Y^le University Library 39002060803617 L .^Mt^ML-d o &. M-M^s. A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND "THE OLD HYERS HOUSE", CHATHAM, CAPE COD. FROM A WOOD BLOCK PRINT BY M.ARGARET PATTERSON. A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND BY HELEN W. HENDERSON AUTHOR OF " A LOITERER IN NEW YORK," " THE ART TREASURES OF WASHINGTON," ETC., ETC. NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA " It is remarkable that men do not sail the sea with more expectation. Nothing remarkable was ever accomplished in a prosaic mood. The heroes and discoverers have found true more than was pre viously believed, only when they were expecting and dreaming of something more than their contempo raries dreamed of, or even themselves discovered, that is, when they were in a frame of mind fitted to behold the truth." Thoreau's Cape Cod. TO VIRGINIA There was a section of New England which we knew as children as we knew our pockets. And our pockets were worth knowing in those days, I fancy, ¦ — - chewing gum, pickled limes, blackjacks, and gibraltars. You have not seen it for years, yet there it lies — peace ful, serene, eternal — with that sweet wild tang — exactly as we knew it together as ardent, eager, adventurous chil dren. True there were no " electrics " then circling the cape we tramped so diligently on our voyages of discovery. The " barge " was our occasional vehicle, the front seat, high beside the driver, our place, the ride up from Rock- port harried by the haunting uncertainty as to our status - — guests or passengers. As guests we were dropped famil iarly at the Linwood, the terminus of the route, but when, for some reason obscured from our childish comprehension, it was necessary to charge us, we were made aware of it by the cracking of the whip and swift rounding of the curve which landed us grandly at our destination. Though the fee was enormous the transaction was proudly tacit. We never dreamed of asking. On Dogtown Common a few boulders have disin tegrated, leaving strange, rough, pebbly heaps ; but the same cows wander through the blueberry bushes over its eerie vastness, and stop, surprised at the rare sight of an intruding human. The Whale's Jaw, gaping widely on the edge of this wild, stony expanse, filled as with ancient viii TO VIRGINIA ruins of some prehistoric mortuary range, seems to realize that heavy moment: "when churchyards yawn." The apples on Pigeon Hill are as hard and as green as when you and Sidney Emery and I used to sit in the grass by the stone wall and make stolen meals of them. Seven- eighths of the horizon, they used to tell us statistically, were visible from the summit of the mound, where those two spare, wind-ridden elm trees seemed to simulate the pigeon's legs, as, we figured, he lay upon his back, pointing his feet to the sky. Straitsmouth, Thatcher's, and the Salvages lie prone upon the water, and one can still see, strangely, the interspaces from this bird's-eye vantage, curiously up setting to the normal vision of these islands piled together from the lower level. The breakwater, to which we jour neyed endlessly in that little tug, leading the stone scow, laden with granite from the quarries for footless dumping, stands still a narrow ledge just above high water, and the great projected harbour has apparently advanced little beyond our memory of it. All about the clear music of the shivering chip-chip-chip of splintering granite from invisible quarries, buried in masses of sweet fern, bayberry, and wild roses, breaks cleanly on the ear, just as it used to do. The essence of the romance of the horizon seemed always, somehow, and still seems to be the unchanging outline of Agamenticus, by day — the revolving light of the Isles of Shoals, by night. How we looked daily to the former to get our barometric bearings ! And how invigorated we felt on those tingling mornings when all three humps were visible — soft, cerulean undulations — high above the water line ! There were days, you remember, so etheric that we could, with the naked eye, make out the houses on Appledore Island, twenty miles away. TO VIRGINIA ix But the real emotion was in the flash of the revolving- light — glimmering, gleaming, vanishing — glimmering, gleaming, vanishing — never ceasing, pausing, faithfully warning generation after generation of mariners — invin cible, sempiternal symbol. Low down, nestling close to the rich indigo waters — glimmering, gleaming, vanishing — glimmering, gleaming, vanishing — I can see it now. I can hear, too, the languorous lap of the sea upon the rocks, the rush into the hidden pools, the heavy plash — sop-sop of the Spouting Horn at half tide, the seething retreat of the foaming waters over the barnacles, through the dank mesh of slipperj' seaweed, into those depths of malachite beyond the border. How far away the stars seemed as we lay as late as they would let us on those flat, white ledges back of Way's Folly! CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE Illustrations . xiii I The New England Island 21 II The Jumping-On Place : Peovincetown 39 III Cape Cod : Exploration and Discovery . 50 IV The Back Side of the Cape 73 V Shifting Sands : The Spit and the Hook 98 VI The Province Lands 117 VII The "May Flower's" Voyage: The Fore fathers Discover the Cape 134 VIII The Pilgrims at Plymouth 168 IX Modern Plymouth .... 196 X Salem of the Witches 221 XI The "Captains'" Salem 245 XII Samuel McIntire's Salem 271 XIII Boston: The Pear-Shaped Peninsula . 307 XIV Beacon Hill 327 XV The Bulfinch Trail 382 XVI The Kernel of the Nut 380 XVII Old Landmarks 396 XVIII Monumental Boston 412 ILLUSTRATIONS " The Old Hyers House," Chatham, Cape Cod Frontispiece Captain John Smith's Map of New England, 1614 . 24 Part of the Travels of Capt. John Smith amongst Turks, Tartars, and others. From History by John Payn 30 His Combat with Grualgo 30 How He Slew Bonny-Mulgro 30 Three Turks' Heads in a Banner .... 30 Provincetown Harbour and Railroad Wharf . . 44 The Fishing Fleet at Anchor near Railroad Wharf 44 Chatham Beach. By Margaret Patterson . . 54 Migrating Geese. By Frank W. Benson ... 66 " Moonlight." By Frank W. Benson ... 76 The Back Side : Dunes of the Outer Ridge . . 82 The Sand Dunes out Back. By Rose Moffett . . 82 The Ulysses, Brutus and Volusia sailing from Salem, February 21, 1802 90 Wrecked on the Beach at Cape Cod ... 90 A Sand Dune Encroaching upon an Oasis . . 100 " Old Forest Beds, Long Since Buried in the Sands, Crop out Occasionally " 100 Salt Works of Loring Crocker at Barnstable, 1872 108 xiv ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE "The Wind Whirls the Dunes into Fantastic Shapes" 114 The Province Lands : " Going Gunning." By Dodge MacKnight .126 The Slender Alien — Italy's Transplanted Torre del Mangia — as a Pilgrim Monument on the Tip End of Cape Cod 140 The Pilgrim Monument at Provincetown as Seen from the Dunes . 140 " The Pilgrims on the May Flower." In the Boston State House. By Henry Oliver Walker . .158 Edward Winslow. From an Old Portrait in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth 170 Pilgrim Meersteads along Town Brook . . . 180 Ancient Home of Major William Bradford at Kingston ........ 190 Holmes House, Plymouth . . . . . .190 " The Clam Digger." By Frank W. Benson . . 198 Burial Hill, Plymouth, Showing the Church of the Pilgrimage ........ 202 The Bradford Monument, Burial Hill, Plymouth . 202 Tombstone of Francis le Baron, " The Nameless Nobleman," Burial Hill, Plymouth . . 208 House of the " Nameless Nobleman " at Falmouth. By Sears Gallagher . . ... 208 Mansion at the Corner of Court Square, Plymouth, 1805 216 North Street Throwing out a Left Branch — Wins low Street — Both Leading to the Harbour . 216 ILLUSTRATIONS xv PAGE The House of Seven Gables. Erected 1662, Re modeled 1910 224 The " Great House," Built by Philip English in 1685 224 Rear of the " Old Witch House " . 234 An Old House Built in 1684, Showing Gables, Over hanging Story and the Lean-to Characteristic of the First Period of Salem Architecture . . 234 Benjamin Pickman. From a Portrait in the Essex Institute, Salem 242 Benjamin Pickman House, 1743. From a Litho graph Made About 1840-50. . . 242 The Ricliard Derby House, 1761, Derby Street, Salem 248 Doorway of the Richard Derby House . . . 248 The Exquisite Carving of the Balusters and Newell Post, Richard Derby House ..... 248 " Derby Wharf." By Philip Little . . . .248 Portrait of Elias Hasket Derby. By James Froth- ingham ......... 256 The Mount Vernon of Salem, Owned by Elias Has ket Derby and Commanded by His Son, Captain Derby 256 " Old Wharves, Salem." By Philip Little . . 260 " Coasters, Salem Harbour." By Philip Little . 260 Portrait of Captain Carnes, Peabody Museum, Salem . 266 Portrait of Captain Benjamin Carpenter, Peabody Museum, Salem 266 Captain Benjamin Crowninshield, Commander of Cleopatra's Barge on Her Mediterranean Voyage in 1817 266 xvi ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Cleopatra s Barge, Built by Retire Becket for Cap tain George Crowninshield . 266 Letter of Marque, Brig Grand Turk, 1815 . . 266 Mclntire's Original Elevation of the Ezekiel Hersey Derby House, 1800 272 Mantel in the Ezekiel Hersey Derby House . . 272 Mantel Showing Landscape Paper, Captain Cook's House, 1804 278 Entrance Porch to the Georgian Side of Jerathmeel Peirce House, 1782 278 Knocker to the Georgian Door of Jerathmeel Peirce House 278 Georgian Parlour, 1782, of Jerathmeel Peirce House 278 Mantel and Mirror in the Adam Parlour, Jerathmeel Peirce House, 1800 278 Portrait of Nathaniel Bowditch. By Charles Os good, 1835 .... ... 288 The Ship Hercules of Salem, Owned by Nathaniel West and Commanded by His Brother, Capt. Ed ward West. Passing the Mole Head of Naples, September 13, 1809 288 Mantel in the Parlour of the Kimball Residence, Salem 294 Kimball House Doorway, 14 Pickman Street . . 294 Spiral Stairway in the Kimball House . . . 294 Porch and Doorway of the Peabody-Silsbee House, 1797 . . " 294 Front Hall and Stairway of David P. Waters House 1805 300 ILLUSTRATIONS xvii PAGE Dudley L. Pickman House, 1816, No. 27 Chestnut Street 300 The Bolles Doorway, No. 8 Chestnut Street, 1810 . 300 Samuel Mclntire's chef d'asuvre, the Tea-House from the Hersey Derby Farm, Peabody, 1799 . 300 Eagle Carved by Samuel Mclntire in 1802. From the West Gate of the Common, and now on Top of the City Hall 300 Governor John Winthrop. From an Old Portrait in the State House, Ascribed to Van Dyck . . 314 The Common and Beacon Street . . . 332 Portrait of John Hancock. By John Singleton Copley " ... 348 The New Hall of Representatives, State House Ex tension, Showing the Sacred Cod in Place Oppo site the Speaker's Chair . . ... 354 Statue of George Washington. By Sir Francis Chantrey, London, 1826, Doric Hall, State House 354 The Bulfinch Building, Massachusetts General Hos pital. By Sears Gallagher 366 Portrait of Josiah Quincy. By Gilbert Stuart . 384 Boston, Old and New. By Sears Gallagher . . 390 The Old State House. By Sears Gallagher . . 398 Sketch for Statue of Warren. By Paul Wayland Bartlett. Warren Square, Roxbury . . . 402 St. Paul's Cathedral. By Sears Gallagher . . 408 Equestrian Statue of George Washington. By Thomas Ball, Boston, 1859 414 Saint Stephen. By Dr. Rimmer .... 414 xviii ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Falling Gladiator. By Dr. Rimmer . ¦ ¦ 414 Colonel Thomas Cass, Statue in the Boston Public Gardens. By Richard E. Brooks . . .420 "Death Staying the Hand of the Sculptor." By Daniel Chester French 420 Entrance Boston Public Library .... 430 Statue of Sir Henry Vane. By Frederick Mac- Monnies 430 " Bacchante." By Frederick MacMonnies . . 434 Colonnade, Boston Public Library, Showing Frag ment of the Muses by Puvis de Chavannes . . 434 " Mater Dolorosa." By John Singer Sargent . 434 John Quincy Adams. By John Singleton Copley . 440 Self Portrait, Painted in 1849 by William Morris Hunt 440 The Fortune Teller. By William Morris Hunt . 440 Planting Potatoes. By Jean Francois Millet . . 440 Head of a Goddess from Chios, Fourth Century b. c. 442 Aphrodite Marble, Fourth Century b. c. . . . 442 Padmapani, the Compassionate Lord. Chinese Col lections. Late Sixteenth or Early Seventeenth Century . 442 Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels. By Fra Angelico . ...... 442 Portrait of Fray Felix Hortensio Palavicino. Painted 1609 by El Greco 442 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND CHAPTER I THE NEW ENGLAND ISLAND That exquisite northeast section of the United States, which we know under the apt title of New England, presents, in all its many phases, so rich a country for leisurely investigation that one stands embarrassed upon the threshold of the subject, un certain through which avenue of adventure to lead a companion who would make his initial entree into this garden spot. Every traveller must have remarked the sharp existing contrast between the physical character of England and Scotland. The moment the north bound train enters upon the border land between the two countries there is this strange, satisfying difference in all things. The guards speak the broad tongue of the Scottish lowlander; beautiful, soft downs and rolling, verdant landscape, filled with sleek, brown-eyed cattle, give way to wild, 21 22 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND stony, savage pasture for beasts with wide-spread horns and shaggy coats matted with burs; neat hedges and well-kept estates to rough gorse and crags, only half dissembled by tangled masses of purple heather, which attaches itself abundantly to the scanty soil. Men, too, are more stalwart, architecture more rugged. There is less atmos phere, less envelopment, more vivid beauty, less compromise, more vital frankness. So in New England we have but to step across the border of the adj oining state to feel at once the sharp differentiation, the geological cut-off which expresses itself in the general aspect of the land and in the thousand and one simple facts of its topography, its flora, its fauna, its people, its cus toms, its coast, its climate, and its industries. For its physical difference from the neighbour ing states science furnishes the most plausible of reasons. By the early discoverers and first comers to this continent, New England was thought to be an island, a supposition not so very far from the truth if one but stop to think of its bold projection into the Atlantic on the one side and the chain of rivers and lakes on the other which makes its insula tion almost complete. Certain fragments of this " physical region " have been divorced from the main body politically and nationally. Rationally THE NEW ENGLAND ISLAND 23 this area, dominated by the New England states, includes the British provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, part of Lower Canada, and a nar row slice of the state of New York with Long Is land; but arbitrary boundaries have confined New England to about one-half the related district. The logical boundaries of the tract or peninsula are the long bed of the St. Lawrence and the deep, wide chasm which holds the waters of Lake Champlain, Lake George, and the Hudson River. Geologists say that this part of the earth's surface was one of the earliest exposed after the glacial epoch, which accounts for the worn character of the soil and the granite structure everywhere laid bare to view. The distinguishing charm of New England re sults largely from its isolation, its immense variety within itself ranging from the fertile plains of the Connecticut Valley to the densely wooded forests of Maine, from the lofty peaks of the White Moun tains to the sinuous sea-coast, alternately rock- bound and sandy, following the outline of the pen insula for seven or eight hundred miles. Everything is beautifully logical in the locations of the original New England towns planted down its coast line from Maine to Rhode Island, a coast line immensely varied, indented by estuaries of 24 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND divers extent, forming commodious harbours throughout its length for the different aspects of commerce, defence, and trade. While the capes, hooks, and islands made it possible for the mariner to live close to his pursuits, small or spacious inlets provided peace and security for the founding of the greater towns. The harbours of Portland, Boston, and Newport, by their ample, deep, accessible waters were ideally made for settlement and the establishment of vast commercial enterprise; while Portsmouth, Newburyport, Gloucester, Salem, New Bedford, Providence, New London, and New Haven, in the early days grew out of the ro bust maritime activities, initiated by these ports. Though not its first discoverer, New England owes its name to Captain John Smith, that roman tic navigator, who explored this coast in an open boat from the mouth of the Penobscot River to Cape Cod. He set out from Downs, in the spring of 1614, with two ships equipped by a few London merchants, and " chanced to arrive " at Monhegan, in the month of April. He had with him some forty-five men and boys, and while most of them were collecting a cargo of fish and furs with which to appease the " adventurers " who had financed the enterprise, Smith and eight or nine of those who might best be spared, " ranged the coast in a small CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH'S MAP OF NEW ENGLAND, 1614 : "THE MOST REMARQUEABLE PARTS THUS NAMED BY THE HIGH AND MIGHTY PRINCE CHARLES PRINCE OF GREAT BRITAINE." THE NEW ENGLAND ISLAND 25 boat," and made the survey upon which is based Smith's handsome map, and collected the notes afterward elaborated into his " Description of New England." This description, together with the map, Smith addressed and delivered to Prince Charles, afterwards Charles I, with the plea that he would change the barbarous native names " for such Eng lish as posterity may say : Prince Charles was their Godfather." Smith was a naif fisherman. "Our plot," he writes, "was to take whales & make tryalls of a Myne of Gold and Copper. If thofe failed, Fifh and Furres was then our refuge, to make ourfelues fauers howfoeuer: we saw many, spent much time in chafing them, but could not kill any." The master of the vessels, Smith discovered, knew less than himself of such matters, and he laments that by late arrival and " long lingering about the whale " the prime of both hunting and fishing sea sons had passed " ere we perceived it, we thinking their seasons served at all times: but we found it otherwise." Smith laboured three times as long for New England as he did for the Virginia colony, with which his name is so generally identified. A doughty hero, the much made of Pocahontas ad venture, upon which popular ignorance has fast- 26 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND ened as the chief event of his life, was but a mere in cident in a career filled with similar escapes and desperate hazards of all kinds. Having looked the coast over, Smith attempted a second voyage to New England, in June, 1615, set ting out with thirty men to settle on the coast of Maine, near Pemaquid. At the outset of this ex pedition he was chased three times by pirates and finally captured by a French man-of-war through the cowardice and perfidy of his associates. At each encounter the crew implored Smith to yield, claiming that they were hired to fish and not to fight ; but twice he brought them to terms by threat ening to fire the powder and " split the ship," unless they stood to the defence. In the third encounter they were chased by four French men-of-war and Smith, who spoke the lan guage, was persuaded to board the Frenchman as interpreter. No sooner had he stepped from his vessel than master, mate, and pilot abandoned their leader without further parley, leaving him with nothing but his "wastecoat" and breeches. "I am not the first hath beene betrayed by pirats," says Smith, piqued by his capture, " and foure men of warre, prouided as they were, had beene suffi cient to haue taken Sampson, Hercules, and Alex ander the Great, no other way furnisht than I was." THE NEW ENGLAND ISLAND 27 The master of the ship was Hunt, the same who, as we shall later see, abused the savages and captured and sold a number of them as slaves, in Spain. Smith does not hesitate to accuse Hunt of having robbed him of his " plots " and observations, intending to make capital of them upon his return to England by passing them off as his own. But Smith wrote the whole " discourse " from memory, during his three months' captivity in the gun room of the French vessel. This he did as much to cir cumvent his enemy as to keep his "perplexed thoughts from too much meditation " of his miser able estate. From August to November Smith was kept prisoner by the pirates serving an odious regime. When English boats were encountered he was kept below and not allowed to speak on pain of death, lest his identity be disclosed, but against the Span ish or other foreigners he was armed and made to fight for his captors. Finding them little inclined to set hini free and greatly mistrusting the ultimate issue, Smith finally took reckless measures to es cape. At the end of such a storm that beat them all under hatches, he watched his opportunity to get ashore in their boat. Under cover of black night he secretly got into the dinghy, armed with a half pike, and put adrift for Rat He : but says the narra- 28 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND tive, "the Current was so strong and the Sea so great, I went a drift to Sea, till it pleased God the winde so turned with the tide, that although I was, all this fear full night of gusts and raine, in the Sea, the space of twelve houres, when many ships were driuen ashore, and diuerse split (and being with sculling and bay ling the water tired) at last I ar- riued in an oazie lie by Charowne; where certaine fowlers found mee neere drowned, and half dead, with water, colde, and hunger." Upon his return to England Smith published his narrative with his map of the coast, and upon this chart we find the name, New England, first applied to a country previously known to the English as North Virginia. Prince Charles confirmed the names suggested by the explorer and the two re named the principal points of interest. Some of these persist, such as Plymouth for the English town; the river Charles, for the god-father prince; and Cape Ann, or Anna, so named for Charles' mother, Anne of Denmark. Smith's first name for Cape Ann had been Tragabigzanda, after a Turkish sweetheart who had rescued him from slavery in Turkey. They altered Cape Cod, so named by Gosnold, to Cape James in honour of the king ; called the har bour Milford Haven, and the bay Stuards Bav, to THE NEW ENGLAND ISLAND 29 immortalize the reigning house of England. And the islands now known as the Isles of Shoals, con stitute the group to which the celebrated navigator gave his own name — " Smyth's lies are a heape to- geather, none neere them, against Accominticus " — but, as an old book puts it, the ingratitude of man has denied his memory this frail tribute. Straitsmouth, Thatcher's, and Milk islands, near Cape Ann, "far to the sea in regard of the head land," Smith called the Three Turks' Heads — the name has disappeared except for an inn at Land's End which holds to the suggestive title. This was in memory of Smith's youthful adventure at the siege of Regall, as related in his narrative, when, having enlisted as a soldier of fortune, he won the three Turks' heads in three single combats. The Christians had encamped at Regall and while they were entrenching themselves, the Turks, to relieve the ennui of waiting, sent this challenge to any captain in the Christian army: " That to de light the Ladies, who did long to see some court like pastime, the Lord Turbashaw did defie any captaine, that had the command of a Company, who durst combate him for his head." The Christians accepted the challenge and cast lots to decide which of their captains should enter the con test. The choice fell to Captain John Smith and 30 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND a truce was arranged while the assemblage gathered to see the joust. Turbashaw entered the field with a noise of "Howboyes" ; he was well mounted and armed and wore a pair of wings made of eagles' feathers "within a ridge of silver, richly garnished with gold and precious stones"; a Janizary before him bore his lance and another led his horse. Smith, with the blare of trumpets, only, passed with courteous salute, took his ground and upon the signal, passed his lance "throw the sight of his Beaver, face, head, and all." The knight fell to the ground and Smith alighting unbraced the other's helmet and cut off his head, while the Turks took his body. Grulago, as the narrative says, his heart swelled by the death of his captain, challenged the con queror to regain Turbashaw's head or lose his own. The first bout with lances brought accident to neither combatant; then with pistols Smith wounded his adversary's left arm, so that he was thrown to the ground and so bruised by the fall that he too lost his head. Whereupon Smith began to form a taste for the play and in his turn challenged any Turk to come to the place of combat to redeem in the same man ner, the heads of his companions. This was ac cepted by Bonny-Mulgro and lances and pistols His three twittf Cpmbats Lnati- ? • His Encounter rpttfi TVREA$HA\KrCfitij.r PART OF THE TRAVELS OF CAPT. JOHN SMITH AMONGST TURKES, TARTARS, AND OTHERS, EXTRACTED OUT OF THE HISTORY BY JOHN PAYN. HIS ENCOUNTER WITH TURBASHAW. His Combat with GKVALtGO-Cajj* of threeltundre^d ftorjtnett C nap ¦ n HIS COMBAT WITH GRUALGO. How Jie Jfem BONNY:MVL G RO C hap - 7 < HOW HE SLEW BONNY-MULGRO. Three TVRKS heals m a hanrUrjiuen fnmj-or Armes ¦ . C%J -z ¦ tR/«x Dr Jculfior livnrHC limffiifffntrd tc Printf SlG&MVNDVS C hap ¦ 5 THREE TURKS' HEADS IN A BANNER GIVEN HIM FOR ARMES, AND HOW HE WAS PRESENTED TO PRINCE SICISMUNDUS. THE NEW ENGLAND ISLAND 31 failing, Smith drew upon his third adversary his Faulchion and "pierced the Turke so under the cutlets, thorow backe and body that although he alighted from his horse he stood not long ere hee lost his head as the rest had done." This success gave great encouragement to the whole army. A quaint print depicts the scene in which as Smith describes, "with a guard of six thousand, three spare horses, before each a Turke's head upon a lance, he (Smith) was conducted to the Generall's Pavillion with his presents." The heads our warrior presented to Zachel Moyses, the general of the army; he received them with much respect, as the occasion deserved, " embracing him in his arms" and presenting him with a "fair horse, richly furnished, a Semitere and a belt worth three hundred ducats," in addition to which he was made Sergeant-Major of his regiment. If Smith's explorations and discoveries of the New England coast are little known to the casual public, those of the sieur de Champlain are even more buried in obscurity; yet in comparison with the careful, methodical work of the French ex plorer in this region, the flying visits of the English to this coast were both hasty and superficial. Gos- nold and Pring, who preceded Champlain, had brought back only vastly entertaining stories of 32 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND adventure and discursive comment; the journal of Weymouth, who was on the coast of Maine at about the same time as Champlain, is local and indefinite ; Champlain's exploration of the New England coast, on the other hand, was thorough and scientific, and his " Voyages," in soundness and in richness of de tail, stand as unrivalled authority in the field of which they treat. He pictures the native Indian in his primitive simplicity before his mode of life had been influenced by contact with European civiliza tion, which gives to these writings a preeminent importance for the scholar. Champlain's charts and descriptions cover over a thousand miles of sea-coast, from the northeastern extremity of Nova Scotia to the Vineyard Sound, below Cape Cod. His text is clear and lucid, and rich in entertaining detail. Souvenirs of his pas sage are rarely left in the occasional French-derived names, especially in Maine, as Mount Desert, called by Champlain, les Monts Deserts, Saco and Ken nebec, from Chouacoet and Qui ni be quy, the French transcriptions of the aboriginal names. Following the coast he saw the verdant tops of the long belt of broken ranges which form the north eastern continuation of the Appalachian System, this side of the Hudson River, and called them les monts verts, from which Vermont takes its name. THE NEW ENGLAND ISLAND 33 Champlain entered Massachusetts Bay and sailed into Boston Harbour, anchoring at Noddle's Is land, now East Boston, and here he saw his first log canoe and describes how it was made. They saw here a river, fort spacieuse, undoubtedly the Charles at its confluence with the Mystic, and this, in honour of the sieur de Monts was called la riviere du Gas. In addition to his descriptions of the coast Cham plain made numerous topographical drawings of many of the more remarkable places, such as the harbour of Plymouth, which he called Port du Cap St. Louys, Nauset and Chatham harbours, Glouces ter Harbour, the bay of Saco. In their ensemble these charts constitute a more complete map of New England than was made for many years after, serving as models for most of the subsequent maps of the coast down to comparatively recent times. Upon this work Champlain spent over three years, from May, 1604, to September, 1607, and after his return to France prepared his elaborate report for King Henri IV, illustrated with fifty-two charts in his own hand. Such work fitted in with that intelli gent monarch's ambitions as one of the builders of France, and the explorer was ennobled for his pains and retained by the court. In one of his reports Champlain makes the first recorded sug- 34 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND gestion of the practical utility of a ship canal across the Isthmus of Panama. Champlain's work was typical of the great initia tive of his nation; he laid superb foundations for what should have been La Nouvelle France, but its development was left to others and the superstruc ture in later years was built by alien hands. The founders of New England were English men, intensely English. Their immigration began in 1620 with the tentative voyage of the May Floxver, struggled for foothold during the first nine years, during which time it is estimated that but seven hundred colonists peopled the neighbourhood of Plymouth and the Massachusetts Bay, was most active through the eleven years that Charles I ruled England without a parliament, and practically ceased after the year 1640, when the total popula tion of the colonies was little more than 20,000 per sons. A glance at the village burying-grounds of New England, showing the constant recurrence of familiar names, will show how this original group multiplied on its own soil, as Palfrey says, in re markable seclusion. During a period of almost two hundred years their identity was unimpaired. " No race has ever been more homogeneous," says the historian, " than this remained down to the time of the generation now upon the stage (1858) . With THE NEW ENGLAND ISLAND 35 near approach to precision it may be said that the millions of living persons either born in New Eng land or tracing their origin to natives of that region, are descendants of the 21,000 English who came over before the early emigration ceased upon the meeting of the Long Parliament." The chance exceptions took no root upon our soil and affected little the homogeneous environ ment. Cromwell, after his victories at Dunbar and Worcester, in 1652, sent a few hundred Scottish prisoners out to Boston, but their descendants are negligible. About one hundred and fifty French Huguenot families took refuge in Massachusetts in 1685, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, but the families have died out, though here and there a name such as Revere, Faneuil, or Bowdoin persists, in the names of streets, squares, or build ings, to recall the circumstance. And finally, in 1719, Londonderry, New Hampshire, received one hundred and twenty Scotch-Irish families as set tlers. But even to this day foreigners in New Eng land remain unassimilated, though they flourish ever so briskly, as have the Irish in Boston. The New Englander, by inherent exclusiveness, has remained a singularly unmixed race, the more singular since it springs from a peculiar type of Englishman of the seventeenth century — -the Sep- 36 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND aratist, the Dissenter, the Puritan, in fine. This matter, as Fiske has said, comes to have more than a local interest when we reflect that from these men have come at least one-fourth of the present popu lation of the United States. Sequestered from for eign contact, these people, down to the Revolution had little acquaintance even with the other colo nists in this country, and it remained for that great common cause to bring New England into touch with her allied communities in that conflict. Emigrations beyond the area of the " physical re gion " were almost unknown until after the middle of the eighteenth century, when the great feeling for expansion throughout the continent began to drive the New Englander into New York State and through the Middle West, while the stimulus of the gold fever of '49 carried him in swarms as far as the Pacific coast. A coloured map of the region now occupied by the expansion of the New English colonies shows how that mere fringe of early settled country has spread in an almost unbroken tide over the entire north of our country, carrying its names — Springfield, Salem, Portland, Quincy — to the harbours of the Pacific, and spotting its settlements along the borders of the southern states. At the same time the development of the natural resources of New England itself — its quarries, its THE NEW ENGLAND ISLAND 37 fisheries, its industries operated by the partial har nessing of its immense water power, has brought into the country at a recent date literally hordes of foreigners of the working class, and these in places begin to dominate the population. Still the New Englander — the "native" as we call him — runs true to form; he holds himself aloof and refuses to absorb the alien. Absorption of the native by the alien is of course impossible and many of the smaller villages exhibit the touching spectacle of a frail remnant of the New English population try ing to hold out against the overwhelming invasion. Whole villages of French Canadians have grown up through the central part of Massachusetts in the suite of the cotton mills; the Cordage works at Plymouth supports a large town of Italian em ployes ; the Portuguese have their stronghold upon Cape Cod ; the Swedes and Finns form a formidable percentage of the residents on Cape Ann and exclu sively operate the granite quarries of that exquisite section. One has only to observe a fete day in Boston to see the ancient Common in the possession of the polyglots from the North End; to see our Fourth of July or Memorial Day celebrated with all the fanfare of the mi-careme, exploited by Irish orators, while a fringe of wondering descendants of the patriots hesitates without the railings, or lingers 38 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND upon fragmentary Bulfinch balconies, like ghosts at a feast. What does it mean? Where will it end? Can it be that a few more turns of the kaleidoscope, the passing of a mere generation or two will see all that quaint, typical flavour of the true New Englander modified, irretrievably changed by the alien in trusion ? CHAPTER II THE JUMPING-ON PLACE: PROV INCETOWN All things considered the most logical and ro mantic port of entry into New England is the old way, known to the early navigators of history — through the harbour of Cape Cod. We, in our nar row landsman fashion, are wont to think of Prov incetown, at the tip end of the Cape, as the literal jumping-off place of the continent. For us it lies isolated at the end of an extremely wearisome rail way, operated, during the greater part of the year, by but two trains daily, which leave its opposing termini at the crack of dawn, pass each other about midday, and get back to cover some time in the watches of the night. There is a strong affinity between the Cape train and the old stage coach which it displaces . Formerly the terminus of the "Cape Cod Railway" was at Sandwich — the beginning of the Cape. One took the cars for Sandwich and thence made the rest of the journey, a matter of some sixty-five miles, by easy stages in a rumbling vehicle over heavy sand 39 40 A LOITERER i., NEW ,-lAXD roads, to Provincetown, the mos> • of New England villages, tucked away in ti. ,(j inermost curve of the spiral turn of the peninsula. Thoreau, in his matchless work on Cape Cod, has left us a homely picture of stage coach travel there in 1849. He speaks of the broad and invulnerable good humour of the passengers: " They were what is called free and easy, and met one another to ad vantage as men who had at length learned how to live. They appeared to know each other when they were strangers, they were so simple and downright. They were well met, in an unusual sense, that is, they met as well as they could meet, and did not seem to be troubled with any impediment. They were not afraid nor ashamed of one another, but were contented to make just such a company as the ingredients allowed." Things on the Cape have changed very little since Thoreau's day, and the lumbering accommodation train is but an amplified stage coach in all its essen tial characteristics. I happened to take it from Boston late one afternoon in the month of October, when the state fair was on in Brockton. We were listed as an express to Middleboro, but this appar ently was optional and at the discretion of the con ductor — or may indeed have been provided for in one of those tantalizing little footnotes to the time x TUrPix,G-ON PLACE 41 table wl in designed to trip the unwary traveller ._ New England. I could imagine these train schedules to be the chef d 'ceuvre of some body of retired school teachers, long practised in the art of trapping scholars. I remember reading joyfully Jerome K. Jerome's description of the intricacies of the Continental time tables, of the "demon expresses that arrive at their destinations forty-seven minutes before they start and leave again before they get there." But these trains are frankly mystifying, whereas the Old Col ony schedules appear at first glance very simple, the pitfalls being artfully concealed by ingenious devices. Trains scheduled clearly to depart daily at the top of the column are qualified in various ways by numerous tiny letters tucked in here and there in out-of-the-way places, each one having a separate and vital significance, explained in a kind of glos sary at the back of the volume. After making an heroic effort to catch a train plainly indicated as due at a given time it is rather maddening to have that train either fail to turn up at all or glide by at full speed before one's baffled expectancy; the more so when turning to the one available official, that laconic functionary points to an adroitly hidden " q," which may mean that the train does not make 42 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND this stop on this particular day of the month, or that it is a special for the first and third Saturdays dur ing August, or that it does not run at all after the first of September, though it continues to appear on the winter schedule. Just as I was settling down to a peaceful perusal of my books and papers, in the expansive freedom of a whole seat to myself in a comparatively empty car, with an hour of daylight before we were due to encounter the unknown at Middleboro, the train gave a succession of short, sharp shocks and came to a trembling and apparently unpremeditated halt, and behold Brockton, its platform thronged by an eager crowd pressing towards the ends of the cars, and in upon our quiet streamed the motley trippers, sated with the joys and excitements of the fair, filling the train to its capacity, bulging over into the aisles, joking, laughing, recounting the news of a large day, and disposing of their numer ous and bulky packages in the racks overhead or piling them upon capacious laps until one was quite submerged and dwarfed by them. Yet Thoreau was still right — they were free and easy, but they met one another to advantage. They appeared to know me though I was a stranger, they were so simple and downright. They were not afraid nor ashamed of one another, but were con- THE JUMPING-ON PLACE 43 tented to make just such a company as the ingre dients allowed. As the train wandered down the Cape with in cessant stops there was no cessation in the talk or in the movement. We were all acquainted now and there was an endless swapping of places and readjustment of families and packages. At every station the fatherly conductor would descend metic ulously and announce sonorously and with pre cision that this was the train for Buzzards Bay, Barnstable, Yarmouth, Provincetown, and all "sta- shuns" down Cape. It became a kind of chant, and the assurance from such reliable authority that this was indeed the Cape train, never failed of its impressiveness to those who had waited long for its coming. Hearty farewells delayed us still further, but who would have cut them short? It was all part of the experience. Every time we slowed up at a station, big or little, we made our effect — for this was the event of the evening in Cape Cod. We brought the news of the outside world, and while mothers, fathers, sweethearts, and wives were being kissed and welcomed home again, half the train would be hanging out of the windows shouting greetings to neighbouring villagers, the regulars taking up conversation where they had left it in 44 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND the morning; and the train men would hustle the heavy bags out of the mail coach and heave the bundles of evening papers to the waiting trucks, the while themselves exchanging civilities with friends. and relatives and despite the austerity of their uniforms turning out to be quite as human as the rest. Every station saw the departure of a consider able group, and at each in the descending scale, we took aboard a less number of transients, yet we did not thin out perceptibly until we had arrived at the' first of the divers Brewsters, between Yarmouth and Orleans. By this time night had descended in full force and we seemed to be drawn, by the elimi nation of the landscape and by the feeble light of the car, concentrated in spots along the ceiling, into a closer intimacy — the darkness without shutting us within the circle of our own light. From time to time the wind would dash the sand, through which we were travelling, with a sharp hiss ing sound, against the sides of the car or upon the windows. Looking out, one's view was confined to the small zone illuminated by the light from the windows; but the air kept freshening and one sensed the proximity of the sea though one could' not see it. Sometimes we appeared to dash through scrubby woods and there would be the scent of the PROVINCETOWN HARBOUR AND RAILROAD WHARF. THE FISHING FLEET AT ANCHOR NEAR RAILROAD WHARF. THE JLTMPING-ON PLACE 45 pines and the bay berry bushes. Always wilder and more trackless seemed the way. Within the vehicle many were sleeping; others were munching portions of cold lunches put up in view of the certainty of delay, and as the guard, in his pleasant vernacular, roared "Brewster," against the swish of the sand, the rattle of the wheels over the rails, and the shrieking of the engine, a sleepy voice inquired with drollery: "How many more Brewsters have we got to go through?" "I don't know," a woman answered, "but I dread the Truros!" It is true that we seemed to box the compass in Truro before we got clear of the town ship. Our sandiest stretch lay between the last Truro and Provincetown — Truro and "Cape Cod," as the old writers, since Captain Gosnold, designate this finisterre, that region of sand dunes north and west of the abrupt termination of the highlands of the Cape. We could see both the Highland Light at High Head in Truro, on the ocean side and the gleam from the small lighthouse on Long Point, which guards the entrance to the harbour, from the same side of the train as we pushed along through the scrubby woods planted throughout its length to protect the railroad from the encroaching dunes. This will illustrate the spiral bending of the land 46 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND from Pamet River to Long Point enclosing the harbour, which from every point of the compass is completely land locked. Arrived at last the engine gave a shuddering sigh and came to rest before a small station and a very long platform, while the track continued on out across the main street to the end of railroad wharf far out into the harbour, to connect with the boats, making as it were, a kind of endless chain of com merce. Though everybody in Provincetown had waited up for the arrival of the train, short work was made of the business of coming to port. The few new arrivals were met and hurried to snug quarters ; a httle wagon received the mail bags, and boys with pushcarts attended to the transference of the even ing papers from the train to the small village shop on the main street which now became the centre of attraction. The boys were followed through the short cut to the paper shop by the entire attendance from the train spectacle, their way impeded by the eager crowd who behaved very much as chickens do when they see their food held high by the adminis tering human at meal time, their whole attention centred on the main chance. Within the shop en sued an undignified scuffle for the papers, doled out, however, by a rigorously impartial hand. THE JUMPING-ON PLACE 47 At the same moment impelled by the same thirst for news — the only thirst that may be slaked in Provincetown — the fishermen began to come up out of the sea, their rubber boots chuncking down the long wharf. These had a great advantage over the landsmen in being able to watch the progress of the train by its line of smoke against the sky from way beyond Puritan Heights and to calculate to the minute the time of its arrival and thus avoid spend ing any more time than absolutely necessary in a town for which they, as connoisseurs of ports, have a mild contempt. " I wouldn't change my clothes to go ashore in Provincetown," a Gloucester fisher man told me, taking his exercise, in his fishing out fit, at the end of the railroad wharf ; and so, luckily, they do not, and Provincetown, above most fishing villages, gets the full local colour of its chief indus try — the oil skins, the sou'westers, hip boots, and picturesque equipment in general lending to the town a distinctive character. For about half an hour after the arrival of the evening train Provincetown wears the false aspect of a busy metropolis. Men stand under the lights that stream from high shop windows, to scan the headlines of their evening papers while waiting for the final excitement of the day — the sorting and distribution of the mail. The rival movies which 48 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND let out at about this time add to the congestion of the narrow sidewalk and the released audience con gregates at the post office, already filled with hope ful letter seekers, lined up before the blankness of the closed window, or peering critically through the pigeon holes at the harried clerks, like expert card sharks watching the clumsy efforts of an inex perienced dealer, and itching to get a hand at it themselves. The newcomer by the night train might suppose himself landed in a very lively little place until he has seen the rapid reabsorption of the sudden crowd. The night seems to soak up the villagers like a sponge; into their homes they go like the blowing out of lights ; the sailors and fishermen drop off the ends of wharves, row out to their ships in the twink ling harbour, their voices and the thug-thug of the oars against the wooden thole pins striking hollow and echoless upon the ear long after their black ac cents are lost in the enveloping dark. Perhaps the whole thing most resembles a scene from grand opera, where the ever ready chorus at a given signal streams upon the bare stage, animating every de tail of its factitious setting, only to fade away again nobody knows whither, at the voice of the prompter. Thus Provincetown viewed inversely from the land lubber's standpoint — a tiny terminus town at THE JUMPING-ON PLACE 49 the tip of an irregular peninsula, pulled out from the southeastern extremity of New England east erly into the Atlantic Ocean for forty miles, bent round at nearly a right angle to hold the lower basin of Massachusetts Bay, and thence extending north erly thirty-five miles, with a gentle list to the west, where its final strip of tapering sands vanishes in north latitude 42° 4'. Everything depends upon the point of view. In accessible by land, to those who sail the seas Prov incetown lies on one of the broad highways of com merce, and "he is lucky," says Thoreau, "who does not run afoul of it in the dark." Sailors from all quarters of the globe touch there in the course of the year — all languages and many patois are heard at the end of railroad wharf — strange ships dip anchor from time to time at the mouth of the harbour. CHAPTER III CAPE COD: EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY The adventurers of remoter centuries found Provincetown directly in the way of navigation, and most of those who visited these shores were caught by the long projecting hook of the Cape, and gath ered ashore, at least briefly, at this spot. From the mythical visits of the Norsemen, in 1004, down to 1620, when the May Flower strayed into this harbour, in quest of a suitable place to plant her colony, we find scarce an explorer of note but left some record of encountering Cape Cod in his voy age of discovery to the new world. We know that Verrazzano, Hudson, Gosnold, Champlain, De Monts, Martin Pring, and Captain John Smith, at least, and possibly two Icelandic navigators saw Cape Cod before the Pilgrim mothers did their first washing at Provincetown. The chances are also that there were others, even be fore Columbus came, for when John Cabot disclosed to Europe his tale of the abundance of codfish at Newfoundland, in 1497, he mentions the fact that 50 EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY 51 the natives called the cod "baccalaos," a name ap plied to that fish by the seamen of the Bay of Biscay long before the Genoese navigator sailed on his voyage of discovery. Cabot's news of the great fish supply across the Atlantic gave an impetus to navigation. Extra fast days were created to encourage the fisheries by increasing the consumption of sea food. No meat was allowed any one on fast days, which before the Reformation in England made up nearly one-third of the year. The voyages of the Cortoreals to the northeast coast of America, in 1500 and following years, though unsuccessful in the avowed purpose, which was to find the mythical northwest passage to the Indies, awakened Spain to the commercial possibilities of the American fisheries, and brought many Spanish sailors to our coast. The chart of the Portuguese pilot, Reinal, ascribed to the year 1503, bears witness to the activities of Portugal at these shores. According to local tradition the banks of Newfoundland were discovered by the fishermen of Normandy and Brittany before 1492, while we have authentic record of Breton ships there as early as 1504; and, as an enduring memorial of the early voyages of the mariners of Dieppe, Honfleur, Saint Malo and other French ports, to the grand banks and their vicinity, France has left us the name of 52 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND Cape Breton Island. It is fairly certain that Cape Breton had this name before the voyages of Cartier or Champlain. While in the Catholic countries it continued to grow apace, the reign of Henry VIII proved dis astrous to the budding fishing industry of England. With the excessive ardour of converts, the newly made Protestants, anxious to discard every vestige of their former faith, banished fish from their tables, regarding it with suspicion as a papistic symbol, and meat was ostentatiously displayed even on Fridays and in Lent. As a result the fishing indus try suffered to so great an extent that while France was sending annually some five hundred vessels to the banks of Newfoundland, even the home fisheries of the English coast were abandoned to foreigners. In the first year of the reign of Henry's succes sor, 1548, parliament enacted its first measure of encouragement to the English fisheries. This im posed heavy fines upon all persons who should eat flesh on fish days, and at the same time the New foundland fishery was thrown open without exac tions. Under Elizabeth still more privileges were granted the fishermen. They were allowed to ex port their products free of customs, and an em bargo was laid on fishing boats of foreign ports EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY 53 anchoring on the coast or interfering in the waters claimed by the English. These measures were mainly at the instigation of Cecil, the queen's minister, who thus sought to re establish the prestige of the English maritime towns, which had fallen into a state of decadence. Behind it all lay England's crying need of trained mariners to protect her trade, which through negli gence was slipping into foreign hands, and of the rudiments of a navy against the augmenting force of the French marines. Preserved amongst the Cecil manuscripts is a long letter from Thomas Barnaby, a merchant, one of the foreign agents of Edward VI, in which, writ ing to Lord Burghley, he pictures the relative posi tions of French and English commerce in the year 1552, and urges upon the secretary of state the im portance of certain measures of preparation to " distress the French." " There is more Maryners in one Towne there," he states, "then is here from the Lands End to S. Michels Mount. I have sene come out at one tyde in Diep five hundred and five Botes and in every Bote ten or twelve men. The which was marvel lous to se how they be maintayned by Fyshing and what Riches they get out of the Sea and how they mayntain their Towns and Ports. As for us let 54 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND us begin at Sandwich and go to Dover, Hyde, and Hastings and to Winchelsea and se how they go down for lack of maintenance and in a maner no Mariners in them." He calls attention to the fact that even English coal was transported wholly in French vessels and urges that the king take the coals into his own hands (as the French king had taken salt) and bring them into Kent and there make a staple of them ; and that no goods whatsoever should be car ried out of England " but in English bottoms." By this means he said " an infinite number of mariners would be set to work and it would prove a great strength to the Realm." When Sir Humphrey Gilbert arrived at New foundland, in 1583, with a charter for colonization, and took possession of that country in the name of Queen Elizabeth, as an unknown land, he found there thirty-six vessels of other nations engaged in catching fish; while the year that Sir Francis Drake sailed from England on his famous world tour, over three hundred ships in the harbours of Europe weighed anchor and quietly departed to fish in American waters. Before the pioneer voyages of Gosnold, Champlain, Smith and the rest had been heralded throughout the land or recorded in the archives of kings, the hardy fishermen of western CHATHAM BEACH. FROM A WOOD BLOCK PRINT BY MARGARET PATTERSON. THE BEACH AT CHATHAM. FROM A WOOD BLOCK PRINT BY MARGARET PATTERSON. EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY 55 Europe had made thousands of trips across the At lantic with little thought of the perils of their voy ages and scarcely a written word to chronicle their deeds. If navigation stimulated the fisheries, so the fisheries in turn stimulated navigation. Nor was fish the only commodity sought by the intrepid visitors to these shores. Sassafras as often made the desired cargo, its roots selling at three shillings the pound in England and greatly valued as a medi cine in these early days of American history. Found in abundance along the coast from Canada to Florida, in the South it takes possession, along with the persimmon tree, of abandoned fields. Its uses to the English were many. The bark of its twigs and the pith are officinal, affording a mucilaginous application used by oculists ; the oil distilled from the root makes a powerful aromatic stimulant much used in flavouring and as a basis for the perfume of soaps. Sassafras tea was a famous remedy for colds, and a decoction of the bark was supposed to cure malaria, from which came its early name in England — the ague tree. It was partly speculation in sassafras that brought Bartholomew Gosnold to this coast in 1602. He came quietly in the summer of that year, with his friend Bartholomew Gilbert, a son of Sir Hum- 56 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND phrey Gilbert (Raleigh's half-brother) in command of the Concord, a vessel chartered by Sir Walter Raleigh, but unknown to the latter, to whom Eliza beth had granted the exclusive right of English trade with this part of the world. It has been sup posed that they chose this region because it had not before been explored by English sailors and because they sailed without a licence. Had they succeeded in returning undetected to England the details of their voyage might never have been made public. Gosnold's tentative scheme for planting a colony was probably a blind to the ulterior motive of the voyage, which, from the accounts, seems to have been strictly commercial. At all events, being but ill equipped both in numbers and in character for settlement the whole party returned, heavily laden with sassafras, whereupon a sudden drop in the price of that commodity aroused Raleigh's suspi cions, and investigation soon brought their cargo to light. As some nobles, prominent at the court of Elizabeth, were implicated to the extent of having taken shares in the venture, Raleigh, in order to avert public scandal, allowed the report to go out that he had authorized the voyage. However contemptible may have been his motive, Gosnold emerges from his adventure with the halo EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY 57 of a true discoverer about his head and no questions asked. Not only is he the generally accredited dis coverer of Cape Cod — to which he gave its name his was the first attempt by the English to make a settlement within the limits of New England. Thus much capital was made of his venture that "A Briefe and true Relation of the Difcouerie of the North part of Virginia," written by M. Iohn Brere- ton, one of the voyage, and published Londini by Geor. Bifhop, in 1602, was circulated with the ap proval of Sir Walter Raleigh in the hope of inter esting persons of influence to subscribe towards the outfit of a second expedition to this locality. Though it did not achieve its purpose single handed, yet we have Captain John Smith's word for it that it was Brereton's narrative which stirred in him the desire for similar American adventures and led him to join the colony which came to James town in 1606. Gabriel Archer, " a gentleman in said voyage," wrote a second relation, dealing more particularly with the temporary settlement at Cuttyhunk; but Brereton gives the more thrilling story and the more picturesque facts. His was the first English book relating to New England. To it was "an nexed a Treatise of M. Edward Hayes, conteining important inducements for the planting in thofe 58 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND parts, and finding a paffage that way to the South fea, and China." Both accounts of the voyage were republished by Samuel Purchas in his " Pil- grimes" (London, 1625). Brereton's account, addressed to the Honourable Sir Walter Raleigh, Kt., Captaine of her Maiesties Guards, Lord Warden of the Stanneries, Lieu tenant of Cornwall, and Gouernour of the Isle of Jersey, as well as Archer's "relations" fix the date of the departure of this expedition from England as Friday, the twenty-sixth day of March, 1602. Archer is more meticulous as to chronology, but both give the four important dates, which, curi ously enough, fell each upon a Friday, so that the whole voyage was encompassed within an even seventeen weeks. They set sail from Falmouth, " being in all two & thirtie persons," "whereof eight mariners and sailors, twelve purposing upon the discovery to re turn with the ship for England, the rest to remain there for population " (I quote from both writers) . Their " barke " was the Concord, of Dartmouth, and they held a course for the north part of Vir ginia, as the first explorers to our coast called New England. In so doing they profited somewhat by the recorded experience of Verrazzano, the de scription of whose voyage for the king of France, EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY 59 in 1524, had been translated into English by Hak- luyt for his Divers Voyages, which was printed in 1582. Brereton reads easily that "although by chance the wind fououred vs not at first as we wished, but inforced vs so farre to the Southward, as we fell with S. Marie, one of the islands of the Acores (which was not much out of our way) yet holding our course directly from thence, we made our iourney shorter (than hitherto accustomed) by the better part of a thousand leagues, yet were wee longer in our passage than we expected ; which hap pened, for that our barke being weake, we were loth to presse her with much saile; also, our sailors being few, and they none of the best, we bare (ex cept in faire weather) but low saile; besides, our going vpon an unknown coast, made vs not ouer- bold to stand in with the shore, but in open weather ; which caused vs to be certaine daies in sounding, be fore we discouered the coast, the weather being by chance, somewhat foggie. But on Friday, the four teenth of May, early in the morning we made the land, being full of faire trees, the land somewhat low, certeine hummocks or hilles lying into the land, the shore ful of white sand, but very stony or rocky." Authorities differ as to what land this may have 60 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND been. It has been variously identified as Cape Neddock and other parts of the coast of Maine; Williamson thinks it could not have been south of the central Isle of Shoals, while Belknap names it the south side of Cape Ann. Archer's more detailed description of the ap proach and of the soundings, to which Brereton refers but briefly, tells us that on the twenty-third of April the ocean appeared yellow, but upon tak ing up some of the water in a bucket "it altered not either in color or taste from the sea azure." On the eighth of May "the water changed to a yellow ish green, where at seventy fathoms," they "had ground." The ninth they found upon their lead "many glittering stones," "which might promise some mineral matter at the bottom." This is in teresting as recent analysis of the sand of Cape Cod has discovered seventeen different kinds of stones — jasper, topaz, tourmaline, and amethyst. At this first stopping place on the New Eng land coast occurred one of the thrilling adventures of the trip. Both historians speak of it in pic turesque fashion and create for us a remarkable picture. " And standing faire alongst by the shore, about twelue of the clock the same day," says Brereton, " we came to anker, where sixe Indians, in a Baske-shallop with mast and saile, an iron EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY 61 grapple, and a kettle of copper, came boldly aboord vs, one of them apparelled with a wastcoat and breeches of black serdge, made after our sea- fashion, hoes and shoes on his feet; all the rest (sau- ing one that had a paire of breeches of blue cloth) were all naked." Imagine the effect of such a bizarre company of savages upon sailors after seven weeks' isolation at sea ; upon discoverers who had thought to bring novelty and astonishment to whatever natives they might encounter upon an un known shore. At first, in the offing, they had thought them Christians distressed, but not so — savages in truth garbed fantastically in some Christian's cast-off apparel or taken perhaps from some dead man who had infringed their rights — savages from all accounts familiar with Christians and their ways, and quite the masters of the situa tion, having, according to Archer, more language at their command, and being more clever to under stand by signs and some few words than the Eng lish themselves. That they had had intercourse with some Basks or Inhabitants of S. Iohn de Luz the British gathered and so sailed away "leaving them and their coast." The mariner's description of the coming into the harbour of Cape Cod and the landing, presumably at Provincetown, is graphic and naive: " But riding 62 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND heere," says Brereton, "in no very good harbour, and withall, doubting the weather, about three of the clocke the same day in the afternoone we weighed, & standing Southerly off into sea the rest of that day and the night following, with a fresh gale of winde, in the morning we found ourselues embayed with a mightie headland ; but comming to an anker about nine of the clocke the same day, within a league of the shore, we hoisted out the one halfe of our shallop, and captaine Bartholomew Gosnold and my self e and three others, went ashore ; and marching all that afternoon with our muskets on our necks, on the highest hilles which we saw (the weather very hot) at length we perceiued this headland to be parcell of the maine, and sundrie Islands lying almost round about it: so returning (towards euening) we espied an Indian, a young man of proper stature, and of pleasing counte nance ; and after some f amiliaritie with him, we left him at the sea side, and returned to our ship, where, in fiue or sixe houres absence, we had pestered our ship so with Cod fish, that we threw numbers of them ouer-boord againe: and surely I am per suaded that in the monthes of March, April, and May there is vpon this coast, better fishing, and in as great plentie, as in Newfoundland: for sculles of Mackerell, herrings, Cod, and other fish, that we EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY 63 dayly saw as we went and came from the shore, were wonderfull; and besides, the places where we tooke these Cods (and might in a few daies haue laden our ship) were but in seuen faddome water, and within lesse than a league of the shore; where in Newfound-land they fish in fortie or fiftie fadome water, and farre off. From this place we sailed round about this headland, almost all the points of the compasse, the shore very bolde : but as no coast is free from dangers, so I am persuaded this is as free as any . . ." Archer's account tells of the naming of the Cape : " The fifteenth day we had again sight of land, which made ahead, being as we thought an island, by reason of a large sound that appeared westward between it and the main for coming to the west end whereof we did perceive a large opening, we called it Shoal Hope. Near this cape we came to anchor in fifteen fathoms, where we took great store of Cod-fish, for which we altered the name, and called it Cape Cod." The Gosnold-Gilbert expedition, though casual in its relation to this particular spot, is of utmost importance as the first recorded visit of English men to the coast of New England. Brereton's re lation made the earliest English book relating to New England; and Gosnold goes down to history 64 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND as the true discoverer of