being the gift of his Grace Mgr. Taschereau, of Quebec; the Blessed
Virgin’s, that of the Bishop of Montreal; one to the Sacred Heart of
Jesus, that of the Bishop of St. Hyacinth; while St. Joseph is donated
by the Bishop of Ottawa, the Holy Angels by the clerks of St. Viator.
Two really beautiful stained windows which adorn the chancel are the
gift of four parishioners. Various pictures upon the walls commemorate
remarkable deliverances from shipwreck and the like. Such is Le Père
Pierre and the crew of the ship _Saint Esprit_ making a vow to St.
Anne; or the King’s vessel, _Le Héros_, on the point or foundering; or
yet another caught in the ice and saved through the intercession of
St. Anne. Of the artistic excellence of many of these pictures we say
nothing.
Besides the relics of St. Anne, the Church of Beaupré can boast many
others, such as the one of St. Francis Xavier, of St. Deodatus, St.
Benedict, St. Valentine, St. Remi, St. Eulalie, St. Amantis, Pontianus,
St. Cæsarius, and others. The Rev. M. Gauvreau, Curé from 1875 to
1878, almost completely finished the exterior of the new church.
In 1876, he likewise built a school chapel for the children of the
neighbouring concessions. He also conceived the idea of building the
Chapel of the Processions out of the material of the old church. It was
consecrated October 2, 1878, and is intended to perpetuate the ancient
edifice, being erected after the same fashion and surmounted by the
same bell-tower, whence the same sweet-toned voice calls the people to
prayer that called the dead and gone generations ago. Situated upon an
eminence, and being used especially when the concourse of pilgrims is
very great, it is an imitation of the altar of the _Scala Sancta_
at St. Anne d’Auray. There is a fountain just before the entrance to
the new church, where crowds of pilgrims are seen using the water. It
is surmounted by a statue of St. Anne.
The one principal street of St. Anne’s runs along the slope of a hill
which in the summer-time is thickly covered with fruit-laden trees.
Canadian homesteads of comfort and of plenty line it on either side.
The population consists of some hundred and fifty families, who,
experiencing little of “life’s long and fitful fever,” spin out their
days in a primitive and rural simplicity which belonged to the golden
epoch of _la Nouvelle France_. The traveller fresh from the restless
bustle of a modern Babylon seems to find himself suddenly transported
to some far-away Utopia of simple content which has slept for centuries
an enchanted sleep, and awakes isolated indeed from the Juggernaut
of progress. The handsome church, sole token of modern enterprise,
arises like a new Aladdin’s tower from amid the group of quaint,
almost mediæval dwellings. In the spring and summer-time St. Anne’s
awakes from a lethargy in which it has been plunged during the long
winter, and, as the city of some Arabian Nights’ tale, is suddenly
aglow with life and animation. Pilgrims of every rank and condition of
life fill its street; matron and maiden, priest and layman, the young
and the old, the grave and the gay, come thither, an eager but silent
and recollected throng, to the feet of the good St. Anne. Prayers
go up, hymns ring out on the stilly evening, or at tranquil morn,
and the pilgrims take their homeward way, with a vision of the calm,
restful loveliness of nature there in that favoured spot to haunt them
for many days. They remember Nature at St. Anne’s, with her dim and
night-empurpled hills, amongst which linger the memories of hundreds of
years, with her flowing sunlit streams, the waving of trees and grass,
the dreamy village life, and above all a something indescribable. The
chant and the organ-tone and the murmur of pilgrim voices fade into
a distant memory, but the voyager down that sapphire stream, the St.
Lawrence, to that hill-shadowed sanctuary, keeps for a lifetime the
impression of what he has seen and heard.
THE WADSWORTH-LONGFELLOW HOUSE, PORTLAND
NATHAN GOOLD
The Wadsworth-Longfellow house was built in 1785–1786, by General Peleg
Wadsworth, the grandfather of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He was a
native of Duxbury, a graduate of Harvard College, and a major-general
in the army of the Revolution.
