Transcriber's note:
Minor typographical errors have been corrected.
Carats (^) designate a superscript (example: y^e, in
which the "e" is a superscript).
Footnotes have been moved to the end of each chapter.
THE OLD COAST ROAD
From Boston to Plymouth
by
AGNES EDWARDS
With Illustrations by Louis H. Ruyl
[Illustration]
Boston and New York Houghton Mifflin Company
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1920
Copyright, 1920, by Agnes Edwards Pratt
All Rights Reserved
[Illustration]
THE OLD COAST ROAD
_From Boston to Plymouth_
CONTENTS
BOSTON: A FOREWORD ix
I. DORCHESTER HEIGHTS AND THE OLD COAST
ROAD 1
II. MILTON AND THE BLUE HILLS 19
III. SHIPBUILDING AT QUINCY 35
IV. THE ROMANCE OF WEYMOUTH 57
V. ECCLESIASTICAL HINGHAM 75
VI. COHASSET LEDGES AND MARSHES 92
VII. THE SCITUATE SHORE 111
VIII. MARSHFIELD, THE HOME OF DANIEL WEBSTER 123
IX. DUXBURY HOMES 142
X. KINGSTON AND ITS MANUSCRIPTS 157
XI. PLYMOUTH 175
ILLUSTRATIONS
A BIT OF COMMERCIAL STREET IN WEYMOUTH Frontispiece
THE STATE HOUSE FROM PARK STREET ix
MAP OF THE SOUTH SHORE _facing_ 1
DORCHESTER BAY 1
OFF FOR PLYMOUTH BY THE OLD COAST ROAD 18
GREAT BLUE HILL 19
MILTON ESTATES _facing_ 20
THE FORE RIVER SHIPYARD 35
THE ADAMS HOUSES IN QUINCY 56
THE WEYMOUTH WATER-FRONT 57
RATTLING ALONG THE OLD COAST ROAD 74
THE LINCOLN HOUSE IN HINGHAM 75
THE OLD SHIP MEETING-HOUSE _facing_ 76
INTERIOR OF THE NEW NORTH CHURCH IN HINGHAM,
WITH ITS SLAVE GALLERIES 91
COHASSET LEDGES AND MINOT'S LEDGE LIGHT 92
MODERN COHASSET 110
DRYING SEA-MOSS AT SCITUATE HARBOR 111
FOURTH CLIFF, SCITUATE 122
THE WEBSTER HOUSE 123
MARSHFIELD MEADOWS _facing_ 136
A DUXBURY COTTAGE 142
A BAY VIEW TO DUXBURY BEACH 156
THE STANDISH MONUMENT AS SEEN FROM KINGSTON 157
OLD RECORDS 174
THE MEMORIAL BUILDING FOR THE TOWN OF
PLYMOUTH, DESIGNED BY LITTLE AND RUSSELL,
ARCHITECTS 175
VIEW FROM STEPS OF BURIAL HILL, PLYMOUTH,
SHOWING THE TOWN SQUARE, LEYDEN STREET,
THE CHURCH OF THE PILGRIMAGE, THE FIRST
CHURCH, AND, IN THE DISTANCE, THE PILGRIM
MONUMENT IN PROVINCETOWN _facing_ 192
CLARK'S ISLAND, PLYMOUTH 203
BOSTON: A FOREWORD
[Illustration]
To love Boston or to laugh at Boston--it all depends on whether or not
you are a Bostonian. Perhaps the happiest attitude--and the most
intelligent--is tinged with both amusement and affection: amusement at
the undeviating ceremonial of baked beans on Saturday night and fish
balls on Sunday morning; at the Boston bag (not so ubiquitous now as
formerly); at the indefatigable consumption of lectures; at the
Bostonese pronunciation; affection for the honorable traditions, noble
buildings, distinguished men and women. Boston is an old city--one must
remember that it was settled almost three centuries ago--and old cities,
like old people, become tenacious of their idiosyncrasies, admitting
their inconsistencies and prejudices with complacency, wisely aware that
age has bestowed on them a special value, which is automatically
increased with the passage of time.
To tell the story of an old city is like cutting down through the
various layers of a fruity layer cake. When you turn the slice over, you
see that every piece is a cross-section. So almost every locality and
phase of this venerable metropolis could be studied, and really should
be studied, according to its historical strata: Colonial, Provincial,
Revolutionary, economic, and literary. All of these periods have piled
up their associations one upon the other, and all of them must be
somewhat understood if one would sincerely comprehend what has aptly
been called not a city, but a "state of mind."
