solid mahogany. The old mansion, we learned, was built seventy-five years before President John Adams bought it, by a famous West India merchant of Boston, who, having a large importation of mahogany in stock, utilized it in the rich and solid decoration of one room of his mansion. The library of the Presidents, where much of their literary work was done, was in this wing, but as rare and valuable books and manuscripts accumu- lated, the risk of retaining them in the main building was deemed too great, and some years ago the brick fire-proof structure which we have mentioned was erected by the late occupant for their safe keeping. CHAPTER V BROOK FARM IN 1881 INTEREST in the bright young spirits that con- stituted the Brook Farm Phalanx drew me out one May day to the scene of their experiment. After a seven-mile ride by train we were set down at the pretty rural suburb of West Roxbury, somewhat noteworthy as being the first pastoral charge of Theodore Parker. The farm lies on the bank of the Charles River, about a mile north of the station, and is reached by a country road that goes straight forward for the first three quarters of a mile, then winds up and around a small hill, bends down into the valley of the Charles again, crosses a small brook by a rustic bridge, and then turns directly by the main buildings of the farm. One can but be charmed with its location. The larger part of it lies in the sunny intervale of a little brook that flows westward into the Charles, but the boundary line also includes a series of knolls and foothills that rise on the brook's northern border, and crowning these hills is a dense wood of cedar, hemlock, chestnut, and other forest trees. The Charles flows a few yards from its western boundary. In a little brown cottage, just 30 In Olde Massachusetts across the way, lives George Bradford, an aged Eng- Hshman, who was once in charge of the farm, and who readily consented to act as our guide. The present estate is far from being the Blithedale of Hawthorne or the Brook Farm of Ripley and his associates. Prob- ably there is not another farm in New England that has undergone such mutations as this in the brief period of thirty years. The Phalanx had pretty fully dispersed in the summer of 1848. For some time after their departure the estate was used by the city of Rox- bury for a poor-farm. Then it was purchased by James Freeman Clarke, with the design, it was said, of building houses upon it and making it a suburb of the city. This design, however, if entertained, was never carried out. When the civil war broke out the farm became a camp for the volunteer soldiers of Massachusetts, and the tramp of armed men was heard in the former abode of dreamers. Later it was pur- chased by a Mr. Burckhardt, its present owner, for the site and endowment of an orphan asylum. In the course of these mutations all the buildings erected by the Phalanx, except one, have disappeared, and the whole aspect of the farm has been changed. We entered the grounds by the main, or east entrance. From the gate a carriage way winds west, in and out among the knolls, having the brook and the intervale on the south. Just here, on a pretty green plateau, sheltered by an old cottonwood tree, stood the main Brook Farm in 1881 31 building, known to all familiar with the literature of the farm as the "Beehive." It was an old two-story and rustic structure of wood, with nothing particularly noticeable about its outward appearance. In 1849, when the town Committee on the Poor-Farm visited it, it contained "on the first floor two parlors, one large dining-room, 45 x 14, with closets, a kitchen with a Stimpson range, calculated for from sixty to eighty persons, and containing three large boilers, a wash- room, press-room, store-room, and closets; and on the second floor, two large chambers with fireplaces, two bedrooms, and thirteen sleeping-rooms, with several closets." The "hive" was destroyed by fire long ago, and its site is now occupied by Mr. Burckhardt's orphan asylum. Proceeding west, along the driveway, the sites of the former communal buildings were marked by fire-blackened ruins, and we noticed with what an eye to the picturesque they had been selected. First, a few yards west of the house was the barn, a large building, seventy feet by forty, with an addition for grain-rooms. Directly above it, on the crest of the hill, stood the Phalanstery, or Pilgrim House, whose loss by fire almost before it was completed so seriously crippled the community. The "Eyry," also quite prominent in the literature of the farm, stood still further north, almost in the shadow of the pine forest. Our guide informed us in his gossipy way that when he first came here, in 1849, Charles A. Dana and his wife were its 32 In Olde Massachusetts occupants. Most interesting of all to us was Margaret Fuller's cottage, still standing on the crest of a little hill, in the midst of a copse of cedars. It is cruciform in shape, covered with wide wooden clapboards, and is now the dwelling of the superintendent of the estate and his family. Our guide remarked sotto voce that Miss Fuller received $1,600 for it in the distribution of the property. Just beneath the cottage windows, in a grassy little hollow sheltered on every side by woods and hills, were the flower garden and hothouse of the association. Bradford expatiated largely on the beauty and bloom of this garden in its palmy days, and said that until within a year or two the country people were in the habit of resorting hither for slips of the Provence roses that still lived and flourished within its borders. It is only a patch of weed-covered earth now. A few yards west, in the deep gloom of the hemlocks, is a little graveyard where several members of the community found a last resting-place. On the summit of a little knoll at the farthest verge of the farm, we sat down and tried to realize that this was the locality made classic by the presence of Zenobia, Hollingsworth, and Priscilla; that here the bright young prophets of a new social era sawed and planed in the workshops, toiled and moiled in the cornfields, that a new idea might have birth and a chance for its life; but the fire-blackened ruins and bare brown hill- sides are too intensely practical for any play of feeling Brook Farm in 1881 33 or show of sentiment. It is a little singular that none of the ready writers engaged in the enterprise has ever given the world an authentic account of the movement in its inception and results. Ripley and Dana, the two leading spirits, do not even give the name a place in their great cyclopedia. Hawthorne, it will be re- membered, refers to this omission in the preface to his "Blithedale Romance," and gives a playful challenge to some of his literary confreres there to step forward and fill up the gap. He himself gives us glimpses in tliis book of the Ufe at the farm, but one has a suspicion that they are more fictitious than real. The leaders have always evinced a great reluctance to refer to the matter in any way, seemingly regarding it as a freak of youthful folly of which the least said the better. The younger members, however — those who grew up from boyhood to manhood on the farm, of whom there are several in this city — show no such reluctance, and have very interesting reminiscences of the experiment to relate. One of these gentlemen, a middle-aged business man, recently favored me with some recollec- tions, of which I give a synopsis. "The Brook Farm experiment," he began, "was neither socialistic nor communistic, but it was utilita- rian and humanitarian. A Mutual Aid Society would be a very appropriate name for it. It was a joint-stock corporation, regularly incorporated, known legally as the Brook Farm Phalanx. Some of its members con- 34 In Olde Massachusetts tributed money, some labor of hand or brain; but these last were required to toil only a certain number of hours each day, and were on a social equality with the capitalists. All had an opportunity for study and social improvement afforded them. There was a division of labor among us. Some taught in the schools, some wrought in the workshops, some on the farm. The school of which Mr. and Mrs. Ripley were the directors was the most successful department. It gained quite a wide reputation, and numbered among its pupils young men from Manila, Havana, Florida, and Cam- bridge. There were classes in Greek, German, Italian, mental and moral philosophy, as well as a b c classes for the little children. Then we published a weekly newspaper called the Harbinger, which attained a higher grade, I think, than any American journal which had preceded it. Ripley, Dana, and Knight were the working editors, and