According to the account of his daughter, Zilpah, General Wadsworth’s
appearance, at this time, was as follows:--“Imagine to yourself a man
of middle age, well proportioned, with a military air, and who carried
himself so truly that many thought him tall. His dress, a bright
scarlet coat, buff small clothes and vest, full ruffled bosom, ruffles
over the hands, white stockings, shoes with silver buckles, white
cravat bow in front, hair well powdered and tied behind in a club,
so-called.”
At first, the house was of two stories with a pitched roof and was
the first house in Portland to have brick walls. The bricks came from
Philadelphia to build these walls which are sixteen inches thick. The
third story was not added until 1815.
The poet’s mother was about eight years old when her father built this
house. In 1804, she was married to Stephen Longfellow, in the house
which had been her home from childhood. Longfellow was born in another
house in Portland, but at the early age of eight months he was brought
by his parents to the Wadsworth House.
Henry W. Longfellow lived here during his childhood, boyhood and
young manhood, and here he came, to his old home, to the end of his
life. Here were the scenes of his bringing up and here he profited
by the examples and precepts of his honoured parents. Here he wrote
his first poem and others, together with portions of his prose works.
It was really his home until the purchase of the ‘Craigie House,’ at
Cambridge, in 1843, a period of thirty-five years. The home remained
with the old furnishings undisturbed until the death of Mrs. Pierce.
Longfellow’s last visit here was in July, 1881, when he wrote to a
friend in Rhode Island:--
“Portland has lost none of its charms. The weather is superb and the
air equal to that of Newport or East Greenwich or any other Rhode
Island seashore. I shall remain here a week or two longer, and think of
running up to North Conway and to Sebago, to see the winding Songo once
more. It is very pleasant sitting here and dictating letters. It is
like thinking what one will say without taking the trouble of writing
it. I have discovered a new pleasure.”
[Illustration: THE WADSWORTH-LONGFELLOW HOUSE, PORTLAND, MAINE]
The poems now known to have been written in this house are:--
The Battle of Lovell’s Pond, 1820; Musings, 1825; The Spirit of Poetry,
1825; Burial of Minnisink, 1825; Song: When from the eye of day,
1826; Song of the Birds, 1826; The Lighthouse; The Rainy Day, 1841;
Changed, 1858, and probably others. A portion of Hyperion was written
here and, no doubt, much was outlined in this house while staying here.
The old house has sixteen rooms. It was the home of the Wadsworth and
Longfellow families for one hundred and fifteen years and is in a good
state of preservation. It has no
“Weather-stains upon the wall,
And stairways worn, and crazy doors,
And creaking and uneven floors.”
It was
“Built in the old Colonial day,
When men lived in a grander way,
With ampler hospitality.”
It has eight open fireplaces, and in former times, during a year, over
thirty cords of wood were burned in them. What a tale of bygone days
they could tell!
The living or sitting-room has the same general appearance as when
occupied by the Longfellows. For about ten years it was used by the
father for a law office, and the poet, his brother Stephen, George W.
Pierce and others studied law here. The vestibule or “Little Room”
was added as an addition or entrance to the law office. His brother
wrote of Longfellow: “In this room the young graduate scribbled many
a sheet.” After the removal of the office, about 1828, this room was
changed into a china closet and the poet wrote his sister Elizabeth,
from Göttingen, under date of March 29, 1829: “My poetic career is
finished. Since I left America I have hardly put two lines together;
... and no soft poetic ray has irradiated my heart since the Goths
and Vandals crossed the Rubicon of the front entry and turned the
_sanctum sanctorum_ of the ‘Little Room,’ into a china closet.”
Back of the living-room is the kitchen with its broad fireplace, in
which is the old iron back, on which is the fish “that forever bakes
in effigy.” This fireplace has never been closed, and the utensils and
china seen here were used by these families in the poet’s time and
before. This room, being as of old, is one of the most interesting in
the house. It tells its own story.
On the opposite side of the front hall is the “Den” or the old
dining-room, made especially famous by the fact that here, between the
windows, looking out into the garden, on the same desk now standing
there, was written “The Rainy Day” in 1841. From these windows the poet
saw the flowering grapevine mentioned in the third line,
“The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,”
which is living and is still to be seen there. The furniture on the
first floor of the house, on exhibition, was theirs and was used by the
family.