It is as impossible for the casual sojourner to grasp the significance
of the multifarious historical and literary events which have transpired
here as for a few pages to outline them. Wherever one stands in Boston
suggests the church of San Clemente in Rome, where, you remember, there
are three churches built one upon the other. However, those who would
take the lovely journey from Boston to Plymouth needs must make some
survey, no matter how superficial, of their starting-place. And perhaps
the best spot from which to begin is the Common.
This pleasantly rolling expanse, which was set aside as long ago as
1640, with the decree that "there shall be no land granted either for
houseplott or garden out of y^e open land or common field," has been
unbrokenly maintained ever since, and as far as acreage goes (it
approximates fifty acres) could still fulfill its original use of
pasturing cows, a practice which was continued until 1830. It was here
that John Hancock's cattle grazed--he who lived in such magnificence on
the hill, and in whose side yard the State House was built--and once,
when preparations for an official banquet were halted by shortage of
milk, tradition has it that he ordered his servants to hasten out on the
Common and milk every cow there, regardless of ownership. Tradition also
tells us that the little boy Ralph Waldo Emerson tended his mother's cow
here; and finally both traditions and existing law declare that yonder
one-story building opening upon Mount Vernon Street, and possessing an
oddly wide door, must forever keep that door of sufficient width to let
the cows pass through to the Common.
Let us stand upon the steps of the State House and look out over the
Common. To our right, near the intersection of Boylston and Tremont
Streets, lies the half-forgotten, almost obliterated Central Burying
Ground, the final resting-place of Gilbert Stuart, the famous American
painter. At the left points the spire of Park Street Church, notable not
for its age, for it is only a little over a century old, but for its
charming beauty, and by the fact that William Lloyd Garrison delivered
his first address here, and here "America" was sung in public for the
first time. It was the windiness of this corner which was responsible
for Tom Appleton's suggestion (he was the brother-in-law of Longfellow)
that a shorn lamb be tethered here.
The graceful spire of Park Street Church serves not only as a landmark,
but is also a most fitting terminal to a street of many associations. It
is on Park Street that the publishing house of Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
(now Houghton Mifflin Company) has had its offices for forty years, and
the bookstores and the antique shops tucked quaintly down a few steps
below the level of the sidewalk have much of the flavor of a bit of
London.
Still standing on the State House steps, facing the Common, you are also
facing what has been called the noblest monument in Boston and the most
successfully placed one in America. It is Saint-Gaudens's bronze relief
of Colonel Robert G. Shaw commanding his colored regiment, and if you
see no other sculpture in a city which has its full quota you must see
this memorial, spirited in execution, spiritual in its conception of a
mighty moment.
If we had time to linger we could not do better than to follow Beacon
Street to the left, pausing at the Athenæum, a library of such dignity
and beauty that one instinctively, and properly, thinks of it as an
institution rather than a mere building. To enjoy the Athenæum one must
be a "proprietor" and own a "share," which entitles one not only to the
use of the scholarly volumes in scholarly seclusion, but also in the
afternoon to entrance to an alcove where tea is served for three
pennies. Perhaps here, as well as any other place, you may see a
characteristic assortment of what are fondly called "Boston types."
There is the professor from Cambridge, a gentleman with a pointed beard
and a noticeably cultivated enunciation; one from Wellesley--this, a
lady--with that keen and paradoxically impractical expression which
marks pure intellectuality; an alert matron, plainly, almost shabbily,
dressed (aristocratic Boston still scorns sartorial smartness); a very
well-bred young girl with bone spectacles; a student, shabby, like the
Back Bay matron, but for another reason; a writer; a business man whose
hobby is Washingtonia. These, all of them, you may enjoy along with your
cup of tea for three cents, if--and here is the crux--you can only be
admitted in the first place. And if you are admitted, do not fail to
look out of the rear windows upon the ancient Granary Burying Ground,
where rest the ashes of Hancock, Sewall, Faneuil, Samuel Adams, Otis,
Revere, and many more notables. If you have a penchant for graveyards,
this one, entered from Tremont Street, is more than worthy of further
study.