Channing, Parker, Otis, Clapp, Cranch, Curtis, Duganne, Godwin, Greeley, Higgin- son, Lowell, Story, and Whittier contributors. It was the legitimate successor of three other publications of like character — the Dial, the Present, and the Phalanx — and after the failure of the association was published for a time at New York, but finally died of inanition. We paid great attention to social life and development at Brook Farm. The finest minds and most genial hearts were attracted to it. Beautiful and cultured women added their gracious presence, too, and the long Brook Farm in 1881 35 winter evenings spent around the glowing fireside of the old farmhouse were social symposia of the highest order. We read, we sang, we discussed art, literature, social questions, the topics of the day, and wove glow- ing visions of the coming of the new order which should cast out the old. Ripley was the prince among us both in intellect and heart, and was the inspiration of the whole movement. Dana was the business manager, the only man of affairs among us. Dwight was the teacher and preacher. Emerson and Parker, the latter then preaching at Roxbury, often looked in on us with words of sympathy and advice. I see you are curious to know why our undertaking failed. Not from any inherent weakness in the principle we younger men have always maintained, but from extraneous causes. Our situation was ill-judged. We were seven miles from Boston, and in the absence of railroads our sup- plies, coal for the engine and products of farm and workshops, had to be hauled that distance in wagons. Then we were not organized systematically and suffered from inexperience, besides meeting with sad losses by fire. I am quite sure in the hands of practical men the experiment could be tried with a fair measure of suc- cess." CHAPTER VI A VISIT TO PLYMOUTH, 1882 PLYMOUTH derives little dignity from its posi- -■■ tion, being planted on a narrow plateau that lies behind the sea, and a range of steep high bluffs that form quite a feature of the coast. Its chief character- istics are pretty white country houses embowered in trees. There are a few manufactories, but they are in the outskirts, and give little hint of their presence. Of commerce it has very Httle, Boston having long ago absorbed what might have fallen to its share, and it seems to have accepted quite contentedly its position as conservator of things rare and ancient. All visitors to Plymouth are perforce pilgrims, and it is fortunate that its varied objects of interest — Forefathers' Rock, Pilgrim Hall, Burial Hill, and the National Monument — are within such easy distance of one another. As one goes down Court Street from the railway station under fine old elms, one sees on the left an ornate building with a Doric portico and much the appearance of a Grecian temple standing somewhat back from the village street. It is Pilgrim Hall, erected by the Pilgrim Society in 1824, and devoted to the A Visit to Plymouth 37 preservation of relics of the forefathers. It also par- takes of the character of a general museum. In its great hall one finds many mementoes of a historic past. There are paintings and portraits on the walls, and in cases arranged about the room are many relics of the fathers and of the tribes of the Old Colony. Of the paintings, the most noteworthy is Parker's copy of Weir's great picture of the embarkation in the rotunda of the Capitol at Washington. Sargent's large paint- ing of the landing, wliich covers nearly the whole of the east wall, is barely within the range of criticism, since it was a gift from the artist. Among the portraits, the most noteworthy is that of Edward Winslow, third Governor of the colony, and one of the immortal forty- one who signed the compact on the Mayflower. It is a copy, the original being in the possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the only por- trait, it is said, of a passenger on the Mayflower in existence. Near the Governor's portrait is a noble face — that of his son Josiah, the first native-born Governor of the colony; the beautiful Madonna-like face beside it is that of his wife Penelope. A stern, military figure in uniform is their grandson, the Major- General John Winslow of the British Army to whom was entrusted the removal of the French Acadians from their homes. All of these worthies except Gov- ernor Edward lie buried in the old churchyard at Marshfield, near the grave of Daniel Webster. A 38 In Olde Massachusetts striking portrait is that of John Alden, grandson of John Alden and Priscilla. The face of Jonathan Trumbull, the famous war Governor of Connecticut, charms one by its air of stern uprightness. His son John Trumbull, the historical painter, is also portrayed here, and there is a copy of an original portrait of Sir Walter Raleigh, painted by a London artist, which was formerly the property of President JeflFerson. The glass cases ranged about the room attract the greater number of visitors. They contain relics of the forefathers and mothers far too precious to be exposed to the dust or the rapacity of the curiosity-seeker. Those relating to Miles Standish are exceedingly in- teresting. There are several of these — Holland brick from the burned ruins of his house in Duxbury, his great pewter platter with a rim at least four inches wide and a pit of proportionate depth, and his sword, the trenchant blade that again and again saved the little colony from destruction. There are traditions that it was made of meteoric stone by the Persian Magi, and that it possessed talismanic virtues. It is known to be of Persian manufacture, and was no doubt won from some Spanish hidalgo by the Captain in his wars in the low countries. On the blade is engraved the sun and the moon. On the face is an Arabic inscription to this effect: "With peace God ruled his slaves, and with judgment of his arm he gave trouble to the valiant of the mighty." On the reverse of the blade are two A Visit to Plymouth 39 other inscriptions, one obscure, the other meaning, "In God is all might." We have in this case, too, a sampler wrought by the daughter of Miles Standish, a few years perhaps before her death. Into the cloth, below the intricate maze of needlework, is stitched this pious stanza: "Lorea Standish is my name; Lord, guide my heart that I may do Thy will; Also fill my hands with such convenient skill As may conduce to virtue void of shame; And I will give the glory to Thy name." The Captain's dinner-pot has been relegated to the floor. It is a huge affair, with a jointed bail and capacious stomach, rather insecurely mounted on three rudimentary legs. In one corner, under the great Sargent picture, is the arm-chair of Elder Brewster, made of toughest oak, and capacious enough for the person of Von Twiller himself. The good elder must have purchased it at Leyden or Delfthaven, for it never could have been fashioned for an Englishman. In the opposite corner is a model of that famous vessel, the Mayflower. Near it is the cradle in which Peregrine White, the first baby born to the colonists, was rocked. There is the halberd of John Alden — a murderous weapon, with a long oaken staff — his Bible, a deed acknowledged before him in 1653, an original letter from King Philip, the first Plymouth patent, dated 1621, the oldest State paper in the United States, and 40 In Olde Massachusetts scores of other reHcs intimately connected with the early settlers. One of the most interesting bits of the collection escapes the attention of the ordinary visitor. It may be found in one of the cases on the north side, and is the original copy of Bryant's tribute to the Pilgrims — "The Twenty-second of December." A companion piece is the first draft of Mrs. Hemans' well- known hymn to the Pilgrims. An autograph poem on the Pilgrim Fathers by Ebenezer Elliot, the corn-law rhymer, completes the collection, which was given to the Pilgrim Society in 1880 by James T. Fields. Passing out of the historic building, we see near the right-hand corner an iron fence, elliptical in form, en- closing a chastely cut granite pillar, erected to the memory of the signers of the famous compact. Their names inscribed on scrolls attached to the railing en- circle the stone. Going south from Pilgrim Hall a few blocks, one comes to a large and handsome build- ing, situated so far back from the street that there is room for a pretty park between. This is the County Court-house, erected in 1820 and remodeled in 18.57. There are two entrances, one on the north, the other on the south. If one enters on the south and passes through a long corridor to the further end, he will have on his left the ofiice of the Register of Deeds. In this room, under the care of Mr. William S. Danforth, Secretary