THE ISLES OF SHOALS.
"O warning lights, burn bright and clear,
Hither the storm comes! Leagues away
It moans and thunders low and drear--
Burn 'til the break of day!"
CELIA THAXTER.
[Illustration: PORTSMOUTH AND THE ISLES OF SHOALS.]
On the 15th of July, 1605, as the sun was declining in the west, a
little bark of fifteen tons, manned by Frenchmen, was standing along the
coast of New England, in quest of a situation to begin a settlement. The
principal personage on board was Pierre du Guast, Sieur de Monts, a
noble gentleman, and an officer of the household of Henry IV. His
commission of lieutenant-general bore date at Fontainebleau in the year
1603. He was empowered by it to colonize Acadia from the fortieth to
the forty-sixth parallel, in virtue of the discoveries of the Tuscan,
Verazzani. It recited, in quaint old French, that Du Guast had already
made several voyages to these and other neighboring countries, of which
he had knowledge and experience.[97] The commission likewise conferred
authority to make war or peace with the peoples inhabiting the country
of Acadia, with sole power to traffic in skins and furs for ten years in
the Bay of St. Clair and the river of Canada. The broad autograph of
Henry and the great seal of yellow wax are appended to the parchment.
On board the bark, besides the leader of the expedition, were a few
gentlemen adventurers and twenty sailors. The name of De Monts's pilot
was Champdore.[98] The geographer of the expedition was Samuel
Champlain. Accompanying De Monts, as guides and interpreters, were two
natives, Panounias and his wife.
Since the 15th of June De Monts had been minutely examining the New
England coast from St. Croix, where he had wintered, to near the
forty-third parallel, in the hope of finding "a place more suitable for
habitation and of a milder temperature" than the inhospitable region he
had first pitched upon. The greater part of De Monts's colony remained
at the Isle of St. Croix.
After leaving the mouth of the Saco, and looking in at the entrance of
Kennebunk River, De Monts, still keeping as close in as was prudent
with the land, which Champlain describes as flat and sandy (_platte et
sabloneuse_), found himself on that July afternoon in presence of three
striking landmarks.[99] Cape Ann bore south, a quarter east, six leagues
distant. To the west was a deep bay into which, the savages afterward
told him, a river emptied; and in the offing they perceived three or
four islands of fair elevation. These last, historians agree, were the
Isles of Shoals.
Notwithstanding the isles are not identified on either of Champlain's
maps (1612 and 1632), it is no longer doubtful that De Monts made them
out nine years before Smith saw them, though the latter has first given
them on a map a locality and a name. But I take Pring to have been the
first to mention them, when, two years before De Monts, he sighted a
multitude of small islands in about forty-three degrees, and anchored
under the shelter of the greatest.[100] Gosnold must have seen the
isles, but thought them hardly worth entering in his log. Prince
Charles, afterward Charles I., graciously confirmed the name Smith had,
in 1614, given the isles. Yet he has little or no title to be considered
their discoverer, and has left no evidence that he ever landed upon
them. The French, Smith relates, had two ships forty leagues to the
westward (of Monhegan) that had made great trade while he was on the
coast. Beyond all these, the Basque shallop seen in these waters by
Gosnold remains a nut for historians to crack.
De Poutrincourt's expedition of 1606 into Massachusetts Bay was the
sequel to that of 1605. De Monts, a heretic, through the jealousy of
rivals and Jesuit intrigue, was soon deprived of the privileges with
which he had been endowed by his fickle monarch. In this his experience
was not unlike that of Gorges and the Council of Plymouth. De Monts was
really the head of a commercial company, organized by Chauvin, governor
of Dieppe.[101] The detail of his voyage along the New England coast in
1605 is the first intelligible record to be found. Shall we not, at
last, have to do the tardy justice of acknowledging him the chief and
guiding spirit of the expedition, now universally referred to as
Champlain's? The latter has become the prominent figure, while Du Guast
is not even mentioned in some of our so-called school histories.
Christopher Levett is the first Englishman to give an account of the
isles worthy of the name. Its brevity may be advantageously contrasted
with later descriptions, though the natural features remain, in many
respects, the same. He says, writing seven years after Captain Smith:
"The first place I set my foot upon in New England was the Isle of
Shoals, being islands in the sea about two leagues from the main.
"Upon these islands I neither could see one good timber-tree nor so much
good ground as to make a garden.
"The place is found to be a good fishing-place for six ships, but more
can not well be there, for want of convenient stage room, as this year's
experience hath proved."
The year 1623 is the earliest date I have seen of the islands being
occupied as a fishing station. Monhegan was earlier known, and more
frequented by English vessels for this purpose. A word or two about the
fishery of those days.
Cabot notices the cod under the name of "bacalo;" Jean Alfonse speaks of
the "bacaillos;" Captain Uring calls it "baccalew;" the Indian name was
"tamwock." Smith says the fish on our coast were much better than those
taken at Newfoundland, which he styles "poor John," a nickname ever
since current up the Mediterranean. One of his ships, in 1614, loaded
with dry fish for Spain, where the cargo brought "forty ryalls," or five
dollars, the quintal. Fifteen or eighteen men, by his relation, took
with the hook alone sixty thousand fish in a month.
Charlevoix believed this fish could turn itself inside out, like a
pocket. He says they found bits of iron and glass, and even pieces of
broken pots, in the stomachs of fish caught on the Banks of
Newfoundland; and adds that some people believed they could digest them.
Josselyn says the fishermen used to tan their sails and nets with
hemlock-bark to preserve them.
Allusion has been made to the number of fishermen frequenting the Grand
Banks in 1578. Without the evidence few would be willing to believe the
fishery had attained such proportions at that early day, on a coast we
have been accustomed to regard as almost unknown. It certainly goes very
far toward dispelling illusions respecting the knowledge that was had of
our own shores by those adventurous "toilers of the sea."
In Captain Richard Whitbourne's relation of his voyages and observations
in Newfoundland (Purchas, vol. iv., p. 1882), he says:
"More than four hundred sail of fishing ships were annually sent to the
Grand Banks by the French and Portuguese, making two voyages a year,
fishing winter and summer.
