t ROMANCE AND REALITY OF THE PURITAN COAST Hester Prynne and Pearl. ^ROMANCE COAST ^M!^ many fl^jicturina3 autAentic or fancifuf by dm*undHGarrett PubtifhedbyjLittfe ^rownfa Co. Lofton Copyright, 1897, BY EDMUND H. GARRETT. SRnitorrsttg Press: JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. PRG&fCS A man might as well go to court without a cravate as to write a book without a preface. SIR ROGER L'ESTRANGE. HOUGH much has been written already about the North Shore, the coast of the Puritans, and the subject is perhaps as well worn as the road that leads by its sea, it may not be superfluous to survey the scene from a fresh point of view, the saddle of a bicycle. For Nature is found along the wheel's track, as well as on the mountain path, by the stream, or in the woods; and the love of Nature is our lasting 8 Preface. joy. The book is then not so much in praise of riding, as of seeing. Nor has it only to do with Nature, for in it is mixed much talk of man's doings and makings, something too of history and romance. Yet, after all, it is really the love of Nature that rules and abides. How often, when the winter days lengthen and drag, the wheelman sighs for springtime and the road ! I know this longing, but with me, it is not wholly Preface. for travel's sake. The longing is mixed with memories of highways where the snow melts early, where the scents of springtime are unloosened and doubled in the bland air ; perfume of red-flowered maples, balsam from the pines, and a promise of fruition in the odor of newly-ploughed fields ; memories of the orchard turning all lichen- like in color, from its swelling buds, and of little brooks sparkling like sapphires and diamonds in the green lowlands. Surely, the riding is only a part ! for what of all this does the " scorcher " see, or he of the " cen- tury"? To him, too, comes, of course, the breath of wood and orchard, the fragrance from field and garden (as the rain falls on the just and the unjust) ; but they come too quickly, one upon the other, for the proper savoring. Besides, his mind, too intent upon the road, has no time for contemplation, nor 10 Preface. for vagabond wanderings, no time for sum- mer memories awakened by familiar sounds and odors, memories of the hot afternoons or quiet evenings, the drowsy song of locusts, "Rfst in a shady grove" chirp of katydid or cricket, fresh morning rides, and rest in a shady grove, or by the cool sea. Most people ride too fast. The art of strolling a-wheel should be cultivated. The best way to do this is to take the mind Preface. ii off the cyclometer and the clock, and put it on the landscape and its life. It was in such a spirit of idling and obser- vation that the trip described in this book was made. The pictures are for the most part those one may see from the saddle, or dismount to enjoy at leisure, travelling as much in a day as is convenient. Here is no desire to impose a point of view upon others, but only to record for them that which most impressed myself, and to give such simple directions as may help them to find, on the way, whatever herein may be of interest. Indeed, the text has been written around the pictures; and it is plain that, as Stevenson said of Thoreau, the writer has " relied greatly on the good will of the reader." 0NTENTS THE START 19 THE SHORE 37 NAHANT 41 LYNN AND SWAMPSCOTT 58 MARBLEHEAD 66 SALEM no BEVERLY 133 MANCHESTER 152 MAGNOLIA 169 GLOUCESTER AND ROCKPORT 184 PIGEON COVE AND ANNISQUAM 208 LIST op DRAWING Hester Prynne and Pearl Frontispiece Map of the Puritan Coast Title " Newly ploughed fields " 8 A Scorcher 9 " Rest in a shady grove " 10 " Languidly the stream glides " 20 Medford Square 21 A Real Provincial Grandee 23 Craddock House 26 " Through the shadow of a graceful leaning willow " . 27 A pretty coast 31 Howard House, Melrose 33 1 6 List of Drawings. " Between the buttonwoods and willows " . . . . 34 Boats on the shore, Lynn Beach 38 The old rock temple 42 Stony Beach, Nahant 47 Pulpit Rock 51 Swallow's Cave 54 Longfellow Cottage 55 Moll Pitcher 59 Fisherman's Beach 61 Eastern Yacht Club 67 St. Michael's 73 Lee Mansion 75 Front Street 77 " The backyards are as picturesque as the streets " . 79 Tucker House Si Pirates in Marblehead 85 Floyd Ireson's House 89 Old Well of Fountain Inn 91 Old House on the site of the Fountain Inn .... 92 Sir Harry meets Agnes Surriage 93 Lady Frankland 97 " Old Brig," birthplace of Moll Pitcher 99 General Glover's Tomb 101 Lobsterman's Hut 103 Old Stone Church 104 Elbridge Gerry's Birthplace 105 Corner of Back and Mugford Streets 107 Hawthorne's Birthplace 115 List of Drawings. 17 The Manning Homestead 116 Where Hawthorne was always welcome 118 The Custom House, Salem 1 19 Hawthorne and the wraith of Collector Pue .... 123 Old Custom House Wharf 125 House in which " The Scarlet Letter " was written . ' 128 Beverly Cove 135 Paul's Head 138 Mingo Beach 143 Catholic Church 148 " Beverly-by-the-Depot " 149 West Beach 151 Tuck's Point 153 Manchester Public Library and Church 155 Manchester Harbor 156 Unitarian Chapel 156 Lobster Cove 157 The pretty Episcopal Church 159 The Shady Lane 161 Eagle's Head from Singing Beach 163 Black Beach and Manchester Cove 166 An Introduction 170 Beach at Magnolia 171 Under the Willows, Magnolia 173 Summer House, Magnolia 174 "And the skipper had taken his little daughter to bear him company" , 177 Fresh Water Cove Village 180 1 8 List of Drawings. Rafe's Chasm 181 From the wharves, East Gloucester 186 Eastern Point . . 188 The Harbor from East Gloucester 189 Ebenezer Habson 195 "Old Meg" 199 The Main Street, Rockport 202 Rockport 203 Folly Cove 210 "The Village Street" 211 Annisquam Church 215 Head of Annisquam Harbor 218 Riverdale . 220 TH ""Then care away Jfnd ivcnd along me" Coridon's Song I CROSSED the bridge over the A b a j o n a River at Mystic, under the shade of the willows overhanging the road by the little boat-house. Though just in the saddle, and barely more than half a mile from home, I dismoun- ted to enjoy the beauty of the familiar scene. Languidly the stream glides, brown in the shadows, and, with its lights sky-tinted, glides out from the heart of the town, past the dented, tufted meadow, and under the oaks 20 The Puritan Coast. and maples where its bolder shore rises to the sloping fields and orchards. A good sketching-ground : peaceful, pastoral, in spite of the railroad hard by. *+&* Languidly thr stream glides" As I went on, up the hill, to Symmes' Corner, the sun flashed a million little span- gles on Mystic Lake, and from the farther shore the hills rose in hazy distance, rolling toward Arlington. It is two and a half miles The Start. 21 to Medford Square, over a very indifferent road, and the ribbon-like track of the wheels Medftord Square. showed that long stretches of sidepath be- tween the few houses were generally used. The goldenrod was on the wane, but purple, 22 The Puritan Coast. white, and golden asters were in their prime, though in some places dust-laden, and all the way the chicory spread its cheerful blue. " Ragged Dick," I have heard this flower called : a poor return for the generosity with which it lends its beauty to vacant lots, arid freight-yards, and factory wastes. Now it hung by the dusty roadside, and a little farther back I had seen it springing from a bed of cinders, and waving in the wind and smoke of a passing train. Medford is a lovely old place ; it has the well kept, settled look of land long occupied. Old houses under trees that arch the street, picturesque churches, a fine mansion turned into a public library, once these are passed, the street leads down into Medford Square, where bygones mingle with to-day. On the left, amongst colonial homes, is the old Seccomb house, built in imitation of the Royall mansion, and now used for municipal offices. Down Main Street to the right, only a little way, on the corner of Royall Street, A Real Provincial Grandee. The Start. 25 is the fine colonial mansion itself, built by Colonel Isaac Royall after the model of an English gentleman's house in Antigua. His son, who seems to have inherited the title of colonel along with the manse, was a distin- guished patron of Harvard College, having given two thousand acres of land where- with to found the first professorship of law. He is described as kind and benevolent, " a good master to his slaves." His timid- ity made him a Tory and a fugitive during the Revolution, and his estates were con- fiscated. Great entertainments were given here, for the colonel was grandly hospi- table, as became a member of the Govern- or's Board of Council, and a real provincial grandee. From the square, down Riverside Avenue about a mile, is the Governor Craddock house, built in 1634: a strong, fortified brick house with gambrel roof and overhanging second story. It is one of the most precious relics of New England antiquity, one of our few old houses retaining its original form. 26 The Puritan Coast. But our trail lies to the left from the square, down Forest Street, a pleasantly- Craddock House. shaded way which soon enters the Middlesex Fells. At the corner of Elm Street, our road to Melrose, there are a drinking fountain and " Through the shadow of a graceful leaning willow.' The Start. 29 a pumping station. To the left rise the Fells, at the back of Winchester. Around the corner, an iron water-tower rises, in black ugliness, on a naked hill. Nothing offers a better chance for architectural effect, or might be made a more pleasing part of the land- scape than these water-castles, yet almost without exception they are an offence to good taste, and veritable eyesores. From the top of the hill is a pretty coast down to the turn in the road, and through the shadow of a graceful leaning willow. Here one turns to the left, passes the Lang- wood Hotel, overlooking Spot Pond, and turns down the Ravine Road. On the left is the Virginia Wood, given to the "public in 1892 by Mrs. Fanny Foster Tudor ; its motto : " All who enter this Wood are Shareholders in its beauty." Great hem- locks, oaks, and pines rise in its shadows from their gnarled roots amongst the scattered rocks and covert of brake and fern. From here there is a good coast to the fork of the road, where a turn to the left 30 The Puritan Coast. leads by a shady avenue of bewildering autumnal beauty into Wyoming Avenue, and so to Mel rose. After crossing the Boston and Maine Rail- way at Wyoming Station, and turning to the left, the electric car-track points the way direct to where the tracks diverge to Stone- ham and Saugus, at Melrose Highlands. Here there is a little triangular oasis with a fountain murmuring under some maples, and lacking only a bench or two to make it a welcome resting-place before one proceeds to the right down Howard Street. About a mile down its length is the an- cient Howard house, with a jutting second story built by the Puritan settler in remem- brance of the old English home. Toward the garden is a long lean-to, and an aban- doned well with a high-reaching sweep. The car-track still points our way through Oakland Vale, past infrequent houses, patches of flowers, or currant and goose- berry bushes in rows under drooping apple- boughs. A pretty coast. The Start. 33 Over a wall, by the Newburyport turn- pike, the smooth meadow's green was fresh- tinted by autumn rains, and beyond it the i t 7 Howard House. Melrose. hills of Cliftondale rose blue with the haze of autumn and the drifting smoke of bon- fires. At the corner is a large flat rock, and there I rested, recalling another summer 3 34 The Puritan Coast. afternoon when I had sat there in the shade of green leaves, while the new mown hay was carried off between the buttonwoods and wil- " Between the buttotnvoods and willows." lows. The cries of the farmers, the barking of their dogs, and creak of the laden wagon blended strangely with the growing shriek of an on-coming electric car. The Start. 35 On the hill, after passing through Saugus, comes the first whiff of sea air, as one looks across the marshes and the clayey brick- yards, under the smoke of their burning kilns, to the blue windings of the Saugus River. Downward to Boston Street, with glimpses of the river sparkling at the foot of shady lanes and under branching elms, one gets the first taste of the picturesqueness of the old North Shore towns. Hardly one of the houses is set squarely with the street; a delightful individuality constrains them. It seemed to me like a corner of old Lynn, as I remember it years ago, the great trees, the shade, the air of thrift and neatness, and, above all, the characteristic orderliness amid the general disregard of order. The tide was inflowing, with ample eddies and a promise of great fulness. Below the bridge, boats swung at their moorings ; and beyond harvested cornfields and brown hay- stacks, above the level marshes, swam in the distant haze the great hotels at the Point of Pines. 36 The Puritan Coast. But I will leave the reader to follow his will in Lynn, stopping to visit the Lynn Woods with beautiful lakes, rocky hills, far-reaching views of coast and country, lonely swamps, Dungeon Rock, and romantic Pirates' Glen, or else to wheel on, past the long beautiful common, and through the busy streets of humming labor and bustling trade, to the ocean and the shore. Here where these sunny waters break, And ripples this keen breeze, I shake All burdens from the heart, all weary thoughts away. WHITTIER. WHEN the wind is easterly, one hears the long roar of the breakers while he is yet jolt- ing over the pavement of Beach Street, and although there is a summer hotel at the foot of the street, a sudden and strange remoteness from city life comes with the sight of the sea. To the left, a path leads to Red Rock and Swampscott. To the right, is the long and narrow isthmus of beach and road which connects Lynn and Nahant. On one side 38 The Puritan Coast. lies the city, its spires and chimneys rising through a light, merciful haze, and crowned with the smoke of labor, the shore growing fainter and fainter until lost in the thicken- ing mist to the westward. On the strand near by some yachts were drawn up about an old hulk, in a confusion of blocks, ropes, and The Shore. 