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Little Pilgrimages
The Romance of
Old New England
Rooftrees
By
Mary C. Crawford
Illustrated
[Illustration]
Boston
L. C. Page & Company
Mdcccciii
_Copyright, 1902_
_by_
_L. C. Page & Company_
(_Incorporated_)
_All rights reserved_
_Published, September, 1902_
Colonial Press
Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
Boston, Mass., U.S.A.
* * * * *
[Illustration: SIR HARRY FRANKLAND. (_See page 48_)]
FOREWORD
These little sketches have been written to supply what seemed to the
author a real need,--a volume which should give clearly, compactly, and
with a fair degree of readableness, the stories connected with the
surviving old houses of New England. That delightful writer, Mr. Samuel
Adams Drake, has in his many works on the historic mansions of colonial
times, provided all necessary data for the serious student, and to him
the deep indebtedness of this work is fully and frankly acknowledged.
Yet there was no volume which gave entire the tales of chief interest to
the majority of readers. It is, therefore, to such searchers after the
romantic in New England's history that the present book is offered.
It but remains to mention with gratitude the many kind friends far and
near who have helped in the preparation of the material, and especially
to thank Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., publishers of the works of
Hawthorne, Whittier, Longfellow, and Higginson, by permission of and
special arrangement with whom the selections of the authors named, are
used; the Macmillan Co., for permission to use the extracts from Lindsay
Swift's "Brook Farm"; G. P. Putnam's Sons for their kindness in allowing
quotations from their work, "Historic Towns of New England"; Small,
Maynard & Co., for the use of the anecdote credited to their Beacon
Biography of Samuel F. B. Morse; Little, Brown & Co., for their marked
courtesy in the extension of quotation privileges, and Mr. Samuel T.
Pickard, Whittier's literary executor, for the new Whittier material
here given.
M. C. C.
_Charlestown, Massachusetts, 1902._
* * * * *
"All houses wherein men have lived and died are haunted houses."
_Longfellow._
"So very difficult a matter is it to trace and find out the truth
of anything by history."
_Plutarch._
"... Common as light is love,
And its familiar voice wearies not ever."
_Shelley._
"... I discern
Infinite passion and the pain
Of finite hearts that yearn."
_Browning._
"'Tis an old tale and often told."
_Scott._
* * * * *
Contents
_Page_
Foreword iii
The Heir of Swift's Vanessa 11
The Maid of Marblehead 37
An American-Born Baronet 59
Molly Stark's Gentleman-Son 74
A Soldier of Fortune 90
The Message of the Lanterns 104
Hancock's Dorothy Q. 117
Baroness Riedesel and Her Tory Friends 130
Doctor Church: First Traitor to the American Cause 147
A Victim of Two Revolutions 159
The Woman Veteran of the Continental Army 170
The Redeemed Captive 190
New England's First "Club Woman" 210
In the Reign of the Witches 225
Lady Wentworth of the Hall 241
An Historic Tragedy 251
Inventor Morse's Unfulfilled Ambition 264
Where the "Brothers and Sisters" Met 279
The Brook Farmers 293
Margaret Fuller: Marchesa d'Ossoli 307
The Old Manse and Some of Its Mosses 324
Salem's Chinese God 341
The Well-Sweep of a Song 356
Whittier's Lost Love 366
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
_Page_
Sir Harry Frankland (_See page 48_) _Frontispiece_
Whitehall, Newport, R. I. 31
Agnes Surriage Pump, Marblehead,
Mass. 39
Summer House, Royall Estate, Medford,
Mass. 63
Royall House, Medford, Mass.--Pepperell
House, Kittery, Maine 66
Stark House, Dunbarton, N. H. 79
General Lee's Headquarters, Somerville,
Mass. 94
Christ Church--Paul Revere House,
Boston, Mass. 104
Robert Newman House, Boston, Mass. 110
Clark House, Lexington, Mass. 118
Dorothy Q. House, Quincy, Mass. 123
Riedesel House, Cambridge, Mass. 145
House Where Doctor Church Was
Confined, Cambridge, Mass. 149
Swan House, Dorchester, Mass. 164
Deborah Sampson Gannett 170
Gannett House, Sharon, Mass. 188
Williams House, Deerfield, Mass. 193
Reverend Stephen Williams 204
Old Corner Bookstore, Site of the
Hutchinson House, Boston, Mass. 214
Old Witch House, Salem, Mass. 225
Rebecca Nourse House, Danvers,
Mass. 229
Red Horse Tavern, Sudbury, Mass. 242
Governor Wentworth House, Portsmouth,
N. H. 246
Fairbanks House, Dedham, Mass. 260
Edes House, Birthplace of Professor
Morse, Charlestown, Mass. 264
Oval Parlour, Fay House, Cambridge,
Mass. 286
Brook Farm, West Roxbury, Mass. 296
Fuller House, Cambridgeport, Mass. 312
Old Manse, Concord, Mass. 324
Townsend House, Salem, Mass. 342
Old Oaken Bucket House, Scituate,
Mass. 359
Whittier's Birthplace, East Haverhill,
Mass. 380
THE ROMANCE OF OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOFTREES
THE HEIR OF SWIFT'S VANESSA
Nowhere in the annals of our history is recorded an odder phase of
curious fortune than that by which Bishop Berkeley, of Cloyne, was
enabled early in the eighteenth century to sail o'erseas to Newport,
Rhode Island, there to build (in 1729) the beautiful old place,
Whitehall, which is still standing. Hundreds of interested visitors
drive every summer to the old house, to take a cup of tea, to muse on
the strange story with which the ancient dwelling is connected, and to
pay the meed of respectful memory to the eminent philosopher who there
lived and wrote.