"In the year 1615, when I was at Newfoundland," he adds, "there were
then on that coast of your Majestie's subjects two hundred and fiftie
saile of ships, great and small. The burthens and tonnage of them all,
one with another, so neere as I could take notice, allowing every ship
to be at least three-score tun (for as some of them contained lesse, so
many of them held more), amounting to more than 15,000 tunnes. Now, for
every three-score tun burthen, according to the usual manning of ships
in those voyages, agreeing with the note I then tooke, there are to be
set doune twentie men and boyes; by which computation in these two
hundred and fiftie saile there were no lesse than five thousand
persons."
De Poutrincourt, writing to Paris in 1618 from Port Royal, estimates the
fishery to be then worth a "_million d'or_" annually to France. He
declares he would not exchange Canada for Peru if it were once seriously
settled; and foreshadows the designs of the English on New France as
soon as they should have made themselves strong in Virginia. By a royal
edict of 1669 the French fishermen of New France were allowed to land
their fish in all the ports of the mother country, except Havre, free of
duty.
The advantages possessed by the Isles of Shoals were deep water, with a
reasonably secure haven for ships, free from molestation by the savages,
while the crews were engaged in taking and curing their fish. To this
ought to be added their nearness to the best fishing grounds. All along
shore the islands were, as a rule, earlier frequented than the
main-land. Levett says (and he thought it a fatal objection) the ships
that fished at Cape Ann in 1623 had to send their boats _twenty miles_
to take their fish, and the masters were in great fear of not making
their voyages. "I fear there hath been too fair a gloss set upon Cape
Ann," writes Levett.
La Hontan, writing from Quebec in 1683, says of the cod-fishery on the
Banks of Newfoundland: "You can scarce imagine what quantities of
cod-fish were catch'd there by our seamen in the space of a quarter of
an hour; for though we had thirty-two fathom water, yet the hook was no
sooner at the bottom than the fish was catch'd; so that they had nothing
to do but to throw in and take up without interruption. But, after all,
such is the misfortune of this fishery that it does not succeed but upon
certain banks, which are commonly past over without stopping. However,
as we were plentifully entertain'd at the cost of these fishes, so such
of 'em as continued in the sea made sufficient reprisals on the corpse
of a captain and of several soldiers who died of the scurvy, and were
thrown overboard three or four days after."
It is worthy of note that the _Trial_, the first vessel built in Boston,
took a lading of fish to Bilboa, in 1643, that were sold to good profit.
From thence she took freight for Malaga, and brought home wine, oil,
fruit, iron, etc. She was then sent to trade with La Tour and Acadia.
The _Trial_ was of about a hundred and sixty tons burden.[102] In the
year 1700 there were two hundred New England vessels loaded in Acadia
with fish. The cargoes were taken to Boston, and there distributed to
different parts of the world.
After the isles became permanently inhabited the fishery continued
prosperous, and by 1730 three or four vessels were annually loaded for
Bilboa. Before the Revolution seven or eight schooners hailed from the
islands, but from this period the fishery dates its decay. In 1800 only
shore-fishing was pursued, which employed thirteen whale-boats similar
to those now in use, and the best of all boats in a sea.
Besides the fish itself, the liver of the cod, as is well known, is
saved for the oil it contains. Hake sounds are of greater value than the
fish, being extensively used in the manufacture of isinglass. The
efficacy of the cod's liver was early known. "Their livers and sounds
eaten," says an old writer, "is a good medicine for to restore them that
have melted their grease."
The interest with which the obscure lives of these islanders and the
cluster of inhospitable rocks on which they dwell are invested is
remarkable enough. It may be in a measure owing to the irregular
intercourse formerly held with the main-land, and to the consequently
limited knowledge of them. And it is heightened in no small degree by
the mystery of a residence in the midst of the sea, where all ties with
the adjacent continent would seem to be dissevered. But if the open
Polar Sea be a fact and not a myth, the continents are themselves but
larger islands with more expanded horizons.
I happened one day to be in Portsmouth. _Entre nous_, if you want to be
esteemed there you must say "Porchmouth," as even the lettered of that
ilk do. The morning air had been freshened and sweetened by copious
showers; little pools stood in the streets, and every blade of grass was
tipped with a crystal rain-drop. Old Probabilities had foretold clearing
weather. Every thing seemed propitious, except that it continued to rain
"pitchforks," with the tines downward, and that the wind was steadily
working round to the eastward. As the struggle between foul and fair
seemed at length to incline to the latter, I went down to the wharf to
find the packet for the Shoals had already unmoored, and was standing
across the river. Unloosing a dory that was lying conveniently near, I
boarded the _Marie_ as she came about, thus putting myself _en rapport_
with the Shoals by means of this little floating bridge, or island, as
you may please to have it.
[Illustration: SHAG AND MINGO ROCKS, DUCK ISLAND.]
It being the first day of summer, the passengers were so few as to be
easily taken in at a glance. They were chiefly workmen employed on the
great hotel at Star Island, or, as they chose to style themselves,
convicts going into servitude on a desert rock: so cheaply did they hold
the attractions of the isles. Perhaps one or two of the passengers had
no more business at the islands than myself.
It is not easy to have a more delightful sail than down the Piscataqua,
or to find a more beautiful stream when its banks are clothed in green.
It has often been described, and may again be, without fear of
exhausting its capabilities. The movement of shipping to and fro; the
shifting of objects as you glide by them, together with the historic
renown with which its shores are incrusted, fill the eye while exciting
the imagination. A few miles above Portsmouth the river expands into a
broad basin, which receives the volume of tide, and then pours it into
the sea between narrow banks.
We gained the narrows of the river with Peirce's Island on the right and
Seavey's on the left, each crowned with grass-grown batteries thrown up
in the Revolution to defend the pass. Here the stream is not a good
rifle-shot in breadth, and moves with increased velocity within the
contracted space, the swirl and eddying of the current resembling the
boiling of a huge caldron. Its surface is ringed with miniature
whirlpools, and at flood-tide the mid-channel seems lifted above the
level of the river, as I have seen the mighty volume of the Missouri
during its annual rise. It is not strange the place should have received
the anathemas of mariners from immemorial time, or boast a name so
unconventional withal as Pull-and-be-d--d Point.
