THE -PILGRIM .SHORE BY EDMUND H.GARRETT ArtlLY NAMES OF TIE PILGRIMS FOREFATHERS 01 * FIRST COMERS IN TIE MAYFLOWER CARVER BRADFORD -WINSLOW BREWSTER -ALLERTON- STAN DISH ALDEN-BILLINGTON-BR1TTERIDGE BROWN CHILTON- CLARK- COOKE COOPER- CRACKSTONE-DOTEY EATON -ELY -ENGLISH FLETCHER FULLER -GARDINER- GOODMAN HOLBECK- HOOKE HOPKINS HOWLAND-tANCEMORE LATHAM LISTER- MARGESON- MARTIN MORE- MULLINS NORRIS PRIEST- PROWER -RIGDALE ROGERS -SAMPSON SOULE STORY- THOMPSON -TI LLEV TINKER -TREVOR-TURNER \VMREN-WHITE WILDER WILLIAMS ADAMS BASSETT B EAL' BOMPASSE-BREWSTER-BRIGCS CANNON CONNOR CUSHMAN DEAN-DE LA NOTE FLAVEL FORD-HICKS-HILTON MORGAN MORTON NICHOLAS- PALMER PRENCE PITT SIMONSON STATIE STEWART -TENCH WINSLOW-WRICHT IN ThEANNE ^LITTLE JAMES A) 1623 ANNABEL BANGS -BARTLETT BURCHER CONANT CLARK CUTHBERTSON-DIX-FAUNCE FLOOD-HEARD-flOLMAN- JENNY KEMPTON- LONG-MITCHELL P19RT9N OLDHAM PRATT RAND -RATCLIFFE SNOW 5RAGUE ^^TILDEN TJRACEY-WALLEN rl A Ol/r- _ THE PILGRIM SHORE THE PILGRIM SHORE By Edmund H Qarrett - iMety&urings drawn from. Nature or jrom Fancy by tfie Writer T pub- lijhed at ^Boston by Little,Brown & Company -Anno Domini 1900 Copyright. 1900, BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY UNIVERSITY PRESS . JOHN WILSON AND SON CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. PREFACE Jnterduction w'icb maybeskipb " THEBlGLCWPfiPERS VEN if travel abroad best ~ strengthens our love of country, we should not neglect for it those places, hallowed by their associations or history, that lie at our very doors. And so an occasional reminder of the attractions of our own land may not be amiss, and it is for the purpose of set- ting forth in a familiar way the charm of a pilgrimage through some of our own towns that this book is now published. The writer has already recorded in a like manner a journey northward to Cape Ann, J 1 Romance and Reality of the Puritan Coast. 8 Preface. and as this volume treats of the South Shore of Massachusetts Bay, the two books to- gether describe the coast of the Puritans and that of the Pilgrims. These two regions, like the two peoples themselves, while having much in common, yet present marked contrasts. The Puritan land is rich, populous, and en- terprising. Along its length teeming cities and growing towns are ever reaching toward each other. All day long its air is vexed with the thunder of rolling trains and the shriek of shrill complaining trolleys. Tall factory chimneys vie in height with its stee- ples and wreathe their smoke over its homes, sails of toil and pleasure crowd its harbors. It is active, busy, energetic, laborious, and competent. Its shore is comparatively high, bold, and sternly rockbound. 1 1 In reality it extends southward to the rocks of Cohas- set, for the river that flows through this town marked the boundary between the Plymouth and the Massachusetts Bay colonies. In this book, however, the whole South Shore from Boston to Plymouth is treated of under the general title of the Pilgrim Shore. Preface. 9 The land of the Pilgrims is by contrast less bold and rocky, and it has not kept pace with the other side of the bay, either in population, material prosperity, or enterprise. It has been until quite lately very much more countrified and quiet, and having for many years been less easy of access, it is not so well known as a whole. In spite of this, however, none of the North Shore towns is so famous as Plymouth, whose soil and waters nourished the Forefathers, men whose love of mercy and justice, whose humanity and nobility of character, have hallowed the place of their dwelling, and made their name revered at home and abroad. " There are places and objects so intimately associated with the world's greatest men or with mighty deeds," says Governor Roger Wolcott, "that the soul of him who gazes upon them is lost in a sense of reverent awe, as it listens to the voice that speaks from the past in words like those which came from the burning bush, ' Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is io Preface. holy ground.' On the sloping hillside of Ply- mouth such a voice is breathed by the brood- ing genius of the place, and the ear must be dull that fails to catch the whispered words." Need we wonder then that this old town has become an American shrine, and the ways that lead to it made paths of pilgrimage? Somehow, in spite of the gentle and liberal tendencies of the Pilgrims, one associates them most often with a bleak and wintry shore such as they landed on that stormy December night so long ago. It seems to harmonize well with the stern courage which prompted them to set forth for the New World, and is a fitting background to the hardy, temperate, manly lives of those res- olute hearts, self-exiled for conscience" sake. Happily, however, the coast is not always forbidding, nor its beauty awesome ; not al- ways does a leaden sky hang low over wan surges, nor the gray sea fling its freezing spray across a pallid shore to black forests buffeted by the icy north wind. Far other- wise is it when summer clothes it in genia] A Pilgrim. Preface. 13 and smiling beauty. Then kindly blue waves lap its warm glimmering sands. To beach and rock creep grass, and vine, and flowering shrub. Birds then sing in its groves, but- terflies flutter over its fields, the pines, like swinging censers perfume the winds and cast welcome shadows over the warm earth. As if dressed for a festival, the landscape glistens under the sun, and all is as sweet as the morning. It was in such pleasant times that the notes and sketches in this book were made, and the purpose has been, while wandering along, rendering homage to the land's beauty, to record its present aspect and recall in a measure its traditions and history. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE 7 DORCHESTER 21 NEPONSET 39 QUINCY 43 WEYMOUTH 77 HINGHAM 86 HULL . 97 COHASSET 105 SCITUATE 121 MARSHFIELD 143 DUXBURY 157 KINGSTON 181 PLYMOUTH 187 ^spsn^---- ILLUSTRATIONS Priscilla Frontispiece PAGE Preface, Decorative Initial 7 A Pilgrim 1 1 Tailpiece 13 Contents, Decorative Heading 15 List of Illustrations, Decorative Heading . . . 17 Dorchester, Decorative Initial 21 " Gardens there were everywhere " .... 24 The Blake House 27 " Till in turn she dreamed, herself " . . .31 Captain Roger Clap 37 1 8 A List of the Illustrations PAGE Neponset, Decorative Initial 39 " Mounted guard at a window " . . . . 41 Quincy, Decorative Heading 43 Unitarian Church, Wollaston 44 " The steep hill by the tablet w ...... 47 Dorothy Q 51 The Quincy House 55 Merrie Mounte 59 Lord of Misrule 61 " Cut down the Maypole " 65 Christ Church Fountain 69 John Quincy Adams was born here ... 73 John Adams House 76 Weymouth, Decorative Heading 77 The Fore River 78 Wattawamat Si The Smith Parsonage 84 Hingham, Decorative Heading 86 Home of General Lincoln 87 Major-General Lincoln . 89 An Antique Treasure 94 ////, Decorative Heading 97 "As necessary as church and preaching" . 99 Hollyhocks 103 A List of the Illustrations 19 PAGE Cohasset, Decorative Heading 105 The Jerusalem Road 107 Cohasset River m Cohasset Common 113 "Through the village " 115 li Their home on the little hill " . . . . 1 16 The old Lincoln House 119 Scituate, Decorative Heading 12 1 Fourth Cliff, Scituate 122 The Street, Scituate Harbor 125 " The mill that stood by it " 129 The " Old Oaken Bucket " 133 " The placid stream sleeps " 135 On Humarock Beach 137 " And Jemmy the Negur shall catch it for her" 141 Marshfield, Decorative Heading 143 On the old White Estate 144 The Winslow Arms 147 Proud Peacocks 149 The old Winslow House 153 Duxbury, Decorative Heading 157 " The Married Lovers " 159 The John Alden House 163 The Arch Priscilla . ........ 167 2o A List of the Illustrations Duxbury (continued). PAGE The Grave of Miles Standish 169 "At Standish's Fireside" 173 Miles Standish 175 The Standish Cottage 179 Kingston, Decorative Heading 1 8 1 By Island Creek . . . , 182 Major John Bradford's House 184 Plymouth, Decorative Heading 187 The pewter plate and iron pot 192 " Plymouth's first, last, and only duel " . . 1 97 One of the quaint chairs 199 Flax-wheel 199 Cradle 200 North Street 203 " Mary Chilton first " 209 Site of First House 213 Ancient Mere-steads 217 Governor Bradford 219 The Bradford Monument 223 The Oldest House 225 " A Paradise to Etchers " 227 Pond Lilies 230 "Just as the Pilgrims found it" .... 231 Tailpiece 234 DORCHESTER he way out of cities is not always a pleasant one, for between town and country there lies commonly a forlorn.region, neither the one nor the other, whence the country has an d tne city has not yet set firmly its foot. It seems like some melancholy shore on which beat the waves of urban life, casting up the scum and dregs of its poverty, toil, and m i s e ry. Over thisland, blighted by the smoke and cinders of grimy work- shops, brood squalor, intemperance, and . - 22 The Pilgrim Shore. weariness, settling on the old dumps and arid wastes, fattening ever on the filth, the unhealthy fumes, and the noxious odors that overspread and arise from all this cast-out detritus. Hurry through this unlovely land, if it cannot be avoided. Such a waste must be passed going to the Pilgrim Shore, unless one leaves the city from the west, and so goes by the parks and through Roxbury to the first town on the South Shore, " Good Old Dorchester." Settled in 1630, it was first known as Matta- pan; for in history we read that the Court of Assistants held at Charlestown, September 7, 1630, ordered that " Trimountaine be called Boston; Mattapan, Dorchester, and the towne upon Charles Ryver, Watertown." " Why they called it Dorchester," says elder James Blake, one of the earliest annalists, " I never heard ; but there was some of ye Towne of Dorchester that settled here, and it is very likely it might be in honor of ye aforesaid Rev'd Mr. White of Dorchester." This Mr. White was Rector of Trinity Parish, Dorchester. 23 Dorchester, England, and was the most prominent of the active promoters of the Puritan emigration. He organized the church that settled here, and aided it with heart and purse. In 1633 this was declared to be the great- est town in all New England, by the author of " New England's Prospect," well wooded and watered : " very good arable grounds and Hay-ground, faire Cornefields and pleasant Gardens." And this description of its attrac- tions seems to have held good many, many years; indeed no town near Boston for so long a time preserved its rural beauty, its country simplicity, and its air of well-bred English quiet. I remember, especially, just how it used to look in the sixties seen from the neighboring high hills of Roxbury, so invitingly fair it was, stretching green un- dulations against its blue bay and the sea's rim, its houses and steeples shining white, and its gardens hanging to its hillsides like apples on a bough. Gardens there were everywhere, pleasant as in the days of the 24 The Pilgrim Shore. quaint old author of the " Prospect," not like the shaven lawns and geometric parterres of " Gardens there were everywhere." to-day, nor shamming nature either, but picturesquely formal and yet accidental. Dorchester. 25 Therein grew venerable pear-trees, and spread crooked apple boughs, and in cherry-time luscious black-hearts and white-hearts hung thickly above their own gummy trunks. Streaked gooseberries fattened there, and currants crimsoned, and in thorny thickets long blackberries ripened and sweetened till they dropped of their own weight to the rich and shaded soil that nourished them. And all kinds of old fashioned flowers spread their bloom along the prim box-bordered paths that led formally to the pleasant home- steads. Some of them old Revolutionary mansions, and some that were already an- tique when these were built, dating from that far colonial time when this was the greatest town in all New England. Of all these old colonial houses, the only one remaining nearly in its original condition is the old Blake house, said to have been built before 1650 by elder James Blake. Its pre- servation is due to the Dorchester Historical Society, whose home it now is. They re- stored it, and moved it from its old founda- 26 The Pilgrim Shore. tion to its present site under the great trees where the new park way starts from the end of Massachusetts Avenue. It was on a winter's night, just after a great snow-storm, that I made my first visit to this old colonial home. Upon the roof the snow sparkled coldly against the frosty sky, and through the latticed windows the lamp and fire-light passed the black walls and flickered on the snow-drifts and the winter-laden trees, giving a promise of the warmth and cosy old-fashioned comfort within. I seemed to step at once by the hospitably opened door into a past far from the promiscuous apart- ment houses near by, and the shrieking, clang- ing trolley car that had whisked me through the city streets with our modern marvellous and unregarded magic. The present slipped away from me, and my fancy peopled the low ceiled rooms with the shapes of staid God- fearing Puritans. Undoubtedly, it was in some interior quaintly like this that Captain Roger Clap, the first annalist of Dorchester, The Blake House, Dorchester. 29 set down his memoirs of that early time that are now so precious. And I seemed to see him at his work upon them in moments snatched from ruder toil. And Mistress Joanna Blake, too, hushing the children, or singing softly one of the old Puritan hymns as she rocked the youngest to sleep, till in turn she dreamed herself, dreamed of the hedgerows and orchards of old Dorsetshire, the pleasant lanes, the breezy hills, the shel- tered valleys, the roses, the hawthorn, the skylark and nightingale, snugly thatched cottages, the old ivy clad church and the quiet church-yard in their old home beyond the wide, wide sea. I wonder if she did not sometimes sigh for the motherland, in spite of the Puritan grit. No such weakness or ten- derness, however, found a place in the hearts of the men, if they were all like Captain Roger Clap ; for, after reciting the sore straits to which they were put by hardships, and for want of provisions for themselves and their little ones, he could yet find it in his heart to write, " I do not remember that I ever did 30 The Pilgrim Shore. wish in my Heart that I had not come unto this Country or that 1 ever did wish myself back again to my Father's House." But comforts accumulated in time; for thus he apostrophizes his children, " You have better Food and Raiment than was in former times ; but have you better Hearts than your Forefathers had? If so, Rejoice in that Mercy and let New England then shout for Joy." The old house has been happily furnished with old colonial and provincial belonging, so that it is precious to the artist or antiquary. In the summer it seems a little out of keep- ing with its park-like surroundings, and one is not surprised to learn then that it has been moved here. It has the look of those an- tiques which one sees set in the glass cases of museums, stripped of their natural uses and surroundings, and become only objects of curiosity. Here, as elsewhere in Dorchester, one will notice the magnificent old trees. The people must always have loved trees, and to this day Till in turn she dreamed herself." Dorchester. 33 they protect and preserve them lovingly. A bit of the sidewalk is not begrudged them, nor even a little of the roadway. After all, what decent man would not be willing to turn a little out of his way for the sake of a tree ! So they lift their screen of leaves in the summer, their lacing of twigs in the winter, over the streets, and cast shade and beauty over the whole place. However, this old town is changing so rapidly that it seems as if stone and brick must soon take the place of leaves and grass, and the trees follow after the old houses. Indeed, the new houses seem no longer like interlopers, for it is rather the old ones, hanging hopelessly to their diminished gardens, that seem out of place, elbowed out of countenance by aggressive newcomers, like guests that have worn out their welcome. It is a pity that they should all go, as go they must in a short time. But if Dorchester is to be robbed of her old landmarks, no one shall take from her the grand part she played in the making of the Puritan republic. Here was raised the 3 34 The Pilgrim Shore. first meeting-house 1 in the Bay Colony. She claims, too, the distinguished honor of having instituted the first special town government in New England. But perhaps greater pride yet is felt that the people of Dorchester were the first in all America who by a direct tax or assessment made public provision for a free school. The instruction to the school- master was that he should " equally and impartially receive and instruct such as shalbe sent and Committed to him for that end, whither there parents bee poore or rich." This was the corner-stone of our public school system. The moneys for this purpose came from the rental of Thompson's Island, which was owned by the town. This island lies across Dorchester Bay, off Squantum Point, and is seen in the glimpses that one has of the bay and harbor on the road to Neponset. At high tide this view is very pretty. In the foreground lies embow- ered Savin Hill, and beyond it South Boston. 1 It was built in 1631 on the plain near the corner of Cottage and Pleasant Streets. Dorchester. 