Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast

"At Taunton, by the side of a tiding river, part in, part out of the river, is a large Rock; on the perpendicular side of which, next to the Stream, are seven or eight lines, about seven or eight foot long, and about a foot wide, each of them ingraven with unaccountable characters, not like any known character."[303 - A copy of the inscription, made by Professor Sewall, is deposited in the Museum at Cambridge. There is another copy, by James Winthrop; see plate in vol. iii., "Memoir American Academy," and description of method of taking it, vol. ii., part ii., p. 126. Many others have been taken, more or less imperfect; the best one recollected is in the hall of the Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts.]

Schoolcraft believed the work to have been performed by Indians. Washington, who had some knowledge of their hieroglyphics, was of this opinion. Dr. Belknap asserts that they were acquainted with sculpture, and also instances their descriptive drawings on the bark of trees. Sculptured rocks, of which the origin is unknown, have been found in other locations in the United States. Since the unsettling of Norse traditions, the characters on Dighton Rock are generally admitted to be of Indian creation; but if the work of white men, it would strengthen the theory of Verazzani's presence in these waters.

Another link of the supposed discovery by Northmen was the skeleton exhumed about 1834 at Fall River. It was found in a sitting posture, having a plate of brass upon its breast, with arrow-heads of the same metal lying near, thin, flat, and of triangular shape. The arrows had been contained within a quiver of bark, that fell in pieces when exposed to the air. The most remarkable thing about the remains was a belt encircling the body, composed of brass tubes four and a half inches in length, the width of the belt, and placed close together longitudinally. The breastplate, belt, and arrow-heads were considered so many evidences that the skeleton was that of some Scandinavian who had died and been buried here by the natives.

An antiquary would of course prize a dead Scandinavian more than many living ones. These mouldering bones and corroded trinkets were not, however, the key to Dighton Rock. The mode of sepulture was that practiced by the natives of this continent. In Archer's account of Gosnold's voyage he speaks of the Indians on the south of Cape Cod as follows:

"This day there came unto the ship's side divers canoes, the Indians appareled as aforesaid, with tobacco and pipes steeled with copper, skins, artificial strings, and other trifles, to barter; one had hanging about his neck a plate of rich copper, in length a foot, in breadth half a foot, for a breastplate."

John Brereton, of the same voyage, tells us more of the Indians of the Elizabeth Islands: "They have also great store of copper, some very red, and some of a paler color; none of them but have chains, ear-rings, or collars of this metal: they had some of their arrows herewith, much like our broad arrow-heads, very workmanly made. Their chains are many hollow pieces cemented together, each piece of the bigness of one of our reeds, a finger in length, ten or twelve of them together on a string, which they wear about their necks; their collars they wear about their bodies like bandeliers, a handful broad, all hollow pieces like the other, but somewhat shorter, four hundred pieces in a collar, very fine and evenly set together." Were this evidence less positive, we know from Champlain that the Indians would never have permitted the body of a stranger to remain buried longer than was necessary to disinter and despoil it. Verazzani's letter mentions the possession of copper trinkets by the Indians.

About two miles and a half from Taunton Green is the Leonard Forge, the oldest in America. The spot is exceedingly picturesque. The brook, overhung by trees, which of yore turned the mill-wheel, glides beneath a rustic bridge ere it tumbles over the dam and hurries on to meet the river. James and Henry Leonard built the forge in 1652.

Near the spot is the site of the dwelling they occupied, one of the distinctive old structures of its day. Philip lived in amity with the Leonards, who made for him spear and arrow heads when he came to hunt at the Fowling Pond, not far from the forge, where he had a hunting-lodge. When he had resolved to strike the English, it is said he gave strict orders not to hurt those Leonards, his good friends of the forge. Tradition has it that his head was afterward kept in the house some days.

My pilgrimage among the haunts of the Narragansets and Wampanoags of old fame extended no farther. Setting my face again toward the sea, when on board one of those floating hotels that ply between Fall River and New York, I thought of the prediction I had cut from the Boston Daily Advertiser of just half a century ago: "We believe the time will not be far distant when a steamboat will be provided to run regularly between New York and Taunton River, to come to Fall River and Dighton, and perhaps to the wharves in Taunton, a mile below the village. This route from New York to Boston would in some respects be preferable to that through Providence."

CHAPTER XXVII.

NEW LONDON AND NORWICH

"It seems that you take pleasure in these walks, sir." – Massinger

New London is a city hiding within a river, three miles from its meeting with the waters of Long Island Sound. On the farthest seaward point of the western shore is a light-house. Before, and yet a little eastward of the river's mouth, is an island about nine miles long screening it from the full power of Atlantic storms, and forming, with Watch Hill,[304 - Watch Hill, in the town of Westerly and near Stonington, is the south-western extremity of Rhode Island.] the prolongation of the broken line of land stretching out into the Sound from the northern limb of the Long Island shore. Through this barrier, thrown across the entrance to the Sound, all vessels must pass. The island is Fisher's Island. It seems placed on purpose to turn into the Thames all commerce winging its way eastward. Across the western extremity of Fisher's Island, on a fair night, New London and Montauk lights exchange burning glances. From Watch Hill the low and distant shore of Long Island is easily distinguished by day, and by night its beacon-light flashes an answer to its twin-brother of Montauk. These two towers are the Pillars of Hercules of the Sound, on which are hung the long and radiant gleams that bridge its gate-way.

South-west of Fisher's Island are the two Gull Islets, on the smallest of which is a light-house. The swift tide which washes them is called the Horse-race. Next comes Plum Island, separated from the Long Island shore by a narrow and swift channel known as Plum Gut, through which cunning yachtsmen sometimes steer. In 1667, Samuel Wyllys, of Hartford, bought Plum Island for a barrel of biscuit and a hundred awls and fish-hooks.

Any one who looks at the long ellipse of water embraced within Long Island and the Connecticut shore, and remarks the narrow and obstructed channel through which it communicates with the Hudson, the chain of islands at its meeting with the ocean on the east, must be impressed with the belief that he is beholding one of the greatest physical changes that have occurred on the New England coast. As it is, Long Island Sound lacks little of being an inland sea. The absence of any certain indications of the channels of the rivers emptying into the Sound west of the Connecticut favors the theory of the union, at some former time, of Long Island at its western end with the main-land.

To resume our survey of the coast, we see on the map, about midway between Point Judith and Montauk, the pear-shaped spot of land protruding above the ocean called Block Island.[305 - Named from Captain Adrian Blok, a Dutch navigator. Its Indian name was Manisses. There are about twelve hundred inhabitants on this island, all native-born, of whom two hundred and seventy-five are voters. There are also six schools, two Baptist churches, and two windmills, a hotel, and several summer boarding-houses. Two hundred fishing-boats are owned by the islanders. In 1636 John Oldham, mentioned in our ramble in Plymouth, was murdered here by the Pequots. Block Island in 1672 was made a township, by the name of New Shoreham.] It is about eight miles long, diversified with abrupt hills and narrow dales, but destitute of trees. A chain of ponds extending from the north and nearly to the centre, with several separate and smaller ones, constitutes about one-seventh of the island. There is no ship harbor, and in bad weather fishing-boats are obliged to be hauled on shore, though the sea-mole in process of construction by Government will afford both haven and safeguard against the surges of the Atlantic; for the island, having no rock foundation, is constantly wasting away. Cottages of wood, whitewashed every spring, are scattered promiscuously over the island, with wretched roads or lanes to accommodate every dwelling. The total disappearance of the island has often been predicted, and I recollect when the impression prevailed to some extent on the main-land that the islanders had only an eye apiece.

Ascending now the river toward New London, wind, tide, or steam shall sweep us under the granite battlements of Fort Trumbull, on the one side, and the grassy mounds of Fort Griswold on the other.[306 - The two forts, Trumbull and Griswold, are named from governors of Connecticut. They date from the Revolution. Fort Trumbull in its present form was completed in 1849, under the supervision of General G. W. Cullum, U. S. A. In passing through New London in April, 1776, General Knox, by Washington's direction, examined the harbor with the view of erecting fortifications, and reported, by letter, that it would, in connection with Newport, afford a safe retreat to the American navy or its prizes in any wind that blew.] Near the latter is standing a monument commemorating the infamy of Benedict Arnold and the heroism of a handful of brave men sacrificed to what is called the chances of war.

New London is seen straggling up the side of a steep and rocky hill, dominated by three pointed steeples. Descending from the crest, its principal street opens like the mouth of a tunnel at the water-side into a broad space, always its market-place and chief landing. Other avenues follow the natural shelf above the shore, or find their way deviously as streams might down the hill-side. The glory of New London is in its trees, though in some streets they stand so thick as to exclude the sunlight, and oppress the wayfarer with the feeling of walking in a church-yard.

The destruction of New London by Arnold's command, in 1781, has left little that is suggestive of its beginning. Its English settlement goes no farther back than 1646. In that year and the next a band of pioneers from the Massachusetts colony, among whom was John Winthrop, Jun.,[307 - Son of Governor Winthrop, of Massachusetts. He passed his first winter on Fisher's Island, which remained in his family through six generations. The valuable manuscript collection known as the Winthrop papers was found some years ago on the island, which belongs to New York in consequence of the grants to the Earl of Sterling and the Duke of York. The origin of its present name is uncertain, though so called as early as 1636. Governor Winthrop relates to Cotton Mather a singular incident which happened on Fisher's Island the previous winter. During the severe snow-storms hundreds of sheep, besides cattle and horses, were buried in the snow. Even the wild beasts came into the settlements for shelter. Twenty-eight days after the storm alluded to, the tenants of Fisher's Island, in extricating the bodies of a hundred sheep from one bank of snow in the valley, found two alive in the drift, where they had subsisted by eating the fleeces of those lying dead near them.] built their cottages, and made these wilds echo with the sounds of their industry.

Old London and Father Thames are repeated in New England, because, as these honest settlers avow, they loved the old names as much as they disliked the barbaric sounds of the aboriginal ones, though the latter were always typical of some salient characteristic. They settled upon the fair Mohegan, in the country of the Pequots, a race fierce and warlike, who in 1637 had made a death-grapple of it with the pale-faces, and had been blotted out from among the red nations. Pequot was the name of the harbor, changed in 1658 to New London.

I first visited New London in 1845. It was then a bustling place – a little too bustling, perhaps, when rival crews of whalemen in port joined battle in the market-place, unpaving the street of its oyster-shells, and shouting war-cries never before heard except at Otaheite or Juan Fernandez. A large fleet of vessels, engaged in whaling and sealing voyages, then sailed out of the Thames. The few old hulks laid up at the wharves, the rusty-looking oil-butts and discarded paraphernalia pertaining to the fishery, yet reminded me of the hunters who lassoed the wild coursers of sea-prairies.[308 - In 1834 New London employed thirty-six vessels in whaling and sealing. A few are still engaged in the latter fishery, in the extreme navigable waters of the Arctic and Antarctic seas.]

I have already confessed to a weakness for the wharves. There is one in New London, appropriated to the use of the Light-house Board, on which are piled hollow iron cylinders, spare anchors, chain cables, spars and spindles, buoys and beacons. A "relief" light-ship, and a tug-boat with steam up, lay beside it. The danger and privation of life in a light-house is not to be compared with that on board the light-ship, which is towed to its station on some dangerous shoal or near some reef, and there anchored. It not unfrequently happens in violent storms that the light-ship breaks from its moorings, and meets the fate it was intended to signal to other craft.[309 - During the unexampled cold of the past winter (1874-'75), the light-boat off New London was, in fact, carried away from her moorings by an ice-field, and many others all along the coast were stranded.] The sight of a raging sea as high as the decks of the vessel is one familiar to these hardy mariners. When I expressed surprise that men were willing to hazard their lives on these cockle-shells, a veteran sea-dog glanced at the scanty sail his vessel carried as he replied, "We can get somewhere."

On the light-ship the lanterns are protected by little houses, built around each mast, until lighted, when they are hoisted to the mast-head. A fog-bell is carried on the forecastle to be tolled in thick weather. A more funereal sound than its monotone, deep and heavy, vibrating across a sea shrouded in mist, can scarcely be imagined.

Old sailors are considered to make the best keepers of either floating or stationary beacons. Their long habit of keeping watches on shipboard renders them more reliable than landsmen to turn out in all kinds of weather, or on a sudden call. They are also far more observant of changes of the weather, of tides, or the position of passing vessels. I have found many persons in charge of our sea-coast lights who had been ship-masters, and were men of more than ordinary intelligence. When the Fresnel lenticular light was being considered, it was objected by those having our system in charge that it would be difficult to procure keepers of sufficient intelligence to manage the lens apparatus. M. Fresnel replied that this difficulty had been most singularly exaggerated, as in France the country keepers belonged almost always to the class of ordinary mechanics or laborers, who, with eight or ten days' instruction, were able to perform their duties satisfactorily.[310 - At the light-houses I have visited in cold weather, the unvarying complaint is made of the poor quality of the oil furnished by the Light-house Board. One keeper told me he was obliged to shovel the congealed lard-oil out of the tank in the oil-room, and carry it into the dwelling, some rods distant, to heat it on his stove; sometimes repeating the operation frequently during the night, in order to keep his light burning.]

All visitors to New London find their way, sooner or later, to the Old Hempstead House, a venerable roof dotted with moss-tufts, situated on Jay Street, not far west of the court-house. It is one of the few antiques which time and the flames have spared. As one of the old garrison-houses standing in the midst of a populous city, it is an eloquent reminder of the race it has outlived. It was built and occupied by Sir Robert Hempstead, descending as entailed property to the seventh generation, who continued to inhabit it. The Hempstead House is near the cove around which the first settlement of the town appears to have clustered. The last remaining house built by the first settlers stood about half a mile west of the court-house, on what was called Cape Ann Street: it was taken down about 1824. Governor Winthrop lived at the head of the cove bearing his name at the north end of the city.

