Drake Samuel Adams
Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast
Though it was raw and windy the marsh-flies bit shrewdly. After passing over the first hills beyond Shank Painter, a very different scene presented itself. Here was a stretch of lofty mounds of clean white sand, five miles in length and a mile and a half in breadth, bare of all vegetation, except scanty patches of beach grass. There was no longer a path, and though I saw occasional foot-prints, I did not meet any one. A carriage would be of no use where a horse would sink to his knees in the sand. It was Equality Lane, where pauper or millionaire must trudge for it. In some places the sand was soft and yielding, and again it was so hard beaten by the wind that the footfall would scarcely leave an impression. Scrambling to the summit of one of the highest hills, I found myself overlooking a remarkable hollow completely surrounded with sandy walls. A Bedouin might have been at home here, but shipwrecked sailors would wander aimlessly, until, caught in some such cul-de-sac, they gave up the ghost in despair. In wintry storms the route is impracticable. The tourist who has never been to Naples may here do Vesuvius in poco, taking care to empty his shoes after sliding from the top to the bottom of a sand-hill.
The beach grass, I noticed, resembled the buffalo grass of the plains. It grew at equal distances, even in spots where it had seeded itself. It is the sheet-anchor of the Cape; for, now that the woods are nearly gone, there is nothing else to prevent this avalanche of sand from advancing and overwhelming every thing in its way. Why may not the cotton-wood, which propagates itself in the sand on the borders of Western rivers, prove a valuable auxiliary here? I have known a newly formed sand-bar in the Missouri become a well-wooded island in ten years. There, the tree grows to a great size, and seems to care little for the kind of soil it gets. The poplar (of the same species) flourished well, I saw, in Provincetown and elsewhere on the Cape. The experiment is worth the trying.
In Dr. Belknap's account of Provincetown, printed in 1791, he says of this range of sand-hills: "This volume of sand is gradually rolling into the woods with the winds, and as it covers the trees to the tops, they die. The tops of the trees appear above the sand, but they are all dead. Where they have been lately covered the bark and twigs are still remaining; from others they have fallen off; some have been so long whipped and worn out with the sand and winds that there is nothing remaining but the hearts and knots of the trees; but over the greater part of this desert the trees have long since disappeared." The tops of the dead trees mentioned by Dr. Belknap, the remnant of the forest seen here by the Pilgrims, have been cut off for fuel, until few, if any, are to be seen.
After crossing the wilderness, I came to the shore. It was blowing half a gale, the sea being roughened by it, but not grand. There was but little drift, and that such "unconsidered trifles" of the sea as the vertebræ of fishes, jelly-fish, a few tangled bunches of weed, and some pretty pebbles. Looking up and down the beach, I discovered one or two wreckers seeking out the night's harvest; and presently there came a cart in which were a man and woman, the man ever and anon jumping out to gather up a little bundle of drift-wood, with which he ran back to the cart, followed by a shaggy Newfoundland dog that barked and gamboled at his side. These wreckers claim what they have discovered by placing crossed sticks upon the heap, the mark being respected by all who come after.
I followed the bank by the verge of the beach, the tide having but just turned. Before me was the light-house, and the collection of huts at Race Point. A single vessel, bound for a Southern port, was in sight, that, after standing along, gunwale under, within half a mile of the shore, filled away on the other tack, rounding the point in good style. A hundred yards back of the usual high-water mark were well-defined lines of drift, indicating the limit where the sea in great storms had forced its way. I passed a group of huts, used perhaps at times by fishermen, and at others as a shelter for shipwrecked mariners. The doors were open, and, notwithstanding a palisade of barrel-staves, the sand had drifted to a considerable depth within. Here also were pieces of a vessel's bulwarks, the first vestiges of wreck I had seen.
In 1802 the Humane Society erected a hut of refuge at the head of Stout's Creek; but it being improperly built with a chimney, and 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. A few weeks later the ship Brutus was cast away. Had the hut remained, it is probable the whole of the unfortunate crew might have been saved, as they gained the shore within a few rods of the spot where it had stood. Upon such trifles the lives of men sometimes depend.