35 The latter was a great attraction to the Puri- tan settlers, for on that grassy neck of land they found fine pasturage for their cattle. From the Marine Park at the Point, the long iron pier is seen jutting out to Fort In- dependence on Castle Island. This has been a strong place since 1634, or almost from the first settlement; for, says Captain Roger Clap, " God stirred up his poor ser- vants to use means in their beginnings for their preservation. ... At first they built a castle with mud walls which stood divers years . . . when the mud walls failed it was built again with pine-trees and earth." Brick walls replaced these in 1645, anc ^, says Edward Johnson, " Although this Castle cost about .4000 yet are not this poor pilgrim people weary of maintaining it in good repair." Roger Clap was captain of " The Castle " in his old age, when it was indeed a strong fort for that time, mounting " 38 guns and 16 whole culverin." Its name was changed in 1705 to Castle William, in honor probably of the Prince of Orange, William III., though 36 The Pilgrim Shore. he had at that date been dead three years, and the colonies were under the rule of simple, homely Queen Anne. Again was it rechristened, in 1799, after it had been ceded to the national government, and the temper of the people required a name more in keep- ing with their republican contempt of kings, and so it was called Fort Independence, as it is to-day. Though the shore of Dorchester Bay was perhaps never attractive except at high tide, still it must have deserved a better fate than has come to it. Neglect and other obvious factors have brought it to a state of decided unloveliness. The redeeming feature of the ride shorewise is the outlook over the bay and harbor, for there are few breaks in the long dreariness of the ride down to the village of Neponset. Captain Roger Clap. i HIS part of Dorchester is named from the Neponset tribe of In- dians, whose home it was. Here change is as busy as in the other parts of Dorchester, and its old landmarks have nearly all passed away. Perhaps the greatest loss was that of the Old Minot House, for it was not only a very old house, built before 1640, but it was called the oldest wooden house on the conti- nent. Yet although it seemed outwardly to be only of wood, it was really all lined be- tween its ponderous oaken timbers with brick, fort-like and bullet proof. Picturesquely an- cient it was, with a pleasant outlook over the 40 The Pilgrim Shore. winding river and the level marshes to the Blue Hills. It had its legend, too, one tinctured with the resolute bravery of that old time which pulsed from the hearts of both men and women. In this instance 't was the courage of a woman ; for it is related that, during King Philip's War, a straggling red warrior sud- denly appeared before the old house, when it was occupied by a lone maid and two of John Minot's small children, but not to the con- fusion of the young woman. For no sooner did she see the Indian, than she hid the two babies under a brass kettle and ran upstairs for a musket, and then mounted guard at a window. The Indian, who was armed like- wise, fired first and missed her ; but she, taking careful aim, wounded him in the shoulder. Mad with rage and pain, he then tried to force an entrance through a window ; whereat the amazon rushed to the fire-place, and, filling a shovel with burning coals, hurled them in his horrible painted face. Doubly wounded with fire and lead, the foiled sav- Neponset. 4 1 age, weak and suffering, crept off into the woods, in the depths of which he was after- wards found dead. " Mounted guard at a window." Unhappily the old house caught fire in 1874, and burned to the ground. What a pity to have lost the theatre of such an heroic adventure ! From the wooden bridge over the Nepon- 4 2 The Pilgrim Shore. set River there is a pretty view inland across the green meadows and blue curves of the river to the steeples and groves of Milton, under the shadow of the Great Blue Hill that Captain John Smith called " the high mountaine of Massachusetts." Indeed, it was from the native name of this hill, Massa- vuachusett, that the tribe of that name was called, and so our State itself takes its name secondly from these same hills. How long the range has been known as the Blue Hills, I do not know, but the reason is obvious to any one who sees them from the bay. Wood, in his "New England's Prospect," 1634, says that, " Up into the Country westward from the plantations is a high hill which is called rattlesnake hill where there is great store of these poysonous creatures." I know that these dreaded reptiles used to be common enough there, and I am told that they are even now occasionally found by the park guardians, and to this day the easternmost of the chain is called Rattlesnake Hill. UJNCV. ACROSS the bridge in Atlantic a road turns off seaward to Squan- tum, along a neck of mingled beach and marsh. The name commemorates that fast friend of the Pilgrims, Squantum Squanto or Tisquantum, as he is variously called in the old chronicles. He piloted ten adventurous men of Plymouth, amongst whom were Standish and Winslow, to this beautiful little promon- tory in 1621. According to Edward Everett Hale, the account of this expedition is the first authentic record of the landing of Eng- lishmen in the vicinity of Boston. The 44 The Pilgrim Shore. Quincy Daughters of the Revolution have placed here a cairn with an inscription in memory of that early pilgrimage. Unitarian Church. Wollaston. The peninsula is now cut up into private estates profusely decorated with signs for- bidding trespass, and is connected by a long causeway with Moon Island, the mouth of a Quincy. 45 great sewer. Years ago Squantum was a pretty little place, a miniature Nahant; but it now is hardly worth a visit. If one keeps on past Atlantic, and crosses the railway, skirting the Neponset River and Meadows, where is the site of the first rail- way in America, he will soon come up the hill by the Unitarian Church into Wollaston. Right by the square at the foot of First Hill is a tablet set in the greensward and thus inscribed : This and the neighboring Wollaston Hills were part of the Original grant of 600 acres Made by the town of Boston to William Hutchinson in 1636-7. His house stood near this spot, And to it came his wife Ann Hutchinson on the seventeenth of April 1638 When exiled from Massachusetts by the General Court of the Colony, and here she tarried for a brief space While on her way to Rhode Island This Tablet placed A.D. 1894. 46 The Pilgrim Shore. So we find that at the beginning of its his- tory, Wollaston was sheltering and comfort- ing an " advanced woman." This is one of the few places named after their founders, for we learn from Dudley's let- ter to Bridget, Countess of Warwick, that "one Capt. Wollaston with some thirty with him built on a hill which he named Mount Wollas- ton." Now though this was undoubtedly a part of the original domain of the Captain, the first settlement was not made just here. That place, known sometimes as Merrymount, we shall visit later, meanwhile it is best to climb the steep hill by the tablet, the roses, the pretty cottages, and the flagstaff, for Wollas- ton is really a pretty place, and would be misjudged if seen only from the lower road. From the top of the hill, Grand View Avenue, shady and pleasant, leads on to Second Hill, with many a vista over the harbor and the town-hemmed city. A mile it is to Quincy, and, just before reaching the centre, our road crosses Furnace Brook. Then the first house on the right, at The steep hill by the tablet." Quincy. 49 the corner of Adams Street, is that of Brooks Adams. A long low gambrel-roofed mansion under stately elms, and girt with pleasant gardens, it has in a measure the air of some old English manor-houses which have grown slowly in a rambling and delightful way, by pushing out an ell here, or gallery there, as a growing family required, or a waxing fortune justified. Originally this was the country -seat of a rich and powerful colonial family, the Vassals. 'T is said that they were of Italian blood, and wealthy beyond the habit of those days, lords, too, of vast estates in New England and the West Indies. From his possessions in the latter place, it was that Leonard Vassal brought the magnificent old Santo Domingo mahogany with which one of the old rooms is panelled from floor to ceiling. This, the most interesting of the Adams houses, has sometimes been called the House of Golden Weddings; for in one of its rooms have been celebrated the golden wed- dings of John Adams, of his son John Quincy 4 50 The Pilgrim Shore. Adams, and his grandson Charles Francis Adams. Opposite the old estate is President's Lane, a lovely shaded road which leads to the other Adams houses. It is better, however, to cross the bridge over the railway, whence it is a short distance to the centre, or Quincy Square. A pleasant walk it is, too, for this suburban city is a delightful mixture of town and country. Great trees arch the streets, and under their shade the fine old dwellings are interspersed with shops, churches, banks, and schools. The Square is the heart of Quincy ; from it, like arteries, the streets lead in all directions, and through them pulses a very modern life. How busy it is with the trolley cars whisk- ing about everywhere, flashing and clanging ! And beside all this bustling, noisy activity, as if to emphasize it by deep sharp contrast, lies the quiet old mouldering burying ground with its heaped turf and crumbling stones. Here, in their narrow beds amongst the fore- fathers, sleep Josiah and Edmund Quincy and that stalwart patriot, John Hancock. Dorothy Q. Quincy. 53 Well cared for is the old place now, but neglect fell upon it for a long time; for years the weeds choked its borders, the cows grazed among its broken and tottering head- stones and trampled down the forgotten graves. Many of the oldest monuments were by this means lost, and to-day the oldest stone dates back to only 1666, al- though the graveyard is contemporary with the earliest settlement. Two gates give entrance to its quiet from the busy street. Over one is the grim re- minder, " Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return." But it seems a good omen that over the one usually opened is arched the beautiful promise, " This mortal shall put on immortality." Across the square in the deep shade of trees the Stone Temple rises sedately from its tiny greensward. Aloft it bears a cupola fashioned like a small pagan temple, and its grim sombre granite is capped by dusky gold. This edifice is the Unitarian church, and it stands on a remnant of the old train- 54 The Pilgrim Shore. ing-ground. It is called the Stone Temple because 'twas built of granite taken from quarries given to the town by Ex-President John Adams, who requested that a "temple ' should be erected from their stone. In the church are the tombs of the two presidents, and monuments of the Adams family. Indeed one can hardly turn about in Quincy without seeing something to remind him of the Adams or the Quincy family, and, in fact, the history of the town is in a great measure a history of these two illustrious families. The city itself is named after Colonel John Quincy, and one part of the people, not content to honor one family, have called their locality Quincy-Adams. The best monument to the Quincy family would have been the preservation of the Quincy homestead. This old mansion, much altered and fallen in estate, may be reached from the Square by going toward Boston on Hancock Street. It stands just beyond the High School, where Furnace Brook slips under the road by some giant willows where Quincy House. Quincy. 57 a double row of trees marks what seems to have been an old garden walk along the stream's bank. The poor old house where " Dorothy Q " was born and in which generations of the Quincys have lived and died has the very air of neglect and desertion. Straggling weeds and rank have crept over the driveway once so trim, so neat. Choked by them too are all the garden walks and the formal old- fashioned flower-beds ; over their bent and tangled stalks brood the venerable lilacs, still flanking the quaint old doorway. Beside the antique panelled door with its ponderous knockers and staring bull's eyes of turbid glass, there still stands some of the old bor- dering box. Unkempt it is now, but digni- fied by the growth of many years, for this slowest of growing plants now out-tops the tallest man. The house itself has been disfigured by clumsy and ugly additions; yet amid these modern barbarities you may find bits of background wholly of the past, and in fact 58 The Pilgrim Shore. some portions date back to 1634. Even above the eaves the old lilacs tower ; matted and branch-bound, they blotch with violet shadows the gray walls and old windows, and fret the many paned sashes, pied with the pale pinks, the amber greens, and amethysts of ancient glass= But their tints no longer color the landscape and stain the sky to outlooking Quincy eyes ; the inside shutters are closed, and against this panelled white, the panes reveal their minor harmonies to the peering stranger. At the side of the house, where a rickety bridge now spans the brook, was a flight of stone steps to a boat-landing, for Furnace Brook widened here into Black's Creek, and a great convenience it must have been to have at one's door a thoroughfare to that great highway, the sea; for in the early days all communication between the settle- ments was by water. The first comers to Quincy settled, as was the custom, close to the shore, and not far from this old house, toward the Bay is Merry Quincy. 59 Mount where the famous Maypole was set up in the days of King Charles. Here it was that Captain Wollaston settled in 1625. And from here he set sail, after a year's hard trials, discouraged and strait- ened in circumstances, to try and retrieve his fortune in Virginia; for the adventure was not happy, and the story of its early days is one of trouble and disappointment. The settlement was left in charge of a Lieutenant Pitcher and a small company. To them came one who was destined to weave into the fab- ric of New England's early history 60 The Pilgrim Shore. a few threads of vivid dye, gaudy, if not well spun. This individual was one " Mr. Mor- ton a lawyer " (who had been a kind of pettifogger of Furnefell's Inne). 1 He was, if Governor Bradford may be believed, a pestilent fellow and a troubler of the country. Of course Governor Bradford was not unpreju- diced, but Morton really seems to have been a good deal of an adventurer. However, he was no common one, for he was educated, tal- ented, and, above all, whimsical and pictur- esque. Devoted was he to all the follies and vanities of Merrie England, which included, from the Plymouth standpoint (it has been said), "The Book of Common Prayer." Naturally he had no sympathy with either Puritan or Pilgrim, and if he, too, in common with them, sought any liberty, it was surely not that of conscience nor religion. For in the plague-swept fields of the Massachusetts, and the silent shadowy paths of the primeval 1 Bradford's History. Morton called himself " Of Clifford's Inn, Gent.," and Samuel Maverick says that he was " a gentleman of qualitie." Lard of Misrule. Quincy. 63 forests, his heart turned not to God, but longed for the license of the old-world, and his nimble, scheming brain visioned a little realm where the jollity of English wake and fair and revel might be enjoyed and fostered under his especial care. So, with his brain all fancy-stuffed, he craftily enticed the Captain's servants, and conspired with them, until, taking opportunity they " thrust Lavetenante Pitcher out a dores." Then did Morton make himself Lord of Misrule, and set up a Maypole on Mount Wollaston, 80 feet high, topped with a buck's horns and decked with flowers. On it, too, he hung pagan conceits and gallantries in his own verse, for to his other accomplishments he added that of rhyming. But a Maypole was of little use to a lot of men, and so, as there were no fair English girls at hand (Hawthorne to the contrary notwithstanding), he and his men were forced to revel alone, or to beguile the Indian women thereto. They did not revel alone, you may be sure. 64 The Pilgrim Shore. How strange this motley assembly must have looked, capering about the Maypole on the lonely hill overlooking the lonely bay and the lonely fields and forests ! Surely not a pleasant sight to the Pilgrims was it, for thus does Bradford describe it, " After this they fell to great licenciousness, and led into a dissolute life, powering out them selves into all profaneness. . . . As if they had anew revived & celebrated the feasts of ye Roman Goddes Flora, or ye beasly practieses of y c madd Bacchinalians." Then they changed the name of their place to Merie-mounte, " as if this joylity would have lasted ever." To maintain their prodigality, they sold to the Indians arms and ammunition, a com- merce king-forbidden. And besides furnish- ing their red brothers with firearms, they also kept him in fire-water and themselves set a great example of drunkenness. So, says Charles Francis Adams, Mount Wollaston was the first recorded instance of what was known in later Massachusetts history as " a liquor nuisance." Thus the settlement be- Cut down the Maypole." Ouincy. 