The court-house standing at the head of State (formerly Court) Street has the date of 1784 on the pediment, having been rebuilt after the burning of the town by Arnold.[311 - It is shown in the view of New London in 1813, at the head of this chapter.] At the other end of the street was the jail. The court-house, which formerly had an exterior gallery, has a certain family resemblance to the State-house at Newport. It is built of wood, with some attempt at ornamentation. Freshened up with white paint and green blinds, it looked remarkably unlike a seat of justice, which is usually dirty enough in all its courts to be blind indeed.

In the chancel of St. James's repose the ashes of Samuel Seabury, the first Anglican bishop in the United States. He took orders in 1753 in London, and on returning to his native country entered upon the work of his ministry. In 1775, having subscribed to a royalist protest, declaring his "abhorrence of all unlawful congresses and committees," he was seized by the Whigs, and confined in New Haven jail. Later in the war, he became chaplain of Colonel Fanning's regiment of American loyalists. After the war, Mr. Seabury went to England in order to obtain consecration as bishop, but, meeting with obstacles there, he was consecrated in Scotland by three non-juring bishops. The monument reproduced is from the old burying-ground of New London.[312 - Bishop Seabury was born in 1728, and died in 1796, aged 68. In person he was large, robust, and vigorous; dignified and commanding in appearance, and loved by his parishioners of low estate. After consecration he discharged the functions of bishop of the diocese of Connecticut and Rhode Island.]

The ancient burial-place of New London is in the northern part of the city, on elevated ground, not far from the river. An old fractured slab of red sandstone once bore the now illegible inscription:

"An epitaph on Captaine Richard Lord, deceased May 17, 1662, Aetatis svæ 51.

… Bright starre of ovr chivallrie lies here
To the state a covnsellorr fvll deare
And to ye trvth a friend of sweete content
To Hartford towne a silver ornament
Who can deny to poore he was releife
And in composing paroxyies he was cheife
To Marchantes as a patterne he might stand
Adventring dangers new by sea and land."

The harbor of New London being considered one of the best in New England, its claim to be a naval station has been urged from time to time upon the General Government. It is spacious, safe, and deep. During the past winter, which has so severely tested the capabilities of our coast harbors, closing many of them with an ice-blockade of long continuance, that of New London has remained open. In 1835, when the navigation of the harbor of New York was suspended, by being solidly frozen, New London harbor remained unobstructed, vessels entering and departing as in summer.[313 - The months of January and February, 1875, will be long remembered in New England for the intense and long-continued cold weather. Long Island Sound was a vast ice-field, which sealed up its harbors. For a time navigation was entirely suspended, the boats usually plying between Newport, Stonington, New London, and New York being obliged to discontinue their voyages. Gardiner's Bay was completely closed. The shore of Long Island, on its ocean side, was strewed with great blocks of ice. An unusual number of disasters signalized the ice embargo throughout the whole extent of the New England coast.]

Among other observations made among the shipping, I may mention the operations of the destructive worm that perforates a ship's bottom or a thick stick of timber with equal ease. I now had an opportunity of confirming what I had often been told, yet scarcely credited, that the worm could be distinctly heard while boring. The sound made by the borer exactly resembled that of an auger. It is not a little surprising to reflect that so insignificant a worm – not longer than a cambric needle when it first attacks the wood – is able to penetrate solid oak. I noticed evidences where these dreaded workmen were still busy, in little dust-heaps lying on the timber not yet removed from a vessel.

With the aid of a wheezy ferry-boat that landed me on Groton side, I still pursued my questionings or communings under the inspiration of a sunny afternoon, a transparent air, and a breeze brisk and bracing, bringing with it the full flavor of the sea. A climb up the steep ascent leading to the old fort was rewarded by the most captivating views, and by gales that are above blowing in the super-heated streets of a city.

The granite monument, which is our guide to the events these heights have witnessed, was built with the aid of a lottery. A marble tablet placed above its entrance is inscribed:

This Monument

was erected under the patronage of the State of Connecticut, a. d. 1830,

and in the 55th year of the Independence of the U. S. A.,

In Memory of the Brave Patriots

who fell in the massacre of Fort Griswold, near this spot,

on the 6th of September, a. d. 1781,

When the British, under the command of the Traitor,

BENEDICT ARNOLD,

burnt the towns of New London and Groton, and spread

desolation and woe throughout this region

Westminster Abbey could not blot out that arraignment. Dr. Johnson did not know Benedict Arnold when he said, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." An American school-boy, if asked to name the greatest villain the world has produced, would unhesitatingly reply, "The traitor, Benedict Arnold." The sentence which history has passed upon him is eternal. Some voice is always repeating it.

Shortly after the peace of '83 Arnold was presented at court. While the king was conversing with him, Earl Balcarras, who had fought with Burgoyne in America, was announced. The king introduced them.

"What, sire," exclaimed the haughty old earl, refusing his hand, "the traitor Arnold!"