The poet Pope once assigned to this bishop "every virtue under heaven,"
and this high reputation a study of the man's character faithfully
confirms. As a student at Dublin University, George Berkeley won many
friends, because of his handsome face and lovable nature, and many
honours by reason of his brilliancy in mathematics. Later he became a
fellow of Trinity College, and made the acquaintance of Swift, Steele,
and the other members of that brilliant Old World literary circle, by
all of whom he seems to have been sincerely beloved.
A large part of Berkeley's early life was passed as a travelling tutor,
but soon after Pope had introduced him to the Earl of Burlington, he
was made dean of Derry, through the good offices of that gentleman, and
of his friend, the Duke of Grafton, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
Berkeley, however, never cared for personal aggrandisement, and he had
long been cherishing a project which he soon announced to his friends as
a "scheme for converting the savage Americans to Christianity by a
college to be erected in the Summer Islands, otherwise called the Isles
of Bermuda."
In a letter from London to his lifelong friend and patron, Lord
Percival, then at Bath, we find Berkeley, under date of March, 1723,
writing thus of the enterprise which had gradually fired his
imagination: "It is now about ten months since I have determined to
spend the residue of my days in Bermuda, where I trust in Providence I
may be the mean instrument of doing great good to mankind. The
reformation of manners among the English in our western plantations, and
the propagation of the gospel among the American savages, are two points
of high moment. The natural way of doing this is by founding a college
or seminary in some convenient part of the West Indies, where the
English youth of our plantations may be educated in such sort as to
supply their churches with pastors of good morals and good learning--a
thing (God knows) much wanted. In the same seminary a number of young
American savages may also be educated until they have taken the degree
of Master of Arts. And being by that time well instructed in the
Christian religion, practical mathematics, and other liberal arts and
sciences, and early imbued with public-spirited principles and
inclinations, they may become the fittest instruments for spreading
religion, morals, and civil life among their countrymen, who can
entertain no suspicion or jealousy of men of their own blood and
language, as they might do of English missionaries, who can never be
well qualified for that work."
Berkeley then goes on to describe the plans of education for American
youths which he had conceived, gives his reasons for preferring the
Bermudas as a site for the college, and presents a bright vision of an
academic centre from which should radiate numerous beautiful influences
that should make for Christian civilisation in America. Even the gift of
the best deanery in England failed to divert him from thoughts of this
Utopia. "Derry," he wrote, "is said to be worth £1,500 per annum, but I
do not consider it with a view to enriching myself. I shall be
perfectly contented if it facilitates and recommends my scheme of
Bermuda."
But the thing which finally made it possible for Berkeley to come to
America, the incident which is responsible for Whitehall's existence
to-day in a grassy valley to the south of Honeyman's Hill, two miles
back from the "second beach," at Newport, was the tragic ending of as
sad and as romantic a story as is to be found anywhere in the literary
life of England.
Swift, as has been said, was one of the friends who was of great service
to Berkeley when he went up to London for the first time. The witty and
impecunious dean had then been living in London for more than four
years, in his "lodging in Berry Street," absorbed in the political
intrigue of the last years of Queen Anne, and sending to Stella, in
Dublin, the daily journal, which so faithfully preserves the incidents
of those years. Under date of an April Sunday in 1713, we find in this
journal these lines, Swift's first mention of our present hero: "I went
to court to-day on purpose to present Mr. Berkeley, one of our fellows
at Trinity College. That Mr. Berkeley is a very ingenious man, and a
great philosopher, and I have mentioned him to all the ministers, and
have given them some of his writings, and I will favour him as much as I
can."
In the natural course of things Berkeley soon heard much, though he saw
scarcely anything, of Mrs. Vanhomrigh and her daughter, the latter the
famous and unhappy "Vanessa," both of whom were settled at this time in
Berry Street, near Swift, in a house where, Swift writes to Stella, "I
loitered hot and lazy after my morning's work," and often dined "out of
mere listlessness," keeping there "my best gown and perriwig" when at
Chelsea.
Mrs. Vanhomrigh was the widow of a Dutch merchant, who had followed
William the Third to Ireland, and there obtained places of profit, and
her daughter, Esther, or Hester, as she is variously called, was a girl
of eighteen when she first met Swift, and fell violently in love with
him. This passion eventually proved the girl's perdition,--and was, as
we shall see, the cause of a will which enabled Dean Berkeley to carry
out his dear and cherished scheme of coming to America.
Swift's journal, frank about nearly everything else in the man's life,
is significantly silent concerning Esther Vanhomrigh. And in truth there
was little to be said to anybody, and nothing at all to be confided to
Stella, in regard to this unhappy affair. That Swift was flattered to
find this girl of eighteen, with beauty and accomplishment, caring so
much for him, a man now forty-four, and bound by honour, if not by the
Church, to Stella, one cannot doubt. At first, their relations seem to
have been simply those of teacher and pupil, and this phase of the
matter it is which is most particularly described in the famous poem,
"Cadenus and Vanessa," written at Windsor in 1713, and first published
after Vanessa's death.
