The outer verge of Boston Harbor may be described as protected on the
south by the long projection of Nantasket Beach, while on the northern
side there comes out, as if to meet it, another curiously-formed
peninsula, making the bluffs of Winthrop, and a strip beyond
terminating in the rounded headland of Point Shirley. Deer Island,
almost connected with the Point, stretches farther, and we were
anciently told it was so called "because of the deare who often swim
thither from the maine when they are chased by the wolves." All these
places are popular resorts, and their odd formations assist in making
the Boston surroundings picturesque. Some distance up the coast, and
eleven miles from Boston, is the shoemaking city of Lynn, with seventy
thousand people, the flourishing society of the "Knights of St.
Crispin" ruling the shoemakers' "teams" and largely running the
politics of the town. Most of the work is done by machinery, there
being over two hundred factories, making more women's shoes than any
other place in the country. The first colonists were brought by their
pastor from Lynn-Regis, England, in 1629, and thus the town was named.
It spreads broadly along the water-front, its attractive City Hall
seen from afar, and many ornamental villas adorning the shore. Out
beyond it, thrust into the sea, is the long, low and narrow sand-strip
barely a hundred yards wide, leading for nearly four miles to Nahant.
This is a most curious formation, the name meaning the "Lovers' Walk,"
a mass of rocks and soil at the outer end of the sand-strip covering
nearly five hundred acres, and crowned with villas, the neat tower of
a pretty white church rising on the highest part near the centre. The
Bostonians have made Nahant, thus surrounded by the ocean, one of
their most fashionable suburban sections, and it is popularly known as
"Cold Roast Boston." This strange rocky promontory was originally
bought from the Sagamore Poquanum for a suit of clothes, and it is now
valued at over $10,000,000. Many are the poems written about this
curious projection, and N. P. Willis says of it: "If you can imagine a
buried Titan lying along the length of a continent, with one arm
stretched out into the midst of the sea, the spot to which I would
transport you, reader mine, would be, as it were, in the palm of the
giant's hand." Invocations have been addressed to Nahant by
Longfellow, Whittier and Mrs. Sigourney; there Longfellow wrote part
of _Hiawatha_, Motley began his _Dutch Republic_, Prescott wrote his
Spanish histories, and Agassiz composed _Brazil_.
The region beyond Lynn and Nahant is the famous Massachusetts "North
Shore," stretching to the extremity of Cape Ann, a domain of villas
and summer homes, pleasant sea-beaches, and brisk towns with
interesting past history, now devoted largely to shoemaking and the
fisheries. From Boston State House to the extremity of the Cape at
Halibut Point, or the Land's End, is thirty-one miles, and Lucy Larcom
thus attractively describes the route along the shore:
"You may ride in an hour or two, if you will,
From Halibut Point to Beacon Hill,
With the sea beside you all the way,
Through pleasant places that skirt the bay;
By Gloucester harbor and Beverley beach,
Salem's old steeples, Nahant's long reach,
Blue-bordered Swampscott, and Chelsea's wide
Marshes laid bare to the drenching tide,
With a glimpse of Saugus' spire in the west,
And Malden Hills in their dreamy rest."
Saugus, Lynn, Nahant, Swampscott, Salem and Marblehead were originally
the Indian domains of Saugus, Naumkeag and Massabequash. Beyond Lynn,
most of the coast has undergone a modern evolution from fishery
stations to smart summer resorts; and here, around the swamps and
marshes, abounding crags protrude, with many fine villas in another
fashionable Boston suburb, Swampscott, as populous and almost as
famous as Nahant, with huge hotels down by the seaside. Swampscott
merges into Clifton, and then an uneven backbone of granite covering
about six square miles is thrust into the ocean in the direction of
Cape Ann, and is hedged about with rocky islets. On one side this
granite peninsula forms Salem harbor, while on the other a miniature
haven is made by a craggy appendage to the southeastward, attached to
the main peninsula by a ligature of sand and shingle. The quaint old
town of Marblehead occupies most of the surface, and the appendage is
the modern yachtsmen's headquarters, Marblehead Neck. This is a very
ancient place, dating back to the early seventeenth century, and was
once pre-eminently nautical and the second port in Massachusetts; but
the sailors and fishermen are missing, excepting those who man the
summer yacht fleets, and the people, like so many other Massachusetts
communities, have gone largely into shoemaking, the big shoe-factories
being scattered about. The crooked narrow streets run in all
directions among and over the rocks, which appear everywhere and have
gained the mastery. When George Whitefield, the preacher, visited
Marblehead, he gazed in astonishment upon these superabundant rocks,
and asked, in surprise, "Where do they bury their dead?" Out on the
headland is the superannuated little Fort Sewall, once protecting the
port and commanding both harbors, and though the walls are decaying,
it is preserved as a memento of the past. Fine villas are all about,
and the numerous islands add picturesqueness to the sea-view. Elbridge
Gerry, of "Gerrymander" fame, was a native of Marblehead, and its
hardy sailors formed most of the crew of the old ship "Constitution"
when she fought and captured the "Guerriere," and afterwards the
"Cyane" and "Levant." Marblehead was also the scene of "Skipper
Ireson's Ride," which Whittier has made historic:
"Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the women of Marblehead!"
He had refused to take some of his townsmen off a drifting wreck,
because it would cost too much to feed them on the way home.