67 came not only a scandal, but a continual danger and menace to both colonies. Then the settlers scattered about the Bay, though they were all Episcopalians and gen- erally held themselves aloof from the men of Plymouth, besought aid of them that the mis- chief at Merrie-mounte might be stopped. To this entreaty the Pilgrims turned not a deaf ear, and forthwith despatched Miles Standish and a small guard to take the defi- ant Morton captive by force. This was easily done, for the Maypole crew were fortified only with Dutch courage, Mor- ton himself, though boastful and haughty, was but overloaded with it, and had in his drunk- enness rammed his gun half full of powder and balls. So he was easily disarmed and humbled by the Captain whom he had reviled with scoffs and scorns, and reduced at last to the petty and spiteful revenge of calling his captor Captain Shrimp. After the encounter, Morton was shipped back to England, and the Pilgrims' task was 68 The Pilgrim Shore. done, for it is to be noted that they pushed not the business farther then to deliver the country of the Master of the Revels, and to stop the sale of weapons to the Indians. After admonishing the others, they left them to their own devices and returned home. Not so did the Puritans, however ; for Endi- cott soon visited the Mount, cut down the Maypole, and rebuked its votaries roundly, declaring in plain words that if there was not better walking he would make " their Merry- mount a woful mount for them." Thereupon the colonists mended their ways and changed the name of their abiding place to Mount Dagon, a name that endured not. A romantic interest has always clung to these Maypole days at Merrie-mounte. Haw- thorne gives a highly fanciful account of them in " Twice Told Tales." But in spite of all the glamour that such a master of romance may weave into this episode of scarlet and tinsel, one will never regret that the victory was with Standish and Endicott. Perhaps I may close aptly with the words of Governor Brad- Christ Church Fountain. Quincy. 71 ford : " But I have been too long aboute so unworthy a person and so bad a cause." To many the old Adams houses, birth- places of the presidents, will be the most in- teresting sights in Quincy. To reach them we must return to the Square, and follow Hancock Street in the other direction. It is worth while to examine Christ Church on the way. Before it stands a curious drinking fountain, surmounted by a cross and lantern, and decorated with scriptural texts and a representation of our Saviour. It is as use- ful as it is picturesque, and recalls the wayside shrines of the old world. Turn to the right from Hancock Street opposite this fountain. Notice on the left the old churchyard of Christ's Church in Braintree, New England (for Quincy was a part of Braintree), where stood the first house of worship from A.D. 1727 to A.D. 1833, and are buried the founders of the church and many of their descendants. The car tracks guide us straight to the two old Adams houses. They stand on a little 72 The Pilgrim Shore. delta of desolate land by the side of the road, close together. Little ground has been spared them, and that is barren. Rude stiles and a few shrubs soften slightly the grimness of the John Adams House, standing gable end to the street and facing its junior. In it John Adams was born. It has been restored by the Adams Chapter of the D.A.R. The other old house, with a picturesque leanto and well-sweep, is called the cottage. It was " the home of John and Abigail Adams. Here goodwife Abigail wrote let- ters that time has not dimmed. John Quincy Adams was born here in 1767." The house was built in 1716, and was restored in 1896 by the Quincy Historical Society. Both the houses are open in the afternoon, and may be seen for a fee. Our sincere thanks and gratitude are due to the societies which have rescued these old landmarks from destruction. It is a pity that the surroundings are so singularly incongru- ous and unfortunate. However, both the houses are exceedingly interesting inside and Quincy Adams was born here. Quincy. 75 out, and if they seem forlorn and woe-begone, clinging dejectedly to their foundations, I have no doubt that in time, when they have had a little garden care and the companionship of vine and flower and shrub, they will become more home-looking and seem a little less like relics. In Quincy all roads lead to the Square, and so we must return there to resume our jour- ney. This time we take the broad road be- hind the Stone Temple, at the side of which stands the Crane Memorial. This fine build- ing was given to the city by and is so named after Thomas Crane, a Quincy stone-cutter who coined a fortune out of his town's granite ledges. One needs not to be told that it was designed by Richardson. His thumb-marks are all over it. How strikingly different is this Romanesque style to anything else in New England ! But in our hodgepodge of styles nothing seems incongruous. The hall's in- terior, with its stately mantel, its oaken wains- coting, and dusky magnificence of stamped leather, is rich and fine and worth seeing. 76 The Pilgrim Shore. Along the level road to Weymouth there are occasion- ally glimpses of the bay and the thickly clustered cottages at Nantasket and Hull. At Quincy Point, un- der fine elms, is a group of old fashioned man- sions with great square chimneys whose rigid lines are softened by vines. Then you come to the bridge over Fore River, across which lies Weymouth. John Adams House. THE view is pretty only at high tide. Up the river are green hills, partly grove and orchard clad ; down-stream black coal pockets, brown headlands, barren islands, a few old stranded wrecks, and hundreds of little cottages huddled together in seaside promiscuity. This bleak desolation was not when the Charity and the Swan sailed up the flood with the first settlers. Of the landscape in those days Morton wrote, in his quaint de- lightful way, " When I had seriously consid- ered of the beauty of the place with all her fair indowments, I did not thinke that in all the knowne world it could be paralel'd. For so many goodly groves of trees ; dainty fine 78 The Pilgrim Shore. hillucks, delicate faire large plaines, sweet cristallfountainesand cleare running streams, that twine in fine meanders through the The Fore River. meads, making so sweete a murmuring noise to heare as would even lull the senses with delight a sleepe. " To this region then called Wessagusset came in 1622 Weston's colony, a brawling, Weymouth. 79 profane crew, " rude fellows made choice of at all adventures, " whom Governor Bradford considered unfit for honest men's company. As might have been expected, these roughs were soon in hot water. After robbing the Pilgrims, they squandered their own stores, and were soon at the mercy of the Indians, and became but little more than slaves to them. At menial tasks they worked for the savages, or wandered about the shore, half naked and half starved. But their misery bred only contempt in the hearts of their savage masters, who resolved to slaughter them. This they could have easily done, but they dreaded the punishment by the Pilgrims, which they knew was sure to follow. So they conspired with the tribes near by to massacre also the little colony at Plymouth. It was this conspiracy, as well as the danger menacing the miserables at Wey- mouth, that brought Standish here in 1623, resolved to deliver the colonists and punish the natives. The little Captain set out with only eight 80 The Pilgrim Shore. men. His small force met open defiance. After a short parley with the Indians, Watta- wamat sprang before the others, shouting, " 'Who is there to fight with the brave Wattawamat,' Then he unsheathed his knife, and, whetting the blade on his left hand, Held it aloft and displayed a woman's face on the handle, Saying, with bitter expression and look of sinister meaning : ' I have another at home, with the face of a man on the handle ; By and by they shall marry; and there will be plenty of children ! ' Then stood Pecksnot forth, self-vaunting, insulting Miles Standish; While with his finger he patted the knife that hung at his bosom, Drawing it half from its sheath, and plunging it back, as he muttered, ' By and by it shall see; it shall eat; ah, ha ! but shall speak not ! This is the mighty Captain the white men have sent to destroy us ! He is a little man ; let him go and work with the women ! '" 1 1 Courtship of Miles Standish, Longfellow. Wattcrwamat. Weymouth. 83 But little did this boasting avail him, for with that very knife did Standish slay him in single combat. Wattawamat was also killed, and five others. Following the English custom, Watta- wamat's head was cut off, carried back to Plymouth by Standish, and set on a pike, there to scowl from the fortress church. Thus the conspiracy was defeated, and the colony was delivered of a great danger. " By ruthlessly murdering seven men," says Charles Francis Adams, "Standish re-estab- lished the moral ascendency of the whites, and so saved the lives of hundreds." With the Plymouth men departed what remained of VVeston's colony, and " thus in failure, disgrace, and bloodshed ended the first attempt of a settlement at Weymouth." 1 This was, next to Plymouth, the oldest settlement in Massachusetts. As early as 1635 the Fore River was crossed by a ferry with rates established by law. It is not far from the bridge to Bicknell Square, where 1 Charles Francis Adams. 84 The Pilgrim Shore. stands the old Bicknell homestead. Just beyond, perched above the State Road, is The Smith Parsonage. the old Smith parsonage, which was moved from its original site, and is much changed. In it Abigail Smith Adams was born, and here John Adams came a-courting. Her father, the vil- lage parson, frowned upon the future presi Weymouth. 85 dent's suit, and the neighbors even did not consider an Adams quite good enough for a Smith of Old Spain. But even in those times of strait-laced sordidness, love found the way, and the parson's daughter, with a will as strong as his own, became Mrs. Adams, and in time added to the glory of being a Smith by becoming the first lady of the land and the mother of a president. It is a tradition of the family that with her own hands she scrubbed the floor of her bedroom the afternoon before her eldest son, John Quincy Adams, was born. This part of Weymouth is called Old Spain. Why or when it was so named there is not even a tradition to explain. It is neither ancient nor Spanish in appearance ; but a pretty village under branching elms, and bustling with New England thrift and neatness. BEYOND Old Spain and the Back River, the road is long and lonesome, and hedged in by woods all the way to Hingham. But just before the town is entered, blue patches of its harbor show through the white birches. Up its winding channel in 1633 sailed the ship Diligent, the Mayflower of this settle- ment. As most of the newcomers came from Hingham in Norfolk, they named their new home after the old. Soon the quiet village green is reached, delta-like under great green elms, sur- rounded by old fashioned houses and a church with quaint belfry. At the right is the home of General Benjamin Lincoln. This distinguished Revolutionary officer rose to the rank of Major-General, and also served as Secretary of War. In the quiet Hingham Hingham. Home of General Lincoln. streets he must have cut quite a figure. He was very fat in his later years, making up in breadth what he lacked in height. He walked about with a tall cane ; his coat was blue with large gilt buttons ; and he wore a buff waistcoat 88 The Pilgrim Shore. and the small clothes of the period. He always wore Hessian boots, and an enormous cocked hat put the finishing touch of mag- nificence and dignity to his appearance. But all this grandeur was in his old age marred by a strange affliction. In his chaise, at table, in military council, even while stand- ing, he would fall asleep, sound and snoring. You may imagine what a fortress the family pew in the " Old Church " was to him, and how impregnable to the assaults of the preacher. Beyond the general's house, and high above the present road, is another Lincoln mansion, not quite so much altered. It still retains an antique look, and was once a roadside inn. The Lincolns of Hingham have always had a part in making the town's noblest history, and from this sturdy family have come some of the great men of the nation, foremost among them the martyred and great presi- dent, Abraham Lincoln. Close to the common is the village square, once called Broad Bridge, and where in old Major-General Lincoln. Hingham. 91 days stood the stocks and pillory for evil- doers. From it leads Main Street, beautifully shaded by magnificent elms that droop over picturesque cottages and fine old mansions. Just beyond a grand old elm that towers over a quaint little home is the Derby Acad- emy, and in front of it, on a hill since levelled to grade the street, stood once the first church, erected in 1635. Surrounded it was by a " pallisado," but from its top no cannon frowned, as at Plymouth ; for a belfry rose there from the first and sent its brazen call to prayer into the depths of the dark forest. About its walls on the hillside were laid to rest the early dead. And here they reposed for two centuries in mouldering peace, when they were removed to the cemetery close by, and a monument was erected over them by the town in 1839. For forty-five years this rude " pallisadoed " temple answered every purpose, but by 1679 the town had so outgrown it that it was agreed " to build a new meeting-house with all con- venient speed." 92 The Pilgrim Shore. After much wrangling and great dispute, embroiling even the Governor and Magistrates at Boston, the present site was fixed upon, and there the church stands to-day, the oldest house of public worship in the original limits of the United States. The outside of the meeting-house must look to-day much as it did in the old time ; but the interior has suffered many changes from time to time. At first the inside was all. open to the roof, against which the rafters and braces drew a stout oaken tracery. There was no plaster, and the walls were clapboarded inside and out. There was a gallery on one side and also at both ends. In that at the east sat the maids, glancing shyly across to the opposite gallery, where, safely corralled together, sat their longing swains. On the oaken seats and benches below sat the married folk and elders, the men on one side and the women on the other. Well filled the seats were, for it cost a peck of corn to stay away from service, or to leave before it was finished. About everything really old has gone, Hingham. 93 except the pulpit; but the church to-day has a proper air of staid old-fashioned dignity. One curious feature is the bell-rope, dang- ling over the middle of the central aisle. In Mr. Gladstone's church at Havvarden, the belfry is also over the centre of the edifice, but the bells are rung from the ceiling above; still there 's a trap-door beneath them, and through it I have caught comical glimpses of the legs of the ringers, and their vigorous genuflections. It makes one shiver to think that in 1792 it was voted " to take down the meeting-house and build a new one." Fortunately this pur- pose was abandoned, and so the antique treas- ure, consecrated for so many years to the worship of the Almighty, has been preserved to us, a holy inheritance. Close by the church, in the oldest part of the cemetery, is the tomb of Major-General Lincoln, and near by is a monument to the first settlers of Hingham, whose bones were removed here from the old palisaded church- yard. 94 The Pilgrim Shore. Beyond, in the modern part of the grounds, is a fine monument to the great war governor An Antique Treasure. _ - (a^'V" ^ -* r ~ (T of Massachusetts, John Al- f/X bion Andrew, and an obelisk T/ of granite in memory of the men of Hingham who died in the War of the Rebellion. But no monument interested me more than that to Sergeant Peter Ourish. Youngest of all the town's volunteers, he died Hingham. 95 of his wounds when only nineteen years old, after having fought in fifteen battles, many of them the fiercest and most bloody of all that cruel war. From the terraced hills here, there is a good view over the harbor, where occasionally a lonely coaster may be seen beating in or out the harbor. Once the little port was all activity, for a fleet of sixty sail of vessels hailed from here fifty years ago. Most of them were engaged in fishing, according to King James, an honest trade and the apostle's own calling. I regret that I cannot speak of the many other interesting things in Hingham, but must hurry on, calling attention as I leave the Square to the old Rev. Ebenezer Gay house. Perched high above the street, its walls vine- clad, and its old well half hidden under droop- ing boughs, it has the most interesting exte- rior of all in Hingham and an air of real antiquity. Between this old town and Nantasket, lies a lovely country, partly wooded, partly 96 The Pilgrim Shore. marshland, bordering a little river that winds by great masses of purple rocks that hedge the cedared slopes. Suddenly, however, comes the glare, the noise, the dust, the con- fusion of " The Beach " Nantasket. THIS has been a pleasure resort for over a hundred years. The oldest summer hotel, " The Sportsman," was the resort of Daniel Webster and other distinguished men. Until within thirty or forty years, however, there were few houses, and the beach stretched toward Hull, lonely, windswept, and barren, but with the dignity of the desert. Now it is littered with an illy-arranged assortment of hotels and cottages, between which electric trains screech and rattle. All sorts of entertainment are here pro- vided, including, according to a New York paper, " cultured clams, intellectual chowder, refined lager, and very scientific pork and beans." 