THE ISLES OF SHOALS--_continued._
"--There be land-rats and water-rats, water thieves and land
thieves; I mean pirates."--_Merchant of Venice._
My next excursion was to Smutty Nose, or Haley's. Seen from Star Island
it shows two eminences, with a little hamlet of four houses, all having
their gable-ends toward the harbor, on the nearest rising ground. Round
the south-west point of Smutty Nose is the little haven already alluded
to in the previous chapter, made by building a causeway of stone over to
Malaga, where formerly the sea ran through. This Mr. Samuel Haley did at
his own cost, expending part of a handsome fortune on the work. Into
this little haven, we are told, many distressed vessels have put in and
found safe anchorage. The chronicles, speaking by the pen of a fair
islander, say old Mr. Haley, in building a wall, turned over a large
flat stone, beneath which lay four bars of solid silver; with which,
adds tradition, he began his sea mole. I should have thought, had this
precious discovery gained currency, no stone would have been left
unturned by the islanders, and that Haley's wall might have risen with
magical celerity.
It is certain these islands were in former times the resort of
freebooters, with such names as Dixy Bull, Low, and Argall (a licensed
and titled buccaneer), who left the traces of their own lawlessness in
the manner of life of the islanders. It was a convenient place in which
to refit or obtain fresh provisions without the asking of troublesome
questions.[111] The pirates could expect little booty from the
fishermen, but they often picked them up at sea to replenish their
crews.
In the year 1689 two noted buccaneers, Thomas Hawkins and Thomas Pound,
cruised on the coast of New England, committing many depredations. The
Bay colony determined on their capture, and dispatched an armed sloop
called the _Mary_, Samuel Pease commander, which put to sea in October
of that year. Hearing the pirates had been cruising at the mouth of
Buzzard's Bay, Captain Pease made all sail in that direction. The _Mary_
overhauled the outlaw off Wood's Hole. Pease ran down to her, hailed,
and ordered her to heave to. The freebooter ran up a blood-red flag in
defiance, when the _Mary_ fired a shot athwart her forefoot, and again
hailed, with a demand to strike her colors. Pound, who stood upon his
quarter-deck, answered the hail with, "Come on, you dogs, and I will
strike you." Waving his sword, his men poured a volley into the _Mary_,
and the action for some time raged fiercely, no quarter being expected.
Captain Pease at length carried his adversary by boarding, receiving
wounds in the hand-to-hand conflict of which he died.
In 1723 the sloop _Dolphin_, of Cape Ann, was taken on the Banks by
Phillips, a noted pirate. The able-bodied of the _Dolphin_ were forced
to join the pirate crew. Among the luckless fishermen was John Fillmore,
of Ipswich. Phillips, to quiet their scruples, promised _on his honor_
to set them at liberty at the end of three months. Finding no other hope
of escape, for of course the liar and pirate never meant to keep his
word, Fillmore, with the help of Edward Cheesman and an Indian, seizing
his opportunity, killed three of the chief pirates, including Phillips,
on the spot. The rest of the crew, made up in part of pressed men,
submitted, and the captured vessel was brought into Boston by the
conquerors on the 3d of May, 1724. John Fillmore, the quasi pirate, was
the great-grandfather of Millard Fillmore, thirteenth President of the
United States.
It is affirmed on the authority of Charles Chauncy that Low once
captured some fishermen from the "Shoals." Disappointed, perhaps, in his
expectation of booty, he first caused the captives to be barbarously
flogged, and afterward required each of them three times to curse Parson
Mather or be hanged. The prisoners did not reject the alternative.
No doubt these pirates had heard of the sermons Cotton Mather was in the
habit of preaching before the execution of many of their confederates.
In his time it was the custom to march condemned prisoners under a
strong guard to some church on the Sabbath preceding the day on which
they were to suffer. There, marshaled in the broad aisle, they listened
to a discourse on the enormity of their crimes and the torments that
awaited them in the other world, this being the manner in which the old
divines administered the consolations of religion to such desperate
malefactors.
New England could contribute a thick volume to the annals of piracy in
the New World from the records of a hundred years subsequent to her
settlement. The name of Kidd was long a bugbear with which to terrify
wayward children into obedience, and the search for his treasure
continues, as we have seen, to this day. Bradish, Bellamy, and Quelch
sailed these seas like true followers of those dreaded rovers who swept
the English coasts, and sent their defiance to the king himself:
"Go tell the King of England, go tell him thus from me,
Though he reigns king o'er all the land, I will reign king at sea."
They have still the ghost of a pirate on Appledore, one of Kidd's men.
There has consequently been much seeking after treasure. The face of the
spectre is "pale, and very dreadful" to behold; and its neck, it is
averred, shows the livid mark of the hangman's noose. It answers to the
name of "Old Bab." Once no islander could be found hardy enough to
venture on Appledore after night-fall. I shrewdly suspect "Old Bab" to
be in the pay of the Laightons.
In 1700, Rear-admiral Benbow was lying at Piscataqua, with nine of
Kidd's pirates on board for transportation to England. Robert Bradenham,
Kidd's surgeon, says the Earl of Bellomont, was the "obstinatest and
most hardened of 'em all." In the year 1726 the pirates William Fly,
Samuel Cole, and Henry Greenville were taken and put to death at Boston,
after having been well preached to in Old Brattle Street by Dr. Colman.
