Drake Samuel Adams
Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast
Commodore Manly, to whom John Adams says the first British flag was struck, was either native born, or came in very early life to Marblehead. He was placed in command of the first cruiser that sailed with a regular commission from Washington, in 1775, signalizing his advent in the bay in the Lee– a schooner mounting only four guns – by the capture of a British vessel laden with military stores, of the utmost value to the Americans besieging Boston. When this windfall was reported to Congress, the members believed Divine Providence had interposed in their favor. Our officers declared their wants could not have been better supplied if they had themselves sent a schedule of military stores to Woolwich Arsenal. So apprehensive was the general that his prize might slip through his fingers, that all the carts to be obtained in the vicinity of Cape Ann were impressed, in order to bring the cargo to camp. Manly died in Boston, in 1793, in circumstances nearly allied to destitution. He was, says one who knew him well, "a handy, hearty, honest, benevolent, blunt man, with more courage than good conduct."
Another of these old sea-dogs was Commodore Samuel Tucker, the son of a ship-master. The old house in which he was born was standing on Rowland Hill. (I do not know that he of Surrey Chapel had any thing to do with the name in Marblehead.) It was before the door of this house that Tucker, in his shirt-sleeves, was chopping wood one evening, just at dusk, when a finely mounted officer clattered down the street. Seeing Tucker, the officer asked if he could inform him where the Honorable Samuel Tucker resided. Tucker, astonished at the question, answered in the negative, saying, "There is no such man lives here; there is no other Sam Tucker in this town but myself." At this reply, the officer raised his beaver, and, bowing low, presented him a commission in the navy.
Tucker, in 1778, was taking John Adams to France in the old frigate Boston,161 when he fell in with an enemy. While clearing his decks for action he espied Mr. Adams, musket in hand, among the marines. Laying a hand on the commissioner's shoulder, Tucker said to him, "I am commanded by the Continental Congress to carry you safely to Europe, and I will do it," at the same time conducting him below.
The brave Captain Mugford, whose exploit in capturing a vessel laden with powder in Boston Harbor, in May, 1776, proved of inestimable value, was also an inhabitant of Marblehead. Like Selman and Broughton, he had been a captain in the famous Marblehead regiment, and his crew were volunteers from it. The year previous, Mugford, with others, had been impressed on board a British vessel, the Lively, then stationed at Marblehead. Mugford's wife, on hearing what had befallen her husband, went off to the frigate and interceded with the captain for his release, alleging that they were just married, and that he was her sole dependence for support. The Englishman, very generously, restored Mugford his liberty.
The Trevetts, father and son, were little less distinguished than any already named, adding to the high renown of Marblehead, both in the Old War and in the later contest with England.
Glover and his regiment conferred lasting honor on this old town by the sea. As soon as it had been determined to fit out armed vessels, Washington intrusted the details to Glover, and ordered the regiment to Beverly, where these amphibians first equipped and then manned the privateers. The regiment signalized itself at Long Island and at Trenton, and ought to have a monument on the highest point of land in Marblehead, with the names of its heroes inscribed in bronze. General Glover was long an invalid from the effects of disease contracted in the army, dying in 1797.162 He had been a shoe-maker, and is, I imagine, the person referred to in the following extract from the memoirs of Madame Riedesel:
"Some of the generals who accompanied us were shoe-makers; and upon their halting days they made boots for our officers, and also mended nicely the shoes of our soldiers. One of our officers had worn his boots entirely into shreds. He saw that an American general had on a good pair, and said to him, jestingly, 'I will gladly give you a guinea for them.' Immediately the general alighted from his horse, took the guinea, gave up his boots, and put on the badly-worn ones of the officer, and again mounted his horse." General Glover's house is still standing on Glover Square. I made, as every body must make, in Marblehead, a pilgrimage to Oakum Bay, a classic precinct, and to the humble abode of Benjamin Ireson, whom Whittier has made immortal. Questionless the poet has done more to make Marblehead known than all the historians and magazine-writers put together, though the notoriety is little relished there. The facts were sufficiently dramatic as they existed; but Mr. Whittier has taken a poet's license, and arranged them to his fancy. Old Flood Ireson suffered in the flesh, and his memory has been pilloried in verse for a crime he did not commit. Nevertheless, I doubt that the people of Marblehead forget that Pegasus has wings, and can no more amble at the historian's slow place than he can thrive on bran and water.
