Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast

Austin, in his "Life of Elbridge Gerry," speaks of the fishermen as a sober and industrious class; but the testimony of local historians is wholly opposed to his assertion.155 They passed their winters in a round of reckless dissipation, or until the arrival of the fishing season set half the town afloat again. It was then left in the hands of the women, the elders, and a few merchants. There is much in the annals of such a community to furnish materials for history, or, on a lesser scale, hints for romance. Captain Goelet, who was here in 1750, estimated the town to contain about four hundred and fifty houses.

"They were," he said, "all wood and clapboarded, the generality miserable buildings, mostly close in with the rocks, with rocky foundations very Cragy and Crasey. The whole towne is built upon a rock, which is heigh and steep to the water. The harbour is sheltered by an island, which runs along parallel to it and brakes off the sea. Vessells may ride here very safe; there is a path or way downe to the warf, which is but small, and on which is a large Ware House where they land their fish, etc. From this heigh Cliffty shore it took its name. I saw abt 5 topsail vessels and abt 10 schooners or sloops in the harbour; they had then abt 70 sail schooners a-fishing, with about 600 men and Boys imployd in the fishery: they take vast quantitys Cod, which they cure heere. Saw several thousand flakes then cureing. The place is noted for Children, and Nouriches the most of any place for its bigness in North America; it's said the chief cause is attributed to their feeding on Cod's heads, etc., which is their Principall Dish. The greatest distaste a person has to this place is the stench of the fish, the whole air seems tainted with it. It may in short be said it's a Dirty Erregular, Stincking place.'"156

The fortunes of the place were now greatly altered. The obscure fishing village had become a bustling port, with rich cargoes from Spain and the Antilles lying within its rock-bound shores. Ships were being built in the coves, and substantial mansions were going up in the streets – in whose cellars, as I have heard, were kegs of hard dollars, salted down, as one might say, like the staple of Marblehead.

John Adams, then a young lawyer on the circuit, enters in his diary, under date of 1766, the brief impression of a first visit to Marblehead:

"14, Thursday. – In the morning rode a single horse, in company with Mrs. Cranch and Mrs. Adams, in a chaise to Marblehead. The road from Salem to Marblehead, four miles, is pleasant indeed (so I found it). The grass plats and fields are delightful, but Marblehead differs from Salem. The streets are narrow and rugged and dirty, but there are some very grand buildings."

As John Adams saw it so does the stranger of to-day, ignoring such modern improvements as railway, gas-works, telegraph, and factories, and sticking closely to the skirts of the old town.

I should say Marblehead might still assert its title to the number of children it "nourishes." Certainly they seemed out of all proportion to the adult population. Instinct guides them to the water from their birth, and they may be seen paddling about the harbor in stray wherries or clambering up the rigging of some collier, in emulation of their elders. Even their talk has a salty flavor. I recollect an instance, which must lose by the relation. A young scape-grace having incurred the maternal displeasure, and then taken to his heels to escape chastisement, the good-wife gave chase, brandishing a broomstick aloft, and breathing vengeance on her unnatural offspring. Having the wind fair and a heavy spread of petticoat, she was rapidly gaining on the youngster, when a comrade, who was watching the progress of the race with a critical eye, bawled out, "Try her on the wind, Bill; try her on the wind."

A sailor on shore is not unlike Napoleon's dismounted dragoon: he is emphatically a fish out of water. One talked of "making his horse fast;" another complained that his neckerchief was "tew taut;" and a third could not understand which way to move a boat until his companion called out, "Haul to the west'ard, can't ye?"

If not insular, your genuine Marbleheader is the next thing to it. The rest of the world is merged with him into a place to sell his fish and buy his salt. Even Salem, Beverly, and the parts adjacent draw but little on his sympathy or his fellowship: in short, they are not Marblehead. During the Native American excitement of 18 – , the Marbleheaders entered into the movement with enthusiasm. A caucus being assembled to nominate town officers, one old fisherman came into the town hall in his baize apron, just as he had got out of his dory. He glanced over the list of officers with an approving grunt at each name until he came to that of Squire Fabens. Now Squire Fabens, though a Salem man born, had lived a score of years in Marblehead, had married, and held office there. Turning wrathfully to the person who had given him the ticket, the fisherman tore it in pieces, exclaiming as he did so, "D'ye call that a Native American ticket? Why, there's Squire Fabens on it; he an't a Marbleheader!"