Human nature has perhaps never before or since presented the spectacle
of a man of such transcendent powers as Swift involved in such a
pitiable labyrinth of the affections as marked his whole life. Pride or
ambition led him to postpone indefinitely his marriage with Stella, to
whom he was early attached. Though he said he "loved her better than his
life a thousand millions of times," he kept her always hanging on in a
state of hope deferred, injurious alike to her peace and her reputation.
And because of Stella, he dared not afterward with manly sincerity admit
his undoubted affection for Vanessa. For, if one may believe Doctor
Johnson, he married Stella in 1716,--though he died without
acknowledging this union, and the date given would indicate that the
ceremony occurred while his devotion to his young pupil was at its
height.
Touching beyond expression is the story of Vanessa after she had gone to
Ireland, as Stella had gone before, to be near the presence of Swift.
Her life was one of deep seclusion, chequered only by the occasional
visits of the man she adored, each of which she commemorated by planting
with her own hand a laurel in the garden where they met. When all her
devotion and her offerings had failed to impress him, she sent him
remonstrances which reflect the agony of her mind:
"The reason I write to you," she says, "is because I cannot tell it you
should I see you. For when I begin to complain, then you are angry; and
there is something in your looks so awful, that it strikes me dumb. Oh!
that you may have but so much regard for me left that this complaint may
touch your soul with pity. I say as little as ever I can. Did you but
know what I thought, I am sure it would move you to forgive me, and
believe that I cannot help telling you this and live."
Swift replies with the letter full of excuses for not seeing her
oftener, and advises her to "quit this scoundrel island." Yet he assures
her in the same breath, "que jamais personne du monde a étê aimée,
honorée, estimée, adorée, par votre ami que vous."
The tragedy continued to deepen as it approached the close. Eight years
had Vanessa nursed in solitude the hopeless attachment. At length (in
1723) she wrote to Stella to ascertain the nature of the connection
between her and Swift. The latter obtained the fatal letter, and rode
instantly to Marley Abbey, the residence of Vanessa. "As he entered the
apartment," to quote the picturesque language Scott has used in
recording the scene, "the sternness of his countenance, which was
peculiarly formed to express the stronger passions, struck the
unfortunate Vanessa with such terror, that she could scarce ask whether
he would not sit down. He answered by flinging a letter on the table;
and instantly leaving the house, mounted his horse, and returned to
Dublin. When Vanessa opened the packet, she found only her own letter to
Stella. It was her death-warrant. She sunk at once under the
disappointment of the delayed, yet cherished hopes which had so long
sickened her heart, and beneath the unrestrained wrath of him for whose
sake she had indulged them. How long she survived this last interview is
uncertain, but the time does not seem to have exceeded a few weeks."
Strength to revoke a will made in favour of Swift, and to sign another
(dated May 1, 1723) which divided her estate between Bishop Berkeley and
Judge Marshall, the poor young woman managed to summon from somewhere,
however. Berkeley she knew very slightly, and Marshall scarcely better.
But to them both she entrusted as executors her correspondence with
Swift, and the poem, "Cadenus and Vanessa," which she ordered to be
published after her death.
Doctor Johnson, in his "Life of Swift," says of Vanessa's relation to
the misanthropic dean, "She was a young woman fond of literature, whom
Decanus, the dean (called Cadenus by transposition of the letters), took
pleasure in directing and interesting till, from being proud of his
praise, she grew fond of his person. Swift was then about forty-seven,
at the age when vanity is strongly excited by the amorous attention of a
young woman."
The poem with which these two lovers are always connected, was founded,
according to the story, on an offer of marriage made by Miss Vanhomrigh
to Doctor Swift. In it, Swift thus describes his situation:
"Cadenus, common forms apart,
In every scene had kept his heart;
Had sighed and languished, vowed and writ
For pastime, or to show his wit,
But books and time and state affairs
Had spoiled his fashionable airs;
He now could praise, esteem, approve,
But understood not what was love:
His conduct might have made him styled
A father and the nymph his child.
That innocent delight he took
To see the virgin mind her book,
Was but the master's secret joy
In school to hear the finest boy."
That Swift was not always, however, so Platonic and fatherly in his
expressions of affection for Vanessa, is shown in a "Poem to Love,"
found in Miss Vanhomrigh's desk after her death, in his handwriting. One
verse of this runs:
"In all I wish how happy should I be,
Thou grand deluder, were it not for thee.
So weak thou art that fools thy power despise,
And yet so strong, thou triumph'st o'er the wise."
After the poor girl's unhappy decease, Swift hid himself for two months
in the south of Ireland. Stella was also shocked by the occurrence, but
when some one remarked in her presence, apropos of the poem which had
just appeared, that Vanessa must have been a remarkable woman to inspire
such verses, she observed with perfect truth that the dean was quite
capable of writing charmingly upon a broomstick.
Meanwhile Berkeley was informed of the odd stroke of luck by which he
was to gain a small fortune. Characteristically, his thoughts turned now
more than ever to his Bermuda scheme. "This providential event," he
wrote, "having made many things easy in my private affairs which were
otherwise before, I have high hopes for Bermuda."