The curvature of the shore south of Race Point, by which I was walking, is called Herring Cove. There is good anchorage here, and vessels may ride safely when the wind is from north-east to south-east. The shore between Race Point and Stout's Creek, in Truro, was formerly considered the most dangerous on the Cape. Since the erection of Race Point Light, disasters have been less frequent. An attempt to penetrate through the hills to Provincetown by night would be attended with danger, especially in the winter season, but by day the steeple of the Methodist church is always in sight from the highest sand-hills.
Freeman, in his "History of Cape Cod," relates an occurrence that happened here in 1722. A sloop from Duxbury, in which the Rev. John Robinson and wife, and daughter Mary, had taken passage, was upset by a sudden tempest near Nantasket Beach, at the entrance of Boston Harbor. The body of Mrs. Robinson was found "in Herring Cove, a little within Race Point," by Indians, about six weeks after the event. It was identified by papers found in the stays, and by a gold necklace, that had been concealed from the natives by the swelling of the neck. A finger had been cut off, doubtless for the gold ring the unfortunate lady had worn.
The winter of 1874-'75 will be memorable in New England beyond the present generation, the extreme cold having fast locked up a greater number of her harbors than was ever before known. Provincetown, that is so providentially situated to receive the storm-tossed mariner, was hermetically sealed by a vast ice-field, which extended from Wood End to Manomet, a distance of twenty-two miles, grasping in its icy embrace all intermediate shores and havens. In the neighborhood of Provincetown a fleet of fishing vessels that was unable to reach the harbor became immovably imbedded in the floe, thus realizing at our very doors all the perils of Arctic navigation. A few were released by the aid of a steam-cutter, but by far the greater number remained helplessly imprisoned without other change than that caused by the occasional drift of the ice-floe in strong gales.
The sight was indeed a novel one. Where before was the expanse of blue-water, nothing could now be seen except the white slab, pure as marble, which entombed the harbors. All within the grasp of the eye was a Dead Sea. Flags of distress were displayed in every direction from the masts of crippled vessels that no help could reach. Their hulls, rigging, and tapering spars were so ice-crusted as to resemble ships of glass. As many as twenty signals of distress were counted at one time from the life-saving station at Provincetown. Some of these luckless craft were crushed and sunk to the bottom; others were abandoned by their crews, who had eaten their last crust and burned the bulwarks of their vessels for fuel. The remainder were at length released by the breaking-up of the ice-floe, which only relaxed its grip after having held them fast for a month.
It would not be extravagant to say that the beach on the ocean side, between Highland Light and Wood End, was strewed with wrecks. Vessel after vessel was dashed into pieces by waves that bore great blocks of drift-ice to aid in the work of destruction. One starless morning the James Rommell struck between Highland Light and Race Point. Instantly the ice-laden surges leaped upon her decks. Wood and iron were crushed like paper under the blows of sea and ice. The helpless vessel was forced side wise toward the beach, where the waves began heaping up the loose sand on the leeward side, until it reached as high as her decks. When the vessel struck, the crew clambered up the rigging, and all were saved, in a perishing condition, with the help of rescuing hands from the life station. One poor fellow dropped dead on the shore he had periled life to gain, a frozen corpse. In twenty-four hours there was no more left of the James Rommell than could be carried away in the wreckers' carts.
But saddest of all was the loss of the Italian bark Giovanni. After eighty-one days of stormy voyage from Palermo, a terrible gale, which tore the frozen sails in shreds from her masts, drove her upon this dangerous coast. In the midst of a blinding snow-storm, the unmanageable vessel was borne steadily and mercilessly upon the shore. When she struck, the shock brought down portions of her rigging, leaving her a dismantled wreck. Her crew could see people moving about on the beach, but no human power could aid them. Soon the Giovanni began to sink into the sandy grave the waves were fast digging to receive her hull, and the seas sweeping her decks raged around the rigging, in which the sailors had taken refuge. One by one they were picked off by the waves. The wreckers' bombs failed to bring a line to them. A few of the ship's company made a desperate push for the beach, which only one reached alive. All night long the wreckers kept their watch by the shore, hoping the gale might abate; but sea and wind beat and howled as wildly as before. When it was light enough to descry the Giovanni, six objects could be seen clinging in the ringing. The ship, it was perceived, was fast breaking up. God help them, for no other could! The spectators saw these poor fellows perish before their eyes. They saw the overstrained masts bend and shiver and break, crashing in ruin down upon the shattered hull. The next day only a piece of the bow remained, sticking up like a grave-stone on the reef.