Fly, the captain, like a truculent knave, refused to come into church,
and on the way to execution bore himself with great bravado. He jumped
briskly into the cart with a nosegay in his hand, smiling and bowing to
the spectators, as he passed along, with real or affected unconcern. At
the gallows he showed the same obstinacy until his face was
covered.[112]
The various legends relative to the corsairs, and the secreting of their
ill-gotten gains among these rocks, would of themselves occupy a lengthy
chapter; and the recital of the fearful sights and sounds which have
confronted such as were hardy enough to seek for treasure would satisfy
the most inveterate marvel-monger in the land.
[Illustration: BLACKBEARD, THE PIRATE.]
Among others to whom it is said these islands were known was the
celebrated Captain Teach, or Blackbeard, as he was often called. He is
supposed to have buried immense treasure here, some of which, like
Haley's ingots, has been dug up and appropriated by the islanders. On
one of his cruises, while lying off the Scottish coast waiting for a
rich trader, he was boarded by a stranger, who came off in a small boat
from the shore. The new-comer demanded to be led before the pirate
chief, in whose cabin he remained some time shut up. At length Teach
appeared on deck with the stranger, whom he introduced to the crew as a
comrade. The vessel they were expecting soon came in sight, and after a
bloody conflict became the prize of Blackbeard. It was determined by the
corsair to man and arm the captured vessel. The unknown had fought with
undaunted bravery and address during the battle. He was given the
command of the prize.
The stranger Scot was not long in gaining the bad eminence of being as
good a pirate as his renowned commander. His crew thought him
invincible, and followed where he led. At last, after his appetite for
wealth had been satisfied by the rich booty of the Southern seas, he
arrived on the coast of his native land. His boat was manned, and landed
him on the beach near an humble dwelling, whence he soon returned,
bearing in his arms the lifeless form of a woman.
The pirate ship immediately set sail for America, and in due time
dropped her anchor in the road of the Isles of Shoals. Here the crew
passed their time in secreting their riches and in carousal. The
commander's portion was buried on an island apart from the rest. He
roamed over the isles with his beautiful companion, forgetful, it would
seem, of his fearful trade, until one morning a sail was seen standing
in for the islands. All was now activity on board the pirate; but before
getting under way the outlaw carried the maiden to the island where he
had buried his treasure, and made her take a fearful oath to guard the
spot from mortals until his return, were it not 'til doomsday. He then
put to sea.
The strange sail proved to be a warlike vessel in search of the
freebooter. A long and desperate battle ensued, in which the cruiser at
last silenced her adversary's guns. The vessels were grappled for a last
struggle, when a terrific explosion strewed the sea with the fragments
of both. Stung to madness by defeat, knowing that if taken alive the
gibbet awaited him, the rover had fired the magazine, involving friend
and foe in a common fate.
A few mangled wretches succeeded in reaching the islands, only to perish
miserably, one by one, from cold and hunger. The pirate's mistress
remained true to her oath to the last, or until she also succumbed to
want and exposure. By report, she has been seen more than once on White
Island--a tall, shapely figure, wrapped in a long sea-cloak, her head
and neck uncovered, except by a profusion of golden hair. Her face is
described as exquisitely rounded, but pale and still as marble. She
takes her stand on the verge of a low, projecting point, gazing fixedly
out upon the ocean in an attitude of intense expectation. A former race
of fishermen avouched that her ghost was doomed to haunt those rocks
until the last trump shall sound, and that the ancient graves to be
found on the islands were tenanted by Blackbeard's men.[113]
These islands were also the favorite haunt of smugglers.[114] Many a
runlet of Canary has been "passed" here that never paid duty to king or
Congress. It must have been a very paradise of free-traders, who,
doubtless, had the sympathies of the inhabitants in their illicit
traffic. "What a smuggler's isle!" was my mental ejaculation when I
first set foot on Star Island; what a retreat for some Dirck Hatteraick
or outlawed Jean Lafitte!
I rowed over to Smutty Nose in a wherry. The name has a rough
significance. Looking at the islands at low tide, they present
well-defined belts of color. First is the dark line of submerged
rock-weed, which led some acute fisherman to hit off with effect the
more popular name of Haley's Island; next comes a strip almost as green
as the grass in the rocky pastures; above these again, shaded into
browns or dingy yellows, the rocks appear of a tawny hue, and then
blanched to a ghastly whiteness, a little relieved by dusky patches of
green.
I remarked that the schooners of twenty or thirty tons' burden lying in
the harbor were all at moorings, ready to run after a school of fish or
away from a storm. It is only a few years since three of these vessels
were blown from their moorings and stranded on the rocks of Smutty Nose
and Appledore.
In 1635 the ship _James_, Captain Taylor, of Bristol, England, had a
narrow escape from being wrecked here. After losing three anchors, she
was with difficulty guided past the great rocks into the open sea. The
curious reader will find the details quaintly set forth in the journal
of Rev. Richard Mather, the ancestor of a celebrated family of New
England divines.[115] She had on board a hundred passengers for the
Massachusetts Colony.
