Drake Samuel Adams
Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast
Mason relates that he had but one pint of strong liquors in his army during its whole march. Like a prudent commander, he carried the bottle in his hand, and ingenuously says, when it was empty the very smelling of it would presently recover such as had fainted away from the extremity of the heat. Among the special providences of the day he mentions that Lieutenant Bull had an arrow shot into a hard piece of cheese he carried, that probably saved his life; "which may verify the old saying," adds the narrator, that "a little armor would serve, if a man knew where to place it."318 Fuller, in one of his sermons, has another and a similar proverb: "It is better to fight naked than with bad armor, for the rags of a bad corselet make a deeper wound, and worse to be healed, than the bullet itself." Mason ultimately settled in Norwich, and died there.
Silas Deane was a native of Groton. Of the three men to whom Congress intrusted its secret negotiations with European powers, Franklin was the only one whose character did not permanently suffer, although he did not escape the malignity and envy of Arthur Lee. The Virginian's enmity and jealousy, aided by the influence of his brothers, were more successful in sullying the name and fame of Silas Deane. Yet Arthur Lee was a patriot and an honest man, whose public life was corroded by a morbid envy and distrust of his associates. A more disastrous appointment than his could hardly have been made, as his temperament especially unfitted him for a near approach to men who, with all the world's polish, were, in diplomatic phrase, able to cut an adversary's throat with a hair.
John Quincy Adams, who may perhaps have inherited his father's dislike of Deane, once said, in the course of a conversation with some friends:
"A son of Silas Deane was one of my school-fellows.319 I never saw him again until last autumn, when I recognized him on board a steamboat, and introduced him to Lafayette, who said, 'Do you and Deane agree?' I said, 'Yes.' 'That's more than your fathers did before you,' replied the general.
"Silas Deane," continued Mr. Adams, "was a man of fine talents, but, like General Arnold, he was not true to his country. After he was dismissed from the service of the United States he went to England, lived for a long time on Lord Sheffield's patronage, and wrote a book which did more to widen the breach between England and America, and produce unpleasant feelings between the two countries, than any work that had been published. Finally he determined to return to America, but, in a fit of remorse and despair, committed suicide before the vessel left the Thames. His character and fate affected those of his son, who has lived in obscurity."320
It is possible that Silas Deane's patriotism was not proof against the ingratitude he had experienced, and that he became soured and disaffected; but it is scarcely just to his memory to call him traitor, or compare him with such an ignoble character as Arnold. Deane was the friend of Beaumarchais; he was also his confidant. He was the means of securing the services of Lafayette for America. There is little doubt that he exceeded his powers as commissioner, involving Congress in embarrassments, of which his recall was the solution. The malevolence of Lee and the crookedness of French diplomacy did what was wanting to consign him to obscurity and poverty. The controversy over Deane's case produced a pamphlet from Thomas Paine, and caused John Jay to take the place resigned by Mr. Laurens as president of Congress. Deane and Beaumarchais were the scape-goats of the French alliance.321
John Ledyard was another monument of Groton. His first essay as a traveler exhibits his courage and resource. He entered Dartmouth as a divinity student; but poverty obliging him to withdraw from the college, and not having a shilling in his pocket, he made a canoe fifty feet long, with which he floated down the river one hundred and forty miles to Hartford. He then embarked for England as a common sailor, and while there, under the impulse of his passion for travel, enlisted with Captain Cook as a corporal of marines. He witnessed the tragical death of his captain. In 1771, after eight years' absence, Ledyard revisited his native country. His mother was then keeping a boarding-house at Southhold. Her son took lodgings with her without being recognized, as had once happened to Franklin in similar circumstances.