Cape Cod. The name which Gosnold gave it has clung to it despite some royal efforts to change to something more eupho nious. Cape Cod it remained, though upon Smith's famous map of New England it figures as Cape James; but, says Thoreau, "even princes have not always power to change a name for the worse," and, as Cotton Mather said, Cape Cod is " a name which I suppose it will never lose till shoals of cod fish be seen swimming on its highest hills." After sailing around the headland — doubling the Cape, as it would appear from the description — the voyagers at length were come "amongst many faire islands," which they had partly dis cerned at their first landing; all lying within a league or two of one another, and the outermost not more than six or seven leagues from the main. These are thought to have been Nantucket and Marthas Vineyard, though an island which they named Marthas Vineyard is now known as No Man's Land. Upon the island now called by its Indian name — Cuttyhunk — but which they, in honour of their queen, named Elizabeth — Gos nold resolved to plant his colony. The precise spot has been identified, on a small islet in a pond on the northwest side of the island, where the adventurers spent three weeks and more in building their forti- EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY 65 fied house, covered with sedge, as Brereton tells us, which grew about this lake in great abundance. The name — Elizabeth Islands — is now applied to the entire group in Buzzards Bay — thirteen in number, large and small, of which Cuttyhunk is one ; and the township which these constitute bears the name of the discoverer — Gosnold. Brereton's narration abounds in picturesque de tail and charming anecdote. He was a close ob server and dwells enthusiastically upon the great fertility and beauty of the locality, which evidently he quitted with regret when the captain aban doned his scheme of colonization and put back to England. He speaks of the experimental planting of wheat, barley, oats, and peas, which in fourteen days were sprung up nine inches and more; of the "fat and lustie" soil comparable to the best prepared gardens of England; of the high timbered oaks, " their leaues thrise so broad as ours," of beech, elm, holly, and walnut trees in abundance, hazelnut trees and cherry trees, the "leafe, barke and big ness not differing from ours in England, but the stalk beareth the blossoms or fruit at the end there of, like a cluster of grapes, forty or fifty in a bunch; Sassafras trees great plentie all the Island ouer, a tree of high price and profit; also diuers 66 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND other fruit trees, some of them with strange barks, of an Orange colour, in feeling soft and smoothe like velvet. . . . Also diuers sorts of shellfish, as Scallops, Muscles, Cockles, Lobsters, Crabs, Oisters, and Wilks, exceeding good and very great. But not to cloy you with particular rehearsal of such things as God and Nature hath bestowed on these places, in comparison whereof the most fertil part of all England is (of it selfe) but barren; we went in our light-horsman fro this Island to the maine, right against this Island some two leagues off, where comming ashore, we stood a while like men rauished at the beautie and delicacie of this sweet soile ; for besides diuers cleere Lakes of fresh water (whereof we saw no end) Medowes very large and full of greene grasse; euen the most wooddy places (I speake onely of such as I saw) doe grow so distinct and apart, one tree from another, vpon greene grassie ground, somewhat higher than the Plaines, as if Nature would shew herselfe aboue her power, artificiall." Of encounters with the Indians the historian makes captivating material. He describes the na tives as " exceeding courteous, gentle of disposition, and well conditioned, excelling all others that we haue seen ; so for shape of bodie and louely fauour, I thinke they excell all the people of America; of MIGRATING GEESE. FROM AN ETCHING BY FRANK W. BENSON. EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY 67 stature much higher than we; of complexion or colour, much like a darke Oliue; their eie-browes and haire blacke, which they weare long, tied vp be hind in knots, whereon they pricke feathers of fowles, in fashion of a crownet: some of them are black thin bearded; they make beards of the haire of beasts : and one of them offered a beard of their making to one of our sailers, for his that grew on his face, which because it was of a red colour, they iudged to be none of his owne." It is from this account that we have the ancient tale of the Indians and the mustard, " whereat they made many a sowre face." And Brereton found them quick of eye and steadfast in their looks, fear less of harm, meaning none themselves. That he was a man to enjoy and appreciate the fine points we are certain from the affectionate way in which he speaks of one, with whom he was "verie famil iar," and from the incident cited to show how clever they were at pronouncing English : " for one of them one day sitting by me, vpon occasion I spake smiling to him these words: How now (sirha) are you so saucie with my Tobacco: which words (with out any further repetition) he suddenly spake so plaine and distinctly, as if he had beene a long scholar in the language." The women, of whom they saw but three in all, 68 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND he describes as well favoured and much delighted in the company of the strangers — the men "very dutifull" towards them. All of this Brereton attributes to the "hole- someness and temperature " of the climate, as also the complaisance with which these friendly savages kept them company, six or seven remaining behind when the others had departed after a three days' visit from the main land, to help cut and carry the sassafras. And of that departure of the main body of savages he makes this touching picture: "but being in their canowes a little from the shore they made huge cries & shouts of ioy vnto vs; and we with our trumpet and cornet, and casting vp our cappes into the aire, made them the best farewell we could." But when the ship was well laden with sassa fras, cedar, furs, skins, and other commodities, the number of those willing to remain behind to colo nize had so dwindled that, says Brereton: "cap- taine Gosnold seeing his whole strength to consist of but twelue men, and they but meanly prouided, determined to returne for England, leauing this Island (which he called Elizabeths Island) with as many true sorrowfull eies, as were before de sirous to see it. So the 18 of June, being Friday, we weighed, and with indifferent faire winde and EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY 69 weather came to anker the 23 of July, being also Friday (in all, bare fiue weeks) before Exmouth." Gosnold left tangible souvenirs of his voyage in the names which he gave to his place of settlement, to Marthas Vineyard, and to the headland of the Cape. The name, Marthas Vineyard, it is true, has been shifted to a more important island of the group at Buzzards Bay than that referred to by the chroniclers of this expedition, while that of Elizabeth has been stretched to include the whole of the thirteen islands of which the original, now Cuttyhunk, was but one. As for the other name — Cape Cod — the old literature on the subject is confusing enough until we grasp its original limitations. The early navi gators uniformly applied the name " Cape " to that portion of Cape Cod lying north of High Head in Truro, and for many years after the dis coveries of Gosnold the name was limited to desig nate that portion only which constitutes its ter minus. The old whalers of the eighteenth century knew Provincetown by no other name than " Cape Cod Harbour," or by emphasis, simply as " Cape Cod." Amongst the veritable old salts this is true even down to the present day. The laconic name bestowed by the English dis coverer, in 1602, superseded foreign appellations 70 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND noted in passing by the various migratory naviga tors of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, of whom few seem to have failed to pass in sight of the headland. It figures unmistakably, though unnamed, upon Juan de la Cosa's famous map of the world, made in 1500, the first mapa mundi ever traced. This interesting document, made by the most expert mariner and pilot of his age — he made the voyage with Columbus in 1492 — is ex hibited in the Naval Museum of Madrid, and was reproduced in facsimile about 1892. Ribero's chart of 1529 calls Cape Cod C. de Arenas, or Sandy Cape, and other mariners of about that epoch called it Arecifes, Francescan, and C. de Croix. After Hudson the whole Cape was called Niew Hollant; on other Dutch charts Provincetown Harbour is called Fuic Bay, on another the tip of the Cape is called Stat en Hoeck. Champlain calls it le cap blanc, or the white cape, from the colour of its sands, his admirable chart bearing the legible inscription C. Blan for the extremity of the Cape while Massachusetts Bay is designated as Baye Blanche. Champlain de scended the coast of our continent from the north, as his exact description makes clearly evident, and entering Cape Cod Harbour from the direction of EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY 71 Plymouth had the same impression of advancing upon an island that deceived Gosnold and his com pany upon their approach three years earlier. " Coasting along in a southerly direction," says the explorer, " we sailed four or five leagues, and passed near a rock on a level with the surface of the water." This rock has been identified as one of several to be found near the entrance of the Wellfleet Har bour. Champlain describes it as near a river ex tending some distance inland and named it St. Suzanne du Cap Blanc. "As we continued our course," he goes on to say, " we saw some land which seemed to us to be islands, but upon coming nearer we perceived to be terra firma, lying to the nor' nor'west of us, and that it was the cape of a large bay, containing more than eighteen or nineteen leagues of circuit, into which we had run so far (oil nous nous engouf- frames tellement) that we had to wear off on the other tack in order to double the cape which we had seen, and which we named le cap blanc, pour de que c'estoient sables et dunes, qui paroissent ainsi." The effect of the high, sandy coast as ap proached from the sea, he describes as quite remarkable. In his Description of New England Captain John Smith disposes of Cape Cod, as of no great 72 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND importance, with a few cursory remarks. He, like Champlain and the others, approached it from Plymouth, coming down the coast from the north, and describes it, as Thoreau says, " like an old trav eller, voyager, and soldier, who had seen too much of the world to exaggerate, or even to dwell long on a part of it." Cape Cod, says Smith, "is the next presents itself, which is only a headland of high hills of sand overgrown with shrubby pines, hurts, and such trash, but an excellent harbour for all weathers. The Cape is made by the main sea on the one side, and a great bay on the other, in the form of a sickle." CHAPTER IV THE BACK SIDE OF THE CAPE Though it dates back so far in our cosmic con sciousness, Cape Cod retains much of its primitive mystery. It is little known in the social world ex cept to a discriminating few who make of it a kind of cult. It has retained to a remarkable de gree its simplicity and has suffered practically not at all from land speculation and "improvement." At the same time it has almost constantly been before the federal and state governments for one cause or another — either to protect its harbour from the encroaching sands, to settle the boun daries of its Province Lands, or to plant its " back side" with lighthouses and life-saving stations, as some protection for the mariners who seek to navi gate its peculiarly hazardous and baffling coast. The importance of Cape Cod Harbour, as has been eloquently pointed out at various legislative assemblies, whose proceedings are preserved in age- worn pamphlets in occasional libraries, affects not only Provincetown, Truro, and the greater part of Wellfleet, which its loss would blot out of exist- 73 74 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND ence, since they depend entirely on this harbour, but all the towns of the commonwealth interested in the mackerel fishery. The mackerel fleet makes this harbour its place of refuge and shelter, flying in and out with every change of weather. Though many a native captain and hundreds of the humbler Portuguese inhabit ants "fish out of Provincetown," as the phrase is, visiting their weirs near the wide mouth of the har bour in the blank hours of the early morning, and bringing in rich hauls of cod, hake, haddock, cusk, pollock, and halibut to the local salt packers and cold-storage plants, it is the mackerel fleet which lends the romantic flavour to the harbour. The routine of the ground fishery is sober busi ness, devoid of excitement and charm in compari son with the hazards of the life of the mackerel fisher. No wind in the willow is more evanescent than he. The white sails of the fleet, which hover about Cape Cod, seem moved by some mysterious law beyond the ken of the casual landsman, ma noeuvring in the offing, perpetually coming and going, " doubling the Cape " always with that air of expectancy as outward bound, their sails fill and their hulls seem to plough the sands of Long Point, filing out one after another on doubtful days to try their luck, and standing off within the safety zone BACK SIDE OF THE CAPE 75 like children hugging base ; or sailing straight away from the harbour urged by some obscure nature law, leaving a spiral phosphorescent wake, leading to far-off waters beyond sight of the highest hills of the Province Lands. Where they go, what ad ventures befall them in the dark nights so favour able to their elusive pursuit, who shall tell? To Thoreau, watching this city of canvas flock ing into Provincetown Harbour on a Saturday night, standing by Race Point and Long Point with various speed, they seemed to resemble fowls coming home to roost. To me their erratic move ments are much more suggestive of kinship with the gulls, which lend also vivacity and character to this harbour. These temperamental birds, so emo tionally constructed, come by thousands to pass the winter on this coast, profiting largely of its island climate, and living upon the entrails of the fish thrown off the wharves where the salt packing is done. On sullen days they squat on the water and bob about motionless as so many rubber ducks. When the tide is high and the ocean tempestuous they fly and swoop in great clouds, becoming a wild and weird symbol of the elements, their shrill cries wak ing one with the first rays of the brilliant sun. As the tide recedes they group themselves to their best 76 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND advantage upon the shoals, settling as soon as the water becomes shallow enough for them to stand, and waiting for the tide to go out and leave them high and dry for a lazy sun bath. At intervals when the tide is out they walk rapidly about upon the greasy marsh, shimmering in the glare of the morning sun. The mackerel fleet, the gulls, the winds, the tide, the sky, the sea, all seem one together — unaccount able, elemental, basic. Thoreau, who visited Cape Cod at the time of the greatest prosperity of the mackerel fishery, speaks of counting " two hundred goodly looking schooners at anchor in the harbour," and more yet coming round the Cape. A fisherman told him that there were fifteen hundred vessels in the fleet, of which sometimes as many as three hundred and fifty an chored at one time in Provincetown Harbour. This was between 1849 and 1855. These vessels came from all the towns of Barnstable County, from the Plymouth, Norfolk, and Essex towns — such as Marblehead, Gloucester, Beverly, Ipswich, and Newburyport. At the present time the Gloucester schooners far outnumber the vessels from other ports. " Cape Cod is the bared and bended arm of Massachusetts: the shoulder is at Buzzards Bay; "MOONLIGHT". FROfc AN ETCHING BY FRANK W. BENSON. BACK SIDE OF THE CAPE 77 the elbow, or crazy bone, at Cape Mallebarre; the wrist at Truro ; and the sandy fist at Provincetown, — behind which the State stands on her guard, with her back to the Green Mountains, and her feet planted on the floor of the ocean, like an ath lete protecting her Bay, — boxing with northeast storms, and, ever and anon, heaving up her Atlan tic adversary from the lap of earth, — ready to thrust forth her other fist, which keeps guard the while upon her breast at Cape Ann." Thoreau puts grandly the obvious comparison in a sentence whose vigorous imagery has not been excelled even in his own writings. So pithy a statement of her case should never be separated from the annals of the Cape, and, though possibly the most familiar paragraph of the delicious work on Cape Cod, not to quote it — on the score of originality — would seem to be an affectation. As the "right arm of the commonwealth," in more senses of the term than one, many old writers have described it — a right arm of defence, not only geographically, but by virtue of the race of efficient, intelligent, and enterprising seamen bred on its barren soil — a right arm of assault upon life and property because of the concealed shoals that ren der navigation around this obstruction exceedingly hazardous, and Provincetown Harbour one of the 78 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND most dangerous of approach, as well as one of the safest in our whole country. Clemens Herschel, writing on behalf of the Cape Cod Canal,1 describes this isthmus as "in effect nothing but a huge mole, or pier, a sort of fence run out into the sea that separates the ' Bay Shore ' of Massachusetts and the sea-coast of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine to the north of that from the rest of the United States." The harbour, forty miles from the Boston Light, at the mouth of Boston Harbour, is the only approachable haven, even for small coasters, bound into Boston and adjacent points, when caught between the south erly and northerly ends of the Cape. Hidden shoals lie all along the route through the sound and on the outside of the islands of Nantucket and Marthas Vineyard. Shifting sand bars parallel the eastern shores of Cape Cod, which present for the fifty miles from Monomoy Point, at Chatham, to Wood End, at Provincetown, an unbroken line of sandy beaches. The rigor of the climate, the dan ger of collisions in the narrow and crooked channels between the shoals in fogs, as well as the fact that the sailing directions make less than a right angle with one another, have earned for the famous back side of the Cape an unenviable record for loss of 1 Franklin Institute Journal, May, 1878. BACK SIDE OF THE CAPE 79 life and property, and the apt title of the Ocean Graveyard. The bones of once staunch crafts litter its beaches; the bones of thousands of un named dead lie whitening upon those sunken plains beneath placid seeming waters, where men perished helpless within sight and sound of the desolate shore; while the unmarked graves in the village burying grounds of the Cape bear mute testimony to the wanton waste of life that preceded the com paratively recent work of organized rescue. Along this dangerous coast a paternal govern ment has planted at intervals lighthouses as bea cons to warn the mariner of his peril, and still more recently rescue stations for the relief of such ves sels as founder upon its shoals, or are driven upon the sands by adverse winds and currents. This once completely desolate coast is now patrolled every night, regardless of wind or weather, and during thick weather by day, by an endless chain of surfmen, who meet and report at the half-way houses between the stations, thus keeping up an un broken line of communication throughout its ex tent, their work aided by all the scientific equip ment of the age. No night so black, no storm so violent but the surfman sentry is on guard, his pockets filled with the code signals, by means of which he may speak 80 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND to a distressed vessel and summon instant help in case of need. On moonlight nights, on starlit nights, on nights as black as ink; through impene trable fog, through rain, shine, sleet, or hail; through bhnding sand storms and smothering snows; against the blasts of winter gales, through driving tempest, the way imperilled by flooded beaches, storm tides, or quicksands, driving him to the crests of the dunes, the heroic surfman walker pursues his devoted path along the exposed beaches on the lookout for distressed vessels. The life-saving service on Cape Cod dates back less than fifty years — the first lighthouse was erected but one hundred and twenty years ago, and only in the suite of most appalling disasters. In view of the present efficiency of the service, the apparent reluctance of congress to make provision for it is almost incredible. While there is no official record of the disasters on this coast previous to the establishment of the service in 1872, the hor rors of many have come down by tradition or been preserved in the annals of the Cape towns. Governor Bradford himself is the historian of the first recorded wreck upon these shores, relating in his history of the Plymouth Colony the fate of the ship Sparrowhawk, a famous historic hulk carrying colonists bound for Virginia, and stranded BACK SIDE OF THE CAPE 81 on the shoals at Orleans in 1626. Old Ship Har bour received its name in commemoration of this wreck, which lay buried in the sands for more than two centuries, and was exhumed by a memorable storm in 1863, when the washing away of the shore line disclosed the skeleton. The ribs and bottom timbers form an important exhibit at Pilgrim Hall, in Plymouth. The vessel was a contemporary of the May Flower and its survivors took refuge at Plymouth, so that its remains are well placed amongst the historic collections of that city. The famous loss of the English frigate Som erset, in November, 1778, when trying to make Provincetown Harbour, pursued by some French men-of-war, was one disaster that was thoroughly relished by the inhabitants of the Cape. This ill- starred vessel was present at the bombardment of Charlestown, having covered the landing of the British troops at the Battle of Bunker Hill. She was commanded by the notorious Captain Bellamy, who had made her a veritable pest at Provincetown, running frequently into the harbour and levying upon the people of that tiny village for supplies, and sending his chaplain ashore on Sundays to preach, offering sermons as ironic payment for the stores appropriated. The good news of the plight of this vessel was 82 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND soon circulated in Provincetown and the citizens with secret joy in their hearts watched, from High Pole Hill, the destruction of their old enemy. She struck the Peaked Hill Bars during a northeast gale while trying to round the Cape. Being unable to weather Race Point, in tacking she struck the outer bar with terrific force and instantly the seas began to pound her to pieces. There was no need for the French vessel to pursue her advantage — seeing her enemy vanquished, she fired a few shots and then stood out to sea for safety. The dis tressed vessel launched a few boats but these were speedily dashed to pieces and those in them drowned. Meanwhile the ship having been light ened in every possible manner, was driven by the force of the wind at high tide over the bar and up the shore, where the few survivors that had stuck to the strained and leaking hulk were taken prisoner by Captain Enoch Hallett and a detachment of militia from Yarmouth. There was a triumphant march to Barnstable and later to Boston with the captives, and much jubilation over the wreck. Captain Abijah Doane, of Wellfleet, was left in charge of the wreck, which was speedily fallen upon, however, by the outraged citizens of Prov incetown, who carried off many trophies. Amongst other things a few guns, that had been thrown THE BACK SIDE: DUNES OF THE OUTER RIDGE. THE SAND DUNES OUT BACK , DECORATIVE LANDSCAPE BY Ross moffett: "the man IN THE CONNING TOWER HAD THIS PROSPECT DAY AND NIGHT UNDER HIS EYE, MUCH OF IT WITHIN REACH OF HIS AMPLI FIED VOICE." BACK SIDE OF THE CAPE 83 overboard to lighten the ship, were landed and af terwards used in some of the fortifications along the coast. Fire was set to the hull, but only partially consumed the deck and upper works. Then the shifting sands rolled over her and the vessel was soon buried from sight. The bones of the Somerset lay deep in the sands for nearly a century, when, during the winter of 1885-1886, a succession of northeast gales in combi nation with a very high course of tides wore out the beach at the point where she was imbedded and exposed the charred timbers and a considerable por tion of the deck of the vessel. It was freely visited and plundered by relic hunters, and to this day mementoes made of the wood of the frigate Somer set may be purchased in Provincetown. Unfor tunately, however, the work of demolition could only be carried on at low tide, and before it was well under way the beach began to " make out " again and soon obliterated all trace of the historic hulk. From the year 1843 to 1859, a period of seven teen years, eight hundred and twenty-seven wrecks were reported off Cape Cod. One gale wrecked eighteen vessels between Race Point and the ex tremity of the Cape. The year 1853 was mem orable in the annals of the peninsula, twenty-three 84 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND appalling disasters having occurred along its shore with often a total destruction of life, ship, and cargo — the survivors of the wrecks often perishing from exposure on the desolate uplands and beaches. One particularly sad affair was the wreck of the Clara Belle, a coal schooner, stranded on the bars off High Head Station, on the night of March 6, 1872, during a blizzard. A description of this wreck, published in J. W. Dalton's little monument to bravery, entitled " The Life Savers of Cape Cod," gives the outline of the tragedy: "Captain Amesbury and crew of six men attempted to reach the shore in their boat. The craft had gone but a few yards when she was overturned, throwing the men into the sea. John Silva was the only member of the crew that reached the shore. He found himself alone on a frozen beach with the mercury below zero. He wandered about during the night trying to find some place of shelter, and was found the next morning by a farmer standing dazed, barefooted, and helpless in the highway three miles from the scene of the wreck. His feet and hands were frozen, and it was a long time before he recovered from the effects. The schooner was driven high and dry on the beach, and when boarded the next day a warm fire was found in the cabin. . . . The haste of the crew to BACK SIDE OF THE CAPE 85 leave the vessel," sums up the writer, " cost them their lives." The work of the professional life savers is so romantic and heroic, and they perform their duties with such simple courage and bravery that one is apt to invest the character with too ponderous a halo. As a matter of fact the savers of Cape Cod, especially the old ones, have very human qualities in combination with their nobler characteristics. When not engaged in their official occupation they make delightful conversation for the entertainment of the casual visitors to the back side. We thought them inured perhaps to the business of dragging the dead and the living out of the sea, and as little affected by one as by the other, but an old chief said to me once with a grim dash of humour: "I hope you won't think I 'm kinda weak and woman ish .. . but when I feel a corpse sloshin' up against me out thar in the water in the night time . . . makes me feel kinda shivery." There grew to be we thought a sort of rivalry between this captain and the head of the next sta tion, about five miles farther down the Cape, and once when that more remote hero brought in a ves sel, saving all souls and the cargo, one of the per manent summer people with whom our friend was on confidential terms, twitted him with raillery 86 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND upon having allowed " Captain Davis " to get ahead of him. "I see that you let Captain Davis take that last wreck," said she, smiling; "how was that, Captain?" Our friend scowled heavily. " Wall," said he impressively, " it 's abaout time. Last winter I had 'leven wrecks and twenty-seven God damned corpses" — bringing out the oaths deliberately — "and Captain Davis, he ain't had but three wrecks, and nary a corpse." I found amongst the few stray pamphlets and documents concerning the Cape a curious fore runner of the work of the Coast Guard Service, now so effectively systematized. This document is entitled " A Description of the Eastern Coast of the County of Barnstable," and includes the whole coast from " Cape Cod, or Race Point " to " Cape Malebarre or the Sandy Point of Chatham." Is sued in an edition of two thousand copies, in Octo ber, 1802, distributed to the sailing vessels that fre quented this coast, it points out the spots upon which the trustees of the Humane Society had erected huts, and other places where distressed sea men might look for shelter. The Massachusetts Humane Society was formed in 1786 and offered the first organized relief for shipwrecked mariners in the United States, as well as upon Cape Cod. In a sense it may be considered BACK SIDE OF THE CAPE 87 the parent of the United States Life-Saving Serv ice, and it also antedated by a number of years any similar movement for the protection of seafarers in France and England. While its first work was the building of huts to shelter such survivors of wrecks that might reach the shore, in the course of a few decades it had extended its usefulness by the erection, at the expense of its members, of eighteen stations on the Massachusetts coast, with boats and mortars for throwing life lines to stranded vessels. The first appropriation made by congress for the assistance of shipwrecked seamen was on March 3, 1847. The huts erected by the Humane Society had no connection with the government, and in those days represented the only relief offered distressed sailors along this coast. They were entirely the altruistic enterprise of the benevolent organization, built from its funds, and supported by its members, who pledged themselves to inspect the huts at inter vals and to keep them supplied with the most ele mentary of creature comforts. The ancient description pictures these huts as structures eight feet long, eight feet wide, and seven feet high, standing upon piles, and fitted with a sliding door to the south, a sliding shutter to the west, and a pole rising fifteen feet above the top 88 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND of the building, on the east. Within they were fitted with straw or hay, and each was " further ac commodated with a bench." To one who has walked the sands of the back side for hours without meeting a human creature, even in these days of efficient coast patrol, it is easy to picture the grim desolation and hopelessness of the castaway upon this part of the coast. It is easy to understand how through negligence of this self-appointed custodian of the stranded mariner, one of these humane huts failed of its mission at the very time and place where its hospitality was most urgently called upon. "The Humane Society" — the pamphlet thus relates its terrible story with the tragic simplicity of true art — "several years ago erected a hut at the head of Stouts Creek," in Truro, but "it was built in an improper manner, having a chimney in it ; and was placed on a spot where no beach grass grew. The strong winds blew the sand from its foundation, and the weight of the chimney brought it to the ground ; so that in January of the present year (1802) it was entirely demolished. This event took place about six weeks before the Brutus was cast away. If it had remained, it is probable that the whole of the unfortunate crew of that ship would have been saved, as they gained shore a BACK SIDE OF THE CAPE 89 few rods only from the spot where the hut had stood." If the minute and careful directions intended to guide the survivors of the many wrecks of this fate ful coast seem too complicated — as any attempt to direct by words a stranger through the woods, filled with ponds and entangling swamps, that lie between the outside and the bay shores are bound to be — there is no questioning the sincerity of the author nor the thoroughness of this little manual. Whoever wrote it knew the coast and the dunes, as the French say, like his pocket, and the descriptions of the lonely desert, out there behind the snug vil lage of Provincetown, has a certain sad beauty, as if the writer knew, even while he makes the routes through the "hollows," between the hills, as clear as written language can present them, that there is little hope that his words will reach the desper ate situations which they foresee. " The curvature of the shore on the west side of Provincetown and south of Race Point," he begins, " is called Herring Cove. It is three miles in length and vessels may ride safely in four or five fathoms of water when the wind is from the northeast to southeast." On Race Point, where is now one of the most important life-saving stations of the coast, stood, in those days, about a dozen fishing 90 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND huts, containing fireplaces and other conveniences. We have at present a well built state road across the dunes and cranberry bogs that lie between this point and Provincetown, a distance of three good miles. This road is of recent construction and the passage in the old days our friend describes as over a sandy beach, without grass or any other "vege table," to the woods, through which there was a winding road to the town. Floundering about one day through the heavy sands upon the ridge that begins not far from this place, in search of the route back to town, a voice suddenly reached me with startling distinctness. " Are you looking for the road? " it asked, and pro ceeded to direct my course. I found that it be longed to the solitary sentinel in the lookout tower of the Race Point Coast Guard Station. From his conning tower his glass swept the horizon, and he had doubtless long had his eye on me, advancing slowly up the hard sands smoothed by the receding tide, and identified the wanderer as of the genus " summer folks " (though it was late in the au tumn), that pernicious pest who, knowing little of the menace of the back side, are continually, during the season, tempting Providence by bathing ad venturously in its treacherous undertow, or losing their way in the trackless desert, turning up at the the Ulysses, Brutus, and Volusia sailing from salem, FEBRUARY 21, l802. ALL THREE WRECKED OFF CAPE COD ON THIS DATE. FROM A WATER COLOUR IN THE MARINE ROOM, PEABODY MUSEUM, SALEM. WRECKED ON THE BEACH AT CAPE COD. BACK SIDE OF THE CAPE 91 stations for aid. '"Sef we hadn't 'nuf savin' to do, 'thout savin' summa folks," the captain at the Peaked Hill Bar Station remarked sententiously one hot day when he had been particularly tried. One could thoroughly grasp his point of view, and there was something curiously typical in the reserve of his attitude. He never forbade bathing, though I suppose he might have done so on bad days, but seemed to understand his office as simply that of watcher, not entitled to intrude until help was needed, when he was there in the fullest ac ceptance of the word. There was a story of occasional discipline, told by one of the old chiefs in his simple dramatic way, in laconic sentences between puffings at his pipe. It concerned a " young fellow, all dressed up in whoite flan-nel," who, springing lightly past the station one summer day on his blithe way to the surf, paused expansively a moment before the group of life savers, perched on tilted chair rungs, gazing seaward. " ' Sech a hawt day, sh'd think you fel lows 'd be in swimmin',' " he says. The economy of the captain's words was covered by the extreme eloquence of his pauses. " 'Would ye so?' I says. He went on down to the water," the captain re lated, holding his pipe just far enough from his lips to allow his words to escape, " 'n took his 92 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND clothes off, 'n he went in. I sent a couple o' my men down to watch him. He swum round all right for quite a spell, and come out right enough, 'thout needin' any help — they want no undertow to speak abaout that day .... By an' by he comes steppin' back past the stashun, rigged out again in his whoite flan-nels wavin' his tow-el in the air to git it dry. . . . ' Ben takin' a dip,' he says. ' I seen ye dip- pin,' I says. " Next day 'long abaout high tide I see my young man comin' by again, headin' towards the water. 'Twas a very diff'runt sort of day; wind hed changed some, tide was goin' aout, and the under tow was runnin' considerable. ... I says to the men, I says, ' Jes' leave him alone down there for a spell. I 'm goin' to teach that young fellow a les-sun,' I says. " He left his clothes on the beach, and he went in the water. ..." Here the pause was prolonged ominously. " The waves sloshed him round suthin' awful, we watchin' him. . . . He was a fair swim mer, and he held his own for quite a spell, but try as he would he couldn't make the shore, the beach is cut out kinda steep-like there. . . . When he was pretty nigh wore out, I sent one the men aout with the dory to fetch him in. . . ." The captain leaned over the rail of his porch, and knocking the BACK SIDE OF THE CAPE 93 ashes out of his pipe made his point witli no change of countenance: " I ain't seen him dip-pin sence." When the man in the conning tower spoke to me through his megaphone I had been tramping from far down the coast below the Peaked Llill Bar Station, far from the sight and sound of human habitation, watching the serene prospect of the manoeuvring mackerel fleet, hull down in the hori zon. The beach was strewn with driftwood, wreck age, and thousands of bottles of every kind and shape, many of them beautifully iridescent, like Egyptian glass, and still more were milky, opales cent, or simply ground white by the action of the waves rolling them upon the sand. The man in the conning tower had all this pros pect day and night under his eye, much of it within reach of his amplified voice. I thought of the plight of stranded mariners of a century ago who had few friendfy lights to guide them, no watch tower over looking their distress, its searchlight promising suc cor, no voice overtopping the fury of the storm — only the whisper of this quiet seaman's manual, re minding, admonishing, encouraging, fervently di recting their frenzied footsteps on an unknown and perilous shore. Not far from Race Point commences the ridge, running parallel to the beach, and constituting 94 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND Thoreau's so-called upper road, both the bank and the beach extending twenty-eight miles southeast from Race Point to Nauset Harbour. "This ridge," says the whisper, "is well covered with beach grass and appears to owe its existence to that vegetable. Beach grass during the spring and summer grows about two and a half feet. If sur rounded by the naked beach, the storms of autumn and winter heap up the sand on all sides, and cause it to rise nearly to the top of the plant. In the en suing spring the grass sprouts anew, is again cov ered with sand in winter, and thus a hill or ridge continues to ascend as long as there is sufficient base to support it or until the circumscribing sand, being also covered with beach grass, will no longer yield to the force of the winds." There were two huts erected by the trustees of the Humane Society; one on the ridge half way between Race Point and the head of an extin guished stream known as Stouts Creek, a small branch of East Harbour, in Truro, and another at the head of the creek. These with the fisher men's huts, before mentioned, were the sole relief afforded mariners along what was known to be the part of the coast most exposed to wrecks. "A northeast storm, the most violent and fatal to sea men, as it is frequently accompanied by snow, blows BACK SIDE OF THE CAPE 95 directly on the land: a strong current sets along the shore : add to which that ships during the opera tion of such a storm endeavour to work to the northward that they may get into the bay. Should they be unable to weather Race Point the wind drives them on the shore, and a shipwreck is inevi table. Accordingly the strand is everywhere cov ered with the fragments of vessels. Huts therefore placed within a mile of each other have been thought necessary by many judicious persons." I find in the Massachusetts Magazine for the year 1791 an urgent appeal for a lighthouse on " a high cliff on the east or backside of Truro next the sea, a certain part of which is known by the name of Clay Pounds." " Many vessels coming in from the sea, even when the weather is not very dis tressing," says the anonymous author, " are cast away upon the cape in the night merely for want of this light." It must have been built soon after (in 1798), for the small voice goes on: "On the first elevated spot (above the salt marsh at Truro) — the Clay Pounds — stands the Light House. The shore here turns to the south and the High Land extends to the Table Land of Eastham. This high land approaches the ocean with steep and lofty banks, which it is extremely difficult to climb, especially in a storm. In violent tempests during 96 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND very high tides, the sea breaks against the foot of them rendering it then unsafe to walk on the strand which lies between them and the ocean. Should the seaman succeed in his attempt to as cend them he must forbear to penetrate into the country as houses are generally so remote that they would escape his research during the night : he must pass on to the vallies by which the banks are inter sected. These vallies which the inhabitants call ' Hollows,' run at right angles to the shore and in the middle or lowest part of them a road leads from the dwelling houses into the sea." To-day such " roads " are marked by the broad tires of the Coast Guard wagons, a heavy wind storm or drenching rain obliterates the track — in those days it must have been more a matter of instinct than eyesight to find or follow them. " The whole of the coast from Cape Cod (Prov incetown) to Cape Malebarre (Monomoy Point) is sand}r and free from rocks," continues the an cient guide. " Along the shore at the distance of half a mile is a bar; which is called the Outer Bar, because there are smaller bars within it, perpetu ally varying. This outer bar is separated into many parts by guzzles or small channels. It ex tends to Chatham : and as it proceeds southward, gradually approaches the shore and grows more BACK SIDE OF THE CAPE 1)7 shallow. Its general depth at high water is two fathoms, and three fathoms over the guzzles; and its least distance from the shore is about a furlong. Off the mouth of Chatham Harbour there are bars which reach three-quarters of a mile; and off the entrance of Nauset Harbour the bars extend a half of a mile. Large, heavy ships strike on the outer bar, even at high water, and their fragments only reach the shore. But smaller vessels pass over it at full sea and when they touch at low water they beat over it, as the tide rises, and soon come to the land. If a vessel be cast away at low water, it ought to be left with as much expedition as pos sible ; because the fury of the waves is then checked, in some measure, by the bar ; and because the vessel is generally broken to pieces with the rising flood. But seamen, shipwrecked at full sea ought to re main on board till near low water; for the vessel does not then break to pieces; and by attempting to reach land before the tide ebbs away they are in great danger of being drowned. On this subject there is one opinion only among judicious mariners. It may be necessary, however, to remind them of a truth of which they have full conviction but which, amidst the agitation and terror of a storm, they too frequently forget." CHAPTER V SHIFTING SANDS: THE SPIT AND THE HOOK Cape Cod is the most peculiar feature of the Atlantic coast line. Not because of its crescentic form, noted by every navigator who brought news of the peninsula to his native land, which though curious enough is by no means unique, except for the great size of the hook, many similarly formed sand spits repeat on a small scale its general out line: but in the bold manner in which this salient projects from the shore, in its strong topographical relief, and in the characteristics of its coast line, it finds no parallel on this continent, perhaps, indeed, in the whole world. Though the sand in some places is three hundred feet deep, there is believed to be a backbone of diluvial rock. It used, however, confidently to be asserted that Cape Cod had no backbone, and this was currently believed until quite recent times, when its base, a solid mass of granite, was encoun tered in dredging for the canal at Buzzards Bay, and proved a serious impediment to progress. SHIFTING SANDS 99 Owing to the very considerable changes that shifting sands have made in the contour of- the Cape, there has come to be a general opinion, held even by well-informed citizens of the peninsula, that Cape Cod is in a process of rapid destruction — that it will, in the course of some thousands of years, be literally washed away. But scientists as sure us that so far is this from truth that the con verse is nearer actual fact.1 Yet the sands do move, "cutting out" in one place and " making up " in another; and this move ment forms one of the compelling mysteries of the Cape, and its chief fascination. Geologists tell us of the extremity of the Cape, that all that section of land to the north of High Head, in Truro, has arisen from the sea! Its ro mantic construction occupied a?ons of time, fol lowing immediately upon the heels of the last gla cial epoch. We know that all the marshes, bar riers, beaches, spits, and hooks are of post-glacial formation; that they have attached themselves to the terra firma of the promontory since, " by a final step of subsidence, it established its present rela tions of land and sea." (I quote the government document.) And in the "hook," which constitutes the whole area of the village of Provincetown, we 1 Eighteenth Annual Report of the U. S. Geological Survey, 1898. 100 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND have what geologists consider one of the finest ex isting examples of such forms. We are then to picture to ourselves Cape Cod as finding its terminus, in remoter ages, in the high lands of Truro, which, in those days, are computed to have extended somewhat farther to the north and east than is now the case. Immediately upon its release from its icy chrysalis, the waves of the ocean set about the demolition of what had been so laboriously accomplished, and attacking the bold face of the projection, with rhythmic constancy, gradually wore down its tip end, just as to-day, by the same means, the eastern facade of the Cape, from Truro to Eastham is suffering erosion. Sometimes this work of ceaseless destruction would be hastened by furious gales, and great chunks of earth be torn away by the lash of the breakers upon the defenceless coast. But as the waves tore down, the beneficent cur rents, catching the debris of the destroyer and carrying the accumulations to the end of the land, began the construction of that spit, which, growing northward, protected the headland from further en croachments of the sea, and formed the base of operations upon which have been developed the whole of the desert beyond, the terminating village of Provincetown, and the tapering tips at Wood End and Long Point. A SAND DUNE ENCROACHING UPON AN OASIS. safJws^P^-M^^aB*^-- « "OLD FOREST BEDS, LONG SINCE BURIED IN THE SANDS, CROP OUT OCCASIONALLY TO PROVE THAT A CONSIDERABLE AREA, NOW ARID, WAS ONCE PRIMEVAL FOREST." SHIFTING SANDS 101 As the sandy extension pushed northward into the Atlantic, there was, at first, no distinct hook in the end of the spit, whose form is supposed to have resembled that of Monomoy Island, at the elbow of the Cape. The growth and development of these sandy formations appears, indeed, to be in two directions. The erosion of the sea on the east ern face of the peninsula, has provided not only the sand which has gone to construct the spit and later the hook of Provincetown, but also that which, moving southward, has built the large and beauti ful line of barrier beaches that extends from below Orleans to the end of Monomoy Island. Though a shallow water way separates Monomoy, at pres ent, from the mainland of the Cape, its structure constitutes a spit of the same general character, but in an earlier stage of the development than that at Provincetown. The sandy point of Chatham, known on the old charts as Cape Mallebarre — Cap Baturier, on Champlain's map — but to the sailors of our gen eration as Monomoy Point, extends ten miles or more into the sea, towards Nantucket, and is con tinually gaining south. So rapidly is Monomoy "making out" towards Nantucket, that geologists predict the reunion of that island with the main land of the state, to which it belongs by all the 102 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND sacred rights of consanguinity, as the next impor tant change in the outline of the Atlantic seaboard. The present name of Monomoy is a derivative from the ancient Indian name for Chatham — Mon- umoik. Monumoik was at the time of its discovery the residence of a sachem, and the great heap of shells found here testify to the existence of a large aboriginal population at this place. Harwich marks the bend of the railroad, a branch line running out to Chatham, and above the old boundaries of these two townships lies the table land of Eastham, which extends across the Cape, here not more than two miles wide. The character of the coast here is particularly shredded, having been much eaten into by the tides. In many places where there are coves and creeks, the distance from the Atlantic to the bay shore is so narrow that the tide has been known to flow across, and a channel between Eastham and Orleans was once forced by the sea. It was predicted more than a century ago that in the course of years the Cape would be rent asun der at this point by the violence of the winds and seas ; for this being a narrow part of the Cape, and near the bend, the westerly winds drive across with great violence, being accumulated at this point as they blow down the bay. In consequence of the SHIFTING SANDS 103 complete destruction of the woodland, writes an observer of the eighteenth century, " the winds on the inner or westerly side have torn away all vege tation, and ploughed up hundreds of acres in many places to a depth of six feet." Opposite this place, on the east side of the Cape, was a small tract of fertile land, remarkable once for producing grass and wheat, from which East ham came to be called " the granary of the Cape." It is also pointed out as the one-time residence of Thomas Prence, governor of the old colony of Plymouth, he who, in the name of the colony, pur chased the first parcel of Cape land from the Indians. While at present the struggle between accumu lating sands and currents is most active at the elbow of the Cape, in the beginning the chief con cern of the elements seems to have been the achieve ment of that vast desert area which attaches to the Clay Pounds of Truro. The imagined process of the growth of the Prov incetown hook is chiefly by successive beaches, built by the tides and waves and currents, the sands partly dragged from the coast line of Truro and Wellfleet, and partly cast from the sea bot tom. As one beach was finished another was formed in front of its predecessor; and as one by 104 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND one the dunes of the old beaches were protected by the new ones forming to the north, they gradually clothed themselves with the exquisite vegetation still characteristic of the back country of the Prov ince Lands, while the depressions between the ridges, each of which was once a race run, were filled, just as Race Run, that sluggish tidal stream which empties into Llerring Cove, near Race Point, is filling in to-day. Geologists conjecture that the famous Peaked Hill Bar, the terror of all seamen of this coast, is a new beach in process of formation. Along with the carriage of sand by the sea has gone a considerable movement of materials by the wind, to whose elemental force is due the construc tion of the dunes, whose marvellous beauty is little known to the casual visitor to Provincetown. Phi losophers tell us that movement is life, and truly the scene before us in this extraordinary back coun try knows no rest. Where the sea completes its travail the wind takes it up, rolling the great outer sand ridge, which extends the whole length of the township, parallel with the sea beach, inland towards the harbour, like a giant wave, covering lake and forest in its progress. By the planting of beach grass, shrubs, and such few trees as find congenial rooting in this light soil, the government has succeeded in arresting partially the forces of SHIFTING SANDS 105 nature, but the seaward part of the area is in con stant motion. The speed of this movement, says the report of the United States Geological Survey for 1898, may be judged by the fact that in April, 1897, a mass of snow twenty feet in length and two feet in thick ness was revealed where it had been covered with sand during the preceding winter to a depth of twelve feet, the mass having been subsequently cut through by a change in the scouring movement of the wind. The rate of progression has been esti mated to be about ten feet annually, and the north wind is said to carry more than one million tons of sand yearly a distance of half a mile, from the northern foot to the rear of the ridge. As the sand moves inland, as may be seen to-day, it exposes the stumps of a long-covered forest, and reveals, as shown by stratas of loam, the undulat ing surface over which it has passed. There are evidences of several surfaces once covered with verdure thus disclosed. The wild exotic beauty of the scene has been not inaptly compared to that of the Alexandrian deserts; enthusiasts even go so far as to say that the prospect on approaching Race Point from the Atlantic is unequalled by the Egyptian shores. The wind whirls the dunes into fantastic shapes, 106 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND and between their irregularities have been formed numerous oases similar to those of the great deserts. Springs are found below the surface of the sands everywhere, and many of the hollows contain fresh water ponds, bordered by a choice growth of tu- pelo, clethra, and sweet azalea; while occasionally the silver birch will mingle with the hardier beeches, oaks, maples, and pitch pines which grow not only in the valleys sheltered by the ridges, but even upon their crests, where the soil is nowhere more than three or four inches deep, but where moisture, by a peculiar provision of the sand at Provincetown, comes to within a few inches of the surface, even during periods of protracted drought. Where the mat of plant roots has been dis turbed the temporarily anchored sand immediately takes up its arrested motion, and it is no uncom mon sight to see such verdant patches menaced by the encroaching dune to windward, their green trees and shrubs already half buried under the drift and doomed to certain extinction. Though now so bare of prospect, Provincetown, when first seen by the Pilgrims, appeared to them "wooded to the brink of the sea." They described the harbour as encircled, except in the entrance, "with oaks, pines, juniper, sassafras, and other sweet wood." Upon this, rejoicing greatly, they SHIFTING SANDS 107 went ashore to see what the character of the land might be, and found it " a small neck of land," be tween the bay and the sea, the sand hills much like the downs of Holland, but much better ; " the crust of earth a spit's depth, excellent black earth, all wooded with oaks, pines, sassafras, juniper, holly, vines, some ash, and walnut." Though it appears we must make some allow ance for the enthusiastic exaggeration of a people weary of a sea voyage and of their homeless state, and predisposed in favour of a locality upon which they had built their fondest hopes, yet all the ac counts of the early explorers agree essentially as to the wooded character of the Cape, especially of the extremity; and old forest beds, long since buried in sands, crop out occasionally to prove that a con siderable area, now arid, was once primeval forest. Tree stumps, visible at low tide near Wood End Lighthouse, as well as the name of this locality, bear out the local tradition that the forest extended well out to the extreme point of the Cape a century and a half ago. We are told that large schooners were once built out of the timber that grew at Wellfleet, and old houses on the Cape are also built of the native wood. The reckless destruction of forests, without regard to future consequences, seems to have been 108 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND the first concern of the original settlers throughout New England. At Cape Cod the trees were cut off to a great extent for fuel, not only for heating the houses, but to aid the evaporation of salt in the salt works that soon became a prominent indus try here. Practically every vestige of the salt industry on Cape Cod has been wiped out. I was fortunate, however, in meeting, in Barnstable, a gentleman who had spent his youth in the business with his father, who owned the last salt works to be operated on the Cape. This gentleman was able to give me a beautiful photograph of the remains of the works as the}'- were in 1872, showing about half the plant as it was when in active use, and to point out to me, from the steps of the court house their exact loca tion on Barnstable Harbour, looking across the bay to Sandy Neck. This salt works occupied about twenty-five acres and was in active opera tion from 1805 to 1874. The making of salt from sea water by solar evap oration was begun in the town of Dennis, in 1776, by Jacob Sears, who built of wood a small vat near the shore and carried the water to it in pails. His project was the subject of much ridicule by his neighbours, who styled it " Sears' Folly." Jacob Sears made eight bushels that year. The next year SALT WORKS OF LORING CROCKER AT BARNSTABLE IN 1872. THESE WERE THE LAST TO BE OPERATED ON CAPE COD. SHIFTING SANDS 109 he made a vat two hundred and forty feet long and sixty feet wide and his crop was thirty bushels of salt. His perseverance may be the better appre ciated when we know that it took from eighty to one hundred bushels of water to make one bushel of salt. Three years later Jacob Sears made an other improvement; he secured a pump from a vessel which had been wrecked near by, said to have been the British frigate Somerset, and pumped the water into his vats by hand. In 1785 Reuben Sears evolved the idea of em ploying windmills to pump the water into the vats and built the first of its kind used for this purpose. From this invention the industry grew rapidly under the fostering care of the government until the year 1799, when the output was nearly four hundred thousand bushels of salt, while the vats spread over nearly a million and a half of square feet of uplands. The industry increased and was at its best about 1825, after which it declined, and after 1875 was entirely abandoned. Meanwhile the inroad upon the woods occasioned by this industry was appalling. Every feature of the process called for wood. The vats were built upon studding of soft pine, the water drawn, by wooden windmills, through hollow logs as required. They varied in length but were uniformly eighteen 110 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND feet wide and were built on sloping ground in sev eral tiers to enable the water to flow from one vat to another, depositing various impurities before it made salt. The vats were uncovered to the sun and air but the process of evaporation was aided by artificial heat, which meant the consumption of more wood. Much timber was also employed for the construc tion of the " flakes," for drying fish, which at first surrounded every dwelling house. Even so late as Thoreau's day he describes them " close up to the sills on all sides, with only a narrow passage two or three feet wide, to the front door ; so that instead of looking out into a flower or grass plot you looked on to so many square rods of cod turned wrong side outwards. . . . There were flakes of every age and pattern, and some so rusty and overgrown with lichens 'that they looked as if .they might have served the founders of the fishery here." No doubt they had, though some, he said, had broken down under the weight of successive harvests. All early writers make allusion to this feature of the unique town, where the drying of fish took the place of agricultural pursuits, and was spoken of amongst the natives in haying terms — for the fish had to be "turned" and "stacked" with the same constant reference to weather. SHIFTING SANDS 111 Forest fires contributed their quota towards the clearing of the wooded territory, and besides this cattle were allowed to range freely feeding upon the grasses and shrubs, so important in controlling the drifting sands of the Cape. A writer in the year 1790 says that there were but two horses and two yoke of oxen kept in the town, but that about fifty cows were pastured in the sunken ponds and marshy places found between the sand hills. " Here," says he, " the cows are seen wading and even swimming, plunging their heads into the water up to their horns, picking a scanty subsist ence from the roots and herbs produced in the water." In winter they were fed upon the sedge cut in the flats, and this old writer goes on to ex plain that a small quantity of such grasses, impreg nated with the virtues of the sea air, is far more nutritive to cattle than a greater amount inland. It was not, however, until the released sand areas began to encroach upon the little town and to threaten the destruction of the valuable harbour that any effort was made to check the depredations upon the protective vegetation of the Cape. By this time the mischief was so great that the situa tion had become indeed critical. When the sand blasts to the rear of the dwellings became so severe as to convert clear glass window-panes into opaque 112 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND ground glass during the progress of one storm, even the most benighted of the citizens began to realize that "something must be done" beyond the expedient of raising the houses upon stilts — which meant further inroads upon the woods — to allow the sand to blow under them, instead of bury ing thcni as had sometimes happened. And the sand, of course, blew into the harbour, filling it up so rapidly that many houses now stand where a century ago small boats found convenient anchorage. Finally the complete destruction, for all practical purposes, of East Harbour, as a sample of what might be expected from the en croaching sands, roused the citizens from their leth argy — a fresh- water marsh marks its original site — and one of the first ordinances recorded by the township of Truro forbade the cutting of timber on the lands bordering upon that body of water. This was in 1703. Formerly boats entered East Harbour through a narrow channel of swift water which separated Beach Point from the Truro side. Over this channel has been built, with great diffi culty, a dike or causeway, over which the Cape road leads to Provincetown. The fresh-water marsh, now called Pilgrim Lake, furnishes ice in winter, as do most of the ponds among the dunes in the region " out back," while, at the proper SHIFTING SANDS 113 season, sportsmen in flat-bottomed row boats may be seen amongst the marsh grass and cat-o'-nine tails which border its extent, lying in wait for ducks. Truro suffered bitterly from the extinction of her harbour, and was further afflicted by the filling up of Stouts Creek, to which we find many allu sions in the old writings concerning this part of the Cape. Stouts Creek emptied into the back side — near its head stood one of the first huts erected by the Humane Society — and it is de scribed as having been a small branch of East Har bour. Originally it fertilized a body of salt marsh upon which bordered once valuable farms; the meadow was mown every year and yielded a con siderable income to the proprietors of the farms and to the people of Truro: but, as early as 1802, the marsh is referred to as "long since destroyed," while the creek then scarcely existed, " appearing only like a small depression in the sand," and en tirely dry at half tide. To-day no vestige of any thing remains to establish even the location of the creek, the marsh, or the farms. In these early days " Cape Cod " was a part of Truro. When, in 1714, it was made a district or precinct, under the " constableric " of Truro, one of the first official measures of the provincial legis- 114 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND lature was an act to protect the harbour by restrict ing the rights of citizens or " sojourners " to cut the wood or permit cattle to browse in the salt marshes. At the same time the boxing and barking of pine trees for the production of pitch and turpentine was prohibited by a state statute. It was one thing to pass acts, however, and quite another to enforce them, when the sentiment of the public was not in their favour. The solitary keeper could not successfully oppose the depredations of his townsmen, and the devastation appears to have gone on hand in hand with the expenditure of yearly increasing sums to arrest the movement of the sands. A large sum was wasted in building a sea wall to prevent the encroachment of the tides. Tight bulkheads and plank jetties were erected at Beach Point and Long Point, involving immense labour and enormous expense, and were no sooner finished than the whole thing was swept away in one good gale. For more than a century great attention has been paid to the planting of beach grasses on the side of the hills and other naked spots near the town. The roots are set three or four feet apart in the spring, and the grass, being propagated both by the roots and the seed, if given half a chance, "THE WIND WHIRLS THE DUNES INTO FANTASTIC SHAPES. SHIFTING SANDS 115 forms a close body in three or four years. But when the government first set about this planting, instead of setting the grass in low places where it would spread, they planted it on the hills where it had the full rake from the sea ; the wind blew it out and nothing was accomplished. Furthermore it has been found out by bitter ex perience that in order to make an effective barrier against drifting sands, and to give them stable character, the grass must be protected by the plant ing of shrubs, and the shrubs in turn fortified by trees, and that it is only when the three are in alliance that the sand can be kept at bay. An examination of the waste lands of the back side now will show that once the mat of the plant roots is removed from a windward slope, the northwest gales cut into the wounded part of the dune and proceed to undermine the adjacent plant-covered slopes. Some of the most exquisite Japanese ef fects are obtained by this destructive process. The crest of such a wounded dune, its slope descending precipitously into a deep hollow, will show along its jagged summit, against the sky, the beautiful tracery of the roots in marvellous design. There is a wild grandeur about the desolation of the dunes back of Provincetown that has its own allure. Comprising about six thousand acres, less 116 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND than half of which are wooded, their extent appears quite vast and illimitable enough to create the illu sion of a great desert. The sand itself, composed" wholly of drift quartz, is very coarse compared with the silvery sands of the Jersey beaches. It is of a rich golden hue — taken in the hand it seems largely composed of ground cadmium. In itself it is val uable for many purposes, but its exportation ap pears to have been discontinued; however, I notice that in Boston sand very like it is used in winter upon slippery pavements with excellent effect. Old contracts for particular people frequently specified the use of Cape Cod sand in the composi tion of mortar to be used in the masonry of build ings. It was also used for cutting marble and granite, and a famous glass factory, employing the native product, was once in operation in Sandwich. CHAPTER VI THE PROVINCE LANDS Provincetown, or Province Town, as it used to be written, derives its name from an earlier des ignation of the sandy extremity of the Cape. From a line running from the bay beach to the back side, in the vicinity of the Atkins-Mayo Road, which it crosses, the whole of the hook was set apart in the general allotment of property by the Pilgrim fathers as having no value for agricultural pur poses, and reserved as a colonial fishing right to be held in common by the Colony of New Plymouth. The Colony of New Plymouth had received by royal patent a grant of all the coast from Cohasset to Narragansett in 1629-1630. The colony in turn granted parts of its domain to several sub-colonies. The ordinary act of setting up a town in Massachu setts began with a grant of land from the general court to a body of inhabitants ; this body of inhabit ants then divided up the land; but in the case of "Cape Cod" that grant of land was omitted — all the other titles and privileges were given but the 117 118 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND title to the land was withheld. When the governor of Plymouth, under an order of the general court, in order to substantiate his claim to the territory, purchased this tract from its aboriginal possessors, he specifically mentions that the said lands were " assigned for the Collonie's use for ffishing Improvements." Later, in 1692, when the Plymouth Colony was merged with the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the lands at the Cape being still reserved by the prov ince for the benefit of the community, came to be called " province lands." When, in 1727, " Cape Cod " was separated from Truro, and incorporated into a township under the name of Province Town, an important provision of the act reserved to the province its right to the land, which right, it was stipulated, should be " in no wise prejudiced, the lands to be held in common as heretofore." When the provincial government came to an end these lands, expressly reserved to the prov ince, became the property of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Until 1893 the state owned even the building sites upon which all private residences, shops, wharves, public buildings, etc., stood, there being no individual land proprietors in Provincetown, an THE PROVINCE LANDS 119 unusual situation leading to much dissatisfaction and misunderstanding amongst residents, and many appeals. Finally, in the year mentioned, against the better judgement of those who placed the wel fare of the commonwealth above the personal con siderations of a comparatively few disgruntled citi zens, a measure was railroaded through the state legislature by which about a thousand acres, in cluding the whole of the inhabited portion of Prov incetown, were released to the population in occu pancy, and a line was fixed separating the Province Lands from the village of Provincetown. Previous to the passage of this act it is interest ing to note that in all official documents the inhabit ants of Provincetown were always referred to as "holders" or as "occupants" of the lands, never as " owners." In practice, however, the inhabit ants, either wilfully or in true ignorance of the law, asserted the right of ownership, based on a variety of claims, including peaceable possession for a cen tury, staking, fencing, inheritance by will, pur chase, warranty deeds passed amongst themselves, and above all " local customs and usages." It seems very curious, but it is nevertheless true, that there are to-day people owning property in Province- town who have never heard of the former state ownership of their lands. 