Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast

    Whittier.
The most famous island you can find on the New England map is Monhegan Island. To it the voyages of Weymouth, of Popham, and of Smith converge. The latter has put it down as one of the landmarks of our coast. Rosier calls it an excellent landfall. It is undoubtedly Monhegan that is seen on the oldest charts of New England. Champlain, with the same aptness and originality recognized in Mount Desert and Isle au Haut, names it La Tortue. Take from the shelf Bradford, Winthrop, Prince, or Hubbard, and you will find this island to figure conspicuously in their pages. Bradford says starving Plymouth was succored from Monhegan as early as 1622. The Boston colonists of 1630 were boarded when entering Salem by a Plymouth man, going about his business at Pemaquid. English fishing ships hovered about the island for a dozen years before the Mayflower swung to her anchorage in the "ice-rimmed" bay. The embers of some camp-fire were always smouldering there.

Sailing once from Boston on a Penobscot steamboat, a few hours brought us up with Cape Ann. I asked the pilot for what land he now steered.

"M'nhiggin."

In returning, the boat came down through the Mussel Ridge Channel like a race-horse over a well-beaten course. We rounded Monhegan again, and then steered by the compass. Monhegan is still a landmark.

A wintry passage is not always to be commended, especially when the Atlantic gets unruly. Leaving the wharf on one well-remembered occasion, we steamed down the bay in smooth water at fourteen miles an hour. All on board were in possession of their customary equipoise. Soon the gong sounded a noisy summons to supper. We descended. The cabin tables were quickly occupied by a merry company of both sexes. There was a clatter of plates and sharp clicking of knives and forks; waiters ran hither and thither; the buzz of conversation and ripple of suppressed laughter began to diffuse themselves with the good cheer, when, suddenly, the boat, mounting a sea, fell off into the trough with a measured movement that thrilled every victim of old Neptune to the marrow.

It would be difficult to conceive a more instantaneous metamorphosis than that which now took place. Maidens who had been chatting or wickedly flirting, laid down their knives and forks and turned pale as their napkins. Youths that were all smiles and attention to some adorable companion suddenly behaved as if oblivious of her presence. Another plunge of the boat! My vis-à-vis, an old gourmand, had intrenched himself behind a rampart of delicacies. He stops short in the act of carving a fowl, and reels to the cabin stairs. Soon he has many followers. Wives are separated from husbands, the lover deserts his mistress. A heavier sea lifts the bow, and goes rolling with gathered volume astern, accompanied by the crash of crockery and trembling of the chandeliers. That did the business. The commercial traveler who told me he was never sea-sick laid down the morsel he was in the act of conveying to his mouth. He tried to look unconcerned as he staggered from the table, but it was a wretched failure. Two waiters, each bearing a well-laden tray, were sent sliding down the incline to the leeward side of the cabin, where, coming in crashing collision, they finally deposited their burdens in a berth in which some unfortunate was already reposing. All except a handful of well-seasoned voyagers sought the upper cabins, where they remained pale as statues, and as silent. The rows of deserted seats, unused plates, the joints sent away untouched, presented a melancholy evidence of the triumph of matter over mind.

Early in the morning we made out Monhegan, as I have no doubt it was descried from the mast-head of the Archangel, Weymouth's ship, two hundred and seventy years ago. The sea was shrouded in vapor, so that we saw the island long before the main-land was visible. Sea-faring people call it high land for this part of the world.

Near the westward shore of the southern half of this remarkable island is a little islet, called Mananas, which forms the only harbor it can boast. Captain Smith says, "Between Monahiggon and Monanis is a small harbour, where we rid." The entrance is considered practicable only from the south, though the captain of a coasting vessel pointed out where he had run his vessel through the ragged reefs that shelter the northern end, and saved it. It was a desperate strait, he said, and the by-standers shook their heads, in thinking on the peril of the attempt.[59 - Monhegan lies nine miles south of the George's group, twelve south-east from Pemaquid, and nine west of Metinic. It contains upward of one thousand acres of land. According to Williamson, it had, in 1832, about one hundred inhabitants, twelve or fourteen dwellings, and a school-house. The able-bodied men were engaged in the Bank fishery; the elders and boys in tending the flocks and tilling the soil. At that time there was not an officer of any kind upon the island; not even a justice of the peace. The people governed themselves according to local usage, and were strangers to taxation. A light-house was built on the island in 1824.]