Ledyard's subsequent exploits in Europe, Asia, and Africa bear the impress of a daring and adventurous spirit. At last he offered himself for the more perilous enterprise of penetrating into the unknown regions of Central Africa. A letter from Sir Joseph Banks introduced him to the projectors of the expedition. "Before I had learned," says the gentleman to whom Sir Joseph's letter was addressed, "the name and business of my visitor, I was struck with the manliness of his person, the breadth of his chest, the openness of his countenance, and the inquietude of his eye. Spreading the map of Africa before him, and tracing a line from Cairo to Sennaar, and thence westward in the latitude and supposed direction of the Niger, I told him that was the route by which I was anxious that Africa might, if possible, be explored. He said he should consider himself singularly fortunate to be intrusted with the adventure. I asked him when he would set out. His answer was, 'To-morrow morning.'"322
New London's annals afford a passing glimpse of two men who, though enemies, were worthy of each other. During the war with England of 1812, Decatur, with the United States, Macedonian, and Hornet, was blockaded in New London by Sir T. M. Hardy with a squadron of superior force. The presence of the British fleet was a constant menace to the inhabitants, disquieted as they also were by the recollections of Arnold's descent. In vain Decatur tried to escape the iron grip of his adversary. Hardy's vigilance never relaxed, and the American vessels remained as uselessly idle to the end of the war, as if laid up in ordinary. Once Decatur had prepared to slip away unperceived to sea, but signals made to the hostile fleet from the shore compelled him to abandon the attempt. He then proposed to Hardy a duel between his own and an equal force of British ships, which, though he did not absolutely decline the challenge,323 it is pretty evident Sir Thomas never meant should happen.
Decatur was brave, fearless, and chivalric. He was the handsomest officer in the navy. Coleridge, who knew him well at Malta, always spoke of him in the highest terms. Our history does not afford a more impressive example of a useful life uselessly thrown away. Of his duel with Barron the following is probably a correct account of the closing scene: The combatants approached within sixteen feet of each other, because one was near-sighted, and the rule was that both should take deliberate aim before the word was given. They both fired, and fell with their heads not ten feet apart. Each believed himself mortally hurt. Before their removal from the ground they were reconciled, and blessed each other, declaring there was nothing between them. All that was necessary to have prevented the meeting was a personal explanation.
Sir T. Hardy is well known as the captain of Nelson's famous flag-ship, the Victory, and as having received these last utterances of the dying hero: "Anchor, Hardy, anchor!" When the captain replied, "I suppose, my lord, Admiral Collingwood will now take upon himself the direction of affairs?" "Not while I live, I hope, Hardy!" cried the dying chief, endeavoring ineffectually to raise himself from the bed. "No," he added, "do you anchor, Hardy." "Shall we make the signal, sir?" "Yes," replied his lordship, "for if I live, I'll anchor. Take care of my dear Lady Hamilton, Hardy; take care of poor Lady Hamilton. Kiss me, Hardy."324
With whatever local preferences the traveler may have come, he will think the approach to Norwich charming. Through banks high and green, crested with groves, or decked with white villages, the river slips quietly away to mingle in the noisy world of waters beyond. In deeper shadows of the hills the pictures along the banks are reproduced with marvelous fidelity of form and coloring; and even the blue of the sky and white drifting clouds are mirrored there. All terrestrial things, however, appear, as in the camera, inverted – roofs or steeples pointing downward, men or animals walking with feet upward, along the banks, like flies on a ceiling. When autumn tints are on, the effects seen in the water are heightened by the confused masses of sumptuous foliage hung like garlands along the shores.
Norwich is ranged about a hill overlooking the Thames. It is on a point of rock-land infolded by two streams, the Yantic and Shetucket, that come tumbling and hurrying down from the higher northern ranges to meet and kiss each other in the Thames. Rising, terrace above terrace, the appearance of Norwich, as viewed from the river, is more striking in its ensemble than by reason of particular features. The water-side is the familiar dull red, above which glancing roofs and steeples among trees are seen retreating up the ascent. By night a ridged and chimneyed blackness bestrewed with lights rewards the curious gazer from the deck of a Sound steamboat. I admired in Norwich the broad avenues, the wealth of old trees, the luxurious spaciousness of the private grounds. Washington Street is one of the finest I have walked in. There is breathing-room everywhere, town and country seeming to meet and clasp hands, each giving to the other of the best it had to offer. I do not mean that Norwich is countrified; but its mid-city is so easily escaped as to do away with the feeling of imprisonment in a wilderness of brick, stone, and plate-glass. The suburban homes of Norwich have an air of substantial comfort and delicious seclusion. In brief, wherever one has made up his mind to be buried, he would like to live in Norwich.