120 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND By this statute private ownership is still impos sible in the reserved portion lying to the north and west of the established line. This line follows more or less in the track of the Atkins-Mayo Road through the wooded belt to the dunes, in a direc tion which, if followed across to the back side, would come out about half way between the Peaked Hill Bar and the Crow Hill life saving stations; but turning sharply to the west not far beyond the railroad tracks it pursues a zig-zag course in that general direction for about three miles, and turns back again to the bay shore, meeting the coast at about the point where the Pilgrims are said to have landed, enclosing the town. This excludes Long Point, Wood End, Race Point, and the greater part of that extensive desert area behind the protective belt of woodland, all of which, with the exception of Long Point, ceded to the federal government during the Civil War, still is held as state property, under the original title of the Province Lands. This property, originally held by the forefathers to protect the fishing interests of the Cape, is now retained by the commonwealth as an important measure for the conservation of the harbour, thus enabling the authorities to exercise a more effective surveillance than would be possible were the areas under private ownership. THE PROVINCE LANDS 121 The " ffishing Improvements " were considered a very valuable and important asset to the fore fathers. Cape Cod had established a reputation with this regard before they came to these shores, for had not Captain John Smith reported that five hundred sail of fishermen had rendezvous at the harbour, which they used as a refuge and as a head quarters for their " bacchanalia " ? It was they who began the slaughter of the native woods, and they formed in a sense the first residents. The Pilgrims made of the tip of the Cape a source of considerable revenue to their colony. In early days, before any settlement was made here, the industrious forefathers worked their claim to the fishing privileges in the waters around Cape Cod largely during the summer season, using the land for curing their fish, and returning to Plym outh in the autumn. The original tract, now comprising the village of Provincetown, with Long Point across the har bour, and the immense area of dunes from sea to sea, and extending east as far as a stream, named in the deed as Lovell's Creek, in Truro, was pur chased from the Indians for the government and colony of New Plymouth, for the colony's use, in the year 1654, " or sometime before that date." The first deed of the land was given by an Indian 122 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND called " Sampson " to Thomas Prence, the gover nor of the colony, the consideration being " 2 brasse kettles, six coates, twelve houes, 12 axes, 12 knives, and a box." This deed was not recorded and all trace of it has been lost, but we know of its exist ence and its conditions because it is referred to in a deed issued twenty-five years later, confirming the first one, and issued in order to satisfy the claims of the Indians, " Peter " and " Joshua," to part of the territory disposed of by Sampson with out their knowledge or consent. The claims of " Peter " and " Joshua " were satisfied by the addi tional payment of £5 10s., and the original of this deed, made to John Freeman, one of the assistants of the colony, "in behalf of the Government and Collonie of New Plymouth," is preserved in the office of the secretary of the commonwealth. The confirmatory deed is a delicious document, veiy meticulous as to boundaries. Peter and Joshua claimed, it seems, a piece (or prsell) of land "lying between sea and sea, from Lovell's Creek to Little Pond, called by the Indians Weakwolth- tagesett, ranging from thence by a marked pyne tree southerly by a smale Red oak tree marked standing on the easterly end of the clift called by the Indians Letistotogsett, because Cormorants used to roost there," etc. THE PROVINCE LANDS 123 The Indians, Peter and Joshua, who had learned something since Sampson sold his birthright, re served for themselves and their heirs the right to " sett theire Wigwams there — to cut firewood and beach grasse and flages for their use, and to gather wild pease huckleberryes and cramberries" (the m is not a misprint, and I like it, for it was as cram- berries that I first learned to love this delicious fruit) "and to have such Whales and Blackffish porpusses and blubber as should cast on shore be tween the said Louell's Creek and the Clift afore said." This deed is dated February 5, 1679. It is rather satisfactory to note throughout the dealings of the Pilgrims with the aborigines a strict sense of justice and honesty. By these deeds we see that the Plymouth colonists recognized the title of the Pamet Indians to the Cape, and took care not to dispossess by force or by trick, but to pur chase the lands in equity. The origin of the first permanent settlement of Cape Cod is shrouded in mystery, but its probable date has been fixed at about 1680. Squatter fisher men from various places certainly formed the first settlers. Under the old ruling fishermen living in the town might take as much of the unoccupied common lands as necessary for their homes and their industry, and any part of the shore — not al- 124 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND ready in use — to the extent of their needs. To offset the disadvantage of not being permitted to own land, the inhabitants of the Province Lands were for more than a century (until 1790) exempt from taxation and accorded further privileges in order to encourage settlement, not only to provide a shelter in conjunction with a harbour of such pri mary importance, but in recognition of the great public benefit of the employment of its citizens. The lands of Cape Cod could never support its in habitants — it is therefore as a nursery for seamen that it was then, and is still, one of the most impor tant places in the country. The custom of leasing the bass fishery at the Cape to such roving fishermen as applied was early established; and the income thus derived was used to support the schools of Barnstable, Plymouth, Duxbury, and other towns in the colony. After wards, as the income increased, it was extended to other public uses. We find in the rare early rec ords of Cape Cod that, in the year 1684, the bass fishing was leased to William Clark, of Plymouth, for a term of seven years, at £30 per annum. The village of Provincetown is built along a narrow strip of reclaimed land lying in the lee of the inner range of dunes bordering the harbour. This inner range of hills begins at Mount Ararat and THE PROVINCE LANDS 125 Mount Gilboa, back of East Harbour, and, fol lowing the semicircular contour of the shore, ter minates in Stevens' Point, Telegraph Hill, Miller Hill, and Town Hill, that landmark for miles around, upon whose summit stands the Pilgrim Monument. Bradford Street in part runs over the crest of the inner range, commanding superb bird's- eye views of the harbour, while Commercial Street hugs the shore line, the bulk of the population being lined up on the inner side facing that absorbing spectacle. The town is altogether unique. Thoreau called it the most completely maritime town he had ever seen, and his description, except for the loss of the picturesque windmills of the salt works, on the water side, might stand to-day, so little has the town changed in general character in the last sixty years. It is still merely "an inhabited beach . . . without any back country." I suppose every sum mer visitor feels the same disappointment with Provincetown upon his first encounter — the place has so little the character of a resort, and while the people are the kindest and most hospitable to be found in all New England, there is so little domination by the summer colony. We think of ourselves as bringing so much life and gaiety to such a place and picture the "na- 126 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND fives" disconsolate after our departure; but my landlady told me in confidence that she " liked bet ter when the summer folks had gone, and they ain't so much passin'." The " passin' " is indeed a consideration in Prov incetown, since it all takes place along that narrow plank walk, built on the inner side of Commercial Street from the town's share of the surplus reve nue distributed by the state in Jackson's adminis tration. " Up along " and " down along " it runs for a good three miles before the residential edging of the sand-hills, and is the only paving that the town affords; for those who would tramp Brad ford Street, or cut through the narrow lanes that connect, at intervals, the two thoroughfares, must take to the dirt road, itself, however, a vast improve ment over the heavy sandy ways of half a century ago. Thoreau speaks of pictures of Provincetown in which the inhabitants are not drawn below the ankles, so much being supposed to be buried in the sand. And one has not to go far afield to experi-, ence the probable truth of this whimsical statement. As to the peculiar Provincetown gait, by which the girls in those days were said to dump the sand from their slippers at each step, though I questioned many they smiled knowingly and would give no satisfactory answer. I suspect it is an art like the ; Sj&*,*,«8$Pi THE PROVINCE LANDS: "GOING GUNNING . FROM A WATER COLOUR BY DODGE MAC KNIGHT. THE PROVINCE LANDS 127 wearing of the kilt, to which one is born, and no trick to be caught by a floating population. One thing we all noticed was a supreme superi ority of the " natives " in their attitude towards the plank walk. We summer folks were vastly con scious of its limits, and scrupulously made room for one another to pass, whereas the indigenous seemed oblivious to its advantages — they never turned aside for anybody, would crowd you into the street or on to the sandy margin with utmost unconcern and apparent rudeness ; but on the other hand they themselves walked as readily in one place as an other. It was not until I happened to read that some of the inhabitants were so provoked because they did not receive their particular share in the surplus revenue, that they persisted in walking in the sand a long time after the sidewalk was built, that I began to understand. Added to a knowledge of the New England character it furnished the key to the whole situation. There was old Nathaniel Woodbury, at Folly Cove; he opposed the building of the trolley car line that passed his property in circling Cape Ann. His official protest availed nothing, and the road was built ; so during the remainder of his long life the old man proceeded to ignore the existence of the offence. When he walked out he walked in the 128 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND middle of the track, and, as he was totally deaf and well known to the motor men of the line, most of whom are Gloucester boys, they had no choice but to murder him or to stop the car and escort the ob stinate old fellow out of the way. Of course they chose the more humane course, and it became a typical scene at the Folly, to see a stalled car and a courtly motorman leading Mr. Woodbury out of harm's way. I made the faux pas one day of asking the old gentleman what time the cars passed for Gloucester, and he answered with a certain fine irony, standing beneath the beautiful apple trees of his ancestral home : " They run by right often when they ain't off track — but they're generally off track." And so having deftly damned them as in efficient modern trivialities, he turned his sea-blue eyes off to that point of the horizon where their color found its counterpart and relapsed into a sphinx-like reverie. No. Provincetown is not beautiful in the ac cepted sense of the term. There are no grassy lawns sweeping down to the sea, as at Magnolia and Prides; there is no cliff walk, as at Newport; there are no clean swept sheltered nooks along the sands, as at Annisquam; no dreamy, antiquated burying ground, as at Plymouth; while the ap proach to its piece de resistance, that heavenly THE PROVINCE LANDS 129 back country, that dream of dunes, ponds, and cranberry bogs is infested with a belligerent horde of mosquitoes, through which one must pass, as St. Francis of Assisi through the flames. The lure of Provincetown is deeper and more substantial. It adapts itself to the summer resi dents with the same complaisance that it tolerates the increasing presence of the Portuguese. Both bring changes with them; both contribute to the growth and prosperity of the town ; but neither de flects it from its course. In this respect Province- town has much in common with foreign seaport towns, or for that matter with foreign metropolitan cities. Paris, in the old happy days, did not stand still to admire the innovations of the etrangers, neither did it alter its ways because of them; it graciously permitted them to enjoy its beauty and share its privileges. Provincetown does the same, and so far as I can see, beyond the erection of a few pergolas and lat ticed screens, at the east end of the town, the city folks have had no effect at all upon its intrinsic quaintness. The chief, the sole, the endless indus try of the town is fishing, and the Portuguese who have come there have been taken and shaped to that end. What local colour they have added is to the picturesque advantage of the town ; they have their 130 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND " quarter " in the west end, and have redeemed some of the waste land in the rear. The first of the Portuguese settlers were brought as stowaways from the Azores by the old whalers and deep-sea fishers who touched at these islands, and many of them emigrated in this surreptitious fashion to avoid military duty. Since they are excellent fish ermen they make useful citizens, and though they do not assimilate with the Cape Cod folks, yet I believe the Latin influence has had a softening ef fect in the temper of this locality, just as the Scan dinavians and Finnish have intensified the harder features of Cape Ann. The flakes and the salt works have given place to cold-storage plants, and the native product is handled more in wholesale than formerly, and many of the smaller wharves are rotting away, a number having been lost in the unprecedented rigors of winter before last. Railroad wharf presents the scene of greatest activity, especially on a Saturday night, when the mackerel schooners discharge their cargoes, and the men can be seen, by the light of torches, standing knee deep in the shimmering, iri descent fish, tossing them to the receivers through the great open doors of the fish house, where all through the week they are split, cleaned, salted, and packed in barrels; or unloading them direct upon THE PROVINCE LANDS 131 the cars that will carry them to Boston, by means of an instrument with one iron prong built on the pitchfork plan. To facilitate this business, as al ready mentioned, a branch of the railroad is car ried far out on the long wharf, uniting the one kind of transportation with the other. It is well known that the settlement of Province- town began on what is now known as Long Point, that remote extension of the hook, marking the ter mination of the spiral enclosing the harbour. Thirty-eight families, with a total of about two hundred souls, once constituted the active popula tion of this strip of sand, having chosen that locality on account of its proximity to the fishing grounds, by which it was indeed surrounded. It was for these to suffer the full penalty for having occupied the Province Lands — for the federal government laid claim to the point as a measure of war during the Rebellion, and as the state ceded the territory its occupants were summarily dispossessed. Find ing the ground taken from under their feet, as it were, with much grumbling there was nothing left for the unfortunate inhabitants but to take up their homes and go. Accordingly one fine day the houses on Long Point were loaded upon scows and all set sail for the mainland, settling anew at the western end of the town, near what is called Gull Hill. One 132 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND of the last buildings to go was the school-house, built in 1846 and serving sixty scholars, raised on the point, besides the whole population on Sundays as a meeting house. This edifice is proudly pointed out by residents as a sturdy survivor of this expe rience, and, devoted to business, now stands on the shore side of Commercial Street, a few doors east of the railroad tracks. Fishing and the manufacture of salt occupied the adult population of Long Point. Sweep seines were employed in catching mackerel and shad, and the knitting of seines by hand provided work for the women. The ruins of two sand batteries put up here during the Civil War are still visible. Now the lighthouse, and a wharf built on the north side of the point by John Atwood, and later used by the Cape Cod Oil Works, are the only buildings left. The earliest existing town records begin with the year 1724; before that date we have only tradition to depend upon for the early history of Province- town. Under the date December 7, 1773, we find: " Voted that any purson should be found getting cranberys before ye twentyth of September exceed ing one quart should be liable to pay one doler and have the berys taken away." Later it was voted, to stimulate interest in the matter, "That they who THE PROVINCE LANDS 133 shall find any pursons so gathering shall have them (?) and the doler." In 1801, owing to the prevalence of smallpox in the town it was voted that "any person who is head of any family, who shall permit to the number of six persons to meet together at his house for frol icking or any unnescery purposes shall pay to the use of the town a sum not exceeding fifty dollors." The town decreed on March 5, 1810, that " guese should not go at large in the town this year." The very brevity of this record seems to indicate the in tensity of feeling that prompted the measure. Upon another occasion the Town Meeting met to consider the case of Hannah Rider who seems to have been pathetically resourceless, and voted ston ily that " she would not be supported by the town." A year later, her tragedy being still on the books, it was "Voted that Ebenezear Rider" (whose rela tionship to the unfortunate one is not disclosed) "keep Hannah Rider for 45 dolers this year, if the selectmen cannot get anybody to keep her for less." CHAPTER VII THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE: THE FOREFATHERS DISCOVER THE CAPE That handsome exotic, the Pilgrim Memorial Monument, erected upon Town Hill, in Province- town, in 1910, by citizens widely scattered through the country, liberally aided by the national treas ury and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the culmination of a belated effort on the part of Provincetown to establish its priority as the first landing place of the Pilgrims in this country. Though early in the nineteenth century John Quincy Adams and others recognized Cape Cod as the original landing place of the Forefathers, it was not until the recovery of the Bradford Manu script, with its complete history of the voyage of the May Flower, its chance arrival at Cape Cod, and the incidents that occupied the several weeks during which the vessel lay in this harbour, that Provincetown awoke to a full sense of its own im portance and claimed its share of glory and renown. 134 THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 135 The monument commemorates, in a substantial form, which cannot be overlooked, the landfall of the Pilgrims at Cape Cod, November 11, 1620; their anchorage in the harbour ; the adoption of the Compact in the cabin of the May Flower on the day of arrival; the birth of Peregrine White, the first white child born in New England ; the death of Dorothy Bradford, the wife of the historian of the colony, who fell overboard and was drowned in the harbour; the explorations in search of a place for permanent colonization; and the entire train of events which preceded the settlement at Plymouth. All these things had been known, having been fully enough revealed in Mourt's Relations which had been first printed in England in 1622 and had never been subject to the romantic adventures which befell the Bradford history, lost to sight for more than a century, and of which we shall have more to say later. But Provincetown has always been a simple little place, with no historic preten sions, while Plymouth, having so notable a past to treasure, quite naturally absorbed also the small part that was rightfully Provincetown's own until in the general mind the events in Pilgrim history, even those of great importance, which preceded the official Landing upon the "Rock" had become 136 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND hopelessly confounded and the identity of the two towns merged by careless narrators. When the Bradford manuscript came to light again in 1856, after years of oblivion, it was printed from the manuscript of the document, secured from London, within a few weeks of its identification, in the proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for that year, and the whole Pilgrim ques tion became a live issue. Its revival at that time precipitated the erection of the first Forefathers' Monument, at Plymouth. The surrender of the manuscript in 1897, when it was consigned by the Bishop of London to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and deposited in the State House in Boston, brought the subject still more poignantly before the attention of his torians and descendants of the Plymouth Colony, and bore fruit again in the Provincetown monu ment. Before the question of the final disposition of the manuscript was settled there was some ri valry between the two towns chiefly concerned, both anxiously setting forth their respective claims to the honour of possessing the relic. " Had they (the first comers) been fishermen or mariners, instead of a pastoral and agricultural people," wrote an ag grieved Provincetonian at this time in defence of the priority of his town, "Plymouth Rock would THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 137 never have become so celebrated in history nor so often referred to as the place where the Pilgrims first landed." The reasons for such a memorial then are ob vious and incontrovertible, and the monument is dignified and simple enough in itself not to offend, as does that ponderous pile at Plymouth, which overdoes the symbolic and the literal on a scale which makes one turn with relief to this slender alien — this transplanted Torre del Mangia of Siena — than which, however, nothing really could be more unrelated either to the purpose which it serves or to its barren surroundings. A granite tower rising from a sand dune — from a desert where is not to be found one native stone throughout its miles of extent — it defies the sense of homogeneity! Furthermore, why should Ameri cans in the twentieth century hark back to Italy of the fourteenth century for an architectural type wherewith to express comemmorative sentiments connected with Pilgrim Englishmen of the seven teenth century? " When once you have seen the Mangia," wrote Howells, " all other towers, obelisks, and columns are tame and vulgar and earthrooted; that seems to quit the ground, to be not a monument but a flight." So far so good — the type was of the best, 138 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND and the plans for the structure were made in the office of the engineers of the United States army in Boston, and the construction was thoroughly and carefully supervised by that office, after the manner of government buildings. But in adapting the type certain important con siderations were overlooked. The original Torre del Mangia has remarkable distinction even in Italy, the land of beautiful towers, from its ex treme slenderness, its great height, and absolute plainness until it flowers out at the summit with the long machicolations of the cornice and belfry stage above them. Attached to the Palazzo Pub- blico of Siena, this tower rises from a depression in the brick-paved semicircular court which ap proaches it. Viewed from a distance it dominates exquisitely the ancient Tuscan city; at hand it is entertainingly seen through rifts between buildings where narrow streets converge from the main thoroughfare to this civic centre. The Palazzo Pubblico dates from 1289 to 1309 and the tower was added between 1325 and 1345, and is perhaps the simplest and most perfect pro portioned tower in Italy. Its name, Torre del Mangia — tower of the hector — refers to the bronze colossus, formerly attached to the large clock on the face of this tower which struck the THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 139 hours. Built of brick and travertine, the latter a porous light yellow rock of Italy — a calcareous deposit from springs which hardens on exposure — its materials are essentially indigenous. The main shaft is of brick perforated throughout with regu larity which gives variety to the surface and light ness to the structure, while the summit is of the light stone — the whole bathed in warm red and orange, colors which harmonize gloriously with the setting. It is so padded, according to the well understood laws of perspective as to appear per fectly rectilinear, whereas the Provincetown tower has distinctly a waist — its lines appearing to slope in towards the middle. The Provincetown tower follows only approxi mately the proportions of the Siena type : it is a few feet shorter and a little thicker. Designed to ac company other buildings as part of a synthetic group and to occupy a low site approached by a sloping paved yard, it has in this reproduction been detached from all architectural support and mounted upon the brow of a hill. Planned for exe cution in light, native materials, it has been repro duced wholly in rough substantial blocks of Maine granite, unrelieved; and its color, in a setting as warm and mellow as that of Italy, is cold, grey, and unrelated. The openings between the supporting 140 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND corbels of the parapet are a relic of mediaeval de fence, having been devised for the dropping of stones upon assailants, and are the more absurd in a locality devoid of such primitive missiles. This is the Torre del Mangia, perhaps, but robbed of its heart, bereft of its soul. Like some choice ancient epic in elegant language done into a ruder modern tongue, it has lost all its essence in the translation. "Of all monuments raised to the memory of distinguished men," wrote Josiah Quincy, "the most appropriate and the least exceptionable are those whose foundations are laid in their own works, and which are constructed of materials supplied and wrought by their own labours." The Pilgrims left such a monument, and how ever gloriously Plymouth may have been the in strument of its development, it was in Province- town harbour that the foundations were laid, for it was here that the Compact, that remarkable doc ument which was in its way the forerunner of the Constitution, was framed and signed by forty-one members of the May Flower company. Baylie in his History of New Plymouth thus refers to it: " The Pilgrims from their notions of primitive Christianity the force of circumstances and that pure moral feeling which is the offspring of true lj.li .,.,..>.!.,. Ai.it.N — UALV S TRANSPLANTED TORRE IJEL MANGIA — AS A PILGRIM MONUMENT ON THE TIP END OF CAPE COD. THE PILGRIM MONUMENT AT PROVINCETOWN AS SEEN FROM THE DUNES. THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 141 religion, discovered a truth in the science of govern ment which had been concealed for ages. On the bleak shore of a barren wilderness, in the midst of desolation, with the blasts of winter howling around them, and surrounded with dangers in their most awful and appalling forms the pilgrims of Leyden laid the foundations of American Liberty." The Compact was a measure of precaution framed and adopted to check certain dissensions that had arisen within the May Flower company when they found themselves about to land outside the colony of Virginia, for which their patent was taken. We must remember that the Pilgrims, after twelve years' voluntary exile in Holland, as an es cape from religious persecution, succeeded in ob taining a grant of land from the London Company for the purpose of founding a colony in Virginia. " Virginia " in those days was a comprehensive term applied to a considerable portion of the con tinent of America, and of which the state now known by that name was but an inconspicuous part. At the time of James I the English claimed domin ion over territory extending from Cape Fear, in North Carolina, to Halifax, in Nova Scotia. The Atlantic Ocean constituted the eastern boundary — westward its limits were indefinite. The rights to the settlement of this territory were 142 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND divided between two companies — the Plymouth Company and the London Company. The Plym outh Company controlled a tract extending north from about the present locality of New York City to the present southern boundary of Canada, and included the whole of what Captain John Smith in his famous map had set apart as " New England." The land to the westward of New England, and of which little was known, was broadly designated as North Virginia. " The Plymouth Company " was composed of " knights, gentlemen, and merchants " of the west of England. " The London Company " was composed of "noblemen, gentlemen, and merchants" chiefly of London, and it controlled a district extending from the mouth of the Potomac, southward to Cape Fear, under the general title of South Virginia. Between these two tracts was the country under the dominion of the Dutch based on the discoveries of Henry Hudson, destined to go ultimately to whichever company should first plant a self-sup porting colony. Originally the Pilgrims had no intention of settling in New England. As early as the summer of 1617 the Pilgrim Society at Leyden had de cided to send a detachment of its most vigorous members to establish a foothold in America. Hoi- THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 143 land had offered the exiles perfect freedom and systematic legal toleration and protection. To the number of three hundred had they fled to the Neth erlands from the birthplace of the parent church at Scrooby, accompanied by the two spiritual leaders of the independent movement — William Brewster, who organized the Separation in his own drawing- room at Scrooby Manor, and John Robinson, of Lincolnshire, a man of great learning and rare sweetness of temper, distinguished, moreover, for a breadth and tolerance unusual in the Puritans of that day. Of John Robinson Fiske says: "we can hardly be wrong in supposing that the compara tively tolerant behaviour of the Plymouth colonists, whereby they were contrasted with the settlers of Massachusetts, was in some measure due to the abiding influence of the teachings of this admirable man." Robinson kept the flock together and conveyed them to Leyden in 1609, just as the Spanish gov ernment, having abandoned the task of conquering Holland had granted the Dutch the Twelve Years' Truce. In Leyden their numbers grew from three hundred to over a thousand, and they supported themselves in various ways, the leaders taking to intellectual pursuits. Robinson taught in the Uni versity; Brewster published theological books; and 144 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND Bradford, who was of the original emigration from Scrooby, perfected himself in the study of lan guages, especially Hebrew, wishing, as he tells us in his narrative, to " see with his own eyes the ancient oracles of God in all their native beauty." There were several reasons for the Pilgrims' de sire to set up for themselves in a new country des pite the security and peace which they had enjoyed in Holland. They were, after all, foreigners in this little country, and the spirit of nationality was strong within them ; complete toleration did not an swer their crying need, which was for complete self- government ; the expiration of the truce with Spain might mean the recommencement of all their troubles; but greatest of all reasons was the dread of absorption into a foreign nation. They had come as an organized community, and, says Fiske, " They wished to preserve their English speech and English traditions, keep up their organization, and find some favoured spot where they might lay the corner-stone of a great Christian state." Many sites for the planting of this Pilgrim colony were considered and rejected for one cause and another: Guiana, which Sir Walter Raleigh had so favourably described, was thought too tropi cal a clime for northerners of thrifty, industrious habits, as well as dangerously exposed to the Span- THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 145 iards; New England, according to Smith's minute discoveries and descriptions, was rejected as too cold; the country already peopled by the colony of Jamestown presented difficulties in the matter of religion, Episcopacy having already taken root there. There remained available the vicinity of the Delaware River, which offered opportunities for the founding of an independent colony, and the Pilgrims were inclined to this locality, having been charmed by the narratives of the Dutch voyages to America. The colonization of the coast of this continent had become the avowed policy of the British gov ernment. The Pilgrims secured the favour of Sir Edwin Sandys, an influential member of the Lon don Company, through whom negotiations were begun and the necessary capital raised. The enterprise was financed by seventy merchant ad venturers of England to the amount of £7,000, and the earnings of the settlers were to be thrown into a common stock until these subscribers should have been remunerated. John Carver, afterwards the first governor of the Plymouth Colony, and Robert Cushman, their "ancient friend," composed the deputation that went to England to put this mat ter through; and though the king refused them a 146 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND charter, he promised to wink at their heresy and not to molest them in their new home. The Leyden congregation numbered, at about this time, nearly a thousand souls. Since it was not possible for all of them to be transported together, even had it been deemed prudent to unseat the en tire flock in this hazardous enterprise, it was de cided to send but a detachment of the Pilgrims to America to make a settlement and to pave the way for the removal of the remainder at some later time. John Robinson remained at Leyden with the main body of the congregation, and, as it happened, never came to America; the advance guard, con stituting "the youngest and the strongest," was put under the spiritual leadership of Elder Brewster, who, together with William Bradford, John Car ver, and Miles Standish the soldier, took charge of the exodus. Meanwhile those about to depart set about the burning of their ships behind them. They sold their estates, disposed of their household goods, and converted all their property into portable form suitable to voyagers who set out upon an unknown quest, and who never expect to return. The colony as first organized represented a com munity interest — the terms of agreement dictated by the " adventurers," as the members of the Lon- THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 147 don Company were styled. The services of each planter or emigrant over sixteen years of age were rated at £10, which was counted as equivalent to one share in the colony. The anticipated profits to be earned by the colonists by " trade, trucking, working, fishing, or any other means " were to be pooled, and at the end of seven years the capital and profits, namely, the houses, lands, goods, and chat tels, divided between the adventurers and the plant ers, according to their respective interests. This contract was far from pleasing to the planters. They particularly objected to dividing their houses and lands, especially gardens and home lots, with the adventurers at the end of seven years' toil, and they thought, too, that their entire time should not have been guaranteed to the community interests, but that they should have been allowed two days in the week for themselves, in accordance with conditions first agreed upon by the Pilgrims at Leyden. The burden of responsibility for the as sent to the altered contract rested upon Robert Cushman — Carver pleaded absence at Southamp ton on other business of the planters at the time. This was the first bone of contention amongst the planters and the cause of much trouble and dis satisfaction. Meanwhile two ships, the Speedwell and the 148 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND May Flower were secured and equipped for the voyage. The smaller of these, the Speedwell, a burden of some sixty tons, was bought and fitted in Holland and was intended to convey the emigrants to the English port, to make the voyage to America, and to remain with the Pilgrims in their new home for use in fishing and other purposes. The May Flower, a vessel twice the size of the Speedwell, was hired at London. Her name does not appear in the Bradford history, nor does that of the Speed well, but we find the former named in the Plym outh records for 1623 — it was a common name for ships — and the latter Nathaniel Morton men tions in his New England's Memorial. The Speed well sailed from Delf shaven, on the Maas, just be low Rotterdam, carrying the party down to South ampton, where the May Flower was to join them. Bradford makes a touching picture of the em barkation at Delfshaven. Many friends accom panied them to the ship to take final leave of them, and many came also from Amsterdam, of the other Puritan exiles. There was little sleep during the night that preceded the parting ; it was spent in en tertainment, Christian discourse, and expressions of affection. But the next day, " the winde being faire, they wente aborde, and their friends with them, where truly dolfull was the sight of that sade and THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 149 mournfull parting; to see what sighs and sobbs and praires did sound amongst them, what tears did gush from every eye, and pithy speeches peirst each harte ; that sundry of the Dutch strangers that stood on the key as spectators, could not refraine from tears." The voyage to Southampton was quickly made with a " prosperous " wind; and here they found the bigger ship — the May Flower was a vessel of one hundred and eighty tons — which had come from London, lying ready with all the rest of the com pany. This was about the second of July, but it was not until September 6 that the actual depar ture from England was made. There were two captains — Captain Reinolds of the Speedwell and Captain Jones of the May Flower. After a brief stop at Southampton the Pilgrims set sail in the two ships. The Speedwell sprang a leak and they stopped at Dartmouth for repairs — "to their great charge and losse of time and a faire winde." Being put into condition both vessels again put to sea with all confidence, but when they had put an hundred leagues between themselves and Land's End, keeping all the while within hailing distance of one another, the master of the smaller ship again complained of the feeble condition of his craft, and it was decided to put both vessels back into 150 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND harbour at Plymouth. There, though no special leak could be found, it was decided to abandon the smaller craft for general weakness, and to condense the company and provisions into the capacity of the larger vessel, which was done with much delay and discouragement. Bradford does not hesitate to say that while there was undoubtedly some unseaworthiness in the Speedwell, it seemed to proceed from being " over masted and too much pressed with sayles " ; for when, afterwards, she was sold and put into her " old trim," she made many voyages and performed her functions successfully and to the profit of her owners. The real trouble seems to have lain with the captain and crew, who, being engaged to re main a year in Ajnerica to stand by the colony, be came apprehensive of a shortage of provisions and general discomfort and privation. There were not wanting those amongst the passengers also who were glad to turn back from so perilous a journey, and so the leaking of the vessel was trumped up to give face to their timidity. Amongst those who turned back with the Speed well was Robert Cushman Avith his family. Cush man based his desire to return upon ill health, but it is probable that the internal dissensions of the colonists reacted bitterly upon him, since it was he THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 1.51 who acted for them in accepting the contract with the London Company, so unsatisfactory to them that they sailed without signing it. He came out, however, the following year in the Fortune, bring ing with him his son, Thomas, a lad of fourteen years, who was adopted into Governor Bradford's family and succeeded Brewster as elder of the Plymouth Church. Now, " all compacte togeather in one shipe," the May Flower put to sea again, alone, on September 6, with "aboute a hundred sowls." Bradford lists them all carefully at the end of his manuscript his tory. There was one birth, that of " Oceanus " Hopkins, in mid-ocean, and William Butten, a serv ant to Samuel Fuller, died as they drew near the coast, so that the original number of planters re mained intact upon the arrival of the vessel in Cape Cod Harbour. One more was born in the harbour and six died in the month of December before the actual landing at Plymouth. The voyage con sumed over two months and was a terrible experi ence. The May Flower has been estimated to have been not more than ninety-seven and a half feet in length by twenty in width; but whatever her pro portions a vessel of one hundred and eighty tons' burden makes small quarters for over an hundred people — the captain and crew are not counted in 152 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND Bradford's list. The passengers were not more than half strong men capable of enduring the ex posure and privations of such a voyage, but in cluded many women and young children. The stock of provisions had been cut down before the party left Southampton, for when the planters re fused to sign the contract the agent for the adven turers held back the money upon which they had counted for their initial expenses, so that they were forced to sell some of their provisions to finance their departure from this port. Further inroads upon their stock were made during the time lost in the two false starts that were made with the Speedwell, before the final getting away from Plymouth, England. Small wonder that after a tempestuous voyage in the roughest time of the year, under living con ditions that must have been wellnigh insupport able, that the Pilgrims saw everything at Province- town couleur de rose. They were aiming, we should remember, for a country farther south, but lost their reckoning in the storms through which they passed, and " after longe beating at sea they fell with that land which is called Cape Cod." " After some deliberation had amongst them selves," Bradford writes, " and with the mr of the ship, they tacked aboute and resolved to stande for THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 153 the southward (the wind and weather being faire) to finde some place aboute Hudsons river for their habitation. But after they had sailed that course aboute halfe the day, they fell amongst deangerous shoulds and roring breakers, and they were so far intangled ther with as they conceived them selves in great denger; and the winde shrinking upon them withall, they resolved to bear up againe for the Cape and thought them selves hapy to gett out of those dangers before night overtooke them, as by God's providence they did. And the next day they gott into the Cape-harbor wher they ridd in saf- tie." The place of their " intanglements " was Champlain's Cap Mallebarre, the sandy point of Chatham, and that they weathered the Cape and made port without mishap is a credit to the seaman ship of their captain. The great charm of the Bradford narrative is its simplicity. With few words he makes a perfect picture of the condition of the Pilgrim Company after their " tedious and dreadfull " journey. Hav ing brought them within safe harbour, the historian permits himself the first break in his story, the first reflection upon the whole situation. " But here," he says, "I cannot but stay and make a pause, and stand half amased at this poore peoples presente condition ; and so I thinke will the reader too, when 154 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND he well considers the same. Being thus passed the vast ocean, and a sea of troubles before in their preparation (as may be remembred by that which wente before) they had now no friends to wellcome them, nor inns to entertaine or refresh their weath- erbeaten bodys, no houses or much less townes to repair too, to seeke for succoure .... And for the season it was winter, and they that know the winters of that cuntrie know them to be sharp and violent, and subject to cruell and feirce stormes, deangerous to travill to known places much more to serch an un known coast. . . . If they looked behind them, ther was the mighty ocean which they had passed, and was now as a maine barr and goulf e to separate them from all the civill parts of the world. If it be said they had a ship to succour them, it is trew; but what heard they daly from the mr and his company? but that with speede they should looke out a place with their shallop, wher they would be at some near dis tance ; for the season was shuch as he would not stir from thence till a safe harbor was discovered by them wher they would be, and he might goe with out danger; and that victells consumed apace, but he must and would keepe sufficient for them selves and their returne. Yea, it was muttered by some, that if they gott not a place in time, they would turne them and their goods ashore and leave them." TLIE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 155 Mourt' s Relations, published in 1622, in the interests of emigration, gives a lighter picture of the arrival, describing conditions most favourable — the commodious harbour, the wood and water in abun dance close to the shore, the great store of fowl, the whales playing hard by which they lacked "instru ments " to take, thus losing a fortune. And Mourt tells humorously of the great " muscles " which they found which were fat and full of sea pearl, but which made poor eating, causing them " to cast and to scoure" — he spares us no details! We come now to the Compact. The patent which the Pilgrims had from the London Company was for " Virginia," and they found themselves landing in New England, which belonged to another gov ernment with which the Virginia Company had nothing to do. Now, as we understand from the occasional hints through the Bradford manuscript, the temper of the Pilgrims was not unmixed with mutiny and discontent, and so certain of the "strangers" amongst them — by which is meant those who had shipped at London and were not of the Leyden congregation — sought to take advan tage of this technical change in the original plan and to boast that when they came ashore they would " use their owne libertie " and that " none had power to command them," 156 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND This situation was promptly met by the leaders of the company, who drew up a paper which con stituted the foundation of their government in this place. There were forty-one signers to the docu ment, each man signing for his family and servants, and thus by mutual consent, says Mourt, " they en tered into a solemn combination as a Body politick to submit to such government, and governors, Laws and ordinances as should by a general consent from time to time be made choice of and affected unto." The form of the Compact was as follows : " In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are under-written, the loyal subjects of our dread soveraigne Lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britaine, Franc, and Ireland king, de fender of the faith, etc., haveing undertaken, for the glorie of God, and advancemente of the Chris tian faith, and honour of our king and countrie, a voyage to plant the first colonie in the Northerne parts of Virginia, doe by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God, and one an other, covenant and combine our selves togeather into a civill body politick, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends afore said ; and by vertue hearof to enacte, constitute, and frame such just and equall lawes, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 157 be thought most meete and convenient for the generall good of the Colonie, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness wher- of we have hereunder subscribed our names at. Cap- Codd the 11 of November, in the year of the raigne of our soveraigne lord, King James, of England, France, and Ireland the eighteenth, and of Scot land the fiftie fourth. An° :Dom. 1620." John Carver had been informally appointed governor of the May Flower when she sailed from England, so after the signing of the Compact his governorship was confirmed by the planters — all of which took place in the cabin of the May Flower in the harbour of Cape Cod, before any landed at Provincetown. The landing was a difficult business owing to the shallow water. Their shallop, stowed in the hold of the ship, was brought out, but required consider able mending before it could be used; so while the carpenters worked upon making it fit those who went ashore were obliged to wade back and forth from the vessel where she lay at anchor three quar ters of a mile from the beach. The first concern of the women was to do their washing, which had ac cumulated sadly during the long voyage, and a pond, where it is supposed they must have washed, from the banks in the good European fashion, was 158 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND located at the foot of High Hill on Bradford Street — the site long since filled in by the en croaching sand. While the shallop was under repair Captain Miles Standish, the military leader of the Pilgrims, with sixteen men armed with muskets, swords, and corslets, set out to explore the Cape with the hope of finding it suitable for settlement. William Bradford accompanied this expedition, as well as the several others that followed, so that his history presents the facts as seen by an eyewitness. They explored the Cape as far as the Pamet River, and of their adventures Mourt's Relations give a livelier description. Miles Standish, who is here mentioned for the first time in the Bradford history, was of Lancashire, a man of about thirty- five years at the time that he joined forces with the Pilgrims. He had served as a soldier in Holland during her Avar with Spain, and during the tAvelve years' truce had found the exiles at Leyden. As a practical soldier his methods were often at A-ariance Avith the milder manners of Brewster, Bradford, and others of the leaders of the colony, but they depended upon him greatly to organize defence and to settle disputes with the Indians, Avhich arose later. One imagines him rather eager in his use of fire- THE PILCRIMS ON THE MAYFLOWER. FROM THE DECORATION IN THE BOSTON STATE HOUSE BY HENRY OLIVER WALKER. THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 159 arms, taking almost a childish pleasure in the equip ment of his little battalion of sixteen men who set forth to explore the vast sand areas of Cape Cod. They had not gone far until they spied five or six savages with a dog — but these ran from them, and throughout the several days that were spent in in vestigating the coast and interior of the Cape they never succeeded in meeting the natives, though they saw frequent evidence of their whereabouts. Bradford complains rather bitterly that the In dians whom they met were readier " to fill their sids full of arrows than otherAvise." But we have seen how simple, confiding, and hospitable were the natives whom Gosnold and his company encoun tered at Cape Cod. There Avas every reason for this change of attitude. From Smith's narrative Ave learn that while himself and eight men explored the New England coast collecting material for the famous map and the book of his voyage, Thomas Hunt, the master of one of the ships of this ex pedition, " dishonestly and inhumanely " kidnapped tAventy-four savages, confined them on his ship, which was laden with fish for his employers, and set sail for Spain. At Malaga he disposed of his cargo of fish and on his own account sold the Indians for "rials of eight." This "vilde act," says Smith, kept him ever after from any more employment in 160 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND these parts. This cruelty Avas fresh in the minds of the Cape Cod Indians, the abduction having oc curred but six years previous to the landing of the Pilgrims, and their trust in foreign invaders was destroyed. Furthermore, the tradition was pre served amongst this tribe, and upon it was founded the hatred of the white man, a hatred justified by every important step in their subsequent inter course. The Pilgrims, it is true, were determined upon a course of scrupulous honesty in their dealings with the natives, and it is the boast of their annotators that the offensive and defensive alliance, made early in the days of their settlement between King Massasoit, the principal sachem of the Wampa- noags, and King James was faithfully kept for half a century. Yet was this peace founded upon mutual fear; and there is told a touching story of the mother of one of the kidnapped Indians trem bling with terror at the sight of the Pilgrims. It occurred when they went to Nauset to recover the boy, John Billington, Avho had strayed from the settlement at Plymouth some months after arrival and who had been taken care of by the Cape Cod Indians. Mourt thus describes it: " One thing Avas very grievous to us at this place (Nauset) . There was an old woman Avhom Ave judged to be no less THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 161 than an hundred years old, which came to see us because shee never saw English, yet could not be hold us without breaking forth into great passion, weeping and crying excessively. We demanding the reason of it they told us she had three sons who, when Master Hunt was in these parts, went aboord his ship to trade with him, and he carried them Cap tives into Spaine, which means she Avas deprived of the comfort of her children in her old age." Though the intentions of the invaders were in the main good and honourable, according to their lights, yet several of their acts must have been otherwise interpreted by the savages. For instance, in their first expedition to the Pamet River they found buried under heaps of sand, "newly pad dled" by Indian hands, several baskets filled with corn of different colors to which they helped them selves, filling a great kettle which they found hard by, and this they carried back to the ship, feeling " marvelusly glad and their harts incouraged." The second expedition was made to the same place in the shallop which was now ready; it con sisted of thirty men commanded by the master of the ship. They sailed to the mouth of the Pamet River, which they called Cold Harbour, landing their men at Old Tom's Hill, and from thence marched inland several miles to the place where 162 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND they had found the corn and which they named Corn-hill. The weather had changed since their first visit and they found the place covered with snow and hard frozen, so that in order to make a systematic raid upon the Indians' store they were obliged " to hew and carve the ground " with their cutlasses and short swords and then " to wrest it up with levers." This time they secured, all told, about ten bushels of corn and beans with which they loaded their boat, looking upon the whole incident with cheerful egoism as " God's good providence," and never questioning the owners' need for the com ing season's planting, but promising themselves to make the Indians " large satisfaction " at the first opportunity. They made good their word the fol lowing summer, as Bradford carefully records in his narrative. Their most interesting and romantic discovery was of a grave, unusually large and covered at some distance below the surface with a board, finely carved and painted with "three tines or broaches." The idea understood by this description is that something like a trident was carved on the board suggesting some nautical association with the grave. The explorers did not scruple to dig up and exam ine the contents. Carefully laid between mats and wrapped in separate envelopes they found the re- THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 163 mains of a man and a child. The bodies had been embalmed with a great quantity of aromatic red powder, which exhaled a strong but not offensive odor. The man's body had been bound up in a sailor's canvas "casacke" (a coarse frock or blouse) and a pair of cloth breeches. There remained the skull and bones, judged to be of a European be cause of the fine light hair still adhering to the skull, to which was attached also some unconsumed flesh. The baby had been laden with strings and bracelets of fine white beads, and the grave was filled with "bowls, trays, dishes, and such like trinkets" — per haps originally filled with food to sustain the de parted on his last voyage, according to the primitive custom — and beside each body was a bow — a big one for the man and for the child a little bow, " about three quarters long." "We brought some of the prettiest things away with us, and covered the corpse up again," says the relation; and after this no more corn was found, but only graves. Many conjectures were made to account for the interment, with evident ceremony, of a European. But for the blond hair some would have thought it the grave of a sachem ; others speculated that a Chris tian of some note must have died amongst the In dians and been buried by them; while later scholars have surmised that this might have been the relic of 164 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND some early Norse visitor. About three years before the arrival of the Pilgrims at Cape Cod a French ship had been cast away at this place; the men got ashore and saved most of their cargo and stores. The savages, however, seeing in these unfortunate castaways an opportunity to wreak their vengeance for the wrong that Hunt had done them but re cently, captured the Frenchmen, and killing all but three or four — so runs the story — used the survi vors "worse than slaves." We hear of one who re mained amongst them and died in their company, prophesying dire calamity for the tribes that had persecuted him and his associates. It has been thought that this might have been the grave of this Frenchman. The Pilgrim detachment thought well of the locality of the Pamet River and thought seriously of recommending it for settlement. It presented many advantages, and the matter of settling began to be pressing since the unseasonable weather had come, and cold and wet lodging had " tainted " the people, scarce any of whom were free of " vehement coughs." In this very expedition they seem to have en countered the sudden transition from Indian sum mer to full-fledged winter for which our climate is famous. We read that the spray lighting on their THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 165 coats froze instantly so that they were incased in ice as in coats of mail, and that many took "the original of their death here." Meanwhile on the May Flower things were scarcely better ; the vessel lay at anchor within Long Point about three quarters of a mile from the shore, and owing to the flats, still characteristic of this har bour, it was impossible for a small boat to reach the beach except at high tide. Impatience could not brook this impediment, and there was much wading back and forth through the icy water, either for pleasure or necessity, which brought many down with colds and coughs, which afterwards, says Brad ford, " turned to scurvey whereof many dyed." Weighing the advantages of the Pamet River section against its disadvantages, upon the advice of Robert Coppin, the " pilot " of the May Flower, it was decided to investigate farther within the bay in search of a great navigable river and good har bour in its other headland. Upon the return of the expedition to prepare for this third venture they found that Mistress White had been "brought to bed of a sonne, which was called Peregrine." Peregrine White enjoyed the distinction of being the first of the English colonists born in New England. His father died in the stress of the first winter, and in the following May Ed- 166 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND ward Winslow, whose wife also had succumbed, married his widow, so that Peregrine was raised in the WinsloAv family. He lived to the age of eighty- three years and died at Marshfield, July 20, 1704, of "vigorous and comely aspect to the last." But now trouble was to begin in earnest. While the third expedition was absent upon the discovery of Plymouth, there were four deaths on the May Flower, including the tragic accident that befell Dorothy May, the first wife of William Bradford, who " fell overboard and was drowned " on Decem ber 7. Bradford himself in his history does not mention the incident. This has been put down to characteristic modesty and self-effacement rather than to indifference. Prince culled the simple fact from Bradford's Pocket Book, to which he had access, and preserved it in his New England Chronology. Neither does Bradford mention his marriage to Alice SouthAvorth upon the arrival of the Ann, in August, 1623. She was the widow of EdAvard Southworth, and tradition says that Bradford had courted her as Alice Carpenter before her marriage, and the story is supported by the fact that he sent out for her soon after the death of her husband, asking her to become his wife. But we must not exaggerate the romance of marriage amongst the THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 167 colonials. The exigencies of a pioneer existence did not admit of dreams — the colony had to be peopled, and marriage was a practical step towards that end. CHAPTER VIII THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH Plymouth was discovered by the third expedi tion from the May Flower, which set out on the sixth of December, in the shallop, carrying ten of the principal planters and a number of the ship's crew and seamen. The "pilot," Robert Coppin, Avas the leader of the party, having been here be fore and having some knowledge of the harbour of Plymouth, situated about twenty-five miles distant by an air line from where the May Flower lay at the head of Provincetown Harbour. Standing