This is one of the many things we could enjoyably do if we had time, but
whether we have time or not we must pay our respects to the State House
(one does not call it the Capitol in Boston, as in other cities), the
prominence of whose golden dome is not unsuggestive, to those who recall
it, of Saint Botolph's beacon tower in Boston, England, for which this
city was named. The State House is a distinctively American building,
and Bulfinch, the great American architect, did an excellent thing when
he designed it. The dome was originally covered with plates of copper
rolled by no other than that expert silversmith and robust patriot, Paul
Revere--he whose midnight ride has been recited by so many generations
of school-children, and whose exquisite flagons, cups, ladles, and sugar
tongs not only compared with the best Continental work of that period,
but have set a name and standard for American craftsmanship ever since.
If you should walk up and down the chessboard of Beacon Hill--taking the
knight's move occasionally across the narrow cross-streets--you could
not help treading the very squares which were familiar to the feet of
that generation of authors which has permanently stamped American
literature. At 55 Beacon Street, down near the foot of the hill and
facing the Common, still stands the handsome, swell-front, buff-brick
house where Prescott, the historian, lived. On Mount Vernon Street
(which runs parallel to Beacon, and which, with its dignified beauty,
won the approval of that connoisseur of beautiful streets--Henry James)
one can pick out successively the numbers 59, 76, 83, 84, the first and
last being homes of Thomas Bailey Aldrich, and the other two
distinguished by the residence of William Ellery Channing and Margaret
Deland. Pinckney Street runs parallel with Mount Vernon, and the small,
narrow house at number 20 was one of the homes of the Alcott family. It
seems delightfully fitting that Louisburg Square--that very exclusive
and very English spot which probably retains more of the quaint
atmosphere and customs of an aristocratic past than any other single
area in the city--should have been the home of the well-beloved William
Dean Howells. One also likes to recall that Jenny Lind was married at
number 20. Chestnut Street--which after a period of social obscurity is
again coming into its own--possesses Julia Ward Howe's house at number
13, that of Motley the historian at 16, and of Parkman at 50. In this
hasty map we have gone up and down the hill, but the cross-street,
Charles, although not so attractive, is nevertheless as rich in literary
associations as any in Boston. Here lived, for a short time, at 164,
Oliver Wendell Holmes, and at 131--also for a short time--Thomas Bailey
Aldrich. It is, however, at 148, that we should longest pause. This, for
many rich years, was the home of James T. Fields, that delightful man of
letters who was the friend of many men of letters; he who entertained
Dickens and Thackeray, and practically every foreign writer of note who
visited this country; he who encouraged Hawthorne to the completion of
the "Scarlet Letter," and he, who, as an appreciative critic, publisher,
and editor, probably did more to elevate, inspire, and sustain the
general literary tone of the city than any other single person. In these
stirring days facile American genius springs up, like brush fires, from
coast to coast. Novels pour in from the West, the Middle West, the
South. To superficial outsiders it may seem as if Boston might be
hard-pressed to keep her laurels green, but Boston herself has no
fears. Her present may not shine with so unique a brilliance as her
past, but her past gains in luster with each succeeding year. Nothing
can ever take from Boston her high literary prestige.
While we are still on Beacon Hill we can look out, not only upon the
past, but upon the future. Those white domes and pillars gleaming like
Greek temples across the blue Charles, are the new buildings of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and surely Greek temples were
never lovelier, nor dedicated to more earnest pursuit of things not
mundane. Quite as beautiful and quite as Grecian as the Technology
buildings is the noble marble group of the School of Medicine of Harvard
University, out by the Fenlands--that section of the city which is
rapidly becoming a students' quarter, with its Simmons College, the New
England Conservatory of Music, art schools, gymnasiums, private and
technical schools of all descriptions, and its body of over 12,000
students. Harvard is, of course, across the river in Cambridge, and
preparatory schools and colleges dot the suburbs in every direction,
upholding the cultural traditions of a city which has proved itself
peculiarly fitted to educational interests.
All this time we have, like _bona-fide_ Bostonians, stayed on Beacon
Hill, and merely looked out at the rest of the city. And perhaps this is
as typical a thing as we could have done. Beacon Hill was the center of
original Boston, when the Back Bay was merely a marsh, and long after
the marsh was filled in and streets were laid out and handsome
residences lined them, Beacon Hill looked down scornfully at the new
section and murmured that it was built upon the discarded hoopskirts and
umbrellas of the true Bostonians. Even when almost every one was crowded
off the Hill and the Back Bay became the more aristocratic section of
the two, there were still enough of the original inhabitants left to
scorn these upstart social pretensions. And now Beacon Hill is again
coming back into her own: the fine old houses are being carefully,
almost worshipfully restored, probably never again to lose their
rightful place in the general life of the city.