Clearing the narrows, we left behind us the city steeples, the big
ship-houses, lazy war ships, and tall chimneys on Kittery side. The wind
being light, the skipper got up a stay-sail from the fore-hatch. As it
was bent to the halyards, a bottle labeled "ginger ale," but smelling
uncommonly like schnapps, rolled out of its folds. We were now slowly
forging past Newcastle, or Great Island. The sun came out gloriously,
lighting up the spire of the little church at Kittery Point and the
masts of vessels lying at anchor in the roads.
Glancing astern, I remarked four wherries coming down at a great pace
with the ebb. They kept directly abreast of each other, as if moved by a
single oarsman, while the rowers talked and laughed as they might have
done on the pavement ashore. I could see by the crates piled in the
stern of each boat that they were lobstermen, going outside to look
after their traps. As they went by they seemed so many huge
water-spiders skimming the surface of the river.
Fort Constitution, with its dismantled walls and frowning port-holes, is
now passed, and Whale's Back, with twin light-houses, shows its ledges
above water. We open the mouth of the river with Odiorne's Point on the
starboard and Gerrish's Island on the port bow, the swell of ocean
lifting our little bark, and making her courtesy to the great deep.
The islands had appeared in view when we were off Newcastle, the hotel
on Star Island, where it loomed like some gray sea-fortress, being the
most conspicuous object. As we ran off the shore, the "cape of the
main-land" and the "_cul-de-sac_" of Champlain came out, and fixed
themselves where he had seen them. One by one the islands emerged from
the dark mass that involved the whole, and became individuals. The wind
dying away off Duck Island, I was fain to take an oar in the whale-boat
towing astern. We rowed along under Appledore into the little haven
between that island and Star, with no sound but the dip of our oars to
break the stillness, and beached our boat as the evening shadows were
deepening over a stormy sea.
There had been a striking sunset. Great banks of clouds were massed
above the western horizon, showing rifts of molten gold where the sun
burst through, which the sea, in its turn, reflected. As I looked over
toward White Island, the lamps were lighted in the tower, turning their
rays hither and thither over a blackness that recalled Poe's sensuous
imagery of lamp-light gloating over purple velvet. The weather-wise
predicted a north-easter, and I went to bed with the old sea "moaning
all round about the island."
I passed my first night, and a rude one it was, on Star Island. When I
arose in the morning and looked out I fancied myself at sea, as indeed I
was. The ocean was on every side, the plash of the waters being the last
sound heard at night and the first on waking. I saw the sun rise over
Smutty Nose through the same storm-clouds in which it had set at
evening. I am an early riser, but even before I was astir a wherry
crossed the little harbor my window overlooked.
The islands lie in two States, and are seven in number. Duck Island, the
most dangerous of the group; Appledore, sometimes called Hog Island;
Smutty Nose, or Haley's, and Cedar, belong to Maine; Star, White, and
Londoner's, or Lounging Island, are in New Hampshire. Appledore is the
largest, and Cedar the smallest. In one instance I have known Star
called Staten Island, though it was formerly better known as Gosport,
the name of its fishing village, whose records go back to 1731. Counting
Malaga, a little islet attached to Smutty Nose by a breakwater, and
there are eight islands in the cluster. They are nine miles south-east
of the entrance of the Piscataqua and twenty-one north-east from
Newburyport Light. The harbor, originally formed by Appledore, Star, and
Haley's Islands, was made more secure by a sea-wall, now much out of
repair, from Smutty Nose to Cedar Island. The roadstead is open to the
south-west, and is indifferently sheltered at best. Between Cedar and
Star is a narrow passage used by small craft, through which the tide
runs as in a sluice-way. The group is environed with several dangerous
sunken rocks. Square Rock is to the westward of Londoner's; White Island
Ledge south-west of that isle; Anderson's Ledge is south-east of Star
Island; and Cedar Island Ledge south of Smutty Nose.[103]
The name of the Isles of Shoals is first mentioned by Christopher Levett
in his narrative of 1623. The mariners of his day must have known of the
description and the map of Smith, but they seem to have little affected
the name he gave the islands. It would not be unreasonable to infer that
the group was known by its present name even before it was seen by
Smith, and that his claims were of little weight with those
matter-of-fact fishermen. Some writers have made a difficulty of the
meaning of the name, attributing it to the shoals, or schools, of fish
seen there as everywhere along the coast at certain seasons of the year.
East of the islands, toward the open sea, there is laid down on old
charts of the Province an extensive shoal called Jeffrey's Ledge, named
perhaps for one of the first inhabitants of the isles, and extending in
the direction of the coast from the latitude of Cape Porpoise to the
southward of the Shoals. On either side of this shallow, which is not of
great breadth, are soundings in seventy fathoms, while on the ledge the
lead brings up coarse sand in thirty, thirty-five, and forty-five
fathoms. The presence of this reef tends to strengthen the theory that
these islands, as well as the remarkable system of Casco Bay, once
formed part of the main-land. The earlier navigators who approached the
coast, cautiously feeling their way with the lead, soon after passing
over this shoal came in sight of the islands, which, it is believed,
served to mark its presence. Jeffrey's Ledge has been a fishing-ground
of much resort for the islanders since its first discovery.[104]
To whatever cause science may attribute the origin of the isles, I was
struck, at first sight, with their resemblance to the bald peaks of a
submerged volcano thrust upward out of the waters, the little harbor
being its crater. The remarkable fissures traversing the crust of the
several members of the group, in some cases nearly parallel with the
shores, strengthens the impression. In winter, or during violent storms,
the savagery of these rocks, exposed to the full fury of the Atlantic,
and surrounded by an almost perpetual surf, is overwhelming. You can
with difficulty believe the island on which you stand is not reeling
beneath your feet.
