NEWCASTLE AND NEIGHBORHOOD.
"Yes--from the sepulchre we'll gather flowers,
Then feast like spirits in their promised bowers,
Then plunge and revel in the rolling surf,
Then lay our limbs along the tender turf."--BYRON.
Another delightfully ruinous old corner is Newcastle, which occupies the
island opposite Kittery Point, usually called Great Island. Between
Newcastle and Kittery is the main ship-channel, with deep water and
plenty of sea-room. On the south of Great Island is another entrance
called Little Harbor, with shallow water and sandy bottom; its
communication with the main river is now valueless, and little used
except by fishing-craft of small tonnage.
[Illustration: POINT OF GRAVES.]
In going from Portsmouth there are three bridges to be crossed to reach
the town of Newcastle, situated on the northern shore of the island; or,
if your aim be the southern shore, it is equally a pleasant drive or
walk to the ancient seat of the Wentworths, at Little Harbor, from which
you may, if a ferry-man be not at hand, hail the first passing boat to
take you to the island. I went there by the former route, so as to pass
an hour among the tombstones in the old Point of Graves burial-ground,
and returned by the latter in order to visit the Wentworth mansion.
The three bridges before mentioned connect as many islands with
Portsmouth. They were built, it is said, at the suggestion of President
Monroe, when he found Great Island somewhat difficult of access.
There appeared some symptoms of activity in the island fishery. As I
passed down, I noticed two Bankers lying in the diminutive harbor, and
an acre or so of ground spread with flakes, on which cod-fish were being
cured.
The little cove which makes the harbor of Newcastle has several wharves,
some of them in ruins, and all left "high and dry" at low tide. The
rotting timbers, sticking in crevices of the rocks, hung with sea-weed
and studded with barnacles, told very plainly that the trade of the
island was numbered among the things of the past.
Between the upper end of Great Island and the town of Portsmouth is a
broad, deep, still basin, called in former times, and yet, as I suspect,
by some of the oldsters, the Pool. This was the anchorage of the mast
ships, which made annual voyages between England and the Piscataqua,
convoyed in war-time by a vessel of force. The arrival, lading, and
departure of the mast ships were the three events of the year in this
old sea-place. Sometimes as many as seven were loading here at once,
even as early as 1665. In the Pool, the _Astrea_, a twenty-gun ship, was
destroyed by fire one cold morning in January, 1744.
The Earl of Bellomont, an Irish peer, writes to the Lords of Trade, in
1699, of the Piscataqua: "It is a most noble harbour," says his
lordship; "the biggest ships the king hath can lie against the bank at
Portsmouth." He then advises the building of war vessels there for the
king's service; and mentions that Charles II. had complimented the
French king with the draughts of the best ships in the British navy, and
had thereby "given vent to that precious secret."
In the day when all of old Portsmouth was crowded between what is now
Pleasant Street and the river, it is easy to imagine the water-side
streets and alleys frequented by sailors in pigtails and petticoats; the
mighty carousals and roaring choruses; the dingy, well-smoked
dram-shops; the stews and slums of back streets, and the jolly larks and
affrays with the night-watch. Rear-admiral "the brave Benbow, sirs," has
landed at these old quays from his barge, followed as closely as a
rolling gait would permit by some old sea-dog of a valet, with cutlass
stuck in a broad, leathern belt, exactly at the middle of his back. The
admiral was doubtless on his way to some convivial rencounter, where the
punch was strong, and where the night not infrequently terminated little
to the advantage of the quarter-deck over the forecastle.
The ships of that day were wonderfully made. Their bows crouched low in
the water, their curiously carved and ornamented sterns rose high above
it. The bowsprit was crossed by a heavy spar, on which a square-sail was
hoisted. Chain cables had not been invented, and hempen ones, as thick
as the mainmast, held the ship at her anchors. Colored battle lanterns
were fixed above the taffrail; watches and broadsides were regulated by
the hour-glass. The sterns and bulging quarter-galleries of Spanish,
French, and Portuguese war ships were so incrusted with gilding it
seemed a pity to batter them with shot. Think of Nelson knocking the
_Holy Trinity_ into a cocked hat, or the _Twelve Apostles_ into the
middle of next week!
[Illustration: OLD HOUSE, GREAT ISLAND.]
There are many old houses on Great Island. The quaintness of one that
stands within twenty yards of the river is always remarked in sailing
by. I could not learn its age, but hazard the conjecture it was there
before James II. abdicated.