There are not a few picturesque objects about Norwich, especially by the shores of the Yantic, which, since being robbed of the falls, once its pride and glory, has become a prosaic mill-stream.325 The water is of the blackness of Acheron, streaked with amber where it falls over rocks, and of a rusty brown in shallows, as if partaking of the color of bits of decayed wood or dead leaves which one sees at the bottom. The stream, after having been vexed by dams and tossed about by mill-wheels, bounds joyously, and with some touch of savage freedom, to strike hands with the Shetucket.
The practical reader should be told that the city of Norwich is the outgrowth and was of yore the landing of Norwich town, two miles above it. The city was then known as Chelsea and Norwich Landing. The Mohegans were lawful owners of the soil. Subsequent to the Pequot war hostilities broke out between Uncas, chief of the Mohegans, and Miantonimo, the Narraganset sachem. The Narragansets invaded the territory of the Mohegans, and a battle occurred on the Great Plains, near Greenville, a mile and a half below Norwich. The Narragansets suffered defeat, and their chief became a prisoner. He was delivered by Uncas to the English, who condemned him to death, and devolved upon Uncas the execution of the sentence. The captive chief was led to the spot where he had been made prisoner, and, while stalking with Indian stoicism in the midst of his enemies, was killed by one blow from a tomahawk at the signal of Uncas. Miantonimo was buried where he fell, and from him the spot takes its name of Sachem's Plain.326
War continued between the Narragansets and Mohegans, the former, led by a brother of Miantonimo, being again the assailants. Uncas was at length compelled to throw himself within his strong fortress, where he was closely besieged, and in danger of being overpowered. He found means to send intelligence to Saybrook, where Captain Mason commanded, that his supply of food was exhausted. Mason immediately sent Thomas Leffingwell with a boat-load of provision, which enabled Uncas to hold out until his enemy withdrew. For this act, which he performed single-handed, Leffingwell received from Uncas the greater part of Norwich; and in 1659, by a formal deed, signed by Uncas and his two sons, Owaneko and Attawanhood, he, with Mason, Rev. James Fitch, and others, became proprietors of the whole of Norwich.327
I did not omit a visit to the ground where the "buried majesty" of Mohegan is lying. It is on the bank of the Yantic, in a secluded though populous neighborhood. A granite obelisk, with the name of Uncas in relief at its base, erected by citizens of Norwich, stands within the inclosure. The foundation was laid by President Jackson in 1833. Around are clustered a few mossy stones chiseled by English hands, with the brief record of the hereditary chieftains of a once powerful race.328 In its native state the spot must have been singularly romantic and well chosen. A wooded height overhangs the river in full view of the falls, where their turbulence subsides into a placid onward flow, and where the chiefs, ere their departure for the happy hunting-grounds, might look their last on the villages of their people. It was the Indian custom to bury by the margin of river, lake, or ocean. Here, doubtless, repose the bones of many grim warriors, seated in royal state, with their weapons and a pot of succotash beside them. The last interment here was of Ezekiel Mazeon, a descendant of Uncas, in 1826. The feeble remnant of the Mohegans followed him to the grave.329
Mr. Sparks remarks that the history of the Indians, like that of the Carthaginians, has been written by their enemies. As the faithful, unwavering ally of the English, Uncas has received the encomiums of their historians. His statesmanship has been justified by time and history. By alliance with the English he preserved his people for many generations after the more numerous and powerful Pequots, Narragansets, and Wampanoags had ceased to exist. In 1638 he came with his present of wampum to Boston, and having convinced the English of his loyalty, thus addressed them: "This heart" (laying his hand upon his breast) "is not mine, but yours. Command me any difficult service, and I will do it. I have no men, but they are all yours. I will never believe any Indian against the English any more." It is this invincible fidelity, approved by important services, that should make his name and character respected by every descendant of the fathers of New England.
About midway of the pleasant avenue that unites old Norwich with new is the birthplace of Benedict Arnold.330 Somewhat farther on, and when within half a mile of the town, you also see at the right the homely little building which was the apothecary's in which Arnold worked as a boy with pestle and mortar to the acceptance of his master, Dr. Lathrop, who lived in the adjoining mansion. One can better imagine Arnold dealing out musket-bullets than pills, and mixing brimstone with saltpetre rather than harmless drugs. As a boy he was bold, high-spirited, and cruel.