While lying on our oars in this basin, where so many antique craft have
been berthed, it is perhaps not amiss to allude to Thomas Morton, of
Mount Wollaston,[116] alias Merry Mount. To do so it will not only be
necessary to clamber up the crumbling side of the ship in which he was
being sent a prisoner to England, but to surmount prejudices equally
decrepit, that, like the spectre of "Old Bab," continue to appear long
after they have been decently gibbeted. The incident derives a certain
interest from the fact that Morton's was the first instance of
banishment in the New England colonies. The only consequence of Thomas
Morton, of Clifford's Inn, gent., is due to the effort to cast obloquy
upon the Pilgrims.
In the year 1628 the ship _Whale_ was riding at the Isles of Shoals,
Morton having been seized by order of Plymouth Colony, and put on board
for transportation to England. What manner of ship the _Whale_ was may
be gathered from Morton's own account of her. The master he calls "Mr.
Weathercock," and the ship "a pitiful, weather-beaten craft," in which
he was "in more danger than Jonah in the whale's belly."
The cause of Morton's banishment is often asserted to have been simply
his licentious conduct, and what some have been pleased to call
indulgence in such "hearty old English pastimes" as dancing about a
May-pole, singing songs of no doubtful import, holding high wassail the
while, like the mad, roystering rogues his followers were. The Pilgrim
Fathers are indicted by a class of historians desirous of displaying to
the world the intolerance of the "Plymouth Separatists," as
distinguished from the liberality which marked the religious views of
the settlers east of the Merrimac. Our forefathers, say they, did not
come to the New World for religious liberty, but to fish and trade.
Morton's offense is stated by Governor Bradford, in his letters to the
Council for New England and to Sir F. Gorges, to have been the selling
of arms and ammunition to the Indians in such quantities as to endanger
the safety of the infant plantations. He was arrested, and his
association of Merry Mount broken up, after repeated and friendly
efforts to dissuade him from this course had been met with insolence and
bravado. It stands thus in Governor Bradford's letter-book:
"_To the Honourable his Majesty's Council for New England, these, Right
Honourable and our very good Lords:_
"Necessity hath forced us, his Majesty's subjects of New
England in general (after long patience), to take this course
with this troublesome planter, Mr. Thomas Morton, whom we have
sent unto your honours that you may be pleased to take that
course with him which to your honourable wisdom shall seem fit;
who hath been often admonished not to trade or truck with the
Indians either pieces, powder, or shot, which yet he hath done,
and duly makes provision to do, and could not be restrained,
taking it in high scorn (as he speaks) that any here should
controul therein. Now the general weakness of us his Majesty's
subjects, the strength of the Indians, and at this time their
great preparations to do some affront upon us, and the evil
example which it gives unto others, and having no subordinate
general government under your honours in this land to restrain
such misdemeanours, causeth us to be troublesome to your
Lordships to send this party unto you for remedy and redress
hereof."
The letter to Sir F. Gorges[117] is in greater detail, but its length
prevents its insertion with the foregoing extract. The Governor of New
Plymouth makes a similar allegation with regard to the fishing ships. It
is noticeable that all the plantations took part in this affair,
Piscataqua, the Isles of Shoals, Edward Hilton, and others paying their
proportion of the expense of sending Morton out of the country.
Morton's offense, therefore, was political and not religious, and his
extradition a measure of self-preservation, an inexorable law in 1628 to
that handful of settlers. If, at the end of nearly two centuries and a
half, the Government those Pilgrims contributed to found deemed it
necessary to the public safety to banish individuals from its borders,
how, then, may we challenge this act of a few men who dwelt in a
wilderness, and worshiped their God with the Bible in one hand and a
musket in the other?
Morton defied the proclamation of the king promulgated in 1622, saying
there was no penalty attached to it. Its terms forbade "any to trade to
the portion of America called New England, being the whole breadth of
the land between forty and forty-eight degrees of north latitude,
excepting those of the Virginia Company, the plantation having been much
injured by interlopers, who have injured the woods, damaged the harbors,
trafficked with the savages, and even sold them weapons, and taught them
the use thereof."[118]
Of the May-pole, which the Pilgrims regarded with grim discontent,
Stubbes gives the manner in England of bringing it home from the woods.
"But," he says, "their cheefest jewell they bring home with greate
veneration, as thus: they have twentie or fourtie yoke of oxen, every
oxe havyng a sweete nosegaie of flowers tyed on the tippe of his hornes,
and these oxen drawe home this Maie-poole, which is covered all over
with flowers and hearbes, bounde rounde aboute with stringes from the
top to the bottome, and sometyme painted with variable colours, with two
or three hundred men, women, and children followyng it with great
devotion. And thus beying reared up with handkercheifes and flagges
streamyng on the toppe, they strawe the grounde aboute, binde green
boughes about it, sett up Sommer haules, Bowers, and Arbours hard by.
And then fall they to banquet and feast, to leape and dance aboute it,
as the Heathen people did at the dedication of their idolles, whereof
this is a perfect patterne, or rather the thynge itself."
[Illustration: SMUTTY NOSE.]