After exploring the shore and seeing with his own eyes the deep gashes
in its mailed garment, the basins hollowed out of granite and flint, and
the utter wantonness in which the sea has pitched about the fragments it
has wrested from the solid rock, the futility of words in which to
express this confusion comes home to the spectator. Mr. Hawthorne's idea
greatly resembles the Indian legend of the origin of Nantucket. "As
much as any thing else," he says, "it seems as if some of the massive
materials of the world remained superfluous after the Creator had
finished, and were carelessly thrown down here, where the millionth part
of them emerge from the sea, and in the course of thousands of years
have become partially bestrewn with a little soil."
The old navigators stigmatized Labrador as the place to which Cain was
banished, no vegetation being produced among the rocks but thorns and
moss. What a subject White Island would make for a painting of the
Deluge!
A Finlander with whom I parleyed told me his country could show ruder
places than these isles, and that the winters there were longer and
colder. Parson Tucke used to say the winters at the Shoals were "a thin
under-waistcoat, warmer" than on the opposite main-land. Doubtless the
Orkneys or Hebrides equal these islands in desolateness and wildness of
aspect, but they could scarce surpass them.
The islands are so alike in their natural features that a general
description of one will apply to the rest of the cluster; and hence the
first explored, so far as its crags, sea-caverns, and galleries are in
question, is apt to make the strongest impression. But after closer
acquaintance each of the seven is found to possess attractions,
peculiarities even, of its own. They grow upon you and charm away your
better judgment, until you find sermons, or what is better, in stones,
and good health everywhere. The change comes over you imperceptibly, and
you are metamorphosed for the time into a full-fledged "Shoaler," ready
to climb a precipice or handle an oar with any native--I was about to
say of the soil--but that would be quite too strong a figure for the
Shoals.
The little church on Star Island is usually first visited. When I was
before here, it was a strikingly picturesque object, surmounting the
islands, and visible in clear weather twenty miles at sea. It is now
dwarfed by the hotel, and is perhaps even no longer a sea-mark for the
fishermen. Such quaint little turrets have I seen in old Dutch prints.
The massive walls are of rough granite from the abundance of the isle.
Its roof and tower are of wood, and, being here, what else could it have
but a fish for its weather-vane? The bell was used, while I was there,
to call the workmen to their daily labor; but its tones were always
mournful, and vibrated with strange dissonance across the sea.
The whitewash the interior walls had received was plentifully
bespattered upon the wooden benches. In a deeply recessed window one of
the tiny sea-birds that frequent the islands was beating the panes with
its wings. I gave the little fellow his liberty, but he did not stay for
thanks. The church is not more than ten paces in length by six in
breadth, yet was sufficient, no doubt, for all the church-goers of the
seven islands. Its foundations are upon a rock, and it is altogether a
queer thing in an odd place.
After the desertion of Appledore, a meeting-house was erected on Star
Island, twenty-eight by forty-eight feet, with a bell. Mr. Moody, of
Salisbury, Massachusetts, was, in 1706, called to be the first minister
there. In 1730 he was succeeded by Rev. John Tucke.
Mather relates many anecdotes of Rev. John Brock, one of the early
ministers at the islands, in illustration of the efficacy of prayer. The
child of one Arnold, he says, lay sick, so nearly dead that those
present believed it had really expired; "but Mr. Brock, perceiving some
life in it, goes to prayer, and in his prayer uses this expression,
'Lord, wilt thou not grant some sign before we leave prayer that thou
wilt spare and heal this child? We can not leave thee 'til we have it.'
The child sneez'd immediately."
[Illustration: MEETING-HOUSE, STAR ISLAND.[105]]
Going round the corner of the church, I came upon a coast pilot, peering
through his glass for the smoke of a steamer, cable-freighted, that had
been momentarily expected from Halifax for a week. His trim little boat
lay in the harbor below us at her moorings. It was, he said, a favorite
station from which to intercept inward-bound vessels. The pilot told me,
with a quiet chuckle, of a coaster, manned by raw Irish hands, that had
attempted in broad day to run into the harbor over the breakwater from
Haley's to Cedar island. They did not get in, he said; but it being a
full tide and smooth sea, the mole only knocked off the cut-water of
their craft.
Behind the meeting-house is the little school-house, in as dire
confusion when I saw it as any bad boy could have wished. The windows
were shattered, chairs and benches overturned, and a section of rusty
stove-pipe hung from the ceiling, while the fragment of a wall map,
pressed into service as a window-curtain, was being scanned through the
dingy glass by an urchin with a turn for geography.
East of the church is a row of cottages, the remnant of the fishing
village, serving to show what it was like before modern innovations had
swept the moiety of ancient Gosport from the face of the island. Each
had a bird-house on the peak of its gable. There was the semblance of
regularity in the arrangement of these cottages, the school-house
leading the van; but they were nearly or quite all unpainted, these
homely abodes of a rude people.
On looking around, you perceived walled inclosures, some of them
containing a little earth patched with green grass, but all thickly
studded with boulders. Is it possible, you ask, that such a waste should
ever be the cause of heart-burnings, or know the name of bond, mortgage,
or warranty? Little did these impoverished islanders dream the day would
come when their sterile rocks would be eagerly sought after by the
fortunate possessors of abundance.
Star Island formerly afforded pasturage for a few sheep and cows. There
is a record of a woman who died at Gosport in 1795, aged ninety. She
kept two cows, fed in winter on hay cut by her in summer with a knife
among the rocks. The cows were taken from her by the British in 1775,
and killed, to the great grief of old Mrs. Pusley. Formerly there was
more vegetation here, but at odd times the poor people have gathered and
burned for fuel fully half the turf on the island. It is written in the
book of records that the soil of the islands is gradually decreasing,
and that a time would come when the dead must be buried in the sea or on
the main-land.
From the year 1775 until 1820, the few inhabitants who remained on the
islands lived in a deplorable condition of ignorance and vice. Some of
them had lost their ages for want of a record. Each family was a law to
itself. The town organization was abandoned. Even the marriage relation
was forgotten, and the restraints and usages of civilized life set at
naught. Some of the more debased, about 1790, pulled down and burned the
old meeting-house, which had been a prominent landmark for seamen; but,
says the record, "the special judgments of Heaven seem to have followed
this piece of wickedness to those immediately concerned in it." The
parsonage-house might have fared as ill, had it not been floated away to
Old York by Mr. Tucke's son-in-law.