The second story has four rooms, the “Mother’s Room,” the “Guest’s
Room,” the “Children’s Room” and Mrs. Pierce’s old room. They contain a
wonderful collection of the families’ belongings for the inspection of
the visitors interested.
The third story, added in 1815, is reached by a wellworn stairway
of especial interest from the fact that over these stairs climbed
the Longfellow children to their bedchambers where they were under
the immediate charge of their aunt, Lucia Wadsworth. This floor has
seven rooms. The room of rooms is the poet’s boyhood one, in which he
wrote “Musings” and “The Lighthouse.” It is furnished with many of the
articles of yore. “The Boys’ Room,” which, at times, has been occupied
by all the Longfellow boys, looks out on the garden and the western
sky. It contains the old trundle-bed and the writings of the children
on the casing of the window, with many articles of much interest.
The remaining rooms on this floor are used for exhibition purposes.
From the front windows, in those days, could be seen the harbour, its
islands, and Cape Elizabeth; from those in the rear, Back Cove, the
fields and forests, back of which loomed up the White Mountains. It was
a magnificent prospect. Longfellow wrote:--
“Happy he whom neither wealth nor fashion,
Nor the march of the encroaching city,
Drives an exile
From the hearth of his ancestral homestead.”
On the window casing in the “Boys’ Room” one of the children has
inscribed, “How dear is the home of my childhood.” The poet expressed
his sentiments of the love of the old home in words that will never be
stricken from our language:--
“Truly the love of home is interwoven with all that is pure and deep
and lasting in earthly affections. Let us wander where we may, the
heart looks back with secret longings to the paternal roof. There
the scattered rays of affection concentrate. Time may enfeeble them,
distance overshadow them, and the storms of life obstruct them for a
season; but they will at length break through the cloud and storm, and
glow and burn and brighten around the peaceful threshold of home.”
The Wadsworth-Longfellow House came into the possession of the Maine
Historical Society in 1901 by donation from Anne Longfellow Pierce, a
sister of the poet. She was born here in 1810 and died here in 1901.
It is now practically a museum of Longfellow relics and attracts many
visitors, no less than 30,000 having been admitted since it was opened
to the public.
WASHINGTON’S HEADQUARTERS, NEWBURGH
GULIAN C. VERPLANCK
The old Hasbrook house, as it is called, situated on the west bank
of the Hudson, a little south of the village of Newburgh, is one
of the most interesting relics of the first and heroic age of our
republic; for at several periods of the War of the Revolution, and
especially from the autumn of 1782 until the troops were finally
disbanded, it was occupied by General Washington as the headquarters
of the American army. The views from the house and grounds, as well as
the whole neighbourhood around it, are rich alike in natural beauty
and in historical remembrance. You look from the old house upon the
broad bay into which the Hudson expands itself just before entering
the deep, rocky bed through which it flows towards the ocean between
the lofty mountain-banks of the Highlands. On the opposite shore is
seen the ridge of mountains, upon the bald, rocky summits of which
during the war of 1776 the beacon fires so often blazed to alarm the
country at the incursions of the enemy from the south, or else to
communicate signals between the frontier posts in Westchester, along
the line of the American positions at Verplanck’s Point, West Point
and the barracks and encampments on the plain of Fishkill. As these
mountains recede eastward from the river, you see the romantic stream
of Mattavoan winding wildly along their base, through glens and over
falls, until, at last, as if fatigued with its wanton rambles, it
mingles quietly and placidly with the Hudson. On this side of it are
stretched the rich plains of Dutchess County, with their woody and
picturesque shores. All along these plains and shores are to be found
other memorials of the Revolution; for there were the store-houses,
barracks and hospitals of our army, and there, for many months, were
the headquarters of the Father of American tactics, the disciplinarian
Steuben. To the south, you look down upon the opening of the Highlands,
and the rock of Pollopell’s Island, once a military prison, and thence
follow with your eye the “Great River of the Mountains”[20] till it
turns suddenly and disappears around the rocky promontory of West
Point--a spot consecrated by the most exciting recollections of our
history, by the story of Arnold’s guilt and André’s hapless fate and
the incorruptible virtue of our yeomanry; by the memory of the virtues
of Kosciusko and Lafayette; of the wisdom and valour of our own chiefs
and sages.