Swift bore Berkeley absolutely no hard feeling on account of Vanessa's
substitution of his name in her will. He was quite as cordial as ever.
One of the witty dean's most remarkable letters, addressed to Lord
Carteret, at Bath, thus describes Berkeley's previous career and present
mission:
"Going to England very young, about thirteen years ago, the bearer of
this became founder of a sect called the Immaterialists, by the force of
a very curious book upon that subject.... He is an absolute philosopher
with regard to money, titles, and power; and for three years past has
been struck with a notion of founding a university at Bermudas by a
charter from the Crown.... He showed me a little tract which he designs
to publish, and there your Excellency will see his whole scheme of the
life academico-philosophical, of a college founded for Indian scholars
and missionaries, where he most exorbitantly proposes a whole hundred
pounds a year for himself.... His heart will be broke if his deanery be
not taken from him, and left to your Excellency's disposal. I
discouraged him by the coldness of Courts and Ministers, who will
interpret all this as impossible and a vision; but nothing will do."
The history of Berkeley's reception in London, when he came to urge his
project, shows convincingly the magic of the man's presence and
influence. His conquests spread far and fast. In a generation
represented by Sir Robert Walpole, the scheme met with encouragement
from all sorts of people, subscriptions soon reaching £5,000, and the
list of promoters including even Sir Robert himself. Bermuda became the
fashion among the wits of London, and Bolingbroke wrote to Swift that he
would "gladly exchange Europe for its charms--only not in a missionary
capacity."
But Berkeley was not satisfied with mere subscriptions, and remembering
what Lord Percival had said about the protection and aid of government
he interceded with George the First, and obtained royal encouragement to
hope for a grant of £20,000 to endow the Bermuda college. During the
four years that followed, he lived in London, negotiating with brokers,
and otherwise forwarding his enterprise of social idealism. With Queen
Caroline, consort of George the Second, he used to dispute two days a
week concerning his favourite plan.
At last his patience was rewarded. In September, 1728, we find him at
Greenwich, ready to sail for Rhode Island. "Tomorrow," he writes on
September 3 to Lord Percival, "we sail down the river. Mr. James and Mr.
Dalton go with me; so doth my wife, a daughter of the late Chief Justice
Forster, whom I married since I saw your lordship. I chose her for her
qualities of mind, and her unaffected inclination to books. She goes
with great thankfulness, to live a plain farmer's life, and wear stuff
of her own spinning. I have presented her with a spinning-wheel. Her
fortune was £2,000 originally, but travelling and exchange have reduced
it to less than £1,500 English money. I have placed that, and about £600
of my own, in South Sea annuities."
Thus in the forty-fourth year of his life, in deep devotion to his
Ideal, and full of glowing visions of a Fifth Empire in the West,
Berkeley sailed for Rhode Island in a "hired ship of two hundred and
fifty tons."
The _New England Courier_ of that time gives this picture of his
disembarkation at Newport: "Yesterday there arrived here Dean Berkeley,
of Londonderry. He is a gentleman of middle stature, of an agreeable,
pleasant, and erect aspect. He was ushered into the town with a great
number of gentlemen, to whom he behaved himself after a very complaisant
manner."
[Illustration: WHITEHALL, NEWPORT, R. I.]
So favourably was Berkeley impressed by Newport that he wrote to Lord
Percival: "I should not demur about situating our college here." And as
it turned out, Newport was the place with which Berkeley's scheme was to
be connected in history. For it was there that he lived all three years
of his stay, hopefully awaiting from England the favourable news that
never came.
In loyal remembrance of the palace of his monarchs, he named his
spacious home in the sequestered valley Whitehall. Here he began
domestic life, and became the father of a family. The neighbouring
groves and the cliffs that skirt the coast offered shade and silence and
solitude very soothing to his spirit, and one wonders not that he
wrote, under the projecting rock that still bears his name, "The Minute
Philosopher," one of his most noted works. The friends with whom he had
crossed the ocean went to stay in Boston, but no solicitations could
withdraw him from the quiet of his island home. "After my long fatigue
of business," he told Lord Percival, "this retirement is very agreeable
to me; and my wife loves a country life and books as well as to pass her
time continually and cheerfully without any other conversation than her
husband and the dead." For the wife was a mystic and a quietist.
But though Berkeley waited patiently for developments which should
denote the realisation of his hopes, he waited always in vain. From the
first he had so planned his enterprise that it was at the mercy of Sir
Robert Walpole; and at last came the crisis of the project, with which
the astute financier had never really sympathised. Early in 1730,
Walpole threw off the mask. "If you put the question to me as a
minister," he wrote Lord Percival, "I must and can assure you that the
money shall most undoubtedly be paid--as soon as suits with public
convenience; but if you ask me as a friend whether Dean Berkeley should
continue in America, expecting the payment of £200,000, I advise him by
all means to return to Europe, and to give up his present expectations."
When acquainted by his friend Percival with this frank statement,
Berkeley accepted the blow as a philosopher should. Brave and resolutely
patient, he prepared for departure. His books he left as a gift to the
library of Yale College, and his farm of Whitehall was made over to the
same institution, to found three scholarships for the encouragement of
Greek and Latin study. His visit was thus far from being barren of
results. He supplied a decided stimulus to higher education in the
colonies, in that he gave out counsel and help to the men already
working for the cause of learning in the new country. And he helped to
form in Newport a philosophical reunion, the effects of which were long
felt.