Though it is true there are few instances of the fatal straight line in Marblehead, those who are native there are far from appreciating the impression its narrow and crooked ways make on the stranger. They, at any rate, appeared to find their way without the difficulty I at first experienced. I asked one I met if I was in the right route to the dépôt. "Go straight ahead," was his injunction, a direction nothing but a round-shot from Fort Sewall could have followed. But I should add that Marblehead is not a labyrinth, any more than it is a field for missionary work: it has churches, banks, schools, a newspaper, and even a debating society; and it has thoroughfares that may be traversed without a guide.

The great man of Marblehead in the colonial day was Colonel Jeremiah Lee, whose still elegant mansion is to be seen there. Unlike many of the gentry of his time, Colonel Lee was a thorough-going patriot. He was, with Orne and Gerry, a delegate to the first and second Provincial Congresses of 1774. When the famous Revolutionary Committee of Safety and Supplies was formed, he became and continued a member until his death in May, 1775. Colonel Lee was with the committee on the day before the battle of Lexington, and with Gerry and Orne remained to pass the night at the Black Horse tavern in Menotomy, now Arlington. When the British advance reached this house it was surrounded, the half-dressed patriots having barely time to escape to a neighboring corn-field, where they threw themselves upon the ground until the search was over. From the exposure incident to this adventure Lee got his death. His townsmen treasure his memory as one of the men who formed the Revolution, braved its dangers, and accepted its responsibilities. Colonel Lee was a stanch churchman, which makes his adhesion to the patriot side the more remarkable.

There is nothing about the exterior of the Lee mansion to attract the stranger's attention, though it cost the colonel, when furnished, ten thousand pounds sterling. As was customary, its offices were on one side and its stables on the other, with a court-yard paved with beach-pebble, in which the date of the house, 1768,157 may be traced. Entrance was gained on front and side over massive freestone steps, that show the print of time to have pressed more heavily than human feet. The house, long since deserted by the family, is now occupied as a bank.

On entering the mansion of the Lees the visitor is struck with the expansive area of the hall, which is six paces broad, and of corresponding depth. Age has imparted a rich coloring to the mahogany wainscot and casing of the staircase. The balusters are curiously carved in many different patterns; the walls are still hung with their original paper, in panels representing Roman or Grecian ruins, with trophies of arms, or implements of agriculture or of the chase between. One panel represented a sea-fight of Blake and Van Tromp's day. Some of them have been permanently disfigured by the use of the hall, at one time, as a fish-market. In a corner, a trap-door led to the old merchant's wine-cellar, which he thus kept under his own eye. It was after a visit to some such mansion that Daniel Webster asked, "Did those old fellows go to bed in a coach-and-four?"

The rooms opening at the right and left of the hall are worthy of it, especially the first named, which is wainscoted from floor to ceiling, and enriched with elaborate carving. Over the fire-place of this room was formerly a portrait of Esther before Ahasuerus, beautifully painted on a panel. There is an upper hall of ample size, from which open sleeping apartments with pictured tiles, recessed windows, and panes that were the wonder of the town, in which none so large had been seen.

Would I had been here when the old colonel's slaves kept the antique brasses brightly polished, and stout logs crackled and snapped in the fire-places, in the day of coffin-clocks, French mirrors, and massive old plate, when the bowl of arrack-punch stood on the sideboard, and Copley's portraits of master and mistress graced the walls.158 The painter has introduced the colonel in a brown velvet coat laced with gold, and full-bottomed wig. He was short in stature and rather portly, with an open face, thin nostril, and fine, intelligent eye. The head is slightly thrown back, a device of the artist to add height to the figure. Madam Lee is in a satin over-dress, with a pelisse of ermine negligently cast about her bare shoulders. She looks a stately dame, with her black eyes and self-possessed air, or as if she might have kept the colonel's house, slaves included, in perfect order.159