39 drying sails. Overhead, a few gulls wheeled lazily, calling querulously, while some hun- dreds of their fellows perched in white lines on the tide-left bars below. On the other side, the sea was beating in on the wonderfully fine beach sprung like a bow between the rocks of Lynn and Little Nahant. Long rollers of the coming tide, sometimes in ranks of as many as five, pounded and thundered in the morning sun- light that fell in almost unbearable bright- ness on their curving crests. Half lost to the troubled sight, were outlying rocks in the haze beyond the burnished light of the reflected sun, where, all mist-interwoven, blended the sea and sky. The Nahant road is fine, and it is a charm- ing, breezy ride. However, the wind has such an unchecked sweep across these sands, that a struggle against it is sometimes more of a task than a pleasure. Curving gently towards Little Nahant, the road rises slightly above the shore, which is overhung by bay- 4O The Puritan Coast. berry, blackberry, and wild roses, and strewn with tumbled bowlders, the advanced guard of the Nahant Cliffs. In the harbor was a tug outgoing with its tow, and from the mystery of the westward haze came, as an echo to the roar of the surf, the distant thunder of a train hurrying from one city to another. The chirp of land-birds blended with the cry of wheeling gulls; fish- ermen were mending nets near the shore, and cows grazing in the marshy meadows between the harbor and the sea, all in the mingled scents of field and ocean. AFTER passing Nahant Beach between Little and Great Nahant, our road turns to the left, and mounts the hill be- tween the school-house, under its flag, and the engine house with its tower. One looks back over road and cottages and the crescent-shaped, foam-fringed beach to the mainland beyond. The second turn to the left, after passing the schoolhouse, leads down the hill to a queer and picturesque temple, crowning a rock upheaved in the side hill and backed by a disorderly thicket of poplars. Columns The Puritan Coast. of rough-hewn stone uphold a, roof orna- mented with medallions in dusky gold, of mermen and mermaids, sea-horses and sea- r p */n " The old rock temple. gods. Built in 1861, it is all that is left of the once popular resort, "The Maolis Gardens." Nahant. 43 At the end of the shore road, by a wood- bine-covered rustic fence and gate, a path leads down a few rough steps and straggles along the cliff above rocky buttresses of pur- ple, black, and ruddy sienna, accentuated by spots of yellow and cool gray. Down into its edge creep weeds and grasses gay with wild flowers. The sea breaks below on a confusion of many-colored rocks, lifting in its every undulation the rockweed which shows in the coming wave as in a tent of crystal. Soon the path rises, passing sometimes over the bare, shelving, wind-swept rock, until, at the top of a cliff, one comes to a seat of stout plank bolted to granite posts. It commands a fine and far-reaching view. To the northeast is Swampscott, on its topmost point the new High School, and away in the distance, changing, serrated spots of foam discover the rocky islets off Marblehead. Eastward, under the sea's rim, the waves dash high about Egg Rock, named from the great quantities of gulls' 44 The Puritan Coast. eggs found there by the early settlers. From its lantern, a red warning goes forth into the night. Near at hand, the sunken ledges now and then betray their presence, as they break the incoming swell into great bouquets of foam. At the foot of the cliff is Spouting Horn, seen best by going down at the right to the flat ledges below. The waves, breaking on the rocks, rush into a narrowing channel, and in a second or two a puff of foam and spray shoots upward and outward, back to the sea, carrying on its breast a little rainbow. If we may credit tradition, in these waters is the lair of the sea-serpent. We read that he was occasionally seen here in the summer of 1817 by "Hundreds of curious specta- tors," who declared that he was as long as the mainmast of a "seventy-four," with a "shaggy head" and "glittering eye." Re- wards were offered for his capture; it is needless to say that they were offered in vain! John Josselyn, Gent., who visited the Nahant. 45 coast in 1638, averred that his snake-ship was seen " Quoiled up on a rock at Cape Ann." At other times, mention is made of his appearance off Cape Ann, but Nahant Bay seems to have been his favorite resort. There is a charming arrangement of path and shore, to a stile at the top of a long flight of steps, fringed with graceful willows and descending to Stony Beach ; then a turn- stile, and between the two, the path loses its rustic character and becomes a mere walk of crushed stone, bordering an irreproachable lawn with cultivated shrubs and brilliant flowering plants. Turning the headland and almost doubling on itself, the path changes to a plank walk, and leads back to Nahant Road. Here is a long hospitable bench overhanging Bass or The Forty Steps Beach, with a fine view of a retired and singularly beautiful cove with East Point on its other side, and in its middle Castle Rock. So sheltered is it here, that only the roughest weather can trouble the cove's calm waters. 46 The Puritan Coast. Nahant is an Indian name meaning "the twins." Captain John Smith, in 1614, named the spot the Fullerton Isles; for before the connecting roads were built the high tides may have made seeming islands of the two peninsulas. Indeed, from a vessel's deck, mariners, wary of this rock-picketed coast, might easily have thought them sea-girt. A suit of clothes was the price paid Saga- more Poquanum for the whole place by the settlers of Lynn, of which town it was a part until 1853. Like all the islands about Bos- ton Harbor, it is said to have been heavily wooded once ; but it was early cleared, leav- ing it at once as treeless and bleak as the islands are to-day. In the first half of our century, thousands of trees were planted by public-spirited men from Boston. Willows and poplars seem to have thriven best on its wind-swept turf. The peninsula was used, after its purchase, as a common pasture; then came the Breeds, the Hoods, and the Johnsons, first lords of the soil, wresting a living from pasture and sea until the natural Nahant. 49 beauty of the place and its healthful summer climate brought wealthy families from Bos- ton and Salem ; and amongst them were scholarly men of genius, who found compan- ionship and help in the presence of "The grand majestic symphonies of ocean." Unhappily, the houses in which these famous men lived and labored have been destroyed or very much altered. Prescott worked here at his "Ferdinand and Isa- bella," his "Conquest of Mexico," and his " Philip the Second." His house overlooked Swallow's Cave, and has been much changed. Motley began his " Dutch Republic " in Mrs. Hannah Hood's cottage, which stood in a cor- ner of what is now the George Upham estate, opposite Whitney's Hotel. When torn down, it was the oldest house on Nahant. Mrs. Annie Johnson, the Nahant poet, re- members well when Longfellow boarded with her father, Jonathan Johnson. There he wrote a part of "Hiawatha." The house was on the Main Street ; a few years ago it 4 50 The Puritan Coast. was sold at auction, moved, and entirely re- modelled. Longfellow also boarded with Mrs. Hannah Hood, and later bought the \Vetmore place, and lived there many years. Latterly, the house was known as the Long- fellow cottage; it was burned May 18, 1896. Professor Agassiz had also a summer home here. No doubt it was partly its convenient nearness to Boston, as well as its climate and beauty, which led these men to choose the place for residence. In fact, it is the very closeness of the Nahant cliffs to the hived life of cities which freshens and mag- nifies the impression produced by the ocean. Within sound of bells in city steeples, its surf thunders on sand or rock, and the long rumble of heavy trains is heard in the pauses of roaring breakers. Nowhere on the coast is one more impressed by the sea than here. On the cliffs at Magnolia, over the abyss of Rafe's Chasm and fateful Norman's Woe, or by the lonely rocks of Folly Cove or Land's End, we may be more alone with nature, \ Nahant. 53 but at Nahant the sharp contrast between the city and the shore is felt with keenest pleasure. At the end of Nahant Road, on the other side of Bass Beach and Castle Rock, there is a path passing, at the rear of Henry Cabot Lodge's house, up rough steps by sumachs and struggling poplars, to the cliffs; and here is a grand view of Boston Harbor and Massachusets Bay. Directly underneath is Pulpit Rock, a great mass jutting out over the water, and named from its fancied resemblance to a pul- pit. On its top is the suggestion of a Bible and prayer-book. At its left, in the chasm crossed by the little wooden bridge, is an arch called the Natural Bridge, and at the right is Sappho's -Rock. The walk over- hanging the hollow, resounding chasms and jagged ledges leads on to East Point, a van- tage ground for viewing the surf; even on a calm day it rushes angrily over the ledges, to be churned to foam against the resisting 54 The Puritan Coast. rocks. A great hotel, the pride of the coast, was built here in 1824, and was burned in 1 86 1. All that is left of it now is the bil- liard-hall, a little temple-like structure crowning the Point, lonely and picturesque. Swallow*!! Cave. After returning to Nahant Road, the first turn to the left leads past the oddly placed little delta of vegetable garden, shrub and flower-hid, to the shore, westward. Here is Swallow's Cave, said to be seventy feet deep, Nahant. 55 fourteen feet wide in places, and as much as twenty feet in height. I know nothing to the contrary; and advise all doubters to for- sake the wheel for a dory, and make what should be a most interesting investigation. Longfellow Cottage. On the way back, the first left leads to Cliff Street, and a pretty vine-clad church ; whence, by turning again to the left, one comes to Willow Road, the way to Bass Point and West Cliff, thus completing the 56 The Puritan Coast. circuit of Great Nahant, and leading back to Nahant Road and Lynn. Just around the corner of Cliff Street, on Willow Road, stood the Longfellow cottage. It was French roofed, and had sightly ver- andas. A large window in the roof lighted the studio of the poet's artist son. At the back, it overlooked all Boston Harbor. Here the poet lived and wrote in sight and hear- ing of the sea. " Ah ! what pleasant visions haunt me As I gaze upon the sea ! All the old romantic legends, All my dreams, come back to me." i Across Lynn Bar, as the harbor is called, over the headland, when day is done, still come the "sounds aerial" of the bells of Lynn. A few years ago, an order was in- troduced in the city government to stop the ringing of these evening bells. But too many of the old stock still lived, in whose hearts, from childhood, this New England angelus had found an echo; and so the Philistines The Secret of the Sea. Nahant. 57 were routed. As they came to the poet so long ago, they still come - " Borne on the evening wind across the crimson twi- light." " The distant lighthouse hears, and with his flaming signal Answers you, passing the watchword on, O Bells of Lynn ! " And down the darkening coast run the tumultuous surges, And clap their hands, and shout to you, O Bells of Lynn ! " Till from the shuddering sea, with your wild incanta- tions, Ye summon up the spectral moon, O Bells of Lynn ! " And startled at the sight, like the weird woman of Endor, Ye cry aloud, and then are still, O Bells of Lynn ! " LITTLE is left in Lynn of old times, for it has changed wonderfully. It seems not long ago that much of the manufacturing was done in the little door-yard shops, once so com- mon, or in the homes themselves. The spare minutes of every housewife were given to binding shoes. Piles of flat-folded vamps stood in some handy corner, and near by the women sat and day-dreamed, or gossiped as they sewed. Now all work is done in the great factories of this the greatest "shoe town" in the world. Such a bustling city seems an unlikely home for romance. Yet under the shadow of High Rock lived Moll Pitcher, witch and Lynn and Swampscott. fortune-teller; in the fastnesses of Woods pirates made their lair, and, if we may be- lieve tradition, Dungeon Rock still guards ill-gotten treasure. When the shoe- shops and mills of busy Lynn, and noise, and stone- paved roads have been left behind, there comes the evidence of pros- perity and rewarded in- dustry with the well-kept roads, villa-lined, to Swamp- scott. It is a mile and more of good wheeling from the fine colonial Moll Pitcher house of the Oxford Club, by Nahant and Ocean Streets, to Humphrey Street, in concentric curve with King's Beach. 1 1 Lewis calls this Humphrey's Beach. 60 The Puritan Coast. First of the Swampscott beaches, it is sep- arated from the road by old fish-houses and modest cottages whose erratic back-yards, gay with the yellow of sunflowers and nas- turtiums, make a bright background to the oddly-littered sands, sands gray, moist, soft underfoot, fit for old-fashioned sanded floors in country inns and kitchens. Fish-nets hang drying from the garden fences, or trail their sinuous length along the beach. Lobster- pots, and fish-cars, buoys, blocks, floats, and anchors lie about the sands and the drawn up dories. The Swampscott dory is the safest of boats, if handled properly, and any one needs a good boat who must gain his living over the sunken ledges of this perilous coast. It is a picturesque sight to see the fishermen set forth or come in through the morning surf. In former years a large fleet of vessels sailed from Swampscott for deep-sea fishing, sum- mer and winter. Now, only a few are left, and most of the fishing is done from dories near the shore. " Fish are scurce," is the Lynn and Swampscott. 61 complaint; and the appearance of weirs along the coast seems to promise that tri^y may be " scurcer." There is no harbor, and Fisktrmatii Beach. the boats lie at moorings off the beaches in Nahant Bay. Next comes Blaney's or Fisherman's Beach, longer, busier, with more dories, fishermen, 62 The Puritan Coast. and fish-houses, the real fishing centre. Before reaching it, the road, always with glimpses of the sea, passes the soldiers' monument, backed by very fine residences, on streets laid out through Paradise Woods. Orient Street follows the shore closely, and where it turns away from the beach there is a pleasant look backward over the bay and town. From the shore of mingled rock and sand, the land rises in diversified and culti- vated beauty, and stretches away westward to the shores of Lynn and Nahant. The road is perfect, and one is tempted to covet the shaded seats on these lawns, lulled by the sea. From the little summer-house overlooking Whale Beach, opposite the Ocean House, may be seen the cliffs of the South Shore at Scitu- ate, showing faintly beyond Nahant and Egg Rock. To the left, the beach curves sharply to the wooded shore of Phillips' Point, Tedesco Rocks, and Dread Ledge. The ledge's ominous name might well be borne by all the rocky chain of reefs and Lynn and Swampscott. 