on Cole's Hill, in Plymouth, on very clear nights, one can make out distinctly the flash of the Highland Light at Truro, over across and beyond the bay, and by daylight, remembering the direction, it is easy to fancy the course by which, "circulating the bay," their shallop must have come. With Coppin came John Carver, William Brad ford, EdAvard Winslow, Miles Standish, John Howland, Richard Warren, Stephen Hopkins, Ed ward Tilly, John Tilly, and Edward Doten, of the 168 THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH 169 Pilgrim planters, John Allerton and Thomas Eng lish, both hired as seamen — the latter to go as master of the shallop, Bradford tells us — John Clark, the first mate of the May Flower, the master gunner of the ship, and three seamen. Their first landing was at Eastham, where they spent the first night. In the morning they divided their company, some going by land and the re mainder in the shallop, coasting the shore, but they found no place to their liking and, joining forces again, spent the second night in the vicinity of Brew ster or Orleans, and this place they called the first- encounter for here they were attacked suddenly by the Indians at daybreak, as the Englishmen were coming from the shallop to breakfast, having left their arms upon the beach. Between Mourt and Bradford we get a spirited picture of this en counter. There was a great and strange cry from the natives, a rush of an outpost with the warning "Indians! Indians! " and a shoAver of arrows fly ing amongst them. The English fleAV to recover their arms, gaining them unharmed, two muskets were discharged to delay the foe while others of the attacked ran out wearing coats of mail and, with cutlasses in their hands, soon stopped the fray. The skirmish was short and sharp. What chiefly impressed the Pilgrims seems to have been the Avar 170 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND Avhoops of the Indians which they heard for the first time. One of their historians attempts to repro duce the sound: "Their note was after this man ner," he says, " Woach, woach, ha hach woach " ; but a scholar seriously attempting to make something intelligible of it finds no accord between these words and the Indian dialects of his acquaintance! One " lustie " man stood behind a tree within half a musket shot of the party and let his arrows fly at them. He was seen to shoot three arroAVS and stood an equal number of musket shots, but one " taking full aime at him " splintered the tree behind which he stood, at which "he gave an extraordinary shrike, and away they wente all of them." The Pilgrims struck into Plymouth Harbour at night and in the thick of very foul Aveather; they had broken their rudder and had all they could do to steer with a couple of oars ; hoisting more sail in an endeavour to make the harbour by daylight, they had broken their mast in three pieces and lost their sail overboard in a very " grown sea," but by luck and the favour of the tide managed to make an en trance, though in very bad order. The pilot seems to have lost his head, not recognizing the place, but a young seaman, who steered the boat, Avith great presence of mind seeing that the mate Avould have run the boat ashore in a cove full of breakers, before Copyright, A. S. Burbank, Plymouth, Mass. EDWARD WINSLOW, FROM AN OLD PORTRAIT IN PILGRIM HALL, PLYMOUTH. THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH 171 the wind, shouted directions to the oarsmen to put her about and to row lustily for their lives. So in the inky blackness and heavy rain they found land, and stood the night in the lee of what proved next morning to be a small island. The morning broke clear and fine and the first man to step ashore was the mate, John Clark, and the island Avas called for him, Clark's Island. Ow ing to the fact that Plymouth is still largely peo pled with the descendants of the first settlers there are many interesting traditions preserved in the town. One of these is that Edward Dotey or Doten (the name is written both ways), a young man, was about to leap first upon the island, but was restrained to give preference to the mate of the May Flower, that he might have the honour of taking possession and naming the island. This story, Thatcher tells us, was handed down through the Doten family and is well authenticated. The enclosed body of water known, according to location under the several names — Plymouth Har bour, Plymouth Bay, and Duxbury Bay — pre sents several interesting features. Fully one half of it is protected by the unusually curving main land which constitutes its western and northern boundary. From its southern limit, at the mouth of the Eel River, a rapid tidal stream which forms 172 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND the outlet of Great Pond, it is enclosed by a narrow strip of beach, or tongue of land, formerly well wooded, Avhich shoots out in spitlike form to meet Saquish, the extremity of a still more singular for mation of land. Saquish has its origin in Duxbury Beach, a narrow neck of sand that projects at right angles to the mainland at the north end of the har bour — called here Duxbury Bay — the whole formed someAvhat like a boot, with the heel forming the Gurnet and the toe, Saquish. At the Gurnet where stand the twin lights of the government, the peninsula turns abruptly in the form of a right angle and a thin, sandy strip of beach connects the Gurnet with the headland of Saquish, Avhich points directly toAvards Plymouth town. The theory is that Saquish, at the time of the Landing, was also an island, since both the Pil grims and Champlain, who had visited this spot only a few years earlier, described two fine islands within the harbour. At all events, even to this day Saquish appears like an island, viewed from the mainland, owing to its peculiar setting, at right angles to the Gurnet's "nose." Within the angle lies Clark's Island. The entrance to the harbour is between Saquish and "The Beach" as Plymouth calls the narrow strip that bounds the eastern rim of the harbour THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH 173 proper. In the middle of the way lies Brown's Is land Shoal, supposed also once to have been an is land answering to the descriptions of various early navigators. The Pilgrims landed on Clark's Island on a Sat urday, spent the day there in drying their clothes and goods and cleaning their firearms, and the fol lowing day refrained from exploration, remaining quietly upon the island, secure from the Indians, in celebration of the Sabbath. The following day, Monday, December 11, or 21 according to the altered calendar, they set forth in their shallop, sounded the harbour, which they found fit for shipping, and made their memorable Landing upon Plymouth Rock. They marched into the land, finding it uninhabited, full of running brooks of fresh water, and with plenty of cleared ground ; so being in haste to report to the others the good tidings of successful discovery, they set sail without more ado for Cape Cod, bearing this time across the mouth of the great bay to Provincetown, a distance of only about twenty-five or twenty-six miles. In four days' time the May Flower had weighed anchor and started on her voyage to Plymouth, and by the sixteenth of the month she had anchored in the harbour, just inside the end of the Beach. For 174 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND more than three months now had the little vessel been the Pilgrims' home, yet so brave are the ac counts of the historians that we can only conjecture what their sufferings must have been. Disease and death had already begun to ravage the company, that before six months' time was to be reduced to half. Besides a seaman and a passenger who had died at sea, four deaths had occurred in Cape Cod Harbour, and before the end of December, while the company was still constrained to make the ves sel its headquarters, tAvo more of the company — Richard Bitterige and Solomon Martin — suc cumbed in Plymouth Harbour, making six deaths in the one month. The name, May Flower, has so cheery a sound, so springlike a flavour, and the descendants of the first comers whom one meets in a casual way and far afield seem so gleefully boastful of their con nection with this fateful vessel, that I wonder if any besides historians or specialists in the subject realize the horrible pathos of these " hard and diffi- culte beginnings." Surely these were not men to found fashionable or chic society — not men to be flippantly or snobbishly claimed as " desirable " an cestors. Their social desirability, in the worldly sense, was the least of their qualifications. Even as pioneers they make but frail contrast to the men THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH 175 of brawn and muscle that, with more of that true spirit of adventure, have opened the West. Their appeal is all on the spiritual plane, theirs was the sacred fire of fanaticism — that curious fact in human nature which leads certain types to endure every form of physical torture rather than belie conscience or yield an ideal, rather than to conform to something in which they do not believe. These men, it should be remembered, were not typical Englishmen. They were picked men both morally and intellectually — in a word they were men of character. In common with the Puritans who settled the Massachusetts colony, most of them could read and write, some of them were men of education, while the mass of their countrymen were wholly illiterate. The urge within them was something far stronger than themselves. "Through their early days of cold and hunger, of toil and discourage ment," says Cotton Mather, "the Plymouth Pil grims were not merely striving to win an inheri tance for themselves and their children — they were laying the foundations of New England." Yet so busy were they about the practical details of exis tence during the first years of the colony that I doubt if any stopped to philosophize upon the plat form upon which they stood — it was a case of in- 176 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND cessantly doing the thing at hand, of satisfying the need of the hour. The very Compact, upon which so much stress has been laid, as the source and foundation of all the democratic institutions of America, as the basis of our republic, was purely an impromptu measure of expediency, framed to meet the exigencies of a moment unforeseen when the party sailed from England. Yet this brief, comprehensive, and simple instrument established a most important principle — that the will of the majority of the people shall govern. This Avas bold doctrine in this age of des potism and superstition. So they crossed no bridges before they came to them, but met each situation as it arose. The first encounter with the natives had its great effect upon the Pilgrims. So impressed were they by the hostility of the Nausets that they were at first inclined to make their settlement upon Clark's Island in the bay, despite the many inconveniences of an island location, because of its comparative security from invasion. The shores of the Jones River, at Kingston, also attracted them, and they spent some time in Aveighing the various merits of these localities before deciding upon the superiority of Plymouth itself. Happily for them, in one sense, that taking THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH 177 possession of the mainland at this spot was but an empty form, entailing no sort of conquest. They found the country quite free of Indians, though there was every evidence of recent habitation. The plague had cleared the way for them, that terrible forerunner of the English that SAvept the coast from the Fresh Water River to the Penobscot with a violence that wiped out villages, destroyed tribes, leaving desolation in its wake. The cleared corn fields at Plymouth, ready to the hands of the English, spoke eloquently of the re cent habitation of Patuxet — the Indian name of the village so lately depopulated. It seems curious that the colonists saAV nothing sinister in settling upon a place so recently visited by wholesale devas tation, but set to work to build upon the graves, seeing in the circumstance nothing of the reverse of the picture, but only God's providence to them selves. The history of this plague has yet to be written — certainly it was an important factor in the peace able settlement of Plymouth as well as of Salem and Boston. Sir Ferdinand Gorges relates that the Indians near the mouth of the Saco, in Maine, were sorely afflicted with this mysterious malady, " so that the country Avas in a manner left void of inhabitants." Christopher Levett, who visited the 178 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND northern coast of New England in 1623, found the same desolation at " Aquamenticus " ; and Thomas Dermer, writing of his discoveries near Monhegan, in 1619, speaks of finding along the coast some " antient Plantations, not long since populous now utterly void" while in other places remnants re mained, of which many were affected by the dis ease by which all the rest had died. This pestilence swept New England early in 1617, slaying it is be lieved more than half the Indian population be tween the Penobscot River and Narragansett Bay. The Indians had never seen its like before and with easy credulity were persuaded that the plague was a Aveapon held at the disposal of the white man, who had power to let it loose upon the savages in revenge for wrongs committed against them. Shortly before the outbreak of the pestilence had occurred the wreck of the French vessel upon the coast of Cape Cod, referred to in the last chapter. Of the three survivors of the Indians' slaughter of the crew, all of whom got ashore, two were re deemed by Dermer, as related in his account of his voyage, written for Samuel Pur chas. The third lived amongst the Indians until he learned their language. He told them that God would punish them for their wickedness and would destroy them and give their country to another people. They THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH 179 laughed at his prophecy, saying that they were so strong and so numerous that they could not be de stroyed; but after the Frenchman's death came the plague, apparently in fulfilment of his words, and close upon that the arrival of the English to settle their country, so that they were at last convinced, and regarded the whites with suspicious awe. The Pilgrims had the story of the plague and many details of the former settlement of Patuxet from Samoset, an Indian from the Island of Monhegan, off the coast of Maine, who walked suddenly into the camp of the first comers at Plym outh in the month of March, succeeding their ar rival, and startled them by extending a Avelcome from the savages in excellent English! Though they had for a long time seen Indians skulking about, as they expressed it, Samoset was the first with whom they had intercourse. Samoset is described as a tall, straight man with a confident and friendly bearing. He wore upon the occasion of his visit only a leather belt about his waist from which depended a fringe, " about a span long or a little more." Samoset appears to have been sent by Massasoit, grand sachem of the Wampanoags, as an envoy to test the temper of the newcomers, and some of the more romantic of the historians would have us be- 180 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND lieve that the Indians decided upon a course of friendship Avith the Avhites, only after their utmost endeavours to destroy them by curses, execrations, and conjurations had signally failed. Bradford himself relates that before they came to the Eng lish to make friends that they had assembled " all the PoAvachs of the cuntrie, for 3 days togeather, in a horid and divellish maner to curse and execrate them with their conjurations, which assembly and service they held in a darke and dismale SAvampe." Had the English been superstitious they might well have traced their ill luck of the first months to some antagonistic influence. The rigours of the first winter reduced the Plymouth Colony to one-half the number that sailed from England. The year 1621 Avas ushered in Avith the death of Degory Priest, and before January Avas out eight had been added to the death toll, including Rose Standish, the wife of the military leader of the company. During the following month, when the scourge was at its height, two or three sometimes died in a day. At this time there were but six or seven sound persons in the whole community — Bradford was affected, and the burden of the nursing seems to have fallen upon Elder Brewster and Miles Standish. These " with abundance of toyle and hazard of their owne health, fetched them woode, made them fires, drest PILGRIM MEERSTEADS ALONG TOWN BROOK. THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH 181 them meat, made their beads, washed their loath some cloathes, cloathed and uncloathed them; in a word, did all the homly and necessarie offices for them which dainty and quesie stomacks cannot en dure to hear named." Meanwhile some small progress had been made towards the building of the town. The company was divided into nineteen families to simplify mat ters and to reduce the number of houses needed. The single men were apportioned amongst the families. The site of the original town was Leyden Street, which skirts the foot of Cole's Hill, where during that first dread winter, the Pilgrims buried their dead. The plan was to build the houses in two rows for more safety, and, for perfect justice, lots were in proportion to the number included in the family, each person being allowed about four hun dred square feet. Locations were settled by draw ing lots. The first houses were built on the south side of Leyden Street where the lots ran down to the Town Brook and the gardens had a sunny exposure. An unfinished plan of the street is treasured in the Registry of Deeds amongst the old records of the colony. Elder Brewster's plot is noAV occupied by the Post Office and Custom House, and the public fountain at the corner of this handsome edifice is a 182 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND glorified edition of the original Pilgrim Spring on the Brewster meerstead, which gushes abundantly at its source near the bank of the Town Brook and is carried by electric power to its present monu mental setting. A tablet upon an old house which stands just beloAV the junction of CarArer and Leyden Street marks the site of the Common House, the first building erected by the Pilgrims. They started on Christmas Day and, as it was a rough log house with a thatched roof, it soon furnished accommoda tion and served as hospital to the disabled colony. While many lay ill there in January, the thatched roof caught fire and was burned, adding further misery to the condition of the colonists. When spring came the Pilgrims bravely levelled off the fifty graves on Cole's Hill and planted corn in order to conceal from the Indians the depletion of their colony. In some cases families were sadly reduced by the epidemic Avhich spread amongst them. The famous Priscilla, who later married John Alden, was sole survivor of her family; for Bradford records that William Molines, his wife, son, and servant — Robert Carter — died in the first Avinter. Governor Carver and his Avife died within the year, and it is supposed were buried on Cole's Hill, but no stone marked the site of the grave. THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH 183 John Carver lived however to sign the famous treaty with Massasoit, the sachem cf the adjoining tribe, whose messenger Samoset was. Now Samo set was himself a sagamore or sachem from Monhe gan, in Maine, as we said, and had learned English from the British fishermen Avho came yearly to his country, many of whom he knew by name. He "discoursed of the whole country," informed the Pilgrims of the great plague which had depopu lated their present abiding place so utterly that of all the natives of Patuxet there Avas but one survi vor, Squanto or Tisquantum, who owed his escape to Hunt, having been captured by that scoundrel with a score of the Pokanokets and other of the Nauset tribe, and borne away to England. The Pokanokets had once occupied all the region between the Narragansetts and the Massachusetts and had been sufficiently powerful to hold their own against both. Tradition says that at one time this tribe could muster three thousand warriors. Squanto's experiences had alienated him from his kind. Some of the Indians whom Hunt carried to Malaga were seized by the priests and converted, others were sold into slavery. Exactly Avhat hap pened to Squanto is not known, but he was for a time a member of the household of John Slany, a London merchant dwelling in Cheapside. Slany 184 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND was treasurer of the Newfoundland plantation, where Squanto seems to have been sent, for in 1615 Captain Dermer, an explorer for Sir Ferdinand Gorges, found him there. Dermer found the trav elled Indian useful as a guide and interpreter and retained him in his employ for several years. Mean while Squanto never ceased to extoll the virtues of his native country and in 1619 succeeded in per suading Dermer to explore this region; they set out in one of Gorges' vessels bound for Maine and coasted along the shore to Plymouth. Squanto, after five years' absence, found his birthplace void — his friends, relatives, and countrymen all dead. So, having lived so long amongst Englishmen, and finding himself sole survivor of his tribe, Squanto felt more at home with the settlers than amongst his felloAvs. Samoset brought him upon his third visit to the colonists at Plymouth, and he remained with them, serving as indispensable interpreter and guide for twenty months, until his death, in November, 1622, while piloting an expedition to the south coast of Cape Code in search of supplies. The two Indians, Samoset and Squanto, came as advance guard to the great sagamore, Massasoit, who with his brother, Quadequina, and all their men, numbering about sixty attendants, Avaited at a THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH 185 discreet distance. In about an hour, so says the narrative, these dignitaries appeared at the top of a hill, and Edward WinsloAv was chosen as the Pil grims' emissary to parley with them. There Avas an amusing interchange of formalities. Winslow bore gifts to the king — a pair of knives, a copper chain with a jewel in it, and to Quadequina " a knife and a jewel to hang in his ear." The colonists also sent a pot of strong water, a good quantity of biscuits, and some butter — all of which were graciously ac cepted. The messenger made a speech saluting the Indian chief in the name of King James with words of love and peace, accepting him as his friend and ally. Massasoit, when the speech was interpreted to him, expressed himself as much impressed, and leav ing Winslow in the custody of Quadequina, crossed the brook with twenty men. Captain Standish and Allerton met the king at the brook with half a dozen musketeers, saluted him and escorted him in style to one of the houses then in process of erec tion, where the planters had improvised a sort of throne to which Governor Carver was conducted ceremoniously with drum and trumpet and a few musketeers. The governor kissed the hand of the Indian chief, Massasoit kissed him, and so they sat them down upon a green rug and several cushions, 186 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND with what pomp their limited resources could com mand. Massasoit Avas described as not differing greatly from the others of his tribe, except that his face was painted a " sad red " which means a deep colour, like the juice of the mulberry. This dark red was a princely colour amongst the Indians. The others were variously painted, and adorned rather than dressed Avith handsome skins. A treaty of peace was concluded between Massa soit, the chief of the Wampanoags and Governor Carver of the Plymouth Colony which was mutually respected for over fifty years. This was April 1, 1621. Three days later Governor Carver died suddenly of sunstroke and William Bradford was chosen his successor, the second governor of the Plymouth Colony. Squanto's coming to the colony was providential. He showed the first comers where to take their fish, how to set their corn, served as pilot in their expedi tions, acted as interpreter in their subsequent deal ings with his countrymen and in a thousand ways proved a useful and indispensable member of the little community. When he first came amongst them food was running very short and one of the first things recorded of him is that he went "at noone to fish for eeles," coming home at night with THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH 187 as many as he could lift Avith one hand. " They were fat and sweet," says the narrative, " He trod them out with his feete and so caught them with his hands, without any other instrument." The Indians' invariable rule for planting corn was when the leaves of the oak were the size of a mouse's ear. They manured the ground with the alewives found in abundance in the Town Brook at the spawning season as they rushed to the breeding grounds in the Billington Sea. Their cooking was very simple — Indian corn broken or boiled they called nausamp or samp; nokekike or nokake was powdered dried corn, it formed their chief diet when hunting and they ate it quite simply prepared by mixing it with a little water; corn pounded to meal and boiled they called hominy, while succotash was also a dish of their invention, consisting of corn and beans boiled together. With the advance of spring and the coming of summer the plight of the first comers lightened — the Indians had been met and dealt with, death had taken its toll, crops were good and the Pilgrims be gan to take heart. The first marriage in the colony was on May 12, when two of the bereaved joined forces after a brief period of mourning. These were Edward Winslow whose wife Elizabeth had died on March 24, and Susanna White, who had 188 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND been left a Avidow somewhat earlier. Theirs was a civil marriage, according to the conscientious belief of the Pilgrims, founded upon the example of the Low Countries in which they had lived. Early in April, with brave hearts the remnant of the colony dismissed the May Flower, which had stood by them all this time in the harbour, fur nishing constant shelter. They were without the support of a ship, which meant a link with the old world, or any communication from the land they had left until the following November, when the Fortune sailed into the harbour bringing Robert Cushman, as an emissary from the adventurers, and thirty-five planters, mostly young men, physically fit, but wild fellows according to Bradford, bent upon adventure little considering "whither or aboute what they wente, till they came into the harbore at Cap-Codd, and ther saw nothing but a naked and barren place," when they were much concerned about the safety of their own skins. They brought nothing but their strength into the colony — neither food, bedding, nor provisions of any kind, so that the colonists had much ado to accommodate them. They did bring, howeArer, a hateful letter addressed to the late governor, John Carver, full of complaints of the colony, especially because the planters had kept the May Flower so THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH 189 long in the country, only to send her back without a cargo. With this letter was sent a charter or patent from the President and Council of New England, dated June 1, 1621, issued to John Pierce and his associates. The patent which the Pilgrims brought over with them from the London Com pany Avas surrendered, but the new charter is preserved in Pilgrim Hall at Plymouth. The planters freighted the Fortune with clap boards and beaver and otter skins, valued at about £500. It was to Squanto again that they owed the furs, for Bradford explains with some spirit that none of the Pilgrims ever saw a beaver skin until the Indian had showed them. Mr. Cushman suc ceeded in his mission; he delivered in the common house an address, usually referred to as a sermon, to induce the colonists to sign the contract. This they did and the emissary bore it away Avith him, returning to England in the Fortune, which sailed again after but fourteen days at Plymouth. Robert Cushman performed one valuable service for literature ; he carried with him back to England the manuscript of the journal of the colonists, " writ," as he says in his preface to the first publica tion of the manuscript, "by the several actors themselves, after their plain and rude manner." Though shrouded in a thin veil of anonymity, so 190 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND little doubt has ever been felt as to the identity of the writers of this delightfully intimate diary of the first year of the Pilgrim settlement, that it is com monly known under the title of Bradford and Winslow's Journal. These were the only practised writers amongst the colonists. Cushman evidently carried it to England on his return trip in the For tune as part of his ansAver to the merchant adven turers as to the good faith of the colonists, and these, seeing in its colourful style and romantic narration the best of material for inducing new emigrants to offer themsehres to the waiting colony, in whose success they had so decided a pecuniary interest, simply took it and published it Avithout consulting the writers. It first appeared under the title of Mourt 's Re lations, in 1622, and was issued by John Bellamie at the sign of the Two Greyhounds, in Cornhill, near the Royal Exchange. It was prefaced by a letter signed R. G., confidently attributed to Robert Cushman — misprints were frequent in those days — and addressed to "his much respected friend, Mr. I. P.," supposed to be John Pierce of London, in whose name the first patent of the colony was taken. " G. Mourt," the avowed sponsor, is clearly a nom de plume, since there is no record of such a person; and George Morton, who came ANCIENT HOME OF MAJOR WILLIAM BRADFORD AT KINGSTON, FROM WHICH THE BRADFORD MANUSCRIPT WAS TAKEN. HOLMES HOUSE, PLYMOUTH. OF THE OLDEST HOUSES IN PLYMOUTH. THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH 191 over in the Ann in the following year, seems the likeliest person to have undertaken the publication, as he was already interested in the colony. Mourt would be either an abbreviation or corruption of his name or an error due to illegible handwriting. So far as it goes Mourt's Relations, which has the freshness of a journal written from day to day, is a more racy account of Pilgrim history than the sober Bradford manuscript, Of Plimoth Planta tion, which, however, carries the annals from the inception of the colony down to 1647. The immense importance of the Bradford nar rative as an historic document is, however, greatly enhanced by the extraordinary adventures of the manuscript itself, of which all trace was lost during a period of more than an hundred years. This valuable record of the early history of the Plymouth Colony, written in the neat, decorative hand of the governor, after an adventurous career, of which but few details are known, is now restored to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and treas ured in the office of the Secretary in the State Capitol, at Boston. It is extraordinary that so important a document relative to the beginnings of a nation should have remained in manuscript form for more than two hundred years. Bradford prepared it with the ut- 192 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND most care and fidelity to fact. He began to tran scribe it from his notes about the year 1630, and there is in its make-up a consistency that seems to argue that its composition flowed along contin uously throughout the subsequent years until it breaks off at the end of the year 1646 — the work was evidently left unfinished. Bradford must fully have realized its importance — its deserved destiny; yet it remained but a family heirloom until the generation of his great-grandson, who, as the pen man of the family, inscribed the manuscript in 1705 with its simple pedigree. Under the date of March 20 of that year Samuel Bradford attests that it was given by the governor to his son, Major William Bradford, and by him to his son, Major John Bradford. Later in a different hand is a memorandum dated June 4, 1728, stating how Thomas Prince obtained the manuscript from Major John Bradford. At this time John Bradford gave Prince several man uscript octavos written in the governor's own hand. The famous manuscript had been lent to Judge Sewall, and Prince was directed to get it from him and to use what he wished for his New England Chronology, after which he was authorized by John Bradford to deposit the history in the New Eng land Library of Prints and Manuscripts, Avhich THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH 193 Prince had been collecting for a number of years, asking only that he (Bradford) "might have ye perusal of it while he lived." Nathaniel Morton had had access to the manu script using it freely in the preparation of his New England's Memorial, published in Cambridge, in 1669 — in a preface addressed to " Thomas Prence," the governor of the colony at this time, the author freely confesses to have " borroAved much " from his uncle, "Mr. William Bradford, and such manu scripts as he left in his study." Prince and Gov ernor Hutchinson had both quoted the manuscript as authority for some of their writings on the sub ject of the Pilgrim settlement and history, so that it was well known to all students of our early an nals that such a manuscript had existed. Prince kept the choicest treasures of the New England Library, which he was collecting, in the tower of the Old South Church, in Boston, and it was here that the precious manuscript was sup posed to have lodged during the siege of Boston, Avhen, as is well known, the British soldiers used that church as a riding school. Amongst the con tents of the library missing from the tower after the evacuation of the British was Governor Bradford's Letter Book. This was carried to Nova Scotia and turned up some years later in a grocery shop in 194 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND Halifax, where its leaves were being used as wrapping paper. John Clark, a corresponding member of the Massachusetts Historical Society rescued the relic at page 339 of its dispersion, and the fragment — "the preceding pages wanting" — was published in 1810. It was supposed that the Bradford manuscript had shared the fate of the Letter Book and of other documents totally destroyed, and all hope of its recovery had been abandoned — when suddenly, in 1855 a scholar delving into the history of the Prot estant Episcopal church in America, stumbled up on a quotation taken from a "Manuscript History of the Plantation of Plymouth etc., in the Fulham Library." Fortunately the scholar, the Rev. John S. Barry, was well versed in Americana. He recog nized at once the language of Bradford as cited by Morton and Prince, and there were other passages not recognized as having been previously quoted. Upon the delicious scent of an important dis covery, Mr. Barry immediately carried his tale to Charles Deane of Cambridge, a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, who lost no time in writing to London to have the manuscript in the Fulham Library inspected. It turned out to be the veritable Bradford history — Of Plimoth Planta tion. A very charming correspondence between THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH 195 scholars and antiquarians followed, which led to the forwarding of an exact copy of the manuscript, made by authority of the Bishop of London. The relic was first published in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, for 1856. Massachusetts then became anxious to recover the document itself, a desire that was gratified, in 1897, by its restoration to the city from which it had mys teriously disappeared. How the manuscript reached the library of the Bishop of London, at Fulham, is a mystery that has never been solved; how long it had remained there before its accidental discovery and identification, nobody knows. CHAPTER IX MODERN PLYMOUTH Plymouth quite wonderfully holds its own, as a modern toAvn, against the weight of historic heri tage, beneath which one had expected to find it fairly crushed. So far is this from the case that we find the new Plymouth rising from the disintegra tion of the old with almost too complete disregard of memorable past — of its vital place in the annals of New England — its significance as the cradle of the republic. So completely has Plymouth obliterated its touching past that no convincing landmark re mains to establish, for an effort at mental rehabil itation, a definite and indisputable point of orienta tion. There is, to be sure, the exquisite lay of the land — the town upon three levels — with its sempi ternal relation to the harbour and the features com passed therein. But while the structural fabric remains, things in Plymouth have been too tidily set to rights to retain, still less to exhale, the essential perfume of the past, by whose aid we might invoke 196 MODERN PLYMOUTH 197 the vision of the May Flower entering the fair prospect which the Plymouth hills command, of the Landing from the shallop upon the famous lone boulder, of the rude village of the first settlers, or of the Forefathers themselves, whose footsteps, long since hushed in forgotten graves, trod so val iantly these shores ; whose courage, convictions, and hopes made the foundation of the nation; whose seed has penetrated to the remotest parts of our territorial possessions. Like the sober, practical child of divinely gifted parents the new Plymouth has sought to make a life for itself rather than to sink into the unhealthy state of a mere show place. The original town, of which every trace has been wiped out, Avas scarcely more than an incubator for a colony whose instincts were from the first migratory. The Pilgrims Avho settled Plymouth had lived twelve years in Hol land ; scarcely had they acquired foothold in Amer ica before they began to extend their individual possessions through Plymouth, Kingston, Dux bury, and Marshfield. After seventy-two years of existence as a concrete body, the Plymouth Colony was absorbed by that of Massachusetts Bay — the incubator had done its Avork, a prolific colony was ready to disseminate itself throughout the land. That pioneer instinct which, however it may be 198 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND interpreted, was the fundamental factor in this flight of the Forefathers from England into Hol land, in their exodus from Holland and their entry into Plymouth, now urged them to push forward through New England and later throughout the en tire country, colonizing even in the far West. At the time of the union of the two colonies, 1692, the population of Plymouth was about seventy-five hundred. In the two and a quarter centuries that have elapsed since this event that number has been about doubled. Meanwhile the natural resources of the township, scarcely touched by the first set tlers, have been largely utilized; the water power has been harnessed to a certain extent, and a great diversity of manufacturing enterprises are in pros perous operation. The Forefathers, if we are to believe the old rec ords, had only to bale the alewives and herring out of the Town Brook as they passed in the spring of the year in multitudes to spawn in the Billington Sea, taking them " with great ease " at their " doores." Fish were so abundant that an old writer informs us the inhabitants used to "doung their ground with them." This was a trick learned from the Indians, whose method of fertilizing the soil was to plant two herrings with each kernel of corn set out in the spring. " You may see one hun- "THE CLAM DIGGER . FROM AN ETCHING BY FRANK W. BENSON. MODERN PLYMOUTH 199 dred acres together set Avith these fish, every acre taking a thousand of them," writes Thomas Mor ton, in his New English Canaan, and he assures us that a field so fertilized Avill yield three times the usual crop. Of bass also he writes: " I my self e, at the turning of the tide, haue seen such multitudes passe out of a pound that it seemed to mee that we might goe over their backs drishod." The prolificness of the ToAvn Brook has always been a source of revenue to the citizens of Plym outh. Formerly every widow of the toAvn was allowed so many fish per annum, and later those who did not want the fish were given a small sum of money in lieu of their so-called " herring rights." The fishing privilege of the Town Brook is now sold at auction each year, bringing to the town a revenue of from $6 to $125 annually. Alewives, commonly but erroneously called herrings — a species of small shad — still form an important part of the yearly catch off the NeAv England coast. Fishing, then, furnished the obvious industry for the first comers, alternating with the land pursuits provided by the grist mills, coopers' shops, domestic looms, and fulling mills, together with, of course, agriculture, the land being particularly rich and fruitful. Plymouth vessels once traded all over the world. 200 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND Whale fishing, at first conducted from the coast, began as early as 1690, at which time as we know, whales were abundant along these shores within sight of land; but in 1821 and 1822 companies were formed and vessels built for more extended voyages to the remoter habitat of the whale, and for a few years Plymouth competed successfully with the more important ports in this adventurous com merce. Within the memory of people still living Plymouth boasted a fleet of seventy-five schooners engaged in the fisheries, where to-day not one vessel is OAvned in the town. Residents point out the location of the flake rights along the harbour, now often converted into lawns and gardens, where their fathers dried the fish brought in daily from near-by waters; and this commodity formed the basis of a coastwise and gradually increasing foreign trade which sprung up in its wake. The decline of Plymouth's prestige as a fishing port has been succeeded by the rising importance of her manufactures, of which those of the great cordage works at North Plymouth, the largest plant of its kind, take precedence over the other products of the township. Owing to the large im portations of raw material from Yucatan and Manila, used by the Cordage Company, Plymouth MODERN PLYMOUTH 201 now stands next to Boston in regard to foreign im ports in the state. About two thousand workers are employed by this company, forming a fair-sized corporation village at Seaside. Of the natural resources of the township the cul tivation of cranberries on an extensive scale takes the lead. It is said that together with the adjoin ing town of Carver, the two produce more than one fourth of the cranberries groAvn in the United States. Plymouth's individual output is estimated at about three hundred thousand barrels annually. The large area of sand flats in the harbour has been granted by the town for the propagation of clams, successfully operated and furnishing em ployment to about fifty persons. Brook trout and spawn for the market are also raised in quantities here, forming a flourishing enterprise. Territorially Plymouth is the largest town in Massachusetts, extending about twenty miles along a richly varied coast, from Kingston to Manomet, with a width of from five to ten miles inland. About four fifths of its acreage is forest, composed chiefly of oaks and pines, and a remarkable feature of the toAvnship is its fresh-water ponds, of which the citi zens love to boast that there is one for every day in the year. Billington Sea, the source of the Town Brook, 202 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND is one of the greatest of these, and was named for its discoverer, the notorious John Billington, the scapegrace of the May Flower company, who was afterwards hanged by the first comers for wilful murder. Billington, the records are careful to in form us, was not of the Leyden congregation, but was a Londoner, admitted to the company with his Avif e and two sons in England. Not all of the May Flower s passengers it will be remembered, came to escape religious persecution, a few were pure emi grants, others were hired as useful adjuncts to the colony. John Alden, for instance, was engaged as a cooper at Southhampton, where the ship "vic- tuled"; and says Bradford: "being a hopfull yong man, was much desired, but left to his owne liking to go or stay when he came here." The lands of Plymouth rise at the broad north eastern projection into the long wooded eminence of Manomet Point, about four hundred feet above the sea level, a truly wild expanse along whose ridge, close by the bay wanders an Indian trail, still used by the life savers in their coast patrol. The outlook from these bluffs is one of the finest and most expansive on the coast, commanding nearly the entire outline of Cape Cod, from Sandwich to Provincetown, as it sweeps round the enclosing bay. Some writer has said that the true romance of BURIAL HILL, PLYMOUTH, SHOWING THE CHURCH OF THE PILGRIMAGE. PHOTOGRAPH BY HELEN MESSINGER MURDOCK. THE BRADFORD MONUMENT, BURIAL HILL, PLYMOUTH. MODERN PLYMOUTH 203 Plymouth rests upon her Burial Hill— that her history is written here. It is true that from this dreamy eminence one could bridge the modern town below, obliterated by its sumptuous spreading trees. The shabby, crumbling headstones in the rambling graveyard fill us with romance, recon struct for us the intimate life of the past — the sufferings of the colonists, their courage, their de votion, their faith, bringing tears of sympathy and kinship to our eyes. One feels akin to these dear graves with their quaint revealing epitaphs, their naive carvings, their artless orthography. From their contemplation the eye spans to the unchanged harbour. All the essential facts are there, just as when, three hundred years ago, the shallop stumbled within in the teeth of a heavy gale. Under the low hanging linden trees on the brow of the hill, planted frankly upon the ancestral stones, are comfortable benches for leisurely con templation of the exquisite view of the harbour. Out of the luxuriant depths of surrounding leafage rises as reminder of the three centuries' lapse, only the pretty belfry of the Church of the Pilgrimage, its copper-green cap giving the note to the colour scheme of an enchanting prospect. To the right three hundred years ago lay the Watch Tower; farther back, near the Cushman 204 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND Monument, the fort, from Avhich the hill took its original name — Fort Hill. The fort was a large square house with a flat roof, made of thick planks, stayed with oak beams; on the top six cannons charged Avith four or five-pound iron balls, com manding the surrounding country; below in the same structure Avas the church. An old letter describes churchgoing in Plymouth three centuries ago: "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, three abreast and are led by a sergeant Avithout beat of drum. Behind comes the governor in a long robe ; beside him, on the right hand, comes the preacher Avith 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 sets his arms down near him. Thus they are constantly on their guard, night and day." Filled with graves there is not the least mortuary suggestion about Burial Hill — it is rather the sweetest place in Plymouth, partly from its lovely dominance of the town and the harbour, partly from the traditional informality of its treatment. From time to time there have been attempts to cur tail privileges always enjoyed here, and in effect as MODERN PLYMOUTH 205 a pasturage for cattle it is no longer available ! As late as 1770 indeed the hill was not even fenced; as stones gave out or stood in the way of new paths they were unceremoniously removed to a rubbish heap, from which stone masons and citizens helped themselves as convenience required, and the sacred relics returned at last to such base uses as coverings for drains and cesspools, some of which may still be seen about the town. Extraordinary irreverance has not resulted in desecration actually to the hill itself, only in main taining a sense of intimacy between the living de scendants — of which the town is amazingly full — and the buried ancestors. This is the friendliest graveyard in all New England. Straight aAvay across its summit lie the short cuts between differ ent distant sections of the town, constantly tracked by scurrying figures, advancing, meeting, disap pearing in all directions. On all sides the hand-carved gravestones, their universal slatiness mitigated by enlarging circles of tender grey, green, and yellow lichen, stand up in picturesque confusion on the grassy slopes. "Folks was buried kinda haphazard up here in those days," the custodian told me with a delicious clip of his words, " — they ain't no sys-tem." It was the family burying ground for the survivors of the first winter. 206 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND and with the idea of an universal brotherhood there was in the planting not too much insistence upon strict family ties. Most of the old names appear in profusion, but scattered throughout the reservation. Bradfords are sown broadcast through the grave yard, many clustered about the obelisk to the mem ory of the governor, which approximates his pos sible burial place. But the friendly custodian is a well informed person, always ready to abandon his light duties — they have the superficiality of stage gardening — and point out the celebrated graves. May Flower names abound, yet one searches in vain for graves of any of the original settlers. Of all the colonists that came on the first four ships — the May Flower, the Fortune, the Ann, or the Little James — but two rest here in identified graves; these were Thomas Cushman of the Fortune, and Thomas Clark of the Ann. The handsome stone in purple Welsh slate, which marks the grave of Thomas Clark, who died in 1697, in the ninety-eighth year of his age, is in excellent preservation; that which records the resting place of Thomas Cushman has only recently been restored to the proximity of his grave. The great granite shaft to the memory of the Cushman family is of course a modern struc ture. When it Avas erected in 1858, the descendants MODERN PLYMOUTH 207 of Elder Cushman removed the ancient stone to make room for the more pretentious memorial. Sometimes old, disintegrating stones have been imbedded in granite to protect and preserve the fragments, while a very great many wear protecting rims of metal. The oldest stones — some half dozen, placed towards the end of the seventeenth century — have thus been deprived of their con vincing aspect of antiquity. The oldest stone is dated 1681, and marks the grave of Edward Gray, a wealthy merchant of the colony ; it is of native blue slate, rudely cut ; both it and the headstone to the grave of William Crowe, Avho " deceased " in January 1683-1684, have been recut and mounted in granite frames. Most of the stones up to the year 1745 were brought over from England, which has been supposed partly to ac count for the absence of earlier memorials. A more reasonable theory, however, is that the first colonists were buried on their own lands in private grave yards, and that as little Aralue was attached to such relics until about half a century ago, such stones as were placed disintegrated and were ploughed under the soil in the course of time. History and tradition on this subject are confus ing in Plymouth; it is not definitely known where were buried Bradford, Brewster, Carver, Stephen 208 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND Hopkins, Samuel Fuller, Francis Eaton, Peter Brown, and others who died in Plymouth before 1681, the date of the earliest known grave on Bur ial Hill. There is a tradition that Major William Bradford, who died in 1704 and whose grave is known, asked to be buried near his father, the governor, and it is upon the strength of this tradi tion that the marble obelisk was placed, in 1825, on the summit of the hill, from which the view is most enchanting. Similarly the modern stone to the memory of John Howland, of the May Flower company, and who died at his home in Rocky Nook, in 1672-1673, marks no definite grave, though he Avas supposed to have been buried on the hill. John Howland is well remembered, however, as the last survivor of the first colonists residing in Plymouth. He died at the age of eighty years. The grave of Francis Le Baron, a surgeon on a French privateer, fitted at Bordeaux and wrecked in Buzzards Bay, has a romantic interest for visitors as the resting place of the hero of the American Jane Austen's " Nameless Nobleman." Her story tells, with much fidelity to fact, of the crew of his vessel being taken to Boston as prisoners of war. In passing through Plymouth Dr. Le Baron suc cessfully operated upon a suffering citizen, and for this service was liberated and remained to become a TOMBSTONE OF FRANCIS LE BARON, THE NAMELESS NOBLEMAN, BURIAL HILL, PLYMOUTH. house of the "nameless nobleman" at falmouth. from an etching by sears gallagher. MODERN PLYMOUTH 209 successful practitioner in the town. He married Mary Wilder, of Plymouth, and their son, Lazarus, whose stone stands near that of his parents, suc ceeded to his father's practice. The stone is hand somely inscribed: HERE LYES Y BODY OF FRANCIS LEBARRAN PHYTICIAN WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE AUG Y 2 1704 IN Y 36 YEAR OF HIS AGE Until about half a century ago nature pursued her course unmolested on Burial Hill. Badly broken and defaced gravestones lay about the ground and every winter more ancient slates gave way to ruthless storms and destructive frosts. A list of inscriptions begun about this time, and since published,1 preserves many for which no stones can now be found. About the year 1735, during a heavy storm, a tremendous freshet rushed through Middle Street, washing aAvay the bank of Cole's Hill at its foot and laying bare many of the traditional graves of the Forefathers, washing their bones into the sea. Later 1 Epitaphs from Burial Hill, Bradford Kingman, 1892. 210 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND in digging the cellar of a house in Middle Street, part of a skeleton was found, but not preserved, and in 1855 workmen engaged in digging a trench for the waterworks discovered parts of five skele tons in the same vicinity. This appeared to estab lish beyond question the tradition that Cole's Hill received the bodies of the victims of the first winter on these shores. These bones sealed in a metal cof fin, are deposited in a chamber in the canopy over the Rock, at the base of the hill. A granite slab at the top of the hill marks the repository of several other skeletons that were exhumed later in digging post holes for the fence which divides the grassy slope from the driveway at its summit. Plymouth suffers singularly in her efforts at the monumental. It is unfortunate that she awoke to this fancied need at the worst period of our national adolescence in matters of taste. The granite can opy over the Rock dates from the same year that saw the inception of that greater evil the national Monument to the Forefathers, which stands on the noblest eminence of the beautiful town, its gigan- tesque proportions, upon which guidebooks have seized as facts with which to stagger visitors, for ever doing violence to the most sacred traditions of modest men whose memory it would honour and perpetuate. MODERN PLYMOUTH 211 The absurdity of the thrice moved rock, under its ponderous canopy, deprives the renowned relic of its simple dignity. Threatened by extinction in 1741, when it was proposed to build a wharf over it, the pious protests of faithful citizens availed little against the necessities of commerce. The \vharf Avas built and in the pathway of the rock, but before its completion a ceremony of farewell was enacted which has fixed beyond all peradventure the identity of the Forefathers' stepping-stone. Elder Thomas Faunce, whose grave may be found on Burial Hill, then ninety-four years of age, was carried to the shore and in the presence of a num ber of persons, gathered to witness the benediction of the patriarch, pointed out the rock " bedewed it with his tears and bid it an everlasting adieu." As a matter of fact, however, the rock was not totally buried. Public sentiment, so touchingly expressed evidently had its effect, and the builders of the wharf are supposed to have dragged the rock from its bed farther up on the beach where im bedded in the paving its top might still be visible above the roadway of the wharf. Again over-zeal ous patriots in 1744 on the brink of the Revolution resolved to consecrate the precious relic to the cause of liberty, and proposed to remove the rock bodily to the Town Square. Thatcher tells us that Colonel 212 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND Theophilus Cotton and a large number of inhabi tants assembled with about thirty yoke of oxen to convey the rock to a more conspicuous place.1 Plymouth Rock was originally a solitary boulder of about seven tons, and presumably of glacial de posit. It is of greenish syenite, and must have been a conspicuous object in May Flower days, as the only rock on a long stretch of sandy coast. Its removal constituted something of an engineering feat, a feat beyond the prowess of the ambitious patriots, it would seem, for in attempting to mount it on the carriage, it split asunder, " without any violence," says Thatcher, and the lower part dropped back to its bed. The separation of the rock was considered a symbol of the successful outcome of the struggle for independence. Nothing daunted the upper half of the severed rock was carried to the Town Square and there installed with triumphant ceremony. It remained there for over half a century. Meanwhile the Old Colony Pilgrim Society was founded in 1820, and Pilgrim Hall was built as its headquarters, and, as part of a Fourth of July demonstration in the year 1834, the fragment of the rock was again loaded upon a vehicle and dragged to what was considered a more fitting location in front of the proud edifice. For another fifty years 1 History of the Town of Plymouth. Thatcher. 2d edition, 1835. MODERN PLYMOUTH 213 the relic stood in the garden to the left of the old wooden portico of the original facade of the hall, to the unending puzzlement of visitors, who would stare in amazement at the relative locations of the harbour and the stepping-stone and marvel at the stride of the mighty ancestors. In 1880 by a sud den accession of wisdom, the detached portion was reunited to the parent rock at the head of the wharf, the land having meanwhile come into the possession of the Pilgrim Society. Further plans for the res toration of the whole environment contemplated the removal of the unfortunate canopy and the un sightly Avharves which lie at the foot of Cole's Hill. The architect of the canopy was the architect of the monument, on the outskirts of the town. A me morial to the Forefathers had been projected since 1794, when Joseph Coolidge of Boston gave a guinea as the nucleus of the fund, but it was not until 1854 that a competition Avas held and a firm of Hungarians, Messrs. Zuckner and Asboth, won the prize offered for the best plans and estimates ; Llam- matt Billings, hoAvever, received the contract for both the canopy over the rock and the monument. The corner stone of the latter was laid in 1859 and the monument was completed in 1888, its erec tion therefore covers the epoch of the Civil War and the Centennial period. The Pilgrim Society fathered 214 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND the project, and the cost of erection was defrayed by various organizations and individual contribu tors. Hammatt Billings died during the progress of the work, but his brother, Joseph, carried out the contract according to the other's drawings. The whole thing is a dreary pile of heavy realism. Furthermore the monument is out of scale with little Plymouth — it would be a monster even in New York. The figure of Faith which surmounts the main pedestal, is a frank adaptation of the Venus de Milo, modelled by a rather eminent Boston sculptor, painter, and physician, Dr. William Rim- mer, after a design furnished by the architect. The contract was staggering. Dr. Rimmer agreed to deliver in two and a half months' time, for the sum of $2,000, a nine-foot statue in plaster, from which the finished stone figure was to be enlarged and cut. The original statue, as Rimmer completed it, was in effect a modified Venus with the foot and arms restored, the characteristic small head. The raised foot is supposed to rest upon the famous rock; the right hand points upward to suggest the subject, the left holds a Bible. All these details were im posed upon the sculptor, who, that he might not depart from them was furnished with a small model of the architect's design " for his guidance." Despite the banality of the idea, the haste re- MODERN PLYMOUTH 215 quired, and the absurdly inadequate compensation stipulated in the contract, not to speak of his obliga tion to meet "the entire satisfaction of Joseph Bil lings," Dr. Rimmer, who was a conscientious soul, took pains with the modelling of the figure, cover ing the body with a filmy drapery that revealed the development of the muscles and the lines of the form, in classic style. Evidently this last detail was not to the entire satisfaction of the architect's brother. Mr. Billings paid the bill, however, with out protest, and summarily handed Dr. Rimmer's work over to another sculptor to "use as a frame work" for the figure as it now stands. By Avay of making it acceptable to the architect, this sculptor, evidently something of a jobber, made a new and bigger head, loaded the figure with bunchy dra peries, effectively concealing the form, receiving for his pains the sum of $300. Aside from Dr. Rim mer's part, the so-called sculpture on the monument was furnished by the granite company which pro vided the stone, according to the desperate methods of the day. I first saw Plymouth early in the month of July, when the whole atmosphere of the town was fra grant with the bloom of the linden trees, which are many in Plymouth. The setting cannot fail to strike one as exquisite. This oldest town of New 216 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND England has undeniable style and distinction. The railway station, the terminus of the line, lies back close to the water, and fronts upon a grassy place, lined with handsome trees through which one walks to Court Street, the main thoroughfare. Court Street, really the Avidened and improved Indian trail of remoter times, to the left leads on to the site of the old town, and followed, under various changes of name, makes straight away down the south coast past Manomet, through Sagamore, Sandwich, and thence " down Cape." That Greek temple on the left, at the corner of Chilton Street, is Pilgrim Hall, the first and most worthy monument to the memory of the Pilgrims. Besides a rare and valuable library belonging to the Pilgrim Society, is a collection of interesting souvenirs of the planters of the colony. The sword of Myles Standish, a Damascus blade inscribed with Arabic legends, perhaps an heritage from the Crusaders; Governor Bradford's Bible, printed at Geneva in 1592; Peregrine White's cradle which crossed, preparedly, on the May Flower; the patent of the Plymouth Colony, the oldest state document in New England — the same that Robert Cushman brought over in the Fortune, in 1621 ; these are a few of the treasures of Plymouth — touching relics that offer tangible proof of the truth of the Pilgrim Oft -•>¦•>¦ : ¦• . ¦•,.¦ HIP '" m| 41 t1,. Ml i ¦"¦?~:.. S .:;.(^' !" ¦ > '¦" y^jwjpM^*; ^JHHF ttii";i*i' l: f- 1 '-5m> ¦' flfSKWl Sriri?,*.^ r i * 4*. 