The visitor, as in duty bound, should go to the chamber of the
selectmen, where the town charter given by William and Mary, in 1693, is
displayed on the wall, engrossed in almost unintelligible
black-letter.[123] The records of Newcastle have had a curious history.
After a disappearance of nearly fifty years, they were recovered within
a year or two in England. The first volume is bound in vellum, and,
though somewhat dog-eared, is perfect. The entries are in a fair
round-hand, beginning in 1693, when Lieutenant-governor Usher signed the
grant for the township of Newcastle.
Among the earliest records, I noticed one of five shillings paid for a
pair of stocks; and of a gallery put up, in 1694, in the meeting-house,
for the women to sit in. Any townsman entertaining a stranger above
fourteen days, without acquainting the selectmen, was to be fined. What
would now be thought of domiciliary visits like the following? "One
householder or more to walk every day in sermon-time with the constable
to every publick-house in ye town, to suppress ill orders, and, if they
think convenient, to private houses also."
[Illustration: OLD TOWER, NEWCASTLE.]
I found the town quiet enough, but the youngsters noisy and ill-bred.
There seemed also to be an unusual number of loiterers about the village
stores; I sometimes passed a row of them, squatted, like greyhounds, on
their heels, in the sun. Those I noticed whittled, tossed coppers, or
laughed and talked loudly. Many of the men were employed at Kittery Navy
Yard.
From observation and inquiry I am well assured our Government dock-yards
are, as a rule, of little benefit to the neighboring population. The
Government pays a higher price for less labor than private persons find
it for their interest to do. The work is intermittent; and it happens
quite too frequently that the dock-yard employe is always expecting to
be taken on, and will not go to work outside of the yard; he is
especially unwilling at wages less than the Government ordinarily pays,
upon which labor in the vicinity of the yard is usually gauged.
A charming ramble of an afternoon is to Fort Constitution, built on a
protruding point of rocks washed by the tide. When I saw it the old
fortress was casting its shell, lobster-like, for a stronger. The odd
old foot-paths among the ledges zigzag now to the right or left, as they
are thrust aside by intruding ledges. Much history is contained within
the four walls of the work.[124] Adjoining is a light-house, originally
erected in 1771.
[Illustration: GATEWAY, OLD FORT CONSTITUTION.]
While engaged in sketching the gate-way and portcullis of old Fort
Constitution, I was accosted by a person, with a strong German accent,
who repeated, word for word, as I should judge, a mandate of the War
Office against the taking of any of its old ruins by wandering
_artists_. He then walked away, leaving me to finish my sketch without
further interruption.
On a rocky eminence overlooking the fortress is a martello tower, built
during the war of 1812, to guarantee the main work against a landing on
the beach at the south side. It has three embrasures, and was begun on a
Sunday, while two English frigates were lying off the Isles of Shoals.
Sally-port and casemates are choked with debris, the parapet
grass-grown, and the whole in picturesque ruin. Many of these towers
were erected on the south coast of England during the Napoleonic wars to
repel the expected invasion.
Another pleasant walk is to Little Harbor, taking by the way a look at
the old house near Jaffrey's Point, that is verging on two hundred
years, yet seems staunch and strong. The owner believes it to be the
same in which Governor Cranfield[125] held colonial courts. This was one
of the attractive sites of the island, until Government began the
construction of formidable earth-works at a short distance from the
farmstead. The Isles of Shoals are plainly distinguished, and with a
field-glass the little church on Star Island may be made out in clear
weather. I enjoyed a walk on the rampart at evening, when the lights on
Whale's Back, Boon Island, White Island, and Squam were seen flashing
their take-heed through the darkness.
Little Harbor, where there is a summer hotel, was the site of the first
settlement on the island. At Odiorne's Point, on the opposite shore, was
commenced, in 1623, the settlement of New Hampshire. It is now proposed
to commemorate the event itself, and the spot on which the first house
was built, by a monument.[126]
Captain John Mason is known as the founder of New Hampshire. His
biography is interwoven with the times of the giant Richelieu and the
pigmy Buckingham. He was treasurer and pay-master of the king's armies
during the war with Spain. He was governor of Portsmouth Castle when
Felton struck his knife into the duke's left side; it is said, in
Mason's own house. The name of Portsmouth in New Hampshire was given by
him to this outgrowth of Portsmouth in old Hampshire. At a time when all
England was fermenting, it seems passing strange Gorges and Mason should
have persisted in their scheme to gain a lodgment in New England.
