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Title: Recollections of Curious Characters and Pleasant Places
Date of first publication: 1881
Author: Charles Lanman (1819-1895)
Date first posted: 19th December, 2024
Date last updated: 19th December, 2024
Faded Page eBook #20241217
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Edinburgh: Printed by Thomas and Archibald Constable,
FOR
DAVID DOUGLAS.
LONDON—— | HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. |
CAMBRIDGE—— | MACMILLAN AND CO. |
GLASGOW—— | JAMES MACLEHOSE. |
RECOLLECTIONS
OF
CURIOUS CHARACTERS
AND PLEASANT PLACES
BY
CHARLES LANMAN
AUTHOR OF “A SUMMER IN THE WILDERNESS,” ETC. ETC.
EDINBURGH: DAVID DOUGLAS
1881.
To Charles Lanman.
In many a stream besides our narrow creek,
And broad, green river, you a line have thrown;
Many adventures, much good luck have known;
Worthy disciple of old Walton meek.
Not angler only, you are artist, eke,
And far-off scenes more wild than are our own,
You with deft hand have on the canvas shown—
Sonnets, wherein not words, but colours speak.
Nor tints alone you rule as by a spell,
But language, too—your magic rod the pen—
Skilful therewith to show how Nature looks;
Nor merely Nature, for you know as well
Before our minds to bring affairs and men:
Your lines are charmed in water, pictures, books.
W. L. Shoemaker.
Washington, U. S.
EDITOR’S PREFACE.
Without being precisely a “popular fallacy,” it is not invariably true that “whichever way the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined;” and it is, perhaps, more among those who are destined to wield the pen than among any other classes of mankind that the proverb oftenest fails.
Mr. Charles Lanman adds another to the long list of those who, finding the dull details of a mercantile life wholly uncongenial, have ceased to “cast and balance at a desk,” have shaken the dust of the counting-house for ever from their feet, and betaken themselves to the filling of other books than ledgers, and who can point to other than these as their “true works.” He felt himself inclined more towards literature and art than to merchandise, to which, for the period of ten years, were bent his early efforts. Charles Lanman, one of a family of nine children, was born in Monroe, Michigan, June 14, 1819. On his mother’s side he is of French extraction. His father, Charles James Lanman, was a lawyer of Connecticut; and his grandfather, the late Judge James Lanman, of Norwich, a graduate of Yale College of the class of 1788, was a notable senator from Connecticut from 1819 to 1825, and a holder of many offices of honour and responsibility—a man of great public spirit, private virtues, and usefulness, and of commanding influence. Judge Lanman’s first wife was a direct descendant of Alice Carpenter, the wife of William Bradford, of Pilgrim memory; and his second the mother of Park Benjamin, an editor and poet, well-known and highly esteemed some twenty-five or thirty years ago, and brother of the late Mrs. John L. Motley, the historian. His grandson Charles had not the benefit of a collegiate training, but received his school education at an academy in Plainfield, Connecticut. He entered, in his sixteenth year, the counting-room of the famous Indian house of Suydam, Jackson, & Co., New York City, as a clerk, in 1835, and remained till 1845, when he returned to his birthplace in Michigan, and edited, for a short time, the Monroe Gazette. In 1846 he was associate editor of the Cincinnati Chronicle with the late Edward D. Mansfield; and, after making a canoe tour up the Mississippi and through Lake Superior, he returned to New York, and was associated as a writer with the Daily Express. In 1848 he went to Washington, D.C., with no intention of remaining permanently; but while there became a writer, and afterwards travelling correspondent, for the National Intelligencer, with which journal he was connected until the death of its distinguished editors, Messrs. Gales and Seaton. In 1849 he was married in Georgetown, D.C., to a daughter of Francis Dodge, formerly of Hamilton, Massachusetts, a gentleman of the “old school,” who emigrated to Georgetown in 1798, and became a prosperous, well-known, and honoured merchant of that town, in those happy days when trade still flourished in the ancient burgh, and long ere its individuality was merged in that of its huge neighbour, the capital of the nation, a city by many years its junior. Since his marriage he has continued to reside in Georgetown, making, however, regular annual holiday excursions to various parts in the north and south of the States, and in Canada; angling—for in the Waltonian art he is an acknowledged adept; sketching—for he is an artist of no mean ability; and gathering materials for books—for he is a book-maker of no ordinary talent, zeal, and industry. While engaged in his loved art of book-making—writing original works, and compiling extensive and useful books of reference and of biography—he has held various offices of trust, requiring knowledge of books, affairs, and men. In 1849 he was appointed Librarian of the War Department, and in this capacity he organised the library in the executive mansion. He was subsequently Librarian of Copyrights in the State Department, Librarian of the Interior Department, and Librarian of the House of Representatives. While he was Librarian of the War Department he relinquished that position at the request of Daniel Webster, to become his private secretary, which post he retained until 1852. In 1857 he was an Examiner of Depositaries under President Pierce, and afterwards in charge of the Returns Office in the Interior Department. In 1871 he was brought to the notice of the first Japanese Minister by his friend the late Professor Joseph Henry, and engaged to prepare a work on “Life and Resources in America,” to be translated by the Minister for publication in Japan. The plan and first chapter which he submitted of the proposed book so pleased the Minister, that he was invited to become the American Secretary of the Japanese Legation at Washington, which position he accepted and still holds.
The list of Mr. Lanman’s published works is a long one. Some have been republished in England by noted publishers, with titles differing from their American originals. We gather from Allibone and other sources the following catalogue:—Essays for Summer Hours (1842-53). Letters from a Landscape Painter (1845). A Summer in the Wilderness (1847); a second edition of this was entitled A Canoe Voyage up the Mississippi. A Tour to the River Saguenay (1848). Letters from the Alleghany Mountains (1849). Haw-ho-noo; or, Records of a Tourist (1851); in this was reprinted a portion of Letters from a Landscape Painter, and a second edition of it was entitled The Sugar Camp, and other Sketches. Private Life of Daniel Webster (1852; Lond. 1853). Adventures in the Wilds of the United States and British Provinces, with an Appendix on Moose-hunting (1856). This was made up of four of the former publications, with the addition of three tours not till then published in book form, viz., The Sources of the Potomac (1851); A Tour to the River Restigouche (1853); A Winter in the South (1854). A compilation from this, entitled Adventures in the Wilds of America, was made by Charles Richard Weld, Esq., and published by Longmans (1854). The volumes of our author, numbering four, reprinted in England, have been well received by the British public. The Adventures were highly praised by Mr. Jerdan in the London Literary Gazette, and they appear to have been a great favourite of Dickens, who, in the London News, characterised the writer as “a clever and truthful guide.” The great novelist says: “Mr. Lanman writes like a man who observes accurately, and describes with spirit and intelligence, rather than one profound as a naturalist, a geographer, or a politician.” Washington Irving, too, held the Adventures in high esteem, as did also Edward Everett. The former, in a letter to the author, genially praising the book, styled him “the picturesque explorer of our country.” Since 1857 Mr. Lanman has compiled Dictionary of the United States Congress (1859), published by the General Government; Life of William Woodbridge (1867); The Red Book of Michigan (1871); The Japanese in America (1872). He has also edited Prison Life of Alfred Ely (1862); Sermons by Octavius Perinchief (1st series, 1869; 2d series, 1870); Octavius Perinchief: His Life of Trial and Supreme Faith (1879). In 1876 appeared Biographical Annals of the Civil Service of the United States. This is based on the Dictionary of Congress, and contains a vast amount of biographical and statistical matter—a valuable and convenient book of reference. Mr. Lanman occasionally contributes articles (often illustrated by himself) to the American magazines. He became the American correspondent of the Illustrated London News in 1857, contributing, besides letterpress, illustrations of American scenery, and in 1869 was a correspondent of the London Athenæum. We have intimated that Mr. Lanman is not only a worker in the fields of literature, but has amused himself in those of art as well. Indeed, as an amateur artist, he possesses considerable claims to our notice. He is a vigorous sketcher in oil, and in a marvellously short while transfers to his canvas the chief characteristics of a wild silvan scene, or ocean beach, or foaming cataract, or mountain view. His house in Georgetown one newspaper writer styles “a veritable museum.” It can with similar truth be called a choice little picture-gallery, containing, as it does, original productions of some of the chief American and English modern artists in both water-colour and oil. Several of his own best studies and finished paintings can be seen on his walls. He has, stored up in portfolios, hundreds of his sketches of American scenery, from the Saguenay and St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. He has also won some fame as an angler, having fished in all the best streams of the States and of Canada. He notices, of course, some of his piscatory experiences in divers of his travelling sketches. How often has he shared in the fishy exploits of his friend Daniel Webster at the Little Falls of the Potomac—a noted place for rock-fish and for bass—and, when i’ the vein, what anecdotes he can tell of him, “the old man eloquent,” and of his other fishing crony, Sir John Crampton, formerly British Minister Plenipotentiary near Washington, an enthusiastic lover of the rod (he was an artist also), and of old Joe Payne, the quondam genius loco, who was hail-fellow, well met—retaining still an innate politeness, a native deference—with all the great angler statesmen and artists of his day, who frequented his well-beloved fishing-ground. Poor Joe! Requiescat in pace! He died at his humble residence near the Chain Bridge, one Sunday morning in January 1877, aged 72. He seldom ventured beyond the sight and hearing of the falls which he held so dear. Many a big fish did Joe take with either hook or net, of the capture whereof others claimed the glory—Joe in the meanwhile putting silver in his pocket. The exploits of this old fisherman have been celebrated in song; he once pointed out the beauties of the Potomac to Frederika Bremer, who alluded to him in her American book; and Mr. Lanman loves to mention the fact that he fished with Joe Payne for twenty-five years.
CONTENTS.