The inhabitants are hospitable, and many even well to do. Their harbor is providentially situated for vessels that are forced on the coast in heavy gales, and are able to reach its shelter. At such times exhausted mariners are sure of a kind reception, every house opening its doors to relieve their distresses. Having all the requirements of snug harboring, excellent rock fishing, with room enough for extended rambling up and down, the island must one day become a resort as famous as the Isles of Shoals. At present there is a peculiar flavor of originality and freshness about the people, who are as yet free from the money-getting aptitudes of the recognized watering-place.

George Weymouth made his anchorage under Monhegan on the 18th of May, 1605. "It appeared," says Rosier, "a mean high land, as we afterward found it, being an island of some six miles in compass, but, I hope, the most fortunate ever yet discovered. About twelve o'clock that day, we came to an anchor on the north side of this island, about a league from the shore. About two o'clock our captain with twelve men rowed in his ship-boat to the shore, where we made no long stay, but laded our boat with dry wood of old trees upon the shore side, and returned to our ship, where we rode that night." * * *

"This island is woody, grown with fir, birch, oak, and beech, as far as we saw along the shore; and so likely to be within. On the verge grow gooseberries, strawberries, wild pease, and wild rose-bushes. The water issued forth down the cliffs in many places; and much fowl of divers kinds breeds upon the shore and rocks."

The main-land possessed greater attraction for Weymouth. Thinking his anchorage insecure, he brought his vessel the next day to the islands "more adjoining to the main, and in the road directly with the mountains, about three leagues from the island where he had first anchored."

I read this description while standing on the deck of the Katahdin, and found it to answer admirably the conditions under which I then surveyed the land. We were near enough to make out the varied features of a long line of sea-coast stretching northward for many a mile. There were St. George's Islands, three leagues distant, and more adjoining to the main. And there were the Camden Mountains in the distance.[60 - A good many arguments may be found in the "Collections of the Maine Historical Society" as to whether Weymouth ascended the Penobscot or the Kennebec. All assume Monhegan to have been the first island seen. This being conceded, the landmarks given in the text follow, without reasonable ground for controversy.]

Weymouth landed at Pemaquid, and traded with the Indians there. In order to impress them with the belief that he and his comrades were supernatural beings, he caused his own and Hosier's swords to be touched with the loadstone, and then with the blades took up knives and needles, much mystifying the simple savages with his jugglery. It took, however, six whites to capture two of the natives, unarmed and thrown off their guard by feigned friendship.

But one compensation can be found for Weymouth's treachery in kidnaping five Indians here, and that is in the assertion of Sir F. Gorges that this circumstance first directed his attention to New England colonization. At least two of the captive Indians found their way back again. One returned the next year; another – Skitwarres – came over with Popham. A strange tale these savages must have told of their adventures beyond seas.[61 - In 1607 Weymouth was granted a pension of three shillings and fourpence per diem. Smith was at Monhegan in 1614, Captain Dermer in 1619, and some mutineers from Rocroft's ship had passed the winter of 1618-'19 there. The existence of a small plantation is ascertained in 1622. In 1626 the island was sold to Giles Elbridge and Robert Aldworth for fifty pounds.]

Some credence has been given to the report of the existence of a rock inscription on Monhegan Island, supposed by some to be a reminiscence of the Northmen. The Society of Northern Antiquaries of Copenhagen has reproduced it in their printed proceedings. The best informed American antiquaries do not believe it to possess any archæological significance. I also heard of another of the "devil's foot-prints" on Mananas, but did not see it.

Between Monhegan and Pemaquid Point was the scene of the sea-fight between the Enterprise and Boxer. Some of the particulars I shall relate I had of eye-witnesses of the battle.

In September, 1814, the American brig Enterprise quitted Portsmouth roads. She had seen service in the wars with the French Directory and with Algiers. She had been rebuilt in 1811, and had already gained the name of a lucky vessel. Her cruising-ground was along the Maine coast, where a sharp lookout was to be kept for privateers coming out of the enemy's ports. In times past her commanders were such men as Sterrett, Hull, Decatur, and Blakely, in whom was no more flinching than in the mainmast.