1 "'^HPtjjj^f'flii B 5 ? J JK: """ — ^ Am II IT ¦ **N i \it jj[ v ;;y?3^s IsSiBSPS^'" •"- ^00^^* MANSION AT THE CORNER OF COURT SQUARE, PLYMOLTTH, BUILT IN l80S. NORTH STREET THROWING OUT A LEFT BRANCH- BOTH LEADING TO THE HARBOUR. PHOTOGRAPHS BY HELEN MESSINGER MURDOCK. -WINSLOW STREET- MODERN PLYMOUTH 217 story. And still more convincing perhaps is the frame of the Sparrowhawk, wrecked on Cape Cod, about which Bradford gossips in his annals Of Plimoth Plantation. That beautiful mansion, at the corner of Court Square, is said to have been built in 1805, and from the elegance of its proportions and finish has been ascribed to Charles Bulfinch. In any case it is worthy to stand with the finest of the Mclntire houses in old Salem; especially was it originally of that company, for until 1840 its porch was rounded and supported by clover-leaf columns, harmonizing with the windows as they are to-day. Within, at the invitation of the chdtelain, I sat in Governor Bradford's chair and held in my hands the Commentary on the Proverbs of Solomon, printed by William Brewster, at Leyden, in 1617. After, a wide door in the rear of the mansion, dis closed, as a great surprise, a glorious New England garden, completely concealed from the street by something distressingly modern and practical. This luxuriant garden wandered half way through the block and at its extremity rose a gorgeous Welling ton elm, flinging long spare arms with graceful abandon across the sky and then breaking out into a shower of perfect lea\-es, which fluttered back to earth like the most spectacular of rockets. The 218 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND charm of this hidden garden was like a Swinburne poem. The essence of old Plymouth confines itself to an egg-shaped section in the heart of the modern town. Taking a turn to the right from Court Street through South Russell Street, one enters Burial Hill by a back way ; crossing its summit, the obvious path leads again to the Main Street — a continuation of the modernized Indian trail — and across Town Square lies Leyden Street, with the Town Brook on the right. We are now upon the site of the first houses of the colonists, built upon the south side of the street so that their gardens ran down to the brook and enjoyed a sunny exposure. A tablet affixed to a frame dwelling as the street declines marks the location of the Common House, the first building erected by the Pilgrims. Looking up Leyden Street, across Town Square, and over the Arery modern Church of the First Parish, imagination may visualize the Old Fort and the Watch Tower of three centuries ago, when Elder Brewster's property replaced the handsome post-office of our day, and Governor Bradford lived diagonally opposite, under the shelter of Fort Hill. " The houses," Avrites de Rasieres, despatched on an embassy from New Amsterdam to the Plym outh Colony, in 1627, "are constructed of hewn MODERN PLYMOUTH 219 planks with gardens also enclosed behind and the sides with hewn planks, so that their houses and courtyards are arranged in very good order, with a stockade against a sudden attack, and at the ends of the street there are three wooden gates. In the centre on the cross street stands the governor's house, before which is a square enclosure upon which four patereros (steen stucken) are mounted so as to flank along the streets." Behind the Burial Hill, following a street which winds out from the Town Square, lies the route to Morton Park and the famous Billington Sea, named for its nefarious discoverer. A pretty characteristic in Plymouth is a habit its streets have of branching out, one from another, due to its three levels. Leyden Street throws out a graceful left branch to take care of the brow of Cole's Hill, itself wandering steeply down the slope to Water Street, amongst the wharves and past the Plymouth Rock. The blunt end of the egg is upon the harbour; Carver Street parallels Water Street, looking down into the roofs of houses on the lower thoroughfare at its most salient curve. There is something charmingly English about Plymouth — something exceptionally in dividual in its terraced setting. The brow of Cole's Hill, shaded with more low 220 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND branching lindens and magnificent elms, contains within itself the romanticism of centuries. I used to love to walk there at night, under the stars, all modern Plymouth blotted out by the obscuring dark, to recreate for myself the primitive environ ment of the first comers — the graves here freshly filled under foot, the seven houses around the bend there in Leyden Street, that steady spot of light at the end of the Beach might easily be the beacon upon the May Flower, standing by, the one link with the old life, comfort, civilization. Suddenly the climax of the summer evening would come — a small, clear, over-brilliant constellation, growing incredibly out of the horizon and moving rapidly along the furthermost border of vision. The illusion of the past was gone — this was the New York boat, making with speed for the short cut through the Cape Cod Canal. CHAPTER X SALEM OF THE WITCHES Salem plants frankly her worst foot foremost. A city deflected from its intended course by the caprice of fortune, the immediate prospect into which the aesthetic loiterer is steamed, over the antiquated roadway from Lynn and Boston, is the one which, though standing upon oldest ground, has been most " tampered with " in the effort of a petty commerce to react against the oblivion into which vaster en terprise has cast this delicious town. That the loiterer is steamed at all, in place of be ing Avafted, as was the original intention, makes at once for the false note in the picture, offers the awakening jolt to serene aestheticism. All that is beautiful, historic, epic in Salem antedates the steam road, which, as a mere afterthought, drags us in by a back way, through the debris of the great fire, past the horrors of the reconstruction period, presents the picture — to return to my figure — upside down, wrong side out. Yet the afterthought, as a symbol of the turning current which left Salem, at the height of its pros- 221 222 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND perity, stranded and impotent, operating at the same time to the immense advantage of such then minor ports as New York, Boston, and Philadel phia, explains so much of Salem's plight, that it may be well, just here on the threshold, to deal with it now. This threshold, in fact, considering it to be the early Norman shell which stands thinly before the train shed, marks the last stand which the town made against supersession, before yielding, relin quishing its claim to be the court city of New Eng land. Salem, the most ancient town of old Massa chusetts, the second English settlement of New England, the second city to be incorporated in the commonwealth, had from the beginning been thought destined to be the seat of state govern ment. And it was in the fond conviction that the chief business of the Old Eastern Railroad would be conducted in Salem, that David Augustus Neal, its president, built this imposing gateway to his native place. The sublime irrelevance of early Norman intru sion in this purest of Georgian settings of castel lated turrets and mullioned windows, screening the sooty exhalations of transient engines that thun dered into the artless rear of the masked train shed, and charged on through the unsubstantiated facade, SALEM OF THE WITCHES 223 and so, burrowing Washington Street, through a short black tunnel, on to Beverly — was not to strike this ardent citizen bent wholly and only upon enriching still further the already famous architec ture of his town. Salem folks were accustomed to exotics; the captains had for upwards of two cen turies been bringing curios from the Eastern ports into the town, but until now they had been satisfied Avith the designs of the local housewrights for their dwellings and public buildings. Just what they thought of this first departure from the simplicity of indigenous building I have not been able to discover. DaA^id Augustus Neal had been abroad, he had seen such things in foreign cities — inland cities Avhere the captains did not go — and in place of bringing ob jects for the museum he brought ideas for a far grander Salem — Salem the capital of Massa chusetts — and possibly the quiet citizens accepted the turrets and the rest as something befitting its potential exaltation. That it took a certain hold on the place is shown by the old church of about the same epoch (1846) which faces the ancient common, presenting a Mel rose Abbey window between indented towers, and designed by Richard Upjohn, the famous architect of New York's famous Trinity Church, finished this same year. 224 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND In the comparative juvenility of one's own back ward reach, as reaches go, the Salem threshold was already old and blackened with age and use when first seen on a trip to the end of Cape Ann, when it was accepted unquestioningly as one of the " sights " of a more extended travel than had hith erto been taken. It seemed in those days quite the most symbolic thing in Salem, and, taken in con nection with the short, black tunnel, far more sug gestive of witches and witching than Gallows Hill, for all its awful name; or the Witch House, en deared more particularly to the unfledged mind as a storehouse of the native and, alas, all too late lamented Salem Gibraltar, of happy memory; or the mild-mannered slate in the burying ground over the mortal remains of the wife of old Giles Corey — he, poor dear, was crushed to death for holding his tongue, in the witchcraft trials, and so, one pictured, had no mortal remains; more suggestive, in fine, than the House of Seven Gables itself, hopelessly confounded in one's summary of the ancient leg ends, but made out vaguely by the fledgling to have had to do with witching because of its many peaked ends, or hoods, clearly relics of the witches them selves ! The Old Eastern Railway wears its giant's robe loosely, carelessly, a thin disguise donned by a bold THE HOUSE OF SEVEN GABLES. ERECTED 1662, REMODELED I9IO. THE "GREAT HOUSE", BUILT BY PHILIP ENGLISH IN 1685. FROM A SKETCH IN THE ESSEX INSTITUTE RECONSTRUCTED FROM A CONTEMPORARY DRAWING. SALEM OF THE WITCHES 225 masquerader who came to toAvn intent upon plun der and who got away with literally everything there was to take. What the swaggering bully came for is only too pitifully evident, if one will but take the trouble to delve, or even to dip a little into the annals of the town. Salem's prestige was as a port. Its proper and logical approach is from the sea. As one sails into the harbour around the promontory of Marblehead, or along the coast from the Eastern Point of Cape Ann, one gets the true picture of the town — from that side the scene is set, and any other entree is to enter the stage from behind the scenes or through the wings. My theory is that Avhat with Avitches and witchcraft, which have been vastly overworked ; and Hawthorne and his scarcely localized Seven Gables, in which the tourist mind has been steeped, and which if faithfully followed up can readily consume the few hours between trains usually allotted for the "doing" of Salem, the intenser romance of the dead maritime industries, extinguished by the rail road, has been overlooked, or minimized fairly out of its true relation . The only communication of the first settlers with the civilized world, we are constantly to remind our selves, was by sea. There were no roads ; almost all traffic between the colonies was by water. This was 226 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND especially true of New England, whose sea was full of fish, and whose forests ran down to the water's edge, convenient for the building of boats. When the Plymouth Colony sent its first offshoot to the North Shore it came by the simple short way across the water. As N aumkeag , or Marble-harbour, or Salem, to give its three stages at a bound, was first " patented " it embraced in one New England " town " the villages now known as Manchester, Beverly, Danvers, Peabody, Middleton, with parts of Lynn, Topsfield, and Wenham. Middleton, Topsfield, and Wenham are inland, but the others were all readily enough accessible by boats, though awkward to come at by land. There were indeed so many boats plying across the harbour and up and down the rivers that Pastor Higginson, writ ing in 1633, says " There be more canoes in this town than in all the whole patent ; every household having a Avater horse or two." The first of the noAV dead maritime industries was fishing. In the library of the Essex Institute in Salem may be seen Roger Conant's charter, dated 1 623, which licensed the settling of the North Shore of Massachusetts Bay. Early in the year 1624 Robert Cushman wrote Bradford: "We have tooke a patente for Cape Anne." This patent or charter was issued by Lord Sheffield, a member of SALEM OF THE WITCHES 227 the council for New England, to the associates of Robert Cushman and Edward Winslow. It gave " free liberty to ffish, fowl, hawke, and hunt, truck, and trade," in the region of Cape Ann. Five hun dred acres were to be reserved for public uses, " as for the building of a towne, schooles, churches, hos pitals," etc., and thirty acres were to be allotted every person, young or old, who should come and dwell at Cape Ann within the next seven years. These allotments were to be made " in one entire place, and not stragling in dyvers or remote parcells." This whole grant furthermore was not to exceed one and a half miles of water front. This was the first legal basis for the settlement and defence of an English town upon Cape Ann, where Glouces ter was afterwards built. The big idea with England, or with the " adven turers " — the word was used in the special old sense of speculators — formed into divers compa nies to open up the resources of the colonial posses sions — was to push the settlement of the large grants by dividing the land in severalty amongst their members. The region about Cape Ann fell to Edmund, Lord Sheffield; he sold the patent for it to Cushman and Winslow, acting for the Plym outh Colony. England, as we know, had but the vaguest ideas upon the extent of the territory 228 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND which it dispensed with an indiscriminate largesse that frequently led to bitter misunderstandings when the various owners came to take possession of grants or purchases. When the Plymouth Colony attempted to push its claim upon Cape Ann it found the place already planted as a fishing stage by the "Dorchester Adventurers," an unincorpor ated stock company of merchants in the shire town of Dorset, who had been sending vessels to fish off the New England coast. For the time the two claimants made room for each other and agreed, but inevitable disputes and complications were finally settled, in 1624, by Winslow's company sell ing out its rights — comprising the site of Glouces ter — to the Dorchester Adventurers. The Pilgrims Avere very bad fishermen. There is recorded no instance of a successful fishing stage being conducted by any of the off-shoots of the Pil grim fathers. Roger Conant made a signal failure of the business when, upon a reconstruction of the management of the settlement at Cape Ann, he was invited by the Dorchester Company to act as overseer or governor of that enterprise. Hubbard describes him as a "religious, sober, and prudent gentleman." He figures in the early history of the planters as an independent settler, who had Avith- drawn from Plymouth because of a disaffection for SALEM OF THE WITCHES 229 the Separatist views of that community. With the failure of the fishing stage at Gloucester, followed the dissolution of the "adventurers" and most of the settlers returned to England. Conant mar shalled the remnant of the colony and transplanted it to the sheltered harbour of the peninsula knoAvn to the Indians as Nahumkeike or Naumkeag, where he founded Salem. Conant 's staunch character was all that held the depleted colony together during the first months which followed his removal to Salem. His little band was all for disintegration, flight to Virginia, or even home to England; but Conant had the tenacity of purpose of strong men and he stayed the flight, as he himelf says, by his " utter deniall to goe away" and so they held the ground taken, at the " hassard " of their lives. While they held the ground their cause was pushed zealously at home by the Reverend John White, of Dorchester, a famous Puritan divine, usually called the Patriarch of Dorchester, whose heart was set upon the establishment of colonies in Massachusetts which might become places of ref uge from the corruptions and oppressions which prevailed at home under James I. Conant came to Naumkeag in the autumn of 1626 and there were two years of solitary struggle there for mainte- 230 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND nance before White was able to make good his prom ises to the colony. Through his intervention, how ever, in the spring of 1628, a grant was obtained from the Council for New England, conveying a new territory included liberally between three miles north of the Merrimac River and three miles south of the Charles, and extending grandly from the At lantic to the Pacific oceans. This grant was of course made when the Pacific coast was supposed to lie not far west of the Hudson, and, in the usual heedless style, ignored several preceding patents obligingly issued for parts of the same territory, engendering disputes and wrangles which were to occupy the settlers for fully half a century to come. The grant was, however, backed up by the arrival of John Endecott, in September of the same year, with sixty persons to reinforce the settlement at Naumkeag, and with a charter which suspended that of Roger Conant, disposed of in the casual manner of the remoter government. In the ensu ing months eleven ships brought a total of 1,500 colonists to swell the domain, and, Conant ousted, Endecott found himself governor of a. larger colony than Plymouth after its nine years of struggle and growth. Roger Conant's part was played, he could but yield to Endecott's authority, while the first set tlers were transferred along with the land, the whole SALEM OF THE WITCHES 231 incorporated into a town under the Hebrew name, Salem, to signify the peace which they established together there. With a profounder sense of the psychology of government than is usually accredited to them, the home guard in outfitting the colonial settlements saw well to it that some form of the " church " should go hand in hand with the elements of "state." When Roger Conant split away from the Plym outh Colony it was in company with others who sided with the Rev. John Lyford, who had been banished from that community. We read so much about the religious intolerance of the Puritan set tlements that it seems only fair to acquit the Fore fathers, in this case, of any religious pre j udice. The case against the Rev. John Lyford, as related in the Bradford History, has little enough to do with re ligion, save where the offender profited by the pro tection of his cloth, and makes as pretty a piece of common scandal as one could wish to read. Brad ford deals with it with that naivete and simplicity that makes the charm of his narrative throughout — he never seems to judge in so many words, but one feels the intensely human passion through his temperate sentences, and with what satisfaction he sits back and watches the working out of a divine vengeance. 232 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND The specific charge against Lyford — the last straw added to much incriminating evidence of a similar nature, adduced by his unfortunate wife- — Bradford goes into with considerable restraint, yet artfully disclosing the whole sordid story — a sor did story Avhich is, however, perversely, not without its distinctly humorous side. Lyford in his ca pacity as pastor of the flock is appealed to by one of the ingenuous young lambs to pass upon the worthi ness of a young woman whom the youth thinks of taking for a wife, yet holds his ardour in abeyance pending the decision of his spiritual adviser as to the wisdom of his choice. Lyford with a caution all too exemplary defers judgment, putting the young lamb off until he can find occasion, as he says, to meet and know the young woman well enough to speak with authority upon so important a matter. There seems to have been nothing that Lyford would not do for a friend, and so throwing himself without reserve into the investigation, he informs himself upon the girl most thoroughly and capably, leaving no aspect of her eligibility untested, as all too lamentably comes out in her future state; but for the time Lyford seeks out our young man, recommends his choice with warmth as " fitted " in every way to be his wife, and so leaves it. The scoundrel had not counted, however, upon the girl's SALEM OF THE WITCHES 233 reaction, her own fundamental integrity. She in evitably tells her husband and he, of course, bears the monstrous tale to the heads of the Plymouth Colony. Whether the truth of the matter was hushed up and the case put upon some political difference, or whatever, Bradford does not make clear; but at any rate we find Lyford leaving Plymouth imme diately after, followed by a certain number of loyal adherents. The seceders retired to Nantasket, and it was from the temporary settlement there that the Dorchester company chose Roger Conant to take charge of the planting and fishing at Cape Ann ; John Oldham, who was afterwards murdered by the Indians at Block Island, to superintend the Indian trade; and Lyford to officiate as minister. Possibly the charge against the latter was not un derstood by the Patriarch of Dorchester, at least. Lyford's subsequent departure from Cape Ann to Virginia split up and nearly wrecked the commun ity, for most of the members wished to follow their pastor. Endecott's installation, as governor of Conant's transplanted colony, was after the arrival at Salem of the first six ships that came to swell its numbers under the leadership of Francis Higginson, of St. John's College, Cambridge, rector of a church in 234 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND Leicestershire, who had been deprived of his living for nonconformity. He came out to Naumkeag to found the church in the new community, and the more gladly as he hoped by this change to reestab lish his infirm health and prolong his usefulness. His mildness of spirit is brought out in the picture recorded of him calling his family and friends to the stern of the vessel as it quitted the old country and saying: "We do not go to New England as Sepa ratists from the Church of England, though Ave can not but separate from the corruption of it; but we go to practice the positive part of church reforma tion and propagate the gospel in America." This was to mean the founding of the first com pletely organized Congregational church in Amer ica. It marked one of the beginnings, also, of local civic government, for the inhabitants of Salem or ganized their church and chose their officers by ballot. In Governor Bradford's Letter Book is pre served a letter written to Bradford by Charles Gott, of Salem, describing the ceremony of July 20, 1629, which Mr. Endecott had set apart for the choice of a pastor and teacher: "Their choice was after this manner, every fit member wrote in a note his name whom the Lord moved him to think was fit for a pastor, and so like- REAR OF THE OLD WITCH HOUSE AN OLD HOUSE BUILT IN 1684 SHOWING GABLES, OVER-HANGING STORY AND THE LEAN-TO CHARACTERISTIC OF THE FIRST PERIOD OF SALEM ARCHITECTURE. NOW IN THE GROUNDS OF THE ESSEX INSTITUTE, SALEM. SALEM OF THE WITCHES 235 wise whom they would have for a teacher; so the most voice was for Mr. Skelton to be pastor and Mr. Higgi(n)son teacher; and they accepting the choice, Mr. Higgi(n)son with three or four of the gravest members of the church laid their hands on Mr. Skelton using prayers therewith. This being done, then there was an imposition of hands on Mr. Higgi(n)son. Then there was proceeding in election of elders and deacons, but they were only named and laying on of hands deferred (prudent Forefathers!) to see if it pleased God to send us more able men over." The assembly at which this was done has been called the first "town meeting" in Massachusetts. Its action formed the practical cement to the colony, the scientific union of church and state which was to operate for the groundwork of the plant whose shoots were in so short a time to extend so far afield. These were days of great mortality amongst the colonists. It has been estimated that from April to December, of the year following its settlement, one hundred of the people of Salem died. Higgin son was among the number, he lived to preside over his flock little more than a year after his election, dying on the sixth of August, 1630, at the early age of forty-three. Deprived of their teacher Roger Williams was invited to come over from Plym- 236 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND outh and settle as teacher with Mr. Skelton, and upon the latter's death, in 1634, he succeeded as minister, remaining in all but briefly, owing to what Bradford calls his "unsettled judgemente" which led them to part easily with him at Plymouth and caused the magistrates to drive him from Salem, Avhence he Avent into the wilderness to become the founder of the state of Rhode Island. We are to think of Salem in these early days as playing New York's present part, in acting as the great clearing house for immigration. Extremely restricted AA'ithin its natural boundaries, the outly ing parts of the town separated by rivers and har bours, there was literally no room for growth and development commensurate with the influx of the English Puritans, who now began to pour into the country driven by the great exodus, of which the tentative voyage of the May Flower had been but premonitory. Salem, under the more efficient man agement of the party directing affairs in England, became the logical porte d' entree, superseding Plymouth so thoroughly that that initial settlement Avas soon swallowed up for identity in the easy dom ination of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Of such immigrants as arrived in the first ships, Salem itself retained a small percentage. When, in 1630, Winthrop came to supersede.Endecott as the SALEM OF THE WITCHES 237 governor of the colony, land was already scarce and his followers sought new places for their set tlements. Watertown, Roxbury, Dorchester were among the first towns settled by them. As early as 1634 some settlers who had left Salem for the Aga- wam River began a new town under the name of Ipswich. This was the beginning of a gradual dis integration, not at once regarded, hoAvever, since it was in this same year that Salem, on her OAvn ac count, and regardless of the different members of the " town," began most substantially to flourish in the way in which she was to achieve so magnifi cently her preeminence. In 1636 there was built at "Marble-harbour," the Desire, a vessel of one hundred and twenty tons, commanded by Captain Pierce who made the first almanack published in America. In 1640 a ship of three hundred tons was built at Salem, and within two years still another of goodly size was launched, with such success that Salem had no rival in this commerce, and was noAV spoken of confidently as the proper seat of government. On the other hand the " members " of the all em bracing Salem began to flourish in their own ways and with that independence of spirit which first brought the colonists out from England, began to desire their own government. Wenham was the 238 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND first to have its way; it split off from the parent stem in 1643. Manchester became a town in 1645, Marblehead, on the strength of its superiority in the fishing industry, in 1648, Topsfield in 1650, and Beverly in 1668. Salem as considered within its present bounds was first settled upon the North River. Reduced to its simplest terms it began to develop its extra ordinary resources as a port. Just how the port counted in those roadless days can be made out from an existing letter written, in 1631, by Mr. Endecott to Mr. Winthrop, already settled in Bos ton upon the Shawmut peninsula, in which he re grets his inability to be present at the Court, to which end, he says : "I put to sea yesterday and was driAren back again, the Avind being stiff against us. And there being no canoe or boat at Saugus," he explains, as if to light our vision of the case, " I must have been constrained to go to the Mystic and thence about -to Charlestown, which at that time, durst not be so bold, my body being at present in an ill condition to wade, or take cold, and therefore I desire you to pardon me." And for the hazards of travel by land and sea we read at about this same time, or at any rate shortly after the settlement of Boston, of an adventurous company making a four days' trip from Salem to see the new plantation, SALEM OF THE WITCHES 239 and upon their safe arrival home again they fell upon their knees and thanked God for preserv ing them through the peril and dangers of their journey! I should like then, to take my loiterers on yachts, or schooners, in the old way through one of the several channels noted by Nathaniel Bowditch, in his directions for sailing into Salem, according to his beautifully clear chart of the harbour. We should then get the true impression of the ancient city, all its factors depending upon their relation to the sea, and its arms, which hold the limited area Avithin a close embrace. We could still land from the safe and convenient harbour at the old Derby wharf , the centre of mercantile activities in the days Avhen Salem was one of the leading American ports. Salem could be approached handsomely on both sides of the narrow peninsula, either from the har bour direct or from the wide North River, iioav re duced to a mere Avaterway, to take the ebb and flow of the tide, but in those days navigable as far inland as Peabody. As it originally developed in relation to its port, Salem residences were so planted that their gardens ran down to the water fronts, while Essex Street meandered through the rear end of the lots which fronted on the rivers. An arm of the harbour knoAvn as the South River, 240 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND frequently alluded to in the old writings, wandered out towards South Salem, part of its ancient bed now covered by the railway station and tracks. Washington Street was the first to be laid out; it was four rods wide and formed the connection be tween the "ways that bordered the North and South Rivers." DoAvn to 1774 most of the dwellings were of wood and a few of the very oldest are still stand ing, presenting such odd architectural features as the overhanging second story with the curious " drops " depending from the corner posts, and the excessively pointed ends brought out with such ex travagance in the House of Seven Gables, so called, on the water front, at the head of Turner Street. This house, originally built at some most remote date for Salem, had been altered and modernized into a mere semblance of its past or for that matter its present form, before the time that Hawthorne formed his slight connection with it as a visitor there to his cousin, Miss Ingersoll. It has been made in its second remodelling, as one might say, a notorious example of reconstituted antiquity, the architect of its "reconstruction" havingquite let him self go in the matter of tearing out and building up in response to the popular demand for a peg upon which to hang Hawthorne's delightful romance. SALEM OF THE WITCHES 241 The irresistable and deliberate mechancete of Henry James' reference to "the shapeless object by the waterside," visiting Salem in his most per verse and wilfully detached mood, has yet a deli cious reactionary appeal to the anarchist in us all. Buried as they are in his notes upon America re visited, this author's little liked and little read, yet so subtle and, in part, so true, diatribe against the crudities of his native land — felt by him, as one senses, with the poignancy of an inalienable native — have almost the quality of impressions written for his eye alone, the sharp, remorseless point of his irony so neatly and artfully concealed in his famous tournure de phrase, of which the general reader makes so little. " The weak, vague domi ciliary presence at the end of the lane," he so won derfully ventures, "may have 'been' (in our poor parlance) the idea of the admirable book . . . but the idea, that is the inner force of the admirable book, so vividly forgets, before our eyes, any such origin or reference, ' cutting ' it as a low acquaint ance and outsoaring the shadow of its night, that the connection has turned a somersault into space, repudiated like a ladder kicked back from the top of a wall." The Hathaway house, better known from its more recent use as "the old bakeshop," moved up 242 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND from Washington Street * (where it was about to be destroyed) to keep company with the Seven Gables, probably antedates in construction the latter, and is decidedly Gothic — wooden Gothic of true seven teenth or even sixteenth century spirit. The Nar bonne house, on Essex Street, built before 1680, is a perfect example of the lean-to type, preserving still the little shop door, once so characteristic of the old town. The dwelling situated in Broad Street opposite the western end of Burial Hill built in 1660, by John Pickering, has lost through embel lishment its convincing air of antiquity, but figures none the less as one of the earliest and queerest of Salem houses. It was the birthplace in 1745 of Timothy Pickering, the same who, as colonel of the First Regiment of militia, headed the assemblage at North Bridge, at the outbreak of the Revolution. This house is noAV occupied by the tenth generation in direct descent from the founder. The " Witch House " was built before 1635, and old pictures of it, made before the addition of the apothecary shop, which now defaces its once charming front, show a gambrel roof over an over hanging second story, wide chimneys in the middle and a fine old garden, opening from Essex Street. The Essex Institute preserves a sketch of the 1 On the site of the Federal Theatre. BENJAMIN PICKMAN, FROM A PORTRAIT IN THE ESSEX INSTITUTE, SALEM. BENJAMIN PICKMAN HOUSE, 1/43. FROM A LITHOGRAPH MADE ABOUT 1840-SO. "PICTURES OF THE DELIGHTFUL MANSION SHOW IT TO HAVE BEEN SEATED WITHIN A GENEROUS GARDEN." SALEM OF THE WITCHES 243 " great house " built by Philip English, the first great shipping merchant of the colonies, in 1685 and torn down in 1833. It stood upon the harbour, at the corner of Webb Street and a lane named after its owner; its gables formed perfect equilateral tri angles; the roof was of wooden shingles, with dor mers across the Webb Street side, the sixteen- paned windows built flush with the eaves, and the overhanging second story ornamented with a row of " drops " or globules depending from the projection. Adjoining the Peabody Museum, in Essex Street, the distinguished gambrel roof, with varied dormers, of a house built by Colonel Benjamin Pickman in 1743, looks out over the vulgarity of the extinguishing row of modern shops, planted with singular offence straight in its fine old face. There is scarcely anything left but the roof to suggest a gentleman's residence in the complete despoliation of this pitiful fragment; yet the archway between the picture gallery and the museum of the Essex Institute, taken from this house, speaks for the quality of the interior woodwork. Tradition says that the Pickman house was built by an English housewright and the interior is described as char acteristic of the pre-Revolutionary period. Ben jamin Pickman's fortune was made by the exporta- 244 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND tion of codfish to the West Indies, a circumstance of which he was not ashamed and, in order to offset certain aristocratic pretentions on the part of other members of his family, he had set at the end of each stair in his hallway a carved and gilded effigy of the codfish in grateful acknowledgement of the source of his wealth. This quaint conceit, throwing a humorous light upon the character of Benjamin Pickman, of course had to come down to make room for the atrocities in the modern " improvements " to the house, but with the exception of one of the amusing fish preserved in the Essex Institute, the whole stairway was trans planted to the house of a descendant of Colonel Pickman, in NeAvport, Rhode Island. Pictures of the delightful mansion show it to have been seated within a generous garden, and to have rejoiced in fine old doorways and handsome windows, very much after the fashion of that tragic wreck, hemmed in by polyglot tenements, in Derby Street, said to be the oldest brick house noAV stand ing in Salem, which brings us to the ancient heart of the old town, and upon which, leaning heavily upon romantic imagination, it may be our purpose to reconstruct its glorious past. CHAPTER XI THE "CAPTAINS'" SALEM If we are to catch up with the remoter Salem in Derby Street, it is precisely in that polyglot atmos phere that the air, for our piercing, blows densest its haze of modern impediment. Were it not for the old Derby house itself, standing, though in the very thick, Avith its fine air of detachment, with drawing its distinguished old features, with all the unruffled composure of a thoroughbred, within its fenced-off and gate-locked enclosure, one would be quite at a loss for a point of orientation. Even more convincing than the old thin wharf, named for its OAvner, iioav grass grown and idle, save as a pro- A^isional dump for shunted and demode " electrics," the house stands the very last of the old guard, casting its spell over the quarter, sounding the one vibrating chord to place the old pitch of neighbor ing consonance. By Avhat grace of unlooked-for reverence the rich front of the edifice is so guarded from intrusion, so that appearances at least are most beautifully kept up, one is only too thankfully grateful to inquire. 245 246 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND The voisinage, well described by a Boston market boy humorist as the " garlic section," thus decently kept at bay, is the result of that process of quick decay familiar to all American cities ; as the imports fell off, or were deflected by the superior attrac tions of deeper harbours to accommodate boats of deeper draught, the movement of the town was away from the wharves and toAvards the more con centrated attractions of the elaborated " common." If it is a choice between reconstituted antiquity, to which Salem is giving way ever so little, and this passive deterioration, one chooses, for purposes of present romance, the gentler unresisting state which grips with far more emotion the willing imagination than those patched and reconstructed and rehabili tated " specimens " of past grandeur, supposed to show so palpably how things used to be. Though its fate may be trembling in the balance, and it is indeed a " shame " to see gentility so shabbily re duced, one cannot but be perversely grateful for having happened upon the expansive relic before its picturesque decay had been arrested by some in terfering society of righteous, clean-sweeping busy- bodies for the preservation of its kind. If it were to be simply preservation of the thing, taken "as is," as the shopmen say, and so kept, that might be endured ; but as preservation inevitably implies res- THE "CAPTAINS " SALEM 247 toration, that blackest vice of our sophisticated age, I, for one, say : Heaven forbid ! The Derby house has the effect of a priceless ob ject standing in artless opposition to its degraded surroundings, in some shabby paAvnshop window. By no token but its own intrinsic elegance does it advertise its worth to the casual passer-by. To know it one must be a connoisseur. For such an one it is a complete and beautiful record of its gen eration ; the moment his eye lights upon it, it picks itself out and stands prominently relieved against its unworthy background ; for every other it simply subsides into the general grubby blur. Blessed relief! there was no custodian here to direct or accompany one's comings or goings — yet was access easy, by dint of smiles and gestures, through a tortuous back way of shambling out houses, straight into the panelled " best room " of the ancient dwelling, which chanced for the moment to be bedchamber, living-room, and kitchen of a Polish family, in intensive occupation. With scarcely a deprecatory Avave of the hand towards frothy washtubs, that irrelevant matter in colonial drawing-rooms was disposed of, as between women of the world, and one was allowed to prowl about irresponsibly, to disassociate the undeniable " feat ures" of the simple interior from the pathetic 248 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND squalor of its present plight; to penetrate into the common hall of the tenement, to view the con served elegance of the original door — particularly to be treasured because of its oddity in having but eight panels within as against ten without — to in spect on one's knees the exquisite carving of the matchless balusters, in sets of three different models to each step, and even to explore the upper stories, providentially tenantless, and very little, all things considered, destroyed. Perched here like migratory birds, as who shall say, there Avas no sense of permanence in the for eign nest, obviously provisional and dependent upon many obscure factors of which the getting in hand of some sort of intelligible language stuck out prominently, as of primary importance. The exclusive front they had not encroached upon at all. The front door as my hostess demon strated was securely fastened, by some power higher than hers, but making one's way around again through the earth-worn back way, one could enjoy at leisure the substantial beauty of the deep red bricks, the shingled gambrel roof, the charming dormers, and the characteristic door with its shut tered screen protectingly folded across the famous ten panels. The simile of the migratory birds, with which the THE RICHARD DERBY HOUSE, I/6|, DERBY STREET, SALEM. "THE HOUSE STANDS THE VERY LAST OF THE OLD GUARD, CASTING ITS SPELL OVER THE QUARTER." DOORWAY OF THE RICHARD DERBY HOUSE. "THE ORIGINAL DOOR-^PARTICULARLY TO BE TREASURED BECAUSE OF ITS ODDITY IN HAVING BUT EIGHT PANELS WITHIN, AGAINST TEN WITHOUT.' THE EXQUISITE CARVING OF THE BALUSTERS AND NEWELL POST, RICHARD DERBY HOUSE. DERBY WHARF AFTER AN ETCHING BY PHILIP LITTLE. THE "CAPTAINS'" SALEM 249 whole quarter upon further investigation proved fairly swarming, was to recur again and again in wandering through this section of the town — is it not in fact the history of the whole of New Eng land? We see them in every place abandoned by the so-called " native," infesting literally the land, adapting themselves to the native leavings and making much of them. The New Englander's policy seemingly was always merely to take the cream off the thing, and when the cream failed to abandon the possibilities of the skimmed milk to whatever foreigner might come along to deal with the difficulties. Sometimes the figure shifts in my mind to the shape of the English sparrow, imported in good faith for one specific purpose, but having briefly achieved it, to have adapted itself with a staggering and altogether unlooked-for thoroughness, to have set about the business of breeding and perpetuation of its species with a fecundity undreamed of by our native song birds, so ruthlessly driven from their nesting places, and in which these blatant intruders, twittering or jabbering their endless jargon perch and plant in remorseless possession — never did it seem so remorseless, so unregenerate, so witlessly irrelevant as in this otherwise almost perfect native light of Salem. 250 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND Yet one may reasonably ask, was the native truly driven? Did he not rather cede his rights, or even vacate before the advent of the despised foreigner, Avho to take up the figure, found last year's nests empty, resistless to what disproportionate stretch ings and crowdings an alien race might subject them ? Having themselves been the fruition of one such experiment, in the sense in which these old houses may be said to have crowded off the face of the earth the aboriginal wigwams; they were now, by a far stranger process to decline, to go to seed in the fantastic disguise of the polyglot air, to have stemmed the tide of demolition only to be caught in this distracting whirlpool, leading who shall say whither ? The Derby house, in fine, marks the first com pleted tour in the spiral of Salem's commercial greatness. It was built by Richard Derby, one of the pioneer American merchants, who Avas born in Salem in 1712. His father, the founder of the family in this country, had come to Salem Avithin a year of his more illustrious contemporary, Philip English (the same who built the "great house" on Essex Street upon the harbour) both engaging in the maritime trade. If the all but detached scraps of land, as well as the islands, upon which the Salem " town " was THE "CAPTAINS'" SALEM 251 scattered within its early boundaries, found their common means of intercommunication to be the water horses, of which Higginson wrote, we should picture the water in those days as peopled rather than the land. In fact to get the true joy of New England we have constantly to reverse the usual landsman's standpoint. If Provincetown is for us a jumping-off place, it was for our forefathers most valuably a jumping-on place; and so the settle ments at first but fringed the indented coast of New England, everything really valuable coming for them out of the sea, or across it, at innumerable tangents. An old writer speaks charmingly of the rude gondolas of the settlers coursing between the varied centres and representing for a simple agra rian folk that same indwelling maritime spirit which gradually transformed the rude fishermen of the Adriatic lagoons into merchant princes trading with the Eastern Empire, as the merchants of Salem were destined to trade with the farthest Orient. Salem's trade began with the West Indies in 1670, the year that Philip English arrived, from the Isle of Jersey, to become at once the commanding figure in the seafaring history of his time. The staple ex port of the first years was dried cod — thus the basis of Salem's foreign trade was like that of 252 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND Venice, the furnishing of salt fish to Catholic coun tries ¦ — a trade which, one thing leading to another, developed into the import of silks and spices from the farthest reaches of the Orient. The conditions of the time presented every ob stacle to the dashing young mariners it engendered. Navigation as a science was but in its infancy, ships were small and unseaworthy, charts few and primitive ; added to the common dangers of the sea piracy, in its most flagrant form, flourished on the high seas, while the frequent wars made the ships of almost any nation the rightful prey of an en emy's men-of-war. England's Acts of Trade placed heavy restrictions upon commerce which was car ried on at last in defiance of the rules of war and at untold hazards and risks. On land there were the hostile Indians to be dealt with, added to all of which was the uncanny complication of the witch craft delusion, imported in all its savagery from the mother country, and then at full-tide. The cod disposed of the vessels returned laden with sugar and molasses, of which the growing superfluity led to the manufacture of rum, in Salem, and thus was added another product for ex portation. We read of ships taking cargoes of fish, lumber, and rum from Salem to Cadiz; loading mules at Tangiers for the West Indies, and return- THE "CAPTAINS " SALEM 253 ing to Salem with sugar and molasses. From such simple commerce was the seaport of Salem built upon, were the first fortunes derived, and by the end of the seventeenth century we find the scattered wilderness settlement concentrated along the har bour over which the spacious mansions of the mer chants, and their ware and counting houses, looked as the scene of their labours, their adventures, and their hopes. Winter Island, in the harbour, once detached but now connected with the peninsula, seems to have been the first headquarters for the fishing stage, and undoubtedly the first traders to foreign parts set sail from the old wharves about there. As early as 1643 we find Salem vessels in communication with the Barbadoes and the Leeward Islands of the West Indies, and with such success that in 1664 Josselyn was able to write of Salem : "In this town are some very rich merchants." The type of vessel in these early times at this port was known as the "ketch," a strongly built, two-master of quaint appearance in so much as the mainmast was shorter than the foremast, and the foremast had square sails, while the mainmast had a fore and aft sail. The foundation of Salem's re markable commercial prosperity was laid by ketches of this description, of only twenty to forty 254 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND tons' burden and carrying from four to six men. These went to Barbadoes, London, Fayal, An tigua, and carried on some coastwise trade with Pennsylvania and Virginia. Of such a type was the ketch Speedwell com manded by Philip English in 1676. Yet he had so flourished in the first ten years after his settling in Salem that he was able to build his fine house, fin ished in 1683, and clearly from all accounts in its day quite the feature of the town. When it was torn down a secret chamber was discovered in the garret, supposed to have been built after the subsi dence of the witchcraft episode as a place of tem porary retreat in case of a relapse of that strange malady. As it stood long idle and deserted, until it Avas torn down in 1833, it may well have repre sented a haunted house since both its master and mistress had in the old days been cried against as witches and obliged to flee the town for a time. At this time Philip English was at the height of his prosperity, which made his case the more conspicu ous. He owned a wharf and warehouse on the Neck, twenty-one vessels, and fourteen buildings in the town, and shortly after he was permitted to return to Salem he sent ketches to Newfoundland, Cape Sable, or Arcadia to fish, shipping the products of the season's activity to the West Indies and to Spain. THE "CAPTAINS'" SALEM 255 At about the time of his retirement from trade, we find Richard Derby appearing in the records as master of the " slope Ranger, on a voige to Cadiz and Malaga " with a cargo of fish to be exchanged for fruit, oil, and handkerchiefs; later there is recorded a trip to St. Martin's, in the French West Indies, as commander of the " skoner Ranger." The schooner was a Gloucester invention, the first of that craft having been built and named in that later port in 1713, and first appears in the Salem category about the year 1720. Trading vessels now iranged from ketches of about fifty tons to schooners of one hundred and fifty, and Mr. Derby's cargoes consisted of fish and lumber largely. His loaded vessels would clear for Dominica or one of the Windward Islands of the British West Indies, and sail through the whole archipelago in quest of the most favourable mart. The exchange was made in the inevitable sugar and molasses, cotton, rum, claret, or in rice, and naval stores from Carolina. In 1755 there was granted to Richard Derby and his heirs the upland, beach, and flats at Palmer's Head, on Winter Island in Salem Harbour, for a wharf and Avarehouse, for a term of one thousand years at one shilling a year; but he seems to have made no use of the grant and soon after be- 256 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND gan the construction of Derby wharf, from which, during the next fifty years, himself and his de scendants sent vessels all over the world. In 1761, having laid up quite a fortune, retired from active life upon the sea, and established himself in Salem as a merchant and shipowner, Richard Derby built the old house ; built it, it was said, for his son Elias Hasket Derby, then a promising youth of twenty- tAvo years. It was for Elias Hasket Derby and his genera tion to build up to its greatest magnificence the prosperity merely outlined by their rugged progeni tors. At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War the younger Derby was already a rich man, own ing seven vessels in the West Indian trade. This trade, it is true, had been built up largely through feeding and supporting the French colonies during the Seven Years' War between Great Britain and France. This for some reason was not considered treasonable (Richard Derby was himself a member of the Massachusetts Council ) , but was accepted as a sort of sporting enterprise in which great risks were run for enormous gains. This element of risk lent to the ancient commerce an epic quality that went far to mitigate its irregularities. The Revolution indirectly gave the maritime trade of Salem its decided impetus. At the out- PORTRAIT OF ELIAS HASKET DERBY BY JAMES FROTHINGHAM. "IT WAS FOR ELIAS HASKET DERBY AND HIS GENERATION TO BUILD UP TO ITS GREATEST MAGNIFICENCE THE PROSPERITY MERELY OUTLINED BY THEIR RUGGED PROGENITORS." the Mount Vernon of salem, OWNED BY ELIAS HASKET DERBY AND COMMANDED BY HIS SON, CAPTAIN DERBY, 1798. FROM A WATER COLOUR BY CORNE, MARINE ROOM, PEABODY MUSEUM, SALEM. THE "CAPTAINS'" SALEM 257 break of hostilities Elias Hasket Derby wholly espoused the cause of the colonists, and under his leadership Salem furnished and equipped one hun dred and fifty-eight privateers, carrying 2,000 guns and manned by over 6,000 men — a force equal to the population of the town. At the close of the war Salem found herself possessed of a swift-sailing fleet, too large for profitable use in the coastwise trade or for the short voyages hitherto undertaken by her merchantmen, and a larger field seemed to open before her. Young men fresh from the serv ice were eager to embark in what promised glitter ing enterprise. The younger Derby had boundless imagination and limitless ambition, and his initiative opened the commerce from New England to the famous ports of the East, where, while the names NeAv York and Philadelphia were hardly known, Salem was sup posed to be the greatest city in America. For a time Derby continued to send ships to the tried field in the West Indies, but a desire to pit his strength against that of England, France, and Holland who until now had controlled the commerce of the Far East, led him, in the year 1784, to send the barque Light Horse to Petrograd with a cargo of sugar ; a few months later he despatched his famous ship Grand Turk of three hundred tons, with Jonathan 258 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND Ingersoll, captain, on the first voyage made by an American vessel to the Cape of Good Hope, a ven ture, which though not in itself successful, gave Derby an insight into the needs and conditions of trade in India, and a year later he cleared the same vessel with Ebenezer West as captain, for a more extended voyage, one of the first made by an American craft to the Isle of France, India, and China. West was out for nineteen months and returned with a famous cargo of tea, silks, and nankeens. As may be imagined, under such conditions the port of Salem began to assume extraordinary character. Wharves began reaching far out into the harbour, warehouses began to spring up by the water front, counting houses along the wharves, and the substantial homes of the merchant owners stood back within spacious gardens on the north side of Derby Street, overlooking the scene of bustle and activity. In the absence of railroads the streets were alive Avith vehicles, loaded Avith goods for all parts of the country, brought from lands lying in the remotest quarters of the globe. Salem merchants almost monopolized the commerce of the East — her Avare- houses were stocked with silks from India, tea from China, pepper from Sumatra, gum copal from Zan- THE "CAPTAINS'" SALEM 259 zibar, spices from Batavia, cotton from Bombay, iron, duck, and hemp from Gottenburg and Petro- grad, wines from Madeira. Salem, the clearing house for immigration, had become the distributing centre for imports for the entire country. If there could be a doubt as to Salem's commer cial importance at the close of the eighteenth cen tury, from the end of the Revolution to the em bargo which preceded the War of 1812, when she was at the height of her prestige as a port, there is always the informal strong room of the adjacent Custom House to speak in figures upon the busi ness done at this port. There piles upon piles of dusty records, tied together with the traditional ribbons of the period, may be consulted for verifi cation, while the entry books kept in the ornamental script of the time present the sums total of the reve nue here received in convenient form. Here are the records of the returns from the secret voyage made by Captain Jonathan Carnes to Sumatra in 1795 in search of pepper. He sailed under orders from Jonathan Peele, a merchant, to whom he had confided his knoAvledge that wild pepper was obtainable along the northwest coast of Sumatra. The ship Avas the Rajah, loaded with brandy, gin, iron, tobacco, and dried fish to be bartered for the pepper, and Captain Carnes was 260 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND absent from Salem eighteen months, during which no one had news of his vessel until she sailed into port with her cargo of Avild pepper in bulk which, according to the books and the well-preserved story, yielded a profit of seven hundred per cent. Jonathan Carnes made a second trip in the Rajah and returned from Sumatra with one hundred and fifty thousand pounds of pepper before the rival captains ran him down and discovered his secret. After the source of the precious condiment was found out pepper became one of the most profit able of Salem's commodities and the Custom House records show that down to the year 1845 about two hundred vessels so laden returned from the port of Sumatra. While the wharves were crowded with vessels discharging cargoes gathered from remote places or loading the native products for another venture across the seas, the toAvn was busily keeping pace with the details of enterprise. The vicinity of the harbour presented the quaint vision of sail lofts, ship chandlers' shops, and the swinging quadrants before the locations of the nautical instrument makers. Taverns, selling the good old NeAv Eng land rum, were full of the teamsters from inland and of sailors lounging about restlessly between voyages. The shops along Derby Street began to OLD WHARFS, SALEM FROM AN ETCHING BY PHILIP LITTLE. COASTERS, SALEM HARBOUR FROM AN ETCHING BY PHILIP LITTLE. *£%£ THE "CAPTAINS'" SALEM 261 take on a slightly foreign air and an occasional par rot or monkey screeching at the doors lent a pe culiar zest to the minor retail trade. Elias Hasket Derby, William Gray, and Joseph Peabody were the three most prominent merchants of the period of greatest activity; between them they owned the larger part of the shipping of Salem. Each of them during his life accumulated a great property. In 1807 Mr. Gray owned fifteen ships, seven barques, thirteen brigs, and one schooner which equalled about one fourth of the shipping of Salem. During the early years of the nineteenth century Joseph Peabody built and owned eighty-three ships which he freighted him self and sent to the various ports of Europe, Cal cutta, Sumatra, and Petrograd. He employed all told about 7,000 seamen and advanced to the rank of captain or master many who had entered his service as boys. With the revival of the American shipping in dustry it is interesting to note an advertisement published in the Salem Gazette of November 23, 1798, urging the people to show their patriotism and help in the building of a ship to defend the country. The nation appeared to be on the eve of a war with France and was without a navy and congress had passed an act authorizing the presi- 262 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND dent to accept such vessels as citizens might build for the national service, to be paid for in six per cent stock. Elias Hasket Derby and William Gray each subscribed $10,000, William Orne and John Norris $5,000 each, and in a short time the full sum neces sary was raised. The population of Salem at the time was about 9,500 and the total cost of the frig ate Essex, which the toAvn built for the nation in 1799, was $95,000, so that its cost averaged for the little community $10 a head. She was built on Winter Island and Enos Briggs, who had built many ships for Mr. Derby, was the builder. It was he also who inserted the quaint advertisement in the Gazette calling upon every man in the possession of a white oak tree to hurry the timber down to Salem. Four trees were asked for the keel, which Avas to measure one hundred and forty-six feet in length and hew sixteen inches square. The Essex proved the fastest ship in the navy and captured property to the amount of two million dollars. Admiral Farragut served on the Essex as midshipman. A stone's throw from the railway station, in an antiquated market place, stands the old ToAvn Hall and Market House of Salem, built in 1816. The hall was used for Town Meeting until Salem was THE "CAPTAINS'" SALEM 263 incorporated as a city, in 1836, and Avas first opened to the public July 8, 1817, when President Monroe visited the town. The land on which the building stands was given to the city by the heirs of the Derby estate for a permanent market and the locality was called Derby Square. On this site stood for a brief period the finest house that Salem ever kneAv, the famous mansion erected by Elias Hasket Derby at the close of his life, when he was counted the richest man in Amer ica. The house, of which no record fails to mention its amazing cost, seems to have marked an epoch in Salem. It marked the "arrived" rich man — the man of means, the man of leisure, the man who sent his sons to college, and who, if he sent them to sea at all, did so as captain or supercargo of one of his own ships, and in the care of a " nurse " — as the bluff sailors rudely called the experienced mariner who accompanied the voyage and who was to all intents and purposes in command. Felt's Annals of Salem (second edition) con tains a picture of the Derby house and the plans of the mansion are preserved in the collections of the Essex Institute. These were made by Salem's chief architect and Avood carver, Samuel Mclntire, in the floAver of his life ; they show a three-story dwelling, of the square type, built of Avood, with ornate 264 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND doorway, columns, fan and side lights, pilasters, charming windows, carved cornice, festooned frieze, and a railed roof surmounted by a cupola. The house faced the water and the gardens, sloping down to the South River, were beautifully terraced and planned by George Heussler, an Alsatian, the first landscape gardener of the locality. He had come out to Newburyport from Haarlem, in 1780, and began to work in the employ of John Tracy of that town. Derby at the time of the building of his grand house was living on Washington Street, whence he moved into the new house in 1799, and died a few months later. His heirs finding the maintenance of such a place beyond their means, the house was closed, and, since no purchaser could be found for it, Mclntire, who had put some of the best of his creative work into it, persuaded Captain Cook, whose house on Federal Street was in process of erection, to buy the lovely gateposts and much of the interior woodwork to be built into his simpler dwelling, where they may still be admired. Finally, in 1814, the house was torn down and the site pre sented to the town. As an interesting expression of a sort of con sciousness of something of their own power and im portance the captains founded, in the year 1 799, the THE "CAPTAINS'" SALEM 265 Salem East India Marine Society, an organization in which membership Avas restricted to masters or commanders, factors or supercargoes of any Salem vessel, who had navigated the seas near the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn. The obj ects were three fold: first, to assist widows and children of de ceased members ; second, to collect facts and obser vations tending to the improvement and security of navigation; and third, to form a museum of natural and artificial curiosities, particularly such as were found beyond the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn. At about this time also the mariners of Salem began to write detailed journals of their Aroyages to be deposited with this society — but now in the safe keeping of the Essex Institute. These thick manuscript volumes, frequently amplified log books, written after the captains had returned to port, form an unique treasure for Salem, being the autographic history at first hand of one of the most adventurous chapters of American achievements; to them have been added, as the commerce declined, the original logs and journals of the voyages, proudly contributed by the descendants of the mariners. It is rather interesting to reflect that the present dignified structure, containing the amplified col lections of the East India Marine Society, was 266 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND erected in 1824, when the population of Salem numbered but 12,000 souls. From the foundation of the society until the collections were given in charge of the Peabody Museum, in 1867, three hundred and fifty masters and supercargoes of Salem had qualified for membership. While the whole of the Peabody Museum is vastly creditable to its native air, containing as it does many unique features, it is the Marine Room that throws most light upon its most appealing i period. On one side of the room we have the por traits of the captains and prominent shipowners and merchants, on the other side the portraits of their ships, this latter forming an unique and price less collection. Most of the ships were painted in foreign ports, many bear the signature of Anton Roux, of Marseilles, others were painted at Naples, and these are spirited sketches quite in sympathy with the vigour and enterprise of the time. In a case in the centre of the room are the few treasures presented by Captain Jonathan Carnes on the return from one of his several voyages to Sumatra, which formed the nucleus of the collec tions. On the wall hangs a most thrilling por trait of Captain John Carnes, an earlier figure in Salem life, standing, spyglass in hand, upon the quarter-deck, against a brilliant passage of sky CAPTAIN JOHN CARNES. MARINE ROOM, PEABODY MUSEUM, SALEM. CAPTAIN BENJAMIN CARPENTER, MARINE ROOM, PEABODY MUSEUM, SALEM. CAPTAIN BENJAMIN CROWNINSHIELD, commander of Cleopatra's Barge ON HER MEDITERRANEAN VOYAGE IN l8l/. FROM A PASTEL COPY OF A MINIATURE, MARINE ROOM, PEABODY MUSEUM, SALEM Cleopatra's Barge, built by RETIRE BECKET FOR CAPTAIN GEORGE CROWNINSHIELD. FROM A WATER COLOUR BY ANTOINE VITTALUGA, GENOA, 1817. MARINE ROOM, PEABODY MUSEUM, SALEM. 