[Illustration: WASHINGTON’S HEADQUARTERS, NEWBURGH]
The Hasbrook house itself is a solid, irregular building erected about
1734. The excellent landscape painted by Weir and engraved with equal
spirit and fidelity by Smillie, will give the reader a better idea
of its appearance and character than words can convey. The interior
remains very nearly as Washington left it. The largest room is in
the centre of the house, about twenty-four feet square, but so
disproportionately low, as to appear very much larger. It served the
General during his residence there, in the daytime for his hall of
reception and his dining-room where he regularly kept up a liberal,
though plain hospitality. At night it was used as a bedroom for his
aides-de-camp and occasional military visitors and guests. It was long
memorable among the veterans who had seen the chief there for its huge
wood fire built against the wall, in, or rather under a wide chimney,
which was quite open at both sides. It was still more remarkable for
the whimsical peculiarity of having seven doors and but one window. The
unceiled roof of this room, with its massive painted beams, corresponds
to the simplicity of the rest of the building, as well as shows the
indifference of our ancestors to the free communication of noise and
cold air, which their wiser or more fastidious descendants take so much
pains to avoid. On the north-east corner of the house, communicating
with the large centre room, is a small chamber, which the General used
as a study or private office.
Those who have had the good fortune to enjoy the acquaintance of
officers of the northern division of our old army, have heard many a
Revolutionary anecdote, the scene of which was laid in the old square
room at Newburgh, “with its seven doors and one window.” In it were
every day served up, to as many guests as the table and chairs could
accommodate, a dinner and a supper, as plentiful as the country could
supply and as good as they could be made by the continental cooks,
whose deficiency in culinary skill drew forth in one of his private
letters, the only piece of literary pleasantry, it is believed, in
which the great man was ever tempted to indulge. But then, as we
have heard old soldiers affirm with great emphasis, there was always
plenty of good wine. French wines for our French allies and those
who had acquired or who affected their tastes, and sound Madeira for
the Americans of the old school, circulated briskly, and were taken
in little silver mugs or goblets made in France for the General’s
camp-equipage. They were accompanied by the famous apples of the
Hudson, the Spitzenbergh and other varieties and invariably by heaped
plates of hickory nuts, the amazing consumption of which by the General
and his staff, was the theme of boundless admiration to the Marquis
de Chastelleux and other French officers. The jest, the argument, the
song and the story circulated as briskly as the wine; while the chief
at the head of his table, sat long, listened to all, or appeared to
listen, smiled at and enjoyed all, but all gravely, without partaking
much in the conversation, or at all contributing to the laugh, either
by swelling its chorus, or furnishing the occasion; for he was neither
a joker nor a story-teller. He had no talent, and he knew he had none,
for humour, repartee, or amusing anecdote; and if he had possessed it,
he was too wise to have indulged in it in the position in which he was
placed.
One evidence among many others, of the impression which Washington’s
presence in this scene had made, and the dignity and permanence it
could lend to every idea or recollection, however trivial otherwise,
with which it had been accidentally associated, was given at Paris. The
American Minister (we forget whether it was Mr. Crawford, Mr. Brown,
or one of their successors), and several of his countrymen, together
with General Lafayette, were invited to an entertainment at the house
of a distinguished and patriotic Frenchman, who had served his country
in his youth, in the United States during the war of our independence.