Rev. Jedediah Morse has entered in the record two marriages solemnized
by him during the time he was on the islands, with the following
remarks: "The two couples above mentioned had been published eight or
ten years ago (but not married), and cohabited together since, and had
each a number of children. ---- had been formerly married to another
woman; she had left him, and cohabited with her uncle, by whom she has
a number of children. No regular divorce had been obtained. Considering
the peculiar deranged state of the people on these islands, and the
ignorance of the parties, it was thought expedient, in order as far as
possible to prevent future sin, to marry them."[106]
[Illustration: THE GRAVES, WITH CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH'S MONUMENT, STAR
ISLAND.]
It is perhaps as well the visitor should be his own guide about the
islands, leaving it to chance to direct his footsteps. After an
inspection of the more prominent objects, such as may be taken in at a
glance from the little church, I wandered at will, encountering at every
few steps some new surprise. Some one says, if we seek for pleasure it
is pretty sure to elude our pursuit, coming, oftener to us unawares, and
the more unexpected the higher the gratification. It was in some such
mood I stumbled, to speak literally, on the old burial-place of the
islands. I am aware that one does not, as a rule, seek enjoyment in a
grave-yard; but I have ever found an unflagging interest in deciphering
the tablets of a buried city or hamlet. These stones may be sententious
or loquacious, pompous or humble, and sometimes grimly merry.
Our German friends call the church-yard "God's Field." Here are no
inscriptions, except on the horizontal slabs of Tucke and Stephens.
There is no difference between the rough stones protruding from the
ground and the fragments strewn broadcast about the little house-lots.
So far as this inclosure is concerned, the annals of the hamlet are as a
closed book. The instinct which bids you forbear treading on a grave is
at fault here. It requires sharp eyes and a close scrutiny to discover
that some effort has been made to distinguish this handful of graves by
head and foot stones; that some are of greater and some of lesser
length; or that the little hollows and hillocks have their secret
meaning.
The two shepherds lie at the head of their little fold, in vaults
composed of the rude masses found ready at hand. For fear their
inscriptions might one day be effaced, I transcribed them:
In Memory of
THE REV. JOSIAH STEPHENS,
A faithful Instructor of Youth, and pious
Minister of Jesus Christ.
Supported on this Island by the
Society for Propagating the Gospel,
who died July 2, 1804.
Aged 64 years.
* * * * *
Likewise of
MRS. SUSANNAH STEPHENS,
his beloved Wife,
who died Dec. 7, 1810.
Aged 54 years.
* * * * *
Underneath
are the Remains of
THE REV. JOHN TUCKE, A.M.
He graduated at Harvard College, A.D. 1723,
Was ordained here July 26, 1732,
And died Aug. 12, 1773.
AEt. 72.
He was affable and polite in his manner,
Amiable in his disposition,
Of great piety and integrity, given to hospitality,
Diligent and faithful in his pastoral office.
Well learned in History and Geography, as well as
General Science,
And a careful Physician both to the bodies
and the souls of his People.
Erected 1800.
In Memory of the Just.
For two-score years this pious man labored in his stony vineyard. His
parishioners agreed to give him a quintal per man of winter fish--their
best. They covenanted to carry his wood from the landing home for him.
With this he was content. He was their minister, teacher, physician, and
even kept the accounts of a little store in a scrupulously exact way. I
have been poring over his old-time chirography, clear-cut and beautiful
as copper-plate. There are the good old English names of Ruth, Nabby,
and Judy, of Betty, Patsey, and Love. We get a glimpse of their
household economy in the porringers, pewter lamps, and pint-pots; the
horn combs, thread, tape, and endless rows of pins for women-folk; the
knitting-needles that clicked by the fireside in long winter nights,
while the lads were away on Jeffrey's Ledge.
From here I wended my way to Smith's monument, erected in 1864, a
triangular shaft of marble, rising eight or ten feet above a craggy
rock. It is placed on a pedestal of rough stone, and protected by a
railing from vandal hands. Its situation on one of the highest eminences
of Star Island has exposed the inscription to the weather, until it is
become difficult to decipher. The three sides of the pillar are occupied
by a lengthy eulogium on this hero of many adventures,
"Of moving accidents by flood and field;
Of hair-breadth scapes i' the imminent deadly breach."
Like Temple Bar of old, the monument is crowned with heads--those of the
three Moslems slain by Smith, and seen on his scutcheon, as given by
Stow, where they are also quartered. I know of no other instance of
decapitated heads being set up in New England since King Philip's was
struck off and stuck on a pike at Plymouth, in 1676. Two of the heads
had fallen down, and the third seemed inclined to follow. Then the
monument will be as headless as the doughty captain's tombstone in the
pavement of St. Sepulchre's, worn smooth by many feet. In brief, the
three Turks' heads stick no better than the name given by Smith to the
islands off Cape Ann--after they had been named by De Monts.
Smith says he had six or seven charts or maps of the coast so unlike
each other as to do him no more good than waste paper. He gives credit
to Gosnold and Weymouth for their relations.
A few rods south-east of the old burying-ground is a sheltered nook, in
which are three little graves, wholly concealed by dwarf willows and
wild rose-bushes. They are tenanted by three children--"Jessie," two
years; "Millie," four years; and "Mittie," seven years old--the
daughters of Rev. George Beebe, some time missionary to these isles.
Under the name of the little one last named are these touching, tearful
words: "I don't want to die, but I'll do just as Jesus wants me to." A
gentle hand has formed this retreat, and protected it with a wooden
fence. While I stood there a song-bird perched above the entrance and
poured forth his matin lay. There is a third burial-place on the harbor
side, but it lacks interest.
Another historic spot is the ruined fort, on the west point of the
island, overlooking the entrance to the roadstead. Its contour may be
traced, and a little of the embankment of one face remains. The well was
filled to the curb with water. It once mounted nine four-pounder cannon,
but at the beginning of the Revolution was dismantled, and the guns
taken to Newburyport. I suppose the inhabitants for a long time to have
neglected precautions for defense, as Colonel Romer, in his report to
the Lords of Trade, about 1699, makes no mention of any fortification
here. One of its terrible four-pounders would not now make a mouthful
for our sea-coast ordnance.