1 T&-- : iii'MMi Hj^ — , sJkJ^d^ : ¦ SPSS j ^SMM^^^ .. . :-^r^--:^. »K«5Sfc. ' LETTER OF marque brig Grand Turk, 1815. FROM A WATER COLOUR BY ANTON ROUX. MARINE ROOM, PEABODY MUSEUM, SALEM. THE "CAPTAINS'" SALEM 267 and sea upon which sail two full-rigged ships flying the American colours. The portrait of Elias Hasket Derby, by James Frothingham, shows a vigorous type of merchant, seated before his table, a chart spread before him and folded close at hand the sailing papers relative to the Grand Turk, which vessel may be seen pic tured upon the wall beside his chair. This it will be remembered was the first American vessel to the Cape of Good Hope. Across the room is a de lightful water colour of the Mount Vernon of Salem, commanded by Elias, Jr., on the last enter prise engaged in by his illustrious father, that of sending a cargo of sugar and coffee to the Med iterranean ports, and firing a broadside upon a fleet of French and Algerian pirates which had attempted to block her path. This picture was the work of a Michele Corne, of Naples, described in William Bentley's Diary as " an Italian painter in the town, introduced by Mr. Derby." He instructed the children of Salem in drawing, and Mr. Bentley who seems to have been quite an amateur in painting and the arts em ployed him in the restoration of some of the old portraits in the town, now in the possession of the Essex Institute. Mr. Bentley also describes the painter's efforts 268 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND to introduce the tomato to the American palate but adds that " He finds it difficult to persuade us even to taste of it, after all his praise of it." Captain Benjamin Carpenter, one of the found ers of the society, is presented standing with one hand upon a globe, in a commanding attitude which expresses his complete mastery of navigation and a dauntless spirit of adventure. He commanded the first vessel in the ReArolution which carried back to England captured British officers, concluding a difficult examination by the lords of the admiralty with creditable cleverness. His log of the Hercules, dated 1792, is a model of its type, elaborately il lustrated with pen draAvings of harbours, landfalls, and ports, made by its author. As an instance of the growing luxury of the Salem merchants in the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Marine Room preserves two water colour paintings of the famous pleasure yacht Cleopatra's Barge, the plaything of its owner, the eccentric George Crowninshield, launched in Salem Harbour in the Avinter of 1816. Intended as the future residence of its master, this yacht, the first of its kind, represented an expenditure of more than one half the total cost of Elias Hasket Derby's famous house. It was built by Retire Becket, an expert shipwright of Salem in his yard at the lower THE "CAPTAINS'" SALEM 269 end of Derby Street, and was constructed and ap pointed throughout in a manner considered truly magnificent in its time. It had an adventurous history and at one time was implicated in a sup posed plot to rescue Napoleon from St. Helena. After the death of its owner Cleopatra's Barge was dismantled and entered the merchant service and later became the private yacht of King Kame- hameha of the Hawaiian Islands, under the name of Haaheo o Hawaii (Pride of Hawaii) until Avrecked on one of the islands in 1824. The intermarriage of the Derby and Crownin- shield families had provided the generation to which George belonged with a very pretty fortune. He was the eldest of six brothers all of whom followed the sea as boys and of Avhom five lived to become commanders while still under age. The house built by Benjamin W. Crowninshield, who became secre tary of the navy under Madison and Monroe, stands excellently preserved as the Home for Aged Women in Derby Street, next to the Custom House, a monument to the substantial fortune of the family. When Monroe made his tour of the North, in 1817, this house was placed at his disposal during the four days that he remained in Salem, and a great banquet was given in his honour, in the southeast room, attended by Commodore Perry 270 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND and other distinguished men. This room is hand some and typical. It contains one of Mclntire's celebrated mantels and imitates the amusing device of the Galerie des Glaces at Versailles, that of re peating the front windows on the back wall, sub stituting mirrors for the transparent glass. Where now an occasional slow barge slides slug gishly to port at the far end of Derby Street, there to discharge its load of coal, stands the recon structed Crowninshield Wharf, the last one to find occupation in Salem. At this end of town, too, were situated, upon Winter Island and the Neck, the ship-yards — ¦ beyond these again at the Willows, the forts of the Revolution and the Civil War. CHAPTER XII SAMUEL McINTIRE'S SALEM Salem,, with the delicate detachment of some fine old lady, bred in the ancient school of manners, only gains the more reverential attention by re serving her choicer aspects to the loiterer who goes in quest of them. The ancient school of manners, as one remembers, decreed emphatically that fine ladies' faces were not to be " made common " by too frequent mingling with the vulgar street crowd ; and so, one seemed to make out, when, the shipping having failed, the town, Avith its new departure into shoemaking or whatever, felt the need of a " busi ness centre " in the midst of all the horrid novelties of its progressive movement, the fine old faces all too readily gave way. The two or three pathetic cases of those who Aveakly determined to brave it out, show sadly enough how ground was held only at the sacrifice of all the code insisted upon by the old school of man ners; how everything considered exquisite in the old time was cheapened and defaced and compro mised, as, for instance, by the terrible glass fronts 271 272 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND imposed upon the Pickman house, still standing be side the Peabody Museum, or by the excessively low company kept by the once fine old Derby house across the way. The last, recognizable, upon scrutiny, by the fes toons looped with classic grace, across the upper and still exposed part of its white facade, holds within its once perfect interior enough of the fine flavour of the past to give the explorer quite the emotion of an archaeologist delving in the ruins of the Palatine Hill, so supremely overlaid by the base use of deteriorating tenants is the whole ex quisite thing. There is, for instance, an old winder stairway — there Avere once two — whose Avide, graceful curve and slender rail have been studied by architects as of type so perfect as almost to defy copy. From some of the mantelpieces the central sculptured panel has been torn, either by vandals for firewood or by treasure seekers who presumably saAv no sin in ap propriating Avhat was all too inevitably going to rack and ruin before their eyes ; a but others remain to speak for the chaste beauty and elegance of the type. The elliptical arches in the hall, their under side rich in Grecian fretwork, the panelling, the 1 I have since learned that the panel was torn out by the irate proprie tor of the estate, "because somebody wanted to buy it "(!). M INTIRE S ORIGINAL ELEVATION OF THE EZEKIEL HERSEY DERBY HOUSE, 180O. gV„r>^0/***„ ,4,. z : i, MANTEL IN THE EZEKIEL HERSEY DERBY HOUSE SHOWING CENTRAL SCULPTURED PANEL, BEFORE DESTRUCTION. SAMUEL McINTIRE'S SALEM 273 wainscoting, with hand-tooled mouldings carried throughout the existing remnant, all bespeak the best Salem style, the style of which Samuel Mc lntire, as the most celebrated carver and architect of the town, was the founder and inspiration. Of the desecrated front there is fortunately pre served Mclntire's original elevation, together with the neat plans of the interior, and this sIioavs an ex quisite early type of modern toAvn house, square, Avith the railed roof and chimneys at each side, while the facade of wood, its level surface varied by the application of plain pilasters, connected by dainty festoons and straight hanging garlands, the win dows shaped and spaced with art, the doorway ex ceedingly graceful and beautiful, and the whole beauty of the front punctuated as it were by five rosettes placed at equal distances above the first story with indescribable charm. This third Derby house was soon after its erection, in 1800, the resi dence of Ezekiel Hersey Derby, a son of Elias Hasket and a grandson of the builder of the old gambrel roof brick house in Derby Street. If Richard was to do so well for his boy old Colonel Pickman had done as much for his, and a famous house built for Benjamin Pickman, Jr., in 1764, was lately taken down to make room for the Masonic Temple on Washington Street. Later 274 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND Elias Hasket was to live there, until his removal just before his death to the mansion in Derby Square, and it was during his occupancy that the handsome cupola, designed by Mclntire and now preserved in the grounds of the Essex Institute, Avas added. This cupola is interesting for its arched ceiling containing frescoes by Corne, depict ing several vessels of the Derby fleet, and the cir cular hole in the blind, made to hold the end of old Mr. Derby's telescope Avhen he mounted the dome to sight an incoming vessel. Perhaps this rich old man tried out the genius of his architect upon the changes to the Pickman house, for we know that Mclntire added the balustrade to the roof, the Ionic pilasters to the facade and the coach house entire, with its carved eagle and festooned draperies since transferred to a barn in another street. John Rogers, the sculptor, was born in the old Pickman house, and the Essex Institute preserves an amusing collection of the once famous Rogers' groups, so expressive of the thought and occur rences of their day. Stepping off the train and weathering the anach- ronous Norman portal, there is nothing in the im mediate prospect of the invaded Salem to suggest the cool, clean succession of closely related period houses and gardens, the whole neighbourhoods of SAMUEL McINTIRE'S SALEM 275 perfectly intact " tone " standing in secure homoge neity in the native air and still held (blessed con trast to our national disloyalty to the ancestral taste!) largely by lineal descendants of the " cap tains " who built them in the most expansive days of Salem's maritime affluence. The undermining of Washington Street, its Avhole length given to the steam road's tunnel, left standing nothing of the once stately buildings Avhich made the ancient charm of this earliest thorough fare — the road, four rods wide, laid out in Ende cott's day, to connect the ways that led past the old mansions facing the two rivers. We know that, in the old days, a very consider able architectural effect must have been gained by the erection of the Court House, one of the few public buildings designed by Samuel Mclntire, whose genius was chiefly expended upon Salem's homes. It was executed, from Mclntire's designs, by Daniel Bancroft, of Avhose skill at present all too little is knoAvn, and the expense of the building Avas borne jointly by the county of Essex and the town of Salem. Several old steel engravings and a contemporary oil painting, in the collections of the Essex Insti tute, show the beautiful peace of the street in those days, with a compact square building, with brick 276 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND walls and its roof surmounted by a high cupola, oc cupying literally the middle of the way. On the front or southern end was a balcony opening into the second story, supported by a row of Tuscan pil lars, and under the balcony were wide stone steps leading through a porch into the lower hall. The Court House was built in the years 1785-1786 and was still a novelty of which the state was proud when a very lovely engraving of it appeared in the March number of the Massachusetts Magazine for the year 1790, together Avith a short article describ ing the large court hall as " the best constructed room of any in the commonwealth and perhaps not exceeded by any in the United States." A Vene tian window behind the judge's seat, this writer ex plains, afforded " a beautiful prospect of a fine river, extensive, well cultivated fields and groves, in addition to which the passing and repassing of ves sels continually in the river [made] a pleasing variety." When Washington made his tour of the North in 1789 he was presented to the people of Salem from the balcony of this Court House, a ceremony de scribed by Felt, in his Annals, as a memorable dem onstration, the street being thronged with thou sands of eager and enthusiastic patriots. The story is, in Salem, that Mclntire took advantage of this SAMUEL McINTIRE'S SALEM 277 occasion to seat himself in a window on Washing ton Street from which the president on the balcony was readily visible and to make the sketch from which the profile medallion carved in wood was later developed for the arched entrance to the Salem Common. By most Washington portrait collectors, however, it is considered an adaptation of Wright's profile. Washington Street now records the brutal efface- ment of every related object of a whole precious past. Until 1837 Salem was the terminus of the Old Eastern Railroad, but when the tracks were extended to its second stage, at Portland, Maine, and the tunnel was built, the Court House was the first of the sacrifices entailed, standing as it did just over its projected route upon a slight emi nence dominating the little town. To catch up with the retreat of the best of the period houses and gardens the loiterer should mount the slight rise of land, over the hollow of the short, black tunnel, to Federal Street, and turn to the left past the granite grimness of the modern court house and, passing up a pretty shaded street, he will shortly come to a large white frame dwelling, in the pink of condition, which he will know at once for the Peirce house, "the finest wooden house in New England" — the family still in residence but 278 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND the estate taken over by the Essex Institute for perpetual preservation. The Peirce house is typical of pretty nearly everything that is interesting, historical, and beau tiful in Salem. It might indeed be called the clou of the collection. Mclntire worked eighteen years upon it making it the masterpiece of his tal ent, the complete record of his development. But this is not the most interesting fact about the old place ; that, I take to be, the perfect elements it here conserves of the picture of its builder, Jerathmeel Peirce, the wealthy East India merchant, living in luxury upon the banks of the old North River; of the preserved forecourt behind the house, the orig inal gate, which lent distinction to the famous ter raced garden it disclosed and protected, and through which Jerathmeel passed daily during forty- four years to his wharf and warehouse on the then navigable stream. Except that Jerathmeel (I like that name) is dead and the river is buried, all the elements of the scene are complete. The more complete, as I seem to feel it, because the old shut-off garden has been allowed to fall into picturesque decay. When I Avalked through it closing the gate in the Avail be hind me, I seemed to enter another age. The straight old path led over crunching graA^el, as if MANTEL SHOWING LANDSCAPE PAPER. CAPTAIN COOK'S HOUSE, 1804. THE MANTEL IS FROM THE OLD DERBY HOUSE, 1799. THE PAPER DEPICTS THE PANORAMA OF PARIS, AND WAS MADE IN l820. ENTRANCE PORCH TO THE GEORGIAN SIDE OF JERATHMEEL PEIRCE HOUSE. SAMUEL M'iNTIRE, ARCHITECT, I/82. KNOCKER TO THE GEORGIAN DOOR OF JERATHMEEL PEIRCE HOUSE. GEORGIAN PARLOR, 1782, OF JERATHMEEL PEIRCE HOUSE. MANTEL AND MIRROR IN THE ADAMS PARLOUR, JERATHMEEL PEIRCE HOUSE SAMUEL M'iNTIRE, ARCHITECT, l8oO. SAMUEL McINTIRE'S SALEM 279 impatient of deviations, to the now boarded end. Fruit trees were in luxuriant bloom, exotic plants struggled against weeds, and the spare branches of the vines which straggled upon the trellis of the covered walk were just bursting fatly into bud. It is a very steep garden and seated at the top of the box-bordered path, upon some worn steps, one could project the mind's eye beyond the boarded end and figure the bustle and confusion upon the wharf be yond, the landing of fragrant spices and delicate fabrics, the loading of the famous rum; while over all, controlling, urging, "speeding up," as the vul gar current phrase is, recalcitrant stevedores, old Jerathmeel himself, tall, broad of back, and with the arrested dissolution of a A^ery fine figure, I seemed to picture him, the very spirit and breath and vigour of the enterprise. I hated to think of him full of years and ruined, as we read, by the embargo and non-intercourse acts which imposed such grave hardships on New England merchants; and I even felt a certain im patience Avith the kindly friend, Johonnot, who really after all only half did things when he pur chased the house, when it was forced upon the mar ket, and occupied it for the brief remainder of his own lifetime, to bequeath it with a generosity all too deliberated and deferred to Jerathmeel's de- 280 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND scendants — the old gentleman having promptly died from the shock and humiliation of the separa tion, with, as was said, a broken heart. We possessed in America, writes a recent critic, no architect before Charles Bulfinch, " a name which marks the close of the great period in Amer ican architecture." The peculiar suddenness of this sentence makes me think of an epitaph I once saw on the tombstone of a very young person in a Pennsylvania-Dutch burying-ground : "If I am so soon done for, what was I begun for?" But ac cepting its grain of truth, this frank statement should make us the more willing to concede that Samuel Mclntire, the builder of the Peirce house, and the wood carver of Salem, was not of that profession, as we now understand it. From ex pert shipbuilders, skilled in the finer aspects of that trade, the woodworkers of Salem passed, after the shipping failed, readily enough to the occupa tion of housewrights, as the master builders of the colonial period were content to call themselves. Mclntire lived so modestly, working wholly for his native toAvn that it is only very lately that his name has been recognized beyond the limits of his immediate field. He was born, lived, and died in Salem, so far as Ave know never aspiring to build beyond the confines of his locality, except in the one SAMUEL McINTIRE'S SALEM 281 recorded instance when he submitted plans in com petition for the national capitol, and of which the originals are preserved by the Maryland Historical Society. Salem then, all satisfactorily for the stu dent, contains every record but one of this interest ing life. There is the much-remodelled gambrel roof house on Mill Street, a house built by his father, in which he was born in 1757. There is the modest three-story house in Summer Street which he bought after his marriage; and there is the excellent slate in the Charter Street Burying Ground which marks his grave and from which we learn that he died in 1811, at the age of fifty- four years. The entirely legible inscription, re cently recut, records that Samuel Mclntire was distinguished for genius in architecture, sculpture, and music ; that his manners were sweet and pleas ing; that his life was regulated by industry and in tegrity ; and that he was, in fine, a man of virtuous principle and unblemished conduct. Mclntire studied and practised wood carving under the local masters, but having an inborn taste for architecture developed and trained himself by the study of such books as he could rarely come by, devoting himself assiduously to the great classic masters, with whose works, notwithstanding their scarcity in this country, he was well acquainted. 282 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND i From the inventory of his estate we know that Mclntire possessed Palladio's Architecttura as Avell as works on the same subject by Ward, Lang- ley, and Paine and two volumes on French archi tecture. His shop contained a set of tools famous at the time for its size and completeness — the list enumerates " three hundred chisels and gouges and forty-six moulding planes." While for his musical tastes he left " a large hand organ with ten barrels," a double bass, a violin and case, and a collection of books on music including an edition of Handel's Messiah. Salem houses are nearly all of the comfortable square type, structurally very simple, so that their fame rests upon beauty of proportion and embel lishments, their doorways, cornices, gateposts, and the elaboration of the hand-carved interior wood- Avork. The Adam Brothers' books on decoration appeared just after Mclntire began Avork upon the Peirce house, which was amongst his earli est commissions, and it is interesting to note that the west parlour which was finished in 1782, before the issue of the first of these books, is altogether different in treatment from the east parlour, done in 1800 Avhen the architect was completely under the influence of the celebrated Scotsmen. The Georgian parlour, as it is designated, has SAMUEL McINTIRE'S SALEM 283 decided individuality and character. Mclntire built it when he was but twenty-five years of age so that it represents the purity of his youthful period. The chimney side of the room, according to the pre vailing fashion, was solid panelling, a relic of the ship cabin frequently seen in sea-captains' dwell ings in the New England ports. The fireplace is es pecially notable being set with tiles depicting scenes from La Fontaine's fables and provided with a handsome hob-grate set in soap-stone similar to one still standing in the house built by Captain Cook, farther up this street, and considered, in those days of Avood fuel, a mad extravagance. The massive Avoodwork which connects the doors with the heavy cornice is remarkable in this room, and as a mark of age one may note the original strap hinges, the latches and handles all strictly of the period. The east parlour has been called the finest speci men of Adam influence in this country and has been studied extensively by architects. It is a larger room than the Georgian drawing-room and upon it evidently Mclntire lavished his most loving care and attention. Everywhere — .in the cornice, around the framework of the doors and windows, border ing the wainscoting, and especially the chimney place — one may see the exquisite effect of his chisels and gouges. The mantel is one of two or 284 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND three of the very best type in Salem. Over it hangs the original mirror made for the spot to measure and imported from France. The room is particu larly charming since most of the original furniture bought for it by Jerathmeel Peirce is there, and of this one notes particularly the Heppelwhite win dow seats made for the four windows. Perhaps one of the most curious features of in terior workmanship to be found in Salem is the Chippendale stairway in this house, made of solid mahogany; a device, which is practically a chair- back of this interesting design, alternates with four slender square balusters all the way up to the top of the house and is immensely effectiAre. For the exterior, the striking features are the balustrade of the low hip roof and the belvedere, or captain's walk, from Avhich Jerathmeel Peirce could sweep the horizon with Iris spyglass, Avhen a ship was overdue at his wharf, or to Avhich, in the days when he followed the sea, his wife might mount and watch for his incoming. The fluted pilasters at the corners of the house, showing a free use of the Doric order, detract from the monotony of its lines and the knocker on the side doorAvay is famous in Salem. In the rear of the house, on the roof of one of the outbuildings, is perched one of Mclntire's famous eagles, of which he made a number to be seen about SAMUEL McINTIRE'S SALEM 285 the town, while this whole courtyard deserves study as something quite typical and extraordinary in New England architecture, especially the sort of enclosed colonnade of store-rooms fitted each with broad doors and elliptical fan-lights running the breadth of the house. For thirty years Mclntire set the pace for the architecture of Salem, designing in that time most of the buildings which have made it famous for the work of its period. The Assembly House in Fed eral Street, is a fine example of Mclntire's early work, built in 1782. The Assembly House was famous in its day of public service as the scene of balls and receptions, and Lafayette was dined here during his first triumphal tour of the country, in 1784. Washington attended a ball given in his honour here, in 1789. Early in its history the house was remodelled for a private dwelling. Its porch is conspicuous for a heavy grape frieze carved from wood, its festoons and ornamental scroll corners, and the elaborate wrought-iron railings. Again in Federal Street the famous Cook house, many years in building and noAV on the decline, occupied Mclntire's genius from about the point where he completed Jerathmeel Peirce's mansion until his death. He left the finish in fact to his brother Joseph who had been associated on the 286 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND work as housewright and master builder. Though it contains many rather thrilling details it is scarcely a typical house nor a complete result for our archi tect. It seems that Captain Cook had some reverses while the building was under way and that in order to economize Mclntire persuaded him to purchase and incorporate many of the details from the Derby mansion about to be condemned in Derby Square, so that I think it is quite evident that this is what was originally meant to be a rather plain, square, frame house, elaborated a trifle incongruously with the " hand-me-downs " from a mansion of quite a different character. The house, in short, appears a bit over trimmed for its simple construction. The gate and fence posts, with their ornamental urns, are from the Derby house and decided the character of the fence and the handsome porch and doorway — dishonoured, however, by a modern door — all charmingly harmonized by the repetition of the straight hanging garlands, original to the posts. An interesting feature of the exterior is the broad, fluted band which extends across the front, hold ing the porch to the house. The heavy cornice and elaborate entablatures above the second-story windows intended to relieve the severity of the front, seem perhaps too fine for their setting, so that in short this house, of Avhich one had ex- SAMUEL McINTIRE'S SALEM 287 pected so much, proved in the reality rather a disappointment. The interior, again, has not that charm of a thing conceived as a whole, though its details are in spots quite marvellous, so marvellous in fact that mu seums have become covetous of its treasures. This house contained some of the most extraordinary hand-blocked wall paper, brought over by Captain Cook about 1820, when he refitted the house for the marriage of his daughter Sally to Henry Kemble Oliver. The hall paper is now preserved in the Metropolitan Museum ; but the parlour still retains the French scenic design depicting the panorama of Paris as viewed from the Seine, a century ago, supposed to have been printed by Zuber, the famous Alsatian manufacturer. The exquisite carved mantel in this room is unexcelled in Salem, and under it the first brass hob-grate that Salem kneAV still shines in its soap-stone setting. The stairAvay is lighted by a Palladian window and the details of mouldings, newel, balusters, wainscot, etc., show that wealth of loving treatment characteristic of its author. There are many houses in Essex Street at this end of the town, as well as at the other, which will repay careful study. The porch of the Silsbee house (No. 380) is considered one of the best in 288 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND Salem. Here we have indeed a door worthy of its frame, one of many of the choice type in town, but surely nowhere surpassed for delicately moulded panels pinned down with tiny corner ornaments. The setting is Ionic in feeling, the fluted columns tapering to an acanthus leaf enrichment to support the capitals, Avhile the leaded fan-light, its graceful lines accented at the jointures by rosettes repeating the pinheads in the door panels, the sidelights, the exquisite taste and restraint of the details of the porch, capped by a prodigy of hand-carved ball moulding; the whole feeling for beautifully doing it carried out in the balustrade over the porch and the wrought-iron fence, which ties the garden to the house and leads up to its gracious doorway, are things to linger long in the memory. This house was built by Mclntire in 1797. The Osgood house (No. 312), built in 1765, is of special interest as the last Salem residence of the celebrated mathematician and astronomer, Nathaniel Bowditch, one of the names that should not be forgotten here. Nathaniel Bowditch did as much as any man to reflect glory upon his native town and his Practical Navigator is still an authority in its field. " It goes," said the Lon don Athenaeum, "both in American and British ships, over every sea of the globe, and is probably PORTRAIT OF NATHANIEL BOWDITCH, BY CHARLES OSGOOD, 1835. MARINE ROOM, PEABODY MUSEUM, SALEM. the ship Hercules of salem, OWNED BY NATHANIEL WEST AND COMMANDED BY HIS BROTHER, CAP! EDWARD WEST, PASSING THE MOLE HEAD OF NAPLES, COMING TO ANCHOR, 13 SEPT., 1809. MARINE ROOM, PEABODY' MUSEUM, SALEM. SAMUEL McINTIRE'S SALEM 289 the best work of the sort ever published." This book, in reality a revision of a popular handbook of navigation, by John Hamilton Moore, corrected many thousand errors in tables and calculations in current use, besides adding new methods of Bowditch's own. So great was his service to mari ners that, upon his death, American ships, and English and Russian vessels in foreign ports hung their colours at half-mast, Avhile the cadets of the United States Naval School wore the official badge of mourning. A rather delicious Salem memory serves to link this Osgood house and the handsome new Athe naeum, across the way. The nucleus of the col lections of the Athenaeum consists of a number of ancient volumes from the private library of Dr. Richard Kirwan, of Dublin, a distinguished scien tist. This library was seized as a prize of war, dur ing the Revolution, by a Beverly privateer. The story goes that the priA^ate armed ship, Pilgrim, be longing to John and Andrew Cabot, while cruising off the English coast captured the British ship, Mars, after a desperate sea fight, in which the cap tain of the Mars and five men were killed. The prize reached Beverly February 9, 1781, and with her cargo was sold at auction. Amongst the cargo Avas Dr. Kirwan's library ; it was secured by several 290 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND gentlemen of Salem, Avho contributed the amount necessary for its purchase, and with it founded the Philosophical Library Company, noAV included in the Salem Athenaeum. The name " R. Kirwan," in faded ink, may be deciphered on the flyleaAes of several of the volumes exhibited in the Trustees' Room, and one still bears Dr. Kirwan's bookplate. Upon this rare trouvaille Nathaniel Bowditch feasted his young mind during the time that he Avas apprenticed to a ship chandler in Salem, and it gave the impetus to his extraordinary mathematical abil ity. The Athenaeum Avas founded in 1810, and in recognition of his genius, the boy enjoyed special privileges, especially Avith Dr. Kirwan's hbrary Avhich he studied exhaustively. He describes the Athenaeum in his day as richer in scientific and philosophical Avorks than could be found nearer than Philadelphia. At his death he left the insti tution a legacy in grateful acknowledgement of its service to himself. Of the Athenaeum also Nathaniel Hawthorne was a proprietor. Its first president was Edward Augustus Holyoke, of Avhom a very handsome por trait, by Frothingham, hangs in the portrait gallery of the Essex Institute. If Bowditch Avas an intellectual prodigy he was also himself a " practical navigator." He followed SAMUEL McINTIRE'S SALEM 291 the sea for nine years, shipping first under Captain Prince, in 1795, as captain's clerk in the Henry of Salem. With this same captain he sailed, as super cargo, in Elias Hasket Derby's ship the Astrea, on the first voyage made by an American ship to Manila. It fell to BoAvditch to keep the journal of this voyage and his precise hand-written log is one of the treasures of Essex Institute. During the voyage, so goes the ancient anecdote, the supercargo entertained himself by teaching navigation to the sailors, to such good purpose that the whole crew of tAvelve aboard the A strea later be came captains and mates. Not to AA^aste his time during the tedium of his five recorded sea A^oyages he studied French, Italian, Portuguese, and Span ish, besides making his observations and putting his theories of practical navigation to the test. A shipmate pictures him as often upon the deck, "walking rapidly and apparently in deep thought, Avhen it was well understood by all on board that he was not to be disturbed, as Ave supposed that he Avas solving some difficult problem. And when," con tinues the narrator, "he darted beloAV, the conclu sion was that he had got the idea. If he Avas in the fore part of the ship when the idea came to him, he would actually run to the cabin, and his countenance would give the expression that he had found a prize." 292 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND He wears indeed a delicious expression of win some intelligence in the thoroughly characteristic portrait, by Charles Osgood, a noted Salem artist, that hangs amongst the " captains " in the Marine Room of the Peabody Museum, for he was, of course, of the body of illustrious founders of the East India Marine Society. The portrait shows such a proper old gentleman, with a remarkable frontal deA'elopment, upon which the painter has concentrated the light so that the illumination is almost equal to that which shines upon the dome of the State House on Beacon Hill. The painting of this head is quite a performance and shows an ap preciation of the intellectuality of the sitter that reflects most creditably upon the mentality of a painter not too well known outside his locality. The skull is there under its thin fleshy envelope, stretched as it were to its capacity by the prodigious brain within. Nathaniel Bowditch is frankly posed, one feels the concession in the hand which holds down the place, in the book before him on the table, at which he was interrupted, as well as the spectacles held provisionally in the left hand ready to slip back before the keen old eyes the moment he is re leased from his obligation to the painter. He is all in black, out of respect to the dead languages, as one might fancy, and his satin waistcoat and white SAMUEL McINTIRE'S SALEM 293 stock have caught the indirect light as it descends from the shining head. Behind him books, books, books, and an open Avindow with a bit of land scape and a curtain pulled to one side and against which rests in shadow the bust of the great French astronomer. Laplace, whose work, Mecanique Celeste, Bowditch translated and enriched by ex haustive notes. The Essex Institute, Avhich will be found a very treasure house of historic matter, preserves and ef fectively displays the medallion portrait of Wash ington, made from the sketch done on the spot from life, by Samuel Mclntire for the western gate of the Salem Common, and perched on the top of the City Hall, in Washington Street, will be found the carved and gilded eagle made by the same artist, which stood over the centre of the arch. Felt's An nals shows a woodcut of the imposing effect of these improvements made to the Common about the beginning of the last century and relates how Elias Hasket Derby, Jr., who was " then a colonel in the militia," raised a fund for grading, planting trees, and kindred improvements, and how, in 1805, fur ther contributions enabled the town to enclose its arreen within a wooden fence with four ornamental gateAvays. The woodcut is made from the western end, the most elaborate, with the eagle over the top 294 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND of the arch and the profile medallion in the centre underneath. Most of the fine houses surrounding the common Avere built in 1818, which seems to have been the year when this neighbourhood was taken up as a fashionable quarter, and so they represent the last flower of the " period." Nothing of note in this period Avas added to the architecture of Salem after the death of Mclntire's son, who died in 1819 — perhaps it would be more exact to say after the death of Daniel Bancroft, which occurred in June 1818. It will be remembered that Daniel Ban croft Avas associated with Mclntire in the build ing of the Court House, or rather that Bancroft built it from Mclntire's designs. It is probable that, in our eagerness to do belated justice to Mclntire, Bancroft's abilities may be overlooked. The Reverend William Bentley, who was some thing of a connoisseur, records in his Diary, under the date June 5, 1818: "This Aveek we buried Daniel Bancroft age 72. He was the most able architect we had. We gave more to the genius of Macintire as a carver, but as a practical man in every part of carpentry, in house building, I have never known Mr. Bancroft's superior." The character of the houses on Washington Square, while a little cold compared Avith those of MANTEL IN THE PARLOUR OF THE KIMBALL RESIDENCE, SALEM. CARVED BY SAMUEL M'iNTIRE. KIMBALL HOUSE DOORWAY, 14 PICKMAN ST. SPIRAL STAIRWAY, KIMBALL HOUSE. PORCH AND DOORWAY OF THE PEABODY-SILSBEE HOUSE. SAMUEL M'iNTIRE, ARCHITECT, 1797- SAMUEL McINTIRE'S SALEM 295 earlier date, is undeniably good and shows the Mclntire influence and tradition, a tradition car ried on as it would appear by the capable builder perhaps directed by the son of so brilliant a father, only to perish Avith the last of the family. In this connection it is interesting to note that the year of his death (1811) finds Bulfinch the designer of the Essex Bank, and, in 1816, of the Almshouse, that rather cold, prison-like structure across Collin's Cove, upon Salem Neck. The year 1800 seems to have been an auspicious one for Samuel Mclntire; no doubt his great achievement, the Derby mansion, had put him in a frame of mind to do his best work. Certainly every thing which bears that date is of the best — the Ezekiel Hersey Derby house in Essex Street, the Adam drawing-room of Jerathmeel Peirce's house, the doorway and porch of the Tucker house, pre served in the Essex Institute, the incomparable beauty of the details of " Oak Hill," at Peabody, all stand prominently out amongst his bravest efforts. To this catalogue must be added the features of a charmingly modest brick dwelling in Pickman Street,1 known as the Kimball house, and still for tunately resided in by the family. This most sug gestive street in Salem leads, under spreading elms, 1 No. 14. 296 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND straight out upon Collin's Cove, terminating in the most charming of vistas, even now when seldom a craft is caught within the feathery frame of foliage, but how much more so " then," when a full-rigged ship might at any time be making its way across the open, inward or outward bound. The Kimball house, amongst modest neighbours, gives itself no airs, beyond exhaling its intrinsic, native charm, its perfect expression of one to the manner born. It belongs to the street and to the vista, it dates back with the arching elms to the era of the full-rigged ship. That there is "something about it " one senses as soon as one turns into this quiet street, from the vicinity of the Common, and the conviction grows as one penetrates the aura of its cool compactness. What a delight then to learn that the Kimball house contains " features " unique in Salem. It stands closer than many to the transition period between the ship carpentry at its height, with its elaborate wood carving done for the pure joy of the handicraft, and its transference to the uses of the housewright. The rope moulding throughout the Kimball house, hand carved with utmost nicety, holds the essential nautical flavour. A line of it fol lows the slender wind of the perfect stairway which like a pulled-out shaving is stretched through the centre of this shallow house with clever economy of SAMUEL McINTIRE'S SALEM 297 space, and at the first landing shows no break in the flowing line of the balustrade. There are several contestants for the honour of the best Mclntire mantel, but there are none which show the fulness of his powers, the exuberance of his fancy as does this one. It is of the same family as those in the Crowninshield house in Derby Street, but even more intricate and elaborate. The shelf is carried around the angle of the chimney place to proAdde space for the two columns which flank the opening in addition to the fluted pilasters repeated on the sides. In many of Mclntire's more graceful and delicate mantels, such as those in the Derby house on Essex Street (202^) and Jerathmeel's Adam drawing-room, the ornaments are modelled in French paste and applied and painted, Avhereas the Kimball mantel is all carved out of Avood and represents the most virile and splendid type. This quality of hand carving is carried throughout the room. A special feature of the fireplace is the quaint fireback, made in the reign of William and Mary, and brought over from England to Ipswich and installed there in the house of the present owner's grandfather, whence it came to Salem. It bears the date 1698 and the letters W R for Wil liam Rex, very distinctly, as Avell as an effigy of that king, wearing his crown and holding his sceptre. 298 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND The whole greatly resembles the slate tombstones of the period. If one should ask for the Grosvenor Square of Salem I should say that elm-shaded Chestnut Street, in its almost intact state of pristine charm would best correspond to London's high water mark. Most of the houses are of the period im mediately succeeding Mclntire's death, and the architect, had he lived, would doubtless haAre built the whole street. He made the Old South Church in 1804; its beauty of proportion was the admira tion of the country and its spire put the accent of distinction upon this neighbourhood. It stood ninety-nine years, the type of such spires in NeAA' England, but was most unhappily destroyed by fire, in 1903. He built Hamilton Hall, for the Federalists, in 1805, named in honour of Alexander Hamilton, the fine old structure still standing, at the corner of Cambridge Street. Lafayette dined here in 1824. The Pingree house, 128 Essex Street, Avas Mclntire's last, built in 1810. A glance at it will show how closely it relates to the toav of period houses, in Chestnut Street, built immediately after the architect's death. The Bolles doorway, No. 8, is one of the most delightful in all Salem — it dates from 1810. The house built for Dudley L. Pick- SAMUEL McINTIRE'S SALEM 299 man, No. 27, in 1816, has a famous Corinthian porch while the harmony of the whole facade has made this house a type, its simplicity, on the whole, more satisfying than its elaborated neighbour. While more charming individual houses than these in Chestnut Street abound in Salem, the street is unique because of the handsome double row of fine designs all of the one epoch — the epoch which marks the close of the great American period. The street is in its way as perfect as the gallery of Gilbert Stuarts, in The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. As the rich old portraits of ances tral Philadelphians, done by a great resident painter in his prime, bespeak the character of the painter no less than the character of his sitters, so this double file of clean-cut, typical houses, standing in a quiet by-way of an ancient town, expresses the ideals of both designer and owner, which must have been singularly in accord to produce such harmony of result. Beneath its canopy of elms Chestnut Street, as one might say, is admirably " hung " with masterpieces of a significant age. There is a barn in Summer Street (No. 18) be longing to one of the Chestnut Street houses, which conserves a few relics of Mclntire's carving, saved by an enthusiastic antiquarian of Salem. Upon this barn may be seen the ornaments from 300 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND the old Derby coach house purchased from the owner after it had been removed to Lynde Street to make way for the shops that were built in the yard of the mansion. The urns at each end of the barn roof came from the old spire of the South Church, later burned. No doubt the time will come when Samuel Mcln tire, sculptor, will be rescued from oblivion and made known to the world, as his skill as architect is now recognized, at least amongst the profession. We now place Mclntire in the field of architecture quite on a par with Bulfinch, if not rather above that better known architect; but though during his life Mclntire enjoyed some little local fame as sculp tor, chiefly through the appreciation of his friend William Bentley, his name in this connection, it Avould seem never travelled beyond the limits of his natiAre town. There is deposited in the American Antiquarian Society, at Worcester, a bust of Governor Win- throp, carved from wood by Samuel Mclntire for Mr. Bentley, in 1798. It owes its distinguished lo cation to the importance of the subject rather than to a recognition of its merits as a work of art or even to its historic importance as the work of one of the two earliest native-born American sculptors. The history of the bust may be gleaned from the FRONT HALL AND STAIRWAY OF DAVID P. WATERS HOUSE. IT IS ALMOST THE COUNTERPART OF THE STAIRWAY OF THE KIMBALL HOUSE, "WHICH LIKE A PULLED-OUT SHAVING IS STRETCHED THROUGH THE CENTRE OF THIS SHALLOW HOUSE WITH CLEVER ECONOMY OF SPACE." SAMUEL M'iNTIRE, ARCHITECT, 1805. DUDLEY L. PICKMAN HOUSE, NO. 27 CHESTNUT STREET. "ONE OF THE MOST DELIGHTFUL IN ALL SALEM." l8lO. THE BOLLES DOORWAY, NO. 8 CHESTNUT STREET. "ONE OF THE MOST DELIGHTFUL IN ALL SALEM." l8lO. samuel m'intire's chef d'auvrc. THE TEA house FROM THE HERSEY DERBY FARM, PEABODY. 1799. EAGLE CARVED BY SAMUEL M INTIRE IN 1802. FROM THE WEST GATE OF THE COMMON, AND NOW ON TOP OF THE CITY HALL. SAMUEL McINTIRE'S SALEM 301 pages of Mr. Bentley's Diary in which are constant references to the old portraits to be found in Salem. There is one entry in which the good man speaks of his wish to preserve the heads of the first settlers, followed by a memorandum of the location of such data as exists. He, himself, possessed a miniature of Governor Winthrop " from the original," — that is, I take it, made from life. This served as the basis for Mclntire's bust, with which, however, Bentley seems to have been dissatisfied, for under May 21, 1798, he records: "Mr. Maclntire re turned to me my Winthrop. I cannot say that he has expressed in the bust anything which agrees with the Governour." Bentley with all his qualities seems to have had the temperamental faults of the art patron. But in his note upon Mclntire's death he comes out handsomely with the statement that the sculptor had no rival in New England and boasts that the specimens in his possession would bear comparison with any he had ever seen. " To the best of my abilities," says Bentley, " I encouraged him in this branch." Mclntire's dates come within those of the other early American sculptor and wood carver, William Rush, of Philadelphia, than whom he was in fact but a few months younger. Rush, however, rounded 302 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND out more than the full measure of his three score years and ten Avhile Mclntire was cut off at but a few years past the half century. Rush worked in a metropolis at its most brilliant period ; he was of a distinguished family, had advantages and asso ciations of which Mclntire never dreamed, while his full-length statue of Washington, carved from "recollection" aided by Houdon's bust, secured to his memory a measure of immortality. Mclntire was descended from a poor family of carpenters "who had no claims on public favour." While Rush had the inspiration of Houdon's work before him, it is probable that Mclntire, beyond the figureheads of ships, had seen no sculpture. If we could place side by side Rush's statue of Washington and Mclntire's life-size figure of the " Reaper " from the roof of the summer-house made for the Hersey Derby farm, in Peabody, I feel quite certain that the latter neglected figure would be found to measure quite up to, and perhaps beyond the historic relic in Independence Hall. The "Reaper" was made fifteen years earlier than Rush's tour de force and, together with the figure of the " Milkmaid," which it balanced on the roof of the summer-house, and the " Pomona," which used to stand before the pavilion, was considered Mc lntire's most ambitious success in sculpture. SAMUEL McINTIRE'S SALEM 303 The tea-house itself, quite aside from its sculp tural features, is a fine little bit of Colonial archi tecture. Its proportions constitute its chief delight. The floor plan is about 18'x26', while the elevation is tAvo stories, the elegance of the perpendicular heightened by the tall figure surmounting the pedi ment and supported at the two ends by ornamental urns. A wide passage, now paved with marble tiles, runs through the centre of the house, the arch- Avay enclosed by lattice work, painted green, and this passage is enclosed on both sides by panelling, behind which are the small rooms used for keeping fruits. A narrow stairway leading to the room above discloses a Avainscoted and panelled chamber with a coved ceiling, very charming to the eye. The tea-house has been removed bodily to the grounds of a farm, in Danvers, and, in its new en vironment, has been appropriately set before an enclosed rose garden, shaded by luxuriant trees. This estate, which once belonged to Joseph Pea body, and is noAV possessed by his granddaughter, is in perfect harmony Avith the little bijou of archi tecture, and the summer-house has been treated Avith utmost reverence. Its furnishings are in keep ing with the traditions that have been preserved in the family. The " Milkmaid," after serving for a time as the 304 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND ornament to an old mill, or whatever, near its origi nal location, was all but destroyed by fire, and the " Pomona " was taken to Milton, but the " Reaper " is still handsomely in place over the pediment of the little building. He is dressed delightfully in the small-clothes of the period and wears a silk hat ; he appears standing daintily, like a fantastic gentle man farmer, whetting his scythe, carved also in wood. No visitor to Salem may claim to have truly revelled in its charm or realized its influence who has failed to see the three objectives scattered through Peabody and Danvers and of which the Derby tea-house is the chef d 'ceuvre. " The Lin dens " is the earliest, erected in 1745 as the country home of Robert Hooper, called "King Hooper" because he Avas a Tory. The house stands in ad mirable preservation at a bend of the road between Peabody and Danvers. It was occupied by General Gage, in 1774, as a summer residence when he was governor of Massachusetts. " Oak Hill," a large estate nearer to the town of Peabody, was built by Samuel Mclntire for Nathaniel West, Avho married Elizabeth Derby, Elias Hasket's daughter. It was of the same vin tage as the partially dismantled home of Mrs. West's brother, Ezekiel, on Essex Street, so fre- SAMUEL McINTIRE'S SALEM 305 quently referred to and with which it had much in common. Having always been cared for it pre serves some of our wood carver's most charming work both outside and in. The doorways compare with those of Jerathmeel Peirce's house, and the de tails throughout show the most loving care. The house was built in 1800, the year after Elias Hasket's death, and the owner was one of three seafaring brothers trained in the Derby ships. Nathaniel West was born and died in Salem, his life having spanned all but a century. He was a pioneer in many branches of the trade with China and other Oriental countries and having served in his youth upon the sea, embarked in commerce in middle life, amassing a large fortune. Charles Robert Leslie's portrait of Captain West, in the Marine Room of the Peabody Mu seum, gives a gentler account of his personality than the local historians, who have described him as of fine figure and majestic mien and gait. A spirited water colour of his ship, the Hercules, commanded by the owner's brother, Captain Edward West, at the time that she was seized in Naples, in 1809, hangs upon the opposite wall of this room. The ship was released in order that she might transport Lucien Bonaparte and his family to Malta. At the conclusion of the war with England, in 1815, the 306 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND Hercules was the first vessel to sail from the United States for the East under the terms of the treaty, and when last heard of was still doing serv ice as a New Bedford Avhaler. A turn through the old Charter Street Cemetery and our duty towards Salem is done. It cherishes many old Salem names on the modest slates Avith their naif carvings and quaint epitaphs. Here rests Habakuk Bowditch, the father of the intellectual prodigy. Here rests Mr. Nathanael Mather, a brother of the Rev. Cotton, who "DEC" October Ye 17 1688. An aged perfon that had feen but nineteen Winters in the World." Here " lyeth " buried also the body of Captain Richard More, a May Flower pilgrim, who died in 1692. Back of the cemetery lie the waste lands swept by the great fire of 1914, for this old graveyard checked the flames as they leaped towards historic Salem. CHAPTER XIII BOSTON: THE PEAR-SHAPED PENINSULA The quintessence of Boston lies Avithin the origi nal pear-shaped peninsula as it existed before the extensive filling in of the coves and creeks which indented its shores. Though possibly no city has altered more its physical conformation, no city has lost less its native, inalienable personality, the whole of which lies reserved within the original pear- shaped peninsula, compact and rich like the kernel of a nut. The loiterer with a sense of cities will, as he learns Boston, find little difficulty in distinguishing the kernel from the shell. He will be able to feel through the soles of his boots the inevitable char acter of the old meandering cow paths in their immense difference from the straight and wide thoroughfares laid out by modern system o\-er the " made ground." He will recognize the streets that pave the original lanes Avhich rounded the bases of the several hills that ran up from the harbour or crossed their slopes at the easiest angles; the trail 307 308 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND made by the Indians between their huts on the Shawmut Hills and their fisheries in the bay. He will instinctively feel where the old involved shore line of Shawmut breaks aAvay from the vulgar out- reaching of the new land of Boston, encroaching upon the surrounding waters, as instinctively and as surely as the sculptor feels when his tool breaks cleanly off the green plaster of the matrix which encloses the perfect object of his art within. If he be a proper loiterer at all he will under stand at once why the Bostonian, more than any other sort of American, loves to be asked the way, loves to show the short cuts which the tangle of his streets makes so agreeably possible, loves to walk himself through the rare back alleys of the business section, takes pride in directing strange footsteps over the paths of the Common, showing artfully how a hill may be avoided or a foot or two saved, revels, in fine, in the whole amusing maze, so simple to him and so bewildering to the uninitiated. That it is — -so far as the pear-shaped peninsula is con cerned — a city that takes learning, in order to be able to navigate, is in the eyes of the native the more creditable to itself as showing a superior de gree of character and individuality, and the more creditable to him who can walk so fleetly and care lessly, so precisely where he wants to go, or who can THE PEAR-SHAPED PENINSULA 309 at the drop of the hat with a kindly word or a com petent gesture restore confidence to the erring and straying footsteps of an embroiled stranger in such a district as, let us say, Dock Square. It makes one feel so clever and so pleasant. I shall never forget an old, old woman of whom a genial Danish friend and I once asked the way in Paris to the rue Jacob, having somehow lost our bearings in the heart of the old quarter about the Odeon. She beamed upon us thrilled by the oppor tunity to help us and deposited her basket or what ever upon the sideAvalk in order to be wholly ours. " Vous navez," she began shrilly and explicitly and with much pantomime, "vous navez que suivre cette rue la, prendre la premiere a gauche, puis, descendre jusquau bout — et" with an eloquent gesture spreading it before us like a carpet, " voila la rue Jacob! " She was so munificent in her direc tions that she seemed to make us a present of the rue Jacob. I remember an hotel porter on Boylston Street one summer evening showing me elaborately how to cut off to Province Street by taking the path he indicated over the Common and, "keeping the bury ing ground on my right," bear away towards the desired section. The burying ground, consisting of a handful of historic stones railed off, was per- 310 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND suaded to remain quietly on my right and the path led surely enough to the exact spot foretold, but what diverted me was the man's careful mention of landmarks by which I should be sure of myself as I went along — it was all as meticulously enumer ated as the rocks and channels of a mariner's chart. Sometimes a street cleaner accosted in Washing ton Street where a tangle presented would, like my old Frenchwoman, drop his handbarrow to be free for pointing and smiling kindly at my " Would you tell me — ? " preface his remarks by a hearty Irish: " Why shure," and then give it to me in the plainest, fullest manner. Whatever their faults may be they have at least this one grand A'irtue, the desire to make their city accessible to strangers and, like the Cape Cod folks, of whom Thoreau speaks, they meet one another to advantage, as men Avho have at length learned how to live. And if they glory a little in the original de fects of their city plan, they, on the other hand, do their utmost to mitigate its disadvantages and to win the visitor to an appreciation of its undeniable charm. A modern map of a great city is scarcely a beau tiful thing. The early maps and charts, on the contrary, were made with real feeling by the first engravers. Burgiss' map of Boston, engraved in THE PEAR-SHAPED PENINSULA 311 1728, is a work of art, and I can imagine no more amusing pastime for an idle hour than to try to fit this charming souvenir of the past into the large chart now necessary to accommodate Boston and its environs, and to recognize in that little knobbly heart of the great page, all black and complicated with the crisscrossings of the ancient streets and alleys, the old promontory of Blaxton's day, the thriving town of the Revolutionary epoch. Burgiss' map shows clearly how the warty old pear, of the familiar figure, hung from the main land of Roxbury by a slender stem, or neck, a mile in length and so low and narrow between its tide Avashed flats that it was often submerged. Nor were its most radical changes so remote but that Thomas Wentworth Higginson could remember Boston in his college days as not particularly differ ing from the Burgiss map, as still a peninsula two miles by one at its Avidest part and Avrites that the water "almost touched Charles Street where the Public Garden noAV is and rolled over the flats and inlets called the Back Bay, where the costliest houses of the city now stand." At the time of its earliest settlement this terri tory was one of many similar peninsulas jutting into the Massachusetts Bay and connected with the mainland by narrow marshy necks doubtless thrown 312 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND up by the continuous action of the tides and the rivers which flow into the ocean at this point. When Governor John Winthrop and his company came out from England to establish the Massa chusetts Bay Colony in New England, a few iso lated settlers were already living on the promon tories and islands of the harbour. We are not to forget that Robert Gorges, a son of Sir Ferdi nando, had, in 1623, obtained a grant of some three hundred square miles in Massachusetts, which in cluded the Boston peninsula, which claim through his death had devolved upon his surviving brother, John Gorges, and that while consenting to the grant made to Endecott and his party Sir Ferdinando had expressly reserved the rights of his sons. The royal charter of the Massachusetts Bay Com pany, granted to John Winthrop as governor, blandly ignored these prior claims, and the rapid influx of colonists, as a result of the general Puritan exodus which followed the appointment of men of such prominence in England as Winthrop and his associate Thomas Dudley, threatened to sweep away Gorges' feeble hold upon the country. More than a year prior to Winthrop's departure John Gorges had sent a representative over to look after his interests in New England and had at tempted to assert the validity of his brother's claim THE PEAR-SHAPED PENINSULA 313 by transferring parts of it; in addition to this he claimed the presence of his brother's tenants — Blaxton, Maverick, Walford, and others, scattered thereabouts, as establishing his legal possession. William Blaxton had built a house and planted a farm on the Shawmut peninsula ; Thomas Walford was at Mishawum, now Charlestown; Maverick at the mouth of the Mystic River, now Chelsea; Thomas Weston had attempted a holding at Wes- sagusset, now Weymouth; while Morton had his reactionary settlement at Merrymount, near Quincy. Endecott, who was a man of drastic methods and the provisional governor of the colony, attempted to checkmate Gorges' move by sending out from the nest at Salem, in 1629, fifty settlers to occupy Mishawum on the Massachusetts Bay. The Mas sachusetts Bay at this time was restricted in its in terpretation to what is now the Boston Harbour. Winthrop and Dudley sailed in April, 1630, and within the year came seventeen ships bearing one thousand immigrants or more to New England through the port of Salem, a sufficient tide to over flow the original settlement and to furnish the nucleus of several new towns, sweeping in fact over CharlestOAAm, Boston, Newtown, Roxbury, and Dorchester. 