Smutty Nose, the most verdant of the islands, was one of the earliest
settled. The stranger for the first time feels something like soil
beneath his feet. There is a wharf and a little landing-place, where a
boat may be beached. When within Haley's little cove, I looked down
into the water, and saw the perch (cunners) swimming lazily about. This
was the only place where the old-time industry of the isles showed even
a flake, so to speak, of its former greatness. There were a few men
engaged in drying their fish near the landing. Clear weather with
westerly winds is best for this purpose; dull or foggy weather spoils
the fish.
[Illustration: HALEY DOCK AND HOMESTEAD.
(In the third House from the left the Wagner Murder was committed.)]
At a little distance, shorn of some of its former adornments, is the
homestead of Samuel Haley, who with his two sons and their families
occupied the island many years ago. Not far off is the little family
grave-yard of the Haleys, with the palings falling in decay, and the
mounds overgrown with a tangle of rank grass. At one time, by his
energy, Mr. Haley had made of his island a self-sustaining possession.
Before the Revolution he had built a windmill, salt-works, and
rope-walk; a bakehouse, brewery, distillery, blacksmith's and cooper's
shops succeeded in the first year of peace--all going to decay within
his lifetime. By all report of him, he was a good and humane man, and I
hereby set up his prostrate grave-stone on my page:
"IN MEMORY OF MR. SAMUEL HALEY
Who died in the year 1811
Aged 84
He was a man of great Ingenuity
Industry Honor and Honesty, true to his
Country & A man who did A great
Public good in Building A
Dock & Receiving into his
Enclosure many a poor
Distressed Seaman & Fisherman
In distress of Weather."
A few steps farther on are the graves of fourteen shipwrecked mariners,
marked by rude boulders. It is entered in the Gosport records: "1813,
_Jan._ 14_th_, ship _Sagunto_ stranded on Smutty Nose Isle; _Jan._
15_th_, one man found; 16_th_, six men found; 21_st_, seven men found."
The record sums up the number as twelve bodies found, whereas the total
appears to be fourteen.
Although the ship _Sagunto_ was not stranded on Smutty Nose Isle, the
wreck of a ship, either Spanish or Portuguese, with all on board,
remains a terrible fact but too well attested by these graves.[119] The
horror of the event is deepened and strengthened by the simple word
"Unknown." When this ship crashed and filled and went down, the
_Sagunto_ was lying, after a terrible buffeting, within a safe harbor.
It was in a blinding snow-storm, and a gale that strewed the shore from
the Penobscot to Hatteras with wrecks, that a ship built of cedar and
mahogany was thrown on these rocks. Not a living soul was left to tell
the tale of that bitter January night. The ill-fated vessel was richly
laden, no doubt, for boxes of raisins and almonds from Malaga drifted on
shore the next morning. On a piece of the wreck that came in a silver
watch of English make was found, with the letters "P. S." graven on the
seals; and among the debris was a Spanish and part of an American
ensign, for it was war-time then between England and the American
States. The watch had stopped at exactly four o'clock, or when time
ceased for those hapless Spaniards. There were also found some twenty
letters, addressed south of New York. Conjecture said it was a Spanish
ship from Cadiz, bound for Philadelphia.
This is the story of this little clump of graves, and of the wreck, to
this day unknown. It has been told many times in prose and poetry, but
not often truly. Samuel Haley had been quietly lying in his grave two
years. The reader may or may not believe he found the frozen bodies of
some of the crew next morning reclining on his wall. Here is a wild
flower of island growth, of a handful cast upon these fading mounds:
"O sailors, did sweet eyes look after you
The day you sailed away from sunny Spain?
Bright eyes that followed fading ship and crew,
Melting in tender rain?"
I wondered that these fourteen the old sea had strangled and flung up
here could rest so peacefully in ground unblessed by Holy Church.
Perchance the spot has witnessed midnight mass, with incense and with
missal: no doubt beads have been told, and a _pater_ and _ave_ said by
pious pilgrims.
It is not pleasant to think that the island has become more widely known
through the medium of an atrocious murder committed here in March, 1873.
Formerly the islanders dated from some well-remembered wreck; now it is
before or since the murder on Smutty Nose they reckon.
On the morning of March 6th the Norwegian who lives opposite Star
Island, on Appledore, heard a cry for help. Going to the shore, he saw a
woman standing on the rocks of Malaga in her night-dress. He crossed
over and brought the poor creature to his cottage, when it appeared that
her feet were frozen. She was half dead with fright and exposure, but
told her tale as soon as she was able.
John Hontvet, a fisherman, occupied one of the three houses on Smutty
Nose; the third counting from the little cove, as you look at it from
Star Island. On the night of the 5th of March he was at Portsmouth,
leaving three women--Mary, his wife; Annethe and Karen Christensen--at
home. They went to bed as usual, Annethe with Mrs. Hontvet in the
bedroom; Karen on a couch in the kitchen. It was a fine moonlight night,
though cold, and there was snow on the ground.
Some time during the night a man entered the house, it is supposed for
the purpose of robbery. He fastened the door between the kitchen, which
he first entered, and the bedroom, thus isolating the sleeping women.