PAGE | |
Modes of American Travel, | 1 |
The Wizard of Anticosti, | 22 |
Forest Recollections, | 31 |
The Hunters of the Sea-Elephant, | 55 |
Peter Pitchlynn, | 67 |
Around Cape Horn, | 95 |
Montauk Point, | 121 |
Salmon-Fishing on the Jacques Cartier, | 147 |
Stratford-on-Housatonic, | 161 |
The Boy-Hunter of Chicoutimie, | 182 |
Pushmatahaw, | 205 |
The Potomac Fisherman, | 219 |
Phases of American Life, | 228 |
Sword-Fish Fishing, | 250 |
Newfoundland, | 257 |
Block Island, | 266 |
Story of a Modern Mariner, | 312 |
Among the aborigines inhabiting the present limits of the United States there were three kinds of water craft employed—the canoe, the pirogue, and a boat made of buffalo skins; while the land travel was performed on foot and by means of the snow-shoe. The legitimate canoe consisted of a delicate framework made of cedar, pointed at both ends, and covered with the bark of the white birch, sewed together with the slender and flexible roots of the spruce or tamarack and the sinews of wild animals, and rendered water-tight with a pitch or gum taken from the white pine. They varied in length from ten to thirty-five feet, and were capable of conveying from five to fifty men. The smaller specimens were usually managed by two men and the larger ones by eight; the former were used in hunting, and the latter for war purposes or transportation. Their geographical range was co-extensive with the basin of the Great Lakes and the river and gulf of the St. Lawrence. On the score of beauty and lightness they were unsurpassed by any water craft ever invented; were propelled on smooth water by cedar paddles, and over shallow rapids by slender poles made of the white ash; and they were supplied with a simple apparatus by which, when going before the wind, a sail made of skins could be improvised. At times, moreover, their prows were ornamented with fantastic devices worked in the bark. The dexterity with which the Indians could surmount rough waters in their canoes, or pass down the most fearful rapids in safety, has always been a marvel to the white man. In voyaging upon streams where perpendicular falls impeded their course, the delicate vessels as well as their freight were all carried around, and hence the French term portage, which describes this travelling incident; and while one man could carry a small canoe with great ease, it only required two men to carry one of the largest on their shoulders. The rate at which they travelled over smooth waters was, perhaps, four miles per hour. Every night they were unloaded and, with their contents, carried ashore; and, in the event of a sudden rain or the absence of suitable bark for wigwams, they afforded a temporary shelter for their owners. Such is the vessel which formed the “brigades” in which Marquette, La Salle, Hennepin, La Hontan, Charlevoix, Henry, Carver, and M‘Kenzie made their famous explorations in the wilds of North America, and in which were discovered the sources of the Mississippi and the Columbia as well as the shores of the Arctic Sea. The vessel known as the pirogue, and also frequently called a canoe, was employed by the Indian tribes for precisely the same purposes as the bark canoe, and propelled in the same manner, but it was always hollowed out of a single tree, was much heavier, and by no means so frail. It was more of a Southern institution, but was known everywhere beyond the range of the white birch. In the valley of the Ohio it was made of the white wood and sycamore, and frequently designated as a “dug-out;” on the Lower Mississippi it was formed out of the cotton-wood; and on the Pacific coast, of the red pine and cedar, where their gunwales were ornamented with the tusks of the walrus. With regard to the little vessels made of buffalo skins, to which we have alluded, their geographical range seems to have been limited to the prairie regions of the West. They were uncouth affairs, round like a tub, and probably not much used excepting for the purpose of crossing rivers; and it has been mentioned as a singular circumstance that they were nearly allied in form and materials to the Welsh “coracle,” and also to a craft used by the ancient Egyptians.
As it seems to be a settled question that the horse was not known to the aborigines of this country, we are forced to the conclusion that their land travels were not only limited in extent, but that they performed their journeys chiefly on foot. In the warmer regions this was all well enough, but in the colder latitudes, when the ground was covered with snow, foot travelling was a very different affair. Then it was that the snow-shoe came in to perform its important part in carrying the hunters from one hunting-ground to another; while the women and children were somewhat assisted in their journeys by a small sledge drawn by dogs. If called upon to specify the particular class who have made the most profitable use of the snow-shoe, we should mention the fur-trappers of the extreme North-west. The entire equipment of one of these men, for a winter journey through the forest, when transporting his furs, was a good pair of snow-shoes, a blanket coat, a flint and steel, a pipe and tobacco-pouch, a rifle, and a knife; with these things and a roasted partridge, though he might be alone in the wilderness, with the stars above him and only a couch of cedar bushes to sleep upon, he was as happy as a king. Though designed by the untutored savage, the modes of locomotion now mentioned were the best that could be devised under the circumstances, and the white man, when he began to penetrate the wilderness, was glad enough to adopt the customs of the Indian, and they continue to be in vogue in all the sparsely-settled regions of the country at the present time.
But after the white race had completed their earlier explorations, and began to form settlements on the frontiers, and develop the resources of the country, new varieties of river craft were found necessary, and then came into existence the Canadian bateau and the keel and flat boats of American origin. The bateau was, to some extent, modelled after the birch canoe, propelled in the same manner, but made no pretensions to beauty, was built of ribs and boards, and capable of carrying three or four times as great a weight as the largest canoe. They were always popular with the fur-traders, and were extensively employed during the old French and the Revolutionary wars. It was in a “brigade” of bateaux that Abercromby conveyed his army through the entire length of Lake George; and whenever I imagine the scene, with the long line of crowded boats, with banners flying and the martial music echoing among the surrounding mountains, and with here and there a sufficient number of Indian canoes to give variety to the pageant, I am most deeply impressed with its beauty and romantic effect.
The keel-boat was another advance, on the score of size and usefulness, in the frontier art of boat-building. This craft was adapted to those rivers which ran through a flat or alluvial country, was made to carry from twenty to forty tons, performed their work above those points where the steamboat navigation ceased, and were generally propelled, either up stream or down, by means of pushing with heavy poles and with oars. They were used in transporting produce down the streams to the various markets, and returned laden with the merchandise needed by the settlers in the interior. They were supplied with small cabins for the comfort of the emigrants, and were particularly numerous on all the tributaries of the Mississippi, but are now quite obsolete. And it was on the Mississippi and its larger tributaries that the flat-boat long performed, and continues to perform, its important mission. A flat-boat, an ark, and a broad-horn, all convey the same idea in Western parlance. They were made of solid timbers and heavy boarding, and, though formerly averaging about sixty feet in length, their later dimensions reached one hundred and forty, with a width equal to about one-fifth of the length. They floated with the stream, were managed by immense oars, and, on arriving at New Orleans, were broken up and sold for lumber. They were so numerous as to have given existence to a hardy and unique race of men, consisting of boatmen and pilots, speculators and miscellaneous adventurers; and some of these strange vessels have been launched on the headwaters of the Alleghany in New York, and finally reached New Orleans in safety. The three prominent staples which they conveyed to market were lumber, coal, and grain, together with a great variety of Western commodities, including many varieties of live stock. By way of relieving the monotony of their long pilgrimage, the boatmen were wont to make use of whisky and other stimulants, and to spend much of their time in card-playing, as well as dancing to the music of the fiddle; and when their business affairs were all wound up at New Orleans, with pockets full of cash, they would have one crowning frolic, and then, taking passage in the upward-bound steamboats, return to their distant homes in the north.
During the earlier stages of our civilisation, say from 1775 to 1825, the most popular mode of travelling was on horseback; and the incipient commerce of the country was mainly dependent on the pack-horse. In those days for a man to put on his leggings, strap an overcoat and a pair of saddle-bags to his saddle, and then reel off a thousand miles on his favourite horse, was a common occurrence. In this manner did the farmer visit the larger towns on business, the pioneer dive deeper into the wilderness, and the member of Congress journey from the interior to Philadelphia or Washington. And, with few exceptions, the mails of the Government were all carried on horseback. And those were the times when the term “riding the circuit” had a meaning which only the lawyers fully appreciated. Judges and lawyers journeyed from place to place on horseback, in a solid body; and the jolly adventures which they experienced, their illegal tricks and sham trials at the wayside inns, especially in the Western States, have passed into household stories. Nor were the women of the olden times so frail and destitute of courage that they could not, when necessary, or prompted by the spirit of romance, join their husbands, and, on horseback, visit distant places and friends. And then, how many and interesting and various were the road-side adventures of those days! How fresh the scenery through which the roads meandered! What glorious sunsets heralded the equestrians at the taverns where they were to spend the night! What long talks with the landlord and his family about farming, and politics, famous horses, and favourite breeds of cattle, the latest news from Europe, and the thousand incidents of domestic life, keeping the guests and the hosts out of their beds until the approach of midnight! But all these things have passed away for ever—the robust gentleman of the old school, the healthy and blooming woman, who thought more of her wifely duties than of her head-gear, the race of superior horses, the quiet home-like inns—all, for the most part, are among the things departed. In the Southern States the use of the horse for riding was more common than in the North, and the custom still prevails to a considerable extent. And it is worthy of remark that while the white race were beginning to abandon the custom of travelling on horseback, the Indians of the Far West were capturing the mustang of the Prairies, and making him their obedient and useful servant, until, at the present time, the wealth of the Prairie tribes is estimated by the number of their horses; and to travel one or two thousand miles for the purpose of capturing a herd of them from their enemies is deemed a rare exploit, and a test of superior business capacity. In the good old saddle-bag days, to which we have alluded, the horse was man’s companion and friend, but in these more rapid and heartless times he is only a servant, and when too old to be of further use, is turned out on the road-side to die.
The next, and by far the most delightful and romantic era of American locomotion was that of mail or stage-coach travelling; one of the first lines of stages in this country having been established in 1730, between New York and Philadelphia, devoting a fortnight to the round trip. And it was at this time that a foot-post was established between New York and Albany. In 1766 the trip to Philadelphia was reduced to five days, when there were four relays of horses, and the fare was twenty shillings through. A daily line was established in 1820. Upon this subject we have often thought that a charming book might be written. At what particular time the first coach was set up in this country we are unable to state, but our own recollections are of that period when the custom was quite universal and in the full tide of successful operation. The leading arteries of travel ran from Boston to Albany; from that city to Buffalo, which route was made famous by the opposing Pilot and Eagle lines; and there was a westward continuation to Detroit, Chicago, and St. Louis; there was also an important route from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, the turnpike between those cities having been the first, in point of time and magnitude, made in this country; another from Baltimore and Washington, which intersected at Frederick, and ran over the celebrated Cumberland turnpike to Wheeling; another still in Virginia, running along the base of the Blue Ridge to Tennessee; several extensive and admirable routes through Kentucky and Tennessee; a great Southern line, leading from Washington to Montgomery, in Alabama; and, of course, a very busy and crowded route between Washington and New York. But the most splendid and profitable of all was the Cumberland or National Road. The mail-coaches were drawn by six horses; taverns, with jolly landlords, were closely scattered along its entire line; and freight-wagons, laden with tons of merchandise, and drawn by twelve horses, and endless droves of cattle, combined to give variety to the scenes of excitement that were perpetually transpiring along the route. As the entire extent of this line of travel was from Washington to Wheeling, the variety of scenery was endless, and much of it very grand, but the chief charms lay west of Cumberland. And the famous men who travelled regularly over this route were numerous; among them Jackson and Clay, Benton and Crockett, Harrison and Taylor—now all at rest after their journeys of life. Nor was there any scarcity of rival lines of coaches, and rival taverns, with all the incidents growing out of competition. It was originally intended to extend this road to St. Louis, but the scheme was never carried out; and its chief advocate in Congress was Henry Clay—which fact is commemorated on a monument now standing near Wheeling. That part of the road extending from Cumberland to Washington and Baltimore was built at the expense of the banks of Maryland, and at one time brought in a revenue of twenty per cent. Along the line of this great turnpike, now idle and desolate, may occasionally be found an “old stager” who delights to talk about the old stage-coach times,—how they used to go their twelve miles per hour; what fun they sometimes witnessed at the toll-gates; how the landlords of rival taverns struggled to outdo each other in their tables; how thirty coaches often passed a given point in a single day; what escapes were made from robbers in the “Shades of Death;” how the different lines known as the “June Bug,” the “Landlords,” and the “Good Intent,” all made “lots of money;” and how the business of the road came to an end about the year 1852, since which time the snakes and the lizards have had quiet possession of the stone bridges everywhere. The vehicle in best repute was that known as the Troy or Concord coach, holding nine passengers inside, with four or five on the outside, without crowding, and drawn by four or six horses. But there were other styles also, made at Trenton, New Jersey, and in Cumberland. The relays generally were from ten to fifteen miles apart, and the speed varied, according to the roads, from seven to ten miles per hour. When travellers were in a hurry they took the regular mail-coach, which went directly through without stopping at night, but the majority of people preferred the extra or passenger coaches, whose drivers were not afraid of the Post-Office Department, and always tarried over-night at certain localities. For example, it was customary for all the coaches to leave Washington at nine o’clock in the morning; but, while the mail was bound to arrive in New York on the following evening, the passengers who had seats in the extra coaches enjoyed a night’s rest both in Baltimore and Philadelphia, and did not reach New York until the close of the third day. In 1824 a very perfectly organised line of coaches ran between Boston and Portland, passing through Concord, New Hampshire, which place afterwards became so famous for its admirable coach-making establishments. During the stage-coach era the competition which sometimes prevailed was only equalled by the immense enterprise manifested by the proprietors. The sums of money expended in the business were frequently enormous, and those particular companies or individual men who enjoyed the patronage of the Government seldom failed in making money. A mail-contractor of the first class was a kind of nabob in the land, and the people subject to his will, or anxious to secure his patronage, were numbered by the thousand. First came the army of drivers or coachmen, then the stablemen and tavern-keepers, the horse-dealers and the farmers, with their grain and forage, as well as the coach-builders. If the machinery of this mode of travelling was so extensive as to make the leading manager of the whole enterprise a kind of potentate, it is also true that the mental satisfaction and comfort attending even a long journey were all that could be reasonably desired. The stage-coach brought men in close contact, often kept them together until they were well acquainted, and inaugurated many lasting friendships. In no other kind of vehicle do we remember to have seen such beautiful girls and noble matrons, such wise and good old men, and such jolly cosmopolites; and some of the best stories, the most charming bits of personal history, and the most wonderful adventures that we have heard, were related to us in a coach. Who that has ever journeyed in one of them, with the mail, over a pleasant route, can forget the sights and sounds and incidents of the way? First came the gentle “tapping at your chamber door,” long before the break of an autumnal day, the breakfast by candle-light, the friendly words at parting, the strapping of your trunk in the boot, and then the tumble into the huge vehicle, with its impatient horses and its bustling driver. With the approach of daylight came the scrutinising looks and careful words between the passengers. The turnpike, perhaps, is lined with cultivated farms; and when the horses are being watered, you have a little chat with a sturdy yeoman. When you approach a village, the coachman gives an extra flourish to his whip, and, driving directly through its principal street, comes to a halt, with a grand flourish, before the tavern, and during the ten or fifteen minutes occupied by the postmaster in changing the mail, you have a chance to become acquainted with a score or two of the worthy villagers; another drive, another village, and then comes the dinner, the superb dinner, sumptuous and hot, with the smiling landlord wielding the carving-knife, like a very prince of good fellows. To those who knew them in the olden times, what memories cluster about the old stage taverns! Every village had one of them, with gambrel roof, dormer window, capacious stoop, with chairs where loungers congregated, and travellers waited for the mail. And with what good things are they associated! According to location, they were famous for broiled shad or trout, johnny-cakes and waffles, tender loin steaks, broiled chickens, buckwheat cakes and maple syrup, venison, roasted turkeys, fruits of many kinds, and such bread as we seldom see in these latter days. But time is speeding. Off again, and then for a few hours the houses and the trees and the fields pass you like the pictures of a dream, the rolling of the wheels becomes a kind of murmur in your ear, the driver blows his horn to warn the stablemen at the next station of his approach, but to you it is an uncertain sound; and after another brief halt, away you go again—now wide awake—down through a beautiful valley, gleaming in the evening sunshine; at twilight you pass through a lonely forest, and become thoughtful; then comes the supper, with the luxuries peculiar to the locality; and during the long night which follows you are lulled to sleep by the trotting of the horses, the rolling of the wheels, and the tinkling of the harness, all melted into a continuous and soothing sound. On the approach of day you wake, and behold all around you is a wilderness of mountains, perhaps the Alleghanies.