It is not many years since Ireson was alive, broken in spirit under the obloquy of his hideous ride. Later in life he followed shore-fishing, and was once blown off to sea, where he was providentially picked up by a coaster bound to some Eastern port. I do not think he could have declared his right name, for sailors are superstitious folk, and he would have been accounted a Jonah in any ship that sailed these seas. His wherry having been cut adrift, was found, and Old Flood Ireson was believed to have gone to the bottom of the bay, when, to the genuine astonishment of his townsmen, he appeared one day plodding wearily along the streets. Some charitable souls gave him another wherry, but the boys followed the old man about as he cried his fish with their cruel shouts of,
"I, Flood Ireson, for leaving a wrack,
Was blowed out to sea, and couldn't get back."
There is book authority for the terrible aspect of the vengeance of the fish-wives of Marblehead, so picturesquely portrayed in the poet's lines. Increase Mather, in a letter to Mr. Cotton, 23d of Fifth month, 1677, mentions an instance of rage against two Eastern Indians, then prisoners at Marblehead: "Sabbath-day was sennight, the women at Marblehead, as they came out of the meeting-house, fell upon two Indians that were brought in as captives, and, in a tumultuous way, very barbarously murdered them. Doubtless, if the Indians hear of it, the captives among them will be served accordingly." This episode recalls the rage of the fish-women of Paris during the Reign of Terror, those unsexed and pitiless viragos of La Halle.
I could discover little of the old Marblehead dialect, once so distinctive that even the better class were not free from it. It is true a few old people still retain in their conversation the savor of it; but it is dying out. Your true Marbleheader would say, "barn in a burn" for "born in a barn." His speech was thick and guttural; only an occasional word falling familiarly on the unaccustomed ear. All the world over he was known so soon as he opened his mouth. The idiom may have been the outgrowth of the place, or perchance a reminiscence of the speech of old-time fishermen, grounded, as I apprehend, more in the long custom of an illiterate people than any supposed relationship with our English mother-tongue. Whittier was acquainted with the jargon, and the question is open to the philologist.
There is a legend about the cove near Ireson's of a "screeching woman" done to death by pirates a century and a half or more past – a shadowy memorial of the fact of their presence here so long ago. They brought her on shore from their ship, and murdered her. On each anniversary of her death, says the legend, the town was thrilled to its marrow by the unearthly outcries of the pirates' victim. Many believed the story, while not a few had heard the screams. Chief-justice Story was among those who asserted that they had listened to those midnight cries of fear.
Passing over the causeway and under the gate-way of Fort Sewall, said to have been named from Chief-justice Stephen Sewall,163 who once taught school in Marblehead, I entered the spacious parade, on which a full regiment might easily be formed. The fort was built about 1742, and until what was so long known as "the late war" with England, remained substantially in its original picturesque condition. A very old man, whom I encountered on my way hither, bemoaned the demolition of the old work, which had been pulled to pieces and made more destructive during the Great Civil War. The walls were originally of rough stone, little capable of withstanding the projectiles of modern artillery. There is another fort on the summit of a rocky eminence that overlooks the approach to the Neck, built also during the Rebellion. When I visited it, the earthen walls of one face had fallen in the ditch, where the remainder of the work bid fair, at no distant day, to follow. There is still remaining in the town the quaint little powder-house built in 1755, with a roof like the cup of an acorn.
Seated under the muzzle of one of the big guns of Fort Sewall that pointed seaward, I could descry Baker's Isle with its brace of lights, and the narrow strait through which the Abigail sailed in 1628, with Endicott and the founders of Salem on board. Two years later the Arabella "came to an anchor a little within the island." Winthrop tells us how the storm-tossed voyagers went upon the land at Cape Ann, and regaled themselves with store of strawberries. Boston was settled. The little colony gave its left hand to Salem, and its right to Plymouth. It waxed strong, and no power has prevailed against it.