of the Pilgrim Society, is preserved one of the oldest, most complete and extensive collections of legal A Visit to Plymouth 41 and State papers in the land. They comprise the earliest records of Plymouth Colony, its laws, the allot- ment of lands, the original plan of the town, the records of the first church, the deeds, mortgages, and wills of the men famous in history. One easily fixes upon the original patent of the colony granted by the Earl of Warwick in 1629 as the most interesting. It is kept in the original box in which it came from England, and still retains the great wax seal which gave it validity. Of almost equal interest is the first order for trial by jury, in the quaint handwriting of Governor Bradford. Here, too, is the will of Standish, with his autograph attached, the order for the first customs law, the order dividing the cattle into lots, one cow being divided into thirteen lots, that is, her milk was distributed among thirteen families. The chief object for all pilgrims is, of course. Fore- fathers' Rock. To reach it from the Court-house, one follows the main street a short distance south to Shirley Square. From this point a narrow side-street, the original Leyden Street of the Pilgrims, leads down to the docks and shipping. Here, near the water's edge, amid the din and stir of trafiic, one finds the historic stone. Probably the first feeling of all visitors is one of disappointment. There is no stormy and rock-bound coast, as one has been led to expect, but a low, sandy shore, a natural landing-place. The rock itself is not a part of some huge cliff, but a boulder brought down 42 In Olde Massachusetts by the glaciers and deposited here to form the stepping- stone of a new empire. A granite canopy, designed by Billings and erected by the Pilgrim Society, covers it, and adds still more to the incongruity of its surround- ings. Cole's Hill, a little bluff overtopping the rock, is also vastly changed since Master Coppin used it as a landmark in guiding the Pilgrim shallop to land. This hill was the first burial-ground of the Pilgrims, it will be remembered, nearly half the whole ship's company having been laid here ere the jBrst year had passed, and their graves sown over with wheat, that the Indians might not discover the weakness of the colony. The hill now is turfed, surrounded by an iron railing, and granite steps lead down its side to the rock. We found Burial Hill, overlooking the central part of the village, exceedingly interesting. Here stood the earliest church, and here still rests the dust of the forefathers. The churchyard is quite populous; there are more inhabitants here than in the village below. The tomb- stones are in a great variety of form and material, though the dark slate of England and the marble and granite of our own country predominate. The earlier headstones were brought from England before there was any stonecutter in the colony, and bear the winged cherub above the inscription, with much curious tracery on the sides. The oldest stone now standing is one erected to the memory of Edward Gray, a merchant who died in 168 L A stone to William Crowe, near the A Visit to Plymouth 43 head of the path, bears date 1683-4. There is one to Thomas Clark, said to have been mate of the May- flower, erected in 1697; one to Mrs. Hannah Clark, 1687; one to John Cotton, 1699; these being all the original stones of the seventeenth century that remain. Too many of those that rest here sleep in obscurity. Not any of the one hundred and two souls of the Mayflower have their graves surely designated by the customary hie jacet, nor any of those who followed in the ship Fortune in 1621, save one — Thomas Cush- man; and of those who came in the Ann and Little James, in 1623, only one — Thomas Clark — is re- membered by any form of memorial. Tradition, how- ever, has pointed out the places of sepulture of some of them, and on these spots their descendants have erected suitable monuments. Two attract the eye at once by their stateliness — the shaft in memory of William Bradford, the first Governor of Plymouth Colony and its faithful chronicler, and that erected by filial piety to the memory of Elder Robert. The view from the summit of the hill is beautiful in the extreme. The village lies at your feet; before you the circle of Plymouth Bay rounds north and south, its northern headland being Captain's Hill, with the Stan- dish monument crowning its peak, and its southern the bold bluffs of Manomet. It was interesting to look into the modern town and compare it with De Rasiere's description of 1627: 44 In Olde Massachusetts "The houses," he observes, "are constructed of hewn planks with gardens also enclosed behind and at the sides, so that their houses and courtyards are arranged in very good order with a stockade against a sudden attack. At the ends of the street there are three wooden gates. In the center, on a cross street, stands the Governor's house, before which is a square en- closure, upon which four pateros are mounted so as to flank along the street. . . . Upon the hill they have a large square house with a flat roof. . . . The lower part they use for their church, where they preach on Sundays and the usual holidays. They assemble by beat of drum, each with his musket or firelock, in front of the Captain's door; they have their cloaks on and place themselves in order there abreast, and are led by a sergeant without beat of drum. Behind comes the Governor in a long robe, beside on the right hand comes the preacher with his cloak on, and on the left hand the Captain with his side arms and cloak on and with a small cane in his hand; and so they march in good order, and each gets his arms down near him. Thus they are constantly on their guard night and day." I have before spoken of the range of hills that en- circles the village. On the highest of these the Pilgrim Society, with the aid of contributions from the nation at large, has erected a monument to the memory of the Forefathers. There is so much of the crude and incon- A Visit to Plymouth 45 gruous in American sculpture that it is a pleasure to be able to commend this memorial. It is partly at least in accord with the genius of the place, and fitly presents the character and work of the men it is intended to commemorate. The material is Maine granite. The general design is that of an octagon pedestal forty-five feet high, on wliich stands a colossal statue of Faith. Four subordinate figures on buttresses projecting from the pedestal represent Morality, Education, Law, and Liberty. Beneath these in alto-relief are represented the departure, the signing of the compact, the landing, and the first treaty with the Indians. There are four panels on the four faces of the main pedestal, one on the front having the inscription of the monument, and those on the right and left the names of the passengers of the Mayflower. The fourth panel awaits an inscrip- tion. The pedestal was placed in position in the summer of 1876. The statue of Faith is the gift of Oliver Ames, a native of Plymouth, and was put in place in 1877. But one of the smaller statues — that of Morality — is now in position. It was the gift of the State of Massachusetts. The alto-relief beneath it was the contribution of Connecticut. The statue of Education is completed, with its companion alto-relief, both being the gift of Mr. Rowland Mather, of Hart- ford, Conn. The two other statues, Law and Liberty, are yet unprovided for, and await the contributions of those who honor the memory of the Pilgrims. CHAPTER VII A DAY AT GREEN HARBOR, 1882 TRAVELING Bostonward from historic Ply- mouth by the Old Colony Line, we were set down in twenty minutes at Webster Place, the nearest railway-point to Green Harbor, the former home of Daniel Webster. The Place was only a flag-station, and its sole building a shed that served as a waiting- room for passengers. In answer to our inquiry for the Webster farm, the boy who acted as station-master pointed out a broad, dusty highway leading eastward through the wood, and told us we were to go up that a mile until it forked by a schoolhouse, and that then half a mile by the left fork would bring us to the farm. The country is level here, and as we emerged from the forest upon cultivated fields we saw across them the blue line of the ocean. We easily found the fork in the road, and the schoolhouse, and were shown, on the corner directly opposite, the quaint, mossy, low- roofed house that once sheltered Governor Josiah Winslow of the Plymouth Colony. Leaving this relic, we followed a beautiful country road through the farms between several neatly painted farmhouses, and past A Day at Green Harbor 47 the pretty country-seat