In the autumn of 1731 he sailed from Boston for London, where he arrived
in January of the next year. There a bishopric and twenty years of
useful and honourable labour awaited him. He died at Oxford, whence he
had removed from his see at Cloyne, on Sunday evening, January 14, 1753,
while reading aloud to his family the burial service portion of
Corinthians. He was buried in the Cathedral of Christ Church.
Of the traces he left at Newport, there still remain, beside the house,
a chair in which he was wont to write, a few books and papers, the organ
presented by him to Trinity Church, the big family portrait, by
Smibert--and the little grave in Trinity churchyard, where, on the south
side of the Kay monument, sleeps "Lucia Berkeley, obiit., the fifth of
September, 1731." Moreover the memory of the man's beautiful, unselfish
life pervades this section of Rhode Island, and the story of his
sweetness and patience under a keen and unexpected disappointment
furnishes one of the most satisfying pages in our early history.
The life of Berkeley is indeed greater than anything that he did, and
one wonders not as one explores the young preacher's noble and endearing
character that the distraught Vanessa fastened upon him, though she
knew him only by reputation, as one who would make it his sacred duty to
do all in his power to set her memory right in a censorious world.
THE MAID OF MARBLEHEAD
Of all the romantic narratives which enliven the pages of early colonial
history, none appeals more directly to the interest and imagination of
the lover of what is picturesque than the story of Agnes Surriage, the
Maid of Marblehead. The tale is so improbable, according to every-day
standards, so in form with the truest sentiment, and so calculated to
satisfy every exaction of literary art, that even the most credulous
might be forgiven for ascribing it to the fancy of the romancer rather
than to the research of the historian.
Yet when one remembers that the scene of the first act of Agnes
Surriage's life drama is laid in quaint old Marblehead, the tale itself
instantly gains in credibility. For nothing would be too romantic to fit
Marblehead. This town is fantastic in the extreme, builded, to quote
Miss Alice Brown, who has written delightfully of Agnes and her life,
"as if by a generation of autocratic landowners, each with a wilful bee
in his bonnet."[1] For Marblehead is no misnomer, and the early settlers
had to plant their houses and make their streets as best they could. As
a matter of stern fact, every house in Marblehead had to be like the
wise man's in the Bible: "built upon a rock." The dwellings themselves
were founded upon solid ledges, while the principal streets followed the
natural valleys between. The smaller dividing paths led each and
every one of them to the impressive old Town House, and to that other
comfortable centre of social interests, the Fountain Inn, with its
near-by pump. This pump, by the bye, has a very real connection with the
story of Agnes Surriage, for it was here, according to one legend, that
Charles Henry Frankland first saw the maid who is the heroine of our
story.
[Illustration: AGNES SURRIAGE PUMP, MARBLEHEAD, MASS.]
The gallant Sir Harry was at this time (1742) collector of the port of
Boston, a place to which he had been appointed shortly before, by virtue
of his family's great influence at the court of George the Second. No
more distinguished house than that of Frankland was indeed to be found
in all England at this time. A lineal descendant of Oliver Cromwell, our
hero was born in Bengal, May 10, 1716, during his father's residence
abroad as governor of the East India Company's factory. The personal
attractiveness of Frankland's whole family was marked. It is even said
that a lady of this house was sought in marriage by Charles the Second,
in spite of the fact that a Capulet-Montague feud must ever have existed
between the line of Cromwell and that of Charles Stuart.
Young Harry, too, was clever as well as handsome. The eldest of his
father's seven sons, he was educated as befitted the heir to the title
and to the family estate at Thirkleby and Mattersea. He knew the French
and Latin languages well, and, what is more to the point, used his
mother tongue with grace and elegance. Botany and landscape-gardening
were his chief amusements, while with the great literature of the day he
was as familiar as with the great men who made it.
As early as 1738, when he was twenty-two, he had come into possession
of an ample fortune, but when opportunity offered to go to America with
Shirley, his friend, he accepted the opening with avidity. Both young
men, therefore, entered the same year (1741) on their offices, the one
as Collector of the Port, and the other as Governor of the Colony. And
both represented socially the highest rank of that day in America.
"A baronet," says Reverend Elias Nason, from whose admirable picture of
Boston in Frankland's time all writers must draw for reliable data
concerning our hero,--"a baronet was then approached with greatest
deference; a coach and four, with an armorial bearing and liveried
servants, was a munition against indignity; in those dignitaries who, in
brocade vest, gold lace coat, broad ruffled sleeves, and small-clothes,
who, with three-cornered hat and powdered wig, side-arms and silver
shoe buckles, promenaded Queen Street and the Mall, spread themselves
through the King's Chapel, or discussed the measures of the Pelhams,
Walpole, and Pitt at the Rose and Crown, as much of aristocratic pride,
as much of courtly consequence displayed itself as in the frequenters of
Hyde Park or Regent Street."
This, then, was the manner of man who, to transact some business
connected with Marblehead's picturesque Fort Sewall, then just
a-building, came riding down to the rock-bound coast on the day our
story opens, and lost his heart at the Fountain Inn, where he had paused
for a long draught of cooling ale.
