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diff --git a/1861-8.txt b/1861-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..541a265 --- /dev/null +++ b/1861-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2518 @@ +Project Gutenberg's An Old Town By The Sea, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: An Old Town By The Sea + +Author: Thomas Bailey Aldrich + +Release Date: March 21, 2006 [EBook #1861] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN OLD TOWN BY THE SEA *** + + + + +Produced by Susan L. Farley and David Widger + + + + + +AN OLD TOWN BY THE SEA + +by Thomas Bailey Aldrich + + + PISCATAQUA RIVER + + Thou singest by the gleaming isles, + By woods, and fields of corn, + Thou singest, and the sunlight smiles + Upon my birthday morn. + + But I within a city, I, + So full of vague unrest, + Would almost give my life to lie + An hour upon upon thy breast. + + To let the wherry listless go, + And, wrapt in dreamy joy, + Dip, and surge idly to and fro, + Like the red harbor-buoy; + + To sit in happy indolence, + To rest upon the oars, + And catch the heavy earthy scents + That blow from summer shores; + + To see the rounded sun go down, + And with its parting fires + Light up the windows of the town + And burn the tapering spires; + + And then to hear the muffled tolls + From steeples slim and white, + And watch, among the Isles of Shoals, + The Beacon's orange light. + + O River! flowing to the main + Through woods, and fields of corn, + Hear thou my longing and my pain + This sunny birthday morn; + + And take this song which fancy shapes + To music like thine own, + And sing it to the cliffs and capes + And crags where I am known! + + + +CONTENTS + + I. CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH + II. ALONG THE WATER SIDE + III. A STROLL ABOUT TOWN + IV. A STROLL ABOUT TOWN (continued) + V. OLD STRAWBERRY BANK + VI. SOME OLD PORTSMOUTH PROFILES + VII. PERSONAL REMINISCENCES + + INDEX OF NAMES + + + + +AN OLD TOWN BY THE SEA + + + + +I. CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH + +I CALL it an old town, but it is only relatively old. When one reflects +on the countless centuries that have gone to the for-mation of this +crust of earth on which we temporarily move, the most ancient cities on +its surface seem merely things of the week before last. It was only the +other day, then--that is to say, in the month of June, 1603--that one +Martin Pring, in the ship Speedwell, an enormous ship of nearly fifty +tons burden, from Bristol, England, sailed up the Piscataqua River. The +Speedwell, numbering thirty men, officers and crew, had for consort the +Discoverer, of twenty-six tons and thirteen men. After following the +windings of "the brave river" for twelve miles or more, the two vessels +turned back and put to sea again, having failed in the chief object +of the expedition, which was to obtain a cargo of the medicinal +sassafras-tree, from the bark of which, as well known to our ancestors, +could be distilled the Elixir of Life. + +It was at some point on the left bank of the Piscataqua, three or four +miles from the mouth of the river, that worthy Master Pring probably +effected one of his several landings. The beautiful stream widens +suddenly at this place, and the green banks, then covered with a network +of strawberry vines, and sloping invitingly to the lip of the crystal +water, must have won the tired mariners. + +The explorers found themselves on the edge of a vast forest of oak, +hemlock, maple, and pine; but they saw no sassafras-trees to speak of, +nor did they encounter--what would have been infinitely less to their +taste--and red-men. Here and there were discoverable the scattered ashes +of fires where the Indians had encamped earlier in the spring; they +were absent now, at the silvery falls, higher up the stream, where fish +abounded at that season. The soft June breeze, laden with the delicate +breath of wild-flowers and the pungent odors of spruce and pine, ruffled +the duplicate sky in the water; the new leaves lisped pleasantly in the +tree tops, and the birds were singing as if they had gone mad. No ruder +sound or movement of life disturbed the primeval solitude. Master Pring +would scarcely recognize the spot were he to land there to-day. + +Eleven years afterwards a much cleverer man than the commander of the +Speedwell dropped anchor in the Piscataqua--Captain John Smith of famous +memory. After slaying Turks in hand-to-hand combats, and doing all sorts +of doughty deeds wherever he chanced to decorate the globe with his +presence, he had come with two vessels to the fisheries on the rocky +selvage of Maine, when curiosity, or perhaps a deeper motive, led him +to examine the neighboring shore lines. With eight of his men in a small +boat, a ship's yawl, he skirted the coast from Penobscot Bay to Cape +Cod, keeping his eye open. This keeping his eye open was a peculiarity +of the little captain; possibly a family trait. It was Smith who really +discovered the Isles of Shoals, exploring in person those masses of +bleached rock--those "isles assez hautes," of which the French navigator +Pierre de Guast, Sieur de Monts, had caught a bird's-eye glimpse through +the twilight in 1605. Captain Smith christened the group Smith's Isles, +a title which posterity, with singular persistence of ingratitude, has +ignored. It was a tardy sense of justice that expressed itself a few +years ago in erecting on Star Island a simple marble shaft to the memory +of JOHN SMITH--the multitudinous! Perhaps this long delay is explained +by a natural hesitation to label a monument so ambiguously. + +The modern Jason, meanwhile, was not without honor in his own country, +whatever may have happened to him in his own house, for the poet George +Wither addressed a copy of pompous verses "To his Friend Captain Smith, +upon his Description of New England." "Sir," he says-- + + "Sir: your Relations I haue read: which shew + Ther's reason I should honor them and you: + And if their meaning I have vnderstood, + I dare to censure thus: Your Project's good; + And may (if follow'd) doubtlesse quit the paine + With honour, pleasure and a trebble gaine; + Beside the benefit that shall arise + To make more happy our Posterities." + +The earliest map of this portion of our seaboard was prepared by Smith +and laid before Prince Charles, who asked to give the country a name. He +christened it New England. In that remarkable map the site of Portsmouth +is call Hull, and Kittery and York are known as Boston. + +It was doubtless owing to Captain John Smith's representation on his +return to England that the Laconia Company selected the banks of the +Piscataqua for their plantation. Smith was on an intimate footing +with Sir Ferinand Gorges, who, five years subsequently, made a tour of +inspection along the New England coast, in company with John Mason, then +Governor of Newfoundland. One of the results of this summer cruise is +the town of Portsmouth, among whose leafy ways, and into some of whose +old-fashioned houses, I purpose to take the reader, if he have an idle +hour on his hands. Should we meet the flitting ghost of some old-time +worthy, on the staircase or at a lonely street corner, the reader must +be prepared for it. + + + + +II. ALONG THE WATER SIDE + +IT is not supposable that the early settlers selected the site of their +plantation on account of its picturesqueness. They were influenced +entirely by the lay of the land, its nearness and easy access to the +sea, and the secure harbor it offered to their fishing-vessels; yet they +could not have chosen a more beautiful spot had beauty been the sole +consideration. The first settlement was made at Odiorne's Point--the +Pilgrims' Rock of New Hampshire; there the Manor, or Mason's Hall, was +built by the Laconia Company in 1623. It was not until 1631 that the +Great House was erected by Humphrey Chadborn on Strawberry Bank. Mr. +Chadborn, consciously or unconsciously, sowed a seed from which a city +has sprung. + +The town of Portsmouth stretches along the south bank of the Piscataqua, +about two miles from the sea as the crow flies--three miles following +the serpentine course of the river. The stream broadens suddenly at this +point, and at flood tide, lying without a ripple in a basin formed by +the interlocked islands and the mainland, it looks more like an island +lake than a river. To the unaccustomed eye there is no visible outlet. +Standing on one of the wharves at the foot of State Street or Court +Street, a stranger would at first scarcely suspect the contiguity of the +ocean. A little observation, however, would show him that he was in a +seaport. The rich red rust on the gables and roofs of ancient buildings +looking seaward would tell him that. There is a fitful saline flavor in +the air, and if while he gazed a dense white fog should come rolling in, +like a line of phantom breakers, he would no longer have any doubts. + +It is of course the oldest part of the town that skirts the river, +though few of the notable houses that remain are to be found there. Like +all New England settlements, Portsmouth was built of wood, and has been +subjected to extensive conflagrations. You rarely come across a brick +building that is not shockingly modern. The first house of the kind was +erected by Richard Wibird towards the close of the seventeenth century. + +Though many of the old landmarks have been swept away by the fateful +hand of time and fire, the town impresses you as a very old town, +especially as you saunter along the streets down by the river. The +worm-eaten wharves, some of them covered by a sparse, unhealthy beard of +grass, and the weather-stained, unoccupied warehouses are sufficient +to satisfy a moderate appetite for antiquity. These deserted piers +and these long rows of empty barracks, with their sarcastic cranes +projecting from the eaves, rather puzzle the stranger. Why this great +preparation for a commercial activity that does not exist, and evidently +had not for years existed? There are no ships lying at the pier-heads; +there are no gangs of stevedores staggering under the heavy cases of +merchandise; here and there is a barge laden down to the bulwarks with +coal, and here and there a square-rigged schooner from Maine smothered +with fragrant planks and clapboards; an imported citizen is fishing at +the end of the wharf, a ruminative freckled son of Drogheda, in perfect +sympathy with the indolent sunshine that seems to be sole proprietor +of these crumbling piles and ridiculous warehouses, from which even the +ghost of prosperity has flown. + +Once upon a time, however, Portsmouth carried on an extensive trade with +the West Indies, threatening as a maritime port to eclipse both Boston +and New York. At the windows of these musty counting-rooms which +overlook the river near Spring Market used to stand portly merchants, +in knee breeches and silver shoe-buckles and plum-colored coats with +ruffles at the wrist, waiting for their ships to come up the Narrows; +the cries of stevedores and the chants of sailors at the windlass used +to echo along the shore where all is silence now. For reasons not worth +setting forth, the trade with the Indies abruptly closed, having ruined +as well as enriched many a Portsmouth adventurer. This explains +the empty warehouses and the unused wharves. Portsmouth remains the +interesting widow of a once very lively commerce. I fancy that few +fortunes are either made or lost in Portsmouth nowadays. Formerly it +turned out the best ships, as it did the ablest ship captains, in the +world. There were families in which the love for blue water was +in immemorial trait. The boys were always sailors; "a grey-headed +shipmaster, in each generation, retiring from the quarter-deck to the +homestead, while a boy of fourteen took the hereditary place before the +mast, confronting the salt spray and the gale, which had blasted against +his sire and grandsire." (1. Hawthorne in his introduction to The +Scarlet Letter.) With thousands of miles of sea-line and a score or two +of the finest harbors on the globe, we have adroitly turned over our +carrying trade to foreign nations. + +In other days, as I have said, a high maritime spirit was characteristic +of Portsmouth. The town did a profitable business in the war of 1812, +sending out a large fleet of the sauciest small craft on record. A +pleasant story is told of one of these little privateers--the Harlequin, +owned and commanded by Captain Elihu Brown. The Harlequin one day gave +chase to a large ship, which did not seem to have much fight aboard, +and had got it into close quarters, when suddenly the shy stranger threw +open her ports, and proved to be His Majesty's Ship-of-War Bulwark, +seventy-four guns. Poor Captain Brown! + +Portsmouth has several large cotton factories and one or two corpulent +breweries; it is a wealthy old town, with a liking for first mortgage +bonds; but its warmest lover will not claim for it the distinction +of being a great mercantile centre. The majority of her young men are +forced to seek other fields to reap, and almost every city in the Union, +and many a city across the sea, can point to some eminent merchant, +lawyer, or what not, as "a Portsmouth boy." Portsmouth even furnished +the late king of the Sandwich Islands, Kekuanaoa, with a prime minister, +and his nankeen Majesty never had a better. The affection which all +these exiles cherish for their birthplace is worthy of remark. On two +occasions--in 1852 and 1873, the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of +the settlement of Strawberry Bank--the transplanted sons of Portsmouth +were seized with an impulse to return home. Simultaneously and almost +without concerted action, the lines of pilgrims took up their march from +every quarter of the globe, and swept down with music and banners on the +motherly old town. + +To come back to the wharves. I do not know of any spot with such a +fascinating air of dreams and idleness about it as the old wharf at the +end of Court Street. The very fact that it was once a noisy, busy place, +crowded with sailors and soldiers--in the war of 1812--gives an emphasis +to the quiet that broods over it to-day. The lounger who sits of a +summer afternoon on a rusty anchor fluke in the shadow of one of the +silent warehouses, and look on the lonely river as it goes murmuring +past the town, cannot be too grateful to the India trade for having +taken itself off elsewhere. + +What a slumberous, delightful, lazy place it is! The sunshine seems to +lie a foot deep on the planks of the dusty wharf, which yields up to the +warmth a vague perfume of the cargoes of rum, molasses, and spice +that used to be piled upon it. The river is as blue as the inside of a +harebell. The opposite shore, in the strangely shifting magic lights +of sky and water, stretches along like the silvery coast of fairyland. +Directly opposite you is the navy yard, and its neat officers' quarters +and workshops and arsenals, and its vast shiphouses, in which the keel +of many a famous frigate has been laid. Those monster buildings on the +water's edge, with their roofs pierced with innumerable little windows, +which blink like eyes in the sunlight, and the shiphouses. On your +right lies a cluster of small islands,--there are a dozen or more in the +harbor--on the most extensive of which you see the fading-away remains +of some earthworks thrown up in 1812. Between this--Trefethren's +Island--and Peirce's Island lie the Narrows. Perhaps a bark or