Of the Giovanni's crew of fifteen only the one mentioned escaped. He could not speak a syllable of English, but was able, by signs, to identify the body of his captain, when it came ashore. The other bodies that came in were laid out in Provincetown church, three miles from the scene of the wreck. Stray portions of the ship's cargo of wine and fruit were washed up, and while any of the former was to be had the beach was not safe to be traversed. In the midst of this carnival of death, men drunk with wine wandered up and down in the bitter cold, intent upon robbery and violence. One or more of these beach pirates were found dead, the victims of their own debauch.
The configuration of the shores of the Cape on the Atlantic side is very different from what was observed by early voyagers. The Isle Nauset of Smith has, for more than a century, been "wiped out" by the sea.224 Inlets to harbors have in some cases been closed and other passages opened, as at Eastham and Orleans. In 1863 remains of the hull of an ancient ship were uncovered at Nauset Beach in Orleans, imbedded in the mud of a meadow a quarter of a mile from any water that would have floated her. Curiosity was aroused by the situation as well as the singular build of the vessel, and what was left of her was released from the bed in which, it is believed, it had been inclosed for more than two centuries. A careful writer considers it to have been the wreck of the Sparrow-hawk, mentioned by Bradford as having been stranded here in 1626.225
There are generally two ranges of sand-bars on the ocean side of the Cape; the outward being about three-fourths of a mile from shore, and the inner range five hundred yards. As in the case of the ill-fated Giovanni, a vessel usually brings up on the outer bar, and pounds over it at the next tide, merely to encounter the inward shoal. Between these two ranges a tremendous cross-sea is always running in severe gales, and, if the wind has continued long from the same quarter, causing also a current that will float the débris of a wreck along the shore faster than a man can walk. With the wind at south-east the wreck stuff will not land, but is carried rapidly to the north-west. Shipwrecked mariners have to cross this hell gate to reach the beach. The mortars used at the life-stations will not carry a life-line to a vessel at five hundred yards from the shore in the teeth of a gale, and are therefore useless at that distance; but if the wreck is fortunate enough to be lifted over the inner bar by the sea, it will strike the beach at a distance where it is practicable to save life under ordinary contingencies. So great are the obstacles to be overcome on this shore, that there is no part of the New England coast, Nantucket perhaps excepted, where a sailor would not rather suffer shipwreck.
Standing here, I felt as if I had not lived in vain. I was as near Europe as my legs would carry me, at the extreme of this withered arm with a town in the hollow of its hand. You seem to have invaded the domain of old Neptune, and plucked him by the very beard. For centuries the storms have beaten upon this narrow strip of sand, behind which the commerce of a State lies intrenched. The assault is unflagging, the defense obstinate. Fresh columns are always forming outside for the attack, and the roll of ocean is forever beating the charge. Yet the Cape stands fast, and will not budge. It is as if it should say, "After me the Deluge."
CHAPTER XX.
NANTUCKET
"God bless the sea-beat island!
And grant for evermore
That charity and freedom dwell,
As now, upon her shore." – Whittier.
The sea-port of Nantucket, every body knows, rose, flourished, and fell with the whale-fishery. It lies snugly ensconced in the bottom of a bay on the north side of the island of the name, with a broad sound of water between it and the nearest main-land of Cape Cod. The first Englishman to leave a distinct record of it was Captain Dermer, who was here in 1620, though Weymouth probably became entangled among Nantucket Shoals in May, 1605. The relations of Archer and Brereton render it at least doubtful whether this island was not the first on which Gosnold landed, and to which he gave the name of Martha's Vineyard. The two accounts are too much at variance to enable the student to bring them into reciprocal agreement, yet that of Archer, being in the form of a diary, in which each day's transactions are noted, will be preferred to the narrative of Brereton, who wrote from recollection. To these the curious reader is referred.226
The name of "Nautican" is the first I have found applied to Nantucket Island.227 Whether the derivation is from the Latin nauticus, or a corruption of the Indian, is disputed, though the word has an unmistakably Indian sound and construction.228 In the patents and other documents it is called Nantukes, Mantukes, or Nantucquet Isle, indifferently, showing, as may be suggested, as many efforts to construe good Indian into bad English. Previous to Gosnold's voyage the English had no knowledge of it, nor were the names he gave the isles discovered by him in general use until long afterward. One other derivation is too far-fetched for serious consideration, a mere jeu de mot, to which all readers of Gosnold's voyage are insensible. Historians and antiquaries having alike failed to solve these knotty questions, it is proposed to refer them to a council of Spiritualists, with power to send for persons and papers.