But if Beacon Hill was conservative in regard to the Back Bay, that
district, in its turn, showed an equal unprogressiveness in regard to
the Esplanade. To the stranger in Boston, delighting in that magnificent
walk along the Charles River Embankment, with the arching spans of the
Cambridge and Harvard bridges on one side, and the homes of wealth and
mellow refinement on the other--a walk which for invigorating beauty
compares with any in the cities of men--it seems incredible that when
this promenade was laid out a few years ago, the householders along the
water's edge absolutely refused to turn their front windows away from
Beacon Street. Furthermore, they ignored the fact that their back yards
and back windows presented an unbecoming face to such an incomparably
lovely promenade, and the inevitable household rearrangement--by which
the drawing-rooms were placed in the rear--was literally years in
process of achievement. But such conservatism is one of Boston's
idiosyncrasies, which we must accept like the wind and the flat A.
Present-day Bostonians are proud--and properly so--of their Copley
Square, with its Public Library, rich with the mural paintings of Puvis
de Chavannes, with Abbey's "Quest of the Holy Grail," and Sargent's
"Frieze of the Prophets"; with its well-loved Trinity Church and with
much excellent sculpture by Bela Pratt. Copley Square is the cultural
center of modern Boston. The famous Lowell lectures--established about
seventy-five years ago as free gifts to the people--are enthusiastically
attended by audiences as Bostonese as one could hope to congregate; and
in all sorts of queer nests in this vicinity are Theosophical
reading-rooms, small halls where Buddhism is studied or New Thought
taught, and half a hundred very new or very old philosophies, religions,
fads, fashions, reforms, and isms find shelter. It is easy to linger in
Copley Square: indeed, hundreds and hundreds of men and
women--principally women--come from all over the United States for the
sole purpose of spending a few months or a season in this very place,
enjoying the lectures, concerts, and art exhibitions which are so easily
and freely accessible. But in this bird's-eye flight across the
historical and geographical map of a city that tempts one to many
pleasant delays, we must hover for a brief moment over the South and the
North Ends.
Skipping back, then, almost three centuries, but not traveling far as
distance goes, the stranger in Boston cannot do better than to find his
way from Copley Square to the Old South Church on Washington
Street--that venerable building whose desecration by the British troops
in 1775 the citizens found it so hard ever to forgive. It was here that
Benjamin Franklin was baptized in 1706; here that Joseph Warren made a
dramatic entry to the pulpit by way of the window in order to denounce
the British soldiers; and here that momentous meetings were held in the
heaving days before the Revolution. The Old South Church Burying Ground
is now called the King's Chapel Burying Ground, and King's Chapel
itself--a quaint, dusky building, suggestive of a London chapel--is only
a few blocks away. Across its doorsill have not only stepped the Royal
Governors of pre-Revolutionary days, but Washington, General Gage, the
indestructibly romantic figures of Sir Harry Frankland and Agnes
Surriage; the funeral processions of General Warren and Charles Sumner.
The organ, which came from England in 1756, is said to have been
selected by Handel at the request of King George, and along the walls of
the original King's Chapel were hung the escutcheons of the Kings of
England and of the Royal Governors.
The Old State House is in this vicinity and is worthy--as are, indeed,
both the Old South Church and King's Chapel--of careful architectural
study and enjoyment. There are portraits, pictures, relics, and rooms
within, and without the beautifully quaint lines and truly lovely
details of the façade infuse a perpetual charm into the atmosphere of
the city. It was directly in front of this building that the Boston
Massacre took place in 1770, and from this second-story balcony that
the repeal of the Stamp Act was read, and ten years later the full text
of the Declaration of Independence.
Perhaps the next most interesting building in this section of old Boston
is Faneuil Hall, the "Cradle of Liberty" whose dignified, old-fashioned
proportions were not lost--thanks to Bulfinch--when it was enlarged. A
gift of a public-spirited citizen, this building has served in a double
capacity for a hundred and seventy-seven years, having public
market-stalls below and a large hall above--a hall which is never
rented, but used freely by the people whenever they wish to discuss
public affairs. It would be impossible to enumerate the notable speakers
and meetings which have rendered this hall famous, from General Gage
down to Daniel Webster, Theodore Roosevelt, and Marshal Joffre.