In this neighborhood I saw a group of elms unmatched for beauty in New England. One of them is a king among trees. They are on a grassy slope, before an inviting mansion, and are in the full glory of maturity. It was a feast to stand under their branching arms, and be fanned and soothed by the play of the breeze among their green tresses, that fell in fountains of rustling foliage from their crowned heads. A benison on those old trees! May they never fall into the clutches of that class who have a real and active hatred of every thing beautiful, or that appeals to more than their habitual perception is able to discover!
I made a brief visit at the mansion built by General Jedediah Huntington before he removed to New London after the Old War.331
In the dining-room was a full-length of General Eben Huntington, painted by Trumbull at the age of eighteen. On seeing it some years afterward, Trumbull took out his penknife and said to his host and friend, "Eb, let me put my knife through this." Another portrait by the same hand, representing the general at the siege of Yorktown, is in a far different manner. The three daughters of General Huntington, then living in the old family mansion, in referring to the warm friendship between their father and the painter, mentioned that the first and last portraits painted by Colonel Trumbull were of members of their family.
Near General Huntington's, where many of the choicest spirits of the Revolution have been entertained, is the handsome mansion of Governor Huntington, a remote connection of his military neighbor. Without the advantages of a liberal education, he became a member of the old Congress, and its president, chief-justice, and governor of Connecticut. President Dwight, who knew him well, extols his character and abilities warmly and highly.
I had frequent opportunities of seeing, in my rambles about the environs of New London and Norwich, the beautiful dwarf flowering laurel (Kalmia augustifolia) that is almost unknown farther north. In the woods, where it was growing in wild luxuriance, it appeared like a gigantic azelia, ablaze with fragrant bloom of white and pink. It used to be said that honey collected by the bee from this flower was poisonous. The broad-leaved laurel, or calico-tree (Kalmia latifolia) was believed to be even more injurious, instances being mentioned where death had occurred from eating the flesh of pheasants that had fed on its leaves.
Norwich town represents the kernel from which the city has sprung, and retains also no little of the savor incident to a population that has held innovations at arms-length. It has quiet, freshness, and a certain rural comeliness. A broad green, or common, planted with trees, is skirted by houses, many of them a century or more old, among which I thought I now and then detected the no longer familiar well-sweep, with the "old oaken bucket" standing by the curb. On one side of the common the old court-house is still seen.
Take the path beside the meeting-house, ascending the overhanging rocks by some natural steps, and you will be richly repaid for the trifling exertion. The view embraces a charming little valley watered by the Yantic, which here flows through rich meadow-lands and productive farms. Encompassing the settlement is another elevated range of the rocky hills common to this region, making a sort of amphitheatre in which the town is naturally placed.
The old church of Norwich town formerly stood in the hollow between two high hills above its present site. The pound, now its next neighbor, is still a lawful inclosure in most of the New England States. Not many years ago, I knew of a town in Massachusetts that was presented by a grand jury for not having one. I visited the old grave-yard, remarkable for its near return to a state of nature. Many stones had fallen, and sometimes two were kept upright by leaning one against the other. Weeds, brambles, and vines impeded my footsteps or concealed the grave-stones. I must often repeat the story of the shameful neglect which involves most of our older cemeteries. One is not quite sure, in leaving them, that he does not carry away on his feet the dust of former generations. Some of the stones are the most curious in form and design I have met with. The family tombs of Governor and General Huntington are here.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
SAYBROOK
"Says Tweed to Till,
'What gars ye rin sae still?'
Says Till to Tweed,
'Though ye rin wi' speed,
An' I rin slaw,
For ae man that ye droon,
I droon twa.'" —Old Song.
Rather more than a hundred miles from New York the railway crosses the Connecticut River, on one of those bridges that at a little distance resemble spiders' webs hung between the shores. From here one may look down quite to the river's mouth, where it enters the Sound; and if it be a warm summer's day, the bluish-gray streak of land across it may be seen. The Connecticut is the only river of importance emptying upon the New England coast that has not an island lodged in its throat.