Those who wish to enjoy a foretaste of crossing the British Channel may have it by going to Nantucket. The passage affords in a marked degree the peculiarities of a sea-voyage, and, in rough weather, is not exempt from its drawbacks. The land is nearly, if not quite, lost to view. You are on the real ocean, and the remainder of the voyage to Europe is merely a few more revolutions of the paddles. You have enjoyed the emotions incident to getting under way, of steering boldly out into the open sea, and of tossing for a few hours upon its billows: the rest is but a question of time and endurance.
Every one is prepossessed with Nantucket. Its isolation from the world surrounds it with a mysterious haze, that is the more fascinating because it exacts a certain faith in the invisible. Inviting the imagination to depict it for us, is far more interesting than if we could, by going down to the shore, see it any day. In order to get to it we must steer by the compass, and in thick weather look it up with the plummet. In brief, it answers many of the conditions of an undiscovered country. Although laid down on every good map of New England, and certified by the relations of many trustworthy writers, it is not enough; we do not know Nantucket.
No brighter or sunnier day could be wished for than the one on which the Island Home steamed out from Wood's Hole into the Vineyard Sound for the sea-girt isle. Besides the usual complement of health and pleasure seekers was a company of strolling players, from Boston, as they announced themselves – a very long way indeed, I venture to affirm. These "abstracts and brief chronicles of the time" were soon "well bestowed" on the cabin sofas, the rising sea making it at least doubtful whether they would be able to perform before a Nantucket audience so soon as that night. From the old salt who rang the bell and urged immediate attendance at the captain's office, to the captain himself, with golden rings in his ears, and the Indian girl who officiated as stewardess, the belongings of the Island Home afloat were spiced with a novel yet agreeable foretaste of the island home fast anchored in the Atlantic.
The sail across the Vineyard Sound is more than beautiful; it is a poem. Trending away to the west, the Elizabeth Islands, like a gate ajar, half close the entrance into Buzzard's Bay. Among them nestles Cuttyhunk, where the very first English spade was driven into New England soil.229 Straight over in front of the pathway the steamer is cleaving the Vineyard is looking its best and greenest, with oak-skirted highlands inclosing the sheltered harbor of Vineyard Haven,230 famous on all this coast. Edgartown is seen at the bottom of a deep indentation, its roofs gleaming like scales on some huge reptile that has crawled out of the sea, and is basking on the warm yellow sands. Chappaquiddick Island, with its sandy tentacles, terminates in Cape Poge, on which is a light-house.
Between the shores, and as far as eye can discern, the fleet that passes almost without intermission is hurrying up and down the Sound. One column stretches away under bellying sails, like a fleet advancing in line of battle, but the van-guard is sinking beneath the distant waves. Still they come and go, speeding on to the appointed mart, threading their way securely among islands, capes, and shoals. Much they enliven the scene. A sea without a sail is a more impressive solitude than a deserted city.
We ran between the two sandy points, long and low, that inclose the harbor into smoother water. The captain went on the guard. "Heave your bow-line." "Ay, ay, sir." "Back her, sir" (to the pilot). "Hold on your spring." "Stop her." "Slack away the bow-line there." "Haul in." It is handsomely done, and this is Nantucket.
The wharf, I should infer, would be the best place in which to take the census of Nantucket. No small proportion of the inhabitants were assembled at the pier's head, waiting the arrival of the boat. You had first to make your way through a skirmishing line of hack-drivers and of boys eager to carry your luggage; then came the solid battalion of citizen idlers, and behind these was a reserve of carriages and carts. On the pier you gain the idea that Nantucket is populous; that what you see is merely the overflow; whereas it is the wharf that is populous, while the town is for the moment well-nigh deserted. There could be no better expression of the feeling of isolation than the agitation produced by so simple an event as the arrival of the daily packet. Doors are slammed, shutters pulled to in a hurry, while a tide of curious humanity pours itself upon the landing-place. The coming steamer is heralded by the town-crier's fish-horn, as soon as descried from the church-tower that is his observatory. In winter, when communication with the main-land is sometimes interrupted for several days together, the sense of separation from the world must be intensified.231
After running the gantlet of the crowd on the wharf, the stranger is at liberty to look about him.