If you are fond of water sights and smells you can step from Faneuil
Hall down to a region permeated with the flavor of salt and the sound of
shipping, a region of both ancient tradition and present activity. Here
is India Wharf, its seven-story yellow-brick building once so
tremendously significant of Boston's shipping prosperity; Long Wharf, so
named because when it was built it was the longest in the country, and
bore a battery at its end; Central Wharf, with its row of venerable
stone warehouses; T Wharf, immensely picturesque with its congestion of
craft of all descriptions; Commercial Wharf, where full-rigged sailing
vessels which traded with China and India and the Cape of Good Hope were
wont to anchor a hundred years ago. All this region is crammed with the
paraphernalia of a typical water-front: curious little shops where
sailors' supplies are sold; airy lofts where sails are cut and stitched
and repaired; fish stores of all descriptions; sailors' haunts, awaiting
the pen of an American Thomas Burke. The old Custom House where
Hawthorne unwillingly plodded through his enforced routine is here, and
near it the new Custom House rears its tower four hundred and
ninety-eight feet above the sidewalk, a beacon from both land and sea.
The North End of Boston has not fared as well as the South End. The sons
of Abraham and immigrants from Italy have appropriated the streets,
dwellings, churches, and shops of the entire region, and even Christ
Church (the famous Old North Church) has a Chiesa Italiana on its
grounds. There are many touches to stir the memory in this Old North
Church. The chime of eight bells naïvely stating, "We are the first ring
of bells cast for the British Empire in North America"; the pew with the
inscription that is set apart for the use of the "Gentlemen of Bay of
Honduras"--visiting merchants who contributed the spire to the church in
1740; vaults beneath the church, forbidden now to visitors, where lie
the bones of many Revolutionary heroes; a unique collection of
vellum-covered books, and a few highly precious pieces of ancient
furniture. The most conspicuous item about the church, of course, is
that from its tower were hung the signal lanterns of Paul Revere,
destined to shine imperishably down the ever-lengthening aisles of
American history.
Before we press on to Bunker Hill--for that is our final destination--we
should cast a glance at Copp's Hill Burying Ground, that hillside refuge
where one can turn either back to the annals of the past or look out
over the roof-tops and narrow streets to the present and the future. If
you chose the latter, you can see easily Boston Harbor and Charlestown
Navy Yard--that navy yard which has outstripped even its spectacular
traditions by its stirring achievements in the Great War. "Old
Ironsides" will lie here forever in the well-earned serenity of a secure
old age, and it is probable that another visitor, the Kronprinzessin
Cecilie, although lost under the name of the Mount Vernon and a coat of
gray paint, will be long preserved in maritime memory.
The plain shaft of Bunker Hill Monument, standing to mark the spot where
the Americans lost a battle that was, in reality, a victory, is like a
blank mirror, reflecting only that which one presents to it. According
to your historical knowledge and your emotional grasp Bunker Hill
Monument is significant.
Skimming thus over the many-storied city, in a sort of literary
airplane, it has been possible to point out only a few of the most
conspicuous places and towers. The Common lies like a tiny pocket
handkerchief of path-marked green at the foot of crowded Beacon Hill;
the white Esplanade curves beside the blue Charles; the Back Bay is only
a checkerboard of streets, alphabetically arranged; Copley Square is
hardly distinguishable. The spires of the Old South Church, King's
Chapel, the Old State House, and Faneuil Hall punctuate the South End;
the North Church, the North End. The new Custom House Tower and Bunker
Hill Monument seem hardly more than the minarets of a child's toy
village.
The writer, as a pilot over this particular city, alights and resigns,
commending for more detailed study, and for delightful guidance, Robert
Shackleton's "Book of Boston." Let us now leave the city and set out in
a more leisurely fashion on our way to Plymouth.
THE OLD COAST ROAD
_From Boston to Plymouth_
[Illustration: THE SOUTH SHORE OFMASSACHUSETTS BAY]
THE OLD COAST ROAD
CHAPTER I
DORCHESTER HEIGHTS AND THE OLD COAST ROAD
[Illustration]
The very earliest of the great roads in New England was the Old Coast
Road, connecting Boston with Plymouth--capitals of separate colonies. Do
we, casually accepting the fruit of three hundred years of toil on this
continent--do we, accustomed to smooth highways and swift and easy
transportation, realize the significance of such a road?
A road is the symbol of the civilization which has produced it. The main
passageway from the shore of the Yellow Sea to the capital of Korea,
although it has been pressed for centuries immemorial by myriads of
human feet, has never been more than a bridle path. On the other hand,
wherever the great Roman Empire stepped, it engineered mighty
thoroughfares which are a marvel to this day. A road is the thread on
which the beads of history are strung; the beads of peace as well as
those of war. Thrilling as is the progress of aerial navigation, with
its infinite possibilities of human intercourse, yet surely, when the
entire history of man is unrolled, the moment of the conception of
building a wide and permanent road, instead of merely using a trail,
will rank as equally dramatic. The first stone laid by the first Roman
(they to whom the idea of road-building was original) will be recognized
as significant as the quiver of the wings of the first airplane.