of Adelaide Phillips, the singer, to the smoothly laid walls and well-kept fields of the Webster estate. The old family mansion, burned in 1878, stood some distance back from the street, on a little knoll, in the midst of a park of thirty acres, well shaded by forest trees. It was a long, low, rambling structure of the colonial era, and had achieved a his- tory before Webster bought it, having been occupied by the British troops in the Revolution, at which time it was the scene of some rather tragic incidents. But a fatality attends American historic houses, and this structure, dear to all Americans from Webster's con- nection with it, was burned to the ground on the morn- ing of the 14th of February, 1878, and with it nearly all the objects of interest and art that had been gathered by its former owner. The mistress of the estate, Mrs. Fletcher Webster, rebuilt, on the former site, but with no attempt to reproduce the farmhouse of her ances- tor's day. Her home was not open to visitors, as was the old dwelling, but on our presenting ourselves at the door we were kindly invited in, and a member of the household was deputed to introduce us to everything of public interest which it contained. A few relics intimately connected with the great statesman were saved from the flames that destroyed his house. His study-table of mahogany, veneered, and covered with green baize worn and ink stained, occupied a promi- nent position in the entrance hall. Near it was his 48 In Olde Massachusetts library chair, a huge affair, with leather-covered arms and seat and fitted with a foot-rest and bookholder. Here, too, were the fire-screen and andirons from the fireplace of his study. Stuart's portrait of Mr. Webster occupied a good position over the mantel; and Ames's portrait of him, as he appeared in farm-costume, faced it on the opposite wall. Above the latter was the great white wool hat that always protected his head while fishing or walking about the farm, and with it his favorite walking-stick. The walls of the wide stairway and of the hall above were adorned with por- traits of Grace Fletcher, Mr. Webster's first wife, and of his friend Judge Story, and with busts of his last wife, Caroline Le Roy, and of his daughter Julia. In the parlor was a rosewood table from the old house, covered with the china in daily use by the family dur- ing his lifetime. This table was of rosewood, marble- topped and brass-bound. Another interesting object here was a table presented by the mechanics of Buffalo, in 1855, "in testimony of their respect for his distin- guished services in defence of a protective tariff and of our national union." The material was of black wal- nut, the first ever used in furniture-making. A very pretty memento was a case of Brazilian beetles and butterflies presented to him by the Brazilian govern- ment. A beautifully embossed leather armchair, with gilded frame and top, the gift of Victor Emmanuel, in the music room, and an album containing signatures ^ "2 a A Day at Green Harbor 49 of Jefferson, Everett, and other famous men, were the only other mementoes of note spared by the flames. Most of these reUcs, it was said, Mrs. Webster would present to the Webster Historical Society. Out in the park we were shown two elms standing near together, their branches interlocked, which were planted by Mr. Webster himself, one at the birth of his son Edwin, the other at the birth of his daughter Julia, and which he called brother and sister. Another interesting object here was the great elm that sheltered the old house, half of it scorched by fire, the other green and vigorous. Green Harbor River, or rather Inlet, comes up to the boundaries of the park in the rear of the house, and at high tide is navigable for small boats to the ocean, some two miles distant. Beyond this, over bare, brown uplands, one sees the white tombstones of a country graveyard. The yard is perhaps a quarter of a mile from the house, and the same distance from the highway, access to it being had by a rude road winding through the fields. It is one of the district cemeteries so common to New England, and holds the dust of perhaps a score of the families of the neighbor- hood, obscure and titled, — for what was our surprise, in strolling among the tombs, to find, on a great table of brown-stone supported by four pillars, inscriptions to the memory of some of the first magistrates of the Plymouth Colony! The yard was enclosed on three 50 In Olde Massachusetts sides by a mossy stone wall, and on the fourth by a modern iron fence. There were no trimly kept walks there; low stunted cedars, sumach, wild rose, and other bushes grew luxuriantly, and it had in general a neg- lected air. The Webster lot was in the southwest cor- ner of the yard, near the entrance, and was enclosed by a heavy iron fence. The tomb of the statesman is a great mound of earth surmounted by a marble slab, at the north end of the lot. The stone has this inscrip- tion: "Daniel Webster, born January 18, 1782; died October 24, 1852. 'Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief,' " and beneath this, " Philosophical argument, especially that drawn from the vastness of the universe compared with the apparent insignificance of the globe, has sometimes shaken my reason for the faith which is in me; but my heart has always assured and reassured me that the gospel of Jesus Christ must be a divine reality. The Sermon on the Mount cannot be a merely human production. This belief enters into the very depths of my consciousness. The whole history of man proves it. Daniel Webster." The plot is well filled. Grace Fletcher the first wife, and Julia the favorite daughter, are buried at the left of the husband and father. At their feet are three daughters of Fletcher and Caroline Webster. Near his father's right rests Major Edward Webster, who died of disease at San Angelo in Mexico, in Taylor's campaign of 1848. The most interesting grave, how- A Day at Green Harbor 51 ever, next to the Senator's, is that of Colonel Fletcher Webster, the gallant soldier who fell at the head of his regiment in the war of the rebellion. The inscription on his stone is so eloquent that it should be given in full; it reads: " Colonel Fletcher Webster, 12th Massachusetts Vol- unteers, son of Daniel and Grace Fletcher Webster; born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 25th July, 1813; fell at the head of his regiment on the old battle-field of Bull Run, Virginia, August 30, 1862. " ' And if I am too old myself, I hope there are those connected with me who are young and willing to de- fend their country, to the last drop of their own blood.' "Erected by ofiicers of the 12th regiment Massa- chusetts Infantry to the memory of their beloved colonel." Webster was fond of this old yard, and chose it above all others for his last resting-place. I could not but be struck with the unique — almost weird — view presented from its summit. To the eastward are marshes and the sea, the latter flecked with sails. On the south is a pleasant country of farms, with a hamlet of white cottages set in its midst. On the west one sees a stretch of bare, undulat- ing down, bounded by a dense forest. Northwest across the fields is seen Marshfield village and spire, and on the north lies a wild country of pastures and downs. The spot seemed designed for meditation. 52 In Olde Massachusetts and in fancy we pictured the bent figure of the great commoner among the tombs, communing with his dead, or drawing inspiration from the scene about him. Leaving the Webster plot and going for a Httle ramble among the other graves, we made a discovery that ought to commend us to the Society of American Antiquaries, — that, namely, of the Winslow tomb. The grave is marked by a great table of brown stone supported by four stone pillars. The Winslow arms, in slate, are set into the stone, and beneath are the inscriptions. Several of the famous persons of the name whose por- traits one sees in Pilgrim Hall are here commemorated: Governor Josiah Winslow, the first native-born Gov- ernor of Plymouth Colony, who died in 1680; his wife Penelope; the Honorable John Winslow, a major- general in the British army, and the oflScer who re- moved the French Acadians from their country; the Honorable Isaac Winslow, Esq.; with later and less distinguished members of the family. On our way back to the station we called on Porter Wright, formerly overseer of the Webster farm, and almost the only person then living who was on intimate terms with Mr. Webster. He managed the farm for some twelve or fifteen years preceding the latter's death, and readily consented to give us some details of his stewardship, as well as recollections of