7 98 The Pilgrim Shore. The beach retains its old Indian name, spelled in the early accounts Natasco or Nantascot. Three hills dominate the length of its fine long sweep, Strawberry, Saga- more, and Allerton. These, as well as the plains at their base, were in the Pilgrim days heavily wooded. From them the seamen could have good timber to repair their weather-beaten ships and make long masts and yards. To-day not a forest tree remains, and it is worse than barren. The first settlement was probably where Hull now stands. Roger Conant was here then, and so was Isaac Allerton. The latter's name is kept in remembrance by Point Allerton, and that of his wife's family by the Brewster islands. From time to time Hull is referred to as an " uncouth place," or as hav- ing " a straggling people," so that we may infer that it was never very prosperous. Hull itself was named for the English town of that name in 1644. With one exception, it is the smallest township in the State, and until quite lately contained but a few people. 1 As necessary-as church and preaching" Hull. 101 Its quota to the Revolution was but three men, and in the present century it could claim no more than twelve to eighteen votes. An old saying has it, " As goes Hull so goes the State." In the good old days when every one, from ministers and deacons down, considered flip and toddy inalienable rights, and as necessary as church and preaching, this town had but one tavern, and, despite such monopoly, this important institution " had custom barely sufficient to supply its venerable mistress with the necessaries of life." Perhaps, how- ever, it was not so much the lack of people, as their sobriety, that made such hard lines for the tavern's mistress ; for the men of Hull were early zealots in the cause of temperance, and as long ago as 1721 voted to allow no tavern to be kept within its limits. Thus they may have been the first " no license town" in the country. The history of Hull is not the history of its churches, and the succession of its ministers, so much as is the case with other towns ; for IO2 The Pilgrim Shore. it seems to have been without either for great lengths of time. Its small size, and the rigor of life there, would have deterred any one but a real follower of Christ and his fisher- men apostles from settling within its tiny borders. A jocular writer in 1848 declared that every townsman of Hull had a religion of his own, and that in the small population were to be found, " a slight sprinkling of Mormons and Latter Day Saints, as well as Univer- salists, Baptists, Calvinists, Methodists, Uni- tarians, Catholics, and Sculpinarians (a sect who worship the dried head of a sculpin)." This diversity of opinion he ventures to put forth as the reason why no minister was then settled there ; but he adds that the last one was fairly starved out, one who when he settled there was a corpulent man, but who left the town to accept a situation as a living skeleton. But if the town had no minister, it had no lawyer and no doctor; so you see it must have been spared much evil. Little is left of the old time. Here and Hull. 103 there an old square chimney rises among the hodgepodge of Queen Anne accretions to the old cottages, about all that is left except the great shady elms and the hollyhocks that, if they do not look old in their fresh beauty, still look old- fashioned. Hull's greatest antiquity, perhaps, is the ruins of the old fort on Telegraph Hill. In it there used to be a well with the extraordinary depth of ninety feet Years ago, when Boston had a merchant marine under the Stars and Stripes, its in- coming vessels were signalled from this eminence to the city by the use of one hundred and twelve flags, one for each ship- ping merchant. It is well worth one's time to climb this hill for the magnificent view it commands. Hollyhocks, IO4 The Pilgrim Shore. The harbor, its approaches, light-houses, forts, islands, and shipping stretch inland to the smoke -wreathed, dome-crowned city; the North Shore dwindles away toward Cape Ann; the level sea fills all the east; and southward lies the curving Pilgrim Shore to which we are bound. THE next town is Cohas- set, and it is most pleasantly reached by the famous Jeru- salem Road, which, though not as beautiful as its rival along the North Shore, is still very fine. A perfect road-bed, it winds along the shore, at first far from the sea and out of view of it. Across the little bay between it and the Bay, there stretches a long and narrow strip of rocks, once dot- ted with thickets of bayberry and wild rose. Now this is covered by small crowded cot- tages that lift a ragged line of rooftrees and gables of mixed paint diversified. io6 The Pilgrim Shore. Over the curving road-bed go luxurious carriages with lady whips and liveried servants, landaus and barouches glittering in the sun and brilliant as if with flowers from the dresses and parasols of their occupants, all the pomp of affluence in fact. Meanwhile the air is vexed with the rumble and screech of plebeian trolley cars across the river. Overhanging the road, the great rounded shoulders and ramparts of the hills have been smoothed off, and the hollows and slopes coaxed into graded, shaven lawns. From the heights, the villas of the great folks look over the ragged sky line of cheap cottages to the sea. But when Green Hill and the terminus of the electric road is passed, the road in rising sweeps toward the shore that tumbles to the breakers. Patches of golden and emerald green gleam amid its rocky buttresses, gray white or ruddy and tawny. The ledges and bowlders are fringed by bronzes and browns of clinging seaweed, and these sombre tones, in whose shadows purple lingers, are in turn Cohasset. 107 edged by the dazzling contrast of supreme white, the flashing foam of surf. Bordering the road are the The Jerusalem Road. " cottages," some of them stately mansions of stone or rambling composites, examples of what we call colonial architecture. Their smooth lawns, broken here and there by upheaved edges, are gay with scarlet gera- io8 The Pilgrim Shore. niums, rich green woodbine, and breeze- silvered poplars, all shining and glinting under the sea-sunshine. Where else, indeed, are the sunbeams so in- tense or color so brilliant? Are not flowers always brighter by the sea? Do not the fluttering flags, even, reveal tints gayer and fresher than any they ever unfold elsewhere? It soon becomes a pageant this journey. Seaward, the foreground is dotted with islets and flecked by white sails. Farther out, a great ocean steamer tears along, pushing before her a mass of snowy foam, and trailing behind long wreaths of smoke ; slow barges crawl behind puffing tugs; coasters spread rusty sails; and beyond all lies the dim pur- ple of the North Shore, beneath the graded blue of our clear New England sky, glorious with the rolling cumuli of summer. There is one beauty spot where the road turns away from this water view by low walls and thin screens of sumachs and locusts, till it winds in shade between hedges that flaunt gorgeous trumpet-flowers, reddening rose- Cohasset 109 hips, and yellow honeysuckle, where the air is all perfumed from the masked flower gardens whose galleries of phlox and hollyhocks rise in tiers to the leaf-screened verandas. Where the shade ends, the hedges frame a picture of rocky islets and blue bays, curving to purple pebbly beaches. Landward, the dusty dwindling road bounds calm ponds, dyed gray and green by long drawn reflec- tions of lichened rock and leafy trees. Here and there only is the smooth mirror dashed with deepest blue, where the sea-breeze frets its surface. How astonishing is the beauty of very common things ! Here on the edges of these ponds, where the water had receded, I noticed an edge of stagnant growth which, under the sunbeams, shone transfigured with all the lustrous tones of copper and verd-antique. The beauty of color could be matched only by the shimmering reflections of antique Phoeni- cian glass. Heightened was this strange loveliness by the bordering turquoise and azure of the reflected sky. no The Pilgrim Shore. Piled high along the shore, bleaching wrecks, with timbers wrenched and shat- tered, attest the fury of that great November storm in ninety-eight, when the waters rose to a height never known before. During that sad night, from one of the vessels cast away be- yond Little Harbor, came some sailors up the road in search of aid for their injured ship- mates. When at last the doctor was found, and they were returning with him, however, they discovered to their dismay that all com- munication with the ship was cut off; for the sea was breaking, with deep violence, right over the road beyond Kimball's Point, and that where they had that morning passed dry- shod was become impassable, smothered in white foam. But in summer weather this road stands well above the sea, and beyond from the beach is more like a private drive than a highway, for it is lawn-edged and winds through groves till the surf's sound is lost, and one hears only the roll of carriages and the clamp of hoofs. Cohasset. i ii And when the Cohasset River is crossed, where it winds through rocky gates and " creeps into the deep sea's gulfy breast," a mile of inland road, through shady woods, leads to Cohasset village, directly to the Cohasset River. sequestered common. There in the middle stands a quaint little church, and all about hundreds of beautiful elms. Over all broods the staid New England quiet. The town was, until 1770, a precinct of Hingham, and reference is once made to it, in the records of the General Court, as " Cohas- set alias Little Hingham." 1 1 2 The Pilgrim Shore. Its name comes from the Indian word Quonahassit, meaning a long place of rocks. And it is aptly named. According to Thoreau, " It is the rockiest shore in Massa- chusetts hard sienitic rocks which the waves have laid bare, but have not been able to crumble. It has been the scene of many a shipwreck." One of the most notable of these disasters was that of the brig St. John from Galway, wrecked on the Grampus Rocks, October 7, 1849. On board of her were many Irish emigrants, men, women, and children, and fully a hundred of them lost their lives. A graphic description of the sad scenes after the storm is given by Thoreau in his " Cape Cod." Drake says that, of the recovered bodies, twenty-seven were buried in the village grave- yard. This quiet old burying-place is not far from the common, and backs upon the Old Harbor, from which it is separated by a fringe of melancholy blasted pines. It is not so well kept but that a " sweet neglect " Cohasset Common. Coh asset. 8 - T " Through the village.' 1 '' seems to brood over its mouldering stones and the liberty of its wandering vines and weeds. Simple and natural it is in its half decay, but lonesome even in the sunlight. n6 The Pilgrim Shore. A pleasant street leads through the village to the harbor and across the bridge to Govern- " Their home on the little hill." ment Island, where live the keepers of Mi- not's Ledge Light and their families. In their home on the little hill many an anxious heart must beat when gales sweep the coast, Cohasset. 117 and the white shroud of the winter night is seared by the trail of appealing rockets; many an anxious eye must peer forth at dawn to that lonely beacon rising beyond the breakers in the dark, wrathful sea. By day its grim gray tower, and at night its flashing lamp rise in warning over one of the most treacherous stretches of sand and shoal and reef and rock that ever fed with wreck and corpse the cruel sea. The present structure replaces one built on iron piles which was swept away in the great April storm of 1851. The present granite shaft is nearly a hundred feet high. The lower forty feet are of solid masonry, dovetailed and bolted together, and into the reef below the sea, until it is almost a part of the ledge itself. It took years to complete the foundations alone, for there were in all the long twelve months but a few hours when any work could be done. On Govern- ment Island the great blocks were fashioned, and the places of construction may still be seen. n8 The Pilgrim Shore. Looking down the river, there 's a fine view of level stretches, rock-dotted, to Hominy Point and the sea. Inland, the river winds by rocks and cottages toward North Scituate, and is called the Gulf. Captain John Smith was the first European explorer to enter this harbor, and it was he who first recorded its name, Quonahassit, on the page of history. Here he had a quarrel with the Indians, and, as he sailed through the narrow harbor mouth, the savages, am- bushed (probably at Hominy Point), bade him a revengeful farewell with a shower of arrows. Of all the old houses in Cohasset I think that the most interesting is the old Lincoln home on South Main Street, near the Scituate line. It was built by the pioneer Mordecai in 1717, for his son Isaac, of whom Abraham Lincoln was a lineal descendant. Standing as it does on a little hill, the old house com- mands a delightful view. Near by, the street is lined by great elms, and through their dark shade gleams the blue winding river and the lush green level meadows. Cohasset. 119 If paint ever defiled the old homestead, all trace of it has long since gone, and the gray & fif * 5. ! 7 The old Lincoln House. * rf M lichened shingles are worn as thin as paper and honeycombed by time. As one stands here in its quiet precincts, there comes through the rustling elms the I2O The Pilgrim Shore. monotonous beat of the mill near by on Bound Brook, so-called because it was the boundary between the colonies. Indeed, the brook and its power was Mordecai Lincoln's greatest wealth, and the real reason of his settling here. His house and the old mill are both gone, but they stood about where the new buildings are. The proverb says that the mill will never grind with the water that has past. Whether Mordecai disproved this saying or not, I do not know ; but it is on record that he man- aged, by an ingenious arrangement of dams, to make the brook work six days a week, de- spite the fact that by any ordinary arrange- ment it could have furnished power for but one third of that time. It must have been a sort of triple expansion. By trade the in- genious miller was a blacksmith; but he was able to turn his hand to most anything, hav- ing what New Englanders call faculty. One should, if possible, visit the interior of Isaac's house, for it is charmingly antique. I re- member, with much pleasure my visit there, and the kindly courtesy of its owner, still a Lincoln. THE shore of Scituate, the next Pilgrim town, is far from rocky ; indeed it is one long stretch of sand that is raised in places to low cliffs. The level shallows outlying these beaches are as dangerous to vessels as the granite tusks of Cohasset, and many a ship's bones have bleached upon the long curved reaches of their wastes. The great November storm of 1898 was felt in all its force here, and there remains on Scituate Beach a curious reminder of its fury. This is the wreck of the pilot boat Columbia, now converted into a sort of Peggotty sum- 122 The Pilrim Shore. Fourth Cliff, Scitttate. mer home. She was driven ashore here during that terrible night, and crashed down upon a sea- side cottage. All on board of her were lost. That night the sea not only littered the Scituate. 123 beaches with wreckage, but it also swept the sands themselves about, undermining here, building up there, or boldly cutting channel or bay in the shore itself, thus making mar- vellous changes. Hundreds of acres of valu- able lands were submerged or ruined in places, while in others, from the sea's bottom, wide fields were lifted above the waters. Through the beach, just south of the Third Cliff, in a few hours, it cut a channel to the North River nearly two hundred feet wide and sixteen feet deep at low water, besides swallowing up two islands that lay in the course of its fury. On one of these islands four young men were camping out; they were all lost. Back from its beaches, Scituate stretches in flat plains with only an occasional hill. In years gone by, these sparsely wooded lands were shaded by great groves of black walnut. But none of them remain to-day, the last one, a giant three feet in diameter, fell before the woodman's axe in 1820. Scituate, called so from Satuit Brook, was 124 The Pilgrim Shore. settled 'tis said, by " Men of Kent" in 1628, and in growing it drew new blood from both the Pilgrims and the Puritans, lying as it did between the Republic and the Commonwealth. In the latter part of the seventeenth century, this old town was the richest in the colony. Now it has, as it was described fifty years ago, " the appearance of stillness and retire- ment." One long street borders the meadow, through which runs the estuary that forms a harbor, safe, but difficult of access and emptied by the tides. Seaward, across green levels, is the sandy bulwark that keeps off the ocean. Strewn from end to end is this hummocky beach with the paraphernalia of " mossing," for that is the principal occupa- tion of the people to-day, A few years ago Scituate and the immediate coast furnished all the Irish moss used in the whole country, except what was imported from Ireland. When gathered, it is as green as any weed. It is then washed in large tubs, and afterward bleached and dried in the sun. Of all the places in Scituate, the most inter- The Street, Scituatc Harbor. Scituate. 