Let us follow the old road from Boston to Plymouth: follow it, not with
undue exactitude, and rather too hastily, as is the modern way, but
comfortably, as is also the modern way, picking up what bits of quaint
lore and half-forgotten history we most easily may.
I think that as we start down this historic highway, we shall
encounter--if our mood be the proper one in which to undertake such a
journey--a curious procession coming down the years to meet us. We shall
not call them ghosts, for they are not phantoms severed from earth, but,
rather, the permanent possessors of the highway which they helped
create.
We shall meet the Indian first, running lightly on straight, moccasined
feet, along the trail from which he has burned, from time to time, the
underbrush. He does not go by land when he can go by water, but in this
case there are both land and water to meet, for many are the streams,
and they are unbridged as yet. With rhythmic lope, more beautiful than
the stride of any civilized limbs, and with a sure divination of the
best route, he chooses the trail which will ultimately be the highway of
the vast army of pale-faces. Speed on, O solitary Indian--to vanish down
the narrow trail of your treading as you are destined, in time, to
vanish forever from the vision of New England!... Behind the red runner
plod two stern-faced Pilgrims, pushing their way up from Plymouth toward
the newer settlement at Massachusetts Bay. They come slowly and
laboriously on foot, their guns cocked, eyes and ears alert, wading the
streams without complaint or comment. They keep together, for no one is
allowed to travel over this Old Coast Road single, "nor without some
arms, though two or three together." The path they take follows almost
exactly the trail of the Indian, seeking the fords, avoiding the
morasses, clinging to the uplands, and skirting the rough, wooded
heights.... After them--almost a decade after--we see a man on
horseback, with his wife on a pillion behind him. They carry their own
provisions and those for the beast, now and then dismounting to lead the
horse over difficult ground, and now and then blazing a tree to help
them in their return journey--mute testimony to the cruder senses of the
white man to whom woodcraft never becomes instinctive. The fact that
this couple possesses a horse presages great changes in New England.
Ferries will be established; tolls levied, bridges thrown across the
streams which now the horses swim, or cross by having their front feet
in one canoe ferry and their hind feet in another--the canoes being
lashed together. As yet we see no vehicle of any kind, except an
occasional sedan chair. (The first one of these of which we have
knowledge was presented to Governor Winthrop as a portion of a capture
from a Spanish galleon.) However, these are not common. In 1631 Governor
Endicott of Salem wrote that he could not get to Boston to visit
Governor Winthrop as he was not well enough to wade the streams. The
next year we read of Governor Winthrop surmounting the difficulty when
he goes to visit Governor Bradford, by being carried on the backs of
Indians across the fords. (It took him two days to make the journey.)
It is not strange that we see no wheeled vehicles. In 1672 there were
only six stage-coaches in the whole of Great Britain, and they were the
occasion of a pamphlet protesting that they encouraged too much travel!
At this time Boston had one private coach. Although one swallow may not
make a summer, one stage-coach marks the beginning of a new era. The age
of walking and horseback riding approaches its end; gates and bars
disappear, the crooked farm lanes are gradually straightened; and in
come a motley procession of chaises, sulkies, and two-wheeled
carts--two-wheeled carts, not four. There are sleds and sleighs for
winter, but the four-wheeled wagon was little used in New England until
the turn of the century. And then they were emphatically objected to
because of the wear and tear on the roads! In 1669 Boston enacted that
all carts "within y^e necke of Boston shall be and goe without shod
wheels." This provision is entirely comprehensible, when we remember
that there was no idea of systematic road repair. No tax was imposed for
keeping the roads in order, and at certain seasons of the year every
able-bodied man labored on the highways, bringing his own oxen, cart,
and tools.
But as the Old Coast Road, which was made a public highway in 1639,
becomes a genuine turnpike--so chartered in 1803--the good old coaching
days are ushered in with the sound of a horn, and handsome equipages
with well-groomed, well-harnessed horses ply swiftly back and forth.
Genial inns, with swinging pictorial signboards (for many a traveler
cannot read), spring up along the way, and the post is installed.