Karen, having awoke, cried out, when she was attacked by the intruder
with a chair. The noise having aroused the two women in the bedroom,
Mary Hontvet jumped out of bed, forced open the door leading into the
kitchen, and succeeded in getting hold of the wounded girl, Karen, whom
she drew within her own chamber. All this took place in the dark. Mary
then bade Annethe, her brother's wife, to jump out of the window, and
she did so, but was too much terrified to go beyond the corner of the
house. Mary, meanwhile, was holding the door of the kitchen against the
attempts of their assailant to force it open. Foiled here, the villain
left the house, and meeting the young wife, Annethe, was seen by Mary,
in the clear moonlight, to deal her three terrible blows with an axe.
But before she was struck down the girl had recognized her murderer, and
shrieked out, "Louis, Louis!"
After this accursed deed the man went back to the house, and Mary also
made her escape by the window. Karen was too badly hurt to follow. The
clear-grit Norwegian woman ran first to the dock, but finding no boat
there, hid herself among the rocks. She durst not shout, for fear the
sound of her voice would bring the murderer to the spot. There she
remained, like another Betty Moody, until sunrise, when she took courage
and went across the sea-wall to Malaga and was rescued. I was told that
when she fled, with rare presence of mind, she took her little dog under
her arm, for fear it might prove her destruction.
It resulted that Louis Wagner, a Prussian, was arrested, tried for the
murder, and condemned as guilty. The fatal recognition by Annethe, the
figure seen with uplifted axe through the window by Mary, and the
prisoner's absence from his lodgings on the night of the murder, pointed
infallibly to him as the chief actor in this night of horrors. To have
committed this crime he must have rowed from Portsmouth to the Islands
and back again, on the night in question; no great feat for one of those
hardy islanders, and Wagner was noted for muscular strength. It is said
he was of a churlish disposition, and would seldom speak unless
addressed, when he would answer shortly. He was not considered a bad
fellow, but a poor companion.
I went to the house. Relic-hunters had left it in a sorry plight; taking
away even the sashes of the windows, shelves, and every thing movable.
Even the paper had been torn from the walls, and carried off for its
blood-stains. Hontvet described, with the phlegm of his race, the
appearance of the house on the morning of the tragedy: "Karen lay dere;
Annethe lay here," he said. I saw they were preparing to make it
habitable again: better burn it, say I.
We had a sun-dog at evening and a rainbow in the morning, full-arched,
and rising out of the sea, a sure forerunner, say veteran observers, of
foul weather. Says the quatrain of the forecastle:
"Rainbow in the morning,
Sailors take warning;
Rainbow at night,
Is the sailor's delight."
[Illustration: LEDGE OF ROCKS, SMUTTY NOSE.]
I spent a quiet, breezy afternoon in exploring Appledore. The landing
from the harbor side has to be made in some cleft of the rock, and is
not practicable when there is a sea running. Passing by the cottage at
the shore, I first went up the rocky declivity to the site of the
abandoned settlement of so long ago. It may still be recognized by the
cellars, rough stone walls, and fragments of bricks lying scattered
about. Thistles, raspberry-bushes, and dwarf cherry-trees in fragrant
bloom, were growing in the depressions which marked these broken
hearth-stones of a forgotten people. The poisonous ivy, sometimes called
mercury, so often found clinging to old walls, was here. Some
country-folk pretend its potency is such that they who look on it are
inoculated with the poison; a scratch, as I know to my cost, will
suffice.
Here was a strip of green grass running along the harbor side, and, for
the first time, the semblance of a road; I followed it until it lost
itself among the rocks. A horse and a yoke of oxen were browsing by the
way, and on a distant shelf of rock I saw a cow, much exaggerated in
size, contentedly ruminative. Clumps of huckleberry and fragrant
bayberry were frequent, with blackberry and other vines clustering above
the surface rocks.
[Illustration: SOUTH-EAST END OF APPLEDORE, LOOKING SOUTH.]
I am inclined to doubt whether, after all, the habitation of
Appledore[120] was abandoned on account of the Indians, for Star Island,
as has been remarked, could give no better security. Probably the
landing had much to do with it. Without some moving cause the
inhabitants would hardly have left Appledore and its verdure for the
bald crags of Star Island. The choice of Appledore by the first
settlers was probably due to its spring of pure water, the only one on
the islands.
The year 1628 is the first in which we can locate actual settlers at
the Shoals. Mr. Jeffrey and Mr. Burslem, then assessed two pounds for
the expenses of Morton's affair, are supposed to have been living there.
By 1640 the Rev. Mr. Hull, of Agamenticus, paid parochial visits to the
Isles, and some time before 1661, says Dr. Morse, they had a
meeting-house on Hog Island, though the service of the Church of England
was the first performed there. The three brothers Cutt, of Wales,
settled there about 1645, removing soon to the main-land, where they
became distinguished. Antipas Maverick is mentioned as resident in 1647.
Another settler whom the chronicles do not omit was William Pepperell,
of Cornwall, England, father of the man of Louisburg, who was here about
1676. The removal of the brothers Cutt within two years, and of
Pepperell and Gibbons after a brief residence, does not confirm the view
that the islands at that early day possessed attractions to men of the
better class sometimes claimed for them. Pepperell and Gibbons left the
choice of a future residence to chance, with an indifference worthy a
Bedouin of the Great Desert. Holding their staves between thumb and
finger until perpendicularly poised, they let them fall, departing, the
tradition avers, in the direction in which each pointed--Pepperell to
Kittery, Gibbons to Muscongus.