In Sir Walter Scott's "Ivanhoe" the following passage occurs: "The
ancient forest of Sherwood lay between Sheffield and Doncaster. The
remains of this extensive wood are still to be seen at the noble seat of
Wentworth. * * * Here hunted of yore the fabulous Dragon of Wantley, and
here were fought many of the most desperate battles during the Civil
Wars of the Roses; and here also flourished in ancient times those bands
of gallant outlaws whose deeds have been rendered so popular in English
story."
[Illustration: SIR THOMAS WENTWORTH, WENTWORTH HOUSE, LITTLE HARBOR.]
Reginald Wentworth, lord of the manor of Wentworth, in Berks, A.D. 1066,
is considered the common ancestor of the Wentworths of England and
America. The unfortunate Earl of Strafford was a Wentworth. On the
dissolution of the monasteries, Newstead Abbey was conferred on Sir
John Byron by Henry VIII. Its site was in the midst of the fertile and
interesting region once known as Sherwood Forest. Here was passed the
early youth of the brilliant and gifted George, Lord Byron, and in the
little church of Newstead his remains were laid. The name and title of
Baroness Wentworth were in 1856 assumed by Lady Byron, whose grandfather
was Sir Edward Noel, Lord Wentworth.
[Illustration: MARQUIS OF ROCKINGHAM.]
Another of the distinguished of this illustrious family was the Marquis
of Rockingham, who voted for the repeal of the Stamp Act, and acted with
Chatham against Lord North.[127] It was at him, while minister, the
pasquinade was leveled,
"You had better declare, which you may without shocking 'em,
The nation's asleep and the minister Rocking'em."
The seat of the Wentworths at Little Harbor is at the mouth of Sagamore
Creek, not more than two miles from town. Among a group of aged houses
in the older quarter of Portsmouth, that of Samuel Wentworth is still
pointed out.[128] His monument may also be seen in the ancient
burial-place of Point of Graves. The family seem to have been statesmen
by inheritance. There were three chief-magistrates of New Hampshire of
the name, viz.: John, the son of Samuel; Benning, the son of John; and
John, the nephew of Benning.
The exterior of the mansion does not of itself keep touch and time with
the preconceived idea of colonial magnificence. Its architectural
deformity would have put Ruskin beside himself. A rambling collection of
buildings, seemingly the outgrowth of different periods and conditions,
are incorporated into an inharmonious whole. The result is an oddity in
wood. Doubtless the builder was content with it. If so, I have little
disposition to be critical.
Beyond this, the visitor may not refuse his unqualified approval of the
site, which is charming, of the surroundings--the mansion was embowered
in blooming lilacs when I saw it--and of the general air of snugness and
of comfort, rather than elegance, which seems the proper atmosphere of
the Wentworth House.
Built in 1750, it commands a view up and down Little Harbor, though
concealed by an eminence from the road. I had a brief glimpse of it
while going on Great Island _via_ the bridges. It is said it originally
contained as many as fifty-two rooms, though by the removal of a
good-sized tenement to the opposite island the number has been
diminished to forty-five. There is, therefore, plenty of elbow-room. The
cellar was sometimes used as a stable: it was large enough to have
accommodated a troop, or, at a pinch, a squadron.
[Illustration: IN THE WENTWORTH HOUSE, LITTLE HARBOR.]
Prepared for an interior as little attractive as the outside, the
conjecture of the visitor is again at fault, for this queer old bundle
of joiners' patchwork contains apartments which indicate that the old
beau, Benning Wentworth, cared less for the rind than the fruit.
"Within unwonted splendors met the eye,
Panels and floors of oak and tapestry;
Carved chimney-pieces where on brazen dogs
Reveled and roared the Christmas fires of logs;
Doors opening into darkness unawares,
Mysterious passages and flights of stairs;
And on the walls in heavy gilded frames,
The ancestral Wentworths with old Scripture names."
The council chamber contains a gem of a mantel, enriched with elaborate
carving of busts of Indian princesses, chaplets, and garlands--a year's
labor, it is said, of the workman. The wainscot is waist-high, and heavy
beams divide the ceiling. As we entered we noticed the rack in which the
muskets of the Governor's guard were deposited.
But what catches the eye of the visitor soonest and retains it longest,
is the portraits on the walls. First is a canvas representing the Earl
of Strafford[129] dictating to his secretary, in the Tower, on the day
before his execution. At his trial, says an eye-witness, "he was always
in the same suit of black, as in doole" (mourning). When the lieutenant
of the Tower offered him a coach, lest he should be torn in pieces by
the mob in going to execution, he replied, "I die to please the people,
and I will die in their own way."
[Illustration: LADY HANCOCK'S PORTRAIT (BY COPLEY) IN THE WENTWORTH
HOUSE.]