Little Harbor, north-west of the fort, is the reputed site of the first settlement at Marblehead. On Gerry's Island, which lies close under the shore, was the house of the first regularly ordained minister; the cellar and pebble-paved yard were, not long ago, identified. Near by, on the main-land, is the supposed site of the "Fountain Inn," which, like the "Earl of Halifax," has its romance of a noble gentleman taken in the toils of a pretty wench.164 Sir Charles Frankland, collector of his Majesty's customs, visits Marblehead, and becomes enamored of the handmaid of the inn, Agnes Surriage. He makes her his mistress, but at length, having saved his life during the great earthquake at Lisbon, she receives the reward of love and heroism at the altar as the baronet's wedded wife. Arthur Sandeyn, who was the first publican in Marblehead, was allowed to keep an ordinary there in 1640. The port was fortified after some fashion as early as 1643-44.
I had pointed out to me the spot where the Constitution dropped anchor when chased in here by two British frigates in April, 1814. They threatened for a time to fetch her out again; but as Stewart laid the old invincible with her grim broadside to the entrance of the port, and the fort prepared to receive them in a becoming manner, they prudently hauled off. The battle between the Chesapeake and Shannon was also visible from the high shores here, an eye-witness, then in a fishing-boat off in the bay, relating that nothing was to be seen except the two ships enveloped in a thick smoke, and nothing to be heard but the roar of the guns. When the smoke drifted to leeward, and the cannonade was over, the British ensign was seen waving above the Stars and Stripes.
Poor, chivalric, ill-starred Lawrence! He had given a challenge to the commander of the Bonne Citoyen, and durst not decline one.165 At the Shannon's invitation, he put to sea with an unlucky ship, and a mutinous crew fresh from the grog-shops and brothels of Ann Street. He besought them in burning words to show themselves worthy the name of American sailors. They replied with sullen murmurs. One wretch, a Portuguese named Joseph Antonio, came forward as their spokesman. His appearance was singularly fantastic. He wore a checked shirt, a laced jacket, rings in his ears, and a bandana handkerchief about his head. Laying his hand on his breast, he made a profound inclination to his captain as he said:
"Pardon me, sir, but fair play be one jewel all over the world, and we no touchee the specie for our last cruise with Capitaine Evans. The Congress is ver' munificent; they keep our piasters in treasury, and pay us grape and canister. Good fashion in Portuguee ship, when take rich prize is not pay poco a poco, but break bulk and share out dollar on drum-head of capstan."166
Already wounded in the leg, Lawrence was struck by a grape-shot on the medal he wore in honor of his former victory. His words, as he was borne from the deck, have become a watchword in our navy.167 Samuel Livermore, of Boston, who accompanied Lawrence on this cruise out of personal regard, attempted to avenge him. His shot missed Captain Broke. Lawrence hearing from below the firing cease, sent his surgeon to tell his officers to fight on. "The colors shall wave while I live!" he constantly repeated. He was only thirty-four; sixteen years of his life had been passed in his country's service. His figure was tall and commanding, and in battle he was the incarnation of a warrior.
When Mr. Croker read the statement of the action in the House of Commons, the members from all parts interrupted him with loud and continued cheering. Perhaps a greater compliment to American valor could not have been paid than this. The capture of a single ship of any nation had never before called forth such a triumphant outburst.
The oldest burial-ground in Marblehead is on the summit and slopes of the highest of its rocky eminences. Here, also, the settlers raised the frame of their primitive church; some part of which, I was told, has since been translated into a more secular edifice. At the head of a little pond, where a clump of dwarfish willows has become rooted, is a sheltered nook, in which are the oldest stones now to be seen. This was probably the choice spot of the whole field, but it now wears the same air of neglect common to all these old cemeteries. A stone of 1690 with the name of "Mr. Christopher Latimore, about 70 years," was the oldest I discovered.
As I picked my way among the thick-set head-stones, for there was no path, and I always avoid treading on a grave, I came upon a grave-digger busily employed, with whom I held a few moments' parley. The man, already up to his waistband in the pit, seemed chiefly concerned lest he should not be able to go much farther before coming to the ledge, which, even in the hollow places, you are sure of finding at no great depth. On one side of the grave was a heap of yellow mould, smelling of the earth earthy, and on the other side a lesser one of human bones, that the spade had once more brought above ground.