It was on one of those parched days of midsummer, when the very air is quivering, and every green thing droops and shrivels under a vertical sun, that I first alighted at the station at Saybrook. The listless, fagged, and jaded air of city swells lounging about the platform, the flushed faces of blooming girls and watchful dowagers, betokened the general prostration of weary humanity, who yearned for the musical plash of sea-waves as the withering leaves and dusty grass longed for rain.
How feminine New England exaggerates, to be sure! A group of three young ladies exchange their views upon the sultriness of the day: one observes, "What a dreadful hot day!" a second declares it "horrid" (torrid, perhaps she meant to say); and the last pronounces it "perfectly frightful," emphasizing the opinion by opening her umbrella with a sharp snap. What they would have said to an earthquake, a conflagration, or a shipwreck, is left to bewildering conjecture.
In a certain unquiet portion of the American Union, the term Connecticut Yankee is expressive of concentrated dislike for shrewd bargaining, a nasal twang of speech, and a supposed desire to overreach one's neighbor. How often have I heard in the South the expression, "A mean Yankee;" as if, forsooth, meanness were sectional! Here in New England a Connecticut Yankee is spoken of as a cunning blade or sharp fellow; as an Englishman would say, "He's Yorkshire;" or an Italian, "È Spoletino."
The day of wooden nutmegs is past and gone, and Connecticut is more familiarly known as the "Land of Steady Habits." The whole State is a hive. Every smoky town you see is a busy work-shop. The problem of the Connecticut man is how to do the most work in the shortest time, whether by means of a sewing-machine, a Colt, or a mitrailleuse. If I should object to any thing in him, it would be the hurry and worry, the drive, which impels him through life – and in this I do not imagine he differs from the average American man of business – until, like one of his own engines that is always worked under a full pressure of steam, he stops running at last. That is why we see so many old men of thirty, and so many premature gray hairs in New England.
But what I chiefly lament is the disappearance of the Yankee – not the conventional Yankee of the theatre, for he had never an existence elsewhere; but the hearty yet suspicions, "cute" though green, drawling, whittling, unadulterated Yankee, with his broad humor, delicious patois, and large-hearted patriotism. His very mother-tongue is forgotten. Not once during these rambles have I heard his old familiar "I swaow," or "Git aout," or "Dew tell."332 Railway and telegraph, factory and work-shop, penetrating into the most secluded hamlets, have rubbed off all the crust of an originality so pronounced as to have become the type, and often the caricature too, of American nationality the world over.
One peculiarity I have noticed is that of calling spinsters, of whatever age, "girls." I knew two elderly maiden ladies, each verging on three-score, who were universally spoken of as the "Young girls," their names, I should perhaps explain, being Young. Once, when in quest of lodgings in a strange place, I was directed to apply to the two Brown girls, whose united ages, as I should judge, could not be less than a century and a quarter. But one is not to judge of New England girls by this sample.
Another practice which prevails in some villages is that of designating father and son, where both have a common Christian-name, as "Big Tom" and "Little Tom;" and brother and sister as "Bub" and "Sis." One can hardly maintain a serious countenance to hear a stalwart fellow of six feet alluded to as "Little" Tom, or Joe, or Bill, or a full-grown man or woman as "Bub" or "Sis." On the coast, nicknames are current principally among the sea-faring element; "Guinea Bill" or "Portugee Jack," presupposes the owner to have made a voyage to either of those distant lands.
The Italians count the whole twenty-four hours, beginning at half an hour after sunset. By this method of computation I reckoned on arriving at Saybrook Point at exactly twenty-two o'clock. I walked through the village leisurely observant of its outward aspect, which was that of undisturbed tranquillity. Modern life had been so long in reaching it, that it had been willing to accommodate itself to the old houses, and so far to the old life of the place. The toilets here, as elsewhere, encroached in many instances upon those of the last century, and were wonderfully like the portraits one sees of the time. Now, let us have the old manners back again.
One of the pleasantest old houses in Saybrook is the Hart mansion, which stands in the main street of the village, heavily draped by the foliage of three elm-trees of great size and beauty. It was a favorite retreat of that gallant sailor, Isaac Hull, who lost his heart there.333 Like Nelson, he was the idol of his sailors, for he was as humane as he was brave. He seldom ordered one of his old sea-dogs to be flogged, but would call a culprit before him, and after scolding him soundly with affected roughness of tone and manner, would tell him to return to his duty. The Old Ironsides was loved with a love almost like that which man bears to woman. Ladies would have kissed the hem of her sails; men scraped the barnacles from her bottom, and carried them home in their pockets. I have seen no end of canes, picture-frames, and other souvenirs of this famous ship treasured by fortunate possessors; and one of the old merchants of Boston had his street door made of her oak.