127 esting to many is " The Old Oaken Bucket " homestead. It is close to the railway station on a pretty little country road. At one side of the way a narrow path winds, grass-fringed. Crimson hardhack, yellow false indigo, yarrow, white and pink, bespangle its borders, and over all these nod the broad panicles of the Queen Anne's lace. A pleasant walk it is crossing close by the railway over the dam between " The wide spreading pond, and the mill that stood by it." The first mill on this site was erected in 1646, but before that time there had been a windmill on the Second Cliff. All the way, on either hand, lie the orchards, the meadows, and the deep-tangled wildwood, so dear to the heart of the poet. The site of the old homestead is on the Northy place, at the right not far from the pond, and over its precincts the ancient well- sweep still lifts its slanting sign of promise. There, shadowed by woodbine and lilacs, in the old well- the water, " emblem of truth," 128 The Pilgrim Shore. still swells crystal clear, and as delicious as ever. The " old oaken bucket" itself is rep- resented by a successor bravely bound with brass, a gift from a distant city. As one stands here in the quiet level land- scape, one can realize with what longing the heartsick author of the touching song looked back to the peace of the old home. From the cares, regrets, and disillusions of the city, his fancy turned sadly back to his light-hearted, hopeful childhood. He, Samuel Woodworth, was a printer and journalist, and, like so many of his trade at that time, was a great wanderer and quite a " Bohemian." Like most men of that sort, he suffered many vicissitudes of fortune. It was while he was an editor in the city of New York that he wrote the song which is his only claim to public remembrance. It is said that the inspiration came to him in a popular bar-room. He had just taken a drink of cognac, and as he set down his glass he declared that it was the finest drink in the world. " The mill that stood by it." Scituate. 131 " There you are mistaken," said one of his comrades, " remember the old oaken bucket and the clear cold water of the old well." At this reminder, tears rushed to his eyes, and he left the room. He returned to his desk, and, with a heart overflowing with the recollections of innocent childhood, he quickly set down the words that have be- come so dear to many others. But peace has not always been the lot of Scituate, for in King Philip's War nine- teen houses and barns were burned by the Indians, and terror spread through its pre- cincts. Right here, about the mill and the Northy farm, a savage fight occurred. On the day of the attack there sat in the old Northy farmhouse, Dame Ewell, alone except for her grandson, John Northy, who slept beside her in his cradle. As she looked out of the windows toward Coleman Heights, she saw the savages running down toward the valley. Thinking only of alarm- ing the garrison, she rushed from the house 132 The Pilgrim Shore. without ever thinking of the baby. But, in the midst of the battle, she remembered him, and returned stealthily amid its dangers, found the little one peacefully sleeping, and carried him to a place of safety. Perhaps the red men had some just cause against the men of Scituate, for in the early days the colonists had not hesitated to make bondsmen of their savage brothers on various pretexts. Later on, negroes were possessed by all the wealthy families, and slavery left perhaps a deeper stain on Scit- uate than upon, any other town of the colonies. But if the town has not been always so peaceful, neither has it been ever so inactive, for once it was a busy, bustling place with two harbors, Scituate Harbor, already mentioned, and the New Harbor, as the old North River near its mouth was called. This river was once lined with ship-yards, to which the tide rose and fell. " Now," says Daniel E. Damon, historian of the town, " its portals are closed to the passage Bucket." Scituate. 135 of vessels, the ship-yards are all gone, and where once was heard the sound of axe, adze, and hammer, all is still, and the placid stream sleeps unbroken by any passing keel. ^ * TSS* " The placid stream sleeps."" Its beauty still remains, enhanced, perhaps, by the fact that the obstructions at its mouth keep it always bank-full. Its history is largely the history of ship-building and builders. Their achievements bred amongst 136 The Pilgrim Shore. them naval heroes and patriots." Here, in 1773, was built the ship Columbia that gave its name to the mightiest river that flows into the Pacific. It was into this tranquil, landlocked water that the sea tore the deep channel already mentioned, which connected again the river with the ocean, after many years of separa- tion. Between this new channel and the old mouth is stretched the long length of the fine beach that the Indians called Hum- arock. Once a peninsula, it is now an island five miles long and one thousand yards broad. Along its crest I saw other and melan- choly witnesses of the power of that great November storm. High on its pebbly ridges, bleaching and mouldering in sunshine and rain, lay the great timbers of many a wreck. Splintered and twisted were the great beams of oak, and, wrenched from vessels' sides, among these timbers, great strips torn bodily, and now decaying, all in rusty tones of black and red, here and there enriched by gilded Scituate. 137 carvings, remnants of former parade, but all slowly yielding to the attrition of wind and sand and weather. The white rimmed ports that once let in the light and breeze On Hutnarock Beach. to cosy cabins, now stare skyward like the glazed eyes of a drowned man, dead eyes indeed. This coast is not so stuffed with legend as the North Shore, for Pilgrim land was never the home of superstition. A certain amount of that, and a great deal of willing credulity, as well as imagination, are neces- sary to the growth of such wonderful and 138 The Pilgrim Shore. generally gruesome tales as linger still on the other side of the Bay. Not even witch- craft itself was able to fasten its clutches on this community, although the elders, follow- ing the example of all Christendom, took the precaution to pass laws against it, and even provided for the punishment and ex- ecution of witches. Right here in Scituate it was that this con- tagious error first broke forth, and right here it was stamped out forever in the Pilgrim Republic. It seems that one Mistress Dinah Sylvester of this town declared, with many sacred oaths, that she had seen her neighbor, Goodwife Holmes, in conversation with the devil. The fiend in this case, so she averred, came not in horns and cloven feet, but appeared in the form of a bear with whom, the accuser de- clared, Mistress Holmes deported herself in a way unbecoming both to a Christian and to a bear. To this accusation Goodman Holmes, who stood stoutly by his wife and her good Scituate. 139 name, replied in a sensible way by a suit for slander. In those days any one charged with witch- craft stood in deadly peril, and it is doubtful if in any other Christian community at that time would the magistrates have shown so much common sense and simple justice; for after hearing the case in a thorough and dignified manner, as befitted its gravity, they found Dame Sylvester guilty of slander, and ordered her to be publicly whipped, or to pay Mr. Holmes 5, or to publicly confess her sin and to pay Mr. Holmes his costs and charges. As may be supposed, she chose the course cheapest, both to her purse and person, for to such an one it was little abasement to acknow- ledge herself a slanderer and backbiter. Thus was the delusion of witchcraft warded off for a time by honest men. But sixteen years later, another attempt was made, and again in Scituate. Mary Ingham was denounced for having bewitched one Mehitable Woodworth, affecting her with vio- lent fits, and bereaving her of her senses by 140 The Pilgrim Shore. the " help of the devil in a way of witchcraft or sorcery." This black charge Goodwife Ingham denied, and put herself " on trial of God and the Country ! " Then a jury of freemen, presided over by Governor Josiah Winslow, rendered the only just verdict, but at variance with the spirit of the age, the just verdict of " Not Guilty. " To them all honor, these clear-headed freemen, for with this case ended all attempt to inoculate the minds of the Pilgrims with the dread dis- ease that so oppressed and shamed other peoples. And to this poverty of tales of witches and wizards we must add the dearth of legends horrific, no ghosts, no " shrieking woman, " no spectre leaguers, stone-throwing devils, no, not even a sea serpent. Indeed, the traditional stories are mostly pleasant ones of historic persons or events, and as simple as the people, often as quaint. As an instance, let me quote the story of an old will, in which one provision was, "To my wife Frances, one third of my estate during her life, also a gentle Scituate. 141 horse or mare, and Jemmy the Negur shall catch it for her." One who has not travelled the roads that lead to Plymouth knows not in what a fair country the Pilgrims settled. Too apt are we " And Jemmy the Negur shall catch it for her.'" always to think only of the bleak and dismal shore on which they landed. There were highways even then. To be sure, they were but Indian trails, but, though lonely, they were lovely, a sylvan loveliness, strange to the newcomers. Unlike the hedged lanes of Old England, or the dyked paths of Holland, were these forest ways through long woods of 142 The Pilgrim Shore. pine and shadow. But now the way is bared to the sky, and is bound by hedges, not of clipped thorn and holly, however, as in Devon or Dorset, but by that charming nat- ural screen which of itself springs up along the gray stone boundaries of New England fields, wilful, wayward, but beautiful. THUS bordered, winds the road to Marsh- field, an old town that, as has been truly said, shares with Plymouth the interest that attaches to the early home of the Pilgrims. Until 1641 it was a part of Duxbury, when it was set apart and called Green's Harbor or Rexham. The road there from Scituate parallels the shore, though not near it, and soon after crossing Little's Bridge, where was the old Indian Ferry, later called Doggett's Ferry, tortuous Snake Hill is climbed. From its top, one takes the first glimpse of Pilgrim Land, a grand view over Brant Rock, and the inter- vening valleys and marshlands that give the 144 The Pilgrim Shore. town its name. Saliently stands the monu- ment on Captain's Hill, and far in the distance is the blue ridge of Manomet. On the old White estate. Near by, close to the South River, and at the foot of a wild rough lane, is the old White estate. Here Peregrine White, the first child born to the colony, raised his roof-tree. Here he brought his bride, and settled on the land given him by his stepfather, Governor Wins- Marshfield. 145 low. Here he lived for many years, years of toil and of honors, for he held many offices in the service of the people, and was twice chosen a deputy to the General Court. At a green old age, fourscore and three, he passed away, and was buried, it is said, by the side of his mother, who was the first bride of the colony, in the ancient burying- ground. This estate remained in the possession of his descendants for six generations, until the death of Miss Sybil White in 1884. The present house is a low ceiled cottage, very modern in appearance from the front, but inside it bears evidence of great age in parts. It is said to rest on the original sills, and to contain many of the rough-hewn beams, all spiked with hand-made nails. Like the lusty Peregrine, who was a fine type of a rugged race, most of the old settlers seem to have reached also an advanced age. The most notable example of long life in Marshfield was the grandson of Governor Carver, who died at the great age of 102. In 10 146 The Pilgrim Shore. 1775 he was at work in the field with his son, grandson, and great-grandson, the last of whom had in the house an infant son, in all, five generations. The old burial-ground where Peregrine and nearly all the old settlers were buried, is well worth a visit. It is near the Webster place, and commands a view of the coast and sea ; for it crowns a little hill, wind-swept and almost treeless. The old, old stones, leaning and broken, have been worn by the weather into sharp tusks, and the inscriptions effaced. Here, as I have said, by the side of her son lies Susanna White Winslow, who came over in the Mayflower. That is the tradition, and there is no reason to disbelieve it. But her grave is unknown, as indeed are all the graves of the early settlers. To their memory, how- ever, a monument has been erected, and on it are inscribed their names. " The weary pilgrim slumbers, His resting place unknown ; His hands were crossed, his lids were closed, The dust was o'er him strewn, Marshfield. The drifting soil, the mouldering leaf, Along the sod were blown ; His mound has melted into earth, His memory lives alone." Near by, under a stone sculptured with a coat-of-arms, lies the remains of General Josiah Winslow, half-brother to Peregrine White. He was the first n a t i v e-b o r n governor, and was buried at the ex- pense of the colony, as a mark of esteem and affection. And here, in this lonely burying- place, lies one with whose great fame the name of Marshfield must always be asso- ciated, Daniel Webster. All that was mor- tal of him rests in the tomb of rough granite under a marble slab on which is cut his name and the epitaph composed by himself as he lay on his death-bed. The Winslow Arms, 148 The Pilgrim Shore. In death he was not far removed from his loved home, for reached by a short lane through the woods and by the ponds is the spot where his mansion once stood. Unfor- tunately this old building was burned down over twenty years ago, and a modern house now stands on its site. It was here that the great statesman sought the quiet life of a country home, amid that rural beauty he so dearly loved. His estate extended over two thousand acres, and on it he could enjoy to the utmost his taste for farming, gardening, and stock-raising. But the utilitarian side of a farmer's life was not all to him ; he cultivated as well its beau- tiful and ornamental part, for beside raising the usual crops and stock, he planted thou- sands of shade-trees and a great flower gar- den that stretched its bloom and fragrance between the mansion and the sea. To his smooth lawns proud peacocks lent their magnificence, and rare and curious birds and beasts added color and interest to the picture. Marshfield. 149 Here, in 1852, amid the evidence of his labors, and surrounded by his family and friends, he passed away in hopeful resigna- tion. His last words were, " I still live." Proud Peacocks. And, indeed, for such noble souls there is no death. In his estate was contained part of an early Pilgrim domain, the " Careswell " of Edward Winslow, who is called the founder of Marsh- field. He came here from Plymouth about 1637, and built what was then the finest house in the colonies. Like Standish, Winslow was of ancient and noble lineage, and he was the most accom- plished in worldly affairs of all the Pilgrims. 150 The Pilgrim Shore. A little romance clings to his memory, for he was the first bridegroom among the new- comers. It was, however, not his first mar- riage, for he had been married in Holland, and his wife Elizabeth came with him in the May- flower. Her gentle nature was soon crushed by the rigors of that first dreadful winter in the New World, and she soon faded away amid the New England snows. His wedding in Plymouth was to the widow Susanna White, whose husband had died also during the winter. She had been a widow scarce twelve weeks, and Edward had mourned his wife but seven. Mistress White's son Peregrine, born in Provincetown Harbor, was the first child born to the colony. By her second union she had the honor, later, of being the wife of one governor and the mother of another. This marriage, according to the manner of the Pilgrims, was a civil contract presided over by a magistrate, " according to y e laud- able custome of y e Low-Cuntries," and " followed by all ye famous churches of Marshfidd. 151 Christ in these parts to this time, An : 1646." 1 Years afterward, when Winslow was on a mission to England, the cruel Archbishop Laud made this marriage, and Winslow's defence of the colonists' practice in such matters, a pretext for casting him into the Fleet Prison, where he languished for seven- teen weeks. Edward Winslow, besides being governor, served the colony in many positions of trust and honor, both in the New World and in the Old. It was he who brought the first cattle to Plymouth, but not in time, alas, as the poet would have us believe, to furnish the snow- white bull for the wedding procession of John Alden and Priscilla. His son Josiah, born of the second mar- riage and half-brother to Peregrine White, was the first native-born governor, and was commander-in-chief of the military forces of Plymouth and the Bay colonies. A warlike temper was a family trait of the 1 Bradford's History. 152 The Pilgrim Shore. Winslows, down even to our time ; for from this stock was descended Rear-Admiral John Winslow, who sank the Alabama in the War of the Rebellion. And, to return to the old days, Governor Josiah's son John was a general in the Canadian Campaign of 1775. To his lot fell the execution of the harsh edict that drove into exile, from their secluded and peaceful homes by the Basin of Minas, the Acadian peasants of Grand Pr6, to that " Exile without an end and without an example in story." So he figures in Longfellow's Evangeline, and the poet describes him standing in the sacred shadows of the old church on the steps of the altar, " Holding aloft in his hands, with its seals, the Royal commission," and then uttering the sentence which stripped the poor people of their homes and posses- sions, and drove them, wanderers, to foreign lands. Of course it was in the King's service that General John Winslow was called upon to T^ old Winslofw House. Marshfield. 