The first woman mentioned who came to reside at Hog Island was Mrs. John
Reynolds, and she came in defiance of an act of court prohibiting women
from living on the islands. One of the Cutts, Richard by name,
petitioned for her removal, together with the hogs and swine running at
large on the island belonging to John Reynolds. The court, however,
permitted her to remain during good behavior. This occurred in 1647. It
gives a glimpse of what society must hitherto have been on the islands
to call for such enactments. No wonder men of substance left the worse
than barren rocks, and that right speedily.
[Illustration: DUCK ISLAND, FROM APPLEDORE.]
I walked around the shores of Appledore, stopping to explore the chasms
in my way. One of them I could liken to nothing but a coffin, it seemed
so exactly fashioned to receive the hull of some unlucky ship. On some
of the rocks I remarked impressions, as if made with the heel of a human
foot. In the offing Duck Island showed its jagged teeth, around which
the tide swelled and broke until it seemed frothing at the mouth.
Another Smith's monument is on the highest part of the island, all the
others being within view from it. It is a rude cairn of rough stone,
thrown together with little effort at regularity. The surface stones are
overgrown with lichens, which add to its appearance of antiquity. It is
known to have stood here rather more than a century, and is said to have
been built by Captain John Smith himself. Howsoever the tradition may
have originated, it is all we have, and are so fain to be content; but I
marvel that so modest a man as Captain John should have said nothing
about it in the book writ with his own hand. By some the monument has
been believed to be a beacon built to mark the fishing-grounds.
Smith arrived at Monhegan in April, 1614, and was back again at
Plymouth, England, on the 5th of August. He was one of those who came to
"fish and trade," seeking out the habitations of the Indians for his
purpose. There were no savages at the Isles.[121] Of his map Smith
writes: "Although there be many things to be observed which the haste of
other affairs did cause me to omit, for being sent more to get present
commodities than knowledge by discoveries for any future good, I had not
power to search as I would," etc. I should add, in passing, that Smith,
who admits having seen the relation of Gosnold, does not allow him the
credit of the name he gave to Martha's Vineyard, but speaks of it as
Capawock.
One of the remarkable features of Appledore is the valley issuing from
the cove, dividing the island in two. This ravine is a real curiosity,
the great depression occurring where the hotel buildings are situated
affording a snug cove on the west of the island. Just behind the house
enough soil had accumulated to furnish a thriving and well-kept
vegetable garden, evidently an object of solicitude to the proprietors.
From the veranda of the hotel you may see the ocean on the east and the
bay on the west. In Mr. Hawthorne's account of his visit here in 1852,
he relates that in the same storm that overthrew Minot's Light, a great
wave passed entirely through this valley; "and," he continues, "Laighton
describes it when it came in from the sea as toppling over to the height
of the cupola of his hotel. It roared and whitened through, from sea to
sea, twenty feet abreast, rolling along huge rocks in its passage. It
passed beneath his veranda, which stands on posts, and probably filled
the valley completely. Would I had been here to see!"
When I came back to the harbor side, both wind and tide had risen. I was
ferried across by a lad of not more than ten years. At times the swift
current got the better and swept the boat to leeward, but he stoutly
refused to give me the oars, the pride of an islander being involved in
the matter. The little fellow flung his woolen cap to the bottom of the
dory, his hair flying loosely in the wind as he bent to his task. After
taking in more water than was for our comfort, he was at last obliged to
accept my aid. These islanders are amphibious, brought up with "one foot
on sea, one foot on shore." I doubt if half their lives are passed on
_terra firma_.
Duck Island is for the sportsman. He will find there in proper season
the canvas-back, mallard, teal, white-winged coot, sheldrake, etc. Few
land, except gunners in pursuit of sea-fowl. I contented myself with
sailing along its shores, watching the play of the surf and the gambols
of a colony of small sea-gulls that seemed in peaceable possession. Duck
Island proper has a cluster of wicked-looking ledges encircling it from
south-west to south-east. The mariner should give it a wide berth. Its
ill-shapen rocks project on all sides, and a reef makes out half a mile
into the sea from the north-west. Shag and Mingo are two of its
satellites. This island was resorted to by the Indians for the seals
frequenting it.
[Illustration: LAIGHTON'S GRAVE.]
I had observed lying above the landing on Star Island a queer-looking
craft, which might with great propriety be called a shell. It consisted
of a frame of slats neatly fitted together, over which a covering of
tarred canvas had been stretched. I at first thought some Kanaka's canoe
had found its way through the North-west Passage, and drifted in here;
but Mr. Poor assured me it belonged on the islands, and was owned and
sailed by Tom Leha, whose dwelling on Londoner's he pointed out. As Tom
Leha was the Celtic skipper of the _Creed_, I had some speech of him.
His boat, he said, was such as is used in the Shannon, where it is
called the "saint's canoe," because first used by one of the Irish
saints. It was a good surf-boat, light as a cork, and as buoyant.