Rough business now lies before you, and when you arrive at the breakfasting place, the new coachman (several of whose predecessors, during the night, you have not even seen) seems not to be in any particular hurry, and you have ample time to enjoy a refreshing wash and a quiet meal. The landlord points to the lowering clouds along the mountains, and shakes his head; the driver’s horn has sounded for the last time, and all the passengers are in their seats; a crack of the whip, and the mail is on its winding way over the mountains. It is now all a painful ascent, and the horses frequently stop to regain their breath; upwards again, and you hear the driver shouting to some one, when you look out and behold a dead bear or a deer hanging across the back of a rough pony, with a hunter leading him, and carrying a rifle, followed by a brace of dogs; onward, and upward still, picking up fresh horses at each relay, and a storm of rain sweeps over the mountains, and you hear the roaring of waterfalls in the deep and dark ravines; the clouds disappear, and you ever and anon catch glimpses, over the tops of the trees, of the distant and apparently level country where you spent the preceding day; and one pull more, when, in the midst of a snow-storm, you reach the door of a rude tavern just below the summit of the mountain. Here, where silence and solitude would seem to reign, your ears are startled by much shouting and the lowing of many cattle, and you escape from the coach to find an immense herd, driven by a score of stalwart men on horseback, on their way to an Eastern market, from the rich farming lands of the West. Another dinner, with venison and quail; a fresh supply of horses; and now for a downward drive towards the western horizon. The brakes are applied to the wheels, and the horses have it all their own way; the forest trees grow larger as you descend, and anon, as the coach groans in every fibre while sweeping past a terrible precipice, the boldest traveller holds his breath; onward and downward, and the sky is clearing away; fresh horses and another glorious stampede; and at sunset, again, you have reached a wide and peaceful valley, watered by one of the tributaries of the Ohio. Such, good reader, is a fragment from the “times of the days of old,” when the American mail-coach was in its prime.
The transition from the subject of coaching to that of the postal service is inevitable, and here are a few suggestive facts:—The first post route established by the Government, in the last century, extended from Passamoquoddy, in Massachusetts, to St. Mary in Florida, at which time there was no post-office in what is now the city of Washington. The total number of actual and prospective post-offices at that time was four hundred; in 1868 they numbered about sixty thousand; and while the distance which was formerly compassed by the service was twelve thousand miles, the routes of to-day (1879) measure not less than three hundred thousand miles.
During the stage-coach era, in those parts of the country where the winters were long and the snow abundant, a great deal of travelling was performed in sleighs. Indeed, the custom is still prevalent in all the States bordering on the river St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes. But, when the French element prevailed at the western extremity of Lake Erie and on the Detroit river, travelling on the ice was a universal custom. The smooth and glassy surface was preferred to that which was covered with snow; driving fiery horses, before the cariole, on those frozen plains, required a peculiar dexterity, in which the Canadian French excelled; and the racing contests between famous pacers created much excitement, and were earnestly discussed even in Montreal and Quebec. But those picturesque and exciting scenes have disappeared from our borders, and in their perfection can now only be witnessed in the interior of Canada. In the way of sleigh-riding carnivals, however, there is not a spot in the country that can be matched with the city of New York, when the snow and the weather are happily combined.
For about ten years after the opening of the Hudson and Erie Canal, in 1825, the man who had not voyaged upon those tranquil waters was considered a decided home body; and when the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, as well as those of Pennsylvania, were in successful operation, the number of people who annually passed over these great lines of travel was truly enormous. Boats, fitted up in elegant style for the accommodation of passengers, were for a time abundant on all these canals, but mostly so on the Hudson and Erie. Packet lines were established, bearing all sorts of popular names; and they not only competed with each other for the public patronage, but they even tried to outdo the coaches of the United States mail. They employed the best of horses, and sometimes attained the speed of six miles per hour; and so long as the novelty lasted, this mode of travelling was really enjoyable; but when the victim of misplaced confidence had gone a hundred miles from the Hudson, and then saw, by his card, that he had 263 additional miles to travel in this manner, before he could catch a glimpse of Lake Erie, his emotions became really heartrending. If not too poor to quit the packet at the very next town, and take a seat in the coach, he dreaded the thought of being laughed at for want of pluck, and so continued to suffer and be strong. And then, if accustomed to the study of human nature, including himself, he must have been astounded at the changes in his own thoughts and feelings, which, as he progressed towards the setting sun and his latter end, were being made by his life on the Canal. At first the peaceful scenery was delightful, now it was a bore; then the regularity of the meals was just his idea of system, now the orders from the kitchen and their horrible sameness made him sick almost unto death. During his “first night out” he was not much crowded, and had a charming sleep, but subsequently the mosquitoes drove him to the verge of despair. After passing some half-dozen locks, he was ready to indite a treatise for the Tredgold series on human ingenuity, but by the time he had reached the centre of Lockport, he felt very much like setting the town on fire, and playing Guy Fawkes among the stony marvels of science. When he first heard the captain shouting aloud, “Look out for the bridge!” and saw the passengers, who were on deck, bowing themselves like Moslem worshippers, he thought it all very jolly; but when he afterwards saw a poor old man instantly killed by the cruel timbers of a bridge, he doubted whether De Witt Clinton would really prove to be a benefactor to the race. The horses, which in the East he thought so finely formed and so fiery, in the West, though all of the same blood, looked to him like miserable mongrels. And if, on leaving Troy, he was troubled with the pangs of home-sickness, on arriving at Buffalo he probably declared to his confidential friend that if he could never revisit his early home without going by the Canal, he was bound to spend the balance of his days as a buckeye, a hoosier, or wolverine. But the Canal, as a highway for American travellers, has long since ceased to be respected, although as a servant of Commerce it still continues to exert an all-powerful influence.
And now for a “little dash” in the “steamboat business,” from which, it is to be hoped, we may emerge with less damage than has been the case with many speculators in that line. To estimate the steamboat tonnage of this country is, for us, out of the question, and to speak of the importance of steamboats to the people would be mere folly. Like birds, they are found floating on every river and every lake between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans; and in describing them for the benefit of those who have not knocked about the country as we have, we must imitate the ornithologist, and not only gather them into classes, but designate their localities. And as Robert Fulton started his first steamboat on the Hudson, it is quite proper that we should begin there. The passenger boats on the Hudson river, running between New York and Albany, were long unsurpassed for elegance, comfort, and speed. They were appropriately called floating palaces. Since the opening of the Hudson River Railroad their glory has in a measure departed, but some of them, especially the night boats, maintain their ancient grandeur. By taking the night boat the traveller going north has an opportunity of seeing some of the best scenery on the river, and saves time, but to the stranger a voyage to the head of navigation by daylight, on a pleasant day, when the Palisades, the Highlands, and the Catskill Mountains are in their glory, must always be an event never to be forgotten. These boats run only during the vernal seasons, and the number of passengers which they have been known to carry in the busy months is simply amazing. The steamboats which at the present time are in greatest repute are those which navigate Long Island Sound. They are very large, built to weather a heavy sea, run only at night, but throughout the year carry large quantities of freight, and are so arranged as to afford the greatest comfort to a large number of passengers; and the number that they do carry is a constant subject of remark. Two of the boats, if not more, now running on these waters are acknowledged to be the swiftest, most luxurious, and magnificent in the world. The boats which ply between Boston and Portland, and venture into the Bay of Fundy, are a cross between the steamboat and ocean steamer, and the latter do not come within the plan of this paper. The same causes which have interfered with the steamboat business on the Hudson river, viz., hard winters and the railroads, have nearly driven from the great lakes the better class of passenger steamboats. There was a time, say between 1835 and 1845, when the pleasure of steamboat travelling on Lakes Ontario, Erie, Huron, and Michigan, was something unique. The boats were large, furnished after a princely fashion, and, from the time you left Buffalo for Detroit or Chicago, it verily seemed as if the chief end of man was to fare sumptuously every day, listen to a continuous strain of music, and to drive dull care away by having a good time generally. The first steamboat that navigated Lake Erie was called the Walk-in-the-Water, after an Indian chief, and she made the passage from Buffalo Creek to Detroit in forty-eight hours.