But even with fair roads and regular coaching service, New England,
separated by her fixed topographical outlines, remains provincial. It is
not until the coming of the railroad, in the middle of the nineteenth
century, that the hills are overcome, and she ceases to be an
exclusively coastwise community and becomes an integral factor in the
economic development of the whole United States.
Thus, then, from a thin thread of a trail barely wide enough for one
moccasined foot to step before the other, to a broad, leveled
thoroughfare, so wide that three or even four automobiles may ride
abreast, and so clean that at the end of an all-day's journey one's
face is hardly dusty, does the history of the Old Coast Road unroll
itself. We who contemplate making the trip ensconced in the upholstered
comfort of a machine rolling on air-filled tires, will, perhaps, be less
petulant of some strip of roughened macadam, less bewildered by the
characteristic windings, if we recall something of the first
back-breaking cart that--not so very long ago--crashed over the stony
road, and toilsomely worked its way from devious lane to lane.
Before we start down the Old Coast Road it may be enlightening to get a
bird's-eye glimpse of it actually as we have historically, and for such
a glimpse there is no better place than on the topmost balcony of the
Soldier's Monument on Dorchester Heights. The trip to Dorchester
Heights, in South Boston, is, through whatever environs one approaches
it, far from attractive. This section of the city, endowed with
extraordinary natural beauty and advantage of both land and water, and
irrevocably and brilliantly graven upon the annals of American history,
has been allowed to lose its ancient prestige and to sink low indeed in
the social scale.
Nevertheless it is to Dorchester Heights that we, as travelers down the
Old Coast Road, and as skimmers over the quickly turning pages of our
early New England history, must go, and having once arrived at that
lovely green eminence, whitely pointed with a marble shaft of quite
unusual excellence, we must grieve once more that this truly glorious
spot, with its unparalleled view far down the many-islanded harbor to
the east and far over the famous city to the west, is not more
frequented, more enjoyed, more honored.
If you find your way up the hill, into the monument, and up the stairs
out to the balcony, probably you will encounter no other tourist. Only
when you reach the top and emerge into the blue upper air you will meet
those friendly winged visitors who frequent all spires--Saint Mark's in
Venice or the Soldier's Monument in South Boston--the pigeons! Yes, the
pigeons have discovered the charm of this lofty loveliness, and
whenever the caretaker turns away his vigilant eye, they haste to build
their nests on balcony or stair. They alone of Boston's residents enjoy
to the full that of which too many Bostonians ignore the existence. Will
you read the inscriptions first and recall the events which have raised
this special hill to an historic eminence equal to its topographical
one? Or will you look out first, on all sides and see the harbor, the
city and country as it is to-day? Both surveys will be brief; perhaps we
will begin with the latter.
Before us, to the wide east, lies Boston Harbor, decked with islands so
various, so fascinating in contour and legend, that more than one volume
has been written about them and not yet an adequate one. From the point
of view of history these islands are pulsating with life. From Castle
Island (on the left) which was selected as far back as 1634 to be a
bulwark of the port, and which, with its Fort Independence, was where
many of our Civil War soldiers received their training, to the outline
of Squantum (on the right), where in October, 1917, there lay a marsh,
and where, ten months later, the destroyer Delphy was launched from a
shipyard that was a miracle of modern engineering--every mile of visible
land is instinct with war-time associations.
But history is more than battles and forts and the paraphernalia of war;
history is economic development as well. And from this same balcony we
can pick out Thompson's, Rainsford, and Deer Island, set aside for huge
corrective institutions--a graphic example of a nation's progress in its
treatment of the wayward and the weak.
But if history is more than wars, it is also more than institutions. If
it is the record of man's daily life, the pleasures he works for, then
again we are standing in an unparalleled spot to look down upon its
present-day manifestations. From City Point with its Aquarium, from the
Marine Park with its long pleasure pier, to Nantasket with its flawless
beach, this is the summer playground of unnumbered hosts. Boaters,
bathers, picnickers--all find their way here, where not only the cool
breezes sweep their city-heated cheeks, but the forever bewitching
passage of vessels in and out, furnishes endless entertainment. They
know well, these laughing pleasure-seekers, crowding the piers and boats
and wharves and beaches, where to come for refreshment, and now and
then, in the history of the harbor, a solitary individual has taken
advantage of the romantic charm which is the unique heritage of every
island, and has built his home and lived, at least some portion of his
days, upon one.
Apple Island, that most perfectly shaped little fleck of land of ten
acres, was the home of a Mr. March, an Englishman who settled there with
his family, and lived there happily until his death, being buried at
last upon its western slope. The fine old elms which adorned it are gone
now, as have the fine old associations. No one followed Mr. March's
example, and Apple Island is now merely another excursion point.