Here is a portrait from the brush of Copley, who reveled in rich
draperies and in the accessories of his portraits quite as much as in
painting rounded arms, beautiful hands, and shapely figures. This one in
pink satin, with over-dress of white lace, short sleeves with deep
ruffles, and coquettish lace cap, is Dorothy Quincy, the greatest belle
and breaker of hearts of her day. It was not, it is said, her fault that
she became Mrs. Governor Hancock, instead of Mrs. Aaron Burr. When in
later years, as Madam Scott, she retained all the vivacity of eighteen,
she was fond of relating how the hand now seen touching rather than
supporting her cheek, had been kissed by marquises, dukes, and counts,
who had experienced the hospitality of the Hancock mansion; and how
D'Estaing, put to bed after too much wine, had torn her best damask
coverlet with the spurs he had forgotten to remove.
Other portraits are--Of Queen Christina of Sweden, who looks down with
the same pitiless eyes that exulted in the murder of her equerry,
Monaldeschi; one said to be Secretary Waldron, a right noble countenance
and martial figure; and of Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Sheaffe.
I could be loquacious on the subject of these portraits, the fading
impressions of histories varied or startling, of experiences more
curious than profitable to narrate. In their presence we take a step
backward into the past, that past whose lessons we will not heed.
Hawthorne, standing before a wall covered with such old counterfeits,
was moved to say: "Nothing gives a stronger idea of old worm-eaten
aristocracy, of a family being crazy with age, and of its being time
that it was extinct, than these black, dusty, faded, antique-dressed
portraits."
The old furniture standing about was richly carved, and covered with
faded green damask. In the billiard-room was an ancient spinet, quite as
much out of tune as out of date. Doubtless, the flashing of white hands
across those same yellow keys has often struck an answering chord in the
breasts of colonial youth. Here are more portraits; and a buffet, a
sideboard, and a sedan-chair. Punch has flowed, and laughter echoed
here.
The reader knows the pretty story, so gracefully told by Mr. Longfellow,
of Martha Hilton, who became the second wife of Governor Benning,[130]
and thus Lady Wentworth of the Hall.
We can see her as she goes along the street, swinging the pail, a trifle
heavy for her, and splashing with the water her naked feet. We hear her
ringing laughter, and the saucy answer to Mistress Stavers in her
furbelows, as that buxom landlady flings at her, in passing, the sharp
reproof:
"O Martha Hilton! Fie! how dare you go
About the town half-dressed and looking so?"
The poet's tale is at once a history and a picture, full of pretty
conceits and picturesque situations. Fancy the battered effigy of the
Earl of Halifax on the innkeeper's sign falling at the feet of Mrs.
Stavers to declare his passion.
[Illustration: GOVERNOR BENNING WENTWORTH.]
But Benning Wentworth, governor though he was, was none too good for
Martha Hilton.[131] It was the pride of the Hiltons made her say, "I yet
shall ride in my own chariot." The widowed governor was gouty,
passionate, and had imbibed with his long residence in Spain the hauteur
of the Spaniard. He left office in 1766 in disgrace.
The last of the colonial Wentworths was Sir John, in whose favor his
uncle had been allowed to screen himself by a resignation. There are
some odd coincidences in the family records of both uncle and nephew.
The former's widow made a second marriage to a Wentworth; the latter
married his widowed cousin, Frances Wentworth.[132]
The mansion of Sir John may be seen in Pleasant Street, Portsmouth. He
was the last royal governor of New Hampshire. John Adams mentions that
as he was leaving his box at the theatre one night in Paris, a gentleman
seized him by the hand: "'Governor Wentworth, sir,' said the gentleman.
At first I was embarrassed, and knew not how to behave toward him. As my
classmate and friend at college, and ever since, I could have pressed
him to my bosom with most cordial affection. But we now belonged to two
different nations, at war with each other, and consequently were
enemies."
The king afterward gave Sir John the government of Nova Scotia. The poet
Moore mentions the baronet's kind treatment of him in 1805, during his
American tour. He is said to have kept sixteen horses in his stable at
Portsmouth, and to have been a free-liver. A man of unquestioned ability
to govern, who went down under the great revolutionary wave of 1775, but
rose again to the surface and struck boldly out.
There is now in the possession of James Lenox, of New York, a portrait
of the baronet's wife, by Copley, painted in his best manner. The lady
was a celebrated beauty. The face has caught an expression,
indescribably arch, as if its owner repressed an invincible desire to
torment the artist. In it are set a pair of eyes, black and dangerous,
with high-arched brows, a tempting yet mocking mouth, and nose a little
_retrousse_. Her natural hair is decorated with pearls; a string of them
encircles her throat. The corsage is very low, displaying a pair of
white shoulders such as the poet imagined:
"She has a bosom as white as snow,
Take care!