Continuing my walk by the shore, I came to the cavern popularly known as
Betty Moody's Hole. It is formed by the lodgment of masses of rock, so
as to cover one of the gulches common to the isle. Here, says tradition,
Betty concealed herself, with her two children, while the Indians were
ravaging the isles and carrying many females into captivity. The story
goes that the children, becoming frightened in the cavern, began to cry,
whereat their inhuman mother, in an excess of fear, strangled them both;
others say she was drowned here. The affair is said to have happened
during Philip's War. I do not find it mentioned by either Mather or
Hubbard.[107] At times during the fishing season there was hardly a man
left upon the islands, a circumstance well known to the Indians.
A memoir extracted from the French archives gives a picture of the Isles
in 1702, when an attack appears to have been meditated. "The Isles de
Chooles are about three leagues from Peskatoue to the south-south-east
from the embouchure of the river, where a great quantity of fish are
taken. These are three isles in the form of a tripod, and at about a
musket-shot one from the other." * * * "There are at these three islands
about sixty fishing shallops, manned each by four men. Besides these are
the masters of the fishing stages, and, as they are assisted by the
women in taking care of the fish, there may be in all about two hundred
and eighty men; but it is necessary to observe that from Monday to
Saturday there are hardly any left on shore, all being at sea on the
fishing-grounds."
[Illustration: GORGE, STAR ISLAND.]
Taking note of the ragged fissures, which tradition ascribes to the day
of the Crucifixion, I clambered down one of the rocky gorges from which
the softer formation has been eaten out by the consuming appetite of the
waves. Sometimes the descent was made easy by irregular steps of
trap-rock, and again a flying leap was necessary from stone to stone.
The perpendicular walls of the gorge rose near fifty feet at its outlet,
at the shore. It was a relief to emerge from the dripping sides and
pent-up space into the open air. The Flume, on Star Island, is a fine
specimen of the intrusion of igneous rock among the harder formation.
If you would know what the sea can do, go down one of these gulches to
the water's edge and be satisfied. I could not find a round pebble among
the debris of shattered rock that lay tumbled about; only fractured
pieces of irregular shapes. Those rocks submerged by the tide were
blackened as if by fire, and shagged with weed. Overhead the precipitous
cliffs caught the sun's rays on countless glittering points, the mica
with which they are so plentifully bespangled dazzling the eye with its
brilliancy. Elsewhere they were flint, of which there was more than
enough to have furnished all Europe in the Thirty Years' War, or else
granite. Looking up from among the _abattis_ which girds the isle about,
you are confronted by masses of overhanging rocks that threaten to
detach themselves from the cliff and bury you in their ruins.
It is not for the timid to attempt a ramble among the rocks on the
Atlantic side at low tide. He should be sure-footed and supple-jointed
who undertakes it, with an eye to estimate the exact distance where the
incoming surf-wave is to break. The illusions produced in the mind by
the great waves that roll past are not the least striking sensations
experienced. The speed with which they press in, and the noise
accompanying their passage through the gullies and rents of the shore,
contribute to make them seem much larger than they really are. It was
only by continually watching the waves and measuring their farthest
reach that I was able to await one of these curling monsters with
composure; and even then I could not avoid looking suddenly round on
hearing the rush of a breaker behind me; and ever and anon one of
greater volume destroyed all confidence by bursting far above the
boundaries the mind had assigned for its utmost limits.
Nothing struck me more than the idea of such mighty forces going to pure
waste. A lifting power the Syracusan never dreamed of literally throwing
itself away! An engine sufficient to turn all the machinery in
Christendom lying idle at our very doors. What might not be accomplished
if Old Neptune would put his shoulder to the wheel, instead of making
all this magnificent but useless pother!
I noticed that the waves, after churning themselves into foam, assumed
emerald tints, and caught a momentary gleam of sapphire, melting into
amethyst, during the rapid changes from the bluish-green of solid water
to its greatest state of disintegration. The same change of color has
been observed in the Hebrides, and elsewhere.
The place that held for me more of fascination and sublimity than others
was the bluff that looks out upon the vast ocean. I was often there. The
swell of the Atlantic is not like the long regular roll of the Pacific,
but it beats with steady rhythm. The grandest effects are produced after
a heavy north-east blow, when the waves assume the larger and more
flattened form known as the ground-swell. I was fortunate enough to
stand on the cliff after three or four days of "easterly weather" had
produced this effect. Such billows as poured with solid impact on the
rocks, leaping twenty feet in the air, or heaped themselves in fountains
of boiling foam around its base, give a competent idea of resistless
power! The shock and recoil seemed to shake the foundations of the
island.
Upon a shelf or platform of this cliff a young lady-teacher lost her
life in September, 1848. Since then the rock on which she was seated has
been called "Miss Underhill's Chair." Other accidents have occurred on
the same spot, insufficient, it would seem, to prevent the foolhardy
from risking their lives for a seat in this fatal chair.
There are circumstances that cast a melancholy interest around the fate
of Miss Underhill. In early life she had been betrothed, and the banns,
as was then the custom, had been published in the village church. Her
father, a stern old Quaker, opposed the match, threatening to tear down
the marriage intention rather than see his daughter wed with one of
another sect. Whether from this or other cause, the suitor ceased his
attentions, and not long after took another wife in the same village.
The disappointment was believed to have made a deep impression on a girl
of Miss Underhill's strength of character. She was a Methodist, deeply
imbued with the religious zeal of that denomination. Hearing from one
who had been at the Isles of Shoals that the people were in as great
need of a missionary as those of Burmah or of the Gold Coast, it became
an affair of conscience with her to go there and teach.
She came to the islands, and applied herself with ardor to the work
before her, a labor from which any but an enthusiast would have
recoiled. It is asserted that no spot of American soil contained so
debased a community as this.
It was her habit every pleasant day, at the close of school, to repair
to the high cliff on the eastern shore of Star Island, where a rock
conveniently placed by nature became her favorite seat. Here, with her
Bible or other book, she was accustomed to pass the time in reading and
contemplation. She was accompanied on her last visit by a gentleman,
erroneously thought to have been her lover, who ventured on the rock
with her. A tidal wave of unusual magnitude swept them from their feet.