63 rocks off this dangerous coast. While the summer wind just fringes them with white, it is hard to imagine how awful and sinister is their aspect when swept by the black waters of winter tempests. One January night, in 1857, the ship Tedesco was lost on those cruel rocks, and all on board perished pite- ously. The tormented sea tore and ground the vessel piece-meal, and then hurled her great anchors after the debris high upon the resisting rocks ; and there they were found in the morning by the townsmen, amid the other wreckage, and the dead bodies, all awful wit- nesses of the sea's mighty power. But in cycling weather all is peace, and from the sunny beach the road rises over the point to the dense cool shade of giant willows and maples. Then, as it grows sunny again, oaks begin to mingle with the willows, which seem to be the typical trees of Swampscott. Under their branches the old stone walls are fringed with sumachs and birches, and rocky ledges crop out from their coverings of sweet 64 The Puritan Coast. fern and bayberry. Suddenly cool breezes come again from the sea, and, over the wav- ing roadside tansy and goldenrod, glimpses of blue water between swaying trees ; then, seen across green level fields, rise the picturesque profiles of Clifton and Marblehead Neck. From Humphrey Square, level and broad Atlantic Avenue is lined on one side with fine residences of the modern American type, which at its best is often extremely pictur- esque, while on the other side the unoccu- pied land slopes gently to Phillips' Pond and Beach, and is crossed by a pretty lane under apple-boughs drooping with reddening fruit. In springtime their white and pink blossoms count, in telling masses, against the tender blues and greens of sky and water. In fact, this "stern and rock bound coast" is richly beautiful in color. Beyond Beach Bluff, its craggy hillsides are dotted with softly rounded clumps of willow, turning sil- ver in the breeze, though touched by autumn with lemon yellow, the slopes and marshy places are splashed broadly with goldenrod Lynn and Swampscott. 65 and tansy, with the dull rich red of Joe Pye Weed, and the sombre purple of ripe elder- berries; in the hollows, squares of strange blue, green, and dye-like purple cabbages alternate with pumpkins and squashes in every gradation of yellow and orange; and all this brightness is interwoven with the bronze greens and browns of foliage made splendid here and there by the scarlets and gold of early autumn leaves. WHEN one turns again toward the sea, it is by the little greenhouse and the bit of meadow made gay by bunches of changeful hydrangeas and flaming cannas. The large house across the fields, over the strong stone wall, is the Devereux Mansion, a modern house on the site of the old farmhouse visited by Longfellow in 1846, and celebrated in his poem "The Fire of Driftwood." " We sat within the farmhouse old, Whose windows, looking o'er the bay, Gave to the sea-breeze damp and cold An easy entrance night and day." The farmhouse has been gone a long time, and the farm itself cut up into many house- Marble head. lots; but the good old-fashioned barn still opens its wide doors at the end of the lovely elm-shaded approach. Here, through the warm summer after- noons and evenings, the air is filled with the rumble of car- Eastern Yacht Club. riages rolling through the narrow street ; for it is a favorite drive, and leads past the ruins of the old fort and over the narrow 68 m The Puritan Coast. causeway by Marblehead Beach to Marble- head Neck. All around this rugged peninsula are fine drives and walks, with broad ocean views on one side, and on the other pleasant outlooks over the harbor to the old town. Here are the headquarters of yachting in the East, and the houses of the Eastern and Corinthian yacht clubs. About the shore are curious formations in the rocks, and grand places for watching the eddying tides, either in upspringing surf or restful open sea. But the finest entertain- ment Marblehead offers is not there, but rather on the harbor side, at sunset. Then the old town, rising with picturesque profile, is empurpled against the richly luminous sky, and the calm deep waters of the harbor reflect the glowing colors of a picture remem- bered with delight. The way to the old town by land is back over the causeway and then to the right. A little brook comes from the pond by the Marblehead. 69 Devereux Mansion under great trees, and, after crossing the road, wanders off through the meadow beyond which lies Marblehead. " The strange old-fashioned silent town, The lighthouse, the dismantled fort, The wooden houses quaint and brown." Was the color adjective well chosen? " Gray " would have been more truthful. I remember Marblehead years ago, much less tricked out with paint. When I was looking for the scenes of Agnes Surriage's girlhood, not long ago, Old Floyd Oirson's house was clothed with that soft gray mantle which our New England weather casts over unpainted wood. Now it is bright yellow ! This passion or necessity for paint, vary- ing in tint with the caprice of house-owners, is the reason our towns have such a motley color-effect. In the Old Country, the build- ing is mostly of stone, generally quarried in the neighborhood. This gives a uniform breadth of effect, and is in subtle harmony 70 The Puritan Coast. with the landscape. Here, on the contrary, we may have a cinnamon-colored house be- tween one of a virulent green and another of a bilious blue, these in turn flanked by pumpkin yellow and slaughter-house red. Where the colors are not so "loud," they simply run the scale of the dealer's sample- card of ready-mixed tints. 1 There is the same difference between the natural color of stone or wood and of paint, that there is between the fresh complexion of a young girl and the rouged and powdered cheeks of an actress. Washington, when he visited New Eng- land- in 1789, marvelled at the houses "being built almost entirely of wood ... as the country is full of stone, and good clay for bricks." The people told him that "on account of the fog and the damp they deemed them wholesomer, and for that reason pre- 1 Ruskin says somewhere (I think in " Stones of Ven- ice ") that he had never seen a painted house that was satisfactory. Yet I suppose that he never dreamed of the dreadful combinations which we see every day, and to which we have not only grown resigned but callous. Marblehead. 71 ferred wooden buildings." Recently, the use of stains and the shingling of walls, especially when the shingles are left to darken naturally, have greatly improved the color-effect. Of course stone has not come into vogue except in cities, and the people, for many reasons, still prefer wood. Pleasant Street is the main highway, with its electric line to Lynn and Salem. On the right is the Catholic Church, "The Star of the Sea," near where the roadway has been cut through a part of "Work House Rock." On this street the vagaries of Marblehead' s builders soon ap- pear. Their gable-ends encroach on the street ; many of the houses have their entrance on the side, with no room for porches, but with miniature terraced gar- dens clambering up and spilling down over the rocks. Near the station is a monument to the memory of the brave Captain Mugford and his heroic crew, who captured, off Boston 72 The Puritan Coast. Harbor, a British ship laden with sorely needed military stores, including fifteen hundred barrels of .gunpowder and one thou- sand carbines. It was on a beautiful day in May, 1776, when, after sending in his prize to Washington's needy army, the brave patriot was killed while defending his ship against an attack by the British. Just one hundred years after, this monument was erected. At the Universalist Church, Rockaway Street falls abruptly to a hollow, beyond which rise the four Hooper houses with their terraced back gardens, and, above them all, the tower of Abbot Hall. This is a typical view and street. On the left, is Summer Street, old-fashioned and quiet, its quaint garden gates overhung by trees and flowers. Near its end is St. Michael's, the third Episcopal Church in Massachu- setts, and the fourth in all New England. Originally the church had, so it is said, seven gables, a tower, and spires, and must, as Drake says, have been an antique gem. Marblehead. 73 St. Mlchticls. Not long ago it was hidden by jostling neighbors rising in wooden chaos on all sides, and had to be approached by a narrow 74 The Puritan Coast lane. Before it now is a little green, but of prodigal dimensions, for Marblehead. A tiny God's Acre is at its side, hemmed in by crowding walls. The church was built in 1714. Its interior, with quaint antiqui- ties, is worth seeing. Rev. David Mosson, who performed the marriage ceremony of George Washington and Mrs. Custis, was once its pastor. Its organ came from St. Paul's, New York, and was used there when Washington was inaugurated, in 1789. The Lee Mansion is reached by turning to the right, and keeping around the corner. It is now occupied by two banks ; but it was once the grand house of the town, and has sheltered Washington, Lafayette, Andrew Jackson, and President Monroe. The hall and staircase are interesting ex- amples of the architecture of the time in which it was built about 1766. Colonel Lee, its owner, was then the great man of Marblehead. Though a zealous churchman, who might naturally have been expected to Marblehead. 75 favor the Tories, he nevertheless was an ardent patriot, and gave his fortune and his life to the cause of liberty. Open-air expos- Lee Mansion. ure at Arlington, the night before the Battle of Lexington, brought on a sickness from which he finally died. At the top of the hill is Abbot Hall, 76 The Puritan Coast. built in 1876-77, with money left by Benja- min Abbot, a native. It contains reading rooms, a library, and some interesting paint- ings. Its spire dominates the town and commands a magnificent view. Before the porch, a quiet old common dozes under its elms. Behind the Hall, Tucker Street tumbles down the hill between irregular old houses, packed in like sardines, but still finding room for little plots of sea-brightened flowers : old- fashioned dahlias, bachelors' buttons, spot- ted tiger lilies, asters, and petunias. A glimpse of the harbor, the rocks, and cot- tages of the Neck over sweet peas and clam- bering vines in the tiny front yards; then a turn to the right, and again one to the left, and at the bottom of the hill is Front Street, long and rambling. Along its length the houses stand at almost every angle ; and the yards are as picturesque as the houses. All is enveloped in a pot pourri of marine smells from oakum, tar, pitch, and fish, its saltiness strangely attenuated at times by a whiff of Front Street. Marblehead. 79 perfume from the gardens. On the left, encroaching on the street, is the old Tucker house, the oldest house : - -- 'wr ' '/?* it&t^Z'Z'- " ? A : W._-~-.';".*=r--.' : ~mm %iiMM- V, v-ft^-^. 7^ backyards are as picturesque as the streets? here of which there is any accurate record. Beyond is State Street ; from that leads 8o The Puritan Coast. Glover Street to General Glover's house, apparently at its end; but Glover Street continues to Front Street, so that there is no need of turning back. Numbered 96, nearly opposite the black- smith shop but quite a way back from the street, is the house of the General's brother, Colonel Glover. This old mansion has been divided into two tenements. It is further shorn of its dignity, for it used to stand in a great garden edged formally with box, perfumed by old-fashioned roses, and splendid with broad sunflowers and stately holly-hocks, and on either side of its gate two high posts upheld each a gilded eagle, so that it was called the Eagle House. Twisting and turning, in and out, up and down, Front Street reaches Oakum Bay, at the end of the electric street railway. Now these street-cars do not in the least make the spot prosaic to me. Ponderous and shrilly complaining, impelled by a formless, unseen, and death-dealing energy, they seem Marblehead. 83 in no wise unfitting visitors from the city of witchcraft to this shore which for so long echoed the despair of " The shrieking woman of Marblehead." Thus the legend. - - Two centuries and more ago, when the sun-blackened, scarred, and crime-etched faces of buccaneers from the Spanish Main were familiar in these nar- row, rugged streets, a Spanish ship, richly laden, was brought into the harbor by her pirate captors. Every one of the ship's com- pany had been butchered, except a beautiful English lady. Her they brought ashore at Oakum Bay by night, and most foully mur- dered. In the silence of the dark, her heart- rending screams were heard by the wives and children of the absent fishermen, and for over a hundred and fifty years, on each anniversary of the dreadful night, the cries for mercy of the terrified woman were re- peated in a voice shrill, unearthly, blood- curdling. This story was believed by the most intelligent people of Marblehead. Chief Justice Story "averred that he had heard 84 The Puritan Coast. those ill-omened shrieks again and again in the still hours of the night." 1 Looking backward from here up Circle Street, Floyd Ireson 's house is seen on the right. * Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart By the women of Marblehead ! " Skipper "Flud Oirson," or properly Ben- jamin Ireson, "sailed away from a sinking wreck " off the Highlands of Cape Cod. His defenders claim that he was inclined to at- tempt the rescue of the unfortunates on the doomed craft, but that his humane disposi- tion was overruled by the unanimous voice of his craven crew. Whatever the truth may be, there is no doubt that he suffered a most ignominious punishment. " His memory has been pilloried in verse for a crime he did not commit." 1 Nor is it the best testimony that the torture was carried out by "the i Drake. Pirates in Marblehead* Marblehead. 87 women of Marblehead." 1 However, if the fish-wives of his day were true descendants of the old settlers, they were quite capable of such savagery; for we have the testi- mony of Increase Mather, " in a letter to Mr. Cotton, 23d of Fifth month, 1677," that " Sabbath day was sennight, the women of 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." We read, too, that later on, over in Bev- erly, in 1777: "About 60 women marched in regular order to the wharves, and seized a quantity of sugar which merchants had re- fused to sell at staple prices by reason of depreciated currency." 1 Mr. Roads says, by men and boys he was tarred and feathered and dragged through the town in a dory. The bottom fell out at Work House Rock (see page 71) and he was then put in a cart and hauled as far as Salem, where the authorities forbid the rabble entrance. In a letter to Mr. Roads, Whittier writes: "I knew nothing of the particulars, and the narrative of the ballad was pure fancy." 