During the same period of time, but extending nearer to the present, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and New Orleans were competing with each other in launching their floating palaces in the valley of the Mississippi. In their outward appearance these Southern vessels were destitute of the graceful lines and other adornments which characterised the Northern steamboats already mentioned, and the curious method of carrying their boilers on deck gave them a repulsive aspect; but their interior arrangements were usually as brilliant as painting and gilding and velvet could make them. The immense distances they were obliged to compass, and the length of time travellers were compelled to spend upon them, rendered a series of entertainments necessary; and indeed a voyage from New Orleans to any of the up-river cities was a continuous jollification. The happy travellers on Lake Erie were indifferent to the shallow waters which abounded there, nor did they cast a thought upon the dangers of explosion from high-pressure boilers. On the Mississippi they were equally unconcerned about the dangers of steam, as well as those resulting from sawyers and snags. With regard to the smaller steamboats of the country, we have only to repeat that there is hardly a river in the Union upon which they are not found. Many in the South are propelled by one large wheel located in the stern; others, in the North, draw so little water as to be almost capable of crossing a place that is only a little damp. The part they have taken in developing the resources of our country, and in helping her through the fiery trials of the rebellion, cannot be too highly appreciated.
In our cogitations thus far we have been looking at Brother Jonathan while yet in his youth, travelling about the country to visit his friends, or attend to his business affairs, very much like a man of elegant leisure; but having now attained the period of robust manhood, he has latterly been girding himself for a new career of usefulness and honour. When the Yankee, in 1827, built a crude railway, for the purpose of conveying granite from Quincy to Bunker Hill, he fixed his mind on the transaction and thought of the future. He began at once to calculate and devise, as if certain that something new in the way of travelling would yet be developed under the sun. He waited patiently for a few years, and then went to work in good earnest to carry out his plans for uniting his country with bands of iron. He filled up valleys and levelled mountains, and went on prospering in his work. When a certain man named Whitney travelled about the country, telling the people that they should build a railway to connect the Atlantic with the Pacific Oceans, Brother Jonathan was disposed to laugh; and yet in his serious moments he pondered on the thought, and to-day he has under his control the greatest network of railways on the face of the globe, all guarded by sentinels that hold the lightning in their hands, and has every reason to believe that in another year or two he will be able to ticket his friends entirely across the continent between the two Sundays of a summer day. Not all the arts of arithmetic, nor all the triangulations on the largest map, can give us a realising sense of the stupendous power and influence of the American railway system. We can only approximate to the full idea, perhaps, by passing in review the doings of the locomotive during the single midnight moment that we are penning this line. At the mouth of the Susquehannah there is a groaning sound in the air, as the Owl train from Washington to New York is crossing the great bridge; in the South another train is sweeping, in moody silence, through the great interminable swamps; in the North the fiery locomotive, leaping and screaming as if in rage, is fighting its way through the snow and the blinding storm; here and there and everywhere, among the wildest mountains, thousands of people are sweetly sleeping in comfortable seats or berths, while travelling with the speed of the wind; trains from the East, while passing through frightful tunnels, or along the peaceful homes of our yeomanry, are saluting the trains from the West; and the wild Indian, while sleeping in his camp at the base of the Rocky Mountains, hears a sound like the moaning of the wind among the pines, and, starting to his feet, beholds the distant smoke of a locomotive and its serpent-like train outstripping the mustang and the buffalo, as it sweeps onward to the more remote West.
Lonely and desolate are the shores of Anticosti. In winter they are blocked up with ice and whitened with snow, and in summer almost continually enveloped in fogs. To all mariners who have occasion to sail the Gulf of St. Lawrence they are a perpetual terror, and the many shipwrecks occurring there have given to the island a mournful celebrity. Three lighthouses, lighted from March to December, and two provision stations, are the only localities on the island where those who may have escaped a watery grave can obtain succour from famine and cold, and the most noted of these is the Bay of Gamache. It is about five miles in circumference, the only really secure harbour in the region, and derives its name from the strange man who there first made himself a home. From Quebec to Gaspe, from Gaspe to Pictou, not a name, for many years, was better known, and the manifold stories picked up by the writer (during his Canadian and New Brunswick wanderings) respecting this man would fill a volume. They were extravagant, made up of fact and fiction, representing him as a kind of ancient mariner, a pirate, a being half-savage and half-ogre, and enjoying the special protection of Satan himself. But the simple story of his actual life, well worth recording, is as follows:—
Louis Oliver Gamache was born in Lower Canada in 1790. When a mere boy he left home and obtained a sailor’s berth on board an English frigate, in which capacity he spent about twenty years of his life, roaming over the entire world. On his return, he found his parents dead and himself friendless and poor. Having strayed into the little port of Rimouski, he tried his hand at business and failed. Disgusted with people generally, and somewhat so with life, he resolved to settle on the island of Anticosti, whose lonely shores had taken his fancy captive when last returning from his ocean wanderings. Determined as he was to spend the balance of his days in the peaceful enjoyments of hunting, fishing, and sailing, his sagacity led him to the bay already mentioned. He built himself a rude cabin, and then visited the main shore to obtain a good wife, in which effort he was successful. She was all he hoped for, but the loneliness and cold of Anticosti were more than her nature could bear, and she died during her first spring on the island. Summer came, and Gamache sought for peace of mind by sailing in his schooner among the icebergs of the north, and slaughtering the grey seal and walrus. With the money thus made, he erected some new buildings, and gathered about his home a few of the comforts of an ordinary farm, such as horses, cows, and sheep. He married a second wife, with whom he spent the seven happiest years of his life, but on returning home from one of his winter hunts, he found her frozen to death, and his two children so nearly famished that they soon followed their mother, and he was once more alone. A kind of gloom now settled upon his spirit, and though leading an active life he became misanthropic. He cared not to have any intercourse with his fellow-men, and his only companion and confidant was a half-breed Frenchman; but if a revenue officer, a professional fisherman, or a party of sporting characters happened to make him a visit, they were sure to be treated with kindness. He felt that death had robbed him of all that he mostly cherished; and how did he know, was his mode of reasoning, but some of his Indian neighbours would prove treacherous, and take his own life without warning? Some band of pirates, moreover, might hear of his forlorn condition, and sweep away his property and murder him in cold blood. Those were impending calamities, and something must be done for protection. Hence it was that he resolved to adopt a series of measures that would inspire a dread of his person and name. He fully succeeded in all his romantic efforts, and the following are a few of the many with which his name is associated:—
On one occasion, having been wind-bound for several days, he anchored his vessel in one of the ports of Gaspe, and making his way to the village inn, ordered a sumptuous supper for two persons. The truth was, he was nearly famished, and having caused his man Friday to be supplied on board the vessel, he had determined to have a good feast, and any fun that might follow. Before sitting down to his repast, he gave special directions to the effect that the door of the dining-room must be locked, and that it would be dangerous to have him disturbed. He devoured nearly everything on the table, and finally falling into a deep sleep, did not awake until the next morning. The host and some of his inquisitive neighbours were moving about soon after daybreak, and a number of them declared that they had heard some mysterious noises during the night, and when the unknown guest stepped out of the dining-room into the sunshine, and while paying his bill with American gold talked incoherently about the gentleman in black, the people who hung about the house were amazed; but when the landlord told them of the empty plates and platters, and they saw the stranger embark without uttering a word, they were all confounded, and felt certain that the devil and an intimate friend had visited their town.
At one time while spending a day or two in Quebec, an officer of the law boarded the schooner of our hero for the purpose of arresting him for debt. Gamache suspected what was in the wind, and as the autumn was far advanced, and he was prepared to leave for the Gulf, he told the officer that the captain would soon be on board, and suggested a glass of wine in the cabin below by way of killing time. The wine was good, and the officer concluded that he would call again to see the captain, as his business was of a private nature, but when he ascended to the deck he found himself a voyager on the St. Lawrence, and in the custody of his intended prisoner. His loud storming and deep curses were of no avail, for he was compelled to visit the island of Anticosti, where he spent the entire winter feasting upon the fat of the land as well as of the sea. In the spring, with a good supply of wine, and the money for his claim, he took passage in a fishing vessel and returned, a “wiser and better man,” to Quebec and the bosom of his disconsolate family.
Even the officers of the Hudson Bay Company were occasionally called upon to measure their skill with the wit of our friend Gamache. He would barter with the Indians on the Labrador coast, although he knew that the consequences of being captured might be serious. Business had been brisk with him, and when on a quiet summer afternoon he was about leaving a little harbour on the forbidden coast, he was discovered by an armed vessel, which immediately started in pursuit. Night came, and Gamache found refuge in the harbour of Mingan. When the morning light appeared his enemy was in the offing. Another chase ensued, long and tedious, and night again settled upon the waters. And then it was that a rude raft was made and launched, covered with a few tar-barrels, and the bright flame which soon illumined the ocean, directly in the course of the frigate, convinced its officers that the runaway had, conscience-stricken, gone to the bottom of the sea. But a better fate awaited him, for he spent the subsequent night in his own bed at the Bay of Gamache.
On one occasion, when our hero happened to be left entirely alone at his house, he saw a stalwart Indian disembark from his canoe, and, with a bottle in his hand, march directly for his dwelling. The movements of the savage, his fondness for liquor, and his well-known character for fighting, portended trouble. As he approached, Gamache planted himself at the threshold of his castle, rifle in hand, and exclaimed, “One step more, and I will fire!” The step was taken, but it was the last, for a bullet shattered the thigh-bone of the savage. Thus reduced to helplessness, he asked for quarter, and was gratified. Gamache carried him into the house, placed him on a bed, doctored his wound, and took every care of him, until the damaged leg was restored; and then loading the Indian with provisions, escorted him to his canoe with this parting benediction, “When next you hear that Gamache is alone, and attempt to give him trouble, he will send a bullet through your head; and now begone!” That lesson had its legitimate effect upon the entire tribe of Anticosti Indians.
One more incident touching the Wizard of Anticosti is to this effect. A young pilot had been driven by stress of weather into the Bay of Gamache. He had heard much of the supposed freebooter, and nothing but a desperate state of things would have induced him to seek refuge in that particular bay. A short time after he had dropped anchor, Gamache came out in a small boat and invited the pilot to his house. Most reluctantly was the invitation accepted, but a manifestation of courage was deemed necessary. When the guest entered the dwelling and saw the walls of each room completely covered with guns, pistols, hatchets, cutlasses, and harpoons, his fears were excited to the highest degree. Gamache observed all this, but only enjoyed the stranger’s consternation. A smoking supper was spread upon the table, but even the mooselip and the beaver’s tail were only enjoyed by one of the party—the nerves of the other quivered with excitement, and his thoughts were bent upon the tale that would be told respecting his fate. He made a display of gaiety; when the evening was waxing late, he arose to depart, and with manifold expressions of thankfulness offered his hand to the host. “No, no! my friend,” said Gamache, “you must not leave here; the sea is rough, and the night is cold and wet, and you cannot leave the bay. I have a comfortable bed up-stairs, and to-morrow you may go—if still alive.” The last words sounded like a knell, and up into the chamber of death, as he supposed, ascended the pilot. “You may sleep,” continued Gamache, as he handed his guest a lamp, “as long and soundly as you can; your bed is soft, for it is made of the down of birds I myself have killed, for I am a good shot, and never miss my game.” For a while the pilot-guest found it impossible to quiet his nerves or to obtain any sleep; but nature finally gave way and he fell into a doze, which was anything but refreshing. As the clock struck twelve he was startled by a noise, and on opening his eyes, there stood Gamache by the bed-side with a candle in one hand and a gun in the other. “I see you are awake,” said he, “but why so very pale? You have heard, undoubtedly, that I am in the habit of murdering everybody who tarries in my house, and”—hanging the gun upon two wooden pegs—“I have come to give you a settler for the night.” With this remark he displayed a bottle of brandy and a tumbler, and after drinking the health of the pilot, handed him the glass, and continued: “There, take a good pull, it will make you sleep soundly, and if Gamache comes to attack you during the night, you can defend yourself with the loaded gun hanging over your head.” And thus the joke ended. When morning came the storm had disappeared, and the pilot and his host were quite as happy as the day was bright.