At the supper hour the company were shown into a room fitted up for
the occasion, which contrasted quite oddly with the Parisian elegance
of the other apartments where they had spent their evening. A low,
boarded, painted ceiling, with large beams, a single, small uncurtained
window, with numerous small doors, as well as the general style of
the whole, gave at first the idea of the kitchen, or largest room of
a Dutch or Belgian farm-house. On a long, rough table was a repast,
just as little in keeping with the refined kitchen of Paris, as the
room was with the architecture. It consisted of large dishes of meat,
uncouth-looking pastry, and wine in decanters and bottles, accompanied
by glasses and silver mugs, such as indicated other habits and tastes
than those of modern Paris. “Do you know where we are now?” said the
host to General Lafayette and his companions. They paused for a few
moments in suspense. They had seen something like this before, but when
and where? “Ah, the seven doors and one window,” said Lafayette, “and
the silver camp-goblets, such as our marshals of France used in my
youth! We are at Washington’s Headquarters on the Hudson, fifty years
ago!”
We relate the story as we have heard it told by the late Colonel Fish,
and, if we mistake not, the host was the excellent M. Marbois.
There is another anecdote of a higher and more moral interest, the
scene of which was also laid in this house. A British officer had been
brought in from the river, a prisoner and wounded. Some accidental
circumstance had attracted to him General Washington’s special notice,
who had him placed under the best medical and surgical care the army
could afford, and ordered him to be lodged at his own quarters. There,
according to custom, a large party of officers had assembled in the
evening to sup with the commander-in-chief. When the meats and cloth
were removed, the unfailing nuts appeared, and the wine, a luxury
seldom seen by American subalterns, except at “his Excellency’s” table,
began to circulate. The General rose much before his usual hour, but,
putting one of his aides-de-camp in his place, requested his friends to
remain, adding, in a gentle tone: “I have only to ask you to remember
in your sociality, that there is a wounded officer in the very next
room.” This injunction had its effect for a short time, but, as the
wine and punch passed around, the soldier’s jest and mirth gradually
broke forth, conversation warmed into argument, and, by-an-by, came
a song. In the midst of all this, a side-door opened, and some one
entered in silence and on tiptoe. It was the General. Without a word
to any of the company, he passed silently along the table, with almost
noiseless tread to the opposite door which he opened and closed after
him as gently and cautiously as a nurse in the sick room of a tender
and beloved patient. The song, the story, the merriment died away at
once. All were hushed. All felt the rebuke, and dropped off quietly,
one by one, to their chambers or tents.
But the Newburgh Headquarters are also memorable as the scene of a far
more important transaction.
In the autumn of 1783, the war had closed with glory. The national
independence had been won. The army, who had fought the battles,
who had gone through the hardships and privations of that long and
doubtful and bloody war without a murmur, were encamped on the banks
of the Hudson, unpaid, almost unclothed, individually loaded with
private debt, awaiting to be disbanded, and to return to the pursuits
of civil life, without the prospect of any settlement of their long
arrears of pay and without the means of temporary support until other
prospects might open upon them in their new avocations. It was under
these circumstances, while Congress, from the impotence of our frame
of government under the old confederation, and the extreme poverty
of the country, found themselves utterly unable to advance even a
single month’s pay, and, as if loth to meet the question, seemed but
to delay and procrastinate any decision upon it; the impatient and
suffering soldiery, losing, as their military excitement died away
with its cause, all feeling of loyalty towards their civil rulers,
began to regard them as cold-hearted and ungrateful masters who sought
to avoid the scanty and stipulated payment of those services, the
abundant fruits of which they had already reaped. Then it was that
the celebrated anonymous Newburgh letters were circulated through the
camp, touching with powerful effect upon every topic that could rouse
the feelings of men suffering under the sense of wrong and sensitive
to every stain upon their honour. The glowing language of this address
painted their country as trampling upon their rights, disdaining their
cries and insulting their distress.
The power of this appeal did not consist merely in its animated and
polished eloquence. It was far more powerful, and, therefore, more
dangerous, because it came warm from the heart and did but give bold
utterance to the thoughts over which thousands had long brooded in
silence. Precisely that state of feeling pervaded the whole army, that
discontent towards their civil rulers, verging every hour more and
more towards indignation and hatred, that despair of justice from any
other means or quarter than themselves and their own good swords, that
rallying of all their hopes and affections to their comrades in arms
and their long-tried chief, such as in other countries have again and
again enthroned the successful military leader upon the ruins of the
Republic he had gloriously served.