For lo! scrubbing the tavern floor there knelt before him a beautiful
child-girl of sixteen, with black curling hair, dark eyes, and a voice
which proved to be of bird-like sweetness when the maiden, glancing up,
gave her good-day to the gallant's greeting. The girl's feet were bare,
and this so moved Frankland's compassion that he gently gave her a piece
of gold with which to buy shoes and stockings, and rode thoughtfully
away to conduct his business at the fort.
Yet he did not forget that charming child just budding into winsome
womanhood whom he had seen performing with patience and grace the duties
that fell to her lot as the poor daughter of some honest, hard-working
fisherfolk of the town. When he happened again to be in Marblehead on
business, he inquired at once for her, and then, seeing her feet still
without shoes and stockings, asked a bit teasingly what she had done
with the money he gave her. Quite frankly she replied, blushing the
while, that the shoes and stockings were bought, but that she kept them
to wear to meeting. Soon after this the young collector went to search
out Agnes's parents, Edward and Mary Surriage, from whom he succeeded in
obtaining permission to remove their daughter to Boston to be educated
as his ward.
When one reads in the old records the entries for Frankland's salary,
and finds that they mount up to not more than £100 sterling a year, one
wonders that the young nobleman should have been so ready to take upon
himself the expenses of a girl's elegant education. But it must be
remembered that the gallant Harry had money in his own right, besides
many perquisites of office, which made his income a really splendid one.
Certainly he spared no expense upon his ward. She was taught reading,
writing, grammar, music, and embroidery by the best tutors the town
could provide, and she grew daily, we are told, in beauty and maidenly
charm.
Yet in acquiring these gifts and graces she did not lose her childish
sweetness and simplicity, nor the pious counsel of her mother, and the
careful care of her Marblehead pastor. Thus several years passed by,
years in which Agnes often visited with her gentle guardian the
residence in Roxbury of Governor Shirley and his gifted wife, as well as
the stately Royall place out on the Medford road.
The reader who is familiar with Mr. Bynner's story of Agnes Surriage
will recall how delightfully Mrs. Shirley, the wife of the governor, is
introduced into his romance, and will recollect with pleasure his
description of Agnes's ride to Roxbury in the collector's coach. This
old mansion is now called the Governor Eustis House, and there are those
still living who remember when Madam Eustis lived there. This grand
dame wore a majestic turban, and the tradition still lingers of madame's
pet toad, decked on gala days with a blue ribbon. Now the old house is
sadly dilapidated; it is shorn of its piazzas, the sign "To Let" hangs
often in the windows, and the cupola is adorned with well-filled
clothes-lines. Partitions have cut the house into tenements; one runs
through the hall, but the grand old staircase and the smaller one are
still there, and the marble floor, too, lends dignity to the back hall.
A few of the carved balusters are missing, carried away by relic
hunters. In this house, which was the residence of Governors Shirley and
Eustis, Washington, Hamilton, Burr, Franklin, and other notables were
entertained. The old place is now entirely surrounded by modern
dwelling-houses, and the pilgrim who searches for it must leave the
Mount Pleasant electric car at Shirley Street.
Yet, though Agnes as a maid was received by the most aristocratic people
of Boston, the ladies of the leading families refused to countenance her
when she became a fine young woman whom Sir Harry Frankland loved but
cared not to marry. That her protector had not meant at first to wrong
the girl he had befriended seems fairly certain, but many circumstances,
such as the death of Agnes's father and Frankland's own sudden elevation
to the baronetcy, may be held to have conspired to force them into the
situation for which Agnes was to pay by many a day of tears and Sir
Harry by many a night of bitter self-reproach.
For Frankland was far from being a libertine. And that he sincerely
loved the beautiful maid of Marblehead is certain. He has come down to
us as one of the most knightly men of his time, a gentleman and a
scholar, who was also a sincere follower of the Church of England and
its teachings. Both in manner and person he is said to have greatly
resembled the Earl of Chesterfield, and his diary as well as his
portrait show him to have been at once sensitive and virile; quite the
man, indeed, very effectually to fascinate the low-born beauty he had
taught to love him.
The indignation of the ladies in town toward Frankland and his ward made
the baronet prefer at this stage of the story rural Hopkinton to
censorious Boston. Reverend Roger Price, known to us as rector of King's
Chapel, had already land and a mission church in this village, and so,
when Boston frowned too pointedly, Frankland purchased four hundred odd
acres of him, and there built, in 1751, a commodious mansion-house. The
following year he and Agnes took up their abode on the place. Here
Frankland passed his days, contentedly pursuing his horticultural fad,
angling, hunting, overseeing his dozen slaves, and reading with his
intelligent companion the latest works of Richardson, Steele, Swift,
Addison, and Pope, sent over in big boxes from England.
The country about Hopkinton was then as to-day a wonder of hill and
valley, meadow and stream, while only a dozen miles or so from Frankland
Hall was the famous Wayside Inn. That Sir Harry's Arcady never came to
bore him was, perhaps, due to this last fact. Whenever guests were
desired the men from Boston could easily ride out to the inn and canter
over to the Hall, to enjoy the good wines and the bright talk the place
afforded. Then the village rector was always to be counted on for
companionship and breezy chat. It is significant that Sir Harry
carefully observed all the forms of his religion, and treated Agnes with
the respect due a wife, though he still continued to neglect the one
duty which would have made her really happy.