She knows how much it is best to show,
Beware! beware!"
[Illustration: BARON STEUBEN.]
In 1777 Baron Steuben arrived in Portsmouth, in the _Flamand_. Franklin
had snubbed him, St. Germain urged him, but Beaumarchais offered him a
thousand louis-d'or.[133] On the day the baron joined the army at Valley
Forge his name was the watchword in all the camps.
FOOTNOTES:
[123] The Act of Corporation, though well preserved, appeared little
valued; it hung by a corner and in a light that was every day dimming
the ink with which it had been engrossed.
[124] The reader will do well to consult Belknap's admirable "History of
New Hampshire," vol. ii.; Adams's "Annals," or Brewster's "Rambles about
Portsmouth." Some sort of defense was begun here very early. In 1665 the
commissioners of Charles II. attempted to fortify, but were met by a
prohibition from Massachusetts. In 1700 there existed on Great Island a
fort mounting thirty guns, pronounced by Earl Bellomont incapable of
defending the river. Colonel Romer made the plan of a new work, and
recommended a strong tower on the point of Fryer's (Gerrish's) Island,
with batteries on Wood and Clark's islands. In December, 1774, John
Langdon and John Sullivan committed open rebellion by leading a party to
seize the powder here. The fort was then called William and Mary. Old
Fort Constitution has the date of 1808 on the key-stone of the arch of
the gate-way. Its walls were carried to a certain height with rough
stone topped with brick. It was a parallelogram, and mounted barbette
guns only. The present work is of granite, inclosing the old walls. The
new earth-works on Jaffrey's Point and Gerrish's Island render it of
little importance.
[125] Governor of New Hampshire from 1682 to 1685. The house is the
residence of Mr. Albee.
[126] Odiorne's Point is in Rye, New Hampshire. The settlement began
under the auspices of a company, in which Gorges and Mason were leading
spirits. Their grant covered the territory between the Merrimac and
Sagadahoc rivers. Under its authority, David Thompson and others settled
at Little Harbor, and built what was subsequently known as Mason's Hall.
Disliking his situation, Thompson removed the next spring to the island
now bearing his name in Boston Bay. From this nucleus sprung the
settlements at Great Island and Portsmouth. The settlement at Hilton's
Point was nearly coincident.
[127] Peace with the thirteen colonies was proposed under the
administration of Rockingham, about the last official act of his life.
His name is often met with in Portsmouth.
[128] The house stands at the north end of Manning, formerly Wentworth
Street, and is thought from its size to have been a public-house. The
same house was also occupied by Lieutenant-Governor John, son of Samuel
Wentworth. Samuel was the son of William, the first settler of the name.
He had been an innkeeper, and had swung his sign of the "Dolphin" on
Great Island. Hon. John Wentworth, of Chicago, is the biographer of his
family.
[129] His second wife was Henrietta du Roy, daughter of Frederick
Charles du Roy, generalissimo to the King of Denmark.
[130] Bennington, Vermont, is named from Governor Wentworth.
[131] Her grandfather, Hon. Richard Hilton, of Newmarket, was grandson
of Edward, the original settler of Dover, New Hampshire, and had been a
justice of the Superior Court of the Province.--JOHN WENTWORTH.
[132] Frances Deering Wentworth married John just two weeks after the
decease of her first husband, Theodore Atkinson, also her cousin, and in
the same church from which he had been buried--matter for such
condolence and reproof as Talleyrand's celebrated "Ah, madame," and "Oh,
madame." Benning Wentworth's widow married Colonel Michael Wentworth,
said to have been a retired British officer. He was a great horseman and
a free liver. Once he rode from Boston to Portsmouth between sunrise and
sunset. Having run through a handsome estate, he died under suspicion of
suicide, leaving his own epitaph, "I have eaten my cake." Colonel
Michael was the host, at the Hall, of Washington. In 1817, the house at
Little Harbor was purchased by Charles Cushing, whose widow was a
daughter of Jacob Sheaffe.
[133] "Paul Jones shall equip his _Bonne Homme Richard_; weapons,
military stores can be smuggled over (if the English do not seize them);
wherein, once more Beaumarchais, dimly as the Giant Smuggler, becomes
visible--filling his own lank pocket withal."--CARLYLE, "French
Revolution," vol. i., p. 43.
[Illustration: WITCH HILL, SALEM.]