And thus was it, as the mood came upon him, that Gamache endeavoured to relieve the monotony of his self-inflicted exile. His afflictions seemed to have changed his character; though certainly without guile, a kind of passion for doing out-of-the-way things followed him to the close of his life, and gave him the unenviable reputation he possessed. But he died in 1854 from the effects of exposure to the cold, and the pleasant bay which bears his name is about the only memorial he has left behind.
And now for a few authentic particulars respecting the history and general character of the island of Anticosti, as developed by recent explorations. It was discovered by Jacques Cartier in 1534, and named by him “Assomption;” in 1542 the pilot Jean Alphonse called it “Ascension Island;” and by the Indians it was called Naticostec, from one of its own rivers, which name the French transformed into Anticosti. The island originally formed a part of Labrador; it was conceded in 1680 to Louis Joliet for his services in discovering the Mississippi river, and he lived upon it with his family while pursuing the fur trade: it was confiscated by the British when they came into power, and was re-annexed to Canada in 1825; but in 1860 became the private property of two families residing in Canada and England. It is about one hundred and twenty miles long by thirty wide, and its estimated area is two million five hundred acres. A large part of its coast has a belt of limestone reefs, that are dry when the tide is low. The southern shore is generally low, and while near the water there is a dense and impenetrable mass of drifted trees and timber, extending for many miles, the immediate interior of the island has a peat plain, two miles wide and eighty miles in length, which is said to be the most extensive one in Canada. On the northern shore there are hills and cliffs that attain an elevation of four or five hundred feet,—a mountain named Macastey being a conspicuous object from a great distance, while many of the cliffs, as they loom above the thundering surf, are exceedingly grand and picturesque. The forest land is abundant, consisting of spruce, pine, birch, and fir; but the trees are commonly small, and even dwarfish, and, according to Bayfield, the stunted spruce trees are so closely together in some places, that a man may walk for a considerable distance on their summits! Some of the trees, however, reach the height of eighty feet. Very much of its soil is fertile and susceptible of cultivation. The only attempts at cultivation that have been made, and these have been mostly futile, are at the Bay of Gamache and Fox Bay, and at the lighthouses on South West Point, West End, and Heath Point. The leading agricultural productions are potatoes, oats, and barley; fruit-growing trees and shrubs are quite plentiful, but one of the most valuable natural productions is a kind of wild pea growing along the shores of the ocean. The principal rivers are the Salmon, the Jupiter, the Otter, the Pavilion, the Fox, and the Chaloupe; and all the streams as well as the lakes, which are numerous, are said to swarm with salmon, salmon trout, and trout; and the wild animals are the bear, the black, red, and silver fox, and the marten. In the bays and more sheltered parts of the coast seals are extremely abundant. Besides the harbour named for Gamache, but originally called Ellis Bay, there is a harbour at Fox Bay, but neither of them would shelter vessels of more than five hundred tons burthen. The total population of the island is only about one hundred. But desolate and inhospitable as Anticosti is now, the time should come, and probably will come, when its natural resources will be developed for the benefit of an extensive maritime population.
Having been born on the very margin of the continuous woods, the dear old woods, and been somewhat of a wanderer among them in my earlier and later years, I propose to have a quiet talk about them with those who can appreciate their manifold influences. While endeavouring to communicate a certain amount of information, I shall speak more as a lover of nature and the picturesque than as a student of science. The subject is fruitful in more senses than one, and as the forests of the United States, in their variety and extent, are unsurpassed by those of any other country, it will be my own fault if I cannot entertain my readers for a short time with a few personal recollections. Before proceeding, however, a single remark on the woodlands of the country in regard to growth may be acceptable. The woody species of our flora number about eight hundred; of these, three hundred grow to the size of trees, one hundred and twenty attain a considerable size, twenty reach the height of one hundred feet, twelve over two hundred feet, and five or six about three hundred feet. The forests of the Far West are almost entirely coniferous; and the hard-wood forests are chiefly found in the central portions of the United States.
I begin my remarks with the pine forests of Maine. Their extent can only be realised by fixing the mind upon the whole northern half of the State, which they cover with their sombre green, and by remembering the fact that no less than four splendid rivers have their birth in this great wilderness—the St Croix, the Penobscot, the Kennebec, and the Androscoggin. According to such figures as I have been able to collect, the number of saw-mills and other lumbering machines in operation on the above rivers, just before the rebellion, was nearly nine hundred, the number of men employed about seventeen thousand, and of horses and oxen perhaps ten thousand; while the towns which are, to a great extent, supported by the lumbering business are Calais, Bangor, Augusta, and Brunswick, as well as Portland. The predominating tree in the wilderness under consideration, as is the case in Minnesota and Wisconsin, is the white pine, but the hemlock, the fir, and the spruce are also abundant in all its borders. It is said that fifty years ago specimens of the pine were found in Maine which attained the height of more than two hundred feet, but in these times it is but seldom that we find a tree exceeding one hundred and fifty feet in length. The grand old monarchs of the land would seem to have perished with grief on beholding the ravages of man; for it is to the selfishness of this superior animal that so many portions of our country are to-day without the beautiful and useful streams which they once possessed. But there is an aristocracy existing in these woods at the present day, for it has been observed that there are different classes of trees—families of nobility clustering together in one place—while the more plebeian varieties congregate in communities by themselves. Were it not for the changing seasons and its living creatures, the monotony of this forest scenery would be well-nigh unbearable; but summer fills every sunny nook with its bright flowers, and winter scatters everywhere the fantastic creations of the frost and snow. It is in these solitudes that the bold and hardy Penobscot Indian hunter tracks the moose and the deer, fights the bear in his den, decoys the grey wolf, and sets his traps for the wild cat and mink, the marten, the sable, and the beaver; and if, in the most genial seasons, there should be found a scarcity of birds, you can never fail to hear the plaintive whistle of the Canada-bird, or Muscicapa of scientific dreamers. In the valley of the Potomac this favourite bird of ours is the very first harbinger of spring, coming from the South even before the blue-bird; and when heard there late in autumn, you may be sure that winter has asserted his empire on the Northern frontiers. I have heard it in the pine forests of Florida, among the mountains of Carolina and Tennessee, along the glorious rivers of New Brunswick, Canada, and a part of Labrador, but never with more pleasure than in the forests of Maine. When away from home, it always carries us back in fancy to the region where our lot is cast, and to our friends; and when at home it reminds us of far-off places and other friends linked with happy recollections. Its whole life, it seems to us, is devoted to singing, in a kind of monotone, about the joys of the wilderness.
Of permanent human inhabitants the forests of Maine can boast of but a small supply; but for about nine months in the year the hardy lumbermen, consisting of explorers and choppers, of swampers or road-cutters and teamsters, make their dim, interminable aisles alive and cheery with their presence and manifold employments. In the autumn, small parties, equipped like trappers, go up the rivers in canoes and locate the lands which are to be grappled with in winter; and when winter comes the great majority, with their oxen and axes, their salt pork and flour, migrate to the selected grounds, and after housing themselves and their cattle in cabins half-covered with snow, they proceed to the work of extermination; and when the spring arrives, down to the tributary streams do they drag their logs; and when the first great thaw arrives, away they go down the larger rivers, driving the produce of their toil through lakes and lakelets and over waterfalls, with many a wild and wayward shout, until they reach the “booms” where they would be; and then for home and their happy families nearer the sea. All this for money? Most true. But where will you find better specimens of true manhood than among these lumbermen? And as for poetry and romance, where can we find their equal among the labourers for hire in any land but ours? Fancy the heart-bursts of true patriotism and the wild stories told by the side of their watch fires: the hoot of the great white owl at midnight in those dim solitudes; the white moonlight on the still whiter snow; the ringing cadences of the frost; the wolf prowling for food around the sleeping camps; the cave-like forest pictured against the cold blue sky; the terrible storms of sleet and hail; and then the thousand dreams of wives and children sleeping in their distant and peaceful homes.
The continuousness of the Maine woods, taken in connection with their extent, is one of their most impressive features. Unless there were something to relieve their monotony, a sensitive man could never have journeyed from one extremity to another without becoming a personification of gloom; but behold with what exquisite taste and skill Nature interposes her relief! She plants old Moosehead near the centre of the great forest, and scatters a thousand smaller gems of purest water on every side; bids a few mountain peaks rise up as watch-towers against the northern sky; sends the most beautiful rivers like flashes of light in every direction singing to the sea; and in a few localities spreads out those wonderful fields which have been denominated “oceans of moss,” sometimes several feet in thickness, and in one instance covering a space of many miles. But more than this: around the lakes and along the water-courses are permitted to grow as great a variety of the more delicate and graceful trees as the climate will allow, with shrubs and vines and flowers innumerable. All this is the workmanship of Nature; but it is man who marks the earth with ruin, and, not content with robbing the old forests of their giant treasures, he sometimes sets them on fire for his amusement or by accident, and thus come into existence the desolate burnt districts to take the places of trees once valuable and grand and beautiful.
The last object that the wide-awake tourist beholds on leaving the great wilderness of Maine is Mount Katahdin; and that reminds us of the mountain forests of the Northern and Southern States. The representative peaks of the North are Katahdin, Mount Washington, the Camel’s Hump, Tahawus, and High Peak; and around all these are to be found the hemlock and spruce, the cedar and fir, the maple, the ash, the elm, and the birch, in such numbers and variety and beauty as to bewilder the mind. The declivities up which travellers climb oftentimes frown upon them as if to warn them of coming danger, but the tough and rugged trees plant their roots in the rocky fissures and hold on with heroic fortitude; nor do they cease their persevering efforts, while apparently changing places at each zone, until, robbed of their luxuriance, and reduced to mere bushes by the savage winds and by the cold, they peep out from their hiding-places only to behold the stupendous fields of granite desolation, thousands of feet above the sea, shrouded in fogs or bounded by the sky. Inaccessible, for the most part, as are these Northern forests, the enterprise of man has been such as to penetrate their hidden depths for his advantage, and plunder them of their wealth. In ancient times a man was famous according as he had lifted up axes upon the thick trees, but in this country we have had more than our share of these famous citizens. In Maine, selfish man robs them of their stately leaders; in New Hampshire, he builds fairy-like palaces, and invites the world to come there and be happy; in Vermont, he gashes the maple trees and compels them to yield up, for his enjoyment, the sweetness of their lives; and in New York, he hammers out of their mountain sides, in their lonely retreats, the valuable iron ore, and meanly strips the hemlock of its shaggy bark, and leaves it to perish ingloriously upon the hills.