a +sloop-of-war is making up to town; the hulk is hidden amoung the +islands, and the topmasts have the effect of sweeping across the dry +land. On your left is a long bridge, more than a quarter of a mile in +length, set upon piles where the water is twenty or thirty feet deep, +leading to the navy yard and Kittery--the Kittery so often the theme of +Whittier's verse. + +This is a mere outline of the landscape that spreads before you. Its +changeful beauty of form and color, with the summer clouds floating +over it, is not to be painted in words. I know of many a place where the +scenery is more varied and striking; but there is a mandragora quality +in the atmosphere here that holds you to the spot, and makes the +half-hours seem like minutes. I could fancy a man sitting on the end +of that old wharf very contentedly for two or three years, provided it +could be always in June. + +Perhaps, too, one would desire it to be always high water. The tide +falls from eight to twelve feet, and when the water makes out between +the wharves some of the picturesqueness makes out also. A corroded +section of stovepipe mailed in barnacles, or the skeleton of a hoopskirt +protruding from the tide mud like the remains of some old-time wreck, is +apt to break the enchantment. + +I fear I have given the reader an exaggerated idea of the solitude +that reigns along the river-side. Sometimes there is society here of +an unconventional kind, if you care to seek it. Aside from the foreign +gentleman before mentioned, you are likely to encounter, farther down +the shore toward the Point of Graves (a burial-place of the colonial +period), a battered and aged native fisherman boiling lobsters on a +little gravelly bench, where the river whispers and lisps among the +pebbles as the tide creeps in. It is a weather-beaten ex-skipper or +ex-pilot, with strands of coarse hair, like seaweed, falling about a +face that has the expression of a half-open clam. He is always ready +to talk with you, this amphibious person; and if he is not the most +entertaining of gossips--more weather-wise that Old Probabilities, +and as full of moving incident as Othello himself--then he is not the +wintery-haired shipman I used to see a few years ago on the strip of +beach just beyond Liberty Bridge, building his drift-wood fire under a +great tin boiler, and making it lively for a lot of reluctant lobsters. + +I imagine that very little change has taken place in this immediate +locality, known prosaically as Puddle Dock, during the past fifty or +sixty years. The view you get looking across Liberty Bridge, Water +Street, is probably the same in every respect that presented itself to +the eyes of the town folk a century ago. The flagstaff, on the right, +is the representative of the old "standard of liberty" which the Sons +planted on this spot in January, 1766, signalizing their opposition +to the enforcement of the Stamp Act. On the same occasion the patriots +called at the house of Mr. George Meserve, the agent for distributing +the stamps in New Hampshire, and relieved him of his stamp-master's +commission, which document they carried on the point of a sword through +the town to Liberty Bridge (the Swing Bridge), where they erected the +staff, with the motto, "Liberty, Property, and no Stamp!" + +The Stamp Act was to go into operation on the first day of November. On +the previous morning the "New Hampshire Gazette" appeared with a deep +black border and all the typographical emblems of affliction, for was +not Liberty dead? At all events, the "Gazette" itself was as good as +dead, since the printer could no longer publish it if he were to be +handicapped by a heavy tax. "The day was ushered in by the tolling +of all the bells in town, the vessels in the harbor had their colors +hoisted half-mast high; about three o'clock a funeral procession was +formed, having a coffin with this inscription, LIBERTY, AGED 145, +STAMPT. It moved from the state house, with two unbraced drums, through +the principal streets. As it passed the Parade, minute-guns were fired; +at the place of interment a speech was delivered on the occasion, +stating the many advantages we had received and the melancholy prospect +before us, at the seeming departure of our invaluable liberties. But +some sign of life appearing, Liberty was not deposited in the grave; +it was rescued by a number of her sons, the motto changed to Liberty +revived, and carried off in triumph. The detestable Act was buried in +its stead, and the clods of the valley were laid upon it; the bells +changed their melancholy sound to a more joyful tone." (1. Annals of +Portsmouth, by Nathaniel Adams, 1825.) + +With this side glance at one of the curious humors of the time, we +resume our peregrinations. + +Turning down a lane on your left, a few rods beyond Liberty Bridge, +you reach a spot known as the Point of Graves, chiefly interesting as +showing what a graveyard may come to if it last long enough. In 1671 one +Captain John Pickering, of whom we shall have more to say, ceded to +the town a piece of ground on this neck for burial purposes. It is an +odd-shaped lot, comprising about half an acre, inclosed by a crumbling +red brick wall two or three feet high, with wood capping. The place +is overgrown with thistles, rank grass, and fungi; the black slate +headstones have mostly fallen over; those that still make a pretense of +standing slant to every point of the compass, and look as if they +were being blown this way and that by a mysterious gale which leaves +everything else untouched; the mounds have sunk to the common level, and +the old underground tombs have collapsed. Here and there the moss and +weeds you can pick out some name that shines in the history of the early +settlement; hundreds of the flower of the colony lie here, but the +known and the unknown, gentle and simple, mingle their dust on a perfect +equality now. The marble that once bore a haughty coat of arms is as +smooth as the humblest slate stone guiltless of heraldry. The lion and +the unicorn, wherever they appear on some cracked slab, are very much +tamed by time. The once fat-faced cherubs, with wing at either cheek, +are the merest skeletons now. Pride, pomp, grief, and remembrance are +all at end. No reverent feet come here, no tears fall here; the old +graveyard itself is dead! A more dismal, uncanny spot than this at +twilight would be hard to find. It is noticed that when the boys pass +it after nightfall, they always go by whistling with a gayety that is +perfectly hollow. + +Let us get into some cheerfuler neighborhood! + + + + +III. A STROLL ABOUT TOWN + +AS you leave the river front behind you, and pass "up town," the streets +grow wider, and the architecture becomes more ambitious--streets fringed +with beautiful old trees and lined with commodious private dwellings, +mostly square white houses, with spacious halls running through the +centre. Previous to the Revolution, white paint was seldom used on +houses, and the diamond-shaped window pane was almost universal. Many of +the residences stand back from the brick or flagstone sidewalk, and have +pretty gardens at the side or in the rear, made bright with dahlias and +sweet with cinnamon roses. If you chance to live in a town where the +authorities cannot rest until they have destroyed every precious tree +within their blighting reach, you will be especially charmed by the +beauty of the streets of Portsmouth. In some parts of the town, when +the chestnuts are in blossom, you would fancy yourself in a garden in +fairyland. In spring, summer, and autumn the foliage is the glory of the +fair town--her luxuriant green and golden treeses! Nothing could seem +more like the work of enchantment than the spectacle which certain +streets in Portsmouth present in the midwinter after a heavy snowstorm. +You may walk for miles under wonderful silvery arches formed by the +overhanging and interlaced boughs of the trees, festooned with a drapery +even more graceful and dazzling than springtime gives them. The numerous +elms and maples which shade the principal thoroughfares are not the +result of chance, but the ample reward of the loving care that is taken +to preserve the trees. There is a society in Portsmouth devoted to +arboriculture. It is not unusual there for persons to leave legacies +to be expended in setting out shade and ornamental trees along some +favorite walk. Richards Avenue, a long, unbuilt thoroughfare leading +from Middle Street to the South Burying-Ground, perpetuates the name of +a citizen who gave the labor of his own hands to the beautifying of that +windswept and barren road the cemetery. This fondness and care for trees +seems to be a matter of heredity. So far back as 1660 the selectmen +instituted a fine of five shillings for the cutting of timber or any +other wood from off the town common, excepting under special conditions. + +In the business section of the town trees are few. The chief business +streets are Congress and Market. Market Street is the stronghold of +the dry-goods shops. There are seasons, I suppose, when these shops are +crowded, but I have never happened to be in Portsmouth at the time. I +seldom pass through the narrow cobble-paved street without wondering +where the customers are that must keep all these flourishing little +establishments going. Congress Street--a more elegant thoroughfare +than Market--is the Nevski Prospekt of Portsmouth. Among the prominent +buildings is the Athenaeum, containing a reading-room and library. +From the high roof of this building the stroller will do well to take +a glance at the surrounding country. He will naturally turn seaward +for the more picturesque aspects. If the day is clear, he will see the +famous Isle of Shoals, lying nine miles away--Appledore, Smutty-Nose, +Star Island, White Island, etc.; there are nine of them in all. On +Appledore is Laighton's Hotel, and near it the summer cottage of Celia +Thaxter, the poet of the Isles. On the northern end of Star Island is +the quaint town of Gosport, with a tiny stone church perched like a +sea-gull on its highest rock. A mile southwest form Star Island lies +White Island, on which is a lighthouse. Mrs. Thaxter calls this the most +picturesque of the group. Perilous neighbors, O mariner! in any but +the serenest weather, these wrinkled, scarred, are storm-smitten rocks, +flanked by wicked sunken ledges that grow white at the lip with rage +when the great winds blow! + +How peaceful it all looks off there, on the smooth emerald sea! and how +softly the waves seem to break on yonder point where the unfinished +fort is! That is the ancient town of Newcastle, to reach which from +Portsmouth you have to cross three bridges with the most enchanting +scenery in New Hampshire lying on either hand. At Newcastle the poet +Stedman has built for his summerings an enviable little stone chateau--a +seashell into which I fancy the sirens creep to warm themselves during +the winter months. So it is never without its singer. + +Opposite Newcastle is Kittery Point, a romantic spot, where Sir William +Pepperell, the first American baronet, once lived, and where his tomb +now is, in his orchard across the road, a few hundred yards from the +"goodly mansion" he built. The knight's tomb and the old Pepperell +House, which has been somewhat curtailed of it fair proportions, are the +objects of frequent pilgrimages to Kittery Point. + +From the elevation (the roof of the Athenaeun) the navy yard, the +river with its bridges and islands, the clustered gables of Kittery and +Newcastle, the illimitable ocean beyond make a picture worth climbing +four or five flights of stairs to gaze upon. Glancing down on the town +nestled in the foliage, it seems like a town dropped by chance in the +midst of a forest. Among the prominent objects which lift themselves +above the tree tops are the belfries of the various churches, the +white façade of the custom house, and the mansard and chimneys of the +Rockingham, the principal hotel. The pilgrim will be surprised to find +in Portsmouth one of the most completely appointed hotels in the United +States. The antiquarian may lament the demolition of the old Bell +Tavern, and think regretfully of the good cheer once furnished the +wayfarer by Master Stavers at the sign of the Earl of Halifax, and by +Master Stoodley at his inn on Daniel Street; but the ordinary traveler +will thank his stars, and confess that his lines have fallen in pleasant +places, when he finds himself among the frescoes of the Rockingham. + +Obliquely opposite the doorstep of the Athenaeum--we are supposed to be +on terra firma again--stands the Old North Church, a substantial wooden +building, handsomely set on what is called The Parade, a large open +space formed by the junction of Congress, Market, Daniel, and Pleasant +streets. Here in days innocent of water-works stood the town pump, which +on more than one occasion served as whipping-post. + +The churches of Portsmouth are more remarkable for their number than +their architecture. With the exception of the Stone Church they are +constructed of wood or plain brick in the simplest style. St. John's +Church is the only one likely to attract the eye of a stranger. It +is finely situated on the crest of Church Hill, overlooking the +ever-beautiful river. The present edifice was built in 1808 on the site +of what was known as Queen's Chapel, erected in 1732, and destroyed by +fire December 24, 1806. The chapel was named in honor of Queen Caroline, +who furnished the books for the altar and pulpit, the plate, and two +solid mahogany chairs, which are still in use in St. John's. Within the +chancel rail is a curious font of porphyry, taken by Colonel John Tufton +Mason at the capture of Senegal from the French in 1758, and presented +to the Episcopal Society on 1761. The peculiarly sweet-toned bell +which calls the parishioners of St. John's together every Sabbath is, +I believe, the same that formerly hung in the belfry of the old Queen's +Chapel. If so, the bell has a history of its own. It was brought from +Louisburg at the time of the reduction of that place in 1745, and given +to the church by the officers of the New Hampshire troops. + +The Old South Meeting-House is not to be passed without mention. It is +among the most aged survivals of pre-revolutionary days. Neither its +architecture not its age, however, is its chief warrant for our notice. +The absurd number of windows in this battered old structure is what +strikes the passer-by. The church was erected by subscription, and +these closely set large windows are due to Henry Sherburne, one of the +wealthiest citizens of the period, who agreed to pay for whatever glass +was used. If the building could have been composed entirely of glass it +would have been done by the thrifty parishioners. + +Portsmouth is rich in graveyards--they seem to be a New England +specialty--ancient and modern. Among the old burial-places the one +attached to St. John's Church is perhaps the most interesting. It has +not been permitted to fall into ruin, like the old cemetery at the Point +of Graves. When a headstone here topples over it is kindly lifted up +and set on its pins again, and encouraged to do its duty. If it utterly +refuses, and is not shamming decrepitude, it has its face sponged, and +is allowed to rest and sun itself against the wall of the church with a +row of other exempts. The trees are kept pruned, the grass trimmed, +and here and there is a rosebush drooping with a weight of pensive pale +roses, as becomes a rosebush in a churchyard. + +The place has about it an indescribable soothing atmosphere of +respectability and comfort. Here rest the remains of the principal and +loftiest in rank in their generation of the citizens of Portsmouth prior +to the Revolution--stanch, royalty-loving governors, counselors, and +secretaries of the Providence of New Hampshire, all snugly gathered +under the motherly wing of the Church of England. It is almost +impossible to walk anywhere without stepping on a governor. You grow +haughty in spirit after a while, and scorn to tread on anything less +than one of His Majesty's colonels or secretary under the Crown. Here +are the tombs of the Atkinsons, the Jaffreys, the Sherburnes, the +Sheafes, the Marshes, the Mannings, the Gardners, and others of the +quality. All around you underfoot are tumbled-in coffins, with here and +there a rusty sword atop, and faded escutcheons, and crumbling armorial +devices. You are moving in the very best society. + +This, however, is not the earliest cemetery in Portsmouth. An hour's +walk from the Episcopal yard will bring you to the spot, already +mentioned, where the first house was built and the first grave made, +at Odiorne's Point. The exact site of the Manor is not known, but it is +supposed to be a few rods north of an old well of still-flowing water, +at which the Tomsons and the Hiltons and their comrades slaked their +thirst more than two hundred and sixty years ago. Oriorne's Point is +owned by Mr. Eben L. Odiorne, a lineal descendant of the worthy who held +the property in 1657. Not far from the old spring is the resting-place +of the earliest pioneers. + +"This first cemetery of the white man in New Hampshire," writes Mr. +Brewster, (1. Mr. Charles W. Brewster, for nearly fifty years the +editor of the Portsmouth Journal, and the author of two volumes of +local sketches to which the writer of these pages here acknowledges his +indebtedness.) "occupies a space of perhaps one hundred feet by ninety, +and is well walled in. The western side is now used as a burial-place +for the family, but two thirds of it is filled with perhaps forty +graves, indicated by rough head and foot stones. Who there rest no one +now living knows. But the same care is taken of their quiet beds as if +they were of the proprietor's own family. In 1631 Mason sent over about +eighty emigrants many of whom died in a few years, and here they were +probably buried. Here too, doubtless, rest the remains of several of +those whose names stand conspicuous in our early state records." + + + + +IV. A STROLL ABOUT TOWN (continued) + +WHEN Washington visited Portsmouth in 1789 he was not much impressed by +the architecture of the little town that had stood by him so stoutly in +the struggle for independence. "There are some good houses," he +writes, in a diary kept that year during a tour through Connecticut, +Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, "among which Colonel Langdon's may +be esteemed the first; but in general they are indifferent, and almost +entirely of wood. On wondering at this, as the country is full of stone +and good clay for bricks, I was told that on account of the fogs and +damp they deemed them wholesomer, and for that reason preferred wood +buildings." + +The house of Colonel Langdon, on Pleasant Street, is an excellent sample +of the solid and dignified abodes which our great-grandsires had the +sense to build. The art of their construction seems to have been a lost +art these fifty years. Here Governor John Langdon resided from 1782 +until the time of his death in 1819--a period during which many an +illustrious man passed between those two white pillars that support the +little balcony over the front door; among the rest Louis Philippe and +his brothers, the Ducs de Montpensier and Beaujolais, and the Marquis de +Chastellus, a major-general in the French army, serving under the Count +de Rochambeau, whom he accompanied from France to the States in 1780. +The journal of the marquis contains this reference to his host: "After +dinner we went to drink tea with Mr. Langdon. He is a handsome man, and +of noble carriage; he has been a member of Congress, and is now one +of the first people of the country; his house is elegant and well +furnished, and the apartments admirably well wainscoted" (this reads +like Mr. Samuel Pepys); "and he has a good manuscript chart of the +harbor of Portsmouth. Mrs. Langdon, his wife, is young, fair, and +tolerably handsome, but I conversed less with her than her husband, in +whose favor I was prejudiced from knowing that he had displayed great +courage and patriotism at the time of Burgoynes's expedition." + +It was at the height of the French Revolution that the three sons of the +Due d'Orleans were entertained at the Langdon mansion. Years afterward, +when Louis Philippe was on the throne of France, he inquired of a +Portsmouth lady presented at his court if the mansion of ce brave +Gouverneur Langdon was still in existence. + +The house stands back a decorous distance from the street, under +the shadows of some gigantic oaks or elms, and presents an imposing +appearance as you approach it over the tessellated marble walk. A +hundred or two feet on either side of the gate, and abutting on +the street, is a small square building of brick, one story in +height--probably the porter's lodge and tool-house of former days. There +is a large fruit garden attached to the house, which is in excellent +condition, taking life comfortably, and having the complacent air of a +well-preserved beau of the ancien regime. The Langdon mansion was +owned and long occupied by the late Rev. Dr. Burroughs, for a period of +forty-seven years the esteemed rector or St. John's Church. + +At the other end of Pleasant Street is another notable house, to which +we shall come by and by. Though President Washington found Portsmouth +but moderately attractive from an architectural point of view, the +visitor of to-day, if he have an antiquarian taste, will find himself +embarrassed by the number of localities and buildings that appeal to his +interest. Many of these buildings were new and undoubtedly commonplace +enough at the date of Washington's visit; time and association have +given them a quaintness and a significance which now make their +architecture a question of secondary importance. + +One might spend a fortnight in Portsmouth exploring the nooks and +corners over which history has thrown a charm, and by no means exhaust +the list. I cannot do more than attempt to describe--and that very +briefly--a few of the typical old houses. On this same Pleasant Street +there are several which we must leave unnoted, with their spacious +halls and carven staircases, their antiquated furniture and old silver +tankards and choice Copleys. Numerous examples of this artist's best +manner are to be found here. To live in Portsmouth without possessing a +family portrait done by Copley is like living in Boston without having +an ancestor in the old Granary Burying-Ground. You can exist, but you +cannot be said to flourish. To make this statement smooth, I will remark +that every one in Portsmouth has a Copley--or would have if a fair +division were made. + +In the better sections of the town the houses are kept in such excellent +repair, and have so smart an appearance with their bright green blinds +and freshly painted woodwork, that you are likely to pass many an old +landmark without suspecting it. Whenever you see a house with a gambrel +roof, you may be almost positive that the house is at least a +hundred years old, for the gambrel roof went out of fashion after the +Revolution. + +On the corner of Daniel and Chapel streets stands the oldest brick +building in Portsmouth--the Warner House. It was built in 1718 by +Captain Archibald Macpheadris, a Scotchman, as his name indicates, a +wealthy merchant, and a member of the King's Council. He was the chief +projector of one of the earliest iron-works established in America. +Captain Macpheadris married Sarah Wentworth, one of the sixteen children +of Governor John Wentworth, and died in 1729, leaving a daughter, Mary, +whose portrait, with that of her mother, painted by the ubiquitous +Copley, still hangs in the parlor of this house, which is not known by +the name of Captain Macpheadris, but by that of his son-in-law, Hon. +Jonathan Warner, a member of the King's Council until the revolt of the +colonies. "We well recollect Mr. Warner," says Mr. Brewster, writing in +1858, "as one of the last of the cocked hats. As in a vision of early +childhood he is still before us, in all the dignity of the aristocratic +crown officers. That broad-backed, long-skirted brown coat, those +small-clothes and silk stockings, those silver buckles, and that +cane--we see them still, although the life that filled and moved them +ceased half a century ago." + +The Warner House, a three-story building with gambrel roof and luthern +windows, is as fine and substantial an exponent of the architecture of +the period as you are likely to meet with anywhere in New England. The +eighteen-inch walls are of brick brought from Holland, as were also many +of the materials used in the building--the hearth-stones, tiles, +etc. Hewn-stone underpinnings were seldom adopted in those days; the +brick-work rests directly upon the solid walls of the cellar. The +interior is rich in paneling and wood carvings about the mantel-shelves, +the deep-set windows, and along the cornices. The halls are wide and +long, after a by-gone fashion, with handsome staircases, set at an easy +angle, and not standing nearly upright, like those ladders by which one +reaches the upper chambers of a modern house. The principal rooms are +paneled to the ceiling, and have large open chimney-places, adorned with +the quaintest of Dutch files. In one of the parlors of the Warner House +there is a choice store of family relics--china, silver-plate, costumes, +old clocks, and the like. There are some interesting paintings, too--not +by Copley this time. On a broad space each side of the hall windows, at +the head of the staircase, are pictures of two Indians, life size. They +are probably portraits of some of the numerous chiefs with whom Captain +Macphaedris had dealings, for the captain was engaged in the fur as +well as in the iron business. Some enormous elk antlers, presented to +Macpheadris by his red friends, are hanging in the lower hall. + +By mere chance, thirty or forty years ago, some long-hidden paintings +on the walls of this lower hall were brought to light. In repairing the +front entry it became necessary to remove the paper, of which four or +five layers had accumulated. A one place, where several coats had peeled +off cleanly, a horse's hoof was observed by a little girl of the family. +The workman then began removing the paper carefully; first the legs, +then the body of a horse with a rider were revealed, and the astonished +paper-hanger presently stood before a life-size representation of +Governor Phipps on his charger. The workman called other persons to +his assistance, and the remaining portions of the wall were speedily +stripped, laying bare four or five hundred square feet covered with +sketches in color, landscapes, views of unknown cities, Biblical scenes, +and modern figure-pieces, among which was a lady at a spinning-wheel. +Until then no person in the land of the living had had any knowledge +of those hidden pictures. An old dame of eighty, who had visited at the +house intimately ever since her childhood, all but refused to believe +her spectacles (though Supply Ham made them(1.)) when brought face to +face with the frescoes. (1. In the early part of this century, Supply +Ham was the leading optician and watchmaker of Portsmouth.) + +The place is rich in bricabrac, but there is nothing more curious that +these incongruous printings, clearly the work of a practiced hand. +Even the outside of the old edifice is not without its interest for an +antiquarian. The lightening-rod which protects the Warner House to-day +was put up under Benjamin Franklin's own supervision in 1762--such at +all events is the credited tradition--and is supposed to be the first +rod put up in New Hampshire. A lightening-rod "personally conducted" +by Benjamin Franklin ought to be an attractive object to even the least +susceptible electricity. The Warner House has another imperative claim +on the good-will of the visitor--it is not positively known that George +Washington ever slept there. + +The same assertion cannot be made on connection with the old yellow +barracks situated in the southwest corner of Court and Atkinson streets. +Famous old houses seem to have an intuitive perception of the value of +corner lots. If it is a possible thing, they always set themselves down +on the most desirable spots. It is beyond a doubt that Washington slept +not only one night, but several nights, under this roof; for this was +a celebrated tavern previous and subsequent to the War of Independence, +and Washington made it his headquarters during his visit to Portsmouth +in 1797. When I was a boy I knew an old lady--not one of the +preposterous old ladies in the newspapers, who have all their faculties +unimpaired, but a real old lady, whose ninety-nine years were beginning +to tell on her--who had known Washington very well. She was a girl in +her teens when he came to Portsmouth. The President was the staple of +her conversation during the last ten years of her life, which she passed +in the Stavers House, bedridden; and I think those ten years were in a +manner rendered short and pleasant to the old gentlewoman by the memory +of a compliment to her complexion which Washington probably never paid +to it. + +The old hotel--now a very unsavory tenement-house--was built by John +Tavers, innkeeper, in 1770, who planted in front of the door a tall +post, from which swung the sign of the Earl of Halifax. Stavers had +previously kept an inn of the same name on Queen, now State Street. + +It is a square three-story building, shabby and dejected, giving no hint +of the really important historical associations that cluster about it. +At the time of its erection it was no doubt considered a rather grand +structure, for buildings of three stories were rare in Portsmouth. Even +in 1798, of the six hundred and twenty-six dwelling houses of which the +town boasted, eighty-six were of one story, five hundred and twenty-four +were of two stories, and only sixteen of three stories. The Stavers inn +has the regulation gambrel roof, but is lacking in those wood ornaments +which are usually seen over the doors and windows of the more prominent +houses of that epoch. It was, however, the hotel of the period. + +That same worn doorstep upon which Mr. O'Shaughnessy now stretches +himself of a summer afternoon, with a short clay pipe stuck between +his lips, and his hat crushed down on his brows, revolving the sad +vicissitude of things--that same doorstep has been pressed by the feet +of generals and marquises and grave dignitaries upon whom depended the +destiny of the States--officers in gold lace and scarlet cloth, and +high-heeled belles in patch, powder, and paduasoy. At this door the +Flying Stage Coach, which crept from Boston, once a week set down its +load of passengers--and distinguished passengers they often were. Most +of the chief celebrities of the land, before and after the secession of +the colonies, were the guests of Master Stavers, at the sign of the Earl +of Halifax. + +While the storm was brewing between the colonies and the mother country, +it was in a back room of the tavern that the adherents of the crown met +to discuss matters. The landlord himself was a amateur loyalist, +and when the full cloud was on the eve of breaking he had an early +intimation of the coming tornado. The Sons of Liberty had long watched +with sullen eyes the secret sessions of the Tories in Master Stavers's +tavern, and one morning the patriots quietly began cutting down the post +which supported the obnoxious emblem. Mr. Stavers, who seems not to have +been belligerent himself, but the cause of belligerence in others, sent +out his black slave with orders to stop proceedings. The negro, who was +armed with an axe, struck but a single blow and disappeared. This blow +fell upon the head of Mark Noble; it did not kill him, but left him an +insane man till the day of his death, forty years afterward. A furious +mob at once collected, and made an attack on the tavern, bursting in +the doors and shattering every pane of glass in the windows. It was only +through the intervention of Captain John Langdon, a warm and popular +patriot, that the hotel was saved from destruction. + +In the mean while Master Stavers had escaped through the stables in +the rear. He fled to Stratham, where he was given refuge by his friend +William Pottle, a most appropriately named gentleman, who had supplied +the hotel with ale. The excitement blew over after a time, and Stavers +was induced to return to Portsmouth. He was seized by the Committee of +Safety, and lodged in Exeter jail, when his loyalty, which had really +never been very high, went down below zero; he took the oath of +allegiance, and shortly after his released reopened the hotel. The +honest face of William Pitt appeared on the repentant sign, vice Earl +of Halifax, ignominiously removed, and Stavers was himself again. In the +state records is the following letter from poor Noble begging for the +enlargement of John Stavers:-- + +PORTSMOUTH, February 3, 1777. To the Committee of Safety of the Town of +Exeter: GENTLEMEN,--As I am informed that Mr. Stivers is in confinement +in gaol upon my account contrary to my desire, for when I was at Mr. +Stivers a fast day I had no ill nor ment none against the Gentleman but +by bad luck or misfortune I have received a bad Blow but it is so well +that I hope to go out in a day or two. So by this gentlemen of the +Committee I hope you will release the gentleman upon my account. I am +yours to serve. MARK NOBLE, A friend to my country. + +From that period until I know not what year the Stavers House prospered. +It was at the sign of the William Pitt that the officers of the French +fleet boarded in 1782, and hither came the Marquis Lafayette, all +the way from Providence, to visit them. John Hancock, Elbridge Gerry, +Rutledge, and other signers of the Declaration sojourned here at various +times. It was here General Knox--"that stalwart man, two officers +in size and three in lungs"--was wont to order his dinner, and in a +stentorian voice compliment Master Stavers on the excellence of his +larder. One day--it was at the time of the French Revolution--Louis +Philippe and his two brothers applied at the door of the William Pitt +for lodgings; but the tavern was full, and the future king, with his +companions, found comfortable quarters under the hospitable roof of +Governor Langdon in Pleasant Street. + +A record of the scenes, tragic and humorous, that have been enacted +within this old yellow house on the corner would fill a volume. A vivid +picture of the social and public life of the old time might be painted +by a skillful hand, using the two Earl of Halifax inns for a background. +The painter would find gay and sombre pigments ready mixed for his +palette, and a hundred romantic incidents waiting for his canvas. One +of these romantic episodes has been turned to very pretty account +by Longfellow in the last series of The Tales of a Wayside Inn--the +marriage of Governor Benning Wentworth with Martha Hilton, a sort of +second edition of King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid. + +Martha Hilton was a poor girl, whose bare feet and ankles and scant +drapery when she was a child, and even after she was well in the bloom +of her teens, used to scandalize good Dame Stavers, the innkeeper's +wife. Standing one afternoon in the doorway of the Earl of Halifax, (1. +The first of the two hotels bearing that title. Mr. Brewster commits +a slight anachronism in locating the scene of this incident in Jaffrey +Street, now Court. The Stavers House was not built until the year of +Governor Benning Wentworth's death. Mr. Longfellow, in the poem, does +not fall into the same error. + + "One hundred years ago, and something more, + In Queen Street, Portsmouth, at her tavern door, + Neat as a pin, and blooming as a rose, + Stood Mistress Stavers in her furbelows.") + +Dame Stavers took occasion to remonstrate with the sleek-limbed and +lightly draped Martha, who chanced to be passing the tavern, carrying a +pail of water, in which, as the poet neatly says, "the shifting sunbeam +danced." + +"You Pat! you Pat!" cried Mrs. Stavers severely; "why do you go looking +so? You should be ashamed to be seen in the street." + +"Never mind how I look," says Miss Martha, with a merry laugh, letting +slip a saucy brown shoulder out of her dress; "I shall ride in my +chariot yet, ma'am." + +Fortunate prophecy! Martha went to live as servant with Governor +Wentworth at his mansion at Little Harbor, looking out to sea. Seven +years passed, and the "thin slip of a girl," who promised to be no great +beauty, had flowered into the loveliest of women, with a lip like a +cherry and a cheek like a tea-rose--a lady by instinct, one of Nature's +own ladies. The governor, a lonely widower, and not too young, fell in +love with his fair handmaid. Without stating his purpose to any one, +Governor Wentworth invited a number of friends (among others the Rev. +Arthur Brown) to dine with him at Little Harbor on his birthday. After +the dinner, which was a very elaborate one, was at an end, and the +guests were discussing their tobacco-pipes, Martha Hilton glided into +the room, and stood blushing in front of the chimney-place. She was +exquisitely dressed, as you may conceive, and wore her hair three +stories high. The guests stared at each other, and particularly at her, +and wondered. Then the governor, rising from his seat, + + "Played slightly with his ruffles, then looked down, + And said unto the Reverend Arthur Brown: + 'This is my birthday; it shall likewise be + My wedding-day; and you shall marry me!'" + +The rector was dumfounded, knowing the humble footing Martha had held +in the house, and could think of nothing cleverer to say than, "To whom, +your excellency?" which was not cleaver at all. + +"To this lady," replied the governor, taking Martha Hilton by the +hand. The Rev. Arthur Brown hesitated. "As the Chief Magistrate of New +Hampshire I command you to marry me!" cried the choleric old governor. + +And so it was done; and the pretty kitchen-maid became Lady Wentworth, +and did ride in her own chariot. She would not have been a woman if she +had not taken an early opportunity to drive by Staver's hotel! + +Lady Wentworth had a keen appreciation of the dignity of her new +station, and became a grand lady at once. A few days after her marriage, +dropping her ring on the floor, she languidly ordered her servant to +pick it up. The servant, who appears to have had a fair sense of humor, +grew suddenly near-sighted, and was unable to the ring until Lady +Wentworth stooped and placed her ladyship's finger upon it. She turned +out a faultless wife, however; and Governor Wentworth at his death, +which occurred in 1770, signified his approval of her by leaving her his +entire estate. She married again without changing name, accepting the +hand, and what there was of the heart, of Michael Wentworth, a retired +colonel of the British army, who came to this country in 1767. Colonel +Wentworth (not connected, I think, with the Portsmouth branch of +Wentworths) seems to have been of a convivial turn of mind. He shortly +dissipated his wife's fortune in high living, and died abruptly in New +York--it was supposed by his own hand. His last words--a quite unique +contribution to the literature of last words--were, "I have had my +cake, and ate it," which showed that the colonel within his own modest +limitations was a philosopher. + +The seat of Governor Wentworth at Little Harbor--a pleasant walk from +Market Square--is well worth a visit. Time and change have laid their +hands more lightly on this rambling old pile than on any other of the +old homes in Portsmouth. When you cross the threshold of the door +you step into the colonial period. Here the Past seems to have halted +courteously, waiting for you to catch up with it. Inside and outside the +Wentworth mansion remains nearly as the old governor left it; and though +it is no longer in the possession of the family, the present owners, in +their willingness to gratify the decent curiosity of strangers, show a +hospitality which has always characterized the place. + +The house is an architectural freak. The main building--if it is the +main building--is generally two stories in height, with irregular wings +forming three sides of a square which opens in the water. It is, in +brief, a cluster of whimsical extensions that look as if they had +been built at different periods, which I believe was not the case. The +mansion was completed in 1750. It originally contained fifty-two rooms; +a portion of the structure was removed about half a century ago, leaving +forty-five apartments. The chambers were connected in the oddest manner, +by unexpected steps leading up or down, and capricious little passages +that seem to have been the unhappy afterthoughts of the architect. But +it is a mansion on a grand scale, and with a grand air. The cellar was +arranged for the stabling of a troop of thirty horse in times of +danger. The council-chamber, where for many years all questions of vital +importance to the State were discussed, is a spacious, high-studded +room, finished in the richest style of the last century. It is said that +the ornamentation of the huge mantel, carved with knife and chisel, +cost the workman a year's constant labor. At the entrance to the +council-chamber are still the racks for the twelve muskets of the +governor's guard--so long ago dismissed! + +Some valuable family portraits adorn the walls here, among which is a +fine painting-yes, by our friend Copley--of the lovely Dorothy Quincy, +who married John Hancock, and afterward became Madam Scott. This lady +was a niece of Dr. Holme's "Dorothy Q." Opening on the council-chamber +is a large billiard-room; the billiard-table is gone, but an ancient +spinnet, with the prim air of an ancient maiden lady, and of a wheezy +voice, is there; and in one corner stands a claw-footed buffet, near +which the imaginative nostril may still detect a faint and tantalizing +odor of colonial punch. Opening also on the council-chamber are several +tiny apartments, empty and silent now, in which many a close rubber has +been played by illustrious hands. The stillness and loneliness of the +old house seem saddest here. The jeweled fingers are dust, the merry +laughs have turned themselves into silent, sorrowful phantoms, stealing +from chamber to chamber. It is easy to believe in the traditional ghost +that haunts the place-- + + "A jolly place in times of old, + But something ails it now!" + +The mansion at Little Harbor is not the only historic house that bears +the name of Wentworth. On Pleasant Street, at the head of Washington +Street, stands the abode of another colonial worthy, Governor John +Wentworth, who held office from 1767 down to the moment when the +colonies dropped the British yoke as if it had been the letter H. For +the moment the good gentleman's occupation was gone. He was a royalist +of the most florid complexion. In 1775, a man named John Fenton, and +ex-captain in the British army, who had managed to offend the Sons of +Liberty, was given sanctuary in this house by the governor, who refused +to deliver the fugitive to the people. The mob planted a small cannon +(unloaded) in front of the doorstep and threatened to open fire if +Fenton were not forthcoming. He forth-with came. The family vacated +the premises via the back-yard, and the mob entered, doing considerable +damage. The broken marble chimney-place still remains, mutely protesting +against the uncalled-for violence. Shortly after this event the governor +made his way to England, where his loyalty was rewarded first with a +governorship and then with a pension of L500. He was governor of Nova +Scotia from 1792 to 1800, and died in Halifax in 1820. This house is +one of the handsomest old dwellings in the town, and promises to +outlive many of its newest neighbors. The parlor has undergone no change +whatever since the populace rushed into it over a century ago. The +furniture and adornments occupy their original positions and the plush +on the walls has not been replaced by other hangings. In the hall--deep +enough for the traditional duel of baronial romance--are full-length +portraits of the several governors and sundry of their kinsfolk. + +There is yet a third Wentworth house, also decorated with the shade of +a colonial governor--there were three Governors Wentworth--but we shall +pass it by, though out of no lack of respect for that high official +personage whose commission was signed by Joseph Addison, Esq., Secretary +of State under George I. + + + + +V. OLD STRAWBERRY BANK + +THESE old houses have perhaps detained us too long. They are merely the +crumbling shells of things dead and gone, of persons and manners and +customs that have left no very distinct record of themselves, excepting +here and there in some sallow manuscript which has luckily escaped the +withering breath of fire, for the old town, as I have remarked, has +managed, from the earliest moment of its existence, to burn itself up +periodically. It is only through the scattered memoranda of ancient town +clerks, and in the files of worm-eaten and forgotten newspapers, that +we are enabled to get glimpses of that life which was once so real and +positive and has now become a shadow. I am of course speaking of the +early days of the settlement on Strawberry Bank. They were stormy and +eventful days. The dense forest which surrounded the clearing was alive +with hostile red-men. The sturdy pilgrim went to sleep with his firelock +at his bedside, not knowing at what moment he might be awakened by +the glare of his burning hayricks and the piercing war-whoops of the +Womponoags. Year after year he saw his harvest reaped by a sickle of +flames, as he peered through the loop-holes of the blockhouse, whither +he had flown in hot haste with goodwife and little ones. The blockhouse +at Strawberry Bank appears to have been on an extensive scale, with +stockades for the shelter of cattle. It held large supplies of stores, +and was amply furnished with arquebuses, sakers, and murtherers, a +species of naval ordnance which probably did not belie its name. It also +boasted, we are told, of two drums for training-days, and no fewer +than fifteen hautboys and soft-voiced recorders--all which suggests a +mediaeval castle, or a grim fortress in the time of Queen Elizabeth. +To the younger members of the community glass or crockery ware was an +unknown substance; to the elders it was a memory. An iron pot was the +pot-of-all-work, and their table utensils were of beaten pewter. The +diet was also of the simplest--pea-porridge and corn-cake, with a mug of +ale or a flagon of Spanish wine, when they could get it. + +John Mason, who never resided in this country, but delegated the +management of his plantation at Ricataqua and Newichewannock to +stewards, died before realizing any appreciable return from his +enterprise. He spared no endeavor meanwhile to further its prosperity. +In 1632, three years before his death, Mason sent over from Denmark a +number of neat cattle, "of a large breed and yellow colour." The herd +thrived, and it is said that some of the stock is still extant on farms +in the vicinity of Portsmouth. Those old first families had a kind of +staying quality! + +In May, 1653, the inhabitants of the settlement petitioned the General +Court at Boston to grant them a definite township--for the boundaries +were doubtful--and the right to give it a proper name. "Whereas the name +of this plantation att present being Strabery Banke, accidentlly soe +called, by reason of a banke where strawberries was found in this place, +now we humbly desire to have it called Portsmouth, being a name most +suitable for this place, it being the river's mouth, and good as any in +this land, and your petit'rs shall humbly pray," etc. + +Throughout that formative period, and during the intermittent French +wars, Portsmouth and the outlying districts were the scenes of bloody +Indian massacres. No portion of the New England colony suffered more. +Famine, fire, pestilence, and war, each in turn, and sometimes in +conjunction, beleaguered the little stronghold, and threatened to wipe +it out. But that was not to be. + +The settlement flourished and increased in spite of all, and as soon as +it had leisure to draw breath, it bethought itself of the school-house +and the jail--two incontestable signs of budding civilization. At a +town meeting in 1662, it was ordered "that a cage be made or some +other meanes invented by the selectmen to punish such as sleepe or take +tobacco on the Lord's day out of the meetinge in the time of publique +service." This salutary measure was not, for some reason, carried into +effect until nine years later, when Captain John Pickering, who seems to +have had as many professions as Michelangelo, undertook to construct a +cage twelve feet square and seven feet high, with a pillory on top; "the +said Pickering to make a good strong dore and make a substantiale payre +of stocks and places the same in said cage." A spot conveniently near +the west end on the meeting-house was selected as the site for this +ingenious device. It is more than probable that "the said Pickering" +indirectly furnished an occasional bird for his cage, for in 1672 we +find him and one Edward Westwere authorized by the selectmen to "keepe +houses of publique entertainment." He was a versatile individual, this +John Pickering--soldier, miller, moderator, carpenter, lawyer, and +innkeeper. Michelangelo need not blush to be bracketed with him. In the +course of a long and variegated career he never failed to act according +to his lights, which he always kept well trimmed. That Captain Pickering +subsequently became the grandfather, at several removes, of the present +writer was no fault of the Captain's, and should not be laid up against +him. + +Down to 1696, the education of the young appears to have been a rather +desultory and tentative matter; "the young idea" seems to have been +allowed to "shoot" at whatever it wanted to; but in that year it was +voted "that care be taken that an abell scollmaster [skullmaster!] be +provided for the towen as the law directs, not visious in conversation." +That was perhaps demanding too much; for it was not until "May ye 7" of +the following year that the selectmen were fortunate enough to put their +finger on this rara avis in the person of Mr. Tho. Phippes, who agreed +"to be scollmaster for the the towen this yr insewing for teaching the +inhabitants children in such manner as other schollmasters yously doe +throughout the countrie: for his soe doinge we the sellectt men in +behalfe of ower towen doe ingage to pay him by way of rate twenty pounds +and yt he shall and may reserve from every father or master that sends +theyer children to school this yeare after ye rate of 16s. for readers, +writers and cypherers 20s., Lattiners 24s." + +Modern advocates of phonetic spelling need not plume themselves on +their originality. The town clerk who wrote that delicious "yously doe" +settles the question. It is to be hoped that Mr. Tho. Phippes was not +only "not visious in conversation," but was more conventional in his +orthography. He evidently gave satisfaction, and clearly exerted an +influence on the town clerk, Mr. Samuel Keais, who ever after shows a +marked improvement in his own methods. In 1704 the town empowered the +selectmen "to call and settell a gramer scoll according to ye best of +yower judgement and for ye advantag [Keais is obviously dead now] of ye +youth of ower town to learn them to read from ye primer, to wright and +sypher and to learne ym the tongues and good-manners." On this occasion +it was Mr. William Allen, of Salisbury, who engaged "dilligently to +attend ye school for ye present yeare, and tech all childern yt can +read in thaire psallters and upward." From such humble beginnings were +evolved some of the best public high schools at present in New England. + +Portsmouth did not escape the witchcraft delusion, though I believe that +no hangings took place within the boundaries of the township. Dwellers +by the sea are generally superstitious; sailors always are. There is +something in the illimitable expanse of sky and water that dilates the +imagination. The folk who live along the coast live on the edge of a +perpetual mystery; only a strip of yellow sand or gray rock separates +them from the unknown; they hear strange voices in the winds at +midnight, they are haunted by the spectres of the mirage. Their minds +quickly take the impress of uncanny things. The witches therefore +found a sympathetic atmosphere in Newscastle, at the mouth of the +Piscataqua--that slender paw of land which reaches out into the ocean +and terminates in a spread of sharp, flat rocks, lie the claws of an +amorous cat. What happened to the good folk of that picturesque little +fishing-hamlet is worth retelling in brief. In order properly to retell +it, a contemporary witness shall be called upon to testify in the case +of the Stone-Throwing Devils of Newcastle. It is the Rev. Cotton Mather +who addresses you--"On June 11, 1682, showers of stones were thrown +by an invisible hand upon the house of George Walton at Portsmouth +[Newcastle was then a part of the town]. Whereupon the people going out +found the gate wrung off the hinges, and stones flying and falling +thick about them, and striking of them seemingly with a great force, but +really affecting 'em no more than if a soft touch were given them. The +glass windows were broken by the stones that came not from without, but +from within; and other instruments were in a like manner hurled about. +Nine of the stones they took up, whereof some were as hot as if they +came out of the fire; and marking them they laid them on the table; but +in a little while they found some of them again flying about. The spit +was carried up the chimney, and coming down with the point forward, +stuck in the back log, from whence one of the company removing it, it +was by an invisible hand thrown out at the window. This disturbance +continued from day to day; and sometimes a dismal hollow whistling +would be heard, and sometimes the trotting and snorting of a horse, but +nothing to be seen. The man went up the Great Bay in a boat on to a farm +which he had there; but the stones found him out, and carrying from +the house to the boat a stirrup iron the iron came jingling after him +through the woods as far as his house; and at last went away and was +heard no more. The anchor leaped overboard several times and stopt the +boat. A cheese was taken out of the press, and crumbled all over the +floor; a piece of iron stuck into the wall, and a kettle hung thereon. +Several cocks of hay, mow'd near the house, were taken up and hung upon +the trees, and others made into small whisps, and scattered about the +house. A man was much hurt by some of the stones. He was a Quaker, and +suspected that a woman, who charged him with injustice in detaining +some land from here, did, by witchcraft, occasion these preternatural +occurrences. However, at last they came to an end." + +Now I have done with thee, O credulous and sour Cotton Mather! so get +thee back again to thy tomb in the old burying-ground on Copp's +Hill, where, unless thy nature is radically changed, thou makest it +uncomfortable for those about thee. + +Nearly a hundred years afterwards, Portsmouth had another witch--a +tangible witch in this instance--one Molly Bridget, who cast her malign +spell on the eleemosynary pigs at the Almshouse, where she chanced +to reside at the moment. The pigs were manifestly bewitched, and Mr. +Clement March, the superintendent of the institution, saw only one +remedy at hand, and that was to cut off and burn the tips of their +tales. But when the tips were cut off they disappeared, and it was +in consequence quite impracticable to burn them. Mr. March, who was a +gentleman of expedients, ordered that all the chips and underbrush in +the yard should be made into heaps and consumed, hoping thus to catch +and do away with the mysterious and provoking extremities. The fires +were no sooner lighted than Molly Bridget rushed from room to room in +a state of frenzy. With the dying flames her own vitality subsided, and +she was dead before the ash-piles were cool. I say it seriously when I +say that these are facts of which there is authentic proof. + +If the woman had recovered, she would have fared badly, even at that +late period, had she been in Salem; but the death-penalty has never +been hastily inflicted in Portsmouth. The first execution that ever took +place there was that of Sarah Simpson and Penelope Kenny, for the murder +of an infant in 1739. The sheriff was Thomas Packer, the same official +who, twenty-nine years later, won unenviable notoriety at the hanging of +Ruth Blay. The circumstances are set forth by the late Albert Laighton +in a spirited ballad, which is too long to quote in full. The following +stanzas, however, give the pith of the story-- + + "And a voice among them shouted, + "Pause before the deed is done; + We have asked reprieve and pardon + For the poor misguided one.' + + "But these words of Sheriff Packer + Rang above the swelling noise: + 'Must I wait and lose my dinner? + Draw away the cart, my boys!' + + "Nearer came the sound and louder, + Till a steed with panting breath, + From its sides the white foam dripping, + Halted at the scene of death; + + "And a messenger alighted, + Crying to the crowd, 'Make way! + This I bear to Sheriff Packer; + 'Tis a pardon for Ruth Blay!'" + +But of course he arrived too late--the Law led Mercy about twenty +minutes. The crowd dispersed, horror-stricken; but it assembled again +that night before the sheriff's domicile and expressed its indignation +in groans. His effigy, hanged on a miniature gallows, was afterwards +paraded through the streets. + + "Be the name of Thomas Packer + A reproach forevermore!" + +Laighton's ballad reminds me of that Portsmouth has been prolific in +poets, one of whom, at least, has left a mouthful of perennial rhyme for +orators--Jonathan Sewell with his + + "No pent-up Utica contracts your powers, + But the whole boundless continent is yours." + +I have somewhere seen a volume with the alliterative title of "Poets of +Portsmouth," in which are embalmed no fewer than sixty immortals! + +But to drop into prose again, and have done with this iliad of odds and +ends. Portsmouth has the honor, I believe, of establishing the first +recorded pauper workhouse--though not in connection with her poets, as +might naturally be supposed. The building was completed and tenanted in +1716. Seven years later, an act was passed in England authorizing the +establishment of parish workhouses there. The first and only keeper of +the Portsmouth almshouse up to 1750 was a woman--Rebecca Austin. + +Speaking of first things, we are told by Mr. Nathaniel Adams, in his +"Annals of Portsmouth," that on the 20th of April, 1761, Mr. John +Stavers began running a stage from that town to Boston. The carriage was +a two-horse curricle, wide enough to accommodate three passengers. The +fare was thirteen shillings and sixpence sterling per head. The curricle +was presently superseded by a series of fat yellow coaches, one of +which--nearly a century later, and long after that pleasant mode of +travel had fallen obsolete--was the cause of much mental tribulation (1. +Some idle reader here and there may possibly recall the burning of +the old stage-coach in The Story of a Bad Boy.) to the writer of this +chronicle. + +The mail and the newspaper are closely associated factors in +civilization, so I mention them together, though in this case the +newspaper antedated the mail-coach about five years. On October 7, 1756, +the first number of "The New Hampshire Gazette and Historical Chronicle" +was issued in Portsmouth from the press of Daniel Fowle, who in the +previous July had removed from Boston, where he had undergone a brief +but uncongenial imprisonment on suspicion of having printed a pamphlet +entitled "The Monster of Monsters, by Tom Thumb, Esq.," an essay +that contained some uncomplimentary reflections on several official +personages. The "Gazette" was the pioneer journal of the province. It +was followed at the close of the same year by "The Mercury and Weekly +Advertiser," published by a former apprentice of Fowle, a certain +Thomas Furber, backed by a number of restless Whigs, who considered the +"Gazette" not sufficiently outspoken in the cause of liberty. Mr. Fowle, +however, contrived to hold his own until the day of his death. Fowle +had for pressman a faithful negro named Primus, a full-blooded African. +Whether Primus was a freeman or a slave I am unable to state. He lived +to a great age, and was a prominent figure among the people of his own +color. + +Negro slavery was common in New England at that period. In 1767, +Portsmouth numbered in its population a hundred and eighty-eight slaves, +male and female. Their bondage, happily, was nearly always of a light +sort, if any bondage can be light. They were allowed to have a kind +of government of their own; indeed, were encouraged to do so, and no +unreasonable restrictions were placed on their social enjoyment. They +annually elected a king and counselors, and celebrated the event with a +procession. The aristocratic feeling was highly developed in them. The +rank of the master was the slave's rank. There was a great deal of ebony +standing around on its dignity in those days. For example, Governor +Langdon's manservant, Cyrus Bruce, was a person who insisted on his +distinction, and it was recognized. His massive gold chain and seals, +his cherry-colored small-clothes and silk stockings, his ruffles and +silver shoe-buckles, were a tradition long after Cyrus himself was +pulverized. + +In cases of minor misdemeanor among them, the negros themselves were +permitted to be judge and jury. Their administration of justice was +often characteristically naive. Mr. Brewster gives an amusing sketch of +one of their sessions. King Nero is on the bench, and one Cato--we are +nothing if not classical--is the prosecuting attorney. The name of the +prisoner and the nature of his offense are not disclosed to posterity. +In the midst of the proceedings the hour of noon is clanged from the +neighboring belfry of the Old North Church. "The evidence was not gone +through with, but the servants could stay no longer from their home +duties. They all wanted to see the whipping, but could not conveniently +be present again after dinner. Cato ventured to address the King: Please +you Honor, best let the fellow have his whipping now, and finish the +trial after dinner. The request seemed to be the general wish of the +company: so Nero ordered ten lashes, for justice so far as the trial +went, and ten more at the close of the trial, should he be found +guilty!" + +Slavery in New Hampshire was never legally abolished, unless +Abraham Lincoln did it. The State itself has not ever pronounced +any emancipation edict. During the Revolutionary War the slaves were +generally emancipated by their masters. That many of the negros, who had +grown gray in service, refused their freedom, and elected to spend the +rest of their lives as pensioners in the families of their late owners, +is a circumstance that illustrates the kindly ties which held between +slave and master in the old colonial days in New England. + +The institution was accidental and superficial, and never had any real +root in the Granite State. If the Puritans could have found in the +Scriptures any direct sanction of slavery, perhaps it would have +continued awhile longer, for the Puritan carried his religion into the +business affairs of life; he was not even able to keep it out of his +bills of lading. I cannot close this rambling chapter more appropriately +and solemnly than by quoting from one of those same pious bills of +landing. It is dated June, 1726, and reads: "Shipped by the grace of God +in good order and well conditioned, by Wm. Pepperills on there own acct. +and risque, in and upon the good Briga called the William, whereof is +master under God for this present voyage George King, now riding at +anchor in the river Piscataqua and by God's grace bound to Barbadoes." +Here follows a catalogue of the miscellaneous cargo, rounded off with: +"And so God send the good Briga to her desired port in safety. Amen." + + + + +VI. SOME OLD PORTSMOUTH PROFILES + +I DOUBT if any New England town ever turned out so many eccentric +characters as Portsmouth. From 1640 down to about 1848 there must have +been something in the air of the place that generated eccentricity. +In another chapter I shall explain why the conditions have not been +favorable to the development of individual singularity during the latter +half of the present century. It is easier to do that than fully to +account for the numerous queer human types which have existed from time +to time previous to that period. + +In recently turning over the pages of Mr. Brewster's entertaining +collection of Portsmouth sketches, I have been struck by the number and +variety of the odd men and women who appear incidentally on the scene. +They are, in the author's intention, secondary figures in the background +of his landscape, but they stand very much in the foreground of one's +memory after the book is laid aside. One finds one's self thinking quite +as often of that squalid old hut-dweller up by Sagamore Creek as of +General Washington, who visited the town in 1789. Conservatism +and respectability have their values, certainly; but has not the +unconventional its values also? If we render unto that old hut-dweller +the things which are that old hut-dweller's, we must concede him his +picturesqueness. He was dirty, and he was not respectable; but he is +picturesque--now that he is dead. + +If the reader has five or ten minutes to waste, I invite him to glance +at a few old profiles of persons who, however substantial they once +were, are now leading a life of mere outlines. I would like to give +them a less faded expression, but the past is very chary of yielding up +anything more than its shadows. + +The first who presents himself is the ruminative hermit already +mentioned--a species of uninspired Thoreau. His name was Benjamin Lear. +So far as his craziness went, he might have been a lineal descendant of +that ancient king of Britain who figures on Shakespeare's page. Family +dissensions made a recluse of King Lear; but in the case of Benjamin +there were no mitigating circumstances. He had no family to trouble +him, and his realm remained undivided. He owned an excellent farm on the +south side of Sagamore Creek, a little to the west of the bridge, and +might have lived at ease, if personal comfort had not been distasteful +to him. Personal comfort entered into no part of Lear's. To be alone +filled the little pint-measure of his desire. He ensconced himself in +a wretched shanty, and barred the door, figuratively, against all the +world. Wealth--what would have been wealth to him--lay within his reach, +but he thrust it aside; he disdained luxury as he disdained idleness, +and made no compromise with convention. When a man cuts himself +absolutely adrift from custom, what an astonishingly light spar +floats him! How few his wants are, after all! Lear was of a cheerful +disposition, and seems to have been wholly inoffensive--at a distance. +He fabricated his own clothes, and subsisted chiefly on milk and +potatoes, the product of his realm. He needed nothing but an island to +be a Robinson Crusoe. At rare intervals he flitted like a frost-bitten +apparition through the main street of Portsmouth, which he always +designated as "the Bank," a name that had become obsolete fifty or a +hundred years before. Thus, for nearly a quarter of a century, Benjamin +Lear stood aloof from human intercourse. In his old age some of the +neighbors offered him shelter during the tempestuous winter months; but +he would have none of it--he defied wind and weather. There he lay in +his dilapidated hovel in his last illness, refusing to allow any one to +remain with him overnight--and the mercury four degrees below zero. Lear +was born in 1720, and vegetated eighty-two years. + +I take it that Timothy Winn, of whom we have only a glimpse, would like +to have more, was a person better worth knowing. His name reads like the +title of some old-fashioned novel--"Timothy Winn, or the Memoirs of a +Bashful Gentleman." He came to Portsmouth from Woburn at the close of +the last century, and set up in the old museum-building on Mulberry +Street what was called "a piece goods store." He was the third Timothy +in his monotonous family, and in order to differentiate himself he +inscribed on the sign over his shop door, "Timothy Winn, 3d," and was +ever after called "Three-Penny Winn." That he enjoyed the pleasantry, +and clung to his sign, goes to show that he was a person who would ripen +on further acquaintance, were further acquaintance now practicable. +His next-door neighbor, Mr. Leonard Serat, who kept a modest tailoring +establishment, also tantalizes us a little with a dim intimation of +originality. He plainly was without literary prejudices, for on one +face of his swinging sign was painted the word Taylor, and on the other +Tailor. This may have been a delicate concession to that part of the +community--the greater part, probably--which would have spelled it with +a y. + +The building in which Messrs. Winn and Serat had their shops was the +property of Nicholas Rousselet, a French gentleman of Demerara, the +story of whose unconventional courtship of Miss Catherine Moffatt is +pretty enough to bear retelling, and entitles him to a place in our +limited collection of etchings. M. Rousselet had doubtless already mad +excursions into the pays de tendre, and given Miss Catherine previous +notice of the state of his heart, but it was not until one day during +the hour of service at the Episcopal church that he brought matters to +a crisis by handing to Miss Moffatt a small Bible, on the fly-leaf of +which he had penciled the fifth verse of the Second Epistle of John-- + + "And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I + wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that + which we had from the beginning, that we love one another." + +This was not to be resisted, at lease not by Miss Catherine, who +demurely handed the volume back to him with a page turned down at the +sixteenth verse in the first chapter of Ruth-- + + "Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I + will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my + God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be + buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but + death part thee and me." + +Aside from this quaint touch of romance, what attaches me to the +happy pair--for the marriage was a fortunate one--is the fact that the +Rousselets made their home in the old Atkinson mansion, which stood +directly opposite my grandfather's house on Court Street and was torn +down in my childhood, to my great consternation. The building had been +unoccupied for a quarter of a century, and was fast falling into decay +with all its rich wood-carvings at cornice and lintel; but was it not +full of ghosts, and if the old barracks were demolished, would not these +ghosts, or some of them at least, take refuge in my grandfather's +house just across the way? Where else could they bestow themselves so +conveniently? While the ancient mansion was in process of destruction, I +used to peep round the corner of our barn at the workmen, and watch the +indignant phantoms go soaring upward in spiral clouds of colonial dust. + +A lady differing in many ways from Catherine Moffatt was the Mary +Atkinson (once an inmate of this same manor house) who fell to the lot +of the Rev. William Shurtleff, pastor of the South Church between 1733 +and 1747. From the worldly standpoint, it was a fine match for the +Newcastle clergyman--beauty, of the eagle-beaked kind; wealth, her share +of the family plate; high birth, a sister to the Hon. Theodore Atkinson. +But if the exemplary man had cast his eyes lower, peradventure he had +found more happiness, though ill-bred persons without family plate are +not necessarily amiable. Like Socrates, this long-suffering divine had +always with him an object on which to cultivate heavenly patience, and +patience, says the Eastern proverb, is the key to content. The spirit +of Xantippe seems to have taken possession of Mrs. Shurtleff immediately +after her marriage. The freakish disrespect with which she used her +meek consort was a heavy cross to bear at a period in New England when +clerical dignity was at its highest sensitive point. Her devices for +torturing the poor gentleman were inexhaustible. Now she lets his +Sabbath ruffs go unstarched; now she scandalizes him by some unseemly +and frivolous color in her attire; now she leaves him to cook his own +dinner at the kitchen coals; and now she locks him in his study, whither +he has retired for a moment or two of prayer, previous to setting forth +to perform the morning service. The congregation has assembled; the +sexton has tolled the bell twice as long as is custom, and is beginning +a third carillon, full of wonder that his reverence does not appear; +and there sits Mistress Shurtleff in the family pew with a face as +complacent as that of the cat that has eaten the canary. Presently the +deacons appeal to her for information touching the good doctor. Mistress +Shurtleff sweetly tells them that the good doctor was in his study when +she left home. There he is found, indeed, and released from durance, +begging the deacons to keep his mortification secret, to "give it an +understanding, but no tongue." Such was the discipline undergone by +the worthy Dr. Shurtleff on his earthly pilgrimage. A portrait of +this patient man--now a saint somewhere--hangs in the rooms of the New +England Historical and Genealogical Society in Boston. There he can be +seen in surplice and bands, with his lamblike, apostolic face looking +down upon the heavy antiquarian labors of his busy descendants. + +Whether or not a man is to be classed as eccentric who vanishes without +rhyme or reason on his wedding-night is a query left to the reader's +decision. We seem to have struck a matrimonial vein, and must work +it out. In 1768, Mr. James McDonough was one of the wealthiest men in +Portsmouth, and the fortunate suitor for the hand of a daughter of Jacob +Sheafe, a town magnate. The home of the bride was decked and lighted +for the nuptials, the banquet-table was spread, and the guests were +gathered. The minister in his robe stood by the carven mantelpiece, +book in hand, and waited. Then followed an awkward interval--there was +a hitch somewhere. A strange silence fell upon the laughing groups; the +air grew tense with expectation; in the pantry, Amos Boggs, the butler, +in his agitation split a bottle of port over his new cinnamon-colored +small-clothes. Then a whisper--a whisper suppressed these twenty +minutes--ran through the apartments,--"The bridegroom has not come!". He +never came. The mystery of that night remains a mystery after the lapse +of a century and a quarter. + +What had become of James McDonough? The assassination of so notable a +person in a community where every strange face was challenged, where +every man's antecedents were known, could not have been accomplished +without leaving some slight traces. Not a shadow of foul play was +discovered. That McDonough had been murdered or had committed suicide +were theories accepted at first by a few, and then by no one. On the +other hand, he was in love with his fiancee, he had wealth, power, +position--why had he fled? He was seen a moment on the public street, +and then never seen again. It was as if he turned into air. Meanwhile +the bewilderment of the bride was dramatically painful. If McDonough +had been waylaid and killed, she could mourn for him. If he had deserted +her, she could wrap herself in her pride. But neither course lay open to +her, then or afterward. In one of the Twice Told Tales Hawthorne deals +with a man named Wakefield, who disappears with like suddenness, +and lives unrecognized for twenty years in a street not far from his +abandoned hearthside. Such expunging of one's self was not possible in +Portsmouth; but I never think of McDonough without recalling Wakefield. +I have an inexplicable conviction that for many a year James McDonough, +in some snug ambush, studied and analyzed the effect of his own +startling disappearance. + +Some time in the year 1758, there dawned upon Portsmouth a personage +bearing the ponderous title of King's Attorney, and carrying much +gold lace about him. This gilded gentleman was Mr. Wyseman Clagett, of +Bristol, England, where his father dwelt on the manor of Broad Oaks, +in a mansion with twelve chimneys, and kept a coach and eight or ten +servants. Up to the moment of his advent in the colonies, Mr. Wyseman +Clagett had evidently not been able to keep anything but himself. His +wealth consisted of his personal decorations, the golden frogs on his +lapels, and the tinsel at his throat; other charms he had none. Yet with +these he contrived to dazzle the eyes of Lettice Mitchel, one of the +young beauties of the province, and to cause her to forget that she had +plighted troth with a Mr. Warner, then in Europe, and destined to return +home with a disturbed heart. Mr. Clagett was a man of violent temper and +ingenious vindictiveness, and proved more than a sufficient punishment +for Lettice's infidelity. The trifling fact that Warner was dead--he +died shortly after his return--did not interfere with the course of +Mr. Clagett's jealousy; he was haunted by the suspicion that Lettice +regretted her first love, having left nothing undone to make her do so. +"This is to pay Warner's debts," remarked Mr. Clagett, as he twitched +off the table-cloth and wrecked the tea-things. + +In his official capacity he was a relentless prosecutor. The noun +Clagett speedily turned itself into a verb; "to Clagett" meant "to +prosecute;" they were convertible terms. In spite of his industrious +severity, and his royal emoluments, if such existed, the exchequer of +the King's Attorney showed a perpetual deficit. The stratagems to +which he resorted from time to time in order to raise unimportant sums +reminded one of certain scenes in Moliere's comedies. + +Mr. Clagett had for his ame damnee a constable of the town. They were +made for each other; they were two flowers with but a single stem, and +this was their method of procedure: Mr. Clagett dispatched one of his +servants to pick a quarrel with some countryman on the street, or some +sailor drinking at an inn: the constable arrested the sailor or the +countryman, as the case might be, and hauled the culprit before Mr. +Clagett; Mr. Clagett read the culprit a moral lesson, and fined him +five dollars and costs. The plunder was then divided between the +conspirators--two hearts that beat as one--Clagett, of course, getting +the lion's share. Justice was never administered in a simpler manner in +any country. This eminent legal light was extinguished in 1784, and the +wick laid away in the little churchyard in Litchfield, New Hampshire. It +is a satisfaction, even after such a lapse of time, to know that Lettice +survived the King's Attorney sufficiently long to be very happy with +somebody else. Lettice Mitchel was scarcely eighteen when she married +Wyseman Clagett. + +About eighty years ago, a witless fellow named Tilton seems to have been +a familiar figure on the streets of the old town. Mr. Brewster speaks of +him as "the well-known idiot, Johnny Tilton," as if one should say, "the +well-known statesman, Daniel Webster." It is curious to observe how any +sort of individuality gets magnified in this parochial atmosphere, where +everything lacks perspective, and nothing is trivial. Johnny Tilton does +not appear to have had much individuality to start with; it was only +after his head was cracked that he showed any shrewdness whatever. That +happened early in his unobtrusive boyhood. He had frequently watched the +hens flying out of the loft window in his father's stable, which stood +in the rear of the Old Bell Tavern. It occurred to Johnny, one day, that +though he might not be as bright as other lads, he certainly was in +no respect inferior to a hen. So he placed himself on the sill of the +window in the loft, flapped his arms, and took flight. The New England +Icarus alighted head downward, lay insensible for a while, and was +henceforth looked upon as a mortal who had lost his wits. Yet at odd +moments his cloudiness was illumined by a gleam of intelligence such as +had not been detected in him previous to his mischance. As Polonius said +of Hamlet--another unstrung mortal--Tilton's replies had "a happiness +that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so +prosperously be delivered of." One morning, he appeared at the +flour-mill with a sack of corn to be ground for the almshouse, and was +asked what he knew. "Some things I know," replied poor Tilton, "and some +things I don't know. I know the miller's hogs grow fat, but I don't know +whose corn they fat on." To borrow another word from Polonius, though +this be madness, yet there was method in it. Tilton finally brought up +in the almshouse, where he was allowed the liberty of roaming at will +through the town. He loved the water-side as if he had had all his +senses. Often he was seen to stand for hours with a sunny, torpid smile +on his lips, gazing out upon the river where its azure ruffles itself +into silver against the islands. He always wore stuck in his hat a +few hen's feathers, perhaps with some vague idea of still associating +himself with the birds of the air, if hens can come into that category. + +George Jaffrey, third of the name, was a character of another +complexion, a gentleman born, a graduate of Harvard in 1730, and one of +His Majesty's Council in 1766--a man with the blood of the lion and +the unicorn in every vein. He remained to the bitter end, and beyond, +a devout royalist, prizing his shoe-buckles, not because they were of +chased silver, but because they bore the tower mark and crown stamp. He +stoutly objected to oral prayer, on the ground that it gave rogues and +hypocrites an opportunity to impose on honest folk. He was punctilious +in his attendance at church, and unfailing in his responses, though not +of a particularly devotional temperament. On one occasion, at least, his +sincerity is not to be questioned. He had been deeply irritated by some +encroachments on the boundaries of certain estates, and had gone to +church that forenoon with his mind full of the matter. When the minister +in the course of reading the service came to the apostrophe, "Cursed be +he who removeth his neighbor's landmark," Mr. Jeffrey's feelings were +too many for him, and he cried out "Amen!" in a tone of voice that +brought smiles to the adjoining pews. + +Mr. Jaffrey's last will and testament was a whimsical document, in spite +of the Hon. Jeremiah Mason, who drew up the paper. It had originally +been Mr. Jaffrey's plan to leave his possessions to his beloved friend, +Colonel Joshua Wentworth; but the colonel by some maladroitness managed +to turn the current of Pactolus in another direction. The vast property +was bequeathed to George Jaffrey Jeffries, the testator's grandnephew, +on condition that the heir, then a lad of thirteen, should drop the name +of Jeffries, reside permanently in Portsmouth, and adopt no profession +excepting that of gentleman. There is an immense amount of Portsmouth +as well as George Jaffrey in that final clause. George the fourth +handsomely complied with the requirements, and dying at the age of +sixty-six, without issue or assets, was the last of that particular line +of Georges. I say that he handsomely complied with the requirements of +the will; but my statement appears to be subject to qualification, +for on the day of his obsequies it was remarked of him by a caustic +contemporary: "Well, yes, Mr. Jaffrey was a gentleman by profession, but +not eminent in his profession." + +This modest exhibition of profiles, in which I have attempted to +preserve no chronological sequence, ends with the silhouette of Dr. +Joseph Moses. + +If Boston in the colonial days had her Mather Byles, Portsmouth had her +Dr. Joseph Moses. In their quality as humorists, the outlines of both +these gentlemen have become rather broken and indistinct. "A jest's +prosperity lies in the ear that hears it." Decanted wit inevitably loses +its bouquet. A clever repartee belongs to the precious moment in +which it is broached, and is of a vintage that does not usually bear +transportation. Dr. Moses--he received his diploma not from the College +of Physicians, but from the circumstance of his having once drugged +his private demijohn of rum, and so nailed an inquisitive negro named +Sambo--Dr. Moses, as he was always called, had been handed down to us by +tradition as a fellow of infinite jest and of most excellent fancy; but +I must confess that I find his high spirits very much evaporated. +His humor expended itself, for the greater part, in practical +pleasantries--like that practiced on the minion Sambo--but these +diversions, however facetious to the parties concerned, lack magnetism +for outsiders. I discover nothing about him so amusing as the fact that +he lived in a tan-colored little tenement, which was neither clapboarded +nor shingled, and finally got an epidermis from the discarded shingles +of the Old South Church when the roof of that edifice was repaired. + +Dr. Moses, like many persons of his time and class, was a man of protean +employment--joiner, barber, and what not. No doubt he had much pithy and +fluent conversation, all of which escapes us. He certainly impressed the +Hon. Theodore Atkinson as a person of uncommon parts, for the Honorable +Secretary of the Province, like a second Haroun Al Raschid, often +summoned the barber to entertain him with his company. One evening--and +this is the only reproducible instance of the doctor's readiness--Mr. +Atkinson regaled his guest with a diminutive glass of choice Madeira. +The doctor regarded it against the light with the half-closed eye of +the connoisseur, and after sipping the molten topaz with satisfaction, +inquired how old it was. "Of the vintage of about sixty years ago," was +the answer. "Well," said the doctor reflectively, "I never in my life +saw so small a thing of such an age." There are other mots of his on +record, but their faces are suspiciously familiar. In fact, all the +witty things were said aeons ago. If one nowadays perpetrates an +original joke, one immediately afterward finds it in the Sanskirt. I +am afraid that Dr. Joseph Moses has no very solid claims on us. I have +given him place here because he has long had the reputation of a wit, +which is almost as good as to be one. + + + + +VII. PERSONAL REMINISCENCES + +THE running of the first train over the Eastern Road from Boston to +Portsmouth--it took place somewhat more than forty years ago--was +attended by a serious accident. The accident occurred in the crowded +station at the Portsmouth terminus, and was unobserved at the time. The +catastrophe was followed, though not immediately, by death, and that +also, curiously enough, was unobserved. Nevertheless, this initial +train, freighted with so many hopes and the Directors of the Road, ran +over and killed--LOCAL CHARACTER. + +Up to that day Portsmouth had been a very secluded little community, and +had had the courage of its seclusion. From time to time it had calmly +produced an individual built on plans and specifications of its own, +without regard to the prejudices and conventionalities of outlying +districts. This individual was purely indigenous. He was born in the +town, he lived to a good old age in the town, and never went out of the +place, until he was finally laid under it. To him, Boston, though only +fifty-six miles away, was virtually an unknown quantity--only fifty-six +miles by brutal geographical measurement, but thousands of miles distant +in effect. In those days, in order to reach Boston you were obliged +to take a great yellow, clumsy stage-coach, resembling a three-story +mud-turtle--if zoologist will, for the sake of the simile, tolerate +so daring an invention; you were obliged to take it very early in the +morning, you dined at noon at Ipswich, and clattered into the great city +with the golden dome just as the twilight was falling, provided always +the coach had not shed a wheel by the roadside or one of the leaders had +not gone lame. To many worthy and well-to-do persons in Portsmouth, this +journey was an event which occurred only twice or thrice during life. To +the typical individual with whom I am for the moment dealing, it never +occurred at all. The town was his entire world; he was a parochial as +a Parisian; Market Street was his Boulevard des Italiens, and the North +End his Bois de Boulogne. + +Of course there were varieties of local characters without his +limitations; venerable merchants retired from the East India trade; +elderly gentlewomen, with family jewels and personal peculiarities; one +or two scholarly recluses in by-gone cut of coat, haunting the Athenaeum +reading-room; ex-sea captains, with rings on their fingers, like Simon +Danz's visitors in Longfellow's poem--men who had played busy parts in +the bustling world, and had drifted back to Old Strawberry Bank in the +tranquil sunset of their careers. I may say, in passing, that these +ancient mariners, after battling with terrific hurricanes and typhoons +on every known sea, not infrequently drowned themselves in pleasant +weather in small sail-boats on the Piscataqua River. Old sea-dogs who +had commanded ships of four or five hundred tons had naturally slight +respect for the potentialities of sail-boats twelve feet long. But there +was to be no further increase of these odd sticks--if I may call them +so, in no irreverent mood--after those innocent-looking parallel bars +indissolubly linked Portsmouth with the capital of the Commonwealth of +Massachusetts. All the conditions were to be changed, the old angles +to be pared off, new horizons to be regarded. The individual, as an +eccentric individual, was to undergo great modifications. If he were not +to become extinct--a thing little likely--he was at least to lose his +prominence. + +However, as I said, local character, in the sense in which the term +is here used, was not instantly killed; it died a lingering death, and +passed away so peacefully and silently as not to attract general, or +perhaps any, notice. This period of gradual dissolution fell during my +boyhood. The last of the cocked hats had gone out, and the railway had +come in, long before my time; but certain bits of color, certain half +obsolete customs and scraps of the past, were still left over. I was +not too late, for example, to catch the last town crier--one Nicholas +Newman, whom I used to contemplate with awe, and now recall with a sort +of affection. + +Nicholas Newman--Nicholas was a sobriquet, his real name being +Edward--was a most estimable person, very short, cross-eyed, somewhat +bow-legged, and with a bell out of all proportion to his stature. I have +never since seen a bell of that size disconnected with a church steeple. +The only thing about him that matched the instrument of his office was +his voice. His "Hear All!" still deafens memory's ear. I remember that +he had a queer way of sidling up to one, as if nature in shaping him +had originally intended a crab, but thought better of it, and made a +town-crier. Of the crustacean intention only a moist thumb remained, +which served Mr. Newman in good stead in the delivery of the Boston +evening papers, for he was incidentally newsdealer. His authentic duties +were to cry auctions, funerals, mislaid children, traveling theatricals, +public meetings, and articles lost or found. He was especially strong in +announcing the loss of reticules, usually the property of elderly maiden +ladies. The unction with which he detailed the several contents, when +fully confided to him, would have seemed satirical in another person, +but on his part was pure conscientiousness. He would not let so much as +a thimble, or a piece of wax, or a portable tooth, or any amiable vanity +in the way of tonsorial device, escape him. I have heard Mr. Newman +spoken of as "that horrid man." He was a picturesque figure. + +Possibly it is because of his bell that I connect the town crier with +those dolorous sounds which I used to hear rolling out of the steeple +of the Old North every night at nine o'clock--the vocal remains of +the colonial curfew. Nicholas Newman has passed on, perhaps crying his +losses elsewhere, but this nightly tolling is still a custom. I can +more satisfactorily explain why I associate with it a vastly different +personality, that of Sol Holmes, the barber, for every night at nine +o'clock his little shop on Congress Street was in full blast. Many a +time at that hour I have flattened my nose on his window-glass. It was a +gay little shop (he called it "an Emporium"), as barber shops generally +are, decorated with circus bills, tinted prints, and gaudy fly-catchers +of tissue and gold paper. Sol Holmes--whose antecedents to us boys were +wrapped in thrilling mystery, we imagined him to have been a prince in +his native land--was a colored man, not too dark "for human nature's +daily food," and enjoyed marked distinction as one of the few exotics +in town. At this juncture the foreign element was at its minimum; every +official, from selectman down to the Dogberry of the watch, bore a +name that had been familiar to the town for a hundred years or so. +The situation is greatly changed. I expect to live to see a Chinese +policeman, with a sandal-wood club and a rice-paper pocket handkerchief, +patrolling Congress Street. + +Holmes was a handsome man, six feet or more in height, and as straight +as a pine. He possessed his race's sweet temper, simplicity, and vanity. +His martial bearing was a positive factor in the effectiveness of the +Portsmouth Greys, whenever those bloodless warriors paraded. As he +brought up the rear of the last platoon, with his infantry cap stuck +jauntily on the left side of his head and a bright silver cup slung on +a belt at his hip, he seemed to youthful eyes one of the most imposing +things in the display. To himself he was pretty much "all the company." +He used to say, with a drollness which did not strike me until years +afterwards, "Boys, I and Cap'n Towle is goin' to trot out 'the Greys' +to-morroh." Though strictly honest in all business dealings, his +tropical imagination, whenever he strayed into the fenceless fields of +autobiography, left much to be desired in the way of accuracy. Compared +with Sol Holmes on such occasions, Ananias was a person of morbid +integrity. Sol Holmes's tragic end was in singular contrast with his +sunny temperament. One night, long ago, he threw himself from the deck +of a Sound steamer, somewhere between Stonington and New York. What led +or drove him to the act never transpired. + +There are few men who were boys in Portsmouth at the period of which I +write but will remember Wibird Penhallow and his sky-blue wheelbarrow. +I find it difficult to describe him other than vaguely, possibly because +Wilbird had no expression whatever in his countenance. With his vacant +white face lifted to the clouds, seemingly oblivious of everything, yet +going with a sort of heaven-given instinct straight to his destination, +he trundled that rattling wheelbarrow for many a year over Portsmouth +cobblestones. He was so unconscious of his environment that sometimes a +small boy would pop into the empty wheelbarrow and secure a ride without +Wibird arriving at any very clear knowledge of the fact. His employment +in life was to deliver groceries and other merchandise to purchasers. +This he did in a dreamy, impersonal kind of way. It was as if a spirit +had somehow go hold of an earthly wheelbarrow and was trundling it quite +unconsciously, with no sense of responsibility. One day he appeared at +a kitchen door with a two-gallon molasses jug, the top of which was +wanting. It was not longer a jug, but a tureen. When the recipient of +the damaged article remonstrated with "Goodness gracious, Wibird! You +have broken the jug," his features lighted up, and he seemed immensely +relieved. "I thought," He remarked, "I heerd somethink crack!" + +Wibird Penhallow's heaviest patron was the keeper of a variety store, +and the first specimen of a pessimist I ever encountered. He was an +excellent specimen. He took exception to everything. He objected to the +telegraph, to the railway, to steam in all its applications. Some of his +arguments, I recollect, made a deep impression on my mind. "Nowadays," +he once observed to me, "if your son or your grandfather drops dead at +the other end of creation, you know of it in ten minutes. What's the +use? Unless you are anxious to know he's dead, you've got just two or +three weeks more to be miserable in." He scorned the whole business, and +was faithful to his scorn. When he received a telegram, which was rare, +he made a point of keeping it awhile unopened. Through the exercise of +this whim he once missed an opportunity of buying certain goods to great +advantage. "There!" he exclaimed, "if the telegraph hadn't been invented +the idiot would have written to me, and I'd have sent a letter by return +coach, and got the goods before he found out prices had gone up in +Chicago. If that boy brings me another of those tapeworm telegraphs, +I'll throw an axe-handle at him." His pessimism extended up, or down, to +generally recognized canons of orthography. They were all iniquitous. If +k-n-i-f-e spelled knife, then, he contended, k-n-i-f-e-s was the plural. +Diverting tags, written by his own hand in conformity with this theory, +were always attached to articles in his shop window. He is long since +ded, as he himself would have put it, but his phonetic theory appears to +have survived him in crankish brains here and there. As my discouraging +old friend was not exactly a public character, like the town crier or +Wibird Penhallow, I have intentionally thrown a veil over his identity. +I have, so to speak, dropped into his pouch a grain or two of that +magical fern-seed which was supposed by our English ancestors, in +Elizabeth's reign, to possess the quality of rendering a man invisible. + +Another person who singularly interested me at this epoch was a person +with whom I had never exchanged a word, whose voice I had never heard, +but whose face was as familiar to me as every day could make it. For +each morning as I went to school, and each afternoon as I returned, I +saw this face peering out of a window in the second story of a shambling +yellow house situated in Washington Street, not far from the corner of +State. Whether some malign disease had fixed him to the chair he sat on, +or whether he had lost the use of his legs, or, possible, had none (the +upper part of him was that of a man in admirable health), presented a +problem which, with that curious insouciance of youth I made no attempt +to solve. It was an established fact, however, that he never went out of +that house. I cannot vouch so confidently for the cobwebby legend which +wove itself about him. It was to this effect: He had formerly been the +master of a large merchantman running between New York and Calcutta; +while still in his prime he had abruptly retired from the quarter-deck, +and seated himself at that window--where the outlook must have been the +reverse of exhilarating, for not ten persons passed in the course of the +day, and the hurried jingle of the bells on Parry's bakery-cart was the +only sound that ever shattered the silence. Whether it was an amatory +or a financial disappointment that turned him into a hermit was left to +ingenious conjecture. But there he sat, year in and year out, with his +cheek so close to the window that the nearest pane became permanently +blurred with his breath; for after his demise the blurr remained. + +In this Arcadian era it was possible, in provincial places, for an +undertaker to assume the dimensions of a personage. There was a sexton +in Portsmouth--his name escapes me, but his attributes do not--whose +impressiveness made him own brother to the massive architecture of the +Stone Church. On every solemn occasion he was the striking figure, +even to the eclipsing of the involuntary object of the ceremony. His +occasions, happily, were not exclusively solemn; he added to his other +public services that of furnishing ice-cream for the evening parties. +I always thought--perhaps it was the working of an unchastened +imagination--that he managed to throw into his ice-creams a peculiar +chill not attained by either Dunyon or Peduzzi--arcades ambo--the rival +confectioners. + +Perhaps I should not say rival, for Mr. Dunyon kept a species +of restaurant, while Mr. Peduzzi restricted himself to preparing +confections to be discussed elsewhere than on his premises. Both +gentlemen achieved great popularity in their respective lines, but +neither offered to the juvenile population quite the charm of those +prim, white-capped old ladies who presided over certain snuffy little +shops, occurring unexpectedly in silent side-streets where the football +of commerce seemed an incongruous thing. These shops were never intended +in nature. They had an impromptu and abnormal air about them. I do not +recall one that was not located in a private residence, and was not +evidently the despairing expedient of some pathetic financial crisis, +similar to that which overtook Miss Hepzibah Pyrcheon in The House +of the Seven Gables. The horizontally divided street door--the upper +section left open in summer--ushered you, with a sudden jangle of bell +that turned your heart over, into a strictly private hall, haunted +by the delayed aroma of thousands of family dinners. Thence, through +another door, you passed into what had formerly been the front parlor, +but was now a shop, with a narrow, brown, wooden counter, and several +rows of little drawers built up against the picture-papered wall behind +it. Through much use the paint on these drawers was worn off in circles +round the polished brass knobs. Here was stored almost every small +article required by humanity, from an inflamed emery cushion to a +peppermint Gibraltar--the latter a kind of adamantine confectionery +which, when I reflect upon it, raises in me the wonder that any +Portsmouth boy or girl ever reached the age of fifteen with a single +tooth left unbroken. The proprietors of these little knick-knack +establishments were the nicest creatures, somehow suggesting venerable +doves. They were always aged ladies, sometimes spinsters, sometimes +relicts of daring mariners, beached long before. They always wore crisp +muslin caps and steel-rimmed spectacles; they were not always amiable, +and no wonder, for even doves may have their rheumatism; but such as +they were, they were cherished in young hearts, and are, I take it, +impossible to-day. + +When I look back to Portsmouth as I knew it, it occurs to me that it +must have been in some respects unique among New England towns. There +were, for instance, no really poor persons in the place; every one had +some sufficient calling or an income to render it unnecessary; vagrants +and paupers were instantly snapped up and provided for at "the Farm." +There was, however, in a gambrel-roofed house here and there, a +decayed old gentlewoman, occupying a scrupulously neat room with just a +suspicion of maccaboy snuff in the air, who had her meals sent in to her +by the neighborhood--as a matter of course, and involving no sense of +dependency on her side. It is wonderful what an extension of vitality is +given to an old gentlewoman in this condition! + +I would like to write about several of those ancient Dames, as they were +affectionately called, and to materialize others of the shadows that +stir in my recollection; but this would be to go outside the lines of my +purpose, which is simply to indicate one of the various sorts of changes +that have come over the vie intime of formerly secluded places like +Portsmouth--the obliteration of odd personalities, or, if not the +obliteration, the general disregard of them. Everywhere in New England +the impress of the past is fading out. The few old-fashioned men and +women--quaint, shrewd, and racy of the soil--who linger in little, +silvery-gray old homesteads strung along the New England roads and +by-ways will shortly cease to exist as a class, save in the record of +some such charming chronicler as Sarah Jewett, or Mary Wilkins, on whose +sympathetic page they have already taken to themselves a remote air, an +atmosphere of long-kept lavender and pennyroyal. + +Peculiarity in any kind requires encouragement in order to reach flower. +The increased facilities of communication between points once isolated, +the interchange of customs and modes of thought, make this encouragement +more and more difficult each decade. The naturally inclined eccentric +finds his sharp outlines rubbed off by unavoidable attrition with a +larger world than owns him. Insensibly he lends himself to the shaping +hand of new ideas. He gets his reversible cuffs and paper collars from +Cambridge, Massachusetts, the scarabaeus in his scarf-pin from Mexico, +and his ulster from everywhere. He has passed out of the chrysalis state +of Odd Stick; he has ceased to be parochial; he is no longer distinct; +he is simply the Average Man. + + + + +INDEX OF NAMES + + + ADAMS, NATHANIEL + ADDISON, JOSEPH + ALLEN, WILLIAM + ANANIAS + ATKINSON, THEODORE + AUSTIN, REBECCA + BEAUJOLAIS, DUC DE + BLAY, RUTH + BOGGS, AMOS + BREWSTER, CHARLES WARREN + BRIDGET, MOLLY + BROWN, REV. ARTHUR + BROWN, CAPTAIN ELIHU D. + BRUCE, CYRUS + BURROUGHS, REV. DR. CHARLES + BYLES, REV. MATHER + CAROLINE, QUEEN + CHADBORN, HUMPHREY + CHARLES, PRINCE + CHASTELLUX, MARQUIS DE + CLAGETT, WYSEMAN + COPLEY, JOHN SINGLETON + D'ORLEANS, DUC + DUNYON, WILLIAM + ELIZABETH, QUEEN + FENTON, JOHN + FOWLE, DANIEL + FOWLE, PRIMUS + FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN + FURBER, THOMAS + GEORGE I + GERRY, ELBRIDGE + GORGES, SIR FERDINAND + GUAST, PIERRE DE + HAM, SUPPLY + HANCOCK, JOHN + HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL + HILTON, MARTHA + HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL + HOLMES, SOL + JAFFREY, GEORGE + JAFFRIES, GEORGE JAFFREY + JEWETT, SARAH ORNE + KEAIS, SAMUAL + KEKUANAOA + KENNY, PENELOPE + KNOX, GENERAL HENRY + LAFAYETTE, MARQUIS DE + LAIGHTON, ALBERT + LAIGHTON, OSCAR + LANGDON, COLONEL JOHN + LEAR, BENJAMIN + LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH + MACPHEADRIS, ARCHIBALD + MCDONOUGH, JAMES + MASON, JEREMIAH + MASON, JOHN + MASON, JOHN TUFTON + MARCH, CLEMENT + MATHER, REV. COTTON + MESERVE, GEORGE + MICHELANGELO + MITCHEL, LETTUCE + MOFFATT, CATHERINE + MOLIERE + MONTPENSIER, DUC DE + MOSES, JOSEPH + NEWMAN, EDWARD + NOBLE, MARK + ODIORNE, EBEN L. + PACKER, THOMAS + PEDUZZI, DOMINIC + PENHALLOW, WIBIRD + PEPPERELL, SIR WILLIAM + PEPYS, SAMUAL + PHILIPPE, LOUIS + PHIPPES, THOMAS + PHIPPS, GOVERNOR + PICKERING, JOHN + PITT, WILLIAM + POTTLE, WILLIAM + PRING, MARTIN + QUINCY, DOROTHY + ROCHAMBEAU, COUNT DE + ROUSSELET, NICHOLAS + RUTLEDGE, EDWARD + SERAT, LEONARD + SEWELL, JONATHAN + SHAKESPEARE + SHEAFE, JACOB + SHERBURNE, HENRY + SHURTLEFF, MARY ATKINSON + SHURTLEFF, REV. WILLIAM + SIMPSON, SARAH + SMITH, CAPTAIN JOHN + SOCRATES + STAVERS, DAME + STAVERS, JOHN + STEDMAN, EDMUND CLARENCE + STOODLEY, JAMES + THAXTER, CELIA + THOREAU, HENRY DAVID + TILTON, JOHNNY + TOWLE, GEORGE WILLIAM + WALTON, GEORGE + WARNER, JONATHAN + WASHINGTON, GEORGE + WEBSTER, DANIEL + WENTWORTH, BENNING + WENTWORTH, JOHN + WENTWORTH, JOHN 2D + WENTWORTH, COLONEL JOSHUA + WENTWORTH, MARY + WENTWORTH, MICHAEL + WENTWORTH, SARAH + WESTWERE, EDWARD + WHITTIER, JOHN GREENLEAF + WIBIRD, RICHARD + WILKINS, MARY E. + WINN, TIMOTHY + WITHER, GEORGE + XANTIPPE + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's An Old Town By The Sea, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN OLD TOWN BY THE SEA *** + +***** This file should be named 1861-8.txt or 1861-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/6/1861/ + +Produced by Susan L. 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