his em- ployer. He first saw Mr. Webster on the occasion of the latter's second visit to Marshfield, and was at once A Day at Green Harbor 53 struck with his appearance. "He would have been a marked man, sir, in any company. He had a power- ful look. I never saw a man who had such a look. He had an eye that would look through you. His first purchase here was the homestead, comprising some one hundred and fifty acres ; but he had a passion for land, and kept adding farm to farm until he had an estate of nearly eighteen hundred acres. The farm extended north and south from the homestead, and to tide-water on the east. When I became his overseer I used to see him daily when he was home, which was as often as he could get away from public duties. He loved to walk about the farm in his plain clothes, with a great white wool hat on his head, and oversee the men. He usually gave me my directions for the day in the morning. We spent the latter part of the sum- mer making plans for the next season's work; and when he was in Washington I had to write him nearly every day how things were at the farm; and I received instructions from him as often. He cared little for horses, but had a passion for a good ox-team. We had several on the farm, the finest in the county, and I have known him on his return from Washington pay them a visit before entering the house. At home he was an early riser, generally completing his writing for the day before other members of the family were up. He breakfasted with the family at eight, unless going on a fishing excursion, when he took breakfast alone at 54 In Olde Massachusetts five. Fishina: was his favorite amusement. He had quite a fleet of sail-boats and row-boats, and fished along the coast from the Gurnet to Scituate Light. He caught cod mostly, but took also haddock and perch. When company was present, he invited them to go with him; but if they were averse he generally fitted them out with some other amusement and went his way alone. He entertained much company, — gov- ernors, statesmen, and the like, — but was averse to giving balls or parties or making any display. He attended church at Marshfield regularly, sometimes going with the family in the carriage, and sometimes on horseback alone. He often spoke to me about retiring from public life and spending his days quietly on the farm; but that time, as you know, never came. He died in 1852, and the farm was divided to the heirs — his son Fletcher, and the children of his daughter JuUa." CHAPTER VIII SALEM \ LMOST in sight of Boston, the supplanter near -^ ^ the point where Cape Ann breaks away from the mainland, is Salem, still nautical in tone and tra- dition, although scores of years have passed since she lost her hold on the commerce of the East. Her muni- cipal seal bears the motto, "To the furthest port of the rich East"; old shipmasters who once carried her flag to the furthest seas congregate in the municipal offices to recount their conquests, and in the sunny nooks of Derby Street one comes on little knots of grizzled tars, their humble allies in adventure. In my first stroll through this thoroughfare I met an aged negro hobbling along, as briny and tarry as though steeped for years in those concomitants of a seafaring life. To my query as to the name of the street he re- plied promptly, "Darby Street, sah; run along heah, fore and aft," indicating the water-front with his fore- finger. This Derby Street is a marvelously suggestive thoroughfare to the dreamer. Visions of it at its best still haunt it. Ghostly shadows of stately East India- men, Canton tea ships, and African treasure ships. 56 In Olde Massachusetts fall athwart it. Faint odors of the cassia, aloes, gums, and sandalwood of other days linger about it, and shadowy heaps of precious merchandise burden the wharves. The silent warehouses are again open, and porters busy within under the eye of precise clerks and supercargoes with pens over their ears and ink blotches on their long linen coats. In the counting-rooms the portly merchants greet buyers from all countries; the sail-makers are busy in their lofts; in long low buildings spinners with strands of hemp tread the rope- walk; the ship chandlers' shops are thronged; the street is filled with men of all nations. But, dreaming aside, there is something phenomenal in the early growth of Salem's commerce. Her achieve- ments were largely due to the genius of her own citizens, and they worked, it is well to note, with inherited tendencies. Salem was founded for a trading-post by a company of English merchants, whose agents selected it because of its commercial advantages. They began a trade with it at once, several cargoes of "staves, sarsaparilla, sumach, fish, and beaver skins," being exported as early as 1630. By 1643, while Plymouth still remained a primitive hamlet, her merchants had a flourishing trade with the West Indies, Barbadoes, and the Leeward Islands. Previous to the Revolution the trade of Salem was chiefly with the colonies, the West Indies, and the principal European ports. The vessels had an estab- Salem 57 lished routine, loading at Salem with fish, lumber, and provisions, clearing for some port in the West Indies, and thence running through the islands until they found a satisfactory market. In return they loaded with sugar, molasses, cotton, and rum, or ran across to the Carolinas for rice and naval stores. From this traflBc assorted cargoes were made up for the European ports, and wine, salt, and manufactured products brought back in return. Colonial commerce was very hazardous, assaults of pirates, buccaneers, and French privateers being added to the risks of the sea. It was profitable, however. A writer of 1664 speaks of Salem's "rich merchants " and of her solid, many-gabled mansions. The Revolution, of course, stopped all commerce; but with the return of peace in 1783 dawned the golden age of the port. In twenty-four years she had a fleet of 252 vessels in commission, and her merchants were in commercial relations with India, China, Batavia, the Isle of France, Mozambique, Russia, and all the nearer commercial countries. The credit of opening India, China, and, indeed, the entire East to American commerce, is due to Elias H. Derby, a Salem merchant, born in the port in 1739. This gentleman possessed a courage and enterprise that no obstacles could daunt, and determined to enter the rich field then monopolized by the English and Dutch East India Companies. Accordingly in 1784 he despatched the ship Grand Turk, under Capt. 58 In Olde Massachusetts Jonathan Ingersoll, to the Cape of Good Hope on a mercantile reconnoissance, to discover the needs and capacity of the Eastern market. She returned in less than a year with the information sought, was quickly reloaded, and on the 28th of November, 1785, cleared for the Isle of France, with instructions to proceed thence to Canton, via Batavia. The ship was laden with native products — fish, flour, provisions, tobacco, spirits — and made a successful voyage, returning in June, 1787, with a cargo of teas, silks, and nankeens, the first vessel from New England, if not from America, to enter into competition with the incorporated com- panies of the Old World. Her success seems to have electrified the merchants of Salem, Boston, and New York, and an eager rivalry for the trade of the Orient ensued, with the result that when Mr. Derby's ship Astria entered Canton two years later she found fifteen American vessels there taking in cargo, four of them belonging to our merchant, however, who had not been slow in improving his advantages as pioneer. This was not the only pioneer work that he did. His bark Light Horse in 1784 first opened American trade with Russia. In 1788 his ship Atlantic first displayed the American flag at Surat, Calcutta, and Bombay. An- other did the same in Siam; a third was the first to open trade with Mocha. In 1790, it is said, his vessels brought into Salem 728,871 pounds of tea, these ven- tures being among the first in the tea trade. Salem 59 From this period until near the outbreak of the civil war, Salem had vast interests on the seas. A brief interval between 1807 and 1815 is to be noted, caused by the Embargo Act and war of 1812. The Canton trade, as we have seen, came first, quickly followed by India and East India ventures. By 1800 records of the customs show her ships trading with Manila, Mauritius, Surinam, the Gold Coast, Mocha, India, China, East and West Indies, Russia, the Mediter- ranean ports, France, England, Holland, Norway, Madeira, the South American ports, and the British provinces. The chief commodities from the East were cotton, tea, coffee, sugar, hides, spices, redwood and other