One night Leha, with his wife and three children, arrived at the Shoals
in his canoe, which a strong man might easily carry. No one knew whence
they came. Their speech was unintelligible. There they were, and there
they seemed inclined to remain. Your _bona fide_ Shoaler likes not
intruders. The islanders gave Leha and his a cold welcome, but this did
not discompose him. He was faithful and industrious, and in time saved
money enough to buy Londoner's. He waved his hand toward his island
home, as if to say,
"An ill-favored thing, sir, but mine own."
[Illustration: LONDONER'S, FROM STAR ISLAND.]
As seen from Star Island, Londoner's shows two rugged knobs connected by
a narrower strip of shingle. It has its cove, and a reasonably good
landing. Half-way between it and Star are hidden rocks over which the
sea breaks. It was not occupied by its owner when I was there.
It was a lovely morning when I rowed over to White Island. Once clear of
the harbor, I found outside what sailors call "an old sea," the relics
of the late north-easter. But these wherries will live in any sea that
runs on the New England coast. I have heard of the Bank fishermen being
out in them for days together when their vessel could not lie at anchor
in the tremendous swell.
White Island is now the most picturesque of the group, a distinction
once conceded to Star. It owes this preference to its light-house,
standing on a cliff at the east head of the isle, that rises full fifty
feet out of water; at least it seemed so high to me as I lay underneath
it in my little boat at low tide. Against this cliff the waves
continually swelled, rushing into crannies, where I could hear them
gurgling and soughing as if some monster were choking to death in their
depths.
This is not so forbidding as Boon Island, but it is enough. The
light-house was of brick, as I could see where the weather had worn off
last year's coat of whitewash. It was not yet time for the tender to
come and brighten it up again. The long gallery conducting from the
keeper's cottage up to the tower was once torn away from its fastenings,
and hurled into the deep gorge of the rocks which it spans. I saw
nothing to hinder if the Atlantic had a mind again to play at bowls with
it.
The island owes its name to the blanched appearance of its crags, little
different in this respect from its fellows. At high tides the westward
end is isolated from the rest, making two islands of it in appearance,
but inseparable as the Siamese twins. The light-house is much visited in
summer, especially by those of a romantic turn, and by those to whom its
winding stairs, huge tanks of oil, and powerful Fresnel, possess the
charm of novelty. By its side is the section of an earlier building, a
reminiscence of the former state of the Isles. For many years the keeper
of the light was Thomas B. Laighton, afterward proprietor of Appledore.
On account of some political disappointment, he removed from Portsmouth
to the Isles, making, it is said, a vow never again to set foot on the
main-land. Fortune followed the would-be recluse against his will. As
keeper of a boarding-house on Appledore, he is reported to have
expressed little pleasure at the coming of visitors, even while
receiving them with due hospitality. He was glad of congenial spirits,
but loved not overmuch the stranger within his gates. His sons succeeded
to their father at the Appledore. His daughter[122] has told with
charming _naivete_ the story of the light-house, whose lamps she often
trimmed and lighted with her own hands.
"I lit the lamps in the light-house tower,
For the sun dropped down and the day was dead;
They shone like a glorious clustered flower,
Two golden and five red."
In 1793 there were only eight light-houses within the jurisdiction of
Massachusetts. Of these one was at the entrance of Nantucket, and
another of Boston harbor. There were twin lights on the north point of
Plymouth harbor, on Thatcher's Island, off Cape Ann, and at the
northerly end of Plum Island, at the mouth of the Merrimac. The latter
were not erected until 1787. They were of wood, so contrived as to be
removed at pleasure, in order to conform to the shifting of the sand-bar
on which they stood. The lights on Baker's Island, at the entrance of
the port of Salem, were not built until 1798.
But neither compass, sextant, fixed and revolving lights, storm signals,
careful soundings, buoys, nor beacons, with all the improvements in
modern ship-building, have yet reduced traveling over the sea to the
same certainty as traveling over the land. We commit ourselves to the
mercy of Father Neptune just as fearfully as ever, and annually pay a
costly tribute of lives for the privilege of traversing his dominions.
[Illustration: COVERED WAY AND LIGHT-HOUSE, WHITE ISLAND.]
During the winter of 18--, so runs the story, the keeper of this light
was a young islander, with a single assistant. For nearly a week
north-easterly winds had prevailed, bringing in from the sea a cold,
impenetrable haze, that enveloped the islands, and rendered it
impossible to discern objects within a cable's length of the
light-house. At the turn of the tide on the sixth day, the expected
storm burst upon them with inconceivable fury. The sea grew blacker
beneath the dead white of the falling snow. The waves, urged on by the
gale, made a fair breach over the light-house rock, driving the keeper
from his little dwelling to the tower for shelter.
The violence of the gale increased until midnight, when it began to
lull. The spirits of the oppressed watchers rose as the storm abated.
One made ready a smoking platter of fish and potatoes, while the other
prepared to snatch a few moments' sleep. While thus occupied, a loud
knock was heard at the door. It was repeated. The two men stood rooted
to the spot. They knew no living thing except themselves was on the
island; they knew nothing of mortal shape might approach it in such a
fearful tempest. At a third knock the assistant, who was preparing their
frugal meal, fell upon his knees, making the sign of the cross, and
calling upon all the saints in the calendar for protection, like the
good Catholic he was.