After observing that he should be lucky to get down six feet, the workman told me the grave was destined to receive the remains of an old lady of ninety-four, recently deceased, who, as if fearful her rest might be less quiet in the midst of a generation to which she did not belong, had begged she might be buried here among her old friends and neighbors. Although interments had long been interdicted in the overcrowded ground, her prayer was granted. An examination of the inscriptions confirmed what I had heard relative to the longevity of the inhabitants of Marblehead, of which the grave-digger also recounted more instances than I am able to remember.
I asked him what was done with the bones I saw lying there, adding to the heap a fragment or two that had fallen unnoticed from his spade.
"Why, you see, I bury them underneath the grave I am digging, before the folks get here. We often find such bones on the surface, where they have been left after filling up a grave," was his reply. This did not appear surprising, for those I saw were nearly the color of the earth itself. Seeing my look directed with a sort of fascination toward these relics of frail mortality, the man, evidently misconstruing my thought, took up an arm-bone with playful familiarity, and observed, "You should have seen the thigh-bone I found under the old Episcopal Church! I could have knocked a man down with it easy. These," he said, throwing the bone upon the heap, with a gesture of contempt, "are mere rotten things." Who would be put to bed with that man's shovel!
On a grassy knoll, on the brow of the hill, is a marble monument erected by the Marblehead Charitable Seamen's Society, in memory of its members deceased on shore and at sea. On one face are the names of those who have died on shore, and on the east those lost at sea, from the society's institution in 1831 to the year 1848. On the north are the names of sixty-five men and boys lost in the memorable gale of September 19th, 1846. This number comprised forty-three heads of families; as many widows, and one hundred and fifty-five fatherless children, were left to mourn the fatality.
The grave-digger told me that brave Captain Mugford had been buried on this hill, but the spot was now unknown. I could well believe it, for never had I seen so many graves with nothing more than a shapeless boulder at the head and foot to mark them. Many stones were broken and defaced, and I saw the fragments of one unearthed while standing by. There is no material so durable as the old blue slate, whereon you may often read an inscription cut two hundred years ago, while those on freestone and marble need renewing every fifty years. General Glover's tomb here is inscribed:
Erected with filial respect
to
The Memory of
The Hon. JOHN GLOVER, Esquire,
Brigadier General in the late Continental Army
Died January 30th, 1797,
Aged 64
Many of the old graves were covered with freshly springing "life-everlasting," beautifully symbolizing the rest of such as sleep in the faith. From the Seamen's Monument, at the foot of which some wooden benches are placed, is seen a broad horizon, dotted with white sails. I never knew a sailor who did not wish to be buried as near as possible to the sea, though never in it. "Don't throw me overboard, Hardy," was Nelson's dying request. There are clumps of lone graves on the verge of some headland all over New England, and one old grave-yard on Stage Island, in Maine, has been wholly washed away.
In allusion to the loss of life caused by disasters to the fishing fleets from time to time, an old man with whom I talked thought it was not greater than would occur through the ordinary chances of a life on shore. It is wonderful how a sea-faring population come to associate the idea of safety with the sea. Earthquakes, conflagrations, falling buildings, and like accidents are more dreaded than hurricanes, squalls, or a lee-shore.
By an estimate taken from the Essex Gazette, of January 2d, 1770, it appears that in the two preceding years Marblehead lost twenty-three sail of vessels, with their crews, numbering one hundred and sixty-two souls, without taking into account those who were lost from vessels on their return. There were few families that did not mourn a relative, and some of the older inhabitants remember to have heard their elders speak of it with a shudder.
These are the annals that doubtless suggested Miss Larcom's "Hannah Binding Shoes," and the long, lingering, yet fruitless watching for those who never come back. The last shake of the hand, the last kiss, and the last flashing of the white sail are much like the farewell on the day of battle.
CHAPTER XVII.
PLYMOUTH
"What constitutes a state?
Not high raised battlements or labored mound,
Thick walls or moated gate."
Plymouth is the American Mecca. It does not contain the tomb of the Prophet, but the Rock of the Forefathers, their traditions, and their graves. The first impressions of a stranger are disappointing, for the oldest town in New England looks as fresh as if built within the century. There is not much that is suggestive of the old life to be seen there. Except the hills, the haven, and the sea, there is nothing antique; save a few carefully cherished relics, nothing that has survived the day of the Pilgrims.