A lawsuit called the two to England in 1754. At Frankland's mother's
home, where the eager son hastened to bring his beloved one, Agnes was
once more subjected to martyrdom and social ostracism. As quickly as
they could get away, therefore, the young people journeyed to Lisbon, a
place conspicuous, even in that day of moral laxity, for its tolerance
of the _alliance libre_. Henry Fielding (who died in the town) has
photographically described for all times its gay, sensuous life. Into
this unwholesome atmosphere, quite new to her, though she was neither
maid nor wife, it was that the sweet Agnes was thrust by Frankland.
Very soon he was to perceive the mistake of this, as well as of several
other phases of his selfishness.
On All Saint's Day morning, 1755, when the whole populace, from beggar
to priest, courtier to lackey, was making its way to church, the town of
Lisbon was shaken to its foundations by an earthquake. The shock came
about ten o'clock, just as the Misericordia of the mass was being sung
in the crowded churches; and Frankland, who was riding with a lady on
his way to the religious ceremony, was immersed with his companion in
the ruins of some falling houses. The horses attached to their carriage
were instantly killed, and the lady, in her terror and pain, bit through
the sleeve of her escort's red broadcloth coat, tearing the flesh with
her teeth. Frankland had some awful moments for thought as he lay there
pinned down by the fallen stones, and tortured by the pain in his arm.
Meanwhile Agnes, waiting at home, was prey to most terrible anxiety. As
soon as the surging streets would permit a foot passenger, she ran out
with all the money she could lay hands on, to search for her dear Sir
Harry. By a lucky chance, she came to the very spot where he was lying
white with pain, and by her offers of abundant reward and by gold, which
she fairly showered on the men near by, she succeeded in extricating him
from his fearful plight. Tenderly he was borne to a neighbouring house,
and there, as soon as he could stand, a priest was summoned to tie the
knot too long ignored. He had vowed, while pinned down by the weight of
stone, to amend his life and atone to Agnes, if God in his mercy should
see fit to deliver him, and he wasted not a moment in executing his
pledge to Heaven. That his spirit had been effectually chastened, one
reads between the lines of this entry in his diary, which may still be
seen in the rooms of the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston:
"Hope my providential escape will have a lasting good effect upon my
mind."
In order to make his marriage doubly sure, he had the ceremony performed
again by a clergyman of his own church on board the ship which he took
at once for England. Then the newly married pair proceeded once more to
Frankland's home, and this time there were kisses instead of coldness
for them both. Business in Lisbon soon called them back to the
Continent, however, and it was from Belem that they sailed in April,
1750, for Boston, where both were warmly welcomed by their former
friends.
In the celebrated Clarke mansion, on Garden Court Street, which Sir
Harry purchased October 5, 1756, for £1,200, our heroine now reigned
queen. This house, three stories high, with inlaid floors, carved
mantels, and stairs so broad and low that Sir Harry could, and did, ride
his pony up and down them, was the wonder of the time. It contained
twenty-six rooms, and was in every respect a marvel of luxury. That
Agnes did not forget her own people, nor scorn to receive them in her
fine house, one is pleased to note. While here she practically
supported, records show, her sister's children, and she welcomed always
when he came ashore from his voyages her brother Isaac, a poor though
honest seaman.
Frankland's health was not, however, all that both might have wished,
and the entries in the diaries deal, at this time, almost entirely with
recipes and soothing drinks. In July, 1757, he sought, therefore, the
post of consul-general to Lisbon, where the climate seemed to him to
suit his condition, and there, sobered city that it now was, the two
again took up their residence. Only once more, in 1763, was Sir Harry to
be in Boston. Then he came for a visit, staying for a space in
Hopkinton, as well as in the city. The following year he returned to the
old country, and in Bath, where he was drinking the waters, he died
January 2, 1768, at the age of fifty-two.
Agnes almost immediately came back to Boston, and, with her sister and
her sister's children, took up her residence at Hopkinton. There she
remained, living a peaceful, happy life among her flowers, her friends,
and her books, until the outbreak of the Revolution, when it seemed to
her wise to go in to her town house. She entered Boston, defended by a
guard of six sturdy soldiers, and was cordially received by the officers
in the beleaguered city, especially by Burgoyne, whom she had known in
Lisbon. During the battle of Bunker Hill, she helped nurse wounded
King's men, brought to her in her big dining-room on Garden Court
Street. As an ardent Tory, however, she was _persona non grata_ in the
colony, and she soon found it convenient to sail for England, where,
until 1782, she resided on the estate of the Frankland family.
At this point, Agnes ceases in a way to be the proper heroine of our
romance, for, contrary to the canons of love-story art, she married
again,--Mr. John Drew, a rich banker, of Chichester, being the happy
man. And at Chichester she died in one year's time.