Passing from the North to the South, we behold in fancy, looming against warmer skies, the magnificent domes of Black Mountain, Trail Mountain, the Roan, the Grandfather, and the Smoky Mountains. In the forests of this alpine land, the yellow pine and the chestnut oak contend for the supremacy, but as they are not commonly matted together by any undergrowth, they gain in cathedral-like effects where they lose in real grandeur. Like the men of an army, they ascend the gently-sloping mountain sides in regular order, but, unlike their Northern brothers, they have no fondness for the airy summits. And it is here that the rhododendron and the kalmia display their elegant flowers in the greatest perfection, and the sweet-scented shrub fills the air with its strawberry perfume. Throughout the length and breadth of these forests, cattle graze unmolested all the year round, and as the summits of the mountains are usually covered with waving grass or sward, the herdsmen upon horses, with immense droves of cattle, as sometimes pictured against the illimitable distance or the sky, produce an effect grand and beautiful beyond compare.
If the moose and the wolf and the bear stumble along the Northern mountains, here we have the red deer, faring sumptuously in parks fresh from the hand of Nature; and in laurel thickets that remind us of the jungles of the East, we have the great red panther in his very prime. If, in the North, the sad wild note of the loon, as he floats hermit-like on his native lake, “searches through the listening wilderness,” here, in the South, on the mountains and in the valleys, we have the singing of the mocking-bird, that “glorious mocker of the world.” Surmount the forests of the North, and you may look down upon beautiful lakes without number, and hear the roaring of many waterfalls; do the same in the South, and you will, by way of compensation, enjoy a more genial climate and the spectacle of many rivers flowing gradually and solemnly, to all appearance, to the sky, but in reality to the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico.
As something gathered from the past, I now propose to speak of the forest of the Black Swamp. This somewhat famous locality extends towards the south from Maumee in Ohio, a distance of twenty miles, and has a general breadth of fifteen miles. When in its primitive condition it was only the home of wild beasts and of reptiles, a favourite hunting-ground for the Indian; and to the white man who first saw it, it was apparently as impassable as the home of the lost. The trees which predominated in this forest were two or three varieties of the oak and the ash, with many maples, and a sprinkling of those other trees—the buckeye, the white walnut, and poplar—peculiar to the bottom-lands of the Ohio valley or basin of Lake Erie. The trees had their roots in a soil that was black as ink, and to a great extent submerged in water; they grew closely together, and rose to the height, in a solid mass, of well-nigh one hundred and seventy feet, forming a world of solid columns that would have put the builders of Baalbec to the blush, and joining their tops together, by way of shutting out the sunlight and increasing the gloom and solitude. In 1808 the Government obtained the privilege, by treaty, from the Indians, of building a road through this section of country, but nothing was done until 1823, when the lands were granted to the State of Ohio on condition that it should build the road, which was soon afterwards accomplished.
During the war of 1812 this forest became a famous hiding-place for the hostile Indians, and was a great obstacle in the way of the American troops; and it was then that it received the designation of the Black Swamp. The difficulties which our troops experienced in crossing this region—which, from the geographical location, was a necessity—were enormous; for a hundred men to bivouac on the trunks of two or three trees was a common occurrence; and of the pack-horses employed to carry supplies, it has been estimated that not one-half of those that entered the forest ever came out alive. Respecting the road that was subsequently made here, the cost of it, in money and trouble, was very great, and when completed it was for many years a bugbear to all comfort-loving travellers. I passed over it in a mail-coach, on a cold winter night more than thirty years ago, and the impressions of gloom and desolation then made upon me by the forest have never been forgotten. To-day, a railroad crosses the northern part of the Black Swamp, but not one traveller in a hundred ever dreams of what it was in the olden times.
When the Black Swamp lands were brought into market, they were taken up almost exclusively by Germans and Hollanders. They erected their houses immediately on the road, forming them of very heavy frames filled in with mortar and straw, thereby affording ample protection from the cold and from hurricanes, and each man had his sign out as a tavern-keeper; but while the stage-coach people and travellers were chiefly attended to by the children of the household, the fathers and mothers and big brothers devoted all their time to chopping, girdling trees, and burning the brushwood, and thus they toiled and toiled for many years. When they settled there, the lands they occupied were purchased for a song, and those residing in the hill-country not many miles away were looked upon with envy; to-day, the lands in question are held at one hundred dollars per acre, and are acknowledged to be unsurpassed in fertility by any others on the globe; and handsome residences and magnificent farms have usurped the entire region of the Black Swamp.
Leaving the borders of Lake Erie, which some early writer has compared in general appearance with the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, let us in fancy visit the live-oak forests of Florida. They constitute one of the most peculiar and interesting features of the Peninsular State; and though by no means as extensive as they formerly were, they are still attractive and valuable. By the people of Florida they are called “Hummocks,” abound in various parts of the State, and appear like islands interspersed in the extensive “pine barrens.” The trees grow to a great size, are peculiar for the number of their limbs, and for being free from astringent acids; and having congregated into a colony, other trees of various kinds seem to have gathered around them for protection; and as they all stand with branches interlocked, the oaks wave their magnificent grey mosses against the sky, while jessamines and other vines in wonderful profusion spread themselves into fantastic festoons and fill the surrounding air with a grateful fragrance. The birds are also very numerous, and, vying with each other in their sweet singing, inspire the heart of the listener with delight; and as he passes out into the barren woods, now more barren than before, he feels that he has had a glimpse, at least, of a scene allied to Paradise. Ever since the business of shipbuilding was commenced in this country, the live-oak has been sought after with great avidity, and when the American Government acquired the territory of Florida, it took exclusive possession of the oak forests within the boundaries of the public domain, and gave existence to a stalwart class of men long known as “live-oakers.” In doing this it only imitated the British Government, which, before the Declaration of Independence, was in the habit of gathering masts from the forests of New Hampshire. The live-oakers were invariably natives of the Eastern or Middle States, and their business was to cut down the trees and prepare the precious timber for the national and private shipbuilders; and several of the huge frigates which took part in the late rebellion had their bulwarks built of Florida oak. The live-oakers usually spent about four months in the South, or all the winter season, for that was the time for cutting, when the sap was down; and as they were liberally paid for their services, they were generally able to spend the summer in comfort with their families in the North. When at work they lived in rude shanties, and with good flour and pork, and the game which they found abundant everywhere, as well as a supply of whisky, they managed to “worry” through the winter without grumbling. Indeed, they enjoyed their free and wild life, and were proud of their employment. Oftentimes they were wont to talk in a boastful and yet loving and pathetic manner of the magnificent oaks that they had brought down to the dust, many of which had battled with hurricanes long before the name of Columbus was known. The traveller of to-day, while passing through these forests, will be astonished to find his pathway impeded by the great graves of the slain, which the mosses have covered with a pall of their own, and, wondering why so much timber has been wasted, will be told that those neglected trees had been found, when freshly cut, in a state of incipient decay. A disease called the white rot frequently attacked the bark and penetrated to the heart, thereby rendering the timber useless for the building of ships. The live-oaks at present towering in their pride are few and far between, excepting in districts where they are quite inaccessible, and it is probably true that a larger amount of their timber is now hoarded in our navy-yards than could be found uncut in the whole of Florida. Occasional specimens of the true live-oak may be discovered still standing in Lower Alabama and Mississippi, but the only splendid grove now existing is that at Bonniventure, near Savannah in Georgia; and it was while on my way to visit that famous place that I sketched an isolated specimen on the Habersham plantation, which measured 150 feet between the extremity of its branches.
I now come to speak of the maple forests of our country. The associations and recollections connected with them are so numerous and interesting that the mind is bewildered in trying to dispose of them in a single brief paragraph. With the more prominent varieties of the oak and the pine we associate everything that is noble and strong and imposing, but, generally speaking, we are not enthusiastic in our love of the less important members of the family; but this is not so with the maple. The head of this family, as well as all its kindred, we admire and love—the towering tree which freely yields its juices or life-blood for our enjoyment, as well as the more slender varieties which are distinguished for the gracefulness of their limbs and the beauty of their leaves. The maple tree, of which there are ten different species in this country, is found in all the States of the Union from Maine to Louisiana, and, as near as can be ascertained, the present annual supply of sugar from all the forests combined is not far from forty millions of pounds, with perhaps two millions of gallons of the delicious maple syrup. The State which takes the lead in this manufacture is New York, and then come Vermont, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, and so on to the bottom of the list. I can remember the time when the only maple sugar made in this country was made by the Indians, and brought to the fur-trading settlements in “mocucks,” or by the Canadian French; it was not long, however, before the Northern and Western pioneers and emigrants began to manufacture it for family use; but now, as already shown, it has become an important article of commerce. An Indian sugar-camp at night in the olden times presented a most romantic scene, with its huge fires, its lounging warriors, its hard-working squaws, its squalling papooses, its howling and sneaking dogs, its smells of roasting venison, and its hilarious mirth, as well as the drumming of the magicians calling upon the maple sap to run free; but in these latter days the white man goes into the forest with his assistants, and with a single eye to the making of money he draws the sap, and boils it down to sugar, with about as much apparent happiness as he would butcher his pigs. It is asserted by Charlevoix that the aborigines were not acquainted with the art of making maple sugar, but that they were taught it by the first French settlers in North America, and only employed the sap as a wholesome beverage, though they sometimes went so far as to take it heated to a syrup. With regard to the value of our maple forests on account of their wood, very much might be said, and some varieties, on the score of usefulness, are equal to the best of foreign woods; but it is not for their profitableness alone that we esteem them. For the part they play in the scenery of our country they merit the affection of every American; and as the summer rainbows span the heavens with their glories, so do the maple forests in autumn surround with a golden and crimson zone of their own the hills and the mountains which they love.
As the maple in the Northern States gives up its vital juices for the benefit of man, so also do the yellow and pitch pine in the South. The forests composed of these two varieties are found from one extremity of the Gulf States to the other, as well as in North Carolina and the neighbouring States. Though varying in their characteristics according to locality, it may be said of them generally that they spring from a level and sandy soil—that the trees grow taller and less compactly than the white pine of the North, and beneath them, instead of a dense undergrowth of thickets, there is a luxuriant bed of grass, with a mixture of low bushes and sword-palmettos. In North Carolina they give employment to a large number of its inhabitants engaged in the manufacture of tar, pitch, and turpentine; in the southern part of Mississippi the better trees are greatly coveted for the making of masts for our “great admirals;” on all the rivers navigated by steamboats, the wood of the fat pine is the favourite fuel; and in Florida, where these forests are most abundant perhaps, they are called “pine barrens,” and have not as yet been employed for any of the commercial purposes to which they are adapted. Everywhere among these woods the domestic cattle are turned out to pasture, where they fatten and multiply and flourish, demanding no other care during the whole year than to be occasionally collected and counted by their owners. In all of them there is always to be found an abundance of game, including the deer and turkey, the bear, the opossum, raccoon, rabbit, grey fox, squirrel, and occasionally the panther, with quails in countless numbers. The streams which flow among them are generally dark in colour, but limpid, and form a most striking contrast to the white sand which forms their bed; and on account of their healthfulness the planters usually build their houses in convenient groves, where the air is perpetually loaded with their refreshing perfume. The roads which run through these forests are commonly good, but, unless the traveller has an agreeable companion, he will welcome the rudest cabin with delight at the sunset hour, and will be likely to tell you that during his drive of fifty miles he has seen nothing under the heavens but pine trees and little streams, waving grass and pine trees. And yet, let the lover of the picturesque go into a Carolina pine forest, where a hundred negroes are making turpentine, and he will find much to interest him and amuse; and should he pass one of these localities at night, he would be apt to imagine that the very world was on fire. In the Gulf States, generally, the sportsman may always have his tastes gratified to the fullest extent; and in the pine woods of Florida especially, the naturalist will find enough to keep him busy by investigating its subterranean streams and the secrets of the “sinks” which abound in various districts, and in studying the ways of the salamander rat, which everywhere builds its little home.