Somehow monuments – and Plymouth is to be well furnished in the future – do not compensate for the absence of living facts. The house of William Bradford would have been worth more to me than any of them. Even the rusty iron pot and sword of Standish are more satisfying to the common run of us than the shaft they are building on Captain's Hill to his memory. They, at least, link us to the personality of the man. And with a sigh that it was so – for I had hoped otherwise – I was obliged to admit that Old Plymouth had been rubbed out, and that I was too late by a century at least to realize my ideal.
The most impressive thing about Plymouth is its quiet; though I would not have the reader think it deserted. There are workshops and factories, but I did not suspect their vicinity. Even the railway train slips furtively in and out, as if its rumbling might awaken the slumbering old sea-port. Although the foundation of a commonwealth, the town, as we see, has not become one of the centres of traffic. It has shared the fate of Salem, in having its commercial marrow sucked out by a metropolis "opulent, enlarged, and still increasing," leaving the first-born of New England nothing but her glorious past, and the old fires still burning on her altars.
Court Street is a pleasant and well-built thoroughfare. It runs along the base of three of the hills on whose slopes the town lies, taking at length the name of Main, which it exchanges again beyond the town square for Market Street. If you follow Court Street northwardly, you will find it merging in a country road that will conduct you to Kingston; if you pursue it with your face to the south, you will in due time arrive at Sandwich. Trees, of which there is a variety, are the glory of Court Street. I saw in some streets magnificent lindens, horse-chestnuts, and elms branching quite across them; and in the areas such early flowering shrubs as forsythia, spiræa, pyrus japonica, and lilac.
Many houses are old, but there are none left of the originals; nor any so peculiar as to demand description. On some of the most venerable the chimneys are masterpieces of masonry, showing curious designs, or, in some instances, a stack of angular projections. The chimney of Governor Bradford's house is said to have been furnished with a sun-dial.
Pursuing your way along Court Street, you will first reach Pilgrim Hall, a structure of rough granite, in the style of a Greek temple, the prevailing taste in New England fifty years ago for all public and even for private buildings. Within are collected many souvenirs of the Pilgrims, and of the tribes inhabiting the Old Colony. Lying in the grass-plot before the hall is a fragment of Forefathers' Rock, surrounded by a circular iron fence, and labeled in figures occupying the larger part of its surface, with the date of 1620. In this place it became nothing but a vulgar stone. I did not feel my pulses at all quickened on beholding it.
One end of the hall is occupied by the well-known painting of the "Landing of the Pilgrims," by Sargent. To heighten the effect, the artist has introduced an Indian in the foreground, an historic anachronism. A tall, soldierly figure is designated as Miles Standish, who is reported as being short, and scarce manly in appearance. The canvas is of large size, and the grouping does not lack merit, but its interest is made to depend on the figures of Governor Carver and of Samoset, in the foreground – both larger than life. We do not recognize, in the crouching attitude of the Indian, the erect and dauntless Samoset portrayed by Mourt, Bradford, and Winslow. This painting, which must have cost the artist great labor, was generously presented to the Pilgrim Society. I have seen a painting of the "Landing" in which a boat is represented approaching the shore, filled with soldiers in red coats.168 The late Professor Morse also made it the subject of his pencil.
There are on the walls portraits of Governor Edward Winslow, Governor Josiah Winslow and wife, and of General John Winslow, all copies of originals in the gallery of the Massachusetts Historical Society. The original of Edward Winslow is believed to be a Vandyke. There is also a portrait of Hon. John Trumbull, presented by Colonel John, the painter.169
The cabinets contain many interesting memorials of the first settlers, their arms, implements, household furniture, and apparel. I refer the reader to the guide-books for an enumeration of them. The chairs of Governor Carver and of Elder Brewster are good specimens of the uncomfortable yet quaint furnishing of their time; as the capacious iron pots, pewter platters, and wooden trenchers are suggestive of a primitive people, whose town was a camp. I fancy there were few breakages among the dishes of these Pilgrims, for they were as hard as their owners; nor were there serious deductions to be made from the maids' wages on the day of reckoning. I confess I should have liked to see here, instead of the somewhat confusing jumble of articles pertaining to Pilgrim or Indian, an apartment exclusively devoted to the household economy of the first-comers, with furniture suitably arranged, and the evidences of their frugal housewifery garnishing the walls.