dyestujffs, gums, silks, and nankeens; from Russia and Germany, iron, duck, and hemp; from France, Spain, and Madeira, wine and lead; from the West Indies, sugar, spirits, and negroes. The exports com- prised lumber, provisions, tobacco, silver dollars, and New England rum, the Gold Coast affording the best market for the latter. Several of the old merchants and captains who directed this vast commerce linger in the port, and the tourist who is an intelligent listener finds them ready to entertain him by the hour with tales and reminis- cences of those stirring days. Of famous ships, notable voyages, adventurous skippers, and mighty merchants these reminiscences are full. The little ketch Eliza, for instance, left Salem December 22, 1794, ran out to 60 In Olde Massachusetts Calcutta, unloaded, took in cargo, and sailed proudly into the home port October 8, 1705, barely nine months absent. The Active, a sharp little brig, in 1812 brought a cargo of tea and cassia from Canton in 118 days. Her rival, the Osprey, beat her, making the same voy- age in 117 days. The ship China left Salem for Canton May 24, 1817, and arrived back, with a cargo of tea, silks, and nankeens, March 30, 1818, barely ten months out. A famous vessel was the clipper sliip George, of the Calcutta trade, built in 1814 for a privateer by an association of Salem ship-carpenters. The war end- ing before she was launched, Joseph Peabody, a lead- ing Salem merchant of those days, added her to his India fleet. For twenty-three years this vessel made voyages between Salem and Calcutta with the regularity of a steamer. She left Salem for her first voyage May 23, 1815, and made the home port again June 13, 1816, 109 days from Calcutta. She left Salem on her last voyage August 5, 1836, and returned May 17, 1837, 111 days from Calcutta, the eighteen voyages performed between the first and last dates varying little in duration from the standard. One item of her imports during this period was 755,000 pounds of indigo. The ship Margaret, in the Batavia trade, has an equally inter- esting history. She cleared for Sumatra November 19, 1800, with twelve casks of Malaga wine, two hogsheads bacon, and $50,000 in specie, stood out to sea November 25, arrived in Table Bay, Cape of Good Hope, Feb- Salem 61 ruary 4, 1801, reached Sumatra April 10, and without stopping to trade proceeded to Batavia. Here her captain, Samuel Derby, found the Dutch East India Company desirous of chartering a vessel to take their annual freights to and from Japan, and engaged his vessel and crew for the service. He left on June 20, and arrived at Nagasaki July 19, being met in the open roadstead with a command to fire salutes and dress his vessel in bunting before entering the port. On once getting ashore, however, the captain and his super- cargo were very hospitably entertained by the mer- chants of the place. They were feasted, the lady of the house was introduced and drank tea with them, and they were shown the temples and public places of the city. The Margaret got away in November, and reached Batavia after a month's passage. Her voyage was noteworthy, because she was the second American vessel to enter a Japanese port, a Boston vessel, the Franklin, commanded by a Salem captain, being the first. The whole trade of the country at this time was in the hands of the Dutch, who, to retain it, submitted to the most vexatious restrictions and to many indig- nities. Fifty-three years later Commodore Perry's expedition opened Japan to the world. Among skippers Capt. Jonathan Carnes figures most largely in their reminiscences. In 1794 he was in Bencoolin, Sumatra, and chanced to learn that pepper grew wild in the northwestern part of the island. He 62 In Olde Massachusetts hastened home, and shared his secret with a wealthy merchant, Mr. Jonathan Peele, who at once ordered a sharp, trim schooner of 130 tons on the stocks. She was finished early in 1795, fitted with four guns, and a cargo of brandy, gin, iron, tobacco, and salmon. Captain Carnes with his ten seamen then went on board and stood away for Sumatra, having given out that his destination was Calcutta, and clearing for that port. Eighteen months passed away, and still Merchant Peele heard no tidings. At length one June day in 1797 his schooner came gliding into port, the ship-masters and merchants crowding about her as she was moored to see what she had brought home, her long disappear- ance and her owner's reticence having caused no little speculation in the port. By and by the hatches were opened, and there the cargo was found to be pepper in bulk, the first ever imported in that way. But as no known port delivered the article in that state, the rumor went round that the Rajah had discovered a pepper island where the condiment could be had for the asking, and in twenty-four hours half a score of shipping firms were fitting out swift cruisers to go in search of it. Ere they were out, Captain Carnes had sold his cargo at an advance of 700 per cent, and was away for another voyage, bringing off several ship-loads before his secret was discovered. Elias H. Derby, the pioneer, was the chief of Salem merchants. Between 1785 and 1799 he fitted out 125 Salem 63 voyages in thirty-seven different vessels, most of them to unknown ports. His last voyage was in some respects his most brilliant one. Hostilities between France and the United States had just begun when he equipped a stanch vessel, the Mount Vernon, with twenty guns and fifty men, loaded her with sugar, and sent her to the Mediterranean. The cargo cost $43,275. The vessel was attacked by the French cruisers on her voyage, but beat them off, made her port, exchanged her sugar for a cargo of silks and wines, and returned to Salem in safety, realizing her owners a net profit of $100,000. Mr. Derby died in 1799, before his venture be- came a certainty, leaving an estate of more than a million dollars, said to have been the largest fortune that had been accumulated in this country up to that date. William Gray, Joseph Peabody, John Bertram, William Orne, and George Crowninshield were worthy successors of Mr. Derby. Mr. Gray was a native of Lynn, and received his business training in the count- ing-room of Richard Derby. In 1807 he owned one fourth the tonnage of the port. Salem's chief hotel, the Essex House, was his former mansion. Political difficul- ties led to his removal to Boston in 1809. The next year he was elected Lieutenant-Governor of the State, and again in 1811. He died at Boston in 1825, having been as prosperous in commercial affairs there as in Salem. Joseph Peabody was one of several merchants of Salem who passed from the quarter deck to the count- 64 In Olde Massachusetts ing-room. After serving on board a privateer he be- came a captain in the merchant marine of Salem, and as soon as he accumulated a little capital engaged actively in commerce. During his mercantile career he built eighty-three ships, which he employed in all cases in his own trade. These vessels made thirty-two voyages to Sumatra, thirty-eight to Calcutta, seventeen to Canton, forty-seven to St. Petersburg, and thirty to various other ports of Europe. He shipped seven thousand seamen at various times to man this fleet, and thirty-five of those who entered his service as cabin- boys he advanced to be masters. Some of his vessels in the China trade made remarkable voyages. The little brig Leander, for instance, of only 223 tons' bur- den, brought in a cargo from Canton in 1826 which paid duties to the amount of $92,392.94. His ship Sumatra, of 287 tons, brought a cargo in 1829 that paid $128,363.13; in 1830, one that paid $138,480.34; and in 1831, a third requiring $140,761.96. Mr. Peabody outlived most of the pioneer merchants of Salem, dying in 1874. In 1870 the foreign entries of Salem had dwindled to ten, and in 1878 had entirely ceased, Boston, with her greater facilities for handling and distributing, having absorbed the business of her whilom rival. To- day the old port is almost deserted of shipping; even the fishing craft furl their sails at Gloucester. It is rarely that a dray rumbles over Derby Street. CHAPTER IX ANOTHER VIEW OF SALEM THE quaint old Custom-house on Derby Street, looking down on Derby wharf, is the link connect- ing the commercial with the literary history of Salem. Here for three long years Hawthorne sat and dreamed and wrote, seeing in its officers and habitues prototypes of his most distinctive characters, and finally discover- ing in its rubbish room the suggestions for his most famous romance. The building is a large, two-storied brick structure, surmounted by a cupola and eagle, not old — dating only from 1819 — but with an air of age. Entering the hall by