But if the “pine barrens” are monotonous and destitute of imposing characteristics, such is surely not the case with the cypress forests or swamps of the Southern States. The area of a belt one hundred miles wide lying along the Gulf of Mexico is perhaps about equally divided between the two varieties of forest just mentioned, but, so far as their effect upon the mind is concerned, the cypress swamps are unequalled, we fancy, by anything of the kind out of the Brazils or Hindustan. The American cypress is a different species from that which has acquired a mournful celebrity in Europe. It is more stupendous in size, growing out of a submerged soil, rearing its cone-shaped form to the height of two hundred feet, at the top of which it spreads great masses of horizontal branches, dense and fragrant. It delights to wrap itself in the heavy and hoary robes of flowing moss, which seems to vie with the cypress in growth, the one stretching aspiringly up, and the other mournfully down, as if finding solace in the companionship of the giant trees. If it be true that many of them have been growing for a thousand years or more, their grandeur, as some traveller has asserted, becomes a demoniac power. In the deeper waters which sluggishly wind about these swamps, in “wildering mazes lost,” among the overhanging palmetto and juniper thickets, the alligator eats and sleeps his horrid life away; the water-moccasin and the mammoth rattlesnake crawl up and coil themselves upon the fallen and decaying trees; while upon the cone-shaped suckers of the cypress, which rise out of the water to the height of from one to ten feet, the heron and crane and other aquatic birds sit and watch for their fishy or reptile prey. So closely matted is the foliage on the horizontal limbs far above that there is a twilight gloom in these forests even when the sun is brightly shining; and as you pass along in a rude canoe, you may see a vine big as the cable of a ship sweeping up like a serpent into the top of a great cypress, as if to take its life, while another will dart across from limb to limb as if pursuing a phantom bird, and others will come gracefully bending down to within your reach, as if tempting you to make a leap and swing yourself to sleep. At times a mouldy and oppressive odour, born of the rotting trees and the rank green mosses which cover them, pervades the entire atmosphere; but near by you find a cluster of magnolia trees in full bloom, and as you approach you will be quite overpowered by their intense fragrance, placed there, it may be, by the kindly hand of Nature as an antidote to the odours just inhaled. But the deepest impressions are those of grandeur and gloom; and when you gaze upon the marvellously beautiful flowers which hang in festoons on every side, they have a kind of spectral hue, and seem to implore you to carry them away from the surrounding desolation.
To witness the most extensive cypress forest in the South, the traveller has only to keep his eyes open while passing down the Lower Alabama. Here the country is a dead level for one or two hundred miles, the woods forming a dark and almost solid wall on either side of the river, fringed at the base by a line of jungle or cane-brake, with nothing to relieve the intense monotony but the wild-fowl which cover the waters, the columns of smoke from invisible steamboats (hidden by the bends in the river), and the rude cabins, at distant intervals, of the wood-choppers or hunters. A sail down the Alabama on a still but cloudy night, when no sounds are heard but the rumbling of the passing steamer and the scream of the bittern, is well calculated to give the thoughtful tourist a new sensation, if not some new ideas; and should he happen to approach Mobile in the midst of a brilliant sunset, as I once did, when the boundless sea of woods partook of the golden and crimson dyes of the sky, he will be apt to fancy that the gloom of his sail down the river was but a dream.
The general description given of the cypress swamps will answer very well for any particular locality, for there is a great sameness in them; but if called upon to designate some favourite specimens, I should mention those of the Pascagoula and the Great Pedee, the borders of the great Okefinokee Swamp, the Dismal Swamp of Virginia, and one or two in Louisiana, where the magnificent cotton-wood disputes the supremacy with the cypress. But there is one spot in Florida where the Spirit of Beauty has made a successful effort to thwart the depressing influences of the cypress; and that is at the head of the Wakulla river, where may be found, completely surrounded by a cypress forest, the most beautiful fountain in the world, undoubtedly—four hundred feet in width, one hundred and fifty feet deep, and so perfectly pure that a penny, on a still day, may be seen on its white bottom, where the alligator and many varieties of fish live and multiply, while all around its shores aquatic birds without number seem to enjoy a perennial elysium.
But it is time that we should be “coming out of the wilderness.” We might give a general account of the cotton-wood forests of the Lower Mississippi, and notice some of the wonderful doings of that river in submerging that whole region of country; and also touch upon the bottom-land forests of the Central Mississippi and the Illinois, both of which we have explored; and it would afford us pleasure to descant upon the lordly pasture-oaks of Massachusetts, the American and English elms of Connecticut, New Hampshire, and New York, and by way of variety tell what we know of the larch or tamarack swamps on the borders of Lake Superior. Before concluding our Forest Recollections, however, we must pay a passing tribute to the woods of Michigan. I claim for this State at least one kind of forest which was not found in the same kind of perfection in any other State. I mean its beautiful oak-openings. Even when the country was a wilderness, they had all the appearance of being cultivated, and hence the peculiar pleasure which they afforded to the toiling exiles from the Eastern States. The trees were not large, but picturesque in form; and scattered as they were over a rolling country covered with grass and without any undergrowth, beaten roads were not a necessity; so that horsemen, as well as the wagons of the pioneers, were free to roam wherever fancy led. Alternating as they did with small prairies and lakes of great beauty, their influences upon the traveller were altogether cheerful; and when overtaken by the tide of civilisation, the log-cabins first erected among them became the most agreeable little homes in the world, and it was a long time before the deer and the turkey would consent to abandon their sunny feeding-lands. These oak-openings invited the emigrant to stop and pitch his tent under their cooling shadows, and, if they did not grant him the richest soil to be found, thus lessened his labours as a husbandman. So much for the past, but on opening our eyes to the realities of the present, when the autumnal sun is shining, we behold this region of country, for the most part, waving with wheat and corn, and the cooing of the dove or the song of the whip-poor-will superseded by the whistle of the savage locomotive. Kindred changes have also taken place in the heavily-timbered districts of Michigan and the adjoining States on the south. The forests which covered this whole region, taken in the aggregate, were formerly unsurpassed in their grandeur and beauty, their variety and usefulness. All the trees which sprung from the black mould of this wilderness attained to the most complete perfection: the black walnut contested with the foreign mahogany in beautifying the abodes of the wealthy; the white oak, as well as the black, the yellow and burr-oak, joined the live-oak in making the most perfect ships; the hickory threw down for all who would gather them its delectable nuts; the maple yielded its stores of sugar in defiance of the cane of the South; the white poplar, the sycamore, the linn, and basswood, allowed themselves to be formed into huge canoes, whereby the pioneers might navigate the streams; and with them all, each with its useful mission, grew in abundance the elm, the ash, and the beech, the buckeye and the butternut, while mammoth grape-vines and the mistletoe did their best to make them beautiful. And with what a variety of sports were they associated. Here the red deer was blinded by the cruel flambeau: the bear was smoked out of his hiding-place in the hollow tree; the wolf was baited and slaughtered in spite of his howling; the black and grey squirrels were “barked” off the trees by the thousand; the wild turkeys were followed to their high roosts at midnight and picked off with the unerring rifle; and when the wild pigeons commenced their annual migrations, there was great glee among the urchins of the land, who were wont to kill them with common clubs, until what began as sport ended as mere labour. Nor should we omit in this list the fascinating hunt after the honey of the wild bee. Fruitful and grand as were these primeval forests of the West, there were times when they became impotent under the superior forces of fire and the hurricane. I have seen them on an autumnal night, after a long drought, when every tree seemed a column of solid fire, and sheets of flames swept shrieking into the upper air, the wild beasts fleeing for their lives, and puny man wondering what would be the end of the great calamity. And when came the summer hurricane, clearing a direct pathway across the solid woods, breaking and twisting and laying low upon the earth the most gigantic trees, the spectacle was marvellous to behold, inspiring terror in the stoutest heart, and proclaiming in thunder-tones the existence of a ruling and omnipotent Power.
The foregoing bird’s-eye view of the forests we have seen does not, we regret to say, comprise the great pine and red-wood of California and Oregon: of them we can only repeat what the travellers tell us,—that they are the wonder of the world. We now invite our readers to join us in a retrospective view of our extensive and superb country as it appears to the mind’s eye in the light of the olden times.
When white men first landed upon our shores, they found shelter from the summer’s heat and the winter’s cold in forests whose very shadows at the sunset hours mingled with the surges of the Atlantic. Far as their visions could penetrate they beheld a wilderness of woods, and they were deeply impressed with the imposing aspects of Nature as she revealed the wonders of her luxuriance; and, though undiscovered and unexplored, there then existed an almost boundless domain of forest. Excepting one single but truly extensive section of prairie or desert land, lying westward of the centre, the country was then all forest, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, and from Lake Superior and its daughter seas to the Gulf of Mexico. Our country was then an empire of monarchs, throned upon a thousand mountains and in a thousand valleys, and their diadems of luxuriant green, leafy and fragrant, were oftentimes bathed in the clouds of heaven, and burnished to surpassing brilliancy by the sunbeams. The forests which then existed were well-nigh as aged as the world itself—primeval in all their features. Like the antediluvians, the trees which composed them were buffeted by the storms of centuries, but remained virtually uninjured and unchanged; they were, in truth, the emblems of superior might and power. Indeed, then as now, only a portion of them were subject to the destroying and regenerating influences of the seasons; for, while the forests of the South were bright with a perpetually verdant foliage and extensively laden with fruit, the evergreens of the North afforded a comfortable shelter from the snows and winds to the human and subordinate denizens of the wilderness-world. Aside, too, from their immense extent, their magnificence and strength, these forests were remarkable for their density, since we have every reason to believe that but for the intervening streams they presented continuous fields of foliage, receding to the four corners of the horizon. Hence the gloom and solitude which ever pervaded their recesses. And when we think of them brooding under the pall of night, in the mellow light of the moon and stars, or swaying to and fro, and moaning, as it were, under the influences of summer and winter storms, we become impressed with emotions that are truly sublime.
And as we turn from the remote past, and come down to recent times, how are we impressed with the numerous revealings of science in connection with the forest world! But even those revealings are involved in mystery. For example, the fact is known to all that when a primeval forest has been destroyed, and the land is left undisturbed, a new and totally different growth of trees takes the place of the old. In the place of the pine come the oak and the chestnut, although the latter may never before have been known in that particular region. Where formerly deciduous trees grew and flourished, we now find nothing but members of the cedar family; and so on with many other varieties of trees. To my mind the natural history of this country does not possess any more interesting and wonderful phenomena.
But there was also much of the beautiful and the peaceful associated with the forests of the olden times. How could it have been otherwise, since it is evermore the province and the delight of our mother Nature to fill the hearts of her children with love rather than with terror and awe? Flowers of loveliest hue and sweetest fragrance nestled in countless numbers around the serpent roots of every patriarchal tree; vines of every size and every shade of emerald encircled with their delicate tendrils the trees which they had been taught to love; and when the lightning chanced to make a breach in the continuous woods, these vines ventured boldly into the sunshine and linked together the adjacent masses of foliage; and everywhere were the rank and damp but velvety mosses clinging to the upright trees, and battening upon those which were fallen and going to decay, and covering, as with a mantle, every rock and stony fragment within their reach. And there, too, were the streams which watered this great forest-world, sometimes miles in width and thousands of miles in length, and sometimes of such limited dimensions as only to afford bathing-places for the wild-fowl and her brood. But they were all beautiful, for their waters were translucent to a degree that we seldom witness in these days, and their chief enjoyment was to mirror the flowers and drooping boughs that fringed their borders, as well as the skies which bent over a land of uninterrupted peace. And throughout the length and breadth of this great silvan domain was perpetually heard the singing of unnumbered birds, which built their nests wherever they listed, while none were there to molest or make them afraid. Of four-footed creatures, too, the primeval forests harboured immense numbers, like the forest trees themselves, they flourished and multiplied, and with them, with the birds, the streams, the flowers, and the combined magnificence of Nature, they performed their secret ministry of good for the benefit of the aborigines who had inherited this matchless wilderness directly from the all-wise Creator.