On Calf Island, another ten-acre fragment, one of America's popular
actresses, Julia Arthur, has her home. Thus, here and there, one
stumbles upon individuals or small communities who have chosen to live
out in the harbor. But one cannot help wondering how such beauty spots
have escaped being more loved and lived upon by men and women who
recognize the romantic lure which only an island can possess.
Of course the advantage of these positions has been utilized, if not for
dwellings. Government buildings, warehouses, and the great sewage plant
all find convenient foothold here. The excursionists have ferreted out
whatever beaches and groves there may be. One need not regret that the
harbor is not appreciated, but only that it has not been developed along
æsthetic as well as useful lines.
We have been looking at the east, which is the harbor view. If we look
to the west we see the city of Boston: the white tower of the Custom
House; the gold dome of the State House; the sheds of the great South
Station; the blue line of the Charles River. Here is the place to come
if one would see a living map of the city and its environs. Standing
here we realize how truly Boston is a maritime city, and standing here
we also realize how it is that Dorchester Heights won its fame.
It was in the winter of 1776, when the British, under Lord Howe, were
occupying Boston, and had fortified every place which seemed important.
By some curious oversight--which seems incredible to us as we actually
stand upon the top of this conspicuous hill--they forgot this spot.
When Washington saw what they had not seen--how this unique position
commanded both the city and the harbor--he knew that his opportunity had
come. He had no adequate cannon or siege guns, and the story of how
Henry Knox--afterward General Knox--obtained these from Ticonderoga and
brought them on, in the face of terrific difficulties of weather and
terrain, is one that for bravery and brains will never fail to thrill.
On the night of March 4, the Americans, keeping up a cannonading to
throw the British off guard, and to cover up the sound of the moving,
managed to get two thousand Continental troops and four hundred carts of
fascines and intrenching tools up on the hill. That same night, with the
aid of the moonlight, they threw up two redoubts--performing a task,
which, as Lord Howe exclaimed in dismay the following morning, was "more
in one night than my whole army could have done in a month."
The occupation of the heights was a magnificent _coup_. The moment the
British saw what had been done, they realized that they had lost the
fight. However, Lord Percy hurried to make an attack, but the weather
made it impossible, and by the time the weather cleared the Americans
were so strongly intrenched that it was futile to attack. Washington,
although having been granted permission by Congress to attack Boston,
wished to save the loyal city if possible. Therefore, he and Howe made
an agreement by which Howe was to evacuate and Washington was to refrain
from using his guns. After almost two weeks of preparation for
departure, on March 17 the British fleet, as the gilded letters on the
white marble panel tell us, in the words of Charles W. Eliot:
Carrying 11,000 effective men
And 1000 refugees
Dropped down to Nantasket Roads
And thenceforth
Boston was free
A strong British force
Had been expelled
From one of the United American colonies
The white marble panel, with its gold letters and the other inscriptions
on the hill, tell the whole story to whoever cares to read, only
omitting to mention that the thousand self-condemned Boston refugees who
sailed away with the British fleet were bound for Halifax, and that that
was the beginning of the opprobrious term: "Go to Halifax."
That the battle was won without bloodshed in no way minimizes the
verdict of history that "no single event had a greater general effect on
the course of the war than the expulsion of the British from the New
England capital." And surely this same verdict justifies the perpetual
distinction of this unique and beautiful hill.
This, then, is the story of Dorchester Heights--a story whose glory will
wax rather than wane in the years, and centuries, to come. Let us be
glad that out of the reek of the modern city congestion this green hill
has been preserved and this white marble monument erected. Perhaps you
see it now with different, more sympathetic eyes than when you first
looked out from the balcony platform. Before us lies the water with its
multifarious islands, bays, promontories, and coves, some of which we
shall now explore. Behind us lies the city which we shall now leave. The
Old Coast Road--the oldest in New England--winds from Boston to
Plymouth, along yonder southern horizon. More history than one person
can pleasantly relate, or one can comfortably listen to, lies packed
along this ancient turnpike: incidents closer set than the tombs along
the Appian Way. We will not try to hear them all. Neither will we follow
the original road too closely, for we seek the beautiful pleasure drive
of to-day more than the historic highway of long ago.
Boston was made the capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1632.
Plymouth was a capital a decade before. It is to Plymouth that we now
set out.
[Illustration]