a broad flight of several steps, on your right is a bulletin board filled with nautical notices, and on the left and right, further on, two doors, the first open- ing into the Deputy Collector's room, the second into the office where the customs business is transacted. One regards its railed periphery with more interest when one reflects that over eleven millions of dollars have passed over it into Uncle Sam's coffers, together with the clearances and invoices of some ten thousand ves- sels. We found the Custom-house attaches pleasant, 66 In Olde Massachusetts and disposed to facilitate our seeing everything of interest in the building. A gentleman in blue led us across the hall and into the room of the Deputy Collector, which, from 1846 to 1849, had been occupied by the great romancer. That officer kindly showed us the place where Hawthorne's desk and armchair had stood, and the stencil-plate with which he put his name on packages; then, opening his desk, he took out for our inspection a package of yellow documents, manifests, orders, and the like, with the author's autograph in red ink upon them. No other rehcs remain. The Custom-house was refurnished in 1873, and Haw- thorne's desk was then removed to the Essex Institute, where it is still preserved. From this room our guide led us up-stairs and through the Collector's parlors to a little ante-chamber, which he said in Hawthorne's day was used for storing old papers and rubbish. It was in this room — the weird genius tells his readers — that he found the manuscript of the "Scarlet Letter." Our guide was very skeptical on this point. " I don't believe he did," said he; "I think he made it all up himself." But we forbore expressing an opinion. A little later we climbed alone to the cupola. It is a small room under the gilded eagle, commanding a charming view of Salem, the shipping, and the sea beyond. Hither the author loved to climb and coin the airy fancies that later found expression in the "Scarlet Letter" and the "House of the Seven Gables." u Another View of Salem 67 There are many well-preserved old men in the town who remember Hawthorne as Surveyor of the Port. One — a portly, comfortable-looking old gentle- man, who, when the author was filling his sinecure position in the Custom-house, was fitting with rigging and sails the numerous craft turned out of Salem ship-yards — now rich and retired, had nothing better to do than to accompany me up the street and point out two ancient buildings quite intimately connected with our author's history. "The Hawthornes are an old family in Salem," he remarked, as we began our walk, " and well thought of. Major William Haw- thorne, who came with Governor Winthrop in the Arabella, founded the stock, and there have been notable and thrifty men among them ever since. This is No. 21 Union Street, a quaint old structure, with huge chimney and dormer roof, as you see. Well, in the upper northeast corner room, there, Nathaniel Haw- thorne was born. It was an auspicious day — July 4, 1804. There he Hved until 1808, when his father died, and he, with his mother, went to live with his maternal grandfather, Richard Manning, on Herbert Street. It was not a far remove, for, as you see, the back yards of the two houses join each other. Most of his early years in Salem were spent in the latter. When he came back here from Concord in 1840 he went to live in his father's house on Union Street, where much of his literary work of that period was done. You may 68 In Olde Massachusetts remember an allusion of his to this old house — I think in one of his Note-books: 'Here I sit,' he wrote, 'in my old accustomed chamber where I used to sit in days gone by. Here I have written many tales. If ever I have a biographer, he ought to make mention of this chamber, in my memoirs, because here my mind and character were formed, and here I sat a long, long time waiting patiently for the world to know me, and some- times wondering why it did not know me sooner, or whether it would ever know me at all — at least until I was in my grave.'" There are other houses in town of interest from their association with great men. William H. Prescott was born in 1796, in a house that stood on the present site of Plummer Hall. The old mansion in which Mr. Joshua Ward entertained President Washington on his visit to Salem in 1789 was pointed out on Washington Street. The birthplace of Timothy Pickering was an old mansion on Broad Street, and that of Nathaniel Bowditch on Brown Street. Story and Rogers, the sculptors, were also natives here. CIL\PTER X MARBLEHEAD SCENES, 1885 \ MORE uninviting spot for a town site than ^ ^ Marblehead presents was never discovered. The granite crags and backbones that make up the surface of Cape Ann are here at their sharpest and boldest. A bare summit of rock, a sunny green hollow be- tween, was the scene looked on by the little body of fishermen who laid the foundation of Marblehead. The harbor, a deep, sheltered cove extending two miles into the rocky heart of the cape, was the great attraction to these men, whose houses were built along the water front. The steam cars land you in the modern quarter; to get over to old Marblehead it is necessary to walk or ride a fraction of a mile to the water-side. Here are deserted, barnacled old wharves, to which only an occasional collier or lumber schooner "ties up," dim, empty storehouses, retaining a faint, ghostly smell of cod and mackerel, and no end of narrow, winding streets and alleys, lined some with quaint little box- like houses, others with large, once stately dwellings. Follow State Street east till it terminates in a waste of boulders and ledges, and you have on the right, at 70 In Olde Massachusetts the extreme point of land guarding the entrance to the harbor, an old fort, but never a sentry to challenge your coming, nor gun to dispute your passage. This is Fort Sewall, named after the Hon. Judge Sewall, built in colonial times for defence against the French and Spanish privateers, that were often seen hovering off the coast. I have never looked on a wilder scene, one more suggestive of wreck and death, than these rocks at the entrance of Marblehead harbor — sharp, jagged, serrated masses, they resemble the teeth of some huge monster widespread to crunch the bones of anything which should enter. Terrible indeed must be the scene when an easterly gale sends the surges of the Atlantic booming in here unrestrained. What a roar, what gnashing, what floods of milk-white foam and uplifted spray when the two forces meet! One should defer first impressions of the town until, passing down Pond Street, he has stood in the old burying-ground, the first in Marblehead. It lies scat- tered amid the crags on liigh ground near the sea, abreast of the old fort, but overlooking ii. The town, the harbor, Marblehead Neck with its summer cottages, the blue sea with its islands, lie outstretched before one. The dead in this old churchyard lie about in the hollows wherever sufficient depth of soil for interment could be found. Some of the tombstones are very old and bear quaint inscriptions. One on the south side reads, " Here lyes ye body of Mary wife to Christopher Lati- I C P ^ a Marblehead Scenes 71 mer aged 49 years deceased ye 8th of May 1681." Her husband has a stone near by dated 1690. Over the hill is another stone with a notable inscription: "Here lies ye body of Mrs. Miriam Grose who deceased in the eighty first year of her age and left 180 children grand-children, and great grand-children." What more honorable epitaph could a matron desire.-^ Near by lies Elizabeth Holyoke, " wife to the Rev. Mr. Edward Holyoke born Feb. ye 4th 1691, was married August ye 18th 1717, and died August ye 15th 1719 leaving an infant daughter of eleven weeks' old." Mr. Holyoke was one of the early presidents of Harvard. A cluster of five brown tombstones in a hollow near the crest of the hill calls attention to the place of sepulture of four early pastors of "the First Church" in Marblehead, and the wife of one. The first pastor was the Rev. Samuel Cheever, who died May 29, 1724. Next him sleeps his colleague and successor, the Rev. John Barnard; his wife, Anna, rests beside her husband; next her stone is that of the Rev. William Whitwcll, who died in 1781; and the fifth commemorates the Rev. Salem Hubbard, whose death occurred in 1808. Two of the graves have Latin inscriptions on the head- stones. A group of brown-stone tables near by marks the graves of the Story family, the Rev. Isaac Story, an uncle of the famous jurist, being one of those com- memorated. Seats are placed at intervals on this outlook ground. 