88 The Puritan Coast. The women of the North Shore were doubt- less worthy mates for their rough husbands. Front Street follows around Oakum Bay to Old Fort Sewall, about which is a delight- ful walk. Back of the fort, on the western slope of the hill overlooking Little Harbor, stood the lowly cottage in which Agnes Sur- riage lived before fortune called her to the Fountain Inn, there to meet the young nobleman whose love was to raise her through joy and sorrow, sin and repentance, so far above her childhood's condition. The site of the old hostelry is reached by returning on Front Street to Franklin Street. At the end of the latter four streets meet, and the one at the right, Orne Street, winds by picturesque old houses and corners to the old burying-ground. Just before reaching the top of the hill, a path on the right leads to two cottages, with an old-fashioned well under the shade of some hardy apple-trees. This is the well of the Fountain Inn; the building itself probably stood on the corner Marblehead. 91 of Orne Street, and has been gone many years. The old well was for a long time for- gotten, and was discovered not long ago, by chance. Old Well of Fountain Inn, After it was cleaned out, the water bubbled up as clear and refreshing as ever. The strangely romantic story of Agnes has been told many times, 1 however I ven- 1 See, in particular, Mr. Bynner's novel " Agnes Surriage," Dr. Holmes' poem " Agnes," and the Rev. Elias Mason's 92 The Puritan Coast. ture to insert here an outline of it from the account by the Rev. Elias Mason. It was in the summer of 1742 that Sir Old //, , the silt of the Fountain Inn. Harry Frankland, collector of his Majesty's customs at Boston, rode up this hill and, dis- mounting at the Fountain Inn, chanced upon the beautiful kitchen-wench. circumstantial and curious account, " Sir Charles Henry Frankland, Baronet." Sir Harry meets Agttes Surriage. Marblehead. 95 " Poor Agnes ! with her work half done, ' They caught her unaware, As, humbly, like a praying nun, She knelt upon the stair." The young baronet found her washing up the floor and stairs. Ragged and dirty clothes could not dim her radiant beauty. She was barefoot, and he gave her, at part- ing, a crown to buy herself some shoes and stockings. In the autumn, Frankland came again, and found her barefooted as before. To his questioning, she replied that she had indeed bought shoes and stockings with the money given her; but that such finery she kept to wear on Sundays only. The sweet- ness of her voice, as he heard her cheerfully singing at her work, her beauty, modesty, and the sprightliness of her mind, quite cap- tivated him; and with the consent of her parents, he sent her to Boston to be edu- cated. She was taught singing, dancing, and whatever accomplishments were consid- ered necessary to a fine lady at that time. All this was, of course, at Frankland 's ex- 96 The Puritan Coast. pense and under his direction ; for her father, a rough, ignorant fisherman, was always at his wits' ends to keep the wolf from the door. In this self-constituted guardianship, Sir Harry and his beautiful ward, both young, were of necessity a great deal together, and a natural result followed, they fell in love. For years, they lived together in Boston and Hopkinton. In 1754, he was called home to carry on a suit-at-law, and Agnes accom- panied him. The disdain with which she was received by his noble relatives made her feel keenly the ignominy of her false posi- tion. It was therefore with pleasure that, when the occasion offered itself, they em- barked for Portugal. In the terrible earthquake at Lisbon, in 1755, Frankland was buried in the ruins, and was in great peril of his life. Happily, by the energetic devotion of his loving mis- tress, he was saved from a living tomb, wounded in body, but healed in mind. His conscience was quickened, and he at once repaired his wrong to Agnes by making her x Lady Frankland. Marblehead. 99 Lady Frank land. Soon afterwards, they re- turned to England, where she was received with affection and honor by his family. She outlived her husband, and, in 1782, was " Old Brig," birthplace of Moll Pitcher married to a wealthy banker of Chichester, England. Across Orne Street, No. 42, is "The Old Brig," where Moll Pitcher passed her girl- ioo The Puritan Coast. hood. She seems to have inherited her claim to supernatural power from her father, John Dimond. His was a character strangely picturesque, whether we regard him as an impostor or a sincere believer in his own brainsick pretensions. The historian Drake says : " He was in the habit of going to the old burying-ground on the hill, whenever a violent gale at sea arose, and in that lonely place, in the midst of the darkness and the storm, to astound and terrify the simple fisher-folk in the following manner. He would direct vessels then at sea how to weather the roughest gale, pacing up and down among the gravestones, and ever and anon, in a voice distinctly heard above the howling of the tempest, shout his orders to the helmsman or the crew, as if he were actually on the quarterdeck and the scene all before him. Very few doubted his abil- ity to bring a vessel safely into port." 1 On the top of the hill the first church was built, and about it the early settlers laid l Drake. Marblehead. 101 their dead, in the earth-filled crevices of the rocks. The church was moved away long ago; but burial of the dead there has long been continued, perhaps to the present time. General Glover's Tomb. General Glover's tomb is here, and Captain Mugford's unknown grave. At the highest point is the seamen's monument, and about it seats and a shelter. On the benches the old men sit, for they are IO2 The Puritan Coast. content to rest. Their weather-beaten faces are darkened by contrast with their white beards and hair. They talk of the past, of the sea, of ships and sailors. The broad horizon of the deep is before them, and about them are the graves. On the rugged hill across the street is Fountain Park. From its little summer- house is an unobstructed view of the harbor and bay. The slope below is littered with the picturesque belongings of the lobster men, scattered about their quaint huts. Once this shore was lined with wharves, and the hill covered with fish-flakes. Here, or upon the two little islands near by, was made the first settlement. Orne Street continues from the hill down into this oldest part of the town, which is called Barnegat. At its end is Peach's Point and the entrance to Salem Harbor. Beyond is the beautiful Beverly and Manchester shore, across a bay dotted by rocky islets and dangerous reefs that break its breeze-whipped waters into foam and spray, Marblehead. 103 white accents to its mingled blue and green and purple. Beyond all, over bay and fort v Lobsterniarf s Hut and town and harbor, the ocean stretches the restful monotony of its blue rim till IO4 The Puritan Coast. hidden by the roof-trees and steeples of the old town. Old Stone Church. Orne Street, retraced to its beginning, leads to Washington Street. On the right side of the latter is the old " North Church," and nearly opposite is No. 44, the homestead of Captain Thomas Gerry. In one of the old Marblehead. '05 mansion's chambers, unchanged to this day, was born the captain's distinguished son, Klbridge Gerry's Birthplace. Elbridge Gerry, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and once Vice-President of the United States. io6 The Puritan Coast. Farther on, stands, in the middle of the road, the old Town House. This is the Faneuil Hall of Marblehead, and in it the town's famous Revolutionary regiment, called the Amphibions, was recruited. At the right of the Town Hall, Mugford Street leads up a slight rise to the Unita- rian church. And just beyond the church, on the corner of Back Street, is the house in which the brave Captain Mugford set up housekeeping with his young bride. From here, agitated by her tearful embrace, he set hopefully forth on that gallant adventure, so fruitfully precious to his countrymen, and from which he was brought back dying, to receive from his young wife a last caress. It was into the house by the church, nearly opposite, that they sadly bore him ; and there he breathed his last. This house was her home before marriage, and the scene of their courtship; it belonged to her father, John Griste, and has always remained in the possession of the family. Marblehead. 109 On the corner of Elm Street h the sol- diers' monument. This street may be fol- lowed to the Salem Road ; but it is pleasanter to return to Washington Street, on which, just after passing the town hall on the left, is the birthplace of Judge Story. The old house has been divided, and the lower story is now used for an apothecary shop. Pleasant Street, which is the entrance, is also the way out of this old-fashioned town, the quaintest and most antique on the coast. And though these qualities commend it to the artist and the antiquary, it must to all Americans be dear for the independence, courage, bravery, and ever-ready patriotism of its adventurous sons. On land as well as by sea, in every hour of need, they have always answered unfalteringly to their coun- try's call. " THE road from Salem to Marblehead, four miles, is pleasant indeed (so I found it)." So wrote John Adams in 1776, and a hun- dred and twenty years afterwards it may again truly be called " pleasant indeed. " All the way, by open fields and long rows of apple-trees, it is good wheeling. At the bend of the road, before it dips to Forest River., there should be a fine view over the valley; but it is cut off by a hideous blue and boastful advertising fence, with which Salem. 1 1 1 another, a black and white conundrum, dis- putes dishonors. Below the bridge, the river empties into a broad lagoon at high water, and at low water wanders off through the mud-flats to Salem Harbor. Lafayette Street, a fine drive, leads by some of the best houses to Central Street, which, as its name implies, is near the cen- tre of the city. A statue has been raised here to that apostle of temperance, Father Mathew.. It stands appropriately on the site of a spring which supplied water to the first settlers. That it was good water we know. Did not old Governor Dudley declare there was " good water to drinke till wine or beare can be made " ? The early comers would naturally have settled near some sweet fountain such as this was, until the day when they could build houses and dig wells. In fact, near by, in Charter Street, is an old witness of a time not far removed from the first settlement, the Charter Street Cemetery, known in early days as "Burying Point." ii2 The Puritan Coast. Now, in Salem, the stranger is mostly interested in those things connected with the Witchcraft Delusion, or in those places made precious by their association with the life and work of Hawthorne. And in the old Charter Street Burying-ground both these interests are served, for here lies buried the old witch-judge, Colonel John Hathorne, and at one corner stands the Grimshaw house, in which Hawthorne courted his wife. This old house, practically unchanged to-day, figures in the "Dolliver Romance," and again in "Dr. Grimshaw's Secret," though in no agreeable light, which seems strange considering that Hawthorne here won his wife, and that his memories must have been far removed from the gloomy pictures of his romance. Its garden fence is close to the oldest graves, with their quaint, mouldering headstones and curious epitaphs. Here lies "Dr. John Swinnerton, Physi- cian," who appears in "The House of the Seven Gables," and again as the ancient apothecary at the sign of "The Brazen Ser- Salem. 1 1 3 pent" in the "Dolliver Romance." Near by is the grave of Cotton Mather's younger brother Nathaniel, " ' An aged man at nine- teen years,' saith the gravestone." Here was buried Giles Corey's first wife, and in the cemetery are also buried " Gov- ernor Bradstreet, Chief Justice Lynde, and others, whose virtues, honors, courage, and sagacity have nobly illustrated the history of Salem." Essex Street, Salem's principal thorough- fare, is reached by Liberty Street. From the corner of these two streets, a half block to the left, is the East India Marine Hall, containing extensive collections of historical portraits, natural history and eth- nological specimens, and curiosities of many kinds. Nearly opposite the corner of Liberty, on the other side of Essex Street, are the Cadet Armory, Plummer Hall, the Salem Athenaeum, and the Essex Institute. The last holds col- lections of paintings, prints, cooking utensils, 1 14 The Puritan Coast. household implements, weapons, pottery, china, coins, and many other objects of inter- est. 1 In the rear of the Institute is the frame of the first Puritan house of worship in the New World. It may be visited on applica- tion to the secretary. The third street on the right beyond the Institute is Union Street. In the modest gambrel-roofed house now numbered 27, Nathaniel Hawthorne, the great romancer, was born. The house was built before the witch-craft delusion, and came into the pos- session of the novelist's grandfather in 1772. The house itself is little changed since Haw- thorne's birth ; but it then stood in a garden, and what is now arid and unattractive was sweet with blade and leaf and blossom. Staid and Sabbath like quiet brooded over its grass- 'edged precincts, and its ways were ordered by New England thrift and neatness. It is hard now to re-invest the place with that old- 1 Visitors should buy the " Guide to Salem/' pub- lished by the Institute; the author is largely indebted to it. Salem. 115 time charm. Too near and evident is the untidy ash-barrel, too pungent the odorous herring and cabbage, too distracting the Hawthorne 1 s Birthplace shrill quarrel and grating discord of clamor- ous hucksters. It is only afterwards, and in the mind's eye, that it is possible to connect the to-day's fallen estate with the coming of that dreaming weaver of romance. n6 The Puritan Coast. Numbered io| and 12 on Herbert Street, the next street leading from Essex Street, and back of Hawthorne's birthplace, is the The Manning Homestead. old Manning homestead, the property of his grandfather, and to which his widowed mother removed in 1808, when Nathaniel was four Salem. 