When General Washington was making his triumphal tour of the Eastern States, in 1789, he came to Marblehead. It was, he says, "four miles out of the way; but I wanted to see it." And so he turned aside to ride through its rocky lanes, and look into the faces of the men who had followed him from Cambridge to Trenton, and from Trenton to Yorktown. How the sight of their chief must have warmed the hearts of those veterans! He jotted down in his diary very briefly what he saw and heard in Marblehead: "About 5000 souls are said to be in this place, which has the appearance of antiquity; the houses are old; the streets dirty; and the common people not very clean. Before we entered the town we were met and attended by a com'e, till we were handed over to the Selectmen, who conducted us, saluted by artillery, into the town to the house of a Mrs. Lee, where there was a cold collation prepared; after partaking of which, we visited the harbor, etc." Lafayette, Monroe, and Jackson have been entertained in the same house.

When the Revolutionary junto wished to organize its artillery, William Raymond Lee was summoned to Cambridge to command one of the companies. He was nephew to the old colonel, valiantly taking up the cause where his uncle had laid it down. Afterward he served in Glover's regiment, passing through all the grades from captain to colonel. Another nephew was that John Lee who, while in command of a privateer belonging to the Tracys, with a battery, part of iron and partly of wooden guns, captured a rich vessel of superior force in the bay. Both the colonel's fighting nephews were of Manchester, on Cape Ann.

Threading my way onward, I came upon the old Town-house, the Faneuil Hall of Marblehead, in which much treason was hatched when George III. was king. The Whigs of Old Essex have often been heard there when grave questions were to be discussed, and the jarring atoms of society have oft been summoned greeting,

"To grand parading of town-meeting."

In the old Town-house Judge Story went to school and was fitted for college; the substantial dwelling in which he was born being nearly opposite, with its best parlor become an apothecary's, under the sign of Goodwin. This house was the dwelling of Dr. Elisha Story, of Revolutionary memory, and the birthplace of his son, the eminent jurist. The physicians of Dr. Story's time usually furnished their own medicines. In cocked hat and suit of rusty black, with saddle-bags and countenance severe, they were marked men in town or village. Since my visit to Marblehead the last of Dr. Story's eighteen children, Miss Caroline Story, died at the age of eighty-five. The chief-justice, her brother, was one of the most lovable of men, and was never, I believe, ashamed of the slight savor of the dialect that betrayed him native and to the manner born.

The Episcopal church in Marblehead is one of its old landmarks, concurring fully, so far as outward appearance goes, in the prevailing mouldiness. It is not remarkable in any way except as an oddity in wood, with a square tower of very modest height surmounting a broad and sloping roof. At a distance it is scarcely to be distinguished in the wooden chaos rising on all sides; its front was masked by buildings, so that the entrance-door could only be reached by a winding path. The parish has at length cleared its ancient glebe of intruders, and the old church is no longer jostled by its dissenting neighbors. Immediately adjoining is a little church-yard, in which repose the ashes of former worshipers who loved these old walls, and would lie in their shadow.

St. Michael's, as originally built, must have been an antique gem. According to the account given me by the rector, it had seven gables, topped by a tower, from which sprung a shapely spire, with another on the north and one on the south side. The form of the building was a square, with entrances on the south and west. The aisles crossed each other at right angles; the ceiling, supported by oaken columns, was in the form of a St. Andrew's cross. The present barren area of pine shingles was built above the old roof, which it extinguished effectually. Cotton Mather – he did not allude to the Church of England – styled the New England churches golden candlesticks, set up to illuminate the country; but what would he have said had he lived to see the Puritan Thanksgiving and Fast gradually superseded by Christmas and by Easter?