314 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND John Winthrop was chosen governor of the Mas sachusetts Bay Colony at the time when the charter and government were transferred to New England through the initiative of the most eminent members of the Puritan party in England, who meeting at Cambridge, on August 26, 1629, resolved to lead the pending wholesale migration. The time was critical, for the Protestants throughout Europe and the English Puritans looked upon hasty coloniza tion as their only feasible means of escape from an intolerable condition of affairs at home. Winthrop had qualities which inspired confidence in his leader ship. He is described as a man of great strength and beauty of character, scholarly, intelligent, and modest, religious without intolerance. The grand son of a manufacturer and only son of a lawyer, he was educated for the bar, practised law for some years and Avas actiAre in the Puritan movement in his native locality. He was from Groton, in Suf folk, and had been three times married when he came to this country, the first time when he was but seventeen years of age, and had many children and grandchildren. That his motives in accepting the governorship were mixed is argued from the fact that about one half of his moderate income as a country gentleman was derived from the estate of his first wife, to be his only during the minority GOVERNOR JOHN WINTHROP. FROM AN OLD PORTRAIT IN THE STATE HOUSE, ASCRIBED TO VAN DYCK. THE PEAR-SHAPED PENINSULA 315 of her three sons, about this time terminated, so that the proposition to lead the colony in the new world came not only as an opportunity to enjoy a high position and exercise his executive talents but as a practical solution of his private affairs and freedom for his Puritan principles as well. The deputy-governor, Thomas Dudley, was the antithesis of his confrere. Of ancient Norman family, the younger branch conspicuous in Eliza beth's reign, Dudley stands in the early days of New England history as the type of narrow- minded, grim Puritanism, the symbol of all that was unlovely in the bleak and stern character of the Calvinists. Armed with the new charter John Winthrop and his company set sail from Southampton, on March 29, 1630, in the Arbella, of three hundred and fifty tons' burden, with fifty-two seamen and twenty-eight guns, commanded by Peter Milborne. Three other ships sailed Avith them: the Talbot, the Ambrose, and the Jewel, leaA'ing the rest of the fleet — the Charles, the May Flower, the William and Francis, the Hopewell, the Whale, the Success, and the Trial at Southampton, to follow later. The Arbella Avas made admiral of the fleet, the Ambrose vice-admiral, and the Talbot rear-admiral. With Winthrop and Dudley came Charles Fines, 316 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND George Phillipps, Ricliard Saltonstall, Isaac John son, and William Coddington besides others who later became distinguished in the colony. Great merit was made of the case of the Lady Arabella Johnson, a daughter of the Earl of Lincoln, who forsook the comforts and luxuries of her father's household to accompany her husband, Isaac John son, on this tedious voyage. They were over ten weeks en route making land on June 12. Endecott, the acting governor, went out from Salem to greet them in the harbour and the new governor and his suite came ashore and feasted upon venison with the dignitaries of the town, while others of the com pany gathered wild strawberries on Cape Ann. Some of the ladies of the party were made com fortable for the night ashore, but the men returned to the Arbella and slept aboard. Two days later most of the emigrants left the ship under a part ing salute of five cannons and the Arbella was " warped " into the harbour. With the coming of Winthrop, Salem ceased to be the capital town of the Massachusetts Bay Col ony and Endecott relinquished the reins of govern ment. The new arrivals found desperate conditions at Salem and little to encourage remaining there. Not only was Salem already planted and supplied with as many inhabitants as she was well able to THE PEAR-SHAPED PENINSULA 317 receive, but food was exceedingly scarce and the population much wasted by sickness. More than one fourth of their predecessors had died during the previous Avinter. The faithful pastor, Higginson, Avas declining and indeed died in the month of August following. Nor were the -passengers of the Arbella and her sister ships immune from the gen eral contamination of the place and amongst the first to succumb to the disease, which before au tumn had destroyed two hundred of the year's total immigration, was the gentle Lady Arabella who had had so little experience of hardships. She died and was buried in the earliest burial place in Salem. With conditions such as these and the remainder of the laden fleet from Southampton due to arrive on any day, Governor Winthrop lost no time in casting about for a suitable place for his "sitting down." Within five days of his landing he had explored the Mystic River to its source without success and looked OA'er the resources of the country about the River Charles finally selecting the north bank, known to the Indians as Mishawum, as a favourable location for the capital of Massachu setts. We are to be constantly reminded of the ex tremely limited idea which the settlers grasped of 318 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND the breadth of the vast continent to which they claimed possession. If Massachusetts Bay meant to them merely Boston Harbour, the territory to which they gave the old Indian name they under stood to be only a fringe of land along the coast enclosing the harbour, from about Cohasset on the south but extending above Cape Ann to about the present border of New Hampshire. The same plague Avhich had cleared the way for the Pilgrim forefathers had devastated the country now looked upon by Winthrop and his following and they found no Indians inhabiting the peninsulas either of Shawmut or Mattapan and only a few at Mish- awu-m. The settlement hastily decided upon at Misha wum was none too quickly established to relieATe Salem in her stricken state of the onus of looking after the immigrants which to the tune of about seven or eight hundred came flocking into port on the ten vessels which immediately followed the arri val of the Arbella. By July 8, all the ships of the fleet had arrived and on August 20 came in addi tion the Gift to Charlestown Harbour making eleven ships in all. Of these colonists some came from the west of England but the greatest number were from the neighbourhood of London. Looking across the River Charles from their THE PEAR-SHAPED PENINSULA 319 temporary habitation, the conspicuous feature of the adjoining peninsula was the three-peaked sum mit of the highest of three hills Avhich characterized the landscape. From this peculiar topographical feature the English settlers gave to Shawmut the name Trimountaine or Treamont, of Avhich the street along the east side of the Common is a pleasant souvenir. At this time WTilliam Blaxton, a young English clergyman supposed to have come to America Avith Robert Gorges, who in 1623 had attempted a settlement at Weymouth, was the sole inhabitant of this Trimountaine towards which the colony at Charlestown soon began to cast longing eyes. The Charlestown peninsula lacked what was Shaw- mut's principal advantage, the abundant springs of clear, fresh water, the " living fountains," as the Indians expressed it in their native title. Due to lack of water, as some said, Winthrop's colony at Charlestown suffered exceedingly during the summer of their arrival, and moved to com passion by the great mortality of the colonists, William Blaxton, who in himself constituted the unique population of Shawmut, invited them over to share his preferred solitude. The first settler of Boston, William Blaxton, is described as a man of much culture and many 320 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND eccentricities, as "a solitary, bookish recluse, about thirty-five years of age, somewhat above middle height, slender in form, with a pale, thoughtful face, Avearing a confused, dark coloured, ' canonical coate,' with a broad rimmed hat strung with shells like an ancient palmer, and slouched back from his pensive brow, around which his prematurely gray hair fell in heavy curls far down his neck. He had a wallet at his side, a hammer in his girdle, a long staff in his hand." The Hermit of Shawmut stands out as a solitary figure in those days of religious fanaticism. He appears to have come to New England strictly in quest of peace and quiet, and to have eliminated himself from the controversies and embroilments of this hectic time, selecting this uninhabited pen insula for his estate and occupying himself with his books, his roses, and his orchards, in peaceful pos session of his hut, near an excellent spring on the sunny slope of Beacon Hill, near the back basin of the Charles, while his orchards covered what is now Louisburg Square. Mr. Blaxton is counted a divine, and Cotton Mather reckons him as amongst " some godly Epis copalians " Avorthy of brief mention in his Magnolia, and relates that "happening to sleep first in an hovel upon a point of land there (he) laid claim THE PEAR SHAPED PENINSULA 321 to all the ground Avhereupon there noAV stands the metropolis of the whole English America, until the inhabitants gave him satisfaction. This man," con tinues Mather, " AA^as indeed, of a particular humour and he would never join himself to any of our churches, giving this reason for it : ' I came from England because I did not like the lord-bishops ; but I can't join Avith you because I would not be under the lord-brethren.'" This mot of Blaxton's sticks as fast to the eccentric parson as the legend of the " brindled bull," of Oliver Wendell Holmes' poem, and upon Avhich he was supposed to ride madly for exercise. Motley amplified the legend into a picture of the hermit mounted upon a very handsome mouse-coloured bull, which he had brought with him from England, careering in a rapid gallop along the sandy margin of the cove — the margin now covered by Charles Street. The bull trained to the saddle seems to have caught the picturesque fancy of historians since the days of Europa. The legend concerning the wedding journey of John Alden and Priscilla, pre served in the annals of Cape Cod, runs that the bridegroom went from Plymouth to Barnstable riding on the back of a white bull, with a piece of handsome broadcloth for a saddle and on his re turn led the bull carefully by a cord fastened to 322 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND the nose ring Avhile Priscilla rode resplendent upon the saddle. Horses Avere scarce in the early days of the colony and bulls and oxen were employed to do their Avork. We have record of cattle being sent out from England to Strawberry Bank, in Maine, to Cape Ann, and to Plymouth betAveen 1620-1630. Blaxton's promontory which the Indians called Shawmut and the English at Charlestown knew as Trimountaine, resembled rather two islands than a peninsula. Anchored to the continent by a long thread of land, across which the spray dashed at high tide, it seemed in imminent danger of snapping its slender cable and floating out amongst the many other islands in the harbour. The Avhole peninsula is described as being made up of three hills and their intervening valleys. Beacon Hill, or Trimountaine, dominated the prospect rising in the form of a sugar loaf one hundred and thirty-eight feet above the water line. From its top the view was exten sive: to the north Copp's Hill presented its bold front to the ocean, while to the southeast the land rose again to the more rounded Fort Hill, anciently Corn Hill, once the site of an Indian fort. Within the deep curve of the coast the bay pre sented a spectacle of great beauty, its broad surface dotted with an hundred verdant islands, its waters sheltered by the surrounding hills, Avooded to the THE PEAR-SHAPED PENINSULA 323 banks. Beyond the wider circle of the Boston basin the bold outlines of the Cheviot Hills, called by the natives the Massachusetts or Mount Arrow Head, and the ridges of the Wellington Hills extended irregularly from Waltham towards Cape Ann, on the north. At the base of Beacon Hill the Quinohequin, the river already renamed for his princely patron by Captain John Smith, made the last deep curve of its tortuous course and joining briefly with the Mystic, which embraced the upper side of Mish awum, the two mingled their waters and flowed together to the sea. Blaxton's house, a picturesque cottage, set in a rose garden, stood at the base of the hill in a wide glade studded with great detached forest trees, a natural park of about fifty acres. Its exact loca tion has been variously described, but identified with a fair amount of certainty as situated on the present Beacon Street, between Charles and Spruce streets, Avith the grounds set doAvn in Bur giss' map of 1728, as Banister's Gardens. The whole neck of land, containing over seven hundred acres and four miles in circuit, he considered his own. When Governor Winthrop and his colonists ac cepted Blaxton's invitation to move over to his 324 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND domain he was less disturbed since their first settle ment was a few cabins on the eastern declivity at the foot of a hill which fronted towards the sea. This locality was preferred because of its proximity to CharlestoAArn and the dwellings of those settlers Avho had declined to cross the river. The hermit of Shawmut drove no hard bargain with the colonists who Avere ultimately to oust him from his peaceful possessions. The peninsula ap pealed to them as a place of settlement because of its advantageous situation for commerce and de fence, despite the fact of its abrupt, irregular sur face, its marshes, and uncompromising, sterile soil. On September 17, 1630, John Winthrop convened the "court of assistants" and it was decided that " Trimountaine shall be called Boston." The Lady Arabella and her husband Isaac Johnson were pre sumably honoured in this name, borrowed from old Boston, in Lincolnshire, England, from which they came and in whose parish John Cotton was still preaching. The Lady Arabella was already dead in Salem, as we know, and her husband, of whom much had been hoped in the colony, lived but a few days to enjoy the compliment conferred upon him. Blaxton was admitted as a freeman to the colony in 1631. Two years later fifty acres near his house on the slope of the hill, were set apart for his use THE PEAR-SHAPED PENINSULA 325 forever; but in another year's time he relinquished all but six acres of this property in a general re lease of the Avhole peninsula. These forty-four acres he sold for £30 to the community for a train ing field which now comprises the Common. The six acres of his immediate occupation formed later the estate of the painter, Copley, and are approxi mately bounded by Beacon, Walnut, Pinckney, and Charles streets. His separate tastes did not long permit Blaxton to suffer the invasion of his solitude, and in the spring of 1635, he abandoned his farm, his house, and his orchards, and, penetrating into the wilder ness of Rhode Island, reestablished himself about six miles from Providence, on that part of the Pawtucket River which afterwards bore his name. That he profited somewhat by his sojourn amongst the Winthrop colonists is judged from the record of his marriage, in Boston, in 1635, to Mistress Sarah, Avidow of John Stevenson, Mr. Endecott officiating, and the rumour that they lived happily ever after. . Blaxton lived to be eighty years old, and died in 1675, one month before the outbreak of King Philip's War, in which his Rhode Island house was burned and his library of one hundred and sixty volumes and ten manuscripts destroyed. Roger ,±Z A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND Williams, his neighbour, reported his death to the Boston colony. In the inventory of his estate the manuscripts were valued at sixpence each, or five shillings for the lot — priceless Americana contain ing, it has been conjectured, the earliest written records of Boston. William Blaxton was a singular and picturesque figure of these early times, standing out in passive opposition to the upheavals and violence of those who forced association upon him and retreating always rather than take part in the stress of his day. To-day we should perhaps have called him a pacifist, but in no unkindly sense. The figure of the bull persists and he is pictured as riding this clumsy beast in his new abode, cultivating a two hundred acre estate, and preaching the gospel oc casionally. No monument has been reared to his memory; but, besides the riArer, a valley, a town in Massachusetts, and a street in old Boston are called for him and save his name from complete oblivion. CHAPTER XIV BEACON HILL Beacon Hill^ the name indeed justified by the physical fact of the existing, though greatly dimin ished sugar loaf of the ancient descriptions, main tains its identity, as a locality, as Ludgate Hill, in London, is remembered by the name of the street which runs over its site. Guarding the Common, its pinnacle culminating in the effulgent dome of the classic State House — Bulfinch's charming master piece — at seems to mark, for all the westward spraAvl of the growing younger city, the expansion of the metropolitan circuit, the very central point of interest for loiterers; while the mellow, glowing dome of the historic edifice so dominates a prospect, from whose every point it is radiantly visible, as almost to justify Holmes' cheerful boast that: " Boston State House is the hub of the Solar System." Yet " Boston," says a chiding phrase in a book, "has been too much presented in the garb of her past." It is in a spirit of chastened contrition, then, 327 328 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND and in the face of this overAvhehning fact of the golden dome refuting sublimely while one argues, that one gives up too insistent a dwelling upon the past of a city whose present pulse beats vigorously in a regenerate system towards progress, develop ment, and growth. The phrase in the book sticks in the memory: it pictures Boston as a vital, young city, suffering from the repeated emphasis which most Avriters haAre laid and continue to lay upon its early history, upon its quaintness, upon its literary associations, ignor ing its fabulous out-reach into those active suburbs which combine with the city proper under the new name, "Metropolitan Boston" — Metropolitan Bos ton, including some forty-three cities and towns, comprising an area of about five hundred square miles, and a population of one and a half millions, making one great, homogeneous, industrial unit. We have seen in northern Italy, even in Venice itself, a much more acute form of the same con dition — the vitality of a city struggling against tradition, against the cramping plausibility of the aesthetic forces, which, while holding to the charm and elegance of a more or less glorious past, op erate towards stagnation in the life and normal evolution of the people and the place. Boston has felt something of this hampering influence. Aid BEACON HILL 329 looked at from a certain point of view one becomes almost sympathetic with the healthy, vigorous de nial of every factor but the present moment, stripped of its traditions and free to arrive at a glory that may be vastly different but that shall be all its own. The changes that have come to Boston have been more extraordinary in their way than those which have affected New York — its growth has been perhaps more phenomenal, its conditions rendered peculiar and in a sense unwieldy because of the out standing characteristics of the Puritan colony still operative, as it would seem, in their fullest sense. The whole region now roughly included in the term Metropolitan Boston was originally sprinkled with small settlements, many of them contempo rary with Boston town, but separate and distinct from it and from one another, and each a political unit in itself. These became populous and ex panded until their boundaries coalesced. Yet many of them, most of them, persisted as independent communities, refusing to become absorbed in the logical way of cities, preferring to be villages and towns; sometimes, as in the case of Brookline and Cambridge, almost completely surrounded by the territory of suburban Boston proper, and in some cases much nearer, actually, to the heart of the old 330 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND town than several districts included in the city limits. While such curious conditions exist in some other large cities, Boston presents the most conspicuous example of the kind, and it is for this reason that the census reports give so false an idea of the actual or virtual size and population of the New England capital. While New York was able a few years ago to add to its census report the population of the whole of the adjacent large and populous city of Brooklyn, and to increase its area to ten. times its original size by the simple annexation, of four contiguous boroughs, Boston's expansion has not only been almost entirely by the laborious process of redeeming marshes and mud flats, and making land, but in the early days of the eighteenth century the town suffered actual losses of territory. In 1705, part of Boston, called Muddy River, was established as Brookline; in 1739, Winnissimet, Rumney Marsh, and Pullen Point withdrew and became a separate entity under the name of Chelsea. These numerous smaller cities and towns which surround Boston and which depend upon the me tropolis commercially and industrially as the centre of their activities and interests, hedge and block her territorial expansion within an artifically restricted area of only thirty-eight square miles; while the BEACON HILL 331 population, of which she is the central attraction and raison d'Stre, she has, owing to her inability to provide space for its accommodation, been obliged to present, as who shall say, to swell the reckoning of these surrounding districts, meanAvhile holding her own down to a mere eight hundred thousand. Cambridge alone would, if annexed contribute one hundred thousand to Boston's total, and Brookline, with thirty thousand more, would be a valuable addition as " the richest town in the world," a super lative that is everywhere conceded. It is the fancy to describe Boston in four zones, classified with precision by the arrangement of its water areas. The very heart or centre, the kernel of the nut, is the concentrated business centre — the core, shall we say, of the warty pear? Tangled and complicated by the oldest streets, opened some what by the great fire of the early seventies, yet still odd and crazy enough in all conscience; with blind alleys, with artful inequalities made equal by short flights of steps leading from street to street, with strange backways for the knowing ones, con taining the choicest remnants of Boston's first century — who could not love a thing so full of whimsies, character, personality? The skin of the kernel — to choose the adaptable figure — adhering closely as is proper, is formed of 332 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND the three areas named in the favourite New English fashion, for as many points of the compass — the North End, the South End, and the West End, distinctions clearly and succinctly made and in most common parlance by the townsfolk, so that not to master them is to be without command of current speech. Across bridge and ferry is the shell of Boston, the three maritime suburbs — Charlestown, East Boston, and South Boston. South Boston must be understood as quite separate and distinct from the South End; in the days of the original peninsula it used to be styled Dorchester Neck. And without the whole lies the husk or fourth zone which includes the truly suburban districts of Dorchester, Hyde Park, Roxbury, West Roxbury, and Brighton. Quite apart from all of these divisions is yet another section — the stronghold of the great tra dition, the last foothold of so-called fashionable life, driven from the Hill to South Boston, from South Boston to this extent of made territory fab ricated from the mud flats of the Charles River basin. This Avas one of the most important as well as one of the most lucrative improvements made to Boston. In the early part of the last cen tury the Back Bay was an expanse of water and marsh extending from the foot of the Common to THE COMMON AND BEACON STREET. PHOTOGRAPH BY HELEN MESSINGER MURDOCK. BEACON HILL 333 the uplands of Brookline, and from the Charles River to the Boston neck, that narrow strip of land over which at times the tides met and flowed. The movement was instigated by Uriah Cotton, who in 1814, organized and incorporated the Boston and Roxbury Mill Corporation, whose mill dam fol lowed what is now practically the line of Beacon Street between Charles Street and Sewall's Point, Brookline. A roadway built along the mill dam and called Western Avenue, later became the pres ent continuation of Beacon Street. The construc tion of this dam had another potent effect upon Boston, it brought the first recorded importation of Irish labour, the nucleus of the Irish colony, which, rooting easily, was later to dominate, po litically, the town. The actual filling in of the Back Bay for resi dential purposes was done between 1857 and 1894, and added nearly six hundred acres to the city. At the outset of the work Charles Street marked the line of the river, and the Back Bay ran along the foot of the Common; covered the Public Gar den, crossed Park Square, approached the shore line of the South Bay near Washington Street — the original road over the Neck — and after fol lowing its course for a distance wandered back to the uplands of Brookline. 334 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND The Charles River basin occupies the centre of the park systems of both Boston and the Metropoli tan district, including Cambridge, and from it grows that chain of parks which is Boston's pride. As early as 1903, its banks were dedicated to this purpose, while previous to that time " Charles- bank" — that stretch of park along Charles Street between the dam and the Cambridge Bridge — had been created and set apart by a strong sea wall as the first part of the then projected Charles River Embankment. The whole of this part of the embankment which lies at the base of Beacon Hill is built upon what was formerly West Cove, and most of the material used for its filling in came easily from the destruc tion of the nearest of the three original peaks of the Tri-Mountain — West Hill, Copley's Hill, or Mount Vernon, as it was styled according to its several proprietors. A sea wall had been built along the line of the Charles River, west of the present line of Brimmer Street, which facilitated the reclamation of these flats; as the hill was cut down it was readily dumped into the space between the sea wall and the shore line. The operation lasted during the greater part of the last century and was not completed until 1894, or thereabouts. The section thus made added about eighty acres to BEACON HILL 335 the area of Boston and reached from Beacon Street to Lowell Street, or from the Common to the North Station. Part of the work Avas carried on as part of the enterprise of the "Mount Vernon Pro prietors," the successors to the Blaxton-Copley estate. Across the river, on the Cambridge side, a long stretch of flats has been recently reclaimed and im proved by the erection of the handsome classic buildings of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech nology. It has been amusingly said that the new " Tech" does not abandon its native soil in moving across the river from Boston, since the made land upon Avhich it stands consists of the excavations from the Boylston Street Subway. When the embankment was completed the public seemed loath to avail themselves of its beauty and in order to bring it before their attention the mayor of Boston had the national fetes celebrated there in stead of upon the Common, as is again customary. At the same time the Beacon Street dAvellers re sented this intrusion upon the sacred privacy of their outlook, Avith true Boston reserve. Even now the possibilities of the esplanade seem only to have been touched upon. But one meagre tea-house, of the stand-up-and-get-it-over type, is to be found throughout its entire length, which might be made 336 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND so charming with pavillions and terraces where tea and ices and cold drinks — "tonics," as they quaintly call them — might be enjoyed in the true Parisian fashion on spring and summer afternoons and evenings. If the householders in Beacon Street refused to enjoy the prospect of a scheme to egayer their rear view they as bluntly declined to contribute any charm to the somewhat dreary expanse that their own dark red and intensely stupid houses present to the loiterer upon the river or the pretty esplanade to Avhich they turn a cold, forbidding shoulder. It must be said that the colour of this modern brick resembles nothing so much as the exposed outside cuts of roast beef that have long lain upon the butcher's block awaiting custom, and here upon the uncompromising backs of the fashionable houses of the Back Bay, are no mitigating growths of vines or ivy, to drape their unseemliness. On the other hand the Tech buildings, so hand some in their standard fashion, seen close at hand upon Cambridge soil, fail of really effective com position from the distant view. Erected entirely of concrete, they have, from across the water, an indescribably chill sense of unrelieved smoothness, of cold, rigid horizontals. They have more the effect of models of buildings than a realization of a BEACON HILL 337 living, breathing university, teeming with the vi tality of youth and vigour. Yet the new Tech furnishes all the essentials lacking in the old buildings only recently vacated on Boylston Street. William Welles Bosworth was the architect; he conceived the problem as a scheme of courts, with the main one opening to wards the water to receive the full benefit of the southern sun, always a consideration in this climate. A dome over a portico at the north end of this court emphasizes the character of the group, the whole so planned that the various departments may be reached under a continuous roof, and with all the workshops in the rear, where future expansion may be free and service from the railroad near at hand. The architectural character of the buildings is simple to the point of severity, the classic standard has been followed in its utmost purity, but the vast- ness of the area covered — the main building is one ninth of a mile in length — calls for a greater gen eral elevation and a more important culmination than is offered by the low dome. Very charming vistas of these buildings may be had from the de scent of Pinckney and Revere streets, where the mass piles to better advantage ; but when seen from directly across the basin the ensemble is flat and unrelieved. The Charles River even at this point 338 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND is too turbulent a stream to reflect the architecture, as a placid lake Avould have done to its great ad vantage, an effect doubtless counted on to increase the apparent height. It is noAV planned to intro duce a pool of Avater within the main court itself, Avhich Avill reflect the building very beautifully and contribute to its charm. It seems rather a perverse bit of Puritanism to have coupled the people's playground Avith the county jail, that handsome granite structure with the cupola which borders Charlesbank, at the cor ner of Cambridge Street, keeping, as it Avere, guard upon the diA^ersions of the inhabitants of the north slope of Beacon Hill, Avho take great pleasure in their breathing spot. The expansion of the Massachusetts General Hospital has almost completely walled in a dis tinguished old building, the nucleus of the group, built by Charles Bulfinch, in 1821. One has to walk through Fruit Street, past the jail and on beyond the modern brick additions to the original plant, before discovering through the grill of the gateway to the garden, the fine mellow portico of Ionic columns and the shapely dome, Avhich appeal at once as identifying the object of one's quest. Chelmsford granite is the amiable material, a stone of Avarm colour and delightful quality ; it was pre- BEACON HILL 339 pared for use, the old descriptions say, by the con victs of the State Prison. Though the perfect symmetry of the edifice has been hurt by the extension of the wings and altera tions to the pediment, made two years after the architect's death, the solid masonry and dignity of the portico, its simple columns Avith their graceful capitals partially covered with ivy, as well as the odd character of the roof, with its four terminal chimneys, mark this sequestered building as one of the handsome features of the early city. When built it stood on a small eminence open to the south, east, and west, the beautiful hills which surround Boston were seen from its every part, while the grounds on the southwest were Avashed by the waters of the bay. There is still an extensive bit of the old, ample garden, and a large luxuriant tree spreads protecting branches across the left of the composition as seen from the gateway, and fresh, green iA^y clambers upon the foundations and columns. The institution, next to the Pennsylvania Hos pital, is the oldest of its kind in the country, having been founded in 1799, and opened for patients in 1821. It stands upon what was formerly Prince's Pasture, purchased by the incorporators, in 1817, and on the Fourth of July, 1818, the cornerstone 340 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND of the Bulfinch building was laid with impressive ceremonies. McLean Street which runs at a right angle to the grounds on the north side, preserves the name of one of the chief benefactors. At about the time of the first alterations the operating theatre, situated under the dome, be came famous as the scene of the first public demon stration of the use of anaesthetic in operation. Sul phuric ether was employed and October 16, 1846 has since been recorded as Ether Day. Beacon Hill, like a shapely beehive, its summit capped by the golden dome of the State House, its western slope relieved by the excellent spire of the Church of the Advent and the earlier brick house of worship on Mount Vernon Square, pre sents the really chic note to the view from the waters of the Charles River basin. Each street, its earthway distinctly visible from base to summit from the esplanade, has its peculiar allure, but Mount Vernon Street appeals especially as the most Avayward of those which mount directly towards the crest. The quaint old meeting-house, which juts out of line at the corner of Charles Street, its tenure im minently threatened by the radical improvements on foot in this quarter, was built in 1807, by the third Baptist Society of Boston and so occupied BEACON HILL 341 until 1877 when the society merged with the First Baptist Church, now on Commonwealth Avenue. At this time the free negro settlement occupied the "dark side" of the Hill, the north slope below Myrtle and Revere streets, where before and after the Civil War had been the centre of anti-slavery agitation. The hill dAvellers of the south side fol lowed the New England tradition of ignoring Avhat displeased them, and between the smug complac ency of the sunny side and the dark border of pathetic squalor and tragedy the line was sharply drawn, as it is indeed drawn to this day against the unfortunate foreigners who struggle for foot hold there. Men there are who remember class riots between the boys of both camps, in which the little blacks were always routed and sent back to their own side to seethe in sedition against the upper hand of " respectability," and the seeds of abolition and anti-slavery were nurtured in these steep, crowded streets of the inhospitable hive. A little brick meeting-house in Smith Court which ran out of Belknap Street (now Joy) about half way down the swift descent below Myrtle Street, was the refuge of a small band of agitators who had been barred from the privileges of Faneuil Hall, on a cold night in January, 1832, and here in the school-room of the small negro church was 342 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND organized the New England Anti-Slavery Society whose Avork was to effect so much. Here on this occasion Garrison spoke his remarkable prophecy: " We have met to-night in this obscure school-house; our numbers are feAv and our influence limited ; but mark my prediction: Faneuil Hall shall ere long echo Avith the principles we have set forth. We shall shake the nation by this mighty power." Its detachment from its environment marked by the character of the simple, substantial building, with its long, rounded windows, the house has jiassed to the use of the present residents of the quarter as a JeAvish synagogue, and an inscription, in Hebraic characters, on the end wall towards Joy Street, calls attention to its present service. A marble slab on the north front commemorates the activities of Cato Gardner, an African native who raised a considerable part of the money for the erection of the church and by his enterprise inspired others of the congregation to do the same. A com mittee of white men AAras invited to superintend the building, completed and dedicated in 1806. When the Baptists gave up the Mount Vernon Square church they sold it to the leading African Methodist Episcopal congregation of Boston, and the pretty old building Avith its stopper-like steeple, many of its features suggesting Bulfinch designs, BEACON HILL 343 became known to the witty ones, for obvious rea sons, as the Ink Bottle, and when service was over and the congregation began to disperse, it was the waggish fashion to say that the Ink Bottle had up set. Part of the land for this church the Baptists pur chased by subscriptions to the undertaking and part was given by the Mount Vernon proprietors. The house is handsomely constructed of brick, seventy- five feet square, exclusive of the tower, on which is a cupola with a bell, the first used by a Baptist society in Boston. This bell rings the hours with a thin, brazen timbre delightfully suggestive of old times and old places. Its voice sounds the pitch of this picturesque locality. If the Technology buildings across the river lend charm to the prospect as one descends Revere or Pinckney streets, from the brow of the hill, the old coloured meeting-house in its widened setting, im parts a still rarer quality to the view from the whole extent of Mount Vernon Street — perhaps the most beautiful vista in Boston ¦ — beautiful be cause it is so absolutely unimpaired by any modern intrusion. The chain of gardens before the houses on the north side of the way lead sweetly down to the discreet retirement of Louisburg Square, its line of Boston dwellings, with bowed fronts, looking out upon the exclusiveness of the railed enclosure 344 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND of green, saturated with an atmosphere of the Old World. Above the square the pitch of the hill de clines abruptly into the disorder of Charles Street, at which point a divergence to the left throws the old church into prominence, its tower silhouetted against the spire of the Church of the Advent. Louisburg Square is described as the site of Blaxton's famous spring, as Avell as his orchard. In 1834 it was enclosed and given its present name to commemorate the capture of the French for tress during the French and English wars of the eighteenth century. The position of Louisburg upon Cape Breton Island, commanding the en trance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, gave the town great importance in war time. The whole island had been secured to the French by the peace of Utrecht in 1713, and the French government erected a formidable fortress enclosing and com manding the excellent harbour, making it the chief stronghold of France in America, using it as a rendezvous for their fleets and privateers. The port became an ever threatening danger to the NeAv England fishermen on the Banks on ac count of which, in 1745, Governor Shirley of Mas sachusetts induced the colony to undertake the re duction of the post. An escort of one hundred NeAv England vessels accompanied Colonel Wil- BEACON HILL 345 liam Pepperell in command of 3,600 men, mostly from Massachusetts, and joining a British squad ron under Commodore Warren, the undertaking was accomplished. Three years later, by the terms of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Louisburg again reverted to France, but in 1758 the toAvn Avas re captured by a large force under General Amherst and Admiral BoscaAven. Under French dominion Louisburg Avas a flour ishing centre for the fisheries, but as an English province it has deteriorated into a mere stopping place for steamships. The form of Boston, said an ancient writer, is like a heart, built within a cove or bay which lies between two strong hills on the sea and overtopped by a third forming natural facilities for fortifica tion. The hills which OArerlooked the sea were Avell guarded by artillery and battery, Avhile up upon a third stood a beacon and "lowd babbling guns," to give notice "by their redoubled echo to all their sister townes." The three hills referred to Avere Copp's Hill, Fort Hill, and Sentry or Beacon Hill. The high est peak of the latter rose one hundred and thirty- eight feet above the level of the sea; the rugged bluffs of Fort Hill stood eighty feet high; and Copp's Hill, a level plain upon its summit, Avas 346 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND fifty feet above the water. Except for the three oldest burying grounds of the town, a fe\v ancient buildings and some narrow streets in the North End, the Boston of its first century has been ob literated ; its topography has been completely trans formed. Fort Hill, its locality recorded by the curve of Franklin Street, while Fort Hill Square holds the name, was levelled off between 1866 and 1872; Copp's Hill has been much modified, though easily identified by the cemetery which marks its site; while Beacon Hill lends its name to a well- defined district or neighbourhood. The golden dome of the State House, in which the beauty of the Common, the Garden, the whole peninsula culminates, marks a point but little higher than Avas the original crest of the Tri- Mountaine, as seen from the Charlestown settle ment, or in the days of the colony and town. The tip of the hill was levelled off and dumped sum marily into the old Mill Pond, which appears upon the early maps, as an important contribution to the soil needed for its filling in. The summit of the original hill was level with the rail at the base of the State House dome. Beacon Hill was the centre of the three peaks of the original "mountain." Pemberton Square, Louis burg Square, and the State House Extension oc- BEACON HILL 347 cupy the approximate localities of these peaks. At Pemberton Square was Cotton Hill, named for the famous Colonial preacher, John Cotton, who resided near it in a house given him by the youth ful governor of Massachusetts, Sir Harry Vane. At Louisburg Square was Copley's Hill, or West Hill, comprising part of Blaxton's lot. The highest peak of the mountain was found immediately useful to the early settlers as a look out, and was from this use called Centry or Sentry Hill, until 1635, when a beacon was set upon it to signal the adjacent towns in case of danger. The beacon was a primitive affair, described as a tar barrel elevated upon the top of a mast. Occasion ally replaced, it kept watch for generations on the summit of the hill, until 1789, when, being blown over by a storm, Charles Bulfinch, then a youth just returned from a tour of England, France, and Italy, designed the monument of which a recent copy marks approximately the original site. The Bulfinch design consisted of a column of the Roman Doric order, built of brick, covered with stucco, with foundation and mouldings of stone, the shaft crowned by a gilded eagle, carved in wood, supporting the arms of America. Instead of bear ing aloft the danger signal in time of war, it bore 348 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND inscriptions to commemorate " that train of events which led to the American Revolution, and finally secured liberty and independence to the United States." With the demolition of the top of Beacon Hill went the destruction of the column, interest ing not only as an early work by a celebrated architect, but as the first public monument erected to commemorate the events of the Revolution. The eagle, or a copy of it, was placed over the presi dent's chair in the Senate Chamber of the State House and the tablets were cared for by being set in a corridor wall. When the present monu ment was erected, casts of them were inserted in place. This monument was the first of the improve ments Avhich were to transform Beacon Hill from a state of almost pristine simplicity to the abode of substantial elegance. Until about the time of the Revolution the hill was largely noted as the resi dence of tAvo country gentlemen — John Singleton Copley, the painter, and Thomas Hancock, a wealthy merchant. Beacon Street was a lane which led past their estates. At the head of the lane — a tablet marks its site — stood, until 1863, the famous Hancock mansion, built in 1737, of Braintree boulders, squared and hammered, with old freestone trimmings. Thomas Hancock Avas a natiAre of PORTRAIT OF JOHN HANCOCK, BY JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY. OWNED BY THE CITY OF BOSTON. BEACON HILL 349 Braintree, and he chose the stone of his locality for the material of his sumptuous dAvelling. His house was the first building in New England to be built of granite, for King's Chapel was not built until 1749 ; it was typical of the style of its period and in its day quite the feature of the town, standing well back within a garden, enclosed by a stone wall, topped by a wooden fence, and thickly planted with shrubbery and trees. The house passed from its builder to his nepheAV, John Hancock, the goArernor. Before 1770 Copley had purchased twenty acres or more bordering the Common, betAveen Walnut Street and the water. Failing to foresee the destiny of the hill, the painter consented to sell to the Mount Vernon proprietors his estate for a mere fraction of its value when he left Boston to take up his residence in London. Finding the value of the land enormously increased by the project of the new State House, he sent his son, Lord Lyndhurst, to this country to claim restitution; but all efforts to recover an adjustment failed, and the younger Copley, in 1796, executed a deed of the property to Jonathan Mason and Harrison Gray Otis, a rising young lawyer and politician. Otis built upon part of the land secured from Copley that extremely characteristic square dwelling, with a 350 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND cupola, half-way doAvn Mount Vernon Street on the north side. It stands back in a garden with entrances on the two sides. A wide carriage way leads back to a paved court with an interesting wall fountain, quite palatial in character. The Society for the Preservation of New Eng land Antiquities has recently acquired the first of three mansions which Harrison Gray Otis built for himself on Beacon Hill. It stands retired behind a row of modern shops on Cambridge Street, and may be seen from the whole descent of Hancock Street as one goes towards the North Station. It was built in the same year as the State House, and its interior woodwork, much of it remarkably pre served through a century of changing ownerships, makes its second story drawing-room one of the handsomest in Boston. The house had ample grounds, outbuildings, and stables, and must have ranked well in its day. Its restoration disclosed many samples of old wall paper uncovered in the course of repairs, including two with landscape designs on the second floor. Otis was a very considerable figure in Boston in his day. He is described as a man of winning per sonality, keen intellect, and a gift of oratory which, coupled with the advantage of influential relatives and connections, made his rise quick and certain. BEACON HILL 351 He had the genius for money-making, and before he was thirty years of age was ready to build, upon this site acquired from his father-in-law, William Foster, this beautiful house. He had been admitted to the Suffolk bar in 1786, and soon became one of the leading lawyers in Boston. He speculated in foreign commerce, in western lands, in property in Maine and Georgia, and in local real estate. As a member of the Federal party, the gentleman's party of the time, he made his political debut, and by a remarkable speech in Boston's town meeting, in 1796, was able to sway a people, whose traditions were all anti- Federalist and Democratic, to an overwhelming vote of confidence in Washington's administration. Otis received instant recognition from his party and was appointed United States District Attorney and later member of congress. During the time that he spent in Philadelphia, in John Adams' administration, the Cambridge Street home became a summer residence where Mr. and Mrs. Otis dispensed a liberal hospitality to people of importance. In 1801, however, he gave up his seat and sold the mansion to Thomas Osbourne, betaking himself to the Mount Vernon Street house, already built. Six years later he erected his third town house, which stands, its ex- 352 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND terior practically unaltered, facing the Common.1 In this house he died suddenly in 1848. Meanwhile the town of Boston had bought from the numerous heirs of Thomas Hancock that por tion of his estate known as the governor's pasture, and Charles Bulfinch had been chosen architect of the new State House to be erected thereon. Sev eral old prints exist which show the relative posi tions of the State House and the Bulfinch monu ment behind it, standing perilously upon the brink of the ragged remnant of the hill as it underwent excavation for the filling in of the Mill Pond. The two bore each other company until 1811, when the town sold the land on which the monument stood, and it Avas taken down and the hill destroyed. Bulfinch Avas born in Boston in 1763, and Avas therefore thirty-two years of age when he received the commission for the designing and building of the Boston State House. This was shortly after his return from Europe, AA'here he had spent some years after graduating from Harvard, and he had already shown his ability by his treatment of the Franklin Crescent, a complete innovation in this country, founded upon the work of the Adam brothers, the fashionable Scottish architects, who, in 1768, had laid out the Adelphi Terrace in Lon- 1 No. 45 Beacon Street. BEACON HILL 353 don, showing a novel treatment of an entire block of buildings under one architectural scheme. The Franklin Crescent, with its long row of simple Colonial houses, broken in the centre by a more elaborate building which marked the entrance to Arch Street, stood practically intact until 1855, but was totally destroyed before the great fire of the early seventies, which gutted this old section of the city. At the time of the projection of the State House there were no buildings of any size or pre tensions in the country. A few public buildings of good taste stood, it is true, in New York and Philadelphia, but nothing approaching the style and pretensions of the Massachusetts capitol. Washington was in its incipiency, the National Capitol merely a suggestion in the minds of the planners of that city. It must therefore have been with the utmost pride and joy that young Bulfinch threw himself into the work of creating the building which was to stand out prominently amongst the features of its epoch. The extensive alterations which have disclosed and threatened its workmanship have shown the rare solidity and honesty of the execution; had it been otherwise the building would never have sur vived its experiences at the hands of unscrupulous 354 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND politicians, whose one great desire has been to do aAvay Avith the encumbrance upon Beacon Hill and replace it by a modern practical building. Their persistence has accomplished much, unhappily, yet the stand was taken at the acute moment [in 1895] when only the most urgent expressions of public opinion saved the historic edifice from complete demolition. The chaste exterior of the original State House, " a sort of Adam architecture of the noblest type," as Coleridge, the Lord Chief Justice of England, Avrote a friend in 1883, is readily distinguishable from the extensive marble wings of yesterday, which destroy the symmetry of the Beacon Street front, and the earlier extension, whose logical approach is from Bowdoin Street. The Bulfinch bijou is thus in a manner encased, dishonoured, overwhelmed by the bulk of the modern additions. While the choice relic speaks most eloquently and beautifully for itself, and has Avithin itself been most carefully and reverently considered, curiously enough a theme so fruitful has inspired no follower of the monumental work done by Mr. Glenn Brown for the National Capitol, and by Mr. I. N. Phelps- Stokes for the City Hall of New York, to produce a permanent and Avorthy record of the original treasures of the Massachusetts State House. THE NEW HALL OF REPRESENTATIVES STATE HOUSE EXTENSION. SHOWING THE SACRED COD IN PLACE OPPOSITE THE SPEAKER'S CHAIR. STATUE OF GEORGE WASHINGTON, BY SIR FRANCIS CHANTREY, LONDON, 1826. DORIC HALL, STATE HOUSE. BEACON HILL 355 The gilded dome offering itself as a glowing target for destroyers, it seems the more tragic that so little of technical description, of facsimile, or of photograph exists in safe portfolios to serve as record of the perfect taste and proportions of the building, of the details of mouldings and decora tions, in case of a disaster. Such photographs as exist fail utterly to give the true facts and beauty of the rooms upon whose execution Charles Bul finch spent his most loving care, thought, and workmanship. Of the laying of the cornerstone the annals of the town preserve a pretty picture. The stone, decorated with ribbons, was carried upon a truck, drawn to its place by fifteen white horses, each horse with a leader, and laid, on July 4, 1795, by GoA^ernor Adams, assisted by Paul ReA^ere, master of the Masonic Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. As completed by Charles Bulfinch, the State House was a red brick building with balconies on the north and south fronts. Its columns, pilasters, cornices, and cupola were of wood, painted white; its fascias, imposts, keystones, and lintels, white marble. Many of the details of the building are interesting. The shafts of the twelve Corinthian columns of the front portico are formed each from a single pine tree, and with one exception are still 356 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND perfectly sound. There is a tradition that the timber was seized by a Yankee coasting schooner off the Canadian shore, and that the enterprising captain brought his plunder to Boston, where it was assigned a conspicuous place on the first public building begun after the close of the Revolutionary War. Other authorities say that these trees used for the columns, together with the wood of which the cone on the "lanthorn " is carved, were brought from the shores of a lake in Maine, floated doAvn to Boston Harbour, carted to the hill and carved on the spot. One of the original columns has been replaced, and the newer substitute is built up in three sections about three inches thick, in the modern fashion. The dome was at first made entirely of wood, but in 1802, as a precaution against fire and the inroads of weather, it was sheathed with copper, purchased as the records show, from Paul Revere and Son. Originally the dome was painted lead colour, while the cone — still there — on the top of the lanthorn was gold, as now. Until 1825 the compact little building retained this aspect, then the bricks were painted white, while the colour of the dome was unchanged ; later the building was painted yellow with white trim mings; but it Avas not until 1874 that the dome was BEACON HILL 357 covered with gold leaf, while the white facade was restored to accord with the marble wings, added in 1915. Inside there is still much, despite the many dese crations of its original simplicity, to recall the in terior as Bulfinch conceived it when he returned fresh from Europe filled with the traditions of Palladio and the classic revival in England, under the Adam brothers. Doric Hall, upon which the central door opens, retains the spirit of its period. The iron and plaster columns, of the Doric order, are exact replicas of the wooden originals, taken out to make the in terior fireproof, and a marble pavement follows the original wood flooring. Lafayette was received here upon his visit to the country in 1824, and President Monroe was guest of honour at a banquet in this room in 1817, when he was so impressed by the new State House that he invited its architect to aid in the construction of the National Capitol, in Washington. The standing figure of Washington, in classic drapery, was made by Sir Francis Chantrey, an Englishman, in London, in 1826, and was given to the state in 1827 by the Washington Monu ment Association. It is a cold, formal piece of work; but the figure is chaste and dignified, and, 358 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND regarded purely from the standpoint of decoration, it makes a harmonious note in its niche opposite the main doorway. The execute chambers, on the third floor, stand as the choicest of their kind in the country. For design, proportion, decoration, and detail, and as rooms typical of their epoch, they compare faA^our- ably Avith rooms of a similar character in the old French palaces. They moved our English A'isitor, Coleridge, to enthusiasm for " perfect taste and proportion: every interspace the right size, every moulding right, every decoration refined." The Council Chamber is unspoiled, it bears every where the stamp of Bulfinch taste. Opposite is the chamber of the governor in the same style and equally effective. But these, handsome and dignified as they are, merely prepare the mind for the really glorious Hall of Representatives and Senate Chamber of the old times, occupying the central portion of the structure and the original east wir.g. The old Representatives' Hall is now the Senate Chamber, a magnificent room, fifty-five feet square and fifty feet in height, richly finished hi wood, painted white, and covered by an exquisite domed ceiling whose design and colour suggest the rarest Wedg- Avood, the most perfect hand embroidery of its BEACON HILL 359 epoch. This ceiling is a perfect circle, in the form of a gentle sloping segment of a sphere. In the centre are three concentric circles of varied orna ment — the centre marked by the heart of a flower, the bands of applied ornament alternating with an open-work design, pierced for ventilation. From this central motif the concave surface is marked in large, widening grooves, the base of each ter minating with a circle of ventilators of delicate rosettes in beautiful design, the whole surrounded by a wreath of garlands and draperies of leaves in applied modelling. At the corners, filling the spaces, are circles enclosing emblems of agriculture, etc., the whole of the ceiling ornaments and details of the balconies and other decorations are white against a dark note of cobalt blue, indescribably effective. The light from above comes from three oval windows in the back and front, this room occupying the entire central portion of the Bulfinch building, its lower windows opening upon the main balcony behind the Corinthian columns. Under these oval windows were opened the present little galleries in 1864. Over the north gallery, above the presi dent's chair, is perched a carved and gilded eagle, either the original or a copy of the bird which sur mounted the Bulfinch monument. It holds in one 360 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND claw the shield of the state, and from its beak flutters a ribbon with the inscription : " God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts." Upon the modern chandelier is fixed a metal fish to recall the original carved and painted " Sacred Cod," which during the time that this room re mained the Hall of Representatives hung opposite the eagle, suspended from the arch. When the new hall was built the representatives moved their emblem to the larger modern room, where it now hangs over the ladies' gallery, facing the speaker's desk. The Sacred Cod dates back to the days of the Old State House, certainly to 1773, when there is an entry on the records to show that Thomas Crafts, Jr., was paid fifteen shillings for painting it ; and again, in 1797, twelve shillings Avas paid to Samuel Gore for painting the fish before it was transported from the Old State House to the new. The same colour scheme is carried out in the old Senate Chamber, now the Senate Reception Room, in which Bulfinch completed his plan of a Doric interior. This room is thirty feet wide by sixty feet long, with a height to the top of the arched ceiling of thirty feet. This ceiling, quite as wonderful as that in the larger hall, is in the form of a canopy supported by columns and pilasters, running across BEACON HILL 361 the Avidth of the room, and leaving spaces at the two ends of the canopy, behind the pillars, where the ceiling is level Avith the capitals. The canopy is marked off into large squares bordered Avith hand some mouldings, the centres being composed of large, sumptuous, fully expanded lotus blooms, alternated with ornamental rosettes in the open work design, similar to those in the Hall of Rep resentatives. The exotic beauty of these two ceil ings is absolutely a thing to dream about. The handsome pair stand to prove the supremacy of Bulfinch, to justify his reputation as the greatest American architect of his epoch. Of the portraits of the governors which hang in this room, many of them upon hooks and nails driven into the pure woodwork of the pilasters, but one — that of Winthrop, attributed to Van Dyke(?) — is worthy of its setting, as an original canvas. Most of the others are copies. There are many documents of public interest in the State Library housed in the new building, but none of more thrilling suggestion than the origi nal Bradford manuscript, Of Plimoth Plantation, whose adventurous history has been dwelt upon in an earlier chapter. CHAPTER XV THE BULFINCH TRAIL Romantic Bulfinch associations crowd in upon the loiterer on Beacon Hill. Curiously little ac count is taken of them, but this only emphasizes their inherent savour as the " real thing." When Stuart was asked why he did not put his name to his portraits, he replied that they were signed all over, a statement that Bulfinch might have made regarding his houses on the Hill. By many small architectural tricks shall one know them, within and without — small tricks that bear out the larger evidence of graceful design and perfect proportion. There is such evidence as the character and beautiful mulberry tone of the hand-made bricks, laid in the Flemish bond, the bricks turned alternately lengthwise and crosswise to break joints neatly and give variety to the sur face; there is the still more important evidence of the " string course," a band of freestone which, running across the house, above the first story, ef fectively holds together the sills and entablatures of the same material ; and there is the charming de- 362 THE BULFINCH TRAIL 363 vice of the first-story windows recessed within shal low brick arches. The interiors have the Georgian dignity carried out in the best materials. Bulfinch used solid San Domingo mahogany doors with silver knobs, often mahogany balusters, newel posts, hand-rails; his mantels followed the severity of the London de signs, were scrupulously shallow in accordance with their original use, strictly as a ledge from which the cloaks, or mantles, were depended before the log fire. They show no frills, such as delighted the skill of Mclntire, the wood carver of Salem. His fireplaces, constructed of three solid pieces of free stone, have unmistakable character and draw to perfection. Almost the only detached mansion left in the old part of the city, the second dwelling of Harrison Gray Otis, on Mount Vernon Street, is one of the most beautiful of the authentic Bulfinch houses. The gray paint conceals the old mulberry colour but has not destroyed the texture of the bricks, and has itself taken on a bloom of age. The romantic ap peal of the house itself is heightened by a knowl edge that its architectural features preserve those of the famous Franklin Crescent, designed by Bul finch, and of which a few prints exist to speak for its elegance. The ornamentation of the facade is 364 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND similar, the Avindows of the loAver floor are set Avithin shallow recesses of brick; from the level of the second floor, bound by the string course, pilasters rise to the roof, and at the top is a balustrade. For Jonathan Mason, one of the Mount Vernon Proprietors, associated with Otis, Bulfinch built the three houses standing at the top of " Mount Ver non " — the name is thus cut in handsome lettering in the string course of Dr. Nichols' house, the cen tral one of the three, readily recognized by its en trance, which faces down Mount Vernon. When built this was a front entrance, meant to face Wal nut Street, which it was expected would be cut through, where it now stops short. Though the ex terior has been somewhat embellished and modified, the Nichols' house is in a very perfect state of preservation and presents most of the original fea tures as Bulfinch left it. In the rear are the large woodsheds, built to hold the bulky fuel for the open fireplaces through out the rooms, and these open upon a paved court in which may still be seen the arched outline of a covered passage in the old brick party-wall through Avhich the adjoining house had access to a deep well, the only source of water for both. When the project of continuing Walnut Street down the northern slope of the hill was abandoned, the ad- THE BULFINCH TRAIL 365 joining house, famous as the one-time residence of Charles Francis Adams, our ambassador to Eng land under Lincoln, which had also been built to face the cross street, found itself completely walled in on the western side, and dependent upon its left- hand neighbour not only for Avater from his well, but for a right of way to the street. In the final settlement of this predicament the middle house ceded a piece of its garden for an entrance and with drew the privilege of the Avell. The ornamental doorway and balcony of the Adams house are, of course, later additions, made when the entrance was changed from the old to the present front. Three old houses still standing at the top of Bea con Street, next to the State House property, were built by Bulfinch, while several others facing the Common, as Avell as a pair on the south side of Chestnut Street and a group of three very ancient ones on the north side, show how vigorously his influence was felt in the designs of the epoch. In its present state of cheerful decadence it is hard to imagine Bowdoin Square as ever having been a rather reserved and altogether substantial residential stronghold. The quiet streets that slope down to its centre, it is true, carry the traditions of the Hill and are more or less stately and imposing, despite their obvious obliquity. The one landmark 366 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND Avhich remains upon the square itself to fix its former elegance is the enlarged and altered resi dence of Kirk Boott, now the ponderous Revere House, built upon a large pasture, known as "Val ley Acre," owned by Mr. Thomas Bulfinch, the grandfather of the architect. Bulfinch was born across the way, in 1763, the site obliterated by that vastly uninteresting granitic mass that follows the curve of the square. Dr. Thomas Bulfinch, the father of the architect, had inherited from his father the large, wooden house, Avith a gambrel roof, of which a water-colour sketch is preserved in a private collection. This bears out the description of the homestead, a little withdraAvn from the street, with a row of Lombardy poplars in front, a gate, opening on a white marble walk, leading to the front door. The four-acre lot, in cluding the site of the Kirk Boott house, lay across the square on the slope of the hill, one of its boun daries recorded in the pleasant ascent of shady Bulfinch Street, with its cool brick houses, its bits of old balconies. The Revere House has pretty well outlived the prestige of having been the hostelry at which the " Prince of Wales " put up upon his visit to the city in 1860. It is said that Bulfinch built the orig inal dwelling, but I have been unable to verify the THE BULFINCH BUILDING, MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL. FROM AN ETCHING BY SEARS GALLAGHER. THE BULFINCH TRAIL 367 statement. At all events it must have undergone many changes from its original form, and the Kirk Boott house " as Avas " has been lost in the shuffle. The hotel still presides, however, with an air over the square, and in a large, theatrical way, announces its antiquity ; for its features, such as the great col umns which support the roof, the sleeping bronze lions upon the side porch, as well as the fluted columns within the imposing entrance, and the elab orate stair rails are a bit overdone. Bulfinch scarcely chose architecture as a profes sion, he rather drifted into it as a result of natural proclivities, a strong innate sense, quickened by some years of travel abroad, whither his father sent him, upon his graduation from Harvard. His father and his grandfather before him had had this experience, and seem to have considered it an indis pensable part of a young man's education. The little that is known of the younger Bulfinch's en joyment of his opportunity comes down through his letters. They speak briefly of his impressions of the great monuments of France and Italy, of visits to London and parts of rural England, where he had relatives. In Paris he had letters of introduc tion from Lafayette and Jefferson, but his time there appears to have been brief, while he made a tour of Italy in four months, giving his itinerary — 368 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND Genoa, Pisa, Siena, Viterbo, Rome, Florence, Bologna, Parma, Piacenzo, Milan, etc. The brief memoir which he left to his children enumerates Avithout giving his impressions of what he saw nor of what effect it may have had upon his future work, except as he remarks: " These pursuits did not con firm me in any habits of buying and selling; on the contrary, they had a powerful adverse influence on my AA'hole after-life." He returned to Boston in 1787 and for the next three or four years experimented, settling at noth ing definite to indicate the bent of his mind, until the success of the monument on Beacon Hill at tracted attention to his abilities. This, as we know, came down in 1811, and of the architect's other Avork, Avhich preceded the building of the State House, nothing now remains. He seems to have Avorked as an amateur until circumstances forced him to do otherAvise, and his plans of the Boston Theatre and the Holy Cross Church Avere gratui tous. The Boston Theatre, in recognition of his services, presented the architect with a gold medal bearing upon its face the design of the original front in relief. It was a detached building at the corner of Federal and Franklin streets, beauti fully graceful and appropriate in the classic style following the European models. The projecting THE BULFINCH TRAIL 369 centre, faced with four Corinthian columns support ing an entablature and pediment, was mounted over a plain basement with an arched entrance, flanked by a single square opening on each side. The order was carried over the whole front, pierced by three large Venetian windows in the principal story. These windows were provided with bal conies which gave a certain festal or gala air to the structure, suitable to its purpose. The medal en titled Mr. Bulfinch to a seat in the theatre during life, " benefit nights excepted." This theatre, built in 1793, was the first that Bos ton knew. A petition to open a playhouse pre sented to the legislature of 1790 had failed; a try- out of a performance in a stable, tAVO years later, was closed by the authorities; and it was not until the following year that a conveyance of land Avas made to the " trustees of the Boston Theatre," of which Mr. Bulfinch was one. The theatre opened with a performance of Gustavus Vasa, with Charles Stuart Powell, manager. Robert Treat Paine wrote the prologue. For a while, out of deference to those who opposed it, no performance was given on the evening of the week-day meeting. Only four years after it was built the Boston Theatre was destroyed by fire, and, in 1798, Bul finch rebuilt it after a much plainer design on the 370 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND same ground plan. This time he lavished his care upon the interior, which Avas described as of " un paralleled elegance." This theatre was part of a general improvement of Franklin Street opened by Bulfinch as one of the important thoroughfares of a new section of the city, built upon what had till lately been ToAvn Cove. Town Cove was the great indentation on the east side of the pear-shaped peninsula, which lay between the headlands of Copp's and Fort Hills. It was the port of the early Colonial toAvn, and reached inland to Franklin and Federal Streets, to Kilby and State Streets, to the present tangle of Dock Square. After Long Wharf was finished little was done to extend the city over Town Cove until 1780, when there was some further filling about Dock Square and at the foot of Merchant's Row. One of the early distilleries had occupied the site of the theatre, standing upon the marsh land par tially drained into a fish pond located upon the gar dens of a Mr. Barrell, whose estate Avas on Summer Street. Burgiss' map of Boston, in 1728, shows these gardens enclosed by Summer Street, Cow Lane, Long Lane (noAV Federal Street), and Bis hop's Lane, since changed to Hawley Street. The Boston Directory map for 1789 shows that no THE BULFINCH TRAIL 371 streets were as yet laid out in this region which Bulfinch and two associates planned to treat in a manner that was to make it one of the distinctive features of the city. The handsome curve of Franklin Street, pre served to this day, cannot fail to attract an obser vant loiterer, though the Avhole of the tontine block erected by the architect upon its southern side has been destroyed. Bulfinch designed this curve, en tering with enthusiasm into a scheme proposed to him by William Scollay and Charles Vaughan, who, in 1796, induced him to join with them, as his memoir says, " in the purchase of Mr. Barren's ex tensive garden and pasture ground," and projected a plan for building a row of houses in crescent form, which would give scope to his architectural ability and at the same time promised an alluring profit to his purse. Undeniably successful as architecture, the ven ture failed wholly as business, and resulted disas trously to Bulfinch, who, his partners failing him, risked everything to carry it to a conclusion. Bos ton was not yet ready to support so large a num ber of expensive dwellings; forced sales followed and Bulfinch found himself bankrupt, his personal integrity leading him to surrender all his property, including the dower of his Avife, so that, as he says, 372 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND he found himself reduced to his personal exertions for support. Up to this time he had been a dilet tante ; from now on necessity urged Bulfinch to be come a professional, and it is perhaps in a sense due to the failure of Franklin Crescent that he achieved so brilliant a success. From 1793 to 1855 the crescent stood intact, fol lowing the outer curve of Franklin Place, from HaAAdey to Devonshire streets. Though the idea was of English origin, it is rather interesting to note that Franklin Crescent seems to have ante dated anything of the sort actually carried out in London, the most prominent and familiar of these curves, Regent's Quadrant, not having been cut through the old streets above Piccadilly until after 1812. From the fact that a plan of two semicircles facing each other, with a park space in the centre, intended as a continuation of Portland Place, had been designed by the Adam brothers, and was in existence at the time that Bulfinch visited London, it has been argued that his so similar scheme was based upon that of the Scottish architects. The original design, as Bulfinch planned it, pro vided for two crescents, facing each other and enclosing an elliptical grass plot. The failure to obtain all the necessary land compelled the substi tution of a straight line for the northerly crescent, THE BULFINCH TRAIL 373 but the lower