The Hopkinton home fell, in the course of time, into the hands of the
Reverend Mr. Nason, who was to be Frankland's biographer, and who, when
the original house was destroyed by fire (January 3, 1858), built a
similar mansion on the same site. Here the Frankland relics were
carefully preserved,--the fireplace, the family portrait (herewith
reproduced), Sir Harry's silver knee buckles, and the famous broadcloth
coat, from the sleeve of which the unfortunate lady had torn a piece
with her teeth on the day of the Lisbon disaster. This coat, we are
told, was brought back to Hopkinton by Sir Harry, and hung in one of the
remote chambers of the house, where each year, till his departure for
the last time from the pleasant village, he was wont to pass the
anniversary of the earthquake in fasting, humiliation, and prayer. The
coat, and all the other relics, were lost in April, 1902, when, for the
second time, Frankland Hall was razed by fire.
The ancient Fountain Inn, with its "flapping sign," and the "spreading
elm below," long since disappeared, and its well, years ago filled up,
was only accidentally discovered at a comparatively recent date, when
some workmen were digging a post hole. It was then restored as an
interesting landmark. This inn was a favourite resort, legends tell us,
for jovial sea captains as well as for the gentry of the town. There are
even traditions that pirates bold and smugglers sly at times found
shelter beneath its sloping roof. Yet none of the many stories with
which its ruins are connected compares in interest and charm to the
absolutely true one given us by history of Fair Agnes, the Maid of
Marblehead.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: "Three Heroines of New England Romance." Little, Brown &
Co.]
AN AMERICAN-BORN BARONET
One of the most picturesque houses in all Middlesex County is the Royall
house at Medford, a place to which Sir Harry Frankland and his lady used
often to resort. Few of the great names in colonial history are lacking,
indeed, in the list of guests who were here entertained in the brave
days of old.
The house stands on the left-hand side of the old Boston Road as you
approach Medford, and to-day attracts the admiration of electric car
travellers just as a century and a half ago it was the focus for all
stage passenger's eyes. Externally the building presents three stories,
the upper tier of windows being, as is usual in houses of even a much
later date, smaller than those underneath. The house is of brick, but is
on three sides entirely sheathed in wood, while the south end stands
exposed. Like several of the houses we are noting, it seems to turn its
back on the high road. I am, however, inclined to a belief that the
Royall house set the fashion in this matter, for Isaac, the Indian
nabob, was just the man to assume an attitude of fine indifference to
the world outside his gates. When in 1837, he came, a successful Antigua
merchant, to establish his seat here in old Charlestown, and to rule on
his large estate, sole monarch of twenty-seven slaves, he probably felt
quite indifferent, if not superior, to strangers and casual passers-by.
His petition of December, 1737, in regard to the "chattels" in his
train, addressed to the General Court, reads:
"Petition of Isaac Royall, late of Antigua, now of Charlestown, in the
county of Middlesex, that he removed from Antigua and brought with him
among other things and chattels a parcel of negroes, designed for his
own use, and not any of them for merchandise. He prays that he may not
be taxed with impost."
The brick quarters which the slaves occupied are situated on the south
side of the mansion, and front upon the courtyard, one side of which
they enclose. These may be seen on the extreme right of the picture, and
will remind the reader who is familiar with Washington's home at Mount
Vernon of the quaint little stone buildings in which the Father of his
Country was wont to house his slaves. The slave buildings in Medford
have remained practically unchanged, and according to good authority
are the last visible relics of slavery in New England.
The Royall estate offered a fine example of the old-fashioned garden.
Fruit trees and shrubbery, pungent box bordering trim gravel paths, and
a wealth of sweet-scented roses and geraniums were here to be found.
Even to-day the trees, the ruins of the flower-beds, and the relics of
magnificent vines, are imposing as one walks from the street gate
seventy paces back to the house-door.
The carriage visitor--and in the old days all the Royall guests came
under this head--either alighted by the front entrance or passed by the
broad drive under the shade of the fine old elms around into the
courtyard paved with small white pebbles. The driveway has now become a
side street, and what was once an enclosed garden of half an acre or
more, with walks, fruit, and a summer-house at the farther extremity, is
now the site of modern dwellings.
[Illustration: SUMMER-HOUSE, ROYALL ESTATE, MEDFORD, MASS.]
This summer-house, long the favourite resort of the family and their
guests, was a veritable curiosity in its way. Placed upon an artificial
mound with two terraces, and reached by broad flights of red sandstone
steps, it was architecturally a model of its kind. Hither, to pay their
court to the daughters of the house, used to come George Erving and the
young Sir William Pepperell, and if the dilapidated walls (now taken
down, but still carefully preserved) could speak, they might tell of
many an historic love tryst. The little house is octagonal in form, and
on its bell-shaped roof, surmounted by a cupola, there poises what was
originally a figure of Mercury. At present, however, the statue, bereft
of both wings and arms, cannot be said greatly to resemble the dashing
god.
The exterior of the summer-house is highly ornamented with Ionic
pilasters, and taken as a whole is quaintly ruinous. It is interesting
to discover that it was utility that led to the elevation of the mound,
within which was an ice-house! And to get at the ice the slaves went
through a trap-door in the floor of this Greek structure!
Isaac Royall, the builder of the fine old mansion, did not long live to
enjoy his noble estate, but he was succeeded by a second Isaac, who,
though a "colonel," was altogether inclined to take more care for his
patrimony than for his king. When the Revolution began, Colonel Royall
fell upon evil times. Appointed a councillor by mandamus, he declined
serving "from timidity," as Gage says to Lord Dartmouth. Royall's own
account of his movements after the beginning of "these troubles," is
such as to confirm the governor's opinion.