Lieutenant Burrows, who now took her to sea, had been first officer of a merchant ship and a prisoner to the enemy. As soon as exchanged he was given the command of the Enterprise. He was a good seaman, bound up in his profession, and the darling of the common sailors. Taciturn and misanthropic among equals, he liked to disguise himself in a pea-jacket and visit the low haunts of his shipmates. It was believed he would be killed sooner than surrender.

The Boxer had been fitted out at St. Johns with a view of meeting and fighting the Enterprise. Every care that experience and seamanship could suggest had been bestowed upon her equipment. She was, moreover, a new and strong vessel. In armament and crews the two vessels were about equal, the inferiority, if any, being on the side of the American. The two brigs were, in fact, as equally matched as could well be. They were prepared, rubbed down, and polished off, like pugilists by their respective trainers. They were in quest of each other. The conquered, however, attributed their defeat to every cause but the true one, namely, that of being beaten in a fair fight on their favorite element.

The Boxer, after worrying the fishermen, and keeping the sea-coast villages in continual alarm, dropped anchor in Pemaquid Bay on Saturday, September 4th, 1814. There was then a small militia guard in old Fort Frederick. The inhabitants of Pemaquid Point, fearing an attack, withdrew into the woods, where they heard at evening the music played on board the enemy's cruiser.

The next morning, a peaceful Sabbath, the lookout of the Boxer made out the Enterprise coming down from the westward with a fair wind. In an instant the Briton's decks were alive with men. Sails were let fall and sheeted home with marvelous quickness, and the Boxer, with every rag of canvas spread, stood out of the bay. From her anchorage to the westward of John's Island, the Boxer, as she got under way, threw several shot over the island into the fort by way of farewell. Both vessels bore off the land about three miles, when they stripped to fighting canvas. The American, being to windward, had the weather-gage, and, after taking a good look at her antagonist, brought her to action at twenty minutes past three o'clock in the afternoon. Anxious spectators crowded the shores; but after the first broadsides, for the forty minutes the action continued, nothing could be seen except the flashes of the guns; both vessels were enveloped in a cloud. At length the firing slackened, and it was seen the Boxer's maintop-mast had been shot away. The battle was decided.

This combat, which proved fatal to both commanders, was, for the time it lasted, desperately contested. The Enterprise returned to Portland, with the Boxer in company, on the 7th. The bodies of Captain Samuel Blythe, late commander of the English brig, and of Lieutenant William Burrows, of the Enterprise, were brought on shore draped with the flags each had so bravely defended. The same honors were paid the remains of each, and they were interred side by side in the cemetery at Portland. Blythe had been one of poor Lawrence's pall-bearers.

This was the first success that had befallen the American navy since the loss of the Chesapeake. It revived, in a measure, the confidence that disaster had shaken. The Boxer went into action with her colors nailed to the mast – a useless bravado that no doubt cost many lives. Her ensign is now among the trophies of the Naval Academy at Annapolis, while that of the Enterprise has but lately been reclaimed from among the forgotten things of the past, to array its tattered folds beside the flags of the Bonhomme Richard and of Fort M'Henry.[62 - This flag inspired the national lyric, "The Star-spangled Banner."]

Among the recollections of his "Lost Youth," the author of "Evangeline," a native of Portland, tells us:

"I remember the sea-fight far away,
How it thundered o'er the tide!
And the dead captains, as they lay
In their graves o'erlooking the tranquil bay,
Where they in battle died."

CHAPTER VIII.

FROM WELLS TO OLD YORK

"A shipman was there, wonned far by west;
For aught I wot, he was of Dartëmouth."

    Chaucer.
One hot, slumberous morning in August I found myself in the town of Wells. I was traveling, as New England ought to be traversed by every young man of average health and active habits, on foot, and at leisure, along the beautiful road to Old York. Now Wells, as Victor Hugo says of a village in Brittany, is not a town, but a street, stretching for five or six miles along the shore, and everywhere commanding an extensive and unbroken ocean view.