side was completed. It comprised sixteen three-story houses, built in pairs, the steps of each pair running sidewise to the street and meet ing upon a mutual railed landing over a high base ment. A handsome pair of old houses in Allston Street, of the same epoch, shows exactly this ar rangement of entrances, which in the long curved repetition must have been very effective. The pair of houses at each end was brought forward beyond the line of the others, as pavilions, and the central structure, intended as a repository for the Boston Library, took the form of an ornamental archway, and was carried higher than the rest by means of a Ioav attic, supported by columns and croAvned by a pediment. The favorite Venetian window occu pied the space between the central columns in the middle of the block, and a half -moon window, re peating the arch of the other, stood over it in the attic story. Under the columns was a wide cen tral arch for vehicles and two smaller passage ways for pedestrians; over the driveway hung for years the old sign, " Arch Street," to indicate the street to which it led. An excellent cut of the whole appeared in the Massachusetts Magazine, for 1794. An old print of Franklin Street, in 1855, brings out conspicuously the famous urn, within the en- 374 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND closure before the houses, given by Bulfinch as a memorial to Benjamin Franklin, who died at about the time that the street was laid out, and after whom the crescent was named. The Franklin Me morial, sometimes called "Franklin's Grave," figures largely in contemporary decoration, and is well known to collectors. Bulfinch's first church in Boston, long since de stroyed as too small for its congregation, was the Holy Cross, built for the Roman Catholic Cathe dral in 1803. It stood on Franklin Street, just below the crescent, and together with the theatre must have made this an imposing and consistent neighbourhood. The style of the cathedral, instead of folloAving the Wren type Avith the slender spire, was an adaptation of the Italian Renaissance model as made fashionable in England by that earlier architect, Inigo Jones. But Avith the Eng lish as well as the New Enghsh the steeple habit died hard, if it died at all, and popular prejudice demanded some compromise, so the high cupola or belfry came into vogue. There are three such churches left standing in Boston, all of the vintage of 1804-1806, and all of the same general type — the Charles Street Church, so prettily set at the foot of Mount Vernon, the old West Church, in Cambridge Street, now a branch THE BULFINCH TRAIL 375 of the Public Library, and the NeAv North, now St. Stephen's, at the foot of Hanover Street, near the East Boston ferry. Of these, the latter, built in 1804, follows most closely the architecture of the Holy Cross, and is the only church still standing in Boston known to a certainty to have been the de sign of Bulfinch. The building has been enlarged by extending the back Avail to the depth of three Avindows, a rain spout conveniently marks the join, and the interior has been much embellished to suit the present occupants, all the old Avoodwork either painted or destroyed, and an elaborate reredos placed against the Puritanical back wall to simu late an altar; but the old front walls stand un touched, presenting a brick facade, decorated with stone pilasters, a series of attic pilasters over them, a tower and a cupola, terminated by a handsome vane. The West Church, built in 1806, has sometimes been thought a Bulfinch design, but the newspapers of the day credit the plan to Asher Benjamin. Though no longer used for religious purposes, its setting has been so handsomely preserved by the library and the interior so scrupulously kept to its old purity, while the very clock, given by John Derby at its dedication, hangs, intact and going, upon the organ loft, that one may find much satis- 376 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND faction in loitering therein amongst the diligent readers of the neighbourhood. Early accounts of these churches are amusing. We read of the West Church that it was " congre gational," the typical New England generalization; that it received the Scriptures " as the only rule of faith and practice;" that (in 1829) "its present pastor stands aloof from the parties which divide the Christian world, and adopts no other name than Christian to designate its faith." The music is de scribed as " distinguished for its chasteness and skill." The New North was dedicated by a " con gregational society " considered to be " Unitarian in sentiment"; the Charles Street Church was or ganized by a "Baptist society." One understands better the logic of the appar ently paradoxical " NeAv Old South " to place the church on Copley Square, when one knows that there was built, in 1814, by Charles Bulfinch, as a finishing touch to the locality for which he had done so much, the New South Church, on Church Green, at the junction of Summer and Bedford streets. The church was built of the hammered Chelmsford granite, then coming into vogue, and partly on ac count of its fine masonry, but chiefly for its richness of design and interior, was considered the hand somest of Bulfinch's efforts in this line. Its oc- THE BULFINCH TRAIL 377 tagonal plan offered an amusing variety in con struction, and its portico of Doric columns, its stor ied steeple culminating in a lofty and graceful spire gave a new note of elegance to one of the older resi dential streets of Boston. Lined with handsome residences shaded by tall trees, Summer Street in those days presented the typical umbrageous vista of the New England town. The ground was high and level, and at the end of the street, beyond the church, could be seen the harbour. In 1868 busi ness having crowded out the old houses and dissi pated the congregation, the old church was demol ished. The fire of the early seventies obliterated every trace of its former character. The reconstruction of the Chickering house, on Tremont Street, according to an original Georgian design, gives a somewhat glorified hint of Colonnade Row, built by Bulfinch, in 1810, between West and Mason streets, facing the Mall. Though not treated with the formality of Franklin Crescent, this row of period houses, united in feeling by slen der pillars, supporting a line of shallow balconies with wrought iron railings, overlooking the Com mon, might have been a bit of transported London. A few of the brick fronts may still be selected as original, from the conglomerate mass of alteration and adaptation which has destroyed every vestige 378 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND of original architecture. If NeAv York named its Colonnade Roav "La Grange Terrace" after La fayette's home in France, Boston Avas not to be out done, and for a feAv years after the general's tour of America, this portion of Tremont Street was known as Lafayette Place, the name still remembered in Lafayette Mall that stretches southward on the Common from Park Street. Had Boston cherished all the work which this architect lavished upon the city, what a treasure of colonial architecture it would present! Al his youthful work was here, all his ancestry, associa tions, his interests, were with Boston. He was se lectman from 1789 to 1793, and chairman of the board from 1797 to 1818, and his popularity was such that, in 1815, towards the close of his long term of office, when he and tAvo others of the board failed of reelection, every elected member immediately resigned, and on a second trial Mr. Bulfinch and the others were reinstated by decided majorities. From 1818 to 1830 Bulfinch lived in Washington, as architect of the reconstruction of the Capitol, which had been burned by the British in 1814. When he returned to Boston he was an old man. His last conspicuous building was the State House, at Augusta, Maine, built after a reduced pattern of the Boston type. The most conspicuous differ- THE BULFINCH TRAIL 379 ence in the two buildings is in the cupola and pedi ment. The pediment in the latter is the full width of the portico and rests directly upon it, while the dome is low and flat, following more closely the model of the Massachusetts Hospital. Bulfinch died in Boston in 1844. His funeral was held in King's Chapel, and his remains were at first interred there in the ancestral tomb, but after wards removed to Mount Auburn. His monument in that cemetery is the historic stone urn which he himself gave to Franklin Place in 1795, a treasure that he had collected abroad. When the enclosure of shrubbery in which it had stood for years was removed the urn was returned to the architect's sons. CHAPTER XVI THE KERNEL OF THE NUT The Bulfinch trail is all but obliterated in Bos ton. The State House squeezed to its minimum of effect between dishonouring wings, backed by garish yellow brick additions; the charming old hospital dwarfed and hedged about by its up-to- date appendages ; Franklin Crescent destroyed, the Boston Theatre, the churches, the Boylston Mar ket, the McLean Asylum, at Somerville, and a score of other buildings gone in the path of modern development, — there is literally nothing of Bul finch's Boston, as it came from his hand, except a very few old houses, to substantiate the claim made for him as the most distinguished American archi tect of his day, the earliest native architect to leave his impress upon the little town. The Boston town into which Charles Bulfinch was born, in the third quarter of the eighteenth century, was a primitive little settlement, whose architecture was limited to a few modest " meeting houses " and a handful of colonial dwellings, of which the Hancock house, on Beacon Hill, was a 380 THE KERNEL OF THE NUT 381 noted example. Some of the finer buildings Avere the work of English architects — Peter Harrison had built King's Chapel — but, for the most part, men designed their own homes in these days, em ploying intelligent carpenters or housewrights for the building, frankly done with the materials at hand. When something beyond the ordinary was required, an ornate doorway, with fan and side lights and columns perhaps, was applied, with oc casionally handsome entablatures over the windows of one story to break up a bit the severity of the plain surface. The brick meeting-houses were exceedingly plain, though in excellent taste, all ornamentation having been lavished upon the steeples, often copied from the English models of Sir Christopher Wren, and added with considerable taste and skill. No par ticular record of such things was kept beyond the local tradition, and no particular credit was given to the builder, or housewright, who put them up Avith all simplicity. There is, for instance, a deeply rooted tradition in Provincetown, that the truly handsome spire, with its exquisite pineapple, of the old white frame church opposite the post office in that village, was designed by Sir Christopher (who died some j^ears before its erection), which is merely another way 382 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND of saying that it may have been made after his designs. Many of the early comers to Massachusetts brought the plans of their English homes Avith them, or at least, in building, reproduced their general style, altering only the pitch of the roof to shed the snow. Sometimes the interiors were brought over intact. In Plymouth the story goes that the old Winslow house, which stands at a shaded corner overlooking the harbour, was brought over bodily from England, and that, in setting it up, the builders misunderstood the plan and reversed the first and second stories, which accounts for the large, high ceiled rooms being on the second floor and the small chambers underneath. Paul Revere's house, in North Square, Boston, elaborately cared for in the picturesque squalor of its environment, was probably a typical dwelling of its class at the time that it was built, and it fol lows distinctly the English cottage style of its period. Even the Old State House, except for its ornate ends and delightful cupola, is a very plain, primitive structure Avhose architectural " features," in so far as the ends and cupola may be regarded as such, have the effect of applied decoration rather than integral parts of the design. Not far from Paul Revere's house, in Salem THE KERNEL OF THE NUT 383 Street, one of the oldest ways, near Copp's Hill, is the most ancient house of worship in Boston, de signed, as the records sslj, "after the manner of Sir Christopher Wren," and opened for service on December 29, 1723. This is Christ Church, com monly known as the North Church, though Avith out exactitude, as there were other meeting-houses bearing this designation. From the summit of Beacon Hill, over the mild elevation of Pemberton Square, or Cotton Hill, the way ducks down abruptly behind the Court House, or often through it, to Scollay Square, re- a ealing through Court Street an ingratiating vista of the Old State House, its white, storied cupola rising above the blackened bricks, against the soft gray of the new office buildings. With a choice of branching streets at the hubbub of Scollay Square, one selects Cornhill as the most rewarding in the matter of vistas, diving down again between the narrowing houses, pausing for amusement at " Franklin Avenue," an alley to the right, a pas sageway to the right, leading by a flight of stone steps to the lower level of Brattle Street, famous for its granite block forming the old Quincy House and adjacent restaurants. From the corner of Cornhill and Dock Square is revealed the old contorted kernel of the nut in 384 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND its most fascinating aspect ; streets run riot here in wildest confusion, and immediately Faneuil Hall, overhung by the immense height of the Custom House Tower, begins to dominate the prospect. It blocks the way in all directions, and from every crooked by-way poses graciously, turning its gold grasshopper vane in complaisance with every shift of a fickle wind, laying its copper green cupola now against the sky, again upon the smoke gray of the federal tower in enchanting variety — its very dor mers, round cylinders of verdigris, adding to its picturesqueness a character which is all of another time. The Bulfinch mark is upon it strongly, though we know that an earlier artist, Smibert, the English portrait painter, who came to this country Avith Peter Harrison and Dean Berkley, was its first architect, and that Bulfinch in his reconstruc tion treated the painter's model Avith reverence. From the point where Dock Square winds into Union Street the old Quincy Market, that extraor dinary Greek temple dedicated to the traffic of produce vendors, comes amazingly into the picture, just for a moment adding its compact bulk, its round flat dome, as weight and substance to the composition. The massive columns were brought from Chelmsford, through the Middlesex Canal, to the Boston Mill Pond, and through Mill Creek, PORTRAIT OF JOSIAH QUINCY, BY GILBERT STUART. MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS. THE KERNEL OF THE NUT 385 now coA^ered by Blackstone Street, to the town dock, near Faneuil Hall. The market stands as a monument to the first Josiah Quincy, in whose administration as mayor of Boston extensive im provements Avere made about Dock Square. Upon the new-made land the Quincy Market Avas built in 1825-1826, at the head of Long Wharf, while to its back door came the waters of the sea and the Hingham sailing packet. The streets round about are fragrant with de licious odours of wholesale fruits, vegetables, and flowers; every corner displays a fish or market house, a fruit or vegetable stall; lettuces, Boston market celery, radishes, bulge from stuffed barrels and crates piled upon the sidewalks, and the hoarse cries of the Italian and Jewish peddlers fill the air. Our route lies to the left, by Union Street, past the old Union Oyster House, well situated for prominence at the most salient part of the hand some curve, broken by the departure of Marshall Lane, allowing a last short cut in the course to Hanover Street, the great artery of the North End. Old London seems always close at hand in Old Boston, but nowhere, perhaps, so much to the fore as in this Oyster House, which has its history and looks it, for the bricks are of an ancient pattern, 386 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND the shingled roof is gambrel, and the shop windows, low and flat upon the street, look in upon white stalls of a century or more ago. One might fancy one's self in Soho. A last detail, Creek Square, an inlet to a tangle of alleys behind a quaint grog shop, one of the strangest bits of antiquated city, and then, just across Marshall Lane, from the corner of a dingy building, sticks half-way out upon the sidewalk the partially imbedded "Boston Stone." The stone, so goes the legend, was originally a paint mill, and was imported from England about 1700. It is hollow and within it rests the grinder. A well- known point in Marshall Lane, since 1737, the date inscribed on its face, it was sometimes used as a starting point for surveyors, and figures in old deeds. Salem Street lies diagonally across from the point where Marshall Lane emerges upon HanoArer Street after passing the Boston Stone. It leads off at a delightful tangent towards Copp's Hill, making several mild angles in its course, and figures as the characteristic pathway of the old quarter for many generations given over to the foreign immi grants in the first stage of their assimilation. The narrow sidewalk drives the pedestrian, perforce, into the street, itself distinctively European in THE KERNEL OF THE NUT 387 character, a street through which vehicles pass rarely. The North End has been called the crucible of the new citizen. The metal of one nation, the Irish, has passed through its fire ; the Italian is now going through the test ; while before the region is claimed for business, a third race seems likely to pass into the melting pot. Yankee families were the first occupants of these old clapboarded houses, many of them clearly of two centuries ago, where now swarms the Italian colony, in supreme possession. Half-Avay down, where Prince Street, anciently the Black Horse Lane, crosses Salem Street, at a point where the way turns and narrows, a typical old house is thrown into prominence. A bust of a famous Greek chemist stands over the entrance to the " Farmacia Roma," giving local colour to the street and establishing its Neapolitan flavour. Scarce has one begun to sense the proximity of historic things than a multitude of guides spring up from amongst the idle street urchins. Abandon ing their games or whatever, they attack the " fo- restieri " with all the manner of natives and abori gines, proceed uninvited, nay discouraged, upon a recital of all the doings of Paul Revere, his lanterns and his ride, relate the history of Copp's Hill, and 388 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND reel off at high speed the epitaphs in the old ceme tery in one long, monotonous tirade, almost wholly incomprehensible. One and all these children seem to have mastered the history of their locality and in a way appreciate and understand it. From the point where Salem Street narrows and bends to the right, the spire of Christ Church begins to dominate the view to the north. "Due to the bounty of Honduras Merchants " the steeple was added to the completed church in 1740, and long seiwed as a guide to mariners, standing as it did upon a considerable elevation. From the original spire, on the 18th of April, 1775, Robert NeAvman, the sexton of the church and Paul Revere's friend, displayed the signal lanterns which Avarned the country of the march of the British troops to Lex ington and Concord, Avhile Revere himself, in a boat manned by friends, made his way silently past the Somerset towards the Charlestown shore, Avhence he Avas to start upon his famous ride. The North End in the days of the building of the church, 1723, Avas an island, so made by a canal connecting the Mill Pond with the harbour. The Mill Pond in those days came close to the south extremity of Salem Street, and was reached by a bridge across the intersection of the present Han over and Blackstone streets. The cornerstone of THE KERNEL OF THE NUT 389 the little church near the summit of Copp's Hill was laid by the Reverend Samuel Myles, rector of King's Chapel, the original Episcopal Church in Boston and of which Christ Church Avas the first shoot. Episcopacy, as we know, was not tolerated by the first comers to New England, and two genera tions had passed before the Church of England gained any foothold here. In 1686 the Reverend Robert Ratcliffe, sent out by the Bishop of Lon don, instituted services at the Town House, and the people, it is said partly from curiosity, flocked to hear him. A church was organized at once, and two years later King's Chapel was built, nearly sixty years after the settlement of Boston. Still the feeling against anything verging towards papistry was too strong to alloAV a departure in the naming of churches such as the adoption of saints' names. The Puritans could think of nothing more original or more neutral, it would seem, than the points of the compass, the numerals, or the names of the streets upon which their meeting-houses stood, to distinguish them one from another, a stupid, characterless method, but one which suited their idea of plainness and simplicity. So set were they against any papistic tendency, that at one time a fine of five shillings was imposed upon any one 390 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND observing Christmas Day, and no days observed by the Church of England were recognized in the revised religion. In this manner the people, who had to have some religious fetes, came to exalt throughout New England Thanksgiving Day, a day of their own invention, and therefore perfectly innocuous. The first follower of the Church of England in Boston scarcely dared more in those early times, and so the name King's Chapel was selected for the little wooden edifice on the border of the Com mon. Erected in 1688 and enlarged in 1710, it soon proved inadequate to house the growing con gregation, and it Avas to relieve the situation that, in 1722, subscriptions were invited for the building of a new church in the North End. Amongst the contributors we find the name Peter Faneuil, the builder of Faneuil Hall. Meanwhile Timothy Cutler, the president of Yale College, was being converted to Episcopacy, which made him unpopular at New Haven so that he resigned his position, and sailing for England with several of his tutors, who were also converts, was ordained by the Bishop of Norwich. He re turned in time to accept the charge as the first rector of Christ Church, Avhich had been completed within the year 1723, following Wren's plan for BOSTON, OLD AND NEW. FROM AN ETCHING BY SEARS GALLAGHER. QUINCY MARKET AND THE FEDERAL BUILDING. THE KERNEL OF THE NUT 391 St. Anne's, Blackfriars. Above the brickwork was the tower of wood, built in sections and surmounted by a spire, this design attributed to William Price. The first spire was blown over in a gale in 1804, and the present reproduction was built in 1807, from drawings by Charles Bulfinch. While he made the spire somewhat shorter than the first, he is said to haAre treated the model with reverence, and to have preserved the same general character. The chief treasure of this delightful church is its famous peal of eight bells, the " first cast for the British Empire in North America," proposed by Gedney Clark, of Barbadoes, and from the foundry of Abel Rudhall, of Gloucester. An illuminating tablet within the church — the tablets throughout tell most admirably its history — relates that these bells were transported free by John Rowe the diarist, and that they proclaimed the repeal of the Stamp Act on the morning -of May 19, 1766, and the surrender of Corn wallis in 1781. As a matter of fact they were rung until the outbreak of the Revolution by a band of change ringers, of which Paul Revere was a member, and in later years they played their part in the reception given to Lafayette. When the steeple was restored the famous bells Avere, of course, rehung, and when lately the church 392 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND Avas renovated (1912) a representative from the firm of Abel Rudhall, of Gloucester, came over to repair and rehang the bells so that they should not be treated by alien hands. On Christmas and other festal occasions they are rung according to the impressive English manner by the Boston Guild of Change Ringers, a proficient association, quali fied by years of constant practice in England. This most interesting exhibition of skill is but little heralded and not too well known in Boston. The history of the peal is told by the bells them selves, each having an inscription around its crown, which makes a narrative. At the left of the chancel in a niche, made by covering the window through Avhich Newman crept after hanging the lanterns, stands an interesting old marble bust of Washington, presented to the church in 1815 by Shubael Bell, senior warden, and reputed to have been carved from a plaster bust, mentioned in the diary of Wilham Bentley as having been made by Christian Gullagher, of Boston, in 1790. The monument is called the first memorial to Washington erected in a public place ; Lafayette is said to have seen it upon his visit to the church in 1824, and to have praised it as more like the original than any portrait he had seen. THE KERNEL OF THE NUT 393 The four statuettes of cherubim, carved in wood, in front of the organ were presented to the church by Captain Gruchy, commander of the privateer Queen of Hungary, in the French and Indian Avar of 1746, who, as the tablet to his memory says, " in parlous times " took them from a French ship which was conveying them to a church at Montreal. These, together Avith two excellent oil portraits by unidentified painters which hang in the library of the church, are its art treasures. The unique feature of the library itself is that it remains to-day within the original building, while similar church libraries, such as that belonging to King's Chapel and the Old South, have been passed on to the Athenaeum and the Public Library. Amongst its chief treas ures is a Vinegar Bible presented to the church by King George II. This monarch gave also part of the beautiful communion service belonging to the church, but deposited with the Museum of Fine Arts. In 1912, under the rectorship of Bishop Law rence, the reconstruction of Christ Church was undertaken at a time when it was proposed to. turn it into a museum. The bishop turned all his influ ence against giving up the church, and Mr. Charles K. Bolton, senior warden, representing the rector, undertook the complete restoration of the church, 394 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND the alterations being carried out by R. Clipston Sturgis and Henry C. Ross. The exterior Avas restored to its original colour, for the church, following the fashion of remoter times, had been painted gray, and the north wall covered at an early date with clapboards to keep out the winter storms. Inside square pews had been made into long pews, and these Avere put back to the original shape and the central aisle restored, following the plan of the pews and the nail marks in the floor. The pews have all been marked with the names of the original owners, many of whom were sea-captains. A large window, known through Burgis' drawing of 1723, was restored to the apse. The records show such pleasing and intimate details as this, that the clock in front of the gallery was made by Richard Avery in 1726, and the case was made by Thomas Bennett, proprietor of pew No. 56; and that Captain Cyprian Southack, the commander of the Province Galley, gave a belfry clock before the year 1735, not used until 1749, when it was repaired and put in place ; and there is a very current scandal to account for the many dim or foggy lights in the windows. It is said that once when a glazier was employed to replace the glass he helped himself from the coffins in the crypt THE KERNEL OF THE NUT 395 under the church, and this glass long buried had became discoloured, as it now appears. The crypt itself is an interesting feature of the church; it is reported that about twelve hundred persons are buried in the tombs which line its walls. A passage runs around the crypt, and on both sides are numbered Araults, sometimes carved and in scribed stones set in the doors, which are now being sealed up. The first rector, Timothy Cutler, is buried under the chancel. CHAPTER XVII OLD LANDMARKS The Old South Church, stripped of its century's growth of English ivy, its whitened face chemically put back, in the recent rage for restoration, to the original red brick, stands in the heart of traffic on Washington Street, on sufferance, as it were, and conditionally, one might judge, upon its acceptance of an ignoble role — for its chief practical function is to mark an entrance to the subway which runs under its foundations. "To Avhat base use may we return at last?" it seems to ask of its neighbour, the Old State House, which, very much restored, is made to do picket duty for another subterranean offence. Basely worked for its full commercial value, its fine lines obscured by additions, its facades covered by ignoble signs, made to yield every dollar of its potential earning capacity, it was only the final revolt of citizens that saved the Old State House when its very foothold became more valuable to the authorities than the traditions for which it stood. This revolt of citizens, it must be admitted, was 396 OLD LANDMARKS 397 precipitated by a threatened interference from the Middle West. Things had gone so far that the building was about to be demolished when Chicago came forward with a handsome offer to buy the historic relic, and reset it brick by brick out there along the lake front, where it could be worshipped and revered by the descendants of the Forefathers in a place Avhere colonial treasures were at a premium. Then was Boston's patriotic pride in deed roused. The proposition was refused with spirit, and under the stress of the saved situation tenants were cleared out, signs torn off, and masons set to work to restore the lines, while the Bostonian Society was installed within as custodian of the museum of colonial relics. Down there in the heart of the business district these two old buildings stand as best they may against the tide that is all against the ideals of their day. While sentiment protects them and has res cued them from total destruction, progress finds them sadly in the way, so, like honourable veterans who have outstayed their time, they have been suddenly seized upon by a thrifty system, Avhich cannot tolerate idlers of whatever age or dignity, and made to serve the ends of the rapid transit which rattles under their bones. Park Street Church has perhaps fared better — a tea shop and 398 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND a florist occupy its foundation, singular desecration, however, possible only in this paradoxical New England. The great fire of 1872, coming as it did within two blocks of the Old South Church and destroying the adjacent residential section, unsettled the con gregation, and two years later we find it richly occupying the elaborate " New Old South," built upon Copley Square, to keep up with the rising fashionableness of the Back Bay. The congrega tion, though a wealthy one, as may be judged by the style of the new church, allowed itself no sentiment for the historic meeting-house of humbler days. It was kicked off like an old shoe. For two years the building Avas leased to the United States for a post office. In the spring of 1876 the historic landmark was advertised for sale, Avith the proviso that it should be torn down and removed within sixty days. The plan was to sell the land separately for $400,000. For the New Old South this was a cold business proposition, it wanted money merely, wanted it in the hardest sense of the Avords, at the expense of all ideals. A newspaper advertisement of the auction enu merates the extrinsic valuables — "All the ma terials above the level of the sidewalks, except the corner-stone and the clock in the tower," and adds THE OLD STATE HOUSE. FROM AN ETCHING BY SEARS GALLAGHER. OLD LANDMARKS 399 the information that "the spire is covered with copper, and there is a lot of lead on the roof and belfry, and the roof is covered with imported old Welsh slate." Protests came from all over the country, but they Avere unorganized and on June 8 the building Avas sold at auction for $1,350. The work of destruction was not delayed, and the clock in the tower had al ready been taken down and the solid masonry at tacked Avhen George W. Simmons and Son, a prominent business firm, stepped in and purchased the right to hold the building uninjured for seven days. With this reprieve the friends of the Old South had time to handle their resources. There Avas a glorious reaction. William Everett wrote a short, stirring history of the meeting-house, setting forth the cumulative facts in eighteen pithy para graphs, each one more convincing than the last. This was distributed, and on June 14 a town meet ing was held in the church to protest against its demolition; speeches were made by Wendell Phillips and others, and a preservation committee Avas formed headed by the governor. The sum of money immediately necessary was raised by subscriptions and loans assumed by the Old South Association, a corporation specially chartered to preserve the edifice. This was fol- 400 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND lowed by rousing demonstrations of public feeling in which literary Boston shone in its efforts to re deem the pledges made. There was one symposium for the benefit of the fund, held in the meeting house itself in 1877, which must have rejoiced the heart of the assembled Bostonians. All the celeb rities except Whittier were there, and most of them read poems composed for the occasion. Em erson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Julia Ward Howe, and Dr. James Freeman Clark contributed, and Dr. Samuel F. Smith read his famous " America." Upon other occasions Edward Everett Hale, Wen dell Phillips, Colonel Henry Lee, William Everett, Dr. Edward G. Porter, Dr. George Ellis, Henry W. Foote, and others lectured for the benefit of the fund, and here also, in 1879, John Fiske gave one of his first courses in American History. The Old South Church is not only an historic landmark in the richest sense of the term : it marks historic ground of great importance in Boston. It stands in Governor Winthrop's lot, which was part of the " green " originally granted by " The Colony of Massachusetts Bay in New England" to the founder of Boston and described by him as "the governour's first lot." Until its destruction by the British during the siege, the old homestead of the first governor stood, facing the south, with the OLD LANDMARKS 401 end towards School Street. " It Avas of Avood, two stories high, . . . and till the meeting-house was erected [it was the only] building on the lot; . . . the premises gave the appearance indicated by the name, ' The Green,' being skirted along the main street by a row of beautiful buttonwood trees." These trees, with the house, furnished fuel for the British troops in the winter of 1775-1776. Standing at the corner of the "great waye to Roxbury" this estate, after it had passed to the Rev. John Norton, John Cotton's successor, was described as one of the sightliest in Boston. It was his wife, Mary Norton, who gave the ground for the old cedar meeting-house, erected in 1669 by Robert Tweld, on the site of the present building, and it was in this little house of worship that Sir Edmund Andros enforced upon the colonists the Episcopal form of worship ; it Avas here that Judge SeAvall stood up in his pew while his confession of contrition for his share in the witchcraft delusion of 1692 was read to the congregation, and here, on January 17, 1706, was baptized Benjamin Franklin, born across the way, in his father's house on Milk Street. In 1729 the old cedar meeting-house, which had served two generations, Avas pulled down and the foundation of the present structure laid. The 402 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND building followed the best taste of the time, a style so good that when Park Street Church was de signed the best part of a century later by Peter Banner, an English architect, he did not depart so vastly from the earlier model. Such repairs as it has suffered have always strictly preserved its character. When Smibert's Faneuil Hall became too small for the great town meetings which preceded the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, adjourned meetings were held here, and an " Old South Meet ing " became famous to Chatham and Burke. The old church served its purpose nobly during these stressful times. It was here that the great con course of people waited after the Boston Massacre Avhile Samuel Adams went back and forth to the State House till Hutchinson yielded and Avithdrew his regiments. A meeting of five thousand citizens here, on November 29, 1773, resolved that the tea should not be landed, and it was from the doors of this house that the war-whoop was raised as the citizens disguised as savages led the way to the harbour Avhere the tea was destroyed. For five years after the massacre orations were deliArered in the Old South Meeting-house on anni- A'ersaries of the occasion. Three months before he was killed at Bunker Hill, Joseph Warren made SKETCH FOR STATUE OF WARREN, BY PAUL WAYLAND BARTLETT. WARREN SQUARE, ROXBURY. OLD LANDMARKS 403 his famous appearance through the windoAV back of the pulpit, while the aisles and steps were filled Avith British soldiers and officers, to deliver, in de fiance of their threats, his commemorative speech. The account of the affair is a mixture of boyish bravado and glorious courage, it shows the splendid vitality of the nation at this critical time. This was in the year 1775, when the town was in British occupation, and it had been given out that no allusion to the massacre would be tolerated and Warren offered himself as orator at the risk of his life. The anniversary fell on Sunday and was cele brated on Monday, the house being thronged early in the day in anticipation of a sensation. The pulpit was draped in black, and on the platform sat the leaders of the colonists — Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and others, while the aisles were crowded with British officers. At the opening of the meet ing it is said that Adams in his most civil manner asked the occupants of the front pews to make room for the guests to be seated, and that forty uniformed British officers thereupon filed into the pews and others filled the pulpit stairs. Meanwhile Warren drove up in a chaise to a house opposite the church where he put on his black gown, and to avoid the croAvd Avhich blocked the passage through the church he went around to the 404 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND rear, Avhere a ladder had been prepared for him, and, gathering his robe about him, climbed to the windoAV in the rear of the pulpit, and in this spec tacular manner entered the church amidst an op pressive silence. " His speech," said Frothingham, " imbued with the spirit of a high chivalry and faith, resounds Avith the clash of arms." " The scene was sublime," wrote Knapp. " There was in this appeal to Britain — in this description of suffering, dying, horrors — a calm and high-souled defiance which must have chilled the blood of every sensible foe. Such another hour has seldom happened in the history of man, and is not to be surpassed in the records of nations." The building as it stands is of course almost entirely reconstructed Avithin, as during the siege of Boston it was bared of everything except the soimding board and the east galleries, hundreds of loads of dirt and gravel were carted in and the place used as a riding school for Burgoyne's cavalry. The pulpit and pews, it is said, were burned for fuel, and the east galleries were left for the accom modation of spectators, while in the first gallery a buffet was installed to furnish refreshments to those who came to see the feats of horsemanship. Originally there were two galleries, as at present, OLD LANDMARKS 405 and the pulpit was on the side, as now, opposite the Milk Street door, which was the usual entrance. The pulpit was larger and higher than the one replaced after the Revolution, and directly in front of it were the elevated seats for the deacons and elders. On each side of the middle aisle under the pulpit were a number of long seats for aged people, while for the rest the pews were of the square, high- backed variety. But of all the desecration committed on the church, that Avhich hurt most was the destruction and dispersal of the scholar's library housed in the steeple by the pastor of the church, Thomas Prince, one of the most accomplished bibliophiles of his time. The Prince Library, now deposited with the Boston Public Library, is known to connoisseurs as one of the most famous of its kind and in many respects unique. Prince at the age of sixteen sys tematically laid the foundation of this collection of books and manuscripts, which relate to the civil and religious history of New England, and with unflagging zeal cherished and enriched the collec tion during his life. At the time of his death, at the age of seventy-one years, his library is thought to have been the most extensive of its kind that had ever been formed. It contained in its depleted state about 1,500 books and tracts relating to America, 406 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND amongst them, as Ave know, the famous Bradford manuscript Of Plimolh Plantation, and the Brad ford "Letter Book." This library Prince acquired partly in connection Avith his own Annals of New England; his own name for it was the New England Library, and many books bear the bookplate : This Book belongs to The New-England Library Begun to be collected by Thomas Prince Upon his entry Harvard-College, July 6, 1703. Prince bequeathed his collection to the Old South Church, of which he was pastor at the time of his death. As for the abuse and partial dispersal of the library a great deal has been laid at the doors of the British troops, who are accused not only of burning pews, pulpit, and parsonage (Winthrop's mansion) as fuel during their riding exercises in the old building, but also of having kindled these illicit fires with the pages of Thomas Prince's rarest books and manuscripts. On the other hand A^ery little is said of the con dition in which the British soldiers found these books, if indeed they found them at all, a condition which surely would not create the impression of a library of this character. It is casually mentioned that the books and papers were deposited on shelves OLD LANDMARKS 407 and in boxes and barrels in a room in the steeple chamber, under the belfry, which had been Prince's study, and that they had been left there for years — Prince died in 1758 — without care. Evidently the Old South congregation did not greatly value its legacy at the time that it was re ceived, and it seems just as evident that all the " idle and pilfering hands " that were laid upon it were not those of British soldiers, for the spectators in the gallery had as ready access to the steeple cham ber, and such books as later turned up, bearing Prince's name or the bookplate of the New Eng land Library, were mostly excellent selections, and when sold brought fabulous prices. When Washington made his triumphal entry into Boston, in March, 1776, he entered this build ing on his way down the street since called after him, and looked down from the east gallery on the scene of desolation. The interior was restored in 1783. The first length of Washington Street, laid from the Old State House to the Old South Church, was called Cornhill; its first extension, to Summer Street, was Marlborough Street, so called in com memoration of the victory at Blenheim, and a few years later the " waye " was further opened under the name Newbury Street. 408 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND Amongst the first group of buildings must have been conspicuous the governor's house, at the cor ner of Spring Lane, the first Town House, a wooden structure on the site of the present Old State House, the cedar meeting-house, and the first King's Chapel, built of wood, in 1688, upon the border of the Common. The Old State House marks a focal point for interest in historic Boston. The town began around the market place, which was at the head of a short nameless way, appearing on the earliest map, leading up from the water to the hills, dotted on both sides with the homes of the first settlers. Everything in Boston seems to have been burned at least once. The first Town House, we read, stood from 1658 to 1711, when it was destroyed by fire. Its immediate successor shared a similar fate, and the present building dates from 1748, the bricks of the second structure having been used in its re construction. The present restoration, dating from 1882, Avas thoroughly done, and the exterior is quite a faithful copy of the old. The old pitch roof was rebuilt upon the original timbers, and on the eastern gables copies of the lion and unicorn of the original building were placed, and subsequently, to appease the citizens who objected to this part of the restora tion, a gilt eagle was set up on the western front, with the State and City Arms. st. Paul's cathedral. from an etching by sears gallagher. OLD LANDMARKS 409 As the royal proclamations had been read from the balcony at the east end, so from the same place the Declaration of Independence Avas read, on July 18, 1776, and, as the finale to a day of patriotic rejoicing, a huge conflagration was made in King's Street, in the square before the State House, when all the royal and tory symbols, the King's Arms, in whatever form, were torn from their settings and burned with much rejoicing. The lion and unicorn from the State House were amongst the first relics of the old regime to be cast into the flames. More than a century later Walter Griffin, the landscape painter, then a young art student, working at sculpture for a livelihood, while studying drawing and painting at the old Boston Museum school, Avas commissioned by the architect of the reconstruc tion to model the copies which replace the ancient signs. The originals were in bas-relief and Griffin's models were the same, but the wood carver cut them in full relief, which accounts for their odd effect as seen from the rear. When they were placed on the building, bright with gold, the Irish party then in Boston made a demonstration, taken up by the newspapers of the time, and threatened vengeance upon the sculptor and destruction to the lion and unicorn. " But," writes Mr. Griffin, " I still live, 410 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND and on my last visit to Boston I noticed they were still in place." They made quite the picturesque feature of the old building. The period of granite building in Boston began with the erection of King's Chapel in 1849, from the plans of the distinguished English architect, Peter Harrison, a pupil of Sir John Vanbrugh, and in his youth employed with his chief upon the work at Blenheim. He came to this country with Dean Berkeley and Smibert about 1729, and settled at Newport, building there the Redwood Library, which stands a well-known monument to his skill. King's Chapel then was the first building in Boston to have the care of a trained architect in its design. As Peter Harrison planned it the tower was to have been completed by a lofty spire, but lack of funds prevented its erection as well as that of the peristyle which surrounds the base of the tower, this being not added until 1790. King's Chapel was built of coarse boulders dug out of the ground and split and hammered according to the primitive method in vogue at this time. There is a tradition that the boulders used in this building were split by building a fire upon the stone to heat it, and then breaking it apart by dropping heavy iron balls upon it. When the work was finished it was the wonder of the countryside and people trav- OLD LANDMARKS 411 elled miles to gaze upon its sober charms. At the present time it gives to this lower end of Tremont Street a cool, serious dignity, standing sentinel-like beside the graves of the ancient dead in its shady burying-ground. To this quarter was added, in 1809, Park Street Church which presides so quaintly over the artless Common, and, in 1819, St. Paul's Cathedral built by Solomon Willard, the architect of Bunker Hill, and Alpheus Carey, mason. St. Paul's set the pace for that series of Greek temples which sprung up throughout the lower part of the city in the next half century. The capitals of the columns which support the pediment were carved by Willard, and the pediment itself was to have contained a relief, in stone, of Paul preaching at Athens. Requisite funds were wanting, however, to carry out his design and the rough-hewn blocks remain to this day. CHAPTER XVIII MONUMENTAL BOSTON Copley Square, while presenting every appar ent advantage of space and light and air, fails of im- pressiveness as a focal point of some importance, fails notably as a setting for Boston's chief archi tectural monuments — Trinity Church and the Public Library — which sit tentatively upon its un yielding edges. The mere vacant triangle, outlined by parallel rulings of utilitarian car tracks, after the manner of a mechanical draAving, offers nothing but its levelled grass within prim granite copings to distinguish it from the empty lot it so stupidly resembles ; and so far from drawing the neighbourhood together, in the friendly fashion of such green spaces, serves rather as a rigid division between its incompatible elements. The whole lamentable inadequacy of Boylston Street to react to its charming environment, to adapt itself by any contributed beauty of facade Avorthy of the border of such handsome greeneries as the Common and the Garden, the latter, however, in MONUMENTAL BOSTON 413 somewhat despoiled by the emergence of the sub way along its southern side, culminates in the anti climax of Copley Square, — this blank, angular, wholly negative fragment, which marks the birth of Huntington Avenue and offers cold resistance to the appeal of opulent, Romanesque Trinity, to the charm of the chaste and elegant Florentine library, to the clash of these monumental forces with the late Centennial remnants on Boylston Street, the whole attempted dignity of the square ebbing away in the scallywag outlets towards Roxbury and the rarefied reaches of Brookline. If ever a spot invited " treatment," drastic reor ganization, Copley Square simply cries aloud in its plight, cries aloud to the merest passer-by, to the most casual of loiterers. What it must say to archi tects, to local architects to whom its case is an un ending reproach, might make interesting reading; but where doctors disagree nothing is done, and though plans have been many for its improvement, nothing clever enough has yet been devised to suit everybody, nothing clever enough, either sunken garden or whatever, to unite its all too antipathetic features. The name, Copley Square, out of respect, of course, for Boston's celebrated artist, strays away from the locality of the painter's estate on Beacon 414 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND Hill, to the Back Bay, here to record the environ ment of the old Art Museum, the first building of importance to pitch upon the made land of the tide water mud flats. It stood, where now stands the Copley Plaza Hotel, on the south side of the square, and superseded a temporary wooden structure, known as the Coliseum, erected at the close of the Civil War to house the Peace Jubilee and Music Festival, conceived by the famous bandmaster, Pat Gilmore. The first museum, a cheerful brick creation with terra cotta trimmings, presided over the square in homely, genial fashion and gave the note to the new development of the quarter. Opened in 1876, the building was strictly " Centennial " in character, though it passed officially as " Venetian Gothic." It had a central and two end pavilions with gables ; its first story presented a line of high, arched win dows, above which were mosaic panels and, at the ends, two large allegorical compositions in terra cotta, representing " The Genius of Art " and " Art and Industry." Worked into the decoration also were heads in relief of Copley, Allston, Crawford, and other famous American artists. Its roof dis played the essential skylights, and, whatever its de fects, the old museum had at least one great advan tage over its ambiguous successor in Huntington Avenue, it looked preeminently its part. EQUESTRIAN STATUE OF GEORGE WASHINGTON, BY THOMAS BALL, BOSTON, 1859. SAINT STEPHEN, BY DR. RIMMER. MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS. FALLING GLADIATOR, BY DR. RIMMER, MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS. MONUMENTAL BOSTON 415 It came as the culmination of an artistic impulse that was stirring in the Avhole of the regenerated Back Bay. The laying out of Commonwealth Avenue suggested sculpture, and as early as 1864 Dr. William Rimmer, the physician-painter- sculptor, had received a commission from Thomas Lee, a citizen of Boston, for the erection of the granite statue of Alexander Hamilton, at the head of the avenue, and in 1869, Thomas Ball's eques trian of Washington was placed in a commanding position, facing it, within the Garden. Boston's public monuments are chiefly the work of Boston sculptors, either native or adoptive. The youth of Boston, in a manner, passed through the hands of Hunt, who brought the Millet tradition to America, and of Dr. Rimmer, that legendary char acter who lived and died in obscurity and poverty in Boston, and whose importance to his epoch is only beginning to glimmer in the offing of the casual mind. Dr. Rimmer's lectures in anatomy were famous in this city of lectures, and were widely attended — even La Farge studied under him — but, aside from Mr. Bartlett's appreciation of the artist,1 his name has been alloAved to lapse almost utterly into oblivion. Rimmer was a romantic figure. His father, pre- 1 Art Life of Dr. William Rimmer, by Truman H. Bartlett. 416 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND sumably a French noble, assumed the name, Rim mer, assumed the trade of cobbler, lived in seclusion, but educated his sons to be idealists and gentlemen. Dr. Rimmer's contribution to the art of his city is fragmentary, he had a touch of the genuine sacred fire, but never wholly developed his gift, nothing that he did is an unqualified success. At the Mu seum of Fine Arts may be studied his head of St. Stephen, carved in granite, and his " Falling Gladi ator," in bronze. About the year 1864, some influential friends of Rimmer's obtained for him a commission to create for a conspicuous location in the neAv Common wealth Avenue his first public monument — the Alexander Hamilton. Perhaps the statue is cu rious rather than fine; one can see that Rimmer was not quite a sculptor, yet the thing has dignity and an admirable simplicity, an artistic quality lacking in many of the more pretentious Avorks of Avell known men. Among the numerous inep titudes of local sculptors, which have in one Avay and another gained foothold in the city, the stone portrait stands its ground as a Avork of art, Iioav- ever incomplete. Really serious rivals in this respect in Boston might almost be limited to the admirable statue of General Warren, by Paul Bartlett, in Roxbury, MONUMENTAL BOSTON 417 and Richard E. Brooks' Avell modelled Colonel Cass, in the Garden, facing Boylston Street. The subject of Mr. Brooks' statue, Thomas Cass, Avas colonel of the "Irish Fighting Ninth," Massa chusetts Infantry. After the close of the Civil War a few of the colonel's old sailors raised the money for a monument intended for the cemetery, to mark the grave of their leader. A miserable granite fig ure Avith a tin sword Avas the result, with which a few Irish aldermen of Boston were so pleased that they voted to have it put in the Garden. There was in those days no art commission to regulate matters of civic adornment and the statue stood a disgrace to the city, until Josiah Quincy became mayor, when he proposed to take down the old figure and Mr. Brooks was commissioned to make the present statue. At this time the sculptor was living in Paris. His statue exhibited at the Salon of 1898 received a gold medal; shown again at the Paris Exposition of 1900 it received another and at the Pan American Exposition, a third. Disdaining models or any creature comforts, Dr. Rimmer made the model for his statue in eleven days, in the month of December, 1864. He Avorked in an unoccupied and unheated church, in Chelsea, suffering the enormous inconvenience of the freez ing of the clay, and subjecting himself to every 418 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND hardship. The statue was cut at Quincy, in Con cord granite, and the completed figure was erected in 1865, upon a pedestal designed by Colonel Cabot, ornamented by three profiles of Washington, Ham ilton, and Jay, in a single medallion, modelled by the sculptor. Hamilton, as Dr. Rimmer conceived him, wears the ruffled stock, the tight coat of the period, and a toga, caught over his left arm, drops about his feet, giving strength to the base. The head is a convinc ing portrait, it has the living quality; the stone, though worn, has a soft, fleshy character through the coat, and one feels that the structure is there. Thomas Ball's equestrian portrait of Washing ton, Avhich stands with gallantry and commands the prospect of Boston's wide avenue from the head of the Garden, is one of the earliest monuments erected in Boston, was the first equestrian placed in New England, and the fourth in the United States. It was unveiled in 1869. Considering the difficulties under which he la boured and the inexperience of the sculptor, the group is remarkably successful. Ball had not the strength, the mentality, nor the education of Ward, whose equestrian of the same subject dominates Union Square, in New York, yet he presents his subject with style, and his oavii simple and human MONUMENTAL BOSTON 419 autobiography shows a man of so little personal vanity and so much integrity of purpose as to dis arm criticism. We may gather, from an allusion in the auto biography, that a desire to make a statue of Wash ington had lurked in Ball's head ever since a visit made in his extreme youth, hand in hand with a greatly loved father, to the State House to see Chantrey's Washington, which had recently been placed. His father inviting his opinion, the child asked with naivete, " if that Avas a real sheet wrapped around him." " I Avas very young then," writes Ball, " but I have many times since looked at it and never wondered why I asked the question." The rigours of the New England winter figure largely in all these accounts of early sculpture and painting; one wonders Avhy they did not Avait for mild weather, or was it the New England con science which revelled in hardship? Ball modelled his group, he tells us, in plaster, instead of clay, on account of the impossibility of keeping the temper ature of his studio above freezing on winter nights. He made a primitive skeleton structure of his own invention upon Avhich he built up the figure with his own hands in plaster, passing the whole of the colossal group, to say nothing of the waste, through a two quart bowl. Not the least interesting detail 420 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND of the modelling is the bent foreleg, Avith Avhich Ball had untold difficulties. In the end Hunt, the painter, was called in consultation, and the leg as it stands is his work. The best thing one knows of Ball's young ap prentice, Martin Milmore, is French's memorial — " Death Staying the Hand of the Young Sculptor " — erected to the memory of his fellow student in Forest Hills Cemetery. This is a youthful Avork of Daniel Chester French; it brought him his first recognition, a medal at the Salon of 1892, and the relief has a charm which the sculptor has never surpassed. Civic consciousness in Boston, fostered by the erection of the early monuments, brought about ambitions for modish, imported architecture. In 1870 Henry Hobson Richardson, having returned opportunely from years of study in Paris, with all the lore of the Beaux Arts at his fingers' ends, won the competition for the new Brattle Square Church, on Commonwealth Avenue, with its beautiful tower, interesting as showing Richardson's first approach to Romanesque work, important as the precursor of his chef d'ceuvre, Trinity Church, in Copley Square. Richardson had not to plume himself wholly upon the success of this building. Both practically and COLONEL THOMAS CASS, BY RICHARD E. BROOKS. PUBLIC GARDENS, BOSTON. COLONEL THOMAS CASS. STATUE IN THE BOSTON PUBLIC GARDENS. FiY RICHARD E. BROOKS. Copyright, D. C. French DEATH STAYING THE HAND OF THE SCULPTOR, BY DANIEL CHESTER FRENCH. FOREST HILLS CEMETERY. MONUMENTAL BOSTON 421 artistically it fell short of the mark. Its acoustics were poor and there is a lack of correlation between the small cruciform church and its lofty tower. It has been said that the chief intrinsic beauty of the church is also its chief defect, for, spurning the support of the adjacent walls, the tower rises like a campanile, with a superb gesture of strength and independence that seems to cast off the cluttering of the earth-bound house of worship. The feature of the tower is a frieze of sculptured stone, modelled by Bartholdi, and carved by Italian workmen in place. The French sculptor had come to this country, just after I'annee terrible, to work upon his Liberty for the New York Harbour, mak ing his model for the statue in La Farge's studio. It was there that he met Richardson, acepting joy ously a commission, which certain prominent New York sculptors had refused as a mere stone-cutter's job, and executing the models in Paris. The sub jects show the Wedding, Baptism, Communion, and Death in four panels joined at the corners by trum peting angels. The material is a light-coloured stone and the angels' trumpets are gilded. The roof is of red tiles. Tower and church are built of warm, yellow-tinted pudding stone, streaked with darker iron stains that relieve monotony and accent the trimmings. Into the relief Bartholdi in- 422 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND troduced several contemporary portraits, including those of Richardson and La Farge. The toAver has always been a favourite with the people of Boston and when, only a few years after its erection, the church came upon the market and was threatened with demolition, there was a move ment to save at least the tower and to leave it stand ing in the midst of a little park, to which end some money was subscribed. The situation Avas saved, however, by the purchase of the church by its pres ent occupant, the First Baptist Society. The Brattle Square Church, or rather its tower, made in a way a reputation for its architect, and when, at about the time of its completion, Trinity Church decided to renounce its ancient location on Summer Street, in the old Bulfinch neighbourhood, for something" more- specious and central on Copley Square, Richardson was asked to compete for the design. In 1867, two years after his return to America, Richardsdn entered into partnership with Charles Gambrill, in NeAv York, a partnership which lasted until 1878. Gambrill was the business man of the firm, Richardson the creative artist, and though Trinity was designed under the firm name, it was not the product of joint labour, but Richardson's own. In the competition he measured his strength MONUMENTAL BOSTON 423 with some of the best men of the day — Richard M. Hunt, John H. Sturgis, Peabody and Stearns, Ware and Van Brunt, and W. A. Potter. The fame of its rector, the Avealth of the congregation, the conspicuous site, its isolation upon an irregular piece of land, open on all sides, were all points which made the competition for this church a great opportunity for a young architect. At the time of the burning of the old New Trinity on Summer street, in the fire of 1872, the project for the new building was Avell advanced. Richardson's design had been chosen and was being carried out Avith much elaboration. The character of the design and the nature of the ground brought problems for the solution of which no familiar precedent existed. As Richardson himself explains, the ground con sisted of a compact stratum overlaid by a quantity of alluvium upon Avhich a mass of gravel about thirty feet deep had been filled. Upon such a foun dation was to be built a structure whose main fea ture was a tower weighing nearly nineteen million pounds and supported upon four piers. The problem has been ingeniously met. The plan of the church is a Latin Cross with a semicir cular apse added to the eastern arm. The style is a free rendering of the French Romanesque, as known in the "peaceful, enlightened, and isolated 424 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND cities of Auvergne." (I quote the architect.) The centra] tower, a reminiscence perhaps of the domes of Venice and Constantinople, was here fully de veloped so that the toAver becomes in a sense the church and the composition takes on the outline of a pyramid, the apse, transepts, nave, and chapels forming only the base to the obelisk of the tower. The building faces three streets, and the tower, centrally placed, belongs equally to each front. Within, decidedly the most interesting feature of the construction is the four piers which support the enormous weight of the tower. Richardson ex plains that he intended to leave these bare to show the massive character of the stone, but as the decora tion of the church progressed, under La Farge, they proved to be too cold in colour to harmonize Avith the warmth of the groAving interior. They rest fundamentally upon piles and their bases de scend step by step in a widening area until the four meet in a common subterranean foundation. Trinity Church offered to La Farge his first op portunity for important mural painting. The ar chitect and artist had met some years before, but, according to the latter's own Avord, Richardson be lieved in him and offered him the j ob without much proof of his ability. The two Avere of about the same age — La Farge Avas three years the elder — ¦ MONUMENTAL BOSTON 425 and had received something of the same training in Europe and shared one another's enthusiasms. Only impetuous youth Avould have attempted what these two undertook so blithely, achieved so brilliantly, for as the painter writes " from first talk to finished work " he had scarce five months in which to deco rate the church. Richardson put the project before him in Sep tember, 1876, and his promise was to complete it by the end of the year. When La Farge and his assistants set to work the church was in an unfin ished state and in incredible confusion the artists, wearing overcoats and gloves against the bitter vagaries of the oncoming NeAv England Avinter, which howled through the open windows and roof, competed with masons, tilers, and carpenters for foothold upon the common scaffoldings. From time to time a tile would fall through a hole in the roof and kill a man, four workmen were thus sacrificed, but it Avas not until a falling plank just grazed Phillips Brooks himself, avIio happened to be in the church, that the committee detailed an extra man to watch the dangerous hole. American mural painting was at this time in its incipiency. There is an amusing record in Hunt ington Hall, the central building of the old Insti tute of Technology, of one of the earliest attempts 42