72 In Olde Massachusetts and should the reader be so fortunate as to visit the churchyard on a Sunday, he may find the bench on the crest of the hill occupied by sundry rugged skippers of the famous old ISIarblchead fishing fleet. They love to gather there of a Sunday morning or evening, look out on the sea and down on the roofs of the town, mingle reminiscences, and mildly criticise the ruling powers. Coming upon them on a bright afternoon, we found these worthy citizens most communicative, and a few questions served to elicit some very delightful remi- niscences. They heartily agreed in our commendation of the outlook. "You see the farthest island yonder with the two lighthouses on it," said one; "that's Baker's Island, a skipper's landmark for the port when returning from the Banks. That little islet this side is Half- Way Rock, half-way between Boston I.,ight and Cape Ann. Right in the path of shipping, and never a vessel struck on it yet. Lowell's Island comes next, with the big summer hotel on it, built by a Salem man; it didn't pay, though; people wanted to be where they could step ashore now and then ; 'twould 'a' burned down long ago if there'd been insurance on it. The old fort on the P'int there — Fort Sewall — is a relic, built in colony times and named after Judge Sewall. There is a nice little story too connected with it. A few years before the Revolution one Sir Charles Frank- Un was sent here to repair it, and stopped at the Foun- tain Inn, whose roof you can see down yonder under Marblehead Scenes 73 the trees. There was a maid servant there — Agnes Surrage — very pretty. Sir Charles was heard to say she was the prettiest woman he had ever seen. He found her one day barefooted scrubbing the stairs, and asked her why she didn't wear shoes. ' If you please, sir,' said Agnes, droppin' a courtesy, ' I'm savin' 'em for meetin'.' Whereupon Sir Charles declared she should wear shoes every day, sent her to school, educated her, and many years later in Lisbon, after his wife had died, married her. The gossips said the great earthquake frightened him into it. "All through the war of the Revolution the fort de- fended the town. In Februray, 1814, there was great commotion within its walls. The drums beat to arms, and all the people flocked to the hill to learn the cause of the disturbance. Several British cruisers were off the coast in those days, and they now saw two of them chasing one of our vessels, the gallant old Constitution, as it turned out. She ran far enough to get a good position, and then turned and thrashed the Britishers handsomely — took 'em both into Boston, the frigate Cyane of thirty-four guns and the sloop of war Levant of twenty-one guns. It is really too bad for Govern- ment to let the old fort go to ruin. There ain't a bit of a garrison, you see, only a custodian, who lives 'way over there, and takes a walk through the old fort may be once a week to see that 'taint carried off piecemeal by visitors." 74 In Olde Massachusetts We asked about the Story tombs and the family of the Chief Justice. "Oh, yes; he was a Marblehead boy," they repHed. "His father. Dr. EHsha Story, practised here all his life, married a Marblehead girl, and is buried in the Green Street yard. The Chief Justice was born here, schooled here under Master John Bond, and went from here to Cambridge. His uncle, Isaac Story, who lies yonder, was pastor of the Congregational Church in Marblehead for many years." CHAPTER XI QUAINT OLD BARNSTABLE BARNSTABLE is one of the quaintest, staidest, and most interesting of Cape villages. Unlike the towns nearer the point, there is a green rural land- scape inland, while the marine view is the finest on the coast. To get a view of the latter, one must follow the main street a mile and a half to the harbor-mouth and the sweep of sand dunes which wall it in and add greatly to the impressiveness of the scene. This main street is of itself a feature. It is broad, elm-shaded, lined with old, mossy, long-roofed dwellings, and smart new cottages and villas in equal proportions. Begin- ning at the railway station on the bluff, it winds down into the valley and around the head of a cove jutting in from the harbor, then up Training Hill, passing on the crest an ancient church, blankly white, with graves in the rear, of such families as the Otises, Thatchers, Hinckleys, and others, and continues on, lined with fine old country-seats, to its terminus at "the Point." About midway stands the village tavern, under a group of mighty elms, old, rambling, and mossy, serving to remind the traveler how cheerless and uncomfortable 76 In Olde Massachusetts the inn of colonial times could be. I have no doubt that Dr. Dwight, in his famous pilgrimage over the Cape in 1800, as recorded in vol. iii. of his " Travels," stopped at tliis tavern. A road leaves the main street at the foot of Training Hill under the church, and follows the trend of the cove beside slowly decaying docks to the harbor-mouth, the broad expanse of salt meadow, and the wide sweep of dunes. From this bluflP the eye roves delightedly over the scene. Beside us is the harbor — open water — one mile wide and four miles long. Thrust out from Sandwich, which joins Barnstable on the west, is Sandy Neck, a long tongue of sand one and one-half miles wide and seven miles long, crooked landward like a bent forefinger. On the outside of this finger lies the cold steel-blue sea; within is the harbor, and perhaps the greatest body of salt meadow on the Atlantic Coast. Eight thousand tons of hay are cut upon it annually by the fortunate owners. The sand on the neck has been tossed by the wind into dunes of every fantastic and grotesque shape — round, truncated, sugar-loaf, turreted, serrated — here one with its top sheared clean oflF, another half disemboweled ; fortunate for all is it that they are covered with beach-grass v/hose tough, fibrous roots securely anchor them; otherwise the first winter gale would lift them bodily and sift them over the marshes. The sun shines on the dunes from the east, and their white sides sparkle like diamonds, in Quaint Old Barnstable 77 striking contrast to the dark blue of the sea. The vast stretch of marshes affords a stranger sight. They are dotted with myriads of poles forming the frames of hay-ricks, which cover them by hundreds. Beyond the marshes over the Neck we can almost see the salt meadows, where the huge dredges of the Cape Cod Canal and Navigation Company are cutting the channel of another national highway. It is five miles south, across the Cape to Vineyard Sound; it is twenty- eight miles by water to Provincetown at the extreme tip of the tongue, and fifty by land — wliich illustrates admirably the extreme curvature of the Cape. The ocean is quiet to-day. The surf only moans and sighs, with varying rhythm. In a northwest blizzard it is different; but perhaps before concluding we shall be able to give the reader an idea of what a " nor' wester " on the Cape Cod Coast is like. We have passed many pleasant evenings this sum- mer in the society of a gentleman of the village, a veteran editor and politician, who lives in a large, square-roofed house, filled from cellar to attic with quaint furniture and mementoes of the past. In 1814, when the Barnstable sloop Independence was captured by the British frigate Nymph, our friend, then a lad of six years, was on board, and distinctly remembers his father's lifting him upon the taffrail of the frigate to see the sloop burn. Few public events have happened since that the Major is not 78 III Oldc MaHsachusetts latriiliar vvilli, and liis fniid of anocdole and repartee is inexhaustible. One day, !<)()kin<( lIiron;;li liis eolleclion of rjirilies, we <-aiiH' upon llie account of llie centennial atniiver- sary in IS.'J!) of llie settlement of liarnstahle, containing letters and speeches from John (^uincy Adams, Harri- son (J ray Otis, Dr. James 'rhal<-her, the aimalist of the l{(>volulion, and other eminent men, natives of, or associated with, the town. "We are especially proud of that centcmiial," said Major P., "because at that time we first introduced and successfully established tin; custom of invilin;^ ladies to be present on such occasions. When the matter was first proposed, Mr. William Stur^is, of IJoston, a native of l{ainsliible, rcfns(>d to «'ri custom to invite ladies to such c<>lel)ralious. Shortly after, the oj)enin<^ of the ('unard Ijine was celebrated in IJoslon, to which ladies were asked, and a friend said to me: 'You see how <|uickly we follow Hartistable's exam])le."' Old books, old l(>tters, old diaries, old sermons were here in profusion; the killer were exceedingly interesting, ;is showing how boldly and cireclively Puritan <"l<'rgy- Quuiiit Old li;ini.sl;.l.l(« 79 men altiickcil the sins jin