The place itself, though bristling with history, has been stripped of its antiques, and is in appearance the counterpart of a score of neat, thrifty villages of my acquaintance. I paused for a moment at the site of the Storer garrison, in which Captain Converse made so manful a defense when Frontenac, in 1692, let slip his French and Indians on our border settlements.[63 - Colonel Storer kept up the stockades and one or more of the flankarts until after the year 1760, as a memorial rather than a defense.] Some fragments of the timbers of the garrison are preserved in the vicinity, one of which I saw among the collections of a village antiquary. In the annals of Wells the names of John Wheelwright and of George Burroughs occur, the former celebrated as the founder of Exeter, the latter a victim of the witchcraft horror of '92.

John Wheelwright, the classmate and friend of Cromwell, fills a large space in the early history of the Bay Colony. A fugitive, like John Cotton, from the persecutions of Laud, he came to Boston in 1636, and became the pastor of a church at Braintree, then forming part of Boston. He was the brother-in-law of the famous Ann Hutchinson, who was near creating a revolution in Winthrop's government,[64 - This relationship is disputed by Mr. Joseph L. Chester, the eminent antiquary. Winthrop, it would seem, ought to have known; Eliot and Allen repeat the authority, the latter giving the full name of Mary Hutchinson.] and shared her Antinomian opinions. For this he was banished, and became the founder of Exeter in 1638. In 1643, Massachusetts having claimed jurisdiction over that town, Wheelwright removed to Wells, where he remained two years. Becoming reconciled to the Massachusetts government, he removed to Hampton, was in England in 1657, returning to New England in 1660. He became pastor of the church in Salisbury, and died there in 1679; but the place of his burial, Allen says, is not known. He was the oldest minister in the colony at the time of his death, and a man of pronounced character. The settlement of the island of Rhode Island occurred through the removal of William Coddington and others at the same time, and for the same reasons that caused the expulsion of Wheelwright from Boston, as Roger Williams had been expelled from Salem seven years before.

"Wheelwright's Deed" has been the subject of a long and animated controversy among antiquaries; some, like Mr. Savage, pronouncing it a forgery because it is dated in 1629, the year before the settlement of Boston. This deed was a conveyance from the Indian sagamores to Wheelwright of the land on which stands the flourishing town of Exeter; and although copies of it have been recorded in several places, the original long ago disappeared. Cotton Mather, who saw it, testifies to its appearance of antiquity, and the advocates of its validity do not appear as yet to have the worst of the argument.[65 - Both sides have been ably presented by Dr. N. Bouton and Hon. Charles H. Bell.]

George Burroughs, who fell fighting against terrorism on Gallows Hill – a single spot may claim in New England the terrible distinction of this name – was, if tradition says truly, apprehended by officers of the Bloody Council at the church door, as he was leaving it after divine service. A little dark man, and an athlete, whose muscular strength was turned against him to fatal account. An Indian, at Falmouth, had held out a heavy fowling-piece at arms-length by simply thrusting his finger in at the muzzle. Poor Burroughs, who would not stand by and see an Englishman outdone by a redskin, repeated the feat on the spot, and this was the most ruinous piece of evidence brought forth at his trial. A man could not be strong then, or the devil was in it.

The road was good, and the way plain. As the shores are for some miles intersected by creeks intrenched behind sandy downs, the route follows a level shelf along the high land. There are pleasant strips of beach, where the sea breaks noiselessly when the wind is off shore, but where it comes thundering in when driven before a north-east gale. Now and then a vessel is embayed here in thick weather, or, failing to make due allowance for the strong drift to the westward, is set bodily on these sands, as the fishermen say, "all standing." While I was in the neighborhood no less than three came ashore within a few hours of each other. The first, a timber vessel, missing her course a little, went on the beach; but at the next tide, by carrying an anchor into deep water and kedging, she was floated again. Another luckless craft struck on the rocks within half a mile of the first, and became a wreck, the crew owing their lives to a smooth sea. The third, a Bank fisherman, was left by the ebb high up on a dangerous reef, with a hole in her bottom. She was abandoned to the underwriters, and sold for a few dollars. To the surprise even of the knowing ones, the shrewd Yankee who bought her succeeded at low tide in getting some empty casks into her hold, and brought her into port.