And what were the human figures which naturally made their appearance in the picture we have drawn? The smoke from Indian wigwams arose from unnumbered valleys and the sides of unnumbered mountains; and as the products of the forest trees were more than sufficient to gratify every necessity, the aborigines had nothing to do but pursue the even tenor of their lives in contentment and peace. For shelter, when the woods themselves did not suffice, they resorted to their rude bark wigwams; for food, to the simple arts of the chase and the fruits of the land; for clothing, to the skins of captured animals; for religion, to the Great Spirit whom they beheld in the elements, the heavens and the revolving seasons; and for unalloyed happiness to the Spirit of Freedom which canopied their forest home. But, alas! like the aborigines, the glorious forests of America are rapidly passing away, withering year by year from off the face of the earth; and while we would implore the devotees of Mammon to spare, as far as possible, the beauties of our forest land, we would repeat the appeal to Providence of the forest-loving Bryant, when he says that, for many years to come,
“Be it ours to meditate
In these calm shades Thy milder majesty,
And to the beautiful order of Thy works
Learn to conform the order of our lives.”
“That’s a ship from Desolation, and she’s full of elephant oil!” The words were spoken by an old skipper, with whom the writer had been upon a fishing cruise in Long Island Sound, and they were prompted by the sight of a storm-beaten vessel passing into the beautiful harbour of New London. The return of the ship after a long voyage I could readily understand, but the place and the commodity alluded to were to me involved in mystery. The brief explanation which followed from the skipper only tended to increase my interest in his casual remark; nor was it lessened when he told me that the Desolation Islands were more nearly identified with New London than with any other seaport in the country. In a short time, therefore, after my return from fishing, I was busy among the ancient mariners of the town, asking them questions, and recording their replies.
In the South Atlantic or Indian Ocean, about midway between the Cape of Good Hope and the western coast of Australia, are located two islands, lonely and inhospitable, and nearly three thousand miles from the nearest continent. One of them bears the name of Kerguelen’s Land, and the other that of Heard’s Island; and although not very near neighbours, they are known to the men “who go down to the sea in ships,” as the Desolation Islands. The first mentioned of these was discovered by a lieutenant in the French navy, named Kerguelen, in 1772, and for his service he was promoted to the command of a frigate. He re-visited the new land in 1773, gave it the name of La Fortune, and reported to his Government that he had discovered a new continent, in which opinion he was of course mistaken. Its exact location is lat. 49 s., long. 70 e. In 1777 the famous navigator Cook, by direction of the English Government, also visited this island; he gave its principal bays and headlands the names which they have since borne; and he made the assertion that, if it had not already received the name of its discoverer, he would be inclined to call it the Land of Desolation. The other island to which we have alluded lies about one hundred and eighty miles south-east of Kerguelen’s Land, and although actually discovered by a Boston navigator named Heard in 1853, while on his way to Australia, the first man who set foot upon it was Captain E. Darwin Rogers, of New London; and the man who brought away from each of the two islands in question the first cargoes of oil, was Captain Franklin F. Smith, also of New London. The log-books and private journals of these men have been placed in my possession, as well as the journal of Captain Henry Rogers, who was one of a small party that first spent a winter upon Heard’s Island; and it is from these original records that the following facts have been chiefly compiled.
The most complete account of Kerguelen’s Land comes to me from Captain Smith, and a word or two about the man himself should not be omitted in this place. He was born in New London in 1804, and before completing his thirteenth year became a sailor in a coasting vessel. In 1822 he went upon a whaling voyage to Patagonia; and on being promoted to the command of a ship in 1831, he entered upon a series of voyages which have been pronounced the most successful in the annals of whaling. The names of his vessels were the “Florio,” “Julius Cæsar,” “Tuscarora,” and the “Chelsea;” and in the course of ten years he made nine voyages, the first seven of them yielding 16,154 barrels of whale oil, and 1147 barrels of sperm, the total value of which, according to present prices, and without counting extras, would amount to about six hundred and fifty thousand dollars. These voyages were made in behalf of N. and W. W. Billings, and of Williams and Haven. During four of them his wife accompanied him in his explorations around the globe; and his only daughter was born at sea, receiving the name of the ship in which the event occurred. He also had a number of sons, one of whom acquired distinction as a whaleman; and four brothers, who were all whale-hunters. One of them was killed while fighting one of the ocean monsters in the Pacific Ocean; and another was successful in the same sphere of enterprise. He made a number of voyages to Kerguelen’s Land, and, as already stated, he was the first American who brought any oil from that remote region in 1837; and now, reserving some other particulars about him for another place, I come to his description of the island.
It is about one hundred miles long, and perhaps sixty wide, and reputed to be the most barren spot in either hemisphere. It is of volcanic origin, rises in some places in terraces to the height of three thousand feet above the sea, with one pointed peak said to be nearly six thousand feet high; contains a number of lofty and picturesque headlands; is indented with bays or fiords, some of which nearly cross the island, and to the geologist it is especially interesting, as containing in its igneous formations a large amount of fossil wood and coal. Small rocky islands, to the number of three hundred, surround it on all sides; and yet it has several first-rate harbours. During the entire year, the higher lands are covered with ice and snow, which, with the fogs and winds, dispute the honour of making the place desolate in the extreme. The vegetation, which is very limited, is antarctic; and although scientific men have described one hundred and fifty species of plants, the ordinary observer would only be attracted by four—a kind of saxifrage, a plant resembling the cabbage, a variety of coarse grass, and a plant belonging to the cress family. As to trees, there is not one to be found, and it is not probable that any ever grew on the island. But the sea-weeds which fringe the shores of the entire island are particularly rich and rare, some of them growing to the enormous length of sixty feet. Of quadrupeds it is entirely destitute. In the way of birds, it is frequented by a few gulls, now and then by an albatross, and by penguins in the greatest abundance. In olden times, such portions of the coast as were accessible were frequented by several kinds of seals, and also by the sea-elephant; but they are now becoming scarce. There are no permanent inhabitants on the island; and since it has ceased, for the most part, to afford a profitable supply of oil, it is chiefly interesting to seafaring men in these latter days as a secure rendezvous when overtaken by foul weather in their lone wanderings around the globe. During the period when England enjoyed the monopoly of killing seals on this island for their furs alone, it was estimated that the yield was about one million skins per annum.
But it is of Heard’s Island that I desire especially to speak at present. It is about eighteen miles long, and perhaps six or seven wide; and, by right of discovery, is an American possession. For many years the merchants of New London cherished the belief that there was land somewhere south of Kerguelen’s Island, for in no other way could their captains account for the continuous supply of the sea-elephant on its shores. As long ago as 1849 Captain Thomas Long, then of the “Charles Carroll,” reported to the owners of his ship that he had seen land from the mast-head, while sailing south of Kerguelen’s Land; but Captain Heard has received the credit of the discovery, although he did not land upon the island. The man who first did this was Captain E. Darwin Rogers. He was on a cruise after sperm whale; his ship was the “Corinthian,” and he had three tenders; and his employers were Perkins and Smith—the same Smith already mentioned. Captain Rogers commemorated his success by an onslaught upon the sea-elephants, which he found very numerous on the shore; and after securing four hundred barrels of oil, improved the first opportunity to inform his employers of what he had done, urging them not only to keep the information secret, but to despatch another vessel to the newly-discovered island. When the news reached New London, Perkins and Smith were without a ship or a suitable captain for the enterprise. The second member of the firm had long before given up the sea, and was hoping to spend the remainder of his days at home in the quiet enjoyment of an ample fortune. But the temptation was strong, and he yielded. The firm purchased a ship at once, and the moment she was equipped, Captain Smith took command, and sailed for Heard’s Island. With Captain Darwin Rogers as his right-hand man he fully explored the island, named all its headlands and bays and other prominent features, made a map of it, and succeeded in filling all his vessels with oil. Two exploits which he performed with the assistance of his several crews, are worth mentioning. At one point, which he called the Seal Rookery, they slaughtered five hundred of these animals, and, as was afterwards found, thereby exterminated the race in that locality! and they performed the marvellous labour of rolling three thousand barrels of elephant oil a distance of three miles, across a neck of the island, from one shore to another where their vessels were anchored. The ship which he himself commanded returned in safety to New London with a cargo of oil valued at one hundred and thirty thousand dollars, one-half of which was his property. On reaching the dock he was warmly congratulated by his numerous friends; was informed that the books of his firm never told a better story than they did then, and that good news had been received from thirteen of their whale-ships, which were homeward bound from the Pacific and Arctic Seas. In addition to all this, he found that two farms which he owned had increased in value, and that the ten or twelve thousand dollars he had invested in erecting the Pequot House, since become famous as a summer resort, would probably pay him a handsome interest. But as the wheel of fortune would have it, in six months from the date of his arrival home from Heard’s Island he had lost his entire property. The blow was terrible, and a desolation of heart fell upon him, which could not but remind him of the Desolation Islands in the Indian Sea. After resting upon his oars for a few years, he made one desperate effort in 1862 to retrieve his fortunes, but the tide was still against him, and he was unsuccessful. His friends furnished him with a new ship, and he went upon another voyage to the Desolation Islands. Having secured a good cargo of whale and elephant oil, the ship was wrecked on a reef off the Seychelle Islands, after which he obtained a passage to Mauritius, and by way of London, Liverpool, and New York, returned to New London, where he subsequently resided, a worthy and much respected, but disappointed man.
But it is time that we should be giving our readers an idea of the physical characteristics of Heard’s Island. It is in reality an ice island, with only enough of solid land visible at different points to prove that it is not an iceberg. From the centre of it there rises, to the height of at least five thousand feet, a broad-breasted mountain, which is known to be perpetually covered with ice and snow, and its sides and summits are so cold and desolate that no living creature has ever been seen to harbour there, excepting the albatross. Some of the points or headlands, which are found along its eastern shore, rise out of the sea in the form of perpendicular cliffs, and Captain Darwin Rogers alleges that he was once at anchor near one of these cliffs for an entire month without obtaining a view of the summit; and also that during that period his ship on several occasions was felt to quiver from stem to stern in a very frightful manner, the cause of which, as he subsequently ascertained, was the falling of immense blocks of ice from the cliffs into the sea. Alternating with those huge bulwarks of ice are some of the most beautiful beaches of black sand, where the surf perpetually rolls up fresh from the South Pole. The only fish found along its shores is called the night-fish, and resembles the cod. There is not a tree or shrub on the island, and the vegetation is so limited that only two varieties are ever mentioned in the journals before us, viz., a coarse kind of tussock grass and the wild cabbage. The birds are about the same as those found on Kerguelen’s Land, viz., gulls, “mollymokes” or penguins, cape pigeons, and the albatross. In the way of mammals it boasts of but one creature alone, and that is the sea-elephant, but for this it is the