The keeper, who had time to recollect himself, advanced to the door and
threw it open. On the outside stood a gigantic negro, of muscular frame,
clothed in a few rags, the blood streaming from twenty gashes in his
body and limbs. A brig had been cast away on the rocks a few rods
distant from the light, and the intrepid black had ventured to attempt
to gain the light-house.
[Illustration: WHITE ISLAND LIGHT.]
The keeper ran to the spot. Peering into the darkness, he could discover
the position of the vessel only by the flapping of her torn sails in the
wind. The roar of the sea drowned every other sound. If the shipwrecked
crew had cried for help, they could not have been heard. Availing
himself of his knowledge of every inch of the shore, the keeper
succeeded in gaining a projecting ledge, from which he attracted the
attention of those on board the brig, and after many fruitless efforts a
line was got to land. The wreck, as the keeper could now see, was driven
in a little under the shelter of a projecting point. Moments were
precious. He sought in vain for some projection on which he might fasten
his rope. He did not hesitate, but wound it about his body, and fixed
himself as firmly as he could in a crevice of the rock. Here, with his
feet planted on the slippery ledge, where every sea that came in
drenched him to the skin, the brave fellow stood fast until every man of
the crew had been saved.
There is nothing that moves the imagination like a light-house. John
Quincy Adams said when he saw one in the evening he was reminded of the
light Columbus saw the night he discovered the New World. I have been
moved to call them telegraph posts, standing along the coast, each
flashing its spark from cape to headland, the almost commingling rays
being golden threads of happy intelligence to all mariners. What a
glorious vision it would be to see the kindling of each tower from
Florida to Prima Vista, as the broad streets of the city are lighted,
lamp by lamp!
Here ended my wanderings among these islands, seated like immortals in
the midst of eternity. The strong south-westerly current bore me swiftly
from the light-house rock. We hoisted sail, and laid the prow of our
little bark for the river's mouth; but I leaned over the taffrail and
looked back at the beacon-tower 'til it faded and was lost.
"Even at this distance I can see the tides,
Upheaving, break unheard along its base;
A speechless wrath that rises and subsides
In the white lip and tremor of the face.
"Sail on!" it says, "Sail on, ye stately ships!
And with your floating bridge the ocean span;
Be mine to guard this light from all eclipse,
Be yours to bring man nearer unto man.'"
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[111] 1670. The General Court being informed that there is a ship riding
in the road at the Isle of Shoales suspected to be a pirat, and hath
pirattically seized the sayd ship and goods from some of the French
nation in amity with the English, and doeth not come under comand, this
Court doeth declare and order that neither the sayd ship or goods or any
of the company shall come into our jurisdiction, or be brought into any
of our ports, upon penalty of being seized upon and secured to answer
what shall be objected against them.--"Massachusetts Colonial Records,"
vol. iv., part ii., p. 449.
[112] After execution the bodies of the pirates were taken to the little
island in Boston harbor known as Nix's Mate, on which there is a
monument. Fly was hung in chains, and the other two buried on the beach.
The total disappearance of this island before the encroachments of the
sea is the foundation of a legend. Bird Island, in the same harbor, on
which pirates have been executed, has also disappeared. It formerly
contained a considerable area.
[113] A somewhat more authentic naval conflict occurred during the war
of 1812 with Great Britain, when the American privateer, _Governor
Plummer_, was captured on Jeffrey's Ledge by a British cruiser, the _Sir
John Sherbroke_. The American had previously made many captures. Off
Newfoundland she sustained a hard fight with a vessel of twelve guns,
sent out to take her. She also beat off six barges sent on the same
errand.
[114] 1686. Ordered that no shipps do unliver any part of their lading
at the Isles of Shoals before they have first entered with the Collector
of H. M. Customs, and also with the officer receiving his majs imposts
and revenues arising upon wine, sperm, &c., imported either in Boston,
Salem, or Piscataqua; and that all shipps and vessells trading to the
eastward of Cape Porpus shall enter at some of the aforesaid Ports, or
at the town of Falmouth in the Prov. of Maine.--"Massachusetts Council
Records," vol. i., p. 43.
[115] Boston, 1850: original in possession of Dorchester Antiquarian
Society.
[116] Mount Wollaston, Quincy, Massachusetts; present residence of John
Quincy Adams, Esq.
[117] See "Massachusetts Historical Collections," vol. iii., p. 63.
[118] British State Papers, Calendars.
[119] Spanish ship _Sagunto_, Carrera, seventy-three days from Cadiz for
New York, arrived at Newport on Monday, January 11th, out of provisions
and water, and the crew frost-bitten. Cargo, wine, raisins, and salt.
Saw no English cruisers, and spoke only one vessel, a Baltimore
privateer.--_Columbian Centinel_, January 16th, 1813.
[120] Appledore, a small sea-port of England, County of Devon, parish of
Northampton, on the Torridge, at its mouth in Barnstable Bay, two and a
quarter miles north of Bideford. It is resorted to in summer as a
bathing-place, and has a harbor subordinate to the port of
Barnstable.--"Gazetteer."
[121] Levett says, "Upon these islands are no salvages at all."
[122] Mrs. Celia Laighton Thaxter.
[Illustration: WENTWORTH HOUSE, LITTLE HARBOR.]