155 execute this cruel duty. But no one ever doubted the loyalty of the Winslows, and in fact their home was a stronghold of Toryism. Dr. Isaac Winslow's house was the chief meeting-place of a society of loyalists, three hundred in number. This old Winslow house is interesting ; a grand old mansion in its day, it still retains an air of its past grandeur. Like many great houses of its time, it has a secret chamber, the entrance to which is by a sliding panel over one of the wide fire-places. It is related that one of the Winslows, all of whom were staunch Tories, took refuge in this hiding-place after the house had been surrounded by a body of patriots. In the room connected with the secret place, there was at the time a woman in bed with a new- born child. The colonists, with a delicate forbearance, made but a superficial search of her apartment, and so the royalist in hiding escaped discovery. Like the old mansion, Marshfield itself bears not the glory of its earlier years. In the first 156 The Pilgrim Shore. of this century 't was far busier, had more houses, and considerable ship-building. When it was first settled, it was called Roxham or Green's Harbor, and until 1641 was a part of the next old Pilgrim town, Duxbury. ON this old place there has fallen also, the calm of age, for fifty years ago it was a bustling place. Its sons were familiar to China, Japan, and the Indies, and its ships were known round the world. Settled it was in 1630-1632, by men of honor and distinction in the civil and re- ligious history of the Pilgrims, and was called Duxbury, after Duxbury Hall, the seat of the Standish family in England ; for Miles Standish settled here, as did John Alden, his rival. Here they raised the roof-trees of their rough homes, which, like all the earliest ones, were surrounded by palisades to keep off wolves and savages. Fortified 158 The Pilgrim Shore. cottages, they were lighted dimly by win- dows of oiled paper which oaken shutters made secure. On the ground floor was a large living-room with a kitchen, and gen- erally one bed-chamber. Under the gam- brel roof were two chambers. The lean-to roofs, which are still seen in many old houses, were of a later period. The walls were of stout square planks, and they were clap- boarded inside, as were also the partitions. The chimneys stood outside the walls, and were built, cob-fashion, of sticks and clay plaster. John Alden built his home in 1631, on the south side of Blue Fish River, near Eagle Tree Pond, ten years after his mar- riage to Priscilla, "The damsel Priscilla, the loveliest maiden of Plymouth." Here, the married lovers raised a good old-fashioned family of eleven children, and here they both died at an advanced age, crowned with honor and affection. Indeed, John Alden outlived all the signers of the Duxbury. 161 famous Mayflower compact, and was eighty- seven at the time of his death. Many posi- tions of honor and trust had he held in his long and useful life. Near the site of his dwelling now stands an Alden house, the third one on the estate. This one, two hundred and forty years old, was built by his grandson. It is of wood with a pitched roof and a massive chimney of brick laid in pasture clay. The interior is very interesting, and most of the rooms keep their old wainscoting of native pine. The house frame is all of hewn white oak. In it lives John Alden, the eighth, a lineal descendant of Standish's envoy to the arch Priscilla. John Alden, ninth, was killed by lightning while a lad. In con- nection with this cutting off of the line of John Aldens, it is a curious fact that the first death in all the colony from a light- ning stroke occurred in this very town in 1658. The ride to Old Powder Point and the Beach is a very pleasant one. Here the 1 62 The Pilgrim Shore. French cable from Brest is brought ashore, and it is more than interesting to visit the cable house ; for no one with any imagina- tion could help yielding to the spell of this wonder, this binding together of two con- tinents ocean-parted. One thinks with awe of the dark and silent depths through which these cables creep, and of the wonders of God there wrought. " Words, and the words of men, flicker and flutter and beat Warning, sorrow and gain, salutation and mirth For a Power troubles the Still that has neither voice nor feet." In the presence of this every-day miracle of our time, we think of the gloom, deep as that of the ocean floor these cables traverse, which, in the Pilgrim days, shrouded even the commonest phenomena of life and nature. For in their day, the rainbow and the light- ning had not given up their secrets; the pendulum and the barometer were unknown; the circulation of the blood and the attrac- tion of gravitation were undiscovered. Two The John Alden House. Duxbury* 165 centuries and a half were to elapse before the invention of the telegraph. Considering the ignorance of the world at that time, we should marvel that the Forefathers were so little ruled by superstition and its sister, persecution. But in Duxbury the greatest interest at- taches to the life here of Miles Standish. The place of his dwelling is reached by the long and pleasant village street past many an old-fashioned mansion, and under many beautiful trees. On the way is the little burying-ground where his grave has recently been dis- covered. Elder Brewster is buried there too, it is believed, and many others of the first settlers. For years the last resting places of the most eminent of the Forefathers were un- known. It seems strange that the descend- ants of these Englishmen should so soon have lost the reverence and care for the dead which is so characteristic a trait of their nation, that loving care of the graves that 1 66 The Pilgrim Shore. they have always exhibited in the old church- yards of England. In the little English vil- lages, just such villages as the Pilgrims came from, the tiny God's Acres are close to the lives of the people, and they are kept sweet with flowers nearly all the year. In the long summer twilights the women and children may be seen carrying to them baskets of flowers from the cottage-gardens to beautify the graves. And there is something gently and sweetly sorrowful in the thought of slipping away into forgetfulness so near to the busy life of the village. Sharp is the contrast with the lonely graveyards of New England, so many of them remote and neg- lected. On lonely hillsides, or by the dusty road, uncared for and forgotten, the weeds and briers enwrap the headstones, and trees spring up between the graves. This burying-place, for example, was for years wholly neglected, a tangled waste of weeds choked it, and the cattle roamed over it. It is only within a few years that it has been cleared up and inclosed. While this The arch Prtscilla, Duxbury. 169 work was in progress, the workmen came upon some peculiarly shaped stones buried in the sand. Now there was a tradition that Standish's grave had been marked by two The Grave of Miles Stand ts/i. pyramidal stones placed due east and west and about six feet apart. As the ones found answered to this description, very careful re- searches were made with the result, that three graves were finally uncovered there. In two 170 The Pilgrim Shore. of them were the skeletons of two young women, one with abundant light brown hair, and the other with long tresses of a darker shade, and both with beautiful teeth. Be- tween these two, in the middle grave, was the skeleton of a man. Now the Captain's will requests that, should he die in Duxbury, that his body was " to laied as neare as conven- iently may bee to my two deer daughters, Lora Standish my daughter and Mary Standish my daughter in law." And there is every reason to believe that the grave of Miles Standish has been found. So the spot has been inclosed by a fort-like fence of stone, guarded at the corners by cannon. It is probable that John and Priscilla Alden also found a resting-place here, and in fact the oldest dated headstone bears the name of their son Jonathan, and many other Alden graves are here. A churchyard this spot originally was, and the site of the church, the first meeting-house, has been located and marked by a stone. Not far from the Captain's grave is the spot Duxbury. 171 where his house once stood. Sheltering it and high above it rises Captain's Hill crowned by the monument that has been erected to his memory. His house was burned down after his death, about 1666, but the cellar is still plainly marked. His dwelling must have been a very peculiar one, for it seems to have consisted of two wings converging like the stems of a V. When it was built the penin- sula on which it stands was thickly wooded, and over it roamed the deer and many a gaunt wolf besides, so the house was stoutly palisaded to protect it from savage beasts as well as men. At that time too it was generally believed that lions and other ferocious beasts infested the woods of the New World. " New England's Prospect " says, " Besides Plimouth men have traded for Lyons skinnes in former times." Whether this belief was held by the Pilgrims them- selves, I do not know, but the Puritans along the North Shore never doubted that " Lyons " to say nothing of demons, or even the evil- one himself, were lurking in the deep shadows 172 The Pilgrim Shore. of the forests that swept backward from the shores of Cape Ann. For even them, you may be sure the Cap- tain would have stood in little dread. His natural courage had been braced by a life of adventure in camp and field. A life that makes him the most picturesque character of all the Pilgrims. He has been ever rep- resented as a man of fiery temper, impetuous and masterful, " a little chimney soon heated," for he, like Caesar and Napoleon, was of small stature. But if he was quick, he was .still " a friend of peace yet ever ready to fight for it and with little regard for the odds against him." He probably felt able to settle all disputes himself, for he was the rarest of liti- gants, twice only did he appeal to the law, and then to resent the cruel treatment of his dumb animals. Once his dog was killed, and another time his sheep were worried by a neighbor's dog. These wanton acts the old soldier would not tolerate and in each case he secured the punishment of the offenders. Also was he a friend of all good Indians, Duxbury. 173 especially of that " proper lustie man," that "man of accounte for his vallour & parts amongst y e Indians," Hobamock, the staunch " At StandisK's Fireside" friend of the Pilgrims. An intimate friend- ship existed between these two, and Hoba- mock spent his declining years well cared for at Standish's fireside. To this intimacy with the Indians the Captain owed, no doubt, his 174 The Pilgrim Shore. skill in their language, for he surpassed all the other colonists in that respect. He was, too, the best linguist otherwise, an accomplishment that had come to him in his roaming life, for when young he had held, under Elizabeth, a military commission to fight in foreign parts, and so had mastered French and Spanish, as well as Dutch and Flemish. It was probably during his campaigning against the cruel Spaniard that he met and was attracted to the Pilgrim Fathers. That he should have been so much their friend as to have gone with them across the sea to a savage land seems the more remarkable be- cause it is not clear that he shared their par- ticular faith. It has even been claimed that he was a Romanist, at least that he was a scion of a noble Catholic family. Of a long and noble line he really was, for on the roll of the Norman barons, made soon after the Conquest, appears the blazon of Thurston de Standish. This baron's son Hugh held an- cient Dokesbury (Duxbury) Hall in 1306. Miles Stattdisfi. Duxbury. 177 One John Standish was knighted by Richard II. for helping to kill poor Wat Tyler in 1381. An Alexander Standish was knighted in 1482, and indeed the family was ever emi- nent in peace and war generally the latter. The Reformation divided the house against itself, and the Duxbury Hall branch went over to the Protestants, but the Standishs of Standish Hall clung faithfully to the church of Rome. It was from this latter branch that Miles Standish was descended ; and at his death he bequeathed to his son Alexander all his lands, " as heir apparent by lawful descent in Ormistic, Bousconge, Wrightington, Maud- sley, Newburrow, Cranston, and in the Isle of Man and given to me as right heir by lawful descent, but surreptitiously detained from me, my great grandfather being a second or younger brother from the house of Standish of Standish." Efforts have been made in this century by his descendants to unravel the secrets of his birth, and to prove the right of his claim. 178 The Pilgrim Shore. According to the commission given him by Queen Elizabeth, he must have been born in 1584 or 1585. But the lawful evidence in England has been wilfully destroyed by oblit- erating all the entries for those dates in the parish register of Chorley, his native place. Moreover, by authority of an ancient law, the rector of Chorley has prevented any one from examining the records, and so stands guard for his patron, who, it is believed, holds the estates under a fraudulent title. Of im- mense value are the lands now, and of great extent, and yield each year an income of half a million dollars. It seems strange that Standish should have given up his brilliant prospects as a brave and skilful soldier, and his heirship to manorial rights and honors, to cast his lot with a hand- ful of almost friendless, expatriated religious enthusiasts, with whom it is even suspected that he was not wholly in sympathy. Why he should have sacrificed so much for no re- turn cannot be explained by what we know of his early life. It would seem that he must Duxbury. 179 have had some private reasons of which the world knows nothing nor can ever know. Yet was he content -with the slim honors and estate that his chivalrous devotion to his new friends brought him, * No task was far him too difficult or dangerous, none too hum- ble or disagreeable. Great as a ruler over others, he was far greater as a rakr over himself. Xo one ever more decidedly had a 180 The Pilgrim Shore. mission, and none ever more nobly fulfilled it." When he died he left a few choice books that show him to have been a man of literary tastes. Among them were three Bibles, just the number of his muskets. But this was not all his arsenal, for he left beside a fowling- piece, four carbines, two small guns, besides a sword and cutlass. The Standish cottage now standing was built by his son Alexander, and is nearly two and a half centuries old. It was built partly of materials taken from the old house. Elder Brewster, the Captain's old friend, lived near him, but nothing remains of that house to-day ; and not far away across the marshes and the river lived the dear compan- ion of his labors and responsibilities, Gov- ernor Bradford in Kingston. AND a pretty drive it is to this old town which all the way looks invitingly across the bay. By the meadows the road winds, and through them winds Island Creek. Just at the entrance to Kingston Jones' River is crossed, and here the first settlements were made. Here Governor Bradford lived at Stony Brook in the parish of Jones' River, Plymouth, for Kingston was not set off from Plymouth until 1717. The site of his dwel- ling is now marked by a tablet. From his house he overlooked the meadows to Captain's Hill to the dwellings of his friends, Standish and Brewster. Here he entertained the Chief Wamsutta, and it is thought by many that this was his principal home. If 182 The Pilgrim Shore. it was not, he may dispute with Samuel Fuller, the old colony's first physician, the distinction of having been the first summer resident of our coast, for the doctor had a By Island Creek. summer house near Smelt Brook, and a town house on Leyden Street, not far from the governor's. The most interesting landmark of Kingston, however, is the Major John Bradford house. Close by the river it stands on a high em- bankment. It is not disfigured by paint, and Kingston. 183 its cool grays melt softly into the shadows of the great elms that shade it. In King Philip's War the house was par- tially burned. It was at the time abandoned, for Major Bradford had removed for safety to the guard house across the river. One day he returned with a few of his neighbors for some forgotten goods. As he neared his home he saw smoke rising over the trees, and upon drawing near he found that his house was on fire. At the same time his attention was attracted to an Indian sentinel who was standing guard on Abraham's Hill, and was waving his blanket aloft and crying, Choc- wan g ! Chocwang ! (the white men are coming). He knew then that it was the savages who had set the fire. He and his companions rushed boldly forward, but the Indians were so intent on plunder that they did not hear their comrade's warning nor the approach of the white men, so that Bradford rushed without any warning upon them, and firing his piece apparently killed one of them before they fled. On coming to the 1 84 The Pilgrim Shore. spot where the man fell, however, he was astonished not to find the body of the plunderer, and for a time believed that he Major John Bradford's House. must have been mistaken. But after the war an Indian came one day to him and declared himself to be the wounded man, and in proof thereof showed the scars where three bullets had passed through his side. Kingston. 