Notwithstanding these sands are hard and firm as a granite floor, they are subject to shiftings which at first appear almost unaccountable. Many years ago, while sauntering along the beach, I came across the timbers of a stranded vessel. So deeply were they imbedded in the sand, that they had the appearance rather of formidable rows of teeth belonging to some antique sea-monster than of the work of human hands. How long the wreck had lain there no one could say; but at intervals it disappeared beneath the sands, to come to the surface again. I have often walked over the spot where it lay buried out of sight; and yet, after the lapse of years, there it was again, like a grave that would not remain closed.

A few years ago, an English vessel, the Clotilde, went ashore on Wells Beach, and remained there high and dry for nearly a year. She was deeply laden with railway iron, and, after being relieved of her cargo, was successfully launched. During the time the ship lay on the beach, she became so deeply buried in the sand that a person might walk on board without difficulty. Ways were built underneath her, and, after a terrible wrenching, she was got afloat. Heavy objects, such as kegs of lead paint, and even pigs of iron, have been exposed by the action of the waves, after having, in some instances, been twenty years under the surface. I have picked up whole bricks, lost overboard from some coaster, that have come ashore with their edges smoothly rounded by the abrasion of the sand and sea. There is an authentic account of the re-appearance of a wrecked ship's caboose more than a hundred and seventy years after her loss on Cape Cod. After a heavy easterly gale, the beach is always sprinkled with a fine, dark gravel, which disappears again with a few days of ordinary weather.

Besides being the inexhaustible resource of summer idlers, the beach has its practical aspects. The sand, fine, white, and "sharp," is not only used by builders – and there is no fear of exhausting the supply – but is hauled away by farmers along shore, and housed in their barns as bedding for cattle, or to mix with heavy soils. The sea-weed and kelp that comes ashore in such vast quantities after a heavy blow is carefully harvested, and goes to enrich the lands with its lime and salt. It formerly supplied the commercial demand for soda, and was gathered on the coasts of Ireland, Scotland, France, and Spain for the purpose. It is the varec of Brittany and Normandy, the blanquette of Frontignan and Aigues-mortes, and the salicor of Narbonne. After being dried, it was reduced to ashes in rude furnaces. Iodine is also the product of sea-weed. You may sometimes see at high-water mark winrows of Irish moss (carrageen) bleaching in the sun, though for my blanc-mange I give the preference to that cast up on the shingle, as more free from sand. This plant grows only on the farthest ledges. The pebble usually heaped above the line of sand, or in little coves among the ledges, is used for ballast, and for mending roads and garden-walks. Turning to the sandy waste that skirts the beach, I seldom fail of finding the beach-pea, with its beautiful blossoms of blue and purple. In spring the vine is edible, and has been long used for food by the poorer people.

The beach is much frequented after a storm by crows in quest of a dinner al fresco. They haunt it as persistently as do the wreckers, and seldom fail of finding a stranded fish, a crab, or a mussel. They are the self-appointed scavengers of the strand, removing much of the offal cast up by the sea. The crow is a crafty fellow, and knows a thing or two, as I have had reason to observe. The large sea-mussel is much affected by him, and when found is at once pounced upon. Taking it in his talons, the crow flies to the nearest ledge of rocks, and, calculating his distance with mathematical eye, lets his prize fall. Of course the mussel is dashed in pieces, and the crow proceeds to make a frugal meal. I have seen this operation frequently repeated, and have as often scared the bird from his repast to convince myself of his success.

His method of taking the clam is equally ingenious. He walks upon the clam-bank at low tide, and seizes upon the first unlucky head he finds protruding from the shell. Then ensues a series of laughable efforts on the crow's part to rise with his prey, while the clam tries in vain to draw in its head. The crow, after many sharp tugs and much flapping of his wings, finally secures the clam, and disposes of him as he would of a mussel. The Indians, whose chief dependence in summer was upon shell-fish, complained that the English swine watched the receding tide as their women were accustomed to do, feeding on the clams they turned up with their snouts.