The fire of 1846 having destroyed the business portion of the town, that part is not more interesting than the average New England towns of modern growth. Generally speaking, the houses are of wood, the idea of spaciousness seeming prominent with the builders. Plenty of house-room was no doubt synonymous with plenty of sea-room in the minds of retired ship-masters, whose battered hulks I saw safe moored in snug and quiet harbors. The streets are cleanly, and, having trees and flower-gardens, are often pretty and cheerful.
The roofs of many houses are surmounted by a railed platform, a reminder of the old whaling times. Here the dwellers might sit in the cool of the evening, and take note of the passing ships, or of some deep-laden whaleman with rusty sides and grimy spars wallowing toward the harbor. Here the merchant anxiously scanned the horizon for tidings of some loitering bark; and here superannuated skippers paced up and down, as they had done the quarter-deck. I question if the custom was not first brought here from the tropics, for in Spanish-talking America the best room is not unfrequently the roof, to which the family resort on sweltering hot nights. Sometimes a storm arises, when the precipitancy with which the sleepers gather up their pallets and seek a shelter is the more amusing if witnessed near day-break. Formerly every other house in Nantucket had one of these lookouts, or a vane at the gable-end, to show if the wind was fair for vessels homeward-bound.
While other towns have increased, Nantucket for a length of time has stood still. I saw no evidences of squalid poverty or of actual want, though there was a striking absence of activity. The fire, of which they still talk, though it happened thirty years ago, can not be traced by such visible reminders as a mass of new buildings fitted into the burned space, or by a cordon of old houses drawn around its charred edges. The disaster caused the loss of many handsome buildings, among them Trinity Church, a beautiful little edifice, having latticed windows.
If there was no squalor obtruding itself upon the stranger, neither was there any display of ostentatious wealth. There were a few large square mansions of brick or wood, and even an aristocratic quarter, once known as India Row; but, on the whole, a remarkable equality existed in the houses of Nantucket. The old New England Greek temple greets you familiarly here and there. I read on the sign-boards the well-remembered names of Coffin, Folger, Bunker, Macy, Starbuck, etc., that could belong nowhere else than here. Whenever I have seen one of them in some distant corner of the continent, I have felt like raising the island slogan of other times, "There she blows!"
The Nantucket of colonial times was not more like the present than sailors in pigtails and high-crowned hats are like the close-cropped, wide-trowsered tars of to-day. Houses were scattered about without the semblance of order. The streets had never any names until the assessment of the direct tax in the administration of President Adams. Common convenience divided the town into neighborhoods, familiarly known as "Up-in-Town," "West Cove," or "North Shore." An old traveler says the stranger formerly received direction to Elisha Bunker's Street, or David Mitchell's Street, or Tristram Hussey's Street.
The average conversation is still interlarded with such sea phrases as "cruising about," "short allowance," "rigged out," etc. I heard one woman ask for the "bight" of a clothes-line. I had it from credible authority that a Cape Cod girl, when kissed, always presented the other cheek, saying, "You darsent do that again." A Nantucket lass would say, "Sheer off, or I'll split your mainsail with a typhoon."
There is a story of a "cute" Nantucket skipper, who boasted he could tell where his schooner might be in the thickest weather, simply by tasting what the sounding-lead brought up. His mates resolved to put him to the test. The lead was well greased, and thrust into a box of earth, "a parsnip bed," that had been brought on board before sailing. It was then taken down to the skipper, and he was requested to tell the schooner's position. At the first taste
"The skipper stormed, and tore his hair,
Thrust on his boots, and roared to Marden,
'Nantucket's sunk, and here we are
Right over old Marm Hackett's garden!'"