The interior of the old church well repays a visit. Its antiquities are guarded as scrupulously as the old faith has been. Suspended from the ceiling is a chandelier, a wonderful affair in brass, the gift of a merchant of Bristol, England. The little pulpit, successor to an earlier one of wine-glass pattern, belongs to an era before the introduction of costly woods. Above the altar is the Decalogue, in the ancient lettering, done in England in 1714. Manifestly St. Michael's clings to its relics with greater affection than did that parish in the Old Country, which offered its second-hand Ten Commandments for sale, as it was going to buy new ones. In the organ-loft is a diminutive instrument, going as far back as the day of Snetzler. Notwithstanding the disappearance of the cross from its pinnacle, and of the royal emblems from their place (save the mark!) above the Decalogue, St. Michael's remains to-day an interesting memorial of Anglican worship in the colonies. It was the third church in Massachusetts, and the fourth in all New England, those of Boston, Newbury, and Newport alone having preceded it.

The names of famous people are perpetuated in the place of their birth in many ways. I noticed in Marblehead the streets bore the names of Selman, Tucker, Glover, etc. Academies, public halls, and engine-houses keep their memory green, or will do so until the era of snobbery ingulfs the place, and pulls the old signs down. Its future, I apprehend, is to become a summer resort. When that period of intermittent prosperity shall have set in in full tide, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to preserve the peculiar quaintness which now makes Marblehead the embodiment of the old New England life.

Elbridge Gerry was born in Marblehead. He was of middle stature, thin, of courteous, old-school manners, and gentlemanly address. He has the name of a strong partisan, and of standing godfather to the geographical monstrosity called the Gerrymander, which has added a word to our political vocabulary.160 A more effective party caricature has never appeared in America. It is admitted it has given its author a notoriety that has somewhat obscured eminent public service, and made his name a by-word for political chicanery.

Those who believe the worst phases of political controversy have been reserved to our own time would do well to read the history of the administrations of Washington, Adams, and Jefferson, whom we are accustomed to name with reverence as the fathers of the republic, yet who, while in office, were the objects of as much personal malignity and abuse as their successors have received. Mr. Gerry was invited to take a seat in the Massachusetts Convention when the constitution of 1787 was under consideration, in order that that body might have the benefit of his conceded sagacity and knowledge of affairs. He opposed the adoption of the constitution before the Convention. At heart Mr. Gerry was an undoubted patriot. Once, when he believed himself dying, he remarked that if he had but one day to live it should be devoted to his country.

Elbridge Gerry was destined for the practice of medicine, but engaged in mercantile pursuits instead; having acquired a competency at the time of the beginning of the Revolution, he was free to take part in the struggle. He held many important offices, and his public career, full of the incidents of stirring times, was marked also by some eccentricities. Mr. Gerry, as early as November, 1775, introduced a bill into the Provincial Congress for the fitting-out of armed vessels by Massachusetts. In the direction of inaugurating warfare with England at sea, he was, without doubt, the pioneer.

The number of naval heroes whom Marblehead may claim as her own is something surprising. There were John Selman and Nicholas Broughton, who sailed in two armed schooners from Beverly, as early as October, 1775, with instructions from Washington to intercept, if possible, some of the enemy's vessels in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Failing in this object, they landed at St. John's, now Prince Edward Island, captured the fort, and brought off a number of provincial dignitaries of rank. Washington, who wanted powder, and not prisoners, was not well pleased with the result of this expedition, as he held it impolitic then to embroil the revolted colonies with Canada. Much was expected of the hereditary antipathy of the French Canadians for their English rulers, but in this respect the general's policy was founded in a mistaken judgment of those people.

Commodore Manly, to whom John Adams says the first British flag was struck, was either native born, or came in very early life to Marblehead. He was placed in command of the first cruiser that sailed with a regular commission from Washington, in 1775, signalizing his advent in the bay in the Lee– a schooner mounting only four guns – by the capture of a British vessel laden with military stores, of the utmost value to the Americans besieging Boston. When this windfall was reported to Congress, the members believed Divine Providence had interposed in their favor. Our officers declared their wants could not have been better supplied if they had themselves sent a schedule of military stores to Woolwich Arsenal. So apprehensive was the general that his prize might slip through his fingers, that all the carts to be obtained in the vicinity of Cape Ann were impressed, in order to bring the cargo to camp. Manly died in Boston, in 1793, in circumstances nearly allied to destitution. He was, says one who knew him well, "a handy, hearty, honest, benevolent, blunt man, with more courage than good conduct."