In the olden time the beach was the high-road over which the settlers traveled when, as was long the case, it was their only way of safety. It was often beset with danger; so much so that tradition says the mail from Portsmouth to Wells was for seven years brought by a dog, the pouch being attached to his collar. This faithful messenger was at last killed by the savages. For miles around this bay the long-abandoned King's Highway may be traced where it hugged the verge of the shore, climbing the roughest ledges, or crossing from one beach to another by a strip of shingle. Here and there an old cellar remains to identify its course and tell of the stern lives those pioneers led.

When the tide is out, I also keep at low-water mark, scrambling over ledges, or delving among the crannies for specimens. It does not take long to fill your pockets with many-hued pebbles of quartz, jasper, or porphyry that, in going a few rods farther, you are sure to reject for others more brilliant. At full sea I walk along the shore, where, from between those envious little stone walls, I can still survey the Unchanged.

After all that has been printed since the "Tractatus Petri Hispani," it is a question whether there are not as many popular superstitions to-day among plain New England country-folk as at any time since the settlement of the country. The belief in the virtue of a horseshoe is unabated. At York I saw one nailed to the end of a coaster's bowsprit. To spill salt, break a looking-glass, or dream of a white horse, are still regarded as of sinister augury. A tooth-pick made from a splinter of a tree that has been struck by lightning is a sure preventive of the toothache. Exceeding all these, however, is the generally accepted superstition that has led to the practice of bathing on Saco Beach on the 26th of June in each year. On this day, it is religiously believed that the waters, like Siloam of old, have miraculous power of healing all diseases with which humanity is afflicted. The people flock to the beach from all the country round, in every description of vehicle, to dip in the enchanted tide. A similar belief existed with regard to a medicinal spring on the River Dee, in Scotland, called Januarich Wells, one author gravely asserting that so great was the faith in its efficacy that those afflicted with broken legs have gone there for restoration of the limb.

I have found it always impracticable to argue with the pilgrims as to the grounds of their belief. They are ready to recount any number of wonderful cures at too great a distance for my investigation to reach, and may not, therefore, be gainsaid. It is a custom.

All this time I was nearing Ogunquit, a little fishing village spliced to the outskirts of Wells, being itself within the limits of York. At my right I caught a glimpse of the green bulk of Mount Agamenticus, and on the other hand, almost at my elbow, was the sea. So we marched on, as it were, arm in arm; for I was beginning to feel pretty well acquainted with a companion that kept thus constantly at my side. This morning it was Prussian blue, which it presently put off for a warmer hue. There it lay, sunning itself, cool, silent, impenetrable, like a great blue turquoise on the bare bosom of Mother Earth, nor looking as if a little ruffling of its surface could put it in such a towering passion.

My sachel always contains a luncheon, a book, and a telescopic drinking-cup. At noon, having left eight miles of road behind me, I sought the shelter of a tree by the roadside, and found my appetite by no means impaired by the jaunt. At such a time I read, like Rousseau, while eating, in default of a tête-à-tête. I alternately devour a page and a piece. While under my tree, a cow came to partake of the shade, of which there was enough for both of us. She gazed at me with a calm, but, as I conceived also, a puzzled look, ruminating meanwhile, or stretching out her head and snuffing the air within a foot of my hand. Perhaps she was wondering whether I had two stomachs, and a tail to brush off the flies.

From the village of Ogunquit there are two roads. I chose the one which kept the shore, in order to take in my way Bald Head Cliff, a natural curiosity well worth going some distance to see. The road so winds across the rocky waste on which the village is in part built that in some places you almost double on your own footsteps. Occasionally a narrow lane issues from among the ledges, tumbling rather than descending to some little cove, where you catch a glimpse of brown-roofed cottages and a fishing-boat or two, snugly moored. The inhabitants say there is not enough soil in Ogunquit with which to repair the roads, a statement no one who tries it with a vehicle will be inclined to dispute. Literally the houses are built upon rocks, incrusted with yellow lichens in room of grass. Wherever a dip occurs through which a little patch of blue sea peeps out, a house is posted, and I saw a few carefully-tended garden spots among hollows of the rock in which a handful of mould had accumulated. The wintry aspect is little short of desolation: in storms, from its elevation and exposure, the place receives the full shock of the tempest, as you may see by the weather-stained appearance of the houses.