The streets avoid the fatal straight-line, though they are not remarkably crooked. In the business quarter they are paved with cobble-stones, showing ruts deeply worn by the commerce of other days. Grass was growing out of the interstices of the pavement, where once merchants most did congregate. One of the principal avenues is built along the brow of the sea-bluff, so that almost every house commands a broad sweep of ocean view. The sides of a great many houses were shingled, being warmer, as many will tell you, than if covered with clapboards. As in all maritime towns, the weather-vane is usually a fish, and that, of course, a whale. It is the first thing looked at in the morning by every male inhabitant of the island. Some of the lanes go reeling and twisting about in a remarkable manner.
Nantucket was larger than I had expected. The best view of it is obtained from the side of Coatue. A single old windmill on the summit of a hill behind the town adds to its picturesqueness, and somewhat relieves the too-familiar outlines of roof and steeple. But what, in a place of its size, is most remarkable, is the almost total absence of movement. It impressed me, the time I was there, as uninhabited. There were no troops of joyous children by day, nor throngs of promenaders by night; all was listless and still. Here, indeed, was the town, but where were the people? I was not at all surprised when accosted by one who, like me, wandered and wondered, with the question, "Does any body live in Nantucket?" In midwinter, said an old resident to me, you might have a hospital in the town market-place without danger of disturbing any body. The noise of wheels rattling over the stony street is not often heard.
Owing to the total loss of its great industry, the population of Nantucket is not greater than it was a hundred years ago, and not half what it was early in the century.232 A large proportion of the houses, it would appear, were unoccupied; yet many that had long remained vacant were being thrown open to admit new guests, that are seeking
"The breath of a new life – the healing of the seas!"
Old brasses were being furbished up, and cobwebs swept away by new and ruthless brooms. The town is being colonized from the main-land, and though the inhabitants welcome the change, the crust and flavor of originality can not survive it. Already the drift has set in: we may, perhaps, live to see a full-fledged lackey in Nantucket streets.
The wharves show the same decay as in Salem and Plymouth, except that here all are about equally dilapidated and grass-grown. Not a whaling vessel of any tonnage to be seen in Nantucket! The assertion seems incredible. In 1834 there were seventy-three ships and a fleet of smaller craft owned on the island. At this moment a brace of fishing schooners, called smacks, were the largest craft in the harbor. The dispersion of the shipping has been like to that of the inhabitants. I have seen those old whale-ships, with their bluff bows and flush decks, moored in a long line inside the Golden Gate. There they lay, rotting at their anchors, with topmasts struck, and great holes cut in their sides, big enough to drive a wagon right into their holds. To a lands-man they looked not unlike a fleet in array of battle.
Others of these old hulks drifted into such ports as Acapulco and Panama, where they were used for coaling the steamships of that coast; and at Sacramento I saw they had converted one into a prison-ship. The last of them remaining in New England harbors were purchased by the Government, and sunk in rebel harbors, as unfit longer to swim the seas. It is not pleasant to think how the last vestiges of a commerce that carried the fame of the island to the remotest corners of the earth have been swept from the face of the ocean.
The whale-ship I was last on board of was the old Peri, of New London, that looked able to sail equally well bow or stern foremost. The brick try-house, thick with soot, remained on deck, the water-butt was still lashed to the mizzen-mast. How she smelled of oil! Her timbers were soaked with it, and, on looking down the hatchway, I could see it floating, in prismatic colors, on the surface of the bilge-water in her hold. Many a whale had been cut up alongside. Her decks were greasy as a butcher's block. Though her spars were aloft, she had a slipshod look that would have vexed a sailor beyond measure. The very manner in which the yards were crossed told as plainly of abandonment as unreeved blocks and slackened rigging betokened a careless indifference of her future.
In the days of whaling, a different scene presented itself from that now seen on Nantucket wharves. Ships were then constantly going and coming, discharging their cargoes, or getting ready for sea. The quays were encumbered with butts of oil and heaps of bone. The smith was busy at his forge, the cooper beside himself with work. Let us step into the warehouse. Oil is everywhere. The counting-house ceiling is smeared with it. The walls are hung with pictures of famous whalemen – in oil, of course – coming into port with flags aloft, and I know not how many barrels under their hatches. See the private signal at the mizzen, the foam falling from the bows, and bubbling astern! A brave sight; but become unfrequent of late.