Another of these old sea-dogs was Commodore Samuel Tucker, the son of a ship-master. The old house in which he was born was standing on Rowland Hill. (I do not know that he of Surrey Chapel had any thing to do with the name in Marblehead.) It was before the door of this house that Tucker, in his shirt-sleeves, was chopping wood one evening, just at dusk, when a finely mounted officer clattered down the street. Seeing Tucker, the officer asked if he could inform him where the Honorable Samuel Tucker resided. Tucker, astonished at the question, answered in the negative, saying, "There is no such man lives here; there is no other Sam Tucker in this town but myself." At this reply, the officer raised his beaver, and, bowing low, presented him a commission in the navy.

Tucker, in 1778, was taking John Adams to France in the old frigate Boston,161 when he fell in with an enemy. While clearing his decks for action he espied Mr. Adams, musket in hand, among the marines. Laying a hand on the commissioner's shoulder, Tucker said to him, "I am commanded by the Continental Congress to carry you safely to Europe, and I will do it," at the same time conducting him below.

The brave Captain Mugford, whose exploit in capturing a vessel laden with powder in Boston Harbor, in May, 1776, proved of inestimable value, was also an inhabitant of Marblehead. Like Selman and Broughton, he had been a captain in the famous Marblehead regiment, and his crew were volunteers from it. The year previous, Mugford, with others, had been impressed on board a British vessel, the Lively, then stationed at Marblehead. Mugford's wife, on hearing what had befallen her husband, went off to the frigate and interceded with the captain for his release, alleging that they were just married, and that he was her sole dependence for support. The Englishman, very generously, restored Mugford his liberty.

The Trevetts, father and son, were little less distinguished than any already named, adding to the high renown of Marblehead, both in the Old War and in the later contest with England.

Glover and his regiment conferred lasting honor on this old town by the sea. As soon as it had been determined to fit out armed vessels, Washington intrusted the details to Glover, and ordered the regiment to Beverly, where these amphibians first equipped and then manned the privateers. The regiment signalized itself at Long Island and at Trenton, and ought to have a monument on the highest point of land in Marblehead, with the names of its heroes inscribed in bronze. General Glover was long an invalid from the effects of disease contracted in the army, dying in 1797.162 He had been a shoe-maker, and is, I imagine, the person referred to in the following extract from the memoirs of Madame Riedesel:

"Some of the generals who accompanied us were shoe-makers; and upon their halting days they made boots for our officers, and also mended nicely the shoes of our soldiers. One of our officers had worn his boots entirely into shreds. He saw that an American general had on a good pair, and said to him, jestingly, 'I will gladly give you a guinea for them.' Immediately the general alighted from his horse, took the guinea, gave up his boots, and put on the badly-worn ones of the officer, and again mounted his horse." General Glover's house is still standing on Glover Square. I made, as every body must make, in Marblehead, a pilgrimage to Oakum Bay, a classic precinct, and to the humble abode of Benjamin Ireson, whom Whittier has made immortal. Questionless the poet has done more to make Marblehead known than all the historians and magazine-writers put together, though the notoriety is little relished there. The facts were sufficiently dramatic as they existed; but Mr. Whittier has taken a poet's license, and arranged them to his fancy. Old Flood Ireson suffered in the flesh, and his memory has been pilloried in verse for a crime he did not commit. Nevertheless, I doubt that the people of Marblehead forget that Pegasus has wings, and can no more amble at the historian's slow place than he can thrive on bran and water.

It is not many years since Ireson was alive, broken in spirit under the obloquy of his hideous ride. Later in life he followed shore-fishing, and was once blown off to sea, where he was providentially picked up by a coaster bound to some Eastern port. I do not think he could have declared his right name, for sailors are superstitious folk, and he would have been accounted a Jonah in any ship that sailed these seas. His wherry having been cut adrift, was found, and Old Flood Ireson was believed to have gone to the bottom of the bay, when, to the genuine astonishment of his townsmen, he appeared one day plodding wearily along the streets. Some charitable souls gave him another wherry, but the boys followed the old man about as he cried his fish with their cruel shouts of,