Many of the articles said to have been brought over in the Mayflower are doubtless authentic, but the number of objects still existing and claiming some part of the immortality of that little bark would freight an Indiaman of good tonnage. There is a still pretty sampler, embroidered by the spider fingers of a Puritan maiden, with a sentiment worth the copying by any fair damsel in the land:
"Lorea Standish is my name.
Lord, guide my hart that I may doe thy will;
Also fill my hands with such convenient skill
As may conduce to virtue void of shame;
And I will give the glory to thy name."
And here is the carnal weapon of Miles Standish, the living sword-blade of the colony. It lacks not much of an English ell from hilt to point, and looks still able to push its way in the world if well grasped. The weapon has a brass cross and guard, and resembles those trenchant Florentine blades of the sixteenth century, with its channels, curved point, and fine temper. The sword figures in Mr. Longfellow's "Courtship of Miles Standish," where we may hear it clank at the captain's heels as he goes from his wrathful interview with John Alden, slamming the door after him, no doubt, like the tempestuous little tea-pot he was. The inscription on the blade has baffled the savans. For such a hot-tempered captain it should have been that engraved on the Earl of Shrewsbury's sword,
"I am Talbot's, for to slay his foes."
It could hardly have been this legend, with a point inscribed on a broadsword of the seventeenth century:
"Qui gladio ferit
Gladio perit."
Speaking of swords, I am reminded that the first duel in New England was at Plymouth, in the year 1621. It was between Edward Doty or Doten, and Edward Leister, servants of Steven Hopkins. They fought with sword and dagger, like their betters, and were both wounded. Having no statute against the offense, the Pilgrims met in council to determine on the punishment. It was exemplary. The parties were ordered to be tied together, hand and foot, and to remain twenty-four hours without food or drink. The intercession of their master and their own entreaties procured their release before the sentence was carried out.
In the front of the court-house is a mural tablet, with the seal of the Old Colony sculptured in relief. The quarterings of the shield represent four kneeling figures, having each a flaming heart in its hands. On one side of the figures is a small tree, indicative, I suppose, of the infant growth of the plantation. The attitude and semi-nude appearance indicate an Indian, the subsequent device of Massachusetts, and are at once significant of his subjection, hearty welcome, and ultimate loyalty. The colony seal is said to have been abstracted from the archives in Andros's time, and never recovered.170 Its legend was "Plimovth Nov-Anglia, Sigillvm Societatis," with the date of 1620 above the shield. The union with Massachusetts, in 1692, dispensed with the necessity for a separate seal.
I saw, in the office of the Register, the records of the First Church of Plymouth, begun and continued by Nathaniel Morton to 1680. The court records, as well as the ancient charter, on which the ink is so faded as to be scarcely legible, are carefully kept.
But the compact, that august instrument, I did not see, nor is the fate of the original known. Its language bears an extraordinary similitude to the preamble of the Constitution of the United States, in its spirit and idea. The name of the king is there in good set phrase; but the soul of the thing is its assumption of sovereignty in the people. See now how King James figures at the head and the tail of it, and then look into the heart of the matter:
"In ye name of God, Amen. We whose names are underwritten, the loyall subjects of our dread soveraigne Lord, King James, by ye grace of God, of Great Britaine, Franc, & Ireland, King, defender of ye faith, &c., haveing undertaken, for ye glorie of God and advancemente of ye Christian faith and honour of our king & countrie, a voyage to plant ye first colonie in ye Northerne parts of Virginia, doe by these presents solemnly & mutualy in ye presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine our selves togeather in a civill body politick, for our better ordering & preservation & furtherance of ye ends aforesaid; and by vertue hearof to enacte, constitute, and frame such just & equall lawes, ordinances, acts, constitutions & offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meete & convenent for ye generall good of ye Colonie, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witnes wherof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cap-Codd ye 11 of November, in ye year of ye raigne of our soveraigne lord, King James of England, Franc, & Ireland ye eighteenth & of Scotland ye fiftie fourth, Ano: Dom. 1620."
Bradford says the bond was partly due to the mutinous spirit of some of the strangers on board the Mayflower, and partly to the belief that such an act might be as firm as any patent, and in some respects more sure. It is impossible not to be interested in the lives of such men; they were deeply in earnest.