Saybrook is languid. It is dispersed along one broad and handsome street, completely canopied by an arch of foliage. You seem, when at the entrance, to be looking through a green tunnel. In this street there is no noise and but little movement. The few shops were without custom. After the spasm of activity caused by the arrival of the train – when it seemed for the moment to rub its eyes and brisk up a little, carriages and pedestrians having mysteriously disappeared somewhere – the old town dozed again.
The Connecticut is here tame and uninteresting, with near shores of salt-marsh flatness. Yellow sand-bars, green hummocks, or jutting points skirted with pine-groves, inclose the stream, which is broad, placid, and shallow. There are no iron headlands, or dangerous reefs. Nature seems quite in harmony with the general quietude and restfulness.
A few years ago there existed at the Point the remains of a colonial fortress, with much history clustering around it. It was raised in the very infancy of English settlement at the mouth of the Connecticut; and when the Revolution came, the old dismounted cannon, that had perhaps done duty with Howard or Blake, were again placed on the ramparts. The railway people have reduced the hill on which it stood to a flat and dreary gravel waste.334 This is walking into antiquity with a vengeance! It is perhaps fortunate that the Coliseum, Temple Bar, and St. Denis are not where they would be valued for the cubic yards of waste material they might afford.
The Dutch anticipated the English in the settlement on Connecticut River. The Hollanders at Fort Amsterdam, and the then rival colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay, were each desirous of obtaining a foothold which each felt too weak to undertake alone. The country had been subjugated by the Pequots, whose territory neither colony might invade without bringing the whole nation upon them.
The Dutch were also first to visit the river, and to inform the Pilgrims of its beauty and advantages for traffic. In 1633, Massachusetts having rejected overtures for a joint occupation, Plymouth determined to establish a trading-post upon the river without her aid. Apprised of this intention, the Dutch dispatched an expedition, which disembarked where Hartford now is. A house was hastily erected, and ordnance mounted, with which the Hollanders gave notice that they meant to keep out intruders.
The Plymouth expedition, under command of William Holmes, ascended the river, and, notwithstanding an attempt to stop them, passed by the Dutch fort. They landed at Nattawanute, afterward Windsor, and, having made themselves secure, sent their vessel home. Word was sent to Fort Amsterdam of the invasion. A company of seventy dispatched to the scene advanced "brimful of wrath and cabbage," with drums beating and colors flying, against the English fort. Seeing the Pilgrims were in nowise disconcerted, the Dutch captain ordered a halt; a parley took place, and, having thus vindicated the national honor, Gualtier Twilley's men withdrew.335
The attempts of Plymouth to establish tributary plantations, with trading-posts, at the extreme eastern and western limits of New England, were equally disastrous. Massachusetts stood quietly by, and saw her rival dispossessed at Penobscot, but at Windsor the Plymouth people soon found themselves hemmed in between settlements made by emigrants from the bay. As a quarrel would perhaps have been alike fatal to both, Plymouth gave way to her more powerful neighbor.
The English settlement of Connecticut is usually assigned to the year 1635, the year of beginnings at Hartford, Wethersfield, and Saybrook. In the autumn the younger Winthrop sent a few men to take possession and fortify at the mouth of the Connecticut, as agent of Lords Say, Brook, and their associate owners of the patent.336 This expedition forestalled by a few days only a new attempt to obtain possession by the Dutch, who, finding the English already landed and having cannon mounted, abandoned their design.
Through the agency of the celebrated Hugh Peters, the patentees engaged, and sent to New England, Lion Gardiner, a military engineer who had served in the Low Countries. He arrived at Boston in November, 1635, and proceeded to the fort at the mouth of the Connecticut. He was followed by George Fenwick, sent over by Lord Say to be resident agent of the English proprietors. Fenwick, accompanied by Peters, reached the fort in the spring. The plantation was called Saybrook, as a compliment to the two principal personages interested in its founding.