The gentleman succeeded in regaining his foothold, but the lady was no
more seen.
Search was made for the body without success. A week after the
occurrence it was found on York Beach, where the tide had left it. There
was not the least disorder in the ill-fated lady's dress; the bonnet
still covered her head, the ear-rings were in her ears, and her shawl
was pinned across her breast. In a word, all was just as when she had
set out for her walk. The kind-hearted man who found the poor waif took
it home, and cared for it as if it had been his own dead. An
advertisement caught the eye of Miss Underhill's brother. She was
carried to Chester, New Hampshire, her native place, and there buried.
Notwithstanding the humble surroundings of her home, Miss Underhill was
a person of superior and striking appearance. Her face was winning and
her self-possessed manner is still the talk of her old-time associates.
I have heard, as a sequel to the school-teacher's story, that some years
after the fatal accident her old suitor came to the Isles, and, while
bathing there, was drowned. The recovery of the body of the lady
uninjured seems little short of miraculous, and confirms the presence of
a strong under-tow, as I had suspected on seeing the floats of the
lobstermen moored within a few feet of the rocks.
Schiller may have stood, in imagination, on some such crag as this when
his wicked king flung his golden goblet into the mad sea, and with it
the life of the hapless stripling who plunged, at his challenge, down
into
"The endless and measureless world of the deep."
In a neighboring ravine I found a spring of fresh water, though rather
brackish to the taste; and in the more sheltered places were heaps of
mussel-shells, the outer surface of a beautiful purple. They look better
where they are than in my cabinet, though the lining of those I secured
have an enamel of mother-of-pearl. Another remarkable feature I
observed were the deposits of gravel among the crevices; but I saw no
flint among the water-worn boulders wedged, as if by a heavy pressure,
in fissures of the rocks. I remarked also the presence of a poor
schistus intersecting the strata here and there. Some of it I could
break off with my hands.
Another delightful ramble is on the harbor side, from the old fort round
to Caswell's Peak or beyond. Passing by the little hand-breadth of sandy
beach where the dories may land, once paved, the chronicles tell us,
many feet deep with fish-bones, I observed with pleasure the green oasis
spread out between the hotel and the shore. The proprietor seemed
resolved that the very rocks should blossom, and already "a garden
smiled" above the flint.
There is a sight worth seeing from the cupola of the hotel; of the White
Hills, and Agamenticus, with the sands of Rye, Hampton, and Squam
stretching along shore. I could see the steeples of Portsmouth and of
Newburyport, the bluff at Boar's Head, and the smoke of a score of
inland villages. Following with the eye the south coast where it sweeps
round Ipswich Bay one sees Cape Ann and Thatcher's Island outlying; the
gate-way of the busy bay beyond, into which all manner of craft were
pressing sail. Northward were Newcastle, Kittery, and York, and farther
eastward the lonely rock of Boon Island. Shoreward is Appledore, with
the turret of its hotel visible above; and right below us the little
harbor so often a welcome haven to the storm-tossed mariner.[108]
Most visitors to the islands are familiar with the terrible story of the
wreck of the _Nottingham_ galley, of London, in the year 1710. She was
bound into Boston, and having made the land to the eastward of the
Piscataqua, shaped her course southward, driven before a north-east
gale, accompanied with rain, hail, and snow. For ten or twelve days
succeeding they had no observation. On the night of the 11th of
December, while under easy sail, the vessel struck on Boon Island.
With great difficulty the crew gained the rocks. The ship having
immediately broken up, they were able to recover nothing eatable, except
three small cheeses found entangled among the rock-weed. Some pieces of
the spars and sails that came ashore gave them a temporary shelter, but
every thing else had been carried away from the island by the strong
drift. In a day or two the cook died. Day by day their sufferings from
cold and hunger increased. The main-land being in full view before them,
they built a boat and got it into the water. It was overset, and dashed
in pieces against the rocks. One day they descried three boats in the
offing, but no signals they were able to make could attract notice.
Then, when reduced to a miserable band of emaciated, hopeless wretches,
they undertook and with great labor constructed a raft, upon which two
men ventured to attempt to reach the shore. Two days afterward it was
found on the beach, with one of its crew lying dead at some distance.
After this they were obliged to resort to cannibalism in order to
sustain life, subsisting on the body of the carpenter, sparingly doled
out to them by the captain's hand. To make an end of this chapter of
horrors, the survivors were rescued after having been twenty-four days
on the island. The raft was, after all, for them a messenger of
preservation, for it induced a search for the builders.
No one can read this narrative without feeling his sympathy strongly
excited for the brave John Deane, master of the wrecked vessel. He
seemed possessed of more than human fortitude, and has told with a
sailor's simple directness of his heroic struggle for life. His account
was first published in 1711, appended to a sermon by Cotton Mather.
Deane afterward commanded a ship of war in the service of the Czar,
Peter the Great.[109]
Few who have seen the light-house tower on this lonely rock, distant not
more than a dozen miles from the coast, receiving daily and nightly
obeisance of hundreds of passing sails, can realize that the story of
the _Nottingham_ could be true. It is a terrible injunction to keep the
lamps trimmed and brightly burning.[110]
Proceeding onward in this direction, I came to the fish-houses that
remain on the isle. Tubs of trawls, a barrel or two of fish-oil, a pile
of split fish, and the half of a hogshead, in which a "kentle" or so of
"merchantable fish" had just been salted down, were here and there; a
hand-barrow on which to carry the fish from the boat, a lobster-pot, and
a pair of rusty scales, ought to be added to the inventory. Sou'-westers
and suits of oil-skin clothing hung against the walls; and in the loft
overhead were a spare block or two and a parcel of oars, evidently
picked up adrift, there being no two of the same length. In some of the
houses were whale-boats, that had been hauled up to be calked and
painted, that the men were preparing to launch. They were all
schooner-rigged, and some were decked over so as to furnish a little
cuddy for bad weather. No more sea-worthy craft can be found, and under
guidance of a practiced hand one will sail, as sea-folk say, "like a
witch." They usually contained a coil of half-inch line for the road, a
"killick," and a brace of powder-kegs for the trawls.
