AT KITTERY POINT, MAINE.
"We have no title-deeds to house or lands;
Owners and occupants of earlier dates
From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,
And hold in mortmain still their old estates."
LONGFELLOW.
Louis XV. said to Bouret, the financier, "You are indeed a singular
person not to have seen Marly! Call upon me there, and I will show it to
you."
Our way lies from Old York to Kittery Point.[81] To get from the one to
the other you must pass the bridge over York River, built in 1761. It
inaugurated in New England the then novel method of laying the bridge
super-structure on a frame-work formed of wooden piles driven into the
bed of the river. The inventor was Major Samuel Sewall, of York, whose
bridge was the model of those subsequently built over the Charles,
Mystic, and Merrimac.
Kittery Point is separated from Kittery Foreside by Spruce Creek. It is
also divided from Gerrish's Island, the outermost land of the eastern
shore of the Piscataqua, by Chauncy's Creek. It is important at Kittery
Point to get used to the names of Cutts, Gerrish, Sparhawk, Pepperell,
Waldron, Chauncy, and Champernowne. They recur with remarkable
frequency.
If coming from Portsmouth, the visitor will first traverse the village,
with its quaint little church, built in 1714, its secluded cemetery, and
fine old elms. They say the frame of the meeting-house was hewn
somewhere about Dover, and floated down the stream. There are few older
churches in New England, or that embody more of its ancient homeliness,
material and spiritual. Since I was there it has been removed about
sixty feet northward, and now fronts the south, entirely changing the
appearance of that locality.
[Illustration: NAVY-YARD, KITTERY, MAINE.]
Formerly, in leaving the church door, you were confronted by a sombre
old mansion, having, in despite of some relics of a former splendor, an
unmistakable air of neglect and decay. The massive entrance door hung by
a single fastening, the fluted pilasters on either side were rotting
away, window panes were shattered, chimney tops in ruins, the fences
prostrate. It was nothing but a wreck ashore. This was the house built
by Lady Pepperell, after the death of Sir William. Report said it was
haunted; indeed I found it so, and by a living phantom.
Repeated and long-continued knocking was at length answered by a
tremulous effort from within to open the door, which required the help
of my companion and myself to effect. I shall never forget the figure
that appeared to us:
"We stood and gazed;
Gazed on her sunburned face with silent awe,
Her tattered mantle and her hood of straw."
Poor Sally Cutts, a harmless maniac, was the sole inhabitant of the old
house; she and it were fallen into hopeless ruin together. Her
appearance was weird and witch-like, and betokened squalid poverty. An
old calash almost concealed her features from observation, except when
she raised her head and glanced at us in a scared, furtive sort of way.
Yet beneath this wreck, and what touched us keenly to see, was the
instinct of a lady of gentle breeding that seemed the last and only link
between her and the world. With the air and manner of the drawing-room
of fifty years ago she led the way from room to room.
We tracked with our feet the snow that had drifted in underneath the
hall door. The floors were bare, and echoed to our tread. Fragments of
the original paper, representing ancient ruins, had peeled off the
walls, and vandal hands had wrenched away the pictured tiles from the
fire-places. The upper rooms were but a repetition of the disorder and
misery below stairs.
Our hostess, after conducting us to her own apartment, relapsed into
imbecility, and seemed little conscious of our presence. Some antiquated
furniture, doubtless family heir-looms, a small stove, and a bed,
constituted all her worldly goods. As she crooned over a scanty fire of
two or three wet sticks, muttering to herself, and striving to warm her
withered hands, I thought I beheld in her the impersonation of Want and
Despair.
Her family was one of the most distinguished of New England, but a
strain of insanity developed itself in her branch of the genealogical
tree. Of three brothers--John, Richard, and Robert Cutt--who, in 1641,
emigrated from Wales, the first became president of the Province of New
Hampshire, the second settled on the Isles of Shoals, and the third at
Kittery, where he became noted as a builder of ships.
This house had come into the possession of Captain Joseph Cutts[82]
about the beginning of the century. He was a large ship-owner, and a
successful and wealthy merchant. Ruined by Mr. Jefferson's embargo and
by the war of 1812, he lost his reason, and now lies in the village
church-yard. Two of his sons inherited their father's blighting
misfortune: one fell by his own hand in Lady Pepperell's bed-chamber.
Sally, the last survivor, has joined them within a twelvemonth.