185 This old house was for years the casket in which reposed that famous manuscript, the Bradford " History of Plymouth Planta- tion." But in 1728 Major John Bradford lent it with other precious books to Thomas Prince to take out of it what he thought proper for his New England Chronology. It is known that others used it years after- ward and that Governor Hutchinson had it, and by many it is believed that this Tory governor carried it away with him to Eng- land. Certain it is that it disappeared about the time of the Revolution, and for many years was lost to the knowledge of the world. But in 1855 it was by chance discovered in the library of the Bishop of London at Fulham. How or when it got there nobody knows. Senator Hoar, speaking of the loss of the book and its discovery in England, declared that he knew of no incident like this in history, unless it be the finding of the royal crown and sword and sceptre of Scotland, in a chest in the castle of Edinburgh, where they had lain unknown for over a century. 1 86 The Pilgrim Shore. Called by the English, The Log of the Mayflower, it was recognized by them to be of great value. So that repeated attempts failed to procure its return to this country. Finally, in 1897, through extraordinary good fortune, our Ambassador to Great Britain, the Hon. Thomas F. Bayard, secured the precious document, and conveyed it to the people of the Commonwealth of Massachu- setts in the care of whose governors it now rests. There are many other old and interesting houses here in Kingston, for the place is most intimately associated with the history of the first-comers, for it was during nearly a hundred years a part of Plymouth. It was named Kingston, it is said, at the suggestion of Lieutenant-Governor Dummer on the 28th day of May, 1717, that being the birthday of his gracious majesty King George the First. It is now connected with the mother-town by an electric railway which affords an enjoyable ride to Plymouth. URELY, the journey along the Pilgrim Shore reaches the climax of its interest at Plymouth, an inter- est so great that most visitors rush directly to the mothertown, and regard not the many attractions that lie along the way. Or they come by water, and thus only see from the steam- er's deck the low line of rocks and sand along which the colony spread and prospered. Without doubt they save themselves some trouble, for everything along the shore is not 1 88 The Pilgrim Shore. arranged for the sight-seer, as it is at Ply- mouth, where all is ticketed and labelled, where there are good guides and guide-books. This thoroughness is indeed a distinguish- ing feature of Pilgrim land and Pilgrim story. No episode of history has been so thoroughly investigated. And it would seem that every fact connected with the Pilgrim movement, which must ultimately be regarded as the real origin of the United States, every fact, I say, discoverable by the energy and persis- tence of man must have already been brought to light, classified, and recorded. A considerable literature has grown up about these facts, one that continues to grow in volume and even in interest. The writer will not attempt then to rehearse what has already been so ably and so gracefully told, but will confine himself to his own impres- sions : those of a visitor who has only the information of the ordinary reader, and one who is apt to view a subject from the pic- turesque stand-point rather than from that of critical exactness or eager denial. Plymouth. 189 The general impression of Plymouth, as one enters the town from Kingston, is that of prosperity, thrift, and respectability. Good streets there are, well shaded and watered, comfortable houses, with finely kept grounds and lawns, and a glimpse of thriving indus- tries, while over all is an air of modernity. In this the newer part of the town is the monument that we saw long ago from Dux- bury. It is called the National Monument to the Forefathers, and was " erected by a grate- ful people in remembrance of their labors, sacrifice, and sufferings for the cause of civil and religious liberty." A work of recent years it is, for it was finished no longer ago than 1888, although the corner-stone had then been laid for twenty-nine years. It stands on a bare hill reached by shady, pleasant streets that make its shadeless exposure seem more barren by contrast. Opposite the entrance to its precincts, how- ever, is a friendly wayside bench that affords a good view of it and a rest under green leaves. 190 The Pilgrim Shore. The pile itself is granite of indifferent art, it must be allowed, but nevertheless, as it rises from the bare hill against the sky, it has a certain amount of dignity, a dignity which would not be lessened, I believe, were the sur- roundings softened a little by flower, shrub, and tree. " Why," said a native to me, " that hill 's nothing but a heap of sand, but it 's a good one. If we had it anywhere where 'twould be of use, 't would be worth a fortune for mortar-sand." The monument consists of a pedestal, octagonal, from every other face of which extends a buttress ; on these four buttresses are seated as many figures of heroic size ; on the pedestal itself stands a gigantic figure of Faith. She holds a Bible under one arm, and points heavenward with the other. The seated figures represent, respectively, Morality, Law, Education, and Freedom. All are conventional in design, and are supplemented by small accessory figures. On the faces of the buttresses are four slabs of marble carved in high relief and protected by plate glass. Plymouth. 191 They represent the departure from Delft Haven, the signing of the Social Compact, the Landing at Plymouth, the Treaty with Mas- sasoit. Not far from the monument on the Main Street is the Museum, " Pilgrim Hall." Within it is an interesting collection of many and divers objects connected with or related more or less intimately to the history of the town, many of them of priceless value as relics of the Forefathers. But of course they differ in degree of value and interest. For instance, in the Alden case is John Alden's Bible, a fine halberd found in the cellar of his house at Duxbury, and a few bricks from Bradford's house at Kingston, and beside these relics a Chinese razor and a pine-tree shilling. The most interesting of all the cases is, I think that which contains the Standish be- longings. Here is the pewter plate and iron pot so familiar to us in photographs, and brought over by the Captain in the May- flower. There 's a piece of his hearthstone 192 The Pilgrim Shore. ever, is too, and other relics from his house in Dux- bury. Greatest prize of all, ho\v- his sword "his trusty sword of Damascus Curved at the point and inscribed with its mystical Arabic sentence." r r What food for thought and fancy it is ! Its sun and stars suggest the an- cient days of Persia, the glories of Babylon and Nineveh. Indeed no one knows how old it is, this blade of the Captain's. Centuries before he dimmed its brightness with the blood of his red brother (was it with this blade he hewed off the head of savage and brave Witawamat?), centuries before that it may have been wrenched by Moslem hands from some fierce fire-worshipper, then wet with blood of Greek, Christian, and Jew, when the hordes of Omah first humbled Palestine to Islam's yoke. It may have flashed in triumphal processions beneath the minarets Plymouth. 193 of Damascus, or " by Bagdad's shrines of fretted gold." Then hundreds of years later, perhaps, when 't was drawn in defence of the Holy Land, it was torn from swart Paynim grasp by a gaunt crusader, a Standish, on the very walls of Jerusalem. An heirloom then it became, descending from Standish to Standish, until finally, after being wielded against the cruel Spaniard in the Low Countries, 't was brought across the seas to be the defence of the Pilgrim Republic. All this may be true, indeed Professor Rosedale of Jerusalem does not hesitate to declare that the sword was forged before the year A. D. 637. A part of the inscriptions he says are in Cufic, in which was written the Koran in the time of the prophet Moham- med, one thousand years before Standish set foot in America. One of the inscriptions Professor Rosedale translated thus : " With peace God ruled His slaves (creatures) and with the judgment of His arm gave trouble to the valiant of the mighty and courageous " (meaning the wicked). '3 194 The Pilgrim Shore. The hilt is not the one Miles Standish knew, the blade has probably known many another. His was a basket hilt, like the ones carried by Cromwell's Roundheads. As will be seen, it is a backsword, and with its basket hilt should have made an excellent weapon for the hacking sword play of his time. I used it as a model in drawing the crest of the great seal of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, a broadsword held in an arm clothed and ruffled as the law demands. But there are gentler reminders of the Captain than this, for here are fragments of a quilt which once belonged to his first wife Rose, ' ; Beautiful rose of love that bloomed for me by the wayside." But more suggestive, and even as touching, is the sampler embroidered by his daughter Lora. Its colors are but the ashes of their once bright hues, and the faded floss is sink- ing gradually into the background of yellow- ing linen. Still the pretty design of the marshalled bands is plainly marked, and Plymouth. 195 below them one can yet distinguish the prayerful verses : " Lorea Standish is my name. Lord guide my hart that I may doe Thy will ; Also fill my hands with such convenient skill As may conduce to virtue void of shame ; And I will give the glory to Thy name." In the White case is the will of Peregrine White. With what tender pity one thinks of him in looking at this last testament ! Bowed by over fourscore years, and as the will re- cites: under many weaknesses and bodily infirmities, not even able to sign his name, for at the end appears a cross, " his mark," sign typical of his afflictions, for the infirm old fingers could no longer guide the pen for even this little. How bold and good his penmanship once was may be seen by the bond written and signed by him years before, and now in the case K. All sorts of things are there in these cases, most of them connected intimately or remotely with the colony's history, rare books, pre- cious documents, china, silver, in short, most 196 The Pilgrim Shore. everything, even to a broken brick or two and a handful of nails. In one case is a rapier which suggests Plymouth's first, last, and only duel. Two of the young men fought with rapiers and daggers after the fashion of the day, and one was wounded. They were afterwards so ignominiously pun- ished that duelling was stopped forever in the colony. The Winslow relics betray, as might be expected, evidence of a certain luxury beyond the others. A bit of real vanity is that fine slipper of Madame Governor Winslow's. All embroidered in silver, it suggests moments of elegant idleness that must have been almost unknown in Old Colony days. It is what the French call a mule, has a high Louis XIV. heel, but covers only the instep and toes. Interesting, too, are the cunning baby shoes worn by Governor Josiah Winslow, the first governor's ring, Penelope's inlaid cabinet and beaded purse. But all will find things to look at for themselves, still may I say a word about the things "behind the rail"? Plymouth. 199 We know the two quaint chairs by the pictures and copies of them that have so often been made. Both were brought in the Mayflower, one by Elder Brewster, and the other by Governor Car- ver. They are of ash, and alike in style, a style that is reflected in the ancient flax-wheel near by, and would seem to indicate that the wheel also was of the same period. Still this style, as applied to wheels, persisted for many years, and may be seen to-day in remote districts of Holland in wheels of a much later date. Then there is the cra- Flax-tvheel, 2OO The Pilgrim Shore. die, that in which Susanna White rocked her baby, the first Pilgrim baby. It is woven of osiers, and recalls the skill of the Dutch in wicker - work. It suggests now, and must always have re- minded the Pilgrims of their Holland home, the low level landscapes, the placid canals, and the long dykes, wil- low-bou nd and shaded. And while the picture of the Low Countries is painted on our fancy, we should remember gratefully the brave hearts of that land which for so many years offered the only asylum for the priest-oppressed, and who maintained so long the only bulwark, of soul freedom in all Europe. There 's a model, too, of a ship of the Mayflower's type, and a beautiful ideal pict- ure of the Pilgrim ship in Mr. Halsall's lovely Cradle. Plymouth. 201 painting of her at anchor in the ice-bound harbor. A great many pictures hang on the walls beside, but the most precious of them all is the portrait of Governor Edward Winslow ; for it is the only authentic portrait of a May- flower Pilgrim. Of all the other things to see in Pilgrim Hall I will not speak. Each visitor will find enough that is interesting and fancy-stirring. So I will leave the museum and return to the town. Of all the old streets in Plymouth the love- liest is surely North Street. Its elms and lindens frame, with leaf and shade, a sparkling glimpse of the sea. The row of great lindens with rugged furrowed trunks were, it is said, brought from England in a raisin-box, and were set out by Colonel George Watson over a century ago. It is said that Penelope Winslow set out the two in front of the old Winslow house oppo- site, and a droll story is told of the one which shades the seats on Cole's Hill. 2O2 The Pilgrim Shore. The tale is that once upon a time a maiden lived there, on the hill, who was made miser- able by the attentions of an unwelcome suitor. Hints rolled off him like water from a duck's back. On snubs and cuts his love throve as do pigs on sour milk. In fact, his devotion was as steadfast as it was disagreeable. No wonder then that the maid, at the end of her patience, at last armed herself with a stout switch one night, and falling upon the persist- ent swain with amazonian ardor, drove him by force from the field. Then, the story goes, she cast her switch away upon the brow of the hill, where it took root and grew, a monu- ment to unrequited love. The old Winslow house at the corner of North and Winslow streets is a fine example of colonial architecture made extra decorative by the recent additions. Its frame was brought from England, so 't is said, in 1745, the year of its building. It has been very much altered lately, and is more picturesque than ever. In its antique drawing-room Ralph Waldo Emerson was married to his second North Street. Plymouth. 205 wife. Upon his wedding day he drove from Concord to Plymouth in his chaise. That evening he was married, and the next morn- ing he " set forth in the chaise again and brought his bride before sunset to their new home in Concord," a journey of more than sixty miles each way. Cole's Hill is at the end of North Street, and overhangs the road as it dips to the wharves. On its brow are a few seats which may be divided after the fashion of a Spanish bull ring into sombra and sola. They are generally occupied by professional as well as amateur loafers, and the latter will probably find that they will have to sit in the sola. Seaward from this point is a broad view of the harbor, and at high tide it is a lovely one too, but, when the water recedes, gray green flats rise to sight and to smell. Through these levels wind the channel and crooked sluggish streams of varying widths that all seem fouled by the muddy bottom. However, let us not turn up our noses at these flats, for perhaps the tiny colony owed 2o6 The Pilgrim Shore. in a large measure its preservation to the unlimited store of clams and lobsters that these flats afforded. On the farther side of the harbor stretches the long, low, slender line of Plymouth Beach, hummocky and sandy, then beyond its ribbon, farther seaward, the headland and lights of the Gurnet. On that low bluff, ' t is said, was buried in 1004 the bold Norse wan- derer and chieftain Thorwald. The next headland to the left is Saquish (meaning plenty of clams), and the next in the same direction is Clark's Island. Weather and tide permitting, it is a pleasant sail to this last, where, remote from trolley and tour- ist, the spell of old Pilgrim memories is apt to be much more potent than in the town itself. The island is quite large, containing over a hundred acres, and although the original woods were long ago cleared away, it has fine trees and a good soil. It is said that crops of figs are grown there in the open air. Near the middle of the Island is a huge Plymouth. 207 bowlder formerly called Election Rock, be- cause in the old days the young folks used to picnic there on ancient election holidays. But now it is called Pulpit Rock, because, according to tradition, in its shelter the Pil- grim explorers worshipped God on that first Sunday in Plymouth Harbor. On it there- fore have been cut these words from " Mourt's Relation " : " On the Sabbath day wee rested." This great bowlder is similar to Plymouth Rock, and is the only other one of any size along the coast. However, there is a small one on the southeasterly shore of the Island bearing some strange black markings said by some to be the footprints of the Evil One himself, while by some others they are no more than the trail of a passing witch. Sometimes, however, they are called Mary Chilton's footsteps. But after all there is but one rock Plymouth Rock. Right at the foot of Cole's Hill it lies, under a granite canopy, and as nearly as possible in its proper place. For the rock has been a traveller, and for a time 208 The Pilgrim Shore. it rested in Town Square, from the breaking out of the Revolution till 1834, when one Fourth of July it was carried in triumphal procession to the lot in front of Pilgrim Hall, where it rested for forty-six years. In those days, it used to seem to the visitors that the Pilgrims had made pretty long steps to land on it from their shallop. Happily its stupid and unnatural position- was at last recognized by a gentleman from Baltimore, Mr. Joseph Henry Stickney, who, without any flourish of trumpets, returned it to its original site. That this is the actual spot at which the Pilgrims landed Mary Chilton first is too well attested by facts and tradition to admit of any doubt. In those days it was the only convenient landing-place from such a deep and bluff-bowed boat as the Pilgrim shallop, and the Pilgrims had had quite enough of landing on the sands by wading in the icy wintry waters. Then it was on the edge of the beach that was backed by the deserted cornfields of the natives, and, as now, near . the mouth of the sweet brook that Plymouth. 211 slipped down there from the forest-girdled ponds inland. To-day its surroundings are prosaic and unlovely, and I doubt that they are always forgotten by those who step thoughtfully on the hallowed spot. However, let us go down the steps " Down to the Plymouth Rock that had been to their feet as a doorstep," " The corner-stone of a nation." I have said that the Rock has been a traveller in recent years, but it is more of a Pilgrim than these short journeys would warrant. Whence and when did it come here? For it is as much a stranger on these sandy shores as were the Pilgrims them- selves. Let the words of Goodwin answer. " In dim and prehistoric ages, ' Fore- fathers' Rock ' had been reft from its parent ledge by icy Nature ; wrapped in the chill embrace of some mighty floe or berg of the glacial epoch, it had been slowly borne for centuries over mountain and valley, until, guided by the Divine Hand, it found at last a resting place between land and 212 The Pilgrim Shore. water where in future eons it was to become the most noted bowlder in Christendom. On that reckless strand it had patiently awaited the great day which should, though unconsciously, make it forever famous as the stepping stone of New England civilization." It was on Cole's Hill that the dead who departed in the first dreadful winter were buried, and if one re-ascends the steps, and turns to the left by the tiny greensward, a flat tablet will be seen which marks the spot where rest the bones of some of those unfor- tunates. Over their heads the Pilgrims planted the waving wheat, that it might, with its grace and greenery, shield from savage eyes the resting place of so many dead. " Lest they should count them and see how many already have perished." Other sad memories must the Forefathers have had of Cole's Hill, for I doubt not that it was from this vantage ground that they watched the Mayflower depart, that only bond between them and the Old World. Yet Site of the First House. Plymouth. 215 not one of them repented their venture, even with the recollection of the dreadful winter fresh and sore upon them. " O strong hearts and true ! not one went back in the Mayflower ! No, not one looked back, who had set his hand to this ploughing ! " Close to their doors were these early graves, for near by, where Carver Street over- hangs Leyden Street, may be seen the site of the first common-house. A gambrel-roofed house stands there now, and on it the Common- wealth of Massachusetts has placed a tablet which sets forth that here the Pilgrims built their first common-house, and in it, on the 2/th of February, 1621, they first exercised the right of popular suffrage, " and Miles Standish was chosen Captain by a majority vote." Strange that it was not a unanimous choice ! And under its roof, too, was made the memorable treaty with Massasoit, " after friendly entertainments & some gifts given him," a peace that continued for twenty-four years. 216 The Pilrim Shore. As one looks down into Leyden Street from near the great elm in front of the church, one regrets that the neighborhood of this, the First Street of the Pilgrims, which is in part so picturesque, should be so marred by the necessities of modern life. Among the old-fashioned houses with quaint roofs and massive chimneys, these wombs of light and power make an incongruous and unwel- come presence. 'T was along Leyden Street that the rows of roughly fashioned thatch-roofed houses were huddled together under the protection of the fort on Burial Hill. And separated they were from the hills to the south by the Town Brook, whose sweet waters then tumbled, unfettered and unfouled, into an estuary that could shelter several ships in winter's need. To-day its mouth is disfigured and ugly, but along its banks the sloping gardens of the old houses, sites of the ancient mere-steads, make many a picture full of queer lines and surprises. And along its length, almost *ta Plymouth. 217 its source, its natural beauty is marred by a succession of dams and mills whose clatter reaches quite into the forest. Ancient Mere-steads. However, I was not writing about the brook, 't was about the Pilgrims' First Street, of which Leyden Street was a part. On it, near its other half, Town Square, is a drink- 218 The Pilgrim Shore. ing fountain built of field stone. Over it is inscribed : " Drink here and quench your thirst. From this spring they drank first." It is called the Elder Brevvster spring, be- cause it is on the land allotted to him in 1621, and where he built his house. The Square is a busy place, the centre of Plymouth's activity. At its head stands the fine new church of the Pilgrimage. At first, the Newcomers worshipped in the fort on the hill, each man with his matchlock beside him, while a sentry on the cannon-guarded roof kept a sharp lookout for foes ; but in 1638, they built a meeting-house, and for a hundred years it was sufficient to their needs. Then another church was built, which en- dured for a century more, when it was re- placed by a " gothic edifice," which, in turn, was destroyed by fire in 1892. The present fine structure was built five years later, and on its front it bears a tablet which reads : Governor Bradford. Plymouth. 221 THE CHURCH OF SCROOBY LEYDEN AND THE MAYFLOWER GATHERED ON THIS HILLSIDE IN l62O HAS EVER SINCE PRESERVED UNBROKEN RECORDS AND MAINTAINED A CONTINUOUS MINISTRY ITS FIRST COVENANT BEING STILL THE BASIS OF ITS FELLOWSHIP IN REVERENT MEMORY OF ITS PILGRIM FOUNDERS, THIS FIFTH MEETING HOUSE ERECTED tf> M. D. CCC. XCVII. On the right hand side of Town Square, looking toward Burial Hill, lived Governor Bradford, and here he died in the sixty-eighth year of his age, having lived long enough to see the struggling colony, of which he had so long been the guardian, firmly and prosperously established. Upon his shoulders had rested more than upon any other's the care and responsibility of government. Thirty-one times was he chosen governor, and many of these times much against his will, for he believed in rotation in office, and that every one should, in turn, do his part. But he never shirked a duty, and even in the years when he was 222 The Pilgrim Shore. not chief magistrate, he bore most of the burdens of the office, if not its honors. Only " by importunity he gat off," as Winthrop says, during a few years of deserved leisure, and, to secure this respite, he once filed eight objections to a re-election. Yet, in the midst of his many duties, he found time for study in those branches of learning wherein he excelled. A good lin- guist he was, speaking Dutch and French, and knowing Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. In connection with his study of this last tongue, he touchingly says : " Though I am grown aged, yet I have had a longing desire to see with my own eyes something of that most ancient language and holy tongue, in which the law and oracles of God were written, and in which God and the angels spake to the holy patriarchs of old time ; and what names were given to things from the creation." Beside his linguistic skill, he was versed in antiquity, history, philosophy, and theology. But his learning was less remarkable than his liberality in that narrow age, and most Plymouth. 223 unusual was his freedom from nearly all of the superstition which like a nightmare op- pressed his age and confused the keenest The Bradford Monument. intellects. For him, the comets had no terror, nor had the eclipses, for witchcraft he felt only contempt, and in his history never alludes to it. His tolerance in relig- 224 The Pilgrim Shore. ious matters, as well as his courtesy and thoughtfulness for others, is witnessed to by the Jesuit Father Druillette, who visited him in Plymouth. The visit falling on Friday, the Governor served the priest a dinner of fish, in respect of the usages of the Church of Rome. His most precious gift to the world, next to the fostering care he gave the struggling settlement, is the history that he wrote of Plymouth colony, and which, after being lost for many years, has since been returned to the Commonwealth of Massa- chusetts by the Bishop of London. Of all the Pilgrims, he is the most eminent. He, more than any other, sowed the seeds of that tolerance and freedom which have become the crowning glory of the Republic. On Burial Hill, that had sheltered his happy home of many years, he was buried with sad and reverent honor by his mourning people. There his grave has been discovered and properly marked, and thousands of pilgrims each year seek it out with reverence. Near the crest of the hill it is, and on it a marble Plymouth. 225 obelisk has been erected. " Do not basely relinquish what the Fathers with difficulty attained " is its Latin inscription, and in The Oldest House. Hebrew: "Jehovah is my lot and mine heritage." Burial Hill, though low, is steep, and domi- nates the country in every direction. It was the natural place for the fort that defended Plymouth, a fortress and church combined, '5 226 The Pilrim Shore. for in it the Forefathers met to worship God, and on its roof they mounted six cannon. The site of the fort is marked, as well as the corners of the watch tower which was after- wards put up on nearly the same place. On the Hill it is believed that the Pilgrims buried their dead from the earliest time, ex- cepting those who died during the first winter. But the gloom of a graveyard does not hang over it, for its situation is so pleasant and so accessible that it is used as a park, and in fact few pleasanter resting-places can be found anywhere. The view it commands of the harbor and the town itself is charm- ing, and a cheeriness is given to it by the many visitors. With a guide-book, it is easy enough to find all the interesting things, and there are always guides who are ready to help one for a small fee. I have spoken of these, the well known " sights" of Plymouth, because it is next to impossible not to ; but if the visitor confines himself to them he will miss much that is interesting. A walk through the older parts " A Paradise to Etchers.* Plymouth. 229 of the town is quite worth while, for al- though Plymouth is not so extraordinarily built as is Marblehead, and holds not so many fine old houses as does Salem, still it has a picturesqueness and charm far from commonplace, and is in its unexpectedness quite fresh and original. In the older parts of the town the ancient houses are set on the very edge of the sidewalk, just as they are in the Old World. Doubtless this custom was brought from England by our ancestors. A few of these old houses are parallel to the streets, either lengthwise or endwise, but the most of them have no regard for street lines, even if they are not set quite eater-cornered. Each one seems to have been placed according to the particular needs of the house and the lot, and were adapted, as were the streets themselves, to " the lay of the land." Thus the town's ways go twisting in and out or up and down, as occasion demands, along a serrated line of buildings. All the old houses, of which there are a 230 The Pilgrim Shore. number, have been much altered, and everywhere an extraordinary accre- tive style of building has been developed. A par- adise it is to etchers and sketchers, for it abounds in " bits " quaint and unusual. The picturesque old town it- self is finely set, for down to its doors almost come the light forests that spring from the thin soil. A country of little hills it is, with a dry scant loam like Cape Cod ; woods of oak and birch and pine are interspersed with fields of moss, and scant grass, embossed here and there by clumps of bayberry, sweet fern, blueberry, and wild rose. And everywhere gleam the shal- low Cape ponds, hundreds of them, like sapphires in emerald settings. Powdered are they with I Just as the Pilgrims found it." Plymouth. 233 white lilies, and hedged by broad bands of blue flags, green rushes, the purple pickerel weed, and nodding pink sabbatia. Here in early spring under the pines, the Mayflower blooms, just as the Pilgrims found it so long ago, and gave it, so 'tis said, the name of Mayflower, in loving remembrance of the good ship which had brought them safe across the seas, and had been for so long a time their only home. Through these woods a few of the wild deer still roam and breed. Plenty there were in the old days, and a great help they were to the colonists. The wolves, against which the early comers had to protect them- selves, have long since been extinct. Probably the country itself looks about as it did at the time of its settlement, for the Cape was never heavily wooded like the North Shore, and the annalists speak of much open and fine champaign country. And if the landscape has changed but little, is it not also true that the lofty spirit of the Pilgrim Fathers still lives unchanged 234 The Pilgrim Shore. in their descendants all over our broad land? For has He not multiplied their seed " as the stars of the heaven ; and as sand which is on the seashore" ? Surely. So from every part of this great nation their children come to do homage to the memory of those illus- trious men who, self-exiled for conscience' sake, crossed the wild seas to an unknown wilderness, and founded a nation on the sure foundations of Justice, Charity, Liberty, and Character. In uniform style exquisitely illustrated THREE HEROINES of NEW ENGLAND ROMANCE I. PRISCILLA, by HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD II. AGNES SURRIAQE, by ALICE BROWN III. MARTHA HILTON, by LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY With notes on the towns in which they lived, and eighty- seven illustrations, including numerous full-page pictures By EDMUND H. GARRETT. 12mo. Cloth, gilt top, $2.00 Full morocco, gilt edges, $4.50 A charming volume, dealing with the courtship and marriage of three famous beauties of old colonial times. Mr. Garrett's notes describe and illustrate the famous old towns of Plymouth, Marblehead, and Portsmouth. The old stories are told again with renewed sweetness by the pens of three New England women of to-day. New England Magazine. Gracefully written and felicitously illustrated. 'The Literary World. One of the most dainty and altogether pleasing examples of symmetrical and harmonious book-making we have seen. T'he Independent. The romantic stories of these three beautiful women are placed in a book bound in artistic manner in delicate gray, pale blue, or white with gold a volume which would have been a wonder to plainly nurtured Priscilla, whose sole books were doubtless her leather-bound Bible and her ill-printed, parch- ment-covered psalm-book. Even the luxury-loving Lady Wentworth knew naught of such daintiness. ALICE MORSE EARLE, in the Book Buyer. ROMANCE AND REALITY OF THE PURITAN COAST With Many Little Picturings, Authentic or Fanciful. By EDMUND H. GARRETT. Author of "The Pilgrim Shore," etc. 12mo. Cloth, gilt top, $2.00 Full morocco, gilt edges, $4.50 WEST BEACH \_From " Romance and Reality of the Puritan Coast "" This volume, a companion to "The Pilgrim Shore," de- scribes the Massachusetts coast as far as Cape Ann, includ- ing Lynn, Swampscott, Nahant, Beverly, Marblehead, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Gloucester, Magnolia, etc. The illustrations number nearly one hundred full-page plates and vignettes from pen-and-ink drawings by the author. He has enabled his readers in one brief evening to see all the bits of old architecture, charming little landscape views, the fisher folk and their boats and houses, and the bold, rocky points of Magnolia and Gloucester, with a new sense of their beauty and picturesqueness. Boston Herald. CJ (1 v* r^t C\ ,/J *^*j IN THE FORTUNE /\ ANNO DOMINO 1621 '" v<3 ADAMS BASSETT- BEAC BOMPASSE-BREWSTER-BRIGGS CANNON CONNOR- CUSHMAN DEAN-DE LA NOYE FLAVEL FORD-HICKS-HILTON MORGAN MORTON NICHOLAS- PALMER PRENCE PITT SIMONSON STATIE- STEWART-TENCH WINSLOW-WHICHT ANNABEL- BANGS -BARTLETT BURCHER CONANT CLARK CUTHBERTSON- DIX-FAUNCE FLOOD-HEARD-HOLMAN- JENNY KEMPTON' LONG-MITCHELL flORTON OLDHAM PRATT RAND -RATCLIFFE-SNOW 5RAGUE /"-^TILDEN TRACEY-WALLEN