The process of curing, or, as it is called by the islanders, "saving,"
fish is familiar to all who live near the sea-shore, and has not changed
in two hundred years. It is described as practiced here in 1800, by Dr.
Morse:
"The fish, in the first place, are thrown from the boat in piles on the
shore. The cutter then takes them and cuts their throat, and rips open
their bellies. In this state he hands them to the header, who takes out
the entrails (detaching the livers, which are preserved for the sake of
the oil they contain), and breaks off their heads. The splitter then
takes out the backbone, and splits them completely open, and hands them
to the salter, who salts and piles them in bulk, where they lie from ten
to twenty hours, as is most convenient. The shoremen and the women then
wash and spread them on the flakes. Here they remain three or four
weeks, according to the weather, during which time they are often
turned, piled in fagots, and then spread again, until they are
completely cured for market."
The "dun," or winter fish, formerly cured here, were larger and thicker
than the summer fish. Great pains were taken in drying them, the
fish-women often covering the "fagots" with bed-quilts to keep them
clean. Being cured in cold weather, they required but little salt, and
were almost transparent when held up to the light. These fish sometimes
weighed a hundred pounds or more. The dun fish were of great esteem in
Spain and in the Mediterranean ports, bringing the highest price during
Lent. They found their way to Madrid, where many a platter, smoking hot,
has doubtless graced the table of the Escurial. In 1745 a quintal would
sell for a guinea.
In 1775 the revolting colonies, unable to protect the islands, ordered
their abandonment. A few of the inhabitants remained, but the larger
number removed to the near main-land, and were scattered among the
neighboring towns. The Shoals became through the war a rendezvous for
British ships. The last official act of the last royal governor of New
Hampshire was performed here in 1775, when Sir John Wentworth prorogued
the Assembly of his majesty's lost province.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[97] "Et en la connoissance et experience que vous avez de la qualite,
condition et situation dudit pais de la Cadie, pour les diverses
navigations, voyages, et frequentations que vous avez faits en ces
terres et autres proches et circonvoisines."
[98] Williamson erroneously calls Champlain the pilot.
[99] A little book I have seen translates rather freely in making
Champlain say "and on the west Ipswitch Bay." See p. 122 for Champlain's
exact language.
[100] Pring came to the main-land in forty-three and a half degrees--his
farthest point westward on this voyage--and worked along the coast to
the south-west. I know of no other islands between Cape Ann and his
landfall answering his description.
[101] De Monts sailed from Havre de Grace March 7th, 1604.
[102] Winthrop's "Journal."
[103] Star Island is three-fourths of a mile long and half a mile wide;
White Island is also three-fourths of a mile in length. It is a mile and
three quarters from Star Island. Londoner's is five-eighths of a mile in
length, and one-eighth of a mile from Star Island. Duck Island is
seven-eighths of a mile in length, and three miles from Star Island
meeting-house. Appledore is seven-eighths of a mile from Star, and a
mile in length. Haley's, or Smutty Nose, is a mile in length, and
five-eighths of a mile from Star Island meeting-house. Cedar Island is
one-third of a mile long, and three-eighths of a mile distant from the
meeting-house. The whole group contains something in excess of six
hundred acres.
[104] The term "Shoals of Isles" seems rather far-fetched, and scarcely
significant to English sailors familiar with the hundred and sixty
islands of the Hebrides. I can find no instance of these isles having
been so called.
[105] Built in 1800, through the efforts of Dudley A. Tyng, of
Newburyport, Massachusetts. Dedicated in November by Rev. Jedediah
Morse, father of S. F. B. Morse. A school was for a time kept in it.
[106] For more than a century previous to the Revolution the islands
were prosperous, containing from three to six hundred souls. In 1800
there were three families and twenty persons on Smutty Nose; fifteen
families and ninety-two persons on Star Island, alias Gosport; eleven
dwellings and ten fish-houses on the latter, and three decent dwellings
on the former. At this time there was not an inhabitant on Appledore,
alias Hog Island.
[107] 1691. A considerable body of Eastern Indians came down from the
interior, with the intention of sacking the Isles of Shoals, but on
August 4th came upon some English forces at Maquoit, under Captain
March, and had a fight with them. This prevented their proceeding, and
saved the Shoals.--"Magnalia," vol. xi., p. 611.
1692. Governor Fletcher examined three deserters, or renegadoes, as he
calls them, from Quebec, who came before him September 23d. They said
two men-of-war had arrived at Quebec, and were fitting out for an
expedition along the coast, "with a design to fall on Wells, Isle of
Shoals, Piscataqua, etc."--"New York Colonial Documents," vol. iii., p.
855.
1724. After the Indians had cut off Captain Winslow and thirteen of his
men in the River St. George, encouraged by this success, the enemy made
a still greater attempt by water, and seized two shallops at the Isles
of Shoals.--HUTCHINSON's "Massachusetts," vol. ii., p. 307.
[108] _Mountains seen off the coast_: Agamenticus, twelve miles north of
the entrance of the Piscataqua; three inferior summits, known as Frost's
Hills, at a less distance on the north-west. In New Hampshire the first
ridge is twenty or thirty miles from sea, in the towns of Barrington,
Nottingham, and Rochester--the summits known as Teneriffe, Saddleback,
Tuckaway, etc. Their general name is the Blue Hills. Beyond these are
several detached summits--Mount Major, Moose Mountain, etc.; also a
third range farther inland, with Chocorua, Ossipee, and Kearsarge. In
the lofty ridge, separating the waters of the Merrimac and the
Connecticut is Grand Monadnock, twenty-two miles east of the Connecticut
River; thirty miles north of this is Sunapee, and forty-eight farther,
Moosehillock. The ranges then trend away north-east, and are massed in
the White Hills.
[109] John Ward Dean, of Boston, the accomplished antiquary, has
elicited this and other facts relative to his namesake.
[110] On Boone Island it is said there is no soil except what has been
carried there.
[Illustration: CLIFFS, WHITE ISLAND.]