Poor Sally Cutts! She rose to take leave of us with the same ceremonious
politeness which had marked her reception. Her slight and shrunken
figure was long in my memory, her crazy buffet, and broken, antiquated
chairs, to which she clung as the most precious of earthly possessions.
It was one of her hallucinations to be always expecting the arrival of a
messenger from Washington with full reparation of the broken fortunes of
her family. Some charitable souls cared for her necessities, but such
was the poor creature's pride that artifice was necessary to effect
their purpose. Flitting through the deserted halls of the gloomy old
mansion--dreading the stranger's approach, the gossip of the
neighborhood, the jibes of village urchins--Sally remained its mistress
until summoned to a better and kindlier mansion. I said the house was
haunted, and I believe it.
[Illustration: BLOCK-HOUSE AND FORT, KITTERY POINT.]
A short walk beyond the cemetery brings you up with Fort M'Clary,[83]
its block-house, loop-holed for musketry, its derricks, and general
disarray. Not many would have remembered the gallantry of Major Andrew
M'Clary at Bunker Hill, but for this monument to his memory. The site
has been fortified from an early day by garrison-house, stockade, or
earth-work. It should have retained its earliest name of Fort Pepperell.
John Stark's giant comrade might have been elsewhere commemorated.
It is said no village is so humble but that a great man may be born in
it. Sir William Pepperell was the great man of Kittery Point. He was
what is now called a self-made man, raising himself from the ranks
through native genius backed by strength of will. Smollett calls him a
Piscataquay trader, with little or no education, and utterly
unacquainted with military operations. Though contemptuous, the
description is literally true.
Sir William's father is first noticed in the annals of the Isles of
Shoals. The mansion now seen near the Pepperell Hotel was built partly
by him and in part by his more eminent son. The building was once much
more extensive than it now appears, having been, about twenty years ago,
shortened ten feet at either end. Until the death of the elder
Pepperell, in 1734, the house was occupied by his own and his son's
families. The lawn in front reached to the sea, and an avenue, a quarter
of a mile in length, bordered by fine old trees, led to the house of
Colonel Sparhawk, east of the village church. With its homely exterior
the mansion of the Pepperells represents one of the greatest fortunes of
colonial New England. It used to be said Sir William might ride to the
Saco without going off his own possessions.[84]
[Illustration: SIR WILLIAM PEPPERELL'S HOUSE, KITTERY POINT.]
There is hanging in the large hall of the Essex Institute, at Salem, a
two-thirds length of Sir William Pepperell, painted in 1751 by Smibert,
when the baronet was in London. It represents him in scarlet coat,
waistcoat, and breeches, a smooth-shaven face and powdered periwig: the
waistcoat, richly gold-embroidered, as was then the fashion, was worn
long, descending almost to the knee, and formed the most conspicuous
article of dress. In one hand Sir William grasps a truncheon, and in the
background the painter has depicted the siege of Louisburg.[85]
[Illustration: SIR WILLIAM PEPPERELL.]
Smollett accredits Auchmuty, judge-advocate of the Court of Admiralty of
New England, with the plan of the conquest of Louisburg, which he
pronounces the most important achievement of the war. Mr. Hartwell said
in the House of Commons that the colonists took Louisburg from the
French single-handed, without any European assistance--"as mettled an
enterprise as any in our history," he calls it. The honor of the
Louisburg expedition has also been claimed for James Gibson, of Boston,
and Colonel William Vaughan, of Damariscotta. But the central figures
appear to have been Governor William Shirley and Sir William
Pepperell.[86]
The year of Louisburg was an eventful one, for all Europe was in arms.
The petty German princes were striving for the imperial crown vacant by
the death of the emperor, Charles VII. France supports the pretensions
of the Grand Duke of Tuscany with a powerful army under her illustrious
profligate, Maurice de Saxe; Austria invades Bohemia; the old Brummbaer
swoops down upon Saxony, and his cannon growl under the walls of
Dresden; the Rhenish frontiers, Silesia, Hungary, and Italy, are all
ablaze.
England must have a hand in the fighting. Lord Chesterfield's mission to
the Hague, the Quadruple Alliance at Warsaw, are succeeded by the
stunning blow of Fontenoy. The allied army recoiled, and drew itself
together under the walls of Brussels. The Duke of Cumberland was
defeated by a sick man.[87]
It was at this moment of defeat that the news of the fall of Louisburg
reached the allies. The Dunkirk of America had capitulated to a "trader
of Piscataquay." It put new life into the beaten army, and was
celebrated with great rejoicings in its camps.[88]
Among those who served with distinction under Pepperell were Richard
Gridley, who afterward placed the redoubt on Bunker Hill; Wooster, who
fell at Ridgefield; Thornton, a signer of our Magna Charta; and Nixon
and Whiting, of the Continental army. It was sought to give the
expedition something of the character of a crusade. George Whitefield
furnished for its banner the motto,
"_Nil Desperandum, Christo Duce._"
A little more family history is necessary to give the reader the
_entree_ of the four old houses at Kittery Point.
The elder Sir William, by his will, made the son of his daughter
Elizabeth and Colonel Sparhawk his residuary legatee, requiring him, at
the same time, to relinquish the name of Sparhawk for that of Pepperell.
The baronetcy, extinct with the death of Sir William, was revived by the
king for the benefit of his grandson, a royalist of 1775, who went to
England at the outbreak of hostilities. The large family estates were
confiscated by the patriots.
The tomb of the Pepperells, built in 1734, is seen between the road and
the Pepperell Hotel.[89] When it was repaired some years ago, at the
instance of Harriet Hirst Sparhawk, the remains were found lying in a
promiscuous heap at the bottom, the wooden shelves at the sides having
given way, precipitating the coffins upon the floor of the vault. The
planks first used to close the entrance had yielded to the pressure of
the feet of cattle grazing in the common field, filling the tomb with
rubbish. About thirty skulls were found in various stages of
decomposition. A crypt was built in a corner, and the scattered relics
carefully placed within.[90]
Dr. Eliot, the pioneer among American biographers, says Dr. Belknap
often mentioned to him that his desire to preserve the letters of Sir
William Pepperell led to the founding of the Massachusetts Historical
Society. This object does not seem to have been wholly accomplished, as
it is well known the baronet's papers have become widely scattered.[91]
Not far from the mansion of the Pepperells is the very ancient dwelling
of Bray, whose daughter, Margery, became Lady Pepperell. It was long
before the old shipwright made up his mind to consent to match his
daughter so unequally. This house is considered to be two hundred and
twenty-five years old, and is still habitable. Down at the water-side
are seen the rotting timbers of the wharf where the Pepperells, father
and son, conducted an extensive trade.
[Illustration: KITTERY POINT, MAINE.]
A little east of the hotel and the pleasant manse below the river makes
a noble sweep, inclosing a favorite anchorage for storm or wind bound
craft. Not unfrequently a hundred may be seen quietly riding out a
north-easter at snug moorings. At such times this harbor and Gloucester
are havens of refuge for all coasters caught along shore. The sight of
the fleet getting under way with the return of fine weather is worth
going to see.
When at Kittery Point the visitor may indulge in a variety of agreeable
excursions by land or water; the means are always at hand for boating
and driving, and there is no lack of pleasant rambles. I first went to
Gerrish's Island on a wild November day, and in a north-east
snow-storm. I never enjoyed myself better.
In the first place, this island is one of the headlands of history as
well as of the Piscataqua. It was conveyed as early as 1636, by Sir F.
Gorges, to Arthur Champernowne, a gentleman of Devon.[92] The island was
to take the name of Dartington, from the manor of the Champernownes.[93]
In this indenture Brave Boat Harbor is mentioned. The Province of Maine
was then sometimes called New Somersetshire.
There is something in this endeavor of all the promoters of New England
to graft upon her soil the time-honored names of the Old, to plant with
her civilization something to keep her in loving remembrance, that
appeals to our protection. These names are historical and significant.
They link us to the high renown of our mother isle. No political
separation can disinherit us. I think the tie is like the mystery of the
electric wave that passes under the sea, unseen yet acknowledged of all,
active though invisible.
The island, with many contiguous acres, became the property of Francis,
son of Arthur Champernowne, and nephew of Sir F. Gorges, who is buried
there, his grave distinguished by a heap of stones. Tradition said he
forbade in his last testament any stone to be raised to his memory.[94]
In the hands of subsequent proprietors the island was called Cutts's,
Fryer's, and Gerrish's Island. It is usually spoken of as two islands,
being nearly though not quite subdivided by Chauncy's Creek. The
venerable Cutts's farm-house on the shore of the island is two hundred
and thirty years old by family account.
All the islands lying northward of the ship channel belong to
Kittery.[95] Many of them have interesting associations. Trefethren's,
the largest, projects far out into the river, and is garnished with the
earth-works of old Fort Sullivan, from which shot might be pitched with
ease on the decks of invading ships. Fernald's, now Navy Yard Island,
became in 1806 the property of the United States, by purchase of Captain
William Dennett, for the sum of five thousand five hundred dollars.
Badger's, anciently Langdon's Island, is a reminiscence of one of the
noblest of the old Romans of the revolutionary time. His still elegant
mansion adorns one of the handsomest streets in Portsmouth.[96]
Washington, when there, considered it the finest private house in the
town.
[Illustration: GOVERNOR LANGDON'S MANSION, PORTSMOUTH.]
Langdon was six feet tall, with a very noble presence. Duke
Rochefoucauld Liancourt mentions that he had followed the sea first as
mate, then as master of a ship. He ultimately became an eminent merchant
and ship-builder. A devoted patriot, he was one of the leaders in the
first act of aggression committed by the Portsmouth Whigs against the
crown. As the words of a man of action and a model legislator in time of
invasion by a foreign enemy, his well-known speech to the New Hampshire
Assembly is worth the quoting. This is his manner of cutting short
useless debate: "Gentlemen, you may talk as much as you please; but I
know the enemy is upon our frontiers, and I am going to take my pistols
and mount my horse, and go and fight in the ranks of my
fellow-citizens." And he did it.
Yet a little more about Langdon. Chastellux relates that when on his way
to Gates's camp he was followed by a favorite slave. The negro, who
beheld the energy with which his master pressed on, without other repose
than could be snatched in the woods, said to him, at last, "Master, you
undergo great hardships, but you go to fight for liberty. I also should
suffer patiently if I had the same liberty to defend." "Then you shall
have it," said John Langdon; "from this moment I give you your freedom."
Continental Agent Langdon became the superintendent of war ships ordered
here by Congress. He presided at the building of the _Ranger_, the
_Alliance_, and the _America_, the last a seventy-four gun ship,
generously given to Louis XVI. for one of his lost on our coast. Paul
Jones was much here; a brave braggart, quarreling with Langdon and
Congress, writing quires of memorials, little esteemed among his peers,
though a lion on his own quarter-deck.
Though Langdon was a member elect of the Old Congress, as his State
stipulated that only two of the delegates were to go to Philadelphia,
his does not appear among the names signed to the Declaration. Matthew
Thornton, elected after Langdon, was allowed to sign when he took his
seat in November. Langdon became an opponent of the measures and
administration of Washington, joining with Jefferson, Pierce Butler, and
a few others in organizing the Republican party of that day. They had
five votes in the Senate. In the House was Andrew Jackson, a member from
Tennessee, who attracted little attention, though he voted with the
small coterie of the Upper House, including Langdon, Butler, and Colonel
Burr.
Jacob Sheaffe, who in his day carried on a more extensive business than
any other merchant in Portsmouth, became the successor of Langdon as
Government agent. It is said he purchased the island where the Navy Yard
now is. One of the six frigates ordered under Washington's
administration was begun here. We had voted to build these vessels to
punish the Algerine corsairs; we then countermanded them; afterward a
treaty was made with these pirates by which they were to have a new
frigate of thirty-two guns, which was laid down at Portsmouth.
The family name of Sheaffe was once much more familiar in New England
than now. It was of Peggy Sheaffe, a celebrated Boston beauty, that
Baron Steuben perpetrated the following _mot_: When introduced to her at
the house of Mrs. Livingstone, mother of the chancellor, the baron
exclaimed, in his broken English, "I have been cautioned from my youth
against _Mischief_, but had no idea her charms were so irresistible."
Kittery is mentioned by Josselyn as the most populous of all the
plantations in the Province of Maine. It engrosses the left bank of the
Piscataqua from the great bridge at Portsmouth to the sea. The booming
of guns at the Navy Yard often announces the presence of some dignitary,
yet none, I fancy, more distinguished than Washington have set foot in
Kittery. I regret he has not much to say of it, but more of the
fishing-party of which he was, at the moment, a member.
"Having lines," he says, "we proceeded to the fishing banks without the
harbor, and fished for cod, but it not being a proper time of tide, we
caught but two." The impregnable character of the President for
truthfulness forbids the presumption that want of skill had aught to do
with his ill-luck.
It would be matter for general regret if the selectmen of Kittery should
again, as long ago happened, be presented by a grand jury for not taking
care that their children were taught their catechism, and educated
according to law. The number of steeples and school-houses seen by the
way indicates, in this respect, a healthy public opinion. Kittery
church-yard contains many mute appeals to linger and glean its dead
secrets. Mrs. Thaxter sweetly sings as she felt the story of one of
these mildewed stones:
"Crushing the scarlet strawberries in the grass,
I kneel to read the slanting stone. Alas!
How sharp a sorrow speaks! A hundred years
And more have vanished, with their smiles and tears,
Since here was laid, upon an April day,
Sweet Mary Chauncey in the grave away,
A hundred years since here her lover stood
Beside her grave." * * *
I found both banks of the Piscataqua charming. The hotels at Newcastle,
Kittery, Old York, etc., are of the smaller class, adapted to the
comfortable entertainment of families; and as they are removed from the
intrusion of that disagreeable constituent of city life known over-seas
as the "swell mob," real comfort is attainable. They are not faultless,
but one may always confidently reckon on a good bed, a polite,
accommodating host, and well-provided table.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[81] The name of Kittery Point is from a little hamlet in England. It is
the first and oldest town in the State, having been settled in 1623.
Gorgeana, settled 1324, was a city corporate, and not a town. Kittery
first included North and South Berwick and Eliot.
[82] Captain Joseph Cutts was born in 1764, and died on his birthday
anniversary, aged ninety-seven. He married a granddaughter of President
Chauncy, of Harvard College. Sarah Chauncy, known to us as "Sally
Cutts," was removed during her last illness to the house of her cousin,
where she was kindly cared for. When near her end she became more
rational, and was sensible of the attentions of her friends. She died
June 30th, 1874. Her brother Charles was hopelessly insane forty-four
years, and often so violent as to make it necessary to chain him.
Joseph, the other brother, entered the navy: overtaken by his malady, he
was sent home. Under these repeated misfortunes, added to the care of
her father and brothers, Sally's reason also gave way. The town allowed
a small sum for the board of her father and brothers, and her friends
provided wood and clothing. Her house even was sold to satisfy a
Government claim for duties, owed by her father. It has now been
renovated, and is occupied by Oliver Cutts, Esquire.
[83] My appearance within Fort M'Clary caused a panic in the garrison. A
few unimportant questions concerning the old works were answered only
after a hurried consultation between the sergeant in charge and the head
workman. The Government was then meditating war with Spain, and I had
reason to believe I was looked upon as a Spanish emissary.
[84] The house was also occupied at one time as a tenement by fishermen.
It exhibits no marks, either inside or out, of the wealth and social
consequence of its old proprietor.
[85] Mr. Longfellow has, at Cambridge, a painting by Copley,
representing two children in a park. These children are William
Pepperell and his sister, Elizabeth Royall Pepperell, children of the
last baronet.
[86] Both were made colonels in the regular British establishment; their
regiments, numbered the Fiftieth and Fifty-first respectively, were
afterward disbanded.
[87] Marshal Saxe, unable to mount his horse, was carried along his
lines in a litter.
[88] The year 1745 was also signalized by the death of Pope in June, and
of the old Duchess of Marlborough in October, who died at eighty-five,
immensely rich, and "very little regretted either by her own family or
the world in general."--SMOLLETT.
[89] Mr. E. F. Safford, the proprietor, exercises watch and ward over
this and other relics of the Pepperells with a care worthy of imitation
all along the coast.
[90] Mr. Sabine notes in his "Loyalists" that the tomb, when entered
some years ago, contained little else than bones strewed in confusion
about its muddy bottom; among them, of course, the remains of the victor
of Louisburg, deposited in it at his decease in 1759.
[91] The best biography of Sir William Pepperell is that by Dr. Usher
Parsons.
[92] The relation in Purchas, vol. iv., p. 1935, of the voyage of
Robert, earl of Essex, to the Azores in 1597, has a supplementary or
larger relation, written by Sir Arthur Gorges, knight, a captain in the
earl's fleet of the ship _Wast-Spite_. There is mention of a Captain
Arthur Champernowne, who appears to have sailed with the admiral in this
expedition.
[93] The father of James Anthony Froude, the historian, was rector of
Dartington; the historian was born there.
[94] He is fully recognized as a personage of distinction in the
beginnings of Kittery. Charles W. Tuttle gives him a touch of royal
blood. I failed to find such a provision in his own draft of his will.
[95] They are, in descending the river, Badger's, Navy Yard,
Trefethren's, or Seavey's, Clark's, and Gerrish's Island.
[96] In Pleasant, near Court Street.
[Illustration: WHALE'S-BACK LIGHT.]