117 years old. Most of his boyhood was spent here ; and he came back to it, at intervals, for longer or shorter visits. The house is out- wardly square and ugly, and the interior has been cut up into tenements. However, it is of great interest, on account of its associa- tion with his early work. Hawthorne's room was in the southwest corner of the third story, overlooking his birthplace. Of it, he himself has written : " Here I sit in my old accus- tomed chamber, where I used to sit in days gone by. Here I have written many tales. Should I have a biographer, he ought to make great mention of this chamber in my memoirs, because so much of my lonely youth was wasted here." And again : " In this dismal chamber FAME was won." At the other end of Herbert Street is Derby Street, and on the corner is a house to which Hawthorne was always welcome, where he spent a part of his time in a cham- ber kept ever ready for him, and in which, and in the old garden, he wrote some of his earlier stories. Antique and dilapidated, it nS The Puritan Coast. is one of the most picturesque houses in Salem ; for the summer-house, where the Whtre Hawthorns iva always welcome. romancer loved to sit, is tumbling to pieces, and the garden is forlorn in its neglect. All sorts of weeds grow rankly in its wastes, and Salem. 1 2 1 a little thicket of crowding poplars nearly hides, with the gray silver of their leaves, the purple and white of the ancient lilacs and the weather-beaten grays of the lower story. At No. 1 80 Derby Street, is the Crown- inshield house, in the eastern side of which lived General James Miller, the hero of Lundy's Lane. On the opposite corner is the custom- house, built of brick, with wooden columns, capitals, and balustrades, with a broad red- flagged sidewalk, and generous steps and porch. The gilded "truculent bird" still perches aloft, and "the flag with vertical bars " still floats over all. Hawthorne's room is shown here; but the desk on which he scratched his name is now at the Essex Institute. One of the upper rooms is the scene of his fictitious discovery of the em- broidered scarlet letter, and his interview with the spook of Surveyor Pue. Across the street, is the old custom-house wharf, edged with sheds in various stages of decrepitude and disuse. Under their 122 The Puritan Coast. leaky roofs I saw some old horse-cars that were cast away. They had, in their youth, supplanted the stage-coaches in which Haw- thorne's relatives were financially interested, and now they were in turn displaced by the electric cars. Here they were rotting and rusting away like those very stage-coaches in which Hawthorne used to play when he was a boy. And fast to the wharf lay a great dismantled ship, the " Mindora," only a care- taker aboard. She paid for herself on the first voyage, but after thirty years of service, the competition of steam had so lowered freights that it no longer was ex- pedient to send her to sea, and so she lies here inactive, to deteriorate, as everything inactive must. 1 The long wharf curves at the end, like the beak of " the truculent bird," and at its end is a little light-house. Across the harbor, the shore of Marblehead stretches northeasterly to Naugus Head, and landward lies the dreary water front of Salem. 1 Early in 1897 the " Mindora " was sold and towed away to be altered over into a coal-barge. Hawthorne and the wraith of Collector Pue. Salem. 125 Farther down Derby Street is Turner Street, on which is an old house that belonged to Old Custom House Wharf. the Ingersols, relatives of the Hawthornes, a house to which the romancer was a fre- 126 The Puritan Coast. quent visitor. It is the last dwelling on the right, and next the Seaman's Bethel. This house is called " The House of the Seven Gables." Originally it had five gables, but they have disappeared under a new roof. Its exterior seems modern enough, but a visit to the inside will show that it is truly very old. The old gables may be traced in the attic ; parts of the house are pointed out, which, it is claimed, agree with the story. Really the house may have had but a small part in suggesting to Hawthorne his fanciful " House of the Seven Gables," but it is so closely associated with the author's intimate life, that it is worth a visit. Turner Street leads back to Essex Street, and from the latter turns Washington Square, East, which bounds one side of the large and pleasant common, cut by paths and malls, and shaded by beautiful trees. Many of the great elms were planted in 1802, and the common was then used as a training-field by the militia. It is the pleasantest resting- spot in Salem. Salem. 127 After turning into Washington Square, North, the third street on the right is Mall Street. On the corner is a curious old- fashioned double house used for a curiosity shop. These abound in Salem; in fact, if antiques do not represent a local industry, as some mockers hint, they are no incon- siderable article of the city's trade. A short distance down Mall Street, No. 14, on the right, is a comfortable hip-roofed house standing with end to the street, and shaded by trees in its pleasant garden. This is one of the most interesting houses in Salem, for in it was written "The Scar- let Letter," the masterpiece by which the world best knows, and will longest remem- ber Hawthorne. He moved here in 1847, and his study was the front room in the third story. When he lost his office in the customs, " it was to this house he went home to tell the serious news to his wife. It was here, upon learning it, that she said, ' Very well ! now you can write your romance ; ' and it was 128 The Puritan Coast. here that his prudent wife at the same time, and in answer to Hawthorne's query as to how they should live meanwhile, opened the bureau-drawer and showed him the gold she House in which " The Scarlet Letter " -was written. had saved from the portion of his salary which, from time to time, he had placed in her hands. . . . Here Fields found Haw- thorne, despondent and hovering near the stove, and had the interesting conversation Salem. 129 with him given in Fields' ' Yesterdays with Authors.' " Brown Street issues from Washington Square, West, and on the corner of it and St. Peter's Street is St. Peter's church.. It is a pleasant ivy-clad, stone edifice with a square tower, rising between two tiny church- yards. In the one on the right, close by the fence, is the grave of Hawthorne's ghostly visitor: "Jonathan Pue, Esq., Late surveyor and searcher of his magestie's customs in Salem, New England." The church is modern, having been built in 1833. Within is a tablet " In memory of John Brown, to whose intrepidity in the Cause of Religious Freedom, this the first Episcopal Society gathered in N. E., under God, owed its establishment in 1629, and to Philip English who gave the land." This last gentleman was one of the accused in the Witchcraft Delusion. He and his wife were both denounced, and only escaped death by fleeing to New York from Boston jail, with the connivance of Governor Sir William 9 130 The Puritan Coast. Phips, and especially aided by the Rever- end Joshua Moody. After the town's mad- ness had passed away, Mr. English and his wife returned to Salem, where Mrs. English died from the effects of the cruel treatment she had received. It is a satisfaction to learn that Mr. Moody "was commended by all discerning men ; " but nevertheless so greatly was he persecuted by the angry and resent- ful multitude, that he returned to his old charge at Portsmouth, N. H. Farther down St. Peter's Street is a very old house, built in 1684 by John Ward, sometimes incorrectly called the Waller house. Church Street is almost a continuation of Brown Street, and leads to Washington Street, where stood the court-house in which the witchcraft trials were held. On a bronze tablet, near the corner of Lynde Street, are set forth the main facts of that unhappy delu- sion. The hotel on this street occupies a very old mansion with a quaintly-decorated cupola, which may be visited. Salem. 131 Near the present centre of Washington Street, the Town House Square of to-day, stood the town pump celebrated by Haw- thorne. The well dried up after the railway tunnel was built. The oldest house in Salem or vicinity is the "Old Witch House," once owned by Roger Williams ; it is No. 310 Essex Street, at the corner of North Street. Though changed a great deal, some parts of it remain as they were, including the old chimney in the rear of the drug-store. The truth is, that it has been connected with the witchcraft delusion by tradition only. How- ever, if one wishes to see a house whose connection with that gruesome time is un- doubted, let him examine the house No. 315 Essex Street, which is little changed, and was the home of the dyer, Shattuck, whose child was said to have been bewitched by Bridget Bishop. In this direction is Gallows' Hill, but there is really nothing to see there. I went there years ago, to make a drawing for Longfellow's 132 The Puritan Coast. " New England Tragedies," and I confess that I have never gone again. The witch- craft tragedy is an unpleasant subject, when- ever it is approached with the seriousness it must deserve from any but the most thought- less ; but, except to the historian or philoso- pher, it must claim only a morbid interest It is better to think of Salem's commercial achievements, her patriotism and philan- thropy, and to visit her museums, her libra- ries and schools. BEVERLY is reached by returning to Wash- ington Square, North, and following Winter and Bridge streets to Essex Bridge. A refreshing breeze generally draws up the river from the sea, flecks the bay with white, and sings mournfully a long monotony in the wires overhead. Though the view on both sides is fine, that up the river is marred by the railway causeway. Across the bay, " The Willows " is cheerful with flags and music, and the old fort peaceful in decay. In the 134 The Puritan Coast. harbor are mingled picturesquely sail-boats and yachts, their slender spars and snowy canvas contrasted with the dingy sails of rusty coasters and grimy, clumsy coal-barges. Just across the bridge, Cabot Street leads to Front Street, and at No. 22 of the latter is an old house, once used as a church, in which in 1810 was established the first Sun- day-school in America. Bartlett and Stone Streets then lead to Lothrop Street, a famous drive, overlooking the sea. Only a little way down the latter is a pleasant resting-place in a little summer-house ; it stands at the head of three flights of steps descending to the beach. Shady and cool, it commands a broad view of Beverly Cove and the mouth of Salem Harbor. When I last rested here, an old man was sitting contentedly on one of the benches. He told me that he sailed into Beverly Cove for the first time when he was fourteen years old, in a coaster from Maine. "And," he Beverly. 135 added, "that was seventy-nine years ago." He liked, so he said, to come here and watch the water and the vessels, for, having always followed the sea, he was lonesome and uneasy Beverly Cove* when away from it. He named the islands to me, starting from the left over Wood- bury 's Point. First, came Great and Little Misery, but these seemed almost a part of 136 The Puritan Coast. the mainland; then Baker's, with its twin lights; and nearer, Great Haste and Coney, islets both; and farther off, between them, Eagle Island, on which fat gooseberries used to grow ; and last, over against Salem Neck, Lowell's Island, with its institution. I asked him whether, in his time, these islands had ever been wooded. He answered that they were bare when he first saw them (1817), and that in his boyhood, old men, as old as he was now, could not remember having ever seen any trees upon them. So the islands must have been cleared a long time ago. Wooded they were, for the Rev. Francis Higginson wrote in his journal in June, 1629: " Monday, 29th, as we passed along to Naim- keake [/. ^., Salem] it was wonderful to behold so many islands replenished with thicke wood and high trees, and many fayere green pastures." In the cove, many coasters were anchored. The old sailor said that most of them had been there several days, that they expected Beverly. 137 the equinoctial, and were therefore afraid to trust themselves off a lee shore, and though in their present anchorage they were exposed to the winds, they would ride in safety there, for the reefs and islands broke all the force of the seas. So the rocks shelter as well as destroy. He also told me that he would rather be cast away on rocks than on sand ; and he instanced two wrecks, one at Gloucester, where a vessel had come on the rocks, and the crew had crawled ashore, over the bow- sprit ; the other at Swampscott, where " every soul, including a cat and dog," just walked out on the jibboom, and dropped right down into the road. When a vessel goes on the sands, however, almost every one is surely lost. There is a long coast from here to some fine willows and a fountain, by a lane lead- ing to the other end of the beach, beyond which the first turn to the right leads to Ober Street, and thence by Neptune and 138 The Puritan Coast. Bay View streets, to Paul's Head. These streets are much like English lanes, and for one in love with beauty it is no place to hurry. Instead of disfiguring the landscape, as they too often do, the houses add to it a pic- Paufs Head. turesque feature, standing as they do amid velvety lawns and banks of flowers, and sep- arated from the road by vine-clad walls or beautiful shrubs and hedges. Under green oaks and maples their gardens overhang the sea in unexpected variety. Beverly. 1 39 White with the dazzling white which only whitewash can give, and beside which all other whites are gray, the square prim light- house tower enhances and deepens the blue of sky and bay. The keeper's home is a chalet-like cottage, from whose walls slope the grassy banks, pretty with flowers, down to the rocky shore. What a contrast is the berth here to one in the wave-shaken tower on Minot's Ledge, or in an ever-tossing lightship over some lonely shoals! Before returning to the road, it is interest- ing to look up the old breastworks back of the lighthouse; for this point was fortified during the Revolution, and the esplanade just beyond the light, and now divided amongst fine estates, was, during the strug- gle with the mother country, a great training ground and camp for the colonists. The first turn to the right, after the road has been retraced a little, leads by Neptune Street to Hale Street. It is good wheeling, 140 The Puritan Coast. but out of sight of the sea. However, after turning to the right, by the blacksmith-shop at Chapman's Corner, the street suddenly enters a stretch of woodland exquisitely beautiful. At times the road is so shadowed by the splendid overhanging trees that only here and there is it flecked by narrow shafts of sunshine which have struggled through the leafy screen. Paths and driveways lead, discreetly and furtively, to foliage-hidden houses. The trees rise high above tumbled rocks and bowlders. From the covert of ferns and sombre depths of shade, they lift their trunks and branches to the sun. This is the edge of the famous Witch Woods, thus named because it is so hard to find one's way that they were believed to be bewitched. The early settlers held these woods in great fear, believing them infested by lions at least, if not worse ! The author of " New England's Prospect," though he admits that he himself had never seen any lions, de- Beverly. 141 clares, quaintly, that "Some likewise, being lost in the woods, have heard such terrible roarings, as have made them much aghast ; which must be either devils or lions; there being no other creatures which use to roar, saving bears, which have not such a terrible kind of roaring." But to-day, the edge of the forest seems more like a delightful park than the lair of savage beasts, clawed or cloven of foot, and, so cleverly has it all been arranged, that its sylvan character is not lost, nor is the presence of the near estates too keenly felt. As I caught, now and then, a glimpse of some fine house, or passed the rolling car- riages and other evidences of Beverly's wealth, I recalled with amusement the peti- tion to the General Court, in 1671, of the venerable Roger Conant, "who hath bin a planter in New England fortie yeers and upwards," praying that the name be changed from Beverly to that of his native town, Budleigh, and giving as his first and prin- 142 The Puritan Coast. cipal reason "the great dislike and discon- tent of many of our people for this name of Beverly, because (we being a small place) it hath caused on us a constant nickname of Beggarly ! " The petition was not granted, and time has taken away Roger Conant's cause of complaint. A regret will come, sometimes, that one is so shut off from the shore ; and one reverts mentally to the open freedom of the cliff at Newport ; but the road soon winds back, or the shore curves in, and suddenly there rises the sea's edge ; the bay and islands follow. It is the famous view over Mingo Beach. The first sight of any celebrated view is apt to be disappointing. Either zest is dulled and pleasure discounted by anticipa- tion, or overpraise has raised too great an expectancy. This view at Mingo Beach, for example, has been often compared to that of the Bay of Naples; yet all they have in common is that beauty of sky and water to Beverly. be expected in a common latitude. The shores themselves have no resemblance. Mingo Beach. Nothing could be more unlike the steep volcanic slopes of Naples, " Where the waves and mountains meet," than these low, wooded shores. Lowell's and Baker's islands do not remind one of 144 The Puritan Coast. Ischia and Capri, whose craggy precipices tower over two thousand feet above the sea. Think, too, of Monte Sant' Angelo, rising abruptly from Castelmare, nearly a mile, while, above buried Herculaneum and Pom- peii, Vesuvius hangs her white wreath of smoke, and Naples rears her hills, topped by mediaeval castles. Through the burning mountain, Nature speaks of past destruction, and ever menaces the future. The frowning castles and towers recite man's long struggle against oppression and cruelty, kingcraft and priestcraft, his fight for liberty, security, and happiness. And the stern spirit of all this is shared by our shores as well as the com- mon beauty. If the volcano is more terrible, it is no fiercer than the treacherous sea, which yearly exacts its tribute of death. Even the name of the beach here perpetuates the memory of slavery. 1 Salem, like Naples, has been scourged by cruelty and supersti- tion. The people must ever struggle against 1 It is named after a negro slave of Beverly, Robin Mingo. Beverly. 145 greed and oppression, which only change their form, not their nature. But outwardly the shore has an appearance, almost bour- geois, of restful peace, comfort, and prosperity. Comparisons should be carefully made, for they will arise ; they are our only measures. As I leaned over the wall here, at the close of a calm afternoon, the blue sea barely wrinkled by the afternoon breeze, reminded me of the Mediterranean. Surely, it was quite as blue; for our idea of that vaunted sea abroad has come to us through the praises in English prose and verse. Heavenly blue it must seem to British eyes, used to the gray and yellow seas of the Channel, or the cold North Sea, over which " Go rolling the storm-clouds, the formless, dark, gray daughters of the air." But one sea must not be lauded at the ex- pense of another. Each has its particular individual beauty. And this same gray North Sea I have known the quintessence of sunlight. Once, from a steamer's deck, I 10 146 The Puritan Coast. had been watching the coast of Holland, a mother-of-pearl horizon over the white- capped sea, when suddenly the ship slowed down and I crossed to the port side. Over the bow was Flushing, its walls drenched and belabored by the dashing surf, that broke into great sheets of spray and went flying over the walls into the streets and windows, and onto the very roofs. The sun flashed on the waves in almost painful brilliancy, and the sea was all yellow and white; and over this heaving yellow sea came a pilot- boat, yellow too, with a tawny sail, and manned by a crew all in yellow oilskins (except one harmoniously green), and all drenched and flashing in the day beams and sparkling foam, a glorious symphony in yellow, and the keenest expression of sun- light I have ever seen. As for blue and green, the Mediterranean and our own sea are but as ashes, when com- pared to the azure and emerald glowing over the coral sands and ledges of Bermuda, " By bays, the peacock's neck in hue." Beverly. 147 Our own sea, like the Mediterranean or any other, follows the changes of the sky, and so it runs the subtle scale of cloudy grays, the rosy, silvery morning tints, all the yellows and reds of sunset, and the sombre tones of night. Still it is often an intense blue, deepened to purple over sunken reefs, and enhanced by emerald pools over patches of sand. Yes, as I said, it was very blue that calm afternoon. On the horizon rested a low bank of clouds, like distant fog, and above it, the sky melted through changing opalescent color into deep azure. South of the zenith, hung the moon, nearly full, but pale and faint. The incoming yachts caught the yel- lowing rays of the sun, and slowly made the harbor. Only the sound of faintly splashing water rose from the warm-toned rocks below ; no sound of voices broke the decorous quiet of the road. Occasionally, came the rumble of carriages, the impact of hoofs, or the soft purr of a coasting wheel. As the sun dropped lower, all the east glowed with reflected 148 The Puritan Coast. glory, sea, shore, and sky echoed the west ; Color and Light, the two great magicians, Catholic Church. transmuted our familiar coast and bay into a slowly fading loveliness, as night came on. Beverly. 149 One turns away regretfully from such beauty. Farther on, the way is less interest- ing, and at Pride's crosses the railway, and again at Beverly Farms, three-quarters of a Beverly-by-the- Depot. ' ' mile beyond. On the way is Emerson's pretty Catholic church by vine-hung cottages, which together make a picturesque note. Just be- fore reaching the Farms' station, last on the right, is the house once occupied by Oliver 150 The Puritan Coast. Wendell Holmes, and from which he dated his letters, " Beverly-by-the-Depot," in emu- lation of Manchester-by-the-Sea. Nearly op- posite, in the last house on the left, square and old-fashioned, once lived Lucy Larcom. We have her own testimony that it was on this road between Marblehead and Beverly that she used to see, sitting wistfully at the window, " Hannah, binding shoes." Not quite here, however, for it must have been somewhere in sight of the sea " May is passing, Mid the apple-boughs a pigeon coos. Hannah shudders, For the wild sou'wester mischief brews. Round the rocks of Marblehead, Outward bound, a schooner sped : Silent, lonesome, Hannah 's at the window binding shoes. " ' T is November : Now no tear her wasted cheek bedews. From Newfoundland Not a sail returning will she lose ; Whispering hoarsely, ' Fishermen, Have you, have you heard of Ben ? ' Old with watching, Hannah 's at the window binding shoes. Beverly. " Twenty winters Bleach and tear the rugged shore she views ; Twenty seasons ; Never one has brought her any news ! Still her dim eyes silently Chase the white sails o'er the sea. Hopeless, faithful, Hannah 's at the window binding shoes." After crossing the railway, the road comes quickly to the head of West Beach. At low West Beach. water, its sands offer a long stretch of good wheeling, and, by going a little back towards Beverly, a good view may be had of the picturesque coast and islands of Manchester. BEYOND West Beach, the road crosses the railway again, and leaves the sea for the woods. Black Cove and Tuck's Point may be visited by taking the first turn to the right. At Tuck's Point is the yacht club- house and a fine public pier jutting out from a little park. A maze of inlets and islands seams the harbor from the pier's end. It is worth the detour, both for the view of the cove and harbor, and the pleasant*- ride through the lanes coming and going. The way back is to the right by Harbor Street, over the railway bridge, and again to Manchester. 153 the right, when Bridge Street is reached. From this corner it is only half a mile to Tuck's Point. Manchester, once an ancient fishing-port and a part of Salem, now a quiet, typical New England village. 154 The Puritan Coast. Church, school-house, town hall, and inn are all gathered about the village green, in the middle of which is a fine granite fountain. There are not many ancient houses ; but the general appearance is one of peaceful and prosperous age. The meeting-house in the square was built in 1809, and has a quaint and very graceful belfry and steeple. The weathercock was provided by the town in 1754, at a cost of j IDS. 8d., for the old church which the present structure super- seded. The proposal to heat this church on Sun- days was firmly opposed by many of the con- gregation, says the local historian. In the end, the party of progress was too strong for the remonstrants, and it was announced from the pulpit one Sunday, that thereafter the church would be heated on the Lord's Day. During worship on the next Sabbath, many were overcome by the heat, several women fainted, and others had to leave the church for a breath of fresh air. It is fair to presume that these afflicted ones were of Manchester. 155 the opposition, for after service it was dis- covered that, owing to a defect in the heater, no fire had been started that morning. Manchester Public Library and Church. Around the corner, on Union Street, is the Memorial Public Library given to the town by the Hon. T. Jefferson Coolidge. It contains interesting old wood-carvings and memorial 156 The Puritan Coast. tablets. In addition to the Memorial hall and library, it has a hall for the use of the G. A. R. The next street to the right crosses the Mtincliester Harbor. railway, passes the head of the harbor, and mounts the hill to Masconomo Road, hard by the great hotel. The red and gambrel- roofed house, high upon Thunderbolt Rock, at the right was the summer home of James T. Fields. One should now turn to the right, pass the Unitarian chapel, and keep on down the quiet English-like lane by the pretty Episcopal church with its Manchester. 159 vines and picturesque lich-gate, to the shore of Lobster Cove. This little nook, sheltered by rocky points, is overlooked by chalet and castle-like houses in admirable harmony with their surround- ings. It is one of the prettiest spots on the coast. The narrow lane separates tbe beach from a gem-like pond. On one side is the kelp-strewn, rock-buttressed beach and the sea, spa rk ling like spangled cobalt under the sun. The tide softly laps the flat stones. A hun- dred feet distant from its brine is the fresh water of the little pond, fringed with grass, and dotted with lily-pads and arrow-heads. Under the autumn breeze its rippled surface takes on a blue deeper than ultramarine, and is all ringed about by an indescribable tangle of reddening and bronzing shrubs and vines. 160 The Puritan Coast. Gnarled trees and jagged rocks overhang the shady lane, where it climbs the hill over Gale's Point. Here is a lesson in landscape- gardening, for the noble estates are an added charm to the natural beauty. Over the lawn open glimpses of the sea, framed by trees and vines. From a little summer-house on the hill's top, there is an extended view of great charm. Over the deep azure of the bay, beyond faint Nahant, rise the pearly blue hills of Milton; nearer, lies Marblehead, " Its porphyry promontories sleeping in the sun;" then Salem, between the white sails in Beverly Cove and the purple ridges of Lynn Woods; then the shimmering sands of West Beach and the rocky wooded shore, seen between the odd -shaped roofs, as it swings into the harbor, and on to where the little white belfry dominates all but the water tower on Powder House Hill. Then come green rolling hills, until, in the east, the ocean again raises its high wall to the sky. The Shady Lane. Manchester. It is only a little way back to the Masco- nomo House, where Beach Street descends to Singing Beach. Perhaps the first thing to arrest the attention is not the musical accomplishments of the shore, but rather the rich coloring of its sands, for it is quite Eagle 's Head front Singing Beach. unlike the beaches that have been passed. In texture, more like the sand of Cape Cod, it is ruddy and beautiful, a warm tawny pink in sunlight, which fairly glows against the dark background of the sea. However, its " singing " is really its great attraction. Underfoot, it seemed to me like the crisp 164 The Puritan Coast. little note that the snow gives out in very cold weather; and under carriage-wheels, like the long-continued tone a heavy sleigh draws from a frosty snow-packed road. The beach ends at the left in a rocky prom- ontory called Eagle Head, that is well rusted by wind and spray, where it shows a bare beak to the sea; but landward it is feathered with straggling green. From the beach, the way must be retraced to Sea Street, which will bring one to Sum- mer Street, the Gloucester Road. Just op- posite the corner is an old burying-ground (1661), under a thick grove of pines which seem to rise from the very graves. Close by the sunny highway, these grimly nurtured trees cast a sombre shadow, broken only by the deeper sadness of their black trunks. Strangely uneven is the ground, and heavily carpeted with pine-needles. It seems unsafe to walk upon, yielding like some unnatural quicksand. The marble slabs are stained green or smooched with black, and their elders, the old slate headstones, lean de- Manchester. 165 crepitly, or seem sinking wearily down into the graves. Just beyond the graveyard, a quaint sign- post points the way to the grounds of the Essex County Club. From here on, the road is uninteresting until the brick-yards are past, and one enters the Manchester Woods. On either side of the way, then, is roman- tic, sylvan beauty. From the serious mystery of their covert, the straight trunks rise slen- derly through a maze of leafy branches. In the hollow where the brook trickles the soil, in midsummer, is thick-hid by brakes and ferns; but on the climbing bank at the other side, patches of warm brown and gray show where the rocky ground rises toward the sea. At the left, the woods overhang, and the tracery of trees and saplings is drawn against tumbled rocks and ledges, or broad dashes of golden-green where a shaft of sunshine has pierced a group of maples. Rock-strewn, a subtle harmony of gray and green, are the gullies near the top of the hill, enamelled 1 66 The Puritan Coast. with silvery lichens and mosses in tint vary- ing from emerald to olive black. Black Beach and Manchester Cove. After emerging from these woods, Ocean Street, the first right, runs down the hill to a pretty little beach, and turning to the left, skirts Manchester Cove, on the other side of which is Coolidge's Point. The waters of Manchester. 167 the cove invade the meadows at the left, and the flood-tide, rushing tumultuously under the bridge, brims to. overflowing the winding river. Along its placid curves the country is much like parts of England. The hills are embowered in softly rounded foliage, and in its rich green shelter lie tilled fields, fruitful orchards, and trim cottages. On a calm evening, with the sunset light over the hills and reflected in the river, and all detail blended and massed under the gathering twilight, the sentiment of the scene is one of profound peace. The shingly beach and the meadow-edge are littered with dories, nets, anchors, and all the picturesque belongings of fishermen. Most of the travel is on the highway, so that one generally has this road almost to one's self. As I stood here one beautiful October day, the smoke of autumn fires drifted lazily over the harvested fields. The goldenrod had lost its flaming yellow, and deliciously brown in tone, harmonized wonderfully well with the lavender-purple asters and the straw- 1 68 The Puritan Coast. yellow of the grass. Toward Magnolia, the purple rocks on the hills shouldered aside the red and bronzed bushes, sombre and rich as antique rugs. The breeze was a little chilly, but in warm, sheltered spots a few bees still hummed, and long-bodied wasps crawled about the path where gorgeous green and golden flies sunned themselves, and buzzed cheerfully. All was quiet. Over on the main road an occasional wheelman, or a few golfers driving to the links, were the only souls that shared with me the freshness of the morning. A TURN to the right into Summer Street again, and once more to the right into level Raymond Street, brings one between willows and meadows to Magnolia Beach, at the head of Kettle Cove. Here the first comers landed, it is said, and settled Jeffry's Creek, rechris- tened Manchester, in 1645. The Gloucester line is at the farther end of the beach. The name Magnolia celebrates the beautiful flow- ers found in the swamps and deep woods which lie to the north. " Where the Arctic birch is braided by the tropic's flowery vines, And the white magnolia blossoms star the twilight of the pines ! " 170 The Puritan Coast. The beach is edged, after the American manner, with disorderly rows of bathhouses. The settlement beyond, with its cupolas and turrets, seems like a seaside Midway. To it in summer come seekers for rest and pleas- ure. No sharers they of the original settlers' A n Introduction. prejudices against " excesse in apparrell," " new strainge fashions," nor " superstitious ribbons." It would be an interesting meet- ing could Father Time present the maid of that time to the modern woman. Where the road climbs into the village, and Hunt had his odd studio, " The Hulk," Magnolia. 173 a stable has been built. Indeed, Magnolia has greatly changed, and in little more than a decade. However, many picturesque old Under the willows, Magnolia. bits still remain; the old road around the point under the willows, and by the quaint fish-houses, is as delightful as ever. 174 The Puritan Coast. Nowhere does our road come nearer to the enduring rocks and the clamorous sea than here. Even on a calm day, the ear is Summer House, Magnolia. filled with watery noise ; the tide is ever lifting and falling with murmurous cry. Just above the surf, the path turns away to pass some fine houses and then follows Magnolia. 175 a rocky curve, beyond which are the cliffs by Rafe's Chasm. In summer this white bulwark of tumbled rocks, bleaching under the sun, is overhung by wide, deep masses of sweetbrier, descend- ants of those same " sweet single roses " that cheered the Rev. Francis Higginson that June day in 1629, when the first English ship sailed adventurously amid the reefs and ledges along this " Land of Rocks and Roses." On the tenth of October, I found one of these same sweet single roses bloom- ing amid the myriad-gleaming scarlet hips, and the bunches of asters and faded golden- rod. At the foot of the decline, a brawling brook crosses the road, to sink its clamor in the fuller cadence of the sea. The road turns from the shore and enters the wood. Through the trees comes the music of that little stream : " The music of a brook that flows Murmuring farewell, and yet doth never leave." 176 The Puritan Coast. Over the hill, which is steep, and down the other side about a quarter of a mile, is a little clearing, just where the road stretches away to a level, and here to the right is the path to Rafe's Chasm. As I walked this path, that October day, the sun shot its warmth through the boughs of the pitch-pines and set free their balsamic odor. Chickadees were calling, and other little birds hopped and flitted about in the branches, too busy to notice me, though I stood within a yard of their work-ground. Bluejays were screaming, and from the dis- tance came the cawing of crows. The boughs rustled a little in the tender breeze, and the birds fluttered gently. Suddenly came the soft, low intermittent pealing of a bell: " O father! I hear the church bells ring; Oh say, what may it be ? " Muffled at times, and not quite like a church-bell, it was the bell-buoy off the Reef of Norman's Woe. Beyond the grove the " A nd the skipper had taken his little daughter, To bear him company.'" Magnolia. 1 79 path is very rough, bordered with bayberry and ivy, and winds among the sharp spurs and grass-tufted chinks of the rocks, directly to Rafe's Chasm. Here the rock is stripped bare, and rises bleached gray white on one side but ruddy on the other. An iron cross set here in the cliff is in memory of Martha Marion, a young lady who was swept away by a roller and drowned. In the deep chasm, the restless sea roars and gurgles, or booms hollowly, cadenced by the sharp swash of the spray. The surf an- swers the dismal wail of the whistling buoy at the harbor's mouth. Indeed, the place is " full of noises," like Prospero's Isle. Across the bay is Eastern Point and its Light; to the left, Norman's Woe, peacefully fringed with white ; and beyond, stretching along the harbor, the roofs and steeples of Glou- cester, behind the white sails of its fleet. When one returns to the road and goes on toward Gloucester, the sea seems far i So The Puritan Coast. away; but any one of the right-hand paths soon brings it to view. It is all coast or climb along the shady road, under the wind- music in the tree-tops. Norman Road, the way is called at the Magnolia end, and Hes- Fresh Water Cove Village. perus Avenue, where it joins the main road at Fresh Water Village. Fresh Water Cove lies at the foot of the hill where the fresh water itself tumbles down the little cascade under the road. Farther on, the shade falls Rafe's Chasm. Magnolia. 183 from unusually fine trees. The road is high above the bay, and over the water the sunlit city is framed in the dark embroidery of the oaks. The road now descends until it crosses the canal that connects Squam River with the harbor opposite Ten Pound Island Light. It wholly loses its charm, and, a little over three miles from Magnolia, loses itself in the heart of Gloucester. TILL within a little more than fifty years, Gloucester comprised the whole of Cape Ann. Then the farthermost region was set apart and called Rockport. Gloucester has always reaped her harvest from the sea, and is to-day the foremost fishing-port of the world ; while Rockport, though it still sends a fleet to the Banks, rends a part of her living from the granite hills of the Cape itself. But the quarries are a comparatively modern resource. Fishing was the first, and is still the chief, Gloucester and Rockport. 185 industry of the people of Cape Ann. Indeed, the fisheries brought the first settlers to our rocky coast, for the sterile Cape itself offered few attractions. Behind its rocky girdle a wild forest rose over tumbled bowl- ders and ragged ledges. Only the slender brooks that trickled down to the shore pierced its dark mystery; a fearful region it was, filled, according to the early comers, with witches and ghosts, lions and devils. How- ever, the crooked, barren headlands sheltered snug harbors, and were good places for curing fish, so along their shores rude fishing villages were built, the humble beginnings of to- day's prosperity. Active and busy are the streets that have replaced the rough paths of earlier days. Banks, churches, offices, and stores line their length ; but even to their most urban parts comes the cool refreshing breath of the sea. One is continually reminded of the town's chief occupation, for the signs read of ships and their stores, of boats and seines, of nets i86 The Puritan Coast. From the wharves, East Gloucester. and fish, and up the side-streets, from the yards and wharves, steal fine marine odors. Washington and Main streets lead to East Gloucester and Rockport. 187 Main, the road to East Gloucester, with a most picturesque waterside. From the store- houses and fish-flakes, the wharves stretch out high above the low water, as if on stilts, or are lapped deeply in the ample flood-tide. The fleet crowds the harbor ; and through the maze of shrouds and masts are seen the towers and steeples of the city. On the steep bank that shelves to the haven, under willows and apple- trees, cluster snug cottages, and about them lie boats updrawn in the grasses and flowers. From the sidepath, one looks down through green boughs on schooners' decks, on dry- ing seines and dangling purse-nets. After passing Rocky Neck Avenue, there is a fine view of the harbor and the surf breaking at its mouth on Norman's Woe and the cliffs by Rafe's Chasm. Here one enters the land of rackets and golf clubs, summer girls, novels, and hammocks, water-color kits and white umbrellas. Beyond the stone gate- house, the way swings around the sunny curve of a sandy beach, then through the shade of 1 88 The Puritan Coast. rustling poplars and great willows, close by Niles Pond. Over its fresh water, the ocean stretches, a deeper blue; and the noise of the far off surf forms an undertone to the Eastern Point. song of birds and the splashing of the pond's thin waves on the mossy rocks. All the way to Eastern Point, the fields are bossed with rocks, and gay with flowers. From the shrub- The Harbor from East Gloucester. Gloucester and Rockport. 191 bery, comes the continual song of birds. The farther one goes, the louder becomes the un- ceasing refrain of the surf, the clearer the inter- mittent peal of the floating bell, the stronger the melancholy wail of the whistling buoy. Beyond the rusty wall of jumbled rocks, by the light-house on Eastern Point, the outgoing fleet, meeting the broad Atlantic swell, tosses and tips like the little ships on old Dutch clocks. The afternoon sun blazes on the harbor; the sails of the tacking schooners alternate in sunlight or shadow ; and the hills at Magnolia gleam softly green, or sink darkly purple, into the fleeting cloud-shadows. Bay- berry and wild roses perfume the sea-air. My last visit here was preceded by a long spell of foul weather ; and so, with the promise of fair winds and blue skies, many vessels were beating out of the harbor, and passing in quick procession about the Point. The offing was all flecked with their sails. " Cap- tains Courageous," and crews as brave, were putting forth to their perilous toil among 192 The Puritan Coast. the fogs and tempests of the Banks, whence many a ship has returned with flag half- masted, for few callings are so dangerous. Hundreds of Gloucester widows and orphans mourn their lost ones, perished in those treacherous seas. It may be that the dangers, the sufferings, and the calamities of a fisherman's life in this world inspired the sweet doctrine of an all- forgiving Mercy in the hereafter which found such a ready acceptance on the Cape, for the Universalist sect was established here as early as 1770, and John Murray, its apostle, preached for many years in the old Univer- salist. church at Gloucester. Certainly, the adventurous life of the fisher- men was well calculated to fit them for daring naval deeds ; and so we find that, during the Revolution and the War of 1812, the sailors of Gloucester were a scourge to the British. Captain Haraden alone wrested 1000 cannon from them on the high seas. The hardy industry of this people is the school of heroes. Gloucester and Rockport. 193 From the light-house at Eastern Point, the road winds close to the shore, and in the dis- tance there soon glimmer the buttresses of Brace's Rock. It seems to me that this should be the very spot where John Josselyn, Gent., in 1638, saw his monster, the sea-ser- pent, " quoiled up on a rock at Cape Ann." I can imagine his shaggy head reposing on the great green-backed rock that first shoul- ders off the surges, and his crimson mottled " quoils" luxuriously cooled by the dazzling bouquets of foam that break on the purple and sienna ramparts of his lair. Close by the path, at the head of Brace's Cove, Niles Pond again appears, sparkling amid its lily pads and sedge, so that you have on one side, the expanse of the ocean, break- ing rollers, passing ships, and wheeling gulls, and on the other side, dimpling fresh water, under the shade of willows, water-lily blos- soms, swaying-reeds and sweet-voiced land- birds. Farther on, from a hill, a grand view of the harbor is spread out, and the road 13 194 The Puritan Coast. leads us back to the city. For the shore cannot be followed conveniently all around the Cape. I pushed my wheel through its rocky pastures, and over its beaches, which last is possible at low water ; but the better way is to start afresh from the city, Whittier's " Cool and sea-blown town." The long country road across the Cape is known as Eastern Avenue in Gloucester, but becomes Main Street in Rockport. The electric cars now tear noisily, and at breakneck speed, through the lonely woods it traverses. To this day, the interior of the Cape is about as wild and untamed as ever. It was doubt- less in the shades and silence of this forest that the ghostly host was bred which descended in 1692 on the garrison of Cape Ann ; for a part in the troublous witchcraft times was not denied to Gloucester, though it was happily neither sad nor cruel. It was, we are told, in the summer of the year so fateful to Salem, that " rollicking apparitions dressed, like gentlemen, in white waistcoats and breeches," kept the good Gloucester and Rockport. 197 people here " in feverish excitement and alarm, for a whole fortnight together." At first, only a couple of these " rollicking apparitions " were discovered by one Ebenezer Babson, a sturdy yeoman of Cape Ann ; but their number soon increased, keeping pace with the number of the witnesses of their evil pranks. These jovial demons disported themselves in a manner quite rowdyish and more becoming to gentlemen of the eighteenth century and the mother country, than to staid Puritan times and prim New England. They skulked about in the bushes, threw stones, beat on barns with clubs, were insolent in some outlandish jargon (probably hog-Latin ! ), and even made one or two bad shots at the sturdy yeoman. Indeed, " they acted more in the spirit of diabolical revelry, than as if actuated by any deadlier purpose ; " and this farce they kept up, though much powder and ball were wasted on them by Babson and his comrades, who were actually reinforced by a detachment of sixty men from Ipswich, led by Captain 198 The Puritan Coast. Appleton ! According to the poet Whittier, the discerning Captain, after firing a silver button at the merry gentlemen with no effect, declared them to be no mortal foes, turned to his Bible, and then lifted up his voice in prayer, amid his kneeling men. " Ceased thereat the mystic marching of the spectres round the wall, But a sound abhorred, unearthly, smote the ears and hearts of all, Howls of rage and shrieks of anguish ! Never after, mortal man Saw the ghostly leaguers marching round the block- house of Cape Ann." Later on, Gloucester had a resident witch also, one Margaret Wesson, who was long the dread of the superstitious dwellers on the Cape. But, in 1745, they were delivered of her in a strange and mysterious manner. At the siege of Louisburg by the Colonial troops, two Massachusetts soldiers, natives of Gloucester, were annoyed by the persist- ent and unusual actions of an uncanny crow that hovered over them, cawing horribly. "Old Meg. Gloucester and Rockport. 201 One of them thought that under this black disguise he recognized " Old Meg," as Gloucester's witch was called. So he and his comrade cut each a silver button off his uniform, and fired them at the crow. " At the first shot, they broke its leg ; at the second, it fell dead at their feet." Thus are we at once impressed by the excellence of their marksmanship, and the munificence of the Colonial government in the matter of buttons. However, the strangest part of the story follows. Home again, our two soldiers learned that on the precise day, hour, and minute when they had killed the suspicious crow, Old Meg herself had unaccountably fallen of a broken leg, and soon after died in great agony. And, stranger still, upon ex- amining her wounds, the identical silver buttons were found with which the soldiers had loaded their guns under the walls of Louisburg. And this story, as well as the one of the Spectre Leaguers, was " vouched for by persons of character and credibility." 202 The Puritan Coast. After coming out of the woods, there is a wide-reaching view of the ocean over the tree-tops and rocky pastures ; then Main Street , Rockport. dips quickly toward Sandy Bay. The way to Land's End is around to the right and close to the water. It is a pleasant street that winds by old houses and wayside wells Rockport. Gloucester and Rockport. 205 through the heart of the town, by the village church, to the little common under its elms. Next, comes Mt. Pleasant Street, and a good climb past more old houses with square mass- ive chimmeys, and gardens bright with old- fashioned flowers. Through their orchards and over their sloping fields is seen the deep blue of the sea. But the way soon becomes a country road ; over its length rise the towers of the lights on Thatcher's Island. The road is at a considerable distance from the water, and the fields slope down to Loblolly Cove. A little back, on the left, are Straitsmouth Island and light, and the Tri-Salvages reef and spindle, tapering out to sea. Thatcher's Island was first named Thatcher's Woe by Anthony Thatcher, to commemorate the sad story of his shipwreck there in August, 1635. His own family of seven, that of his cousin Parson Avery, numbering eleven, and five others in all, twenty-three souls set sail from Ipswich, for Marblehead, to whose rough fisher-folk the Rev. Mr. Avery felt called to preach the Gospel. All 206 The Puritan Coast. went well until the night of August fourteenth, when, at ten o'clock, their old sails split. They then resolved to cast anchor till morn- ing ; but, before daylight, a mighty storm arose, and, their cable slipping away, the pinnace was hurled by the raging seas upon a rock. Nearly the whole ship's company were swallowed up, or dashed to pieces by the merciless waves. Thatcher and his wife were both saved, as if by a miracle. He called the desolate island upon which they were cast away Thatcher's Woe, after his own name, " and the Rock, Avery, his Fall, to the end that their fall and loss, and mine own, might be had in perpetual remembrance." In the isle lieth buried the body of his cousin's eldest daughter, whom he found dead on the shore. Whittier's poem, "The Swan Song of Parson Avery," is founded on this history. " And still the fishers outbound, or scudding from the squall, With grave and reverent faces, the ancient tale recall, When they see the white waves breaking on the Rock of Avery's Fall ! " Gloucester and Rockport. 207 The road continues to the Turk's Head Inn, at Land's End, which is named for its proto- type in Cornwall. On the beach here, just back from Milk Island, the Atlantic cable is brought up out of the sea, and is marked by two curiously striped poles with discs. Here the road ends. Beyond, stretches the length of Long Beach to Bass Rocks. Thatcher's, Straitsmouth, and Milk Islands were called, by Capt. John Smith, the Three Turks' Heads, in memory of one of his exploits, when, as a Christian champion, he slew as many Turks in combat and afterwards beheaded them. To this grisly souvenir, he added a pleasanter one, by naming Cape Ann, Cape Tragabizanda, after a fair Moslem who beguiled the weary days of his captivity in Stamboul. " Who, when the chance of war had bound The Moslem chain his limbs around, Soothed with her smiles his hours of pain, And fondly to her youthful slave A dearer gift than freedom gave." IF in Rockport, at the foot of the hill from Gloucester, one turns to the left, instead of towards Land's End, the road will take him about Sandy Bay, and then above the artificial harbors to which the granite is brought from the quarries of Pole and Pigeon Hills. In its descent, the rocky debris has crept outward till it lies like a petrified octopus, with rigid arms stretched out into the sea. One cannot help wondering how the beauty of ledge and bowlder can be transformed into such ugliness. The air is filled with the tinkle of hammer and chisel, and the testy puff of steam-drills. Occasionally, comes the boom of an explo- sion, wresting the rocks from the hills. From the road itself, one may look down into a quarry, with its tracks and engines, Pigeon Cove and Annisquam. 209 its sheds and steam-drills, and its men, ant- like, beneath the high derricks. The wayside houses are utilitarian and unlovely, yet some- times not without a lowly picturesqueness. It is uphill and down between the blue wall of the sea and the gray granite hills, to Pigeon Cove at the harbor, and then up the hill on the other side, with houses of a better class, and many summer hotels and boarding houses. At the top of the hill, a drive leads seaward along the shore by Andrew's Point and Hoop Pole Cove, and back to Granite Street. The summer settlement here is called Ocean View. The rocky shore is well-wooded, exposed to the full fury of the northeasters ; and the surf is often magnificent. Granite Street runs into Washington Street, and over its sloping length, across the wind-whipped bay, shine the sands of Plum Island, glimmering in their own heat, and backed by the hills of Newbury. At the foot of the slope Is Folly Cove, lonely and grim, and across it Folly Point, its strata defined 14 21O The Puritan Coast. by sombre markings, now sloping, now vertical, to the white foam at its foot. A few fisher-huts are ^ clustered at the head ,.^ of the cove, dories are drawn far above the reach of waves, and Folly Cove the fences are festooned with drying nets, in all the shades of brown and black. From here, the road climbs a little hill beside a The Village Street: Pigeon Cove and Annisquam. 213 brook tumbling down its granite bed. Where the roads fork, the perspective of lower lane is spaced by level shadows from bordering willows, their trunks cut darkly across the green meadow. Beyond is Lanesville. The prettier way, by Langsford Street, runs uphill by an oak grove and under old locusts. Soon the sea comes in sight, and on its rim, over the open fields, Agamenticus in Maine rises blue and alone. Then the coast shows faintly off Portsmouth, and by Rye and Hamp- ton to Salisbury Beach, where the cottages loom white on the sands ; and over the end of the road is the purple of Heartbreak Hill in Ipswich. As I stood here, a stone schooner was standing out from Bay View in the fresh north- west wind. So heavily was she laden, that her deck was scarcely above water. She did not seem to list at all under the strong breeze, though all sail was set. So deep was she, that as the seas struck her, they swept back across her deck from stem to stern. The 214 The Puritan Coast. afternoon sun lit up her sails and cast a long shadow over the water in her lee. Great heaps of paving-stones for the armor- ing of city streets lie piled by the harbor. Along the shaded village street of Lanesville, the houses cluster, and between them and the sea are great sloping granite promon- tories, in their hollows fertile green-sward and thriving, though wind-tossed, willows. When a northeast gale sweeps this coast, the tor- mented sea, ridged and edged by foam, rushes wildly along Folly Point, breaking in white fury against the rocks all the way to Lane's Cove, then hurries on till spent in smothered foam over the tusks of Plum Cove Ledge. At Bay View, a deep inlet makes in almost j to the road ; beyond the village, on a hill, is the First Universalist church of Annisquam. Square and box-like it stands, under a spread- ing elm, overlooking Lobster Cove. The afternoon sun glitters on the shore and water of this deep cut in the granite hills. Fruit- trees, overtopped by whispering pines, bend Annisquam Church. Pigeon Cove and Annisquam. 217 over its edge, vines and grasses straggle down its tumbling walls. A square old-fashioned house, with great central chimney, stands at the beginning of the winding country road to Annisquam. This is a quiet little haven, resting under its fruit and shade trees, sheltered by granite hills that rise steeply between it and the sea, on one side, and the bowlder-strewn Cape hills on the other. No matter how the wind may blow outside, the little cove is placid. The houses are mostly snug cottages, many of them very picturesque. Here and there, is a mouldering boat by a decrepit wharf, or a dory drawn up or afloat, or an old-fashioned well, in fact the place abounds in artistic bits of foreground. All about Cape Ann, one will notice how common and how various are the wayside wells. Past the post-office and school, the road turns at the head of the har- bor to the west side of the hill, where there is a summer settlement by Cambridge people. It is at the head of Squam River, across which are the fantastic shifting dunes of Coffin's 218 The Puritan Coast. beach and the sands of Castle Neck in Ipswich. Head of A nnisquam Harbor. From the main street near the post-office, the way to Gloucester is over the old wooden bridge, over which the stage-coach has ceased Pigeon Cove and Annisquam. 219 to clatter. It was a noisy crossing, made not without apprehension. Even under a passing wheel, the old draw creaks complainingly. At the head of the cove, the little church shines white above the green ring of trees, and, in leafy shadows, a schooner or two seem like interlopers in this land-locked quiet. Across the bridge we come again to Wash- ington Street, then another bridge, and so, under a long aisle of arching willows, to Riverdale. The picturesque quality of the way here is leaving it fast ; it is not as pleas- ant a ride or walk as it used to be. Close by the tide-mill is the monument to the " Riverdale Martyrs," under the shadow of the flag. Above the dam, the calm waters reflect steep-faced Beacon Pole Hill, and be- low, the water tumbles noisily into an arm of Squam River, stretching out attractively between Riverdale and Wheeler's Point. The road rises to the foot of Beacon Pole Hill. From this elevation, I looked across the green fertile meadows and calm stream. The 220 The Puritan Coast. rough hills, with a virile, bossy decoration of thickly strewn bowlders, caught on their shoulders the golden evening light. The Rlverdale. shadow, creeping upward with purple edge, melted into rich olive in the hollow, from the mingling of lichen-colored rocks and thin, Pigeon Cove and Annisquam. 221 cropped turf. Beyond, in the south, over the roofs of Gloucester, in the last ray of sunset, glistened the golden cross of Saint Anne's. It is now only a short wheel back to Gloucester. There finishes the bicycle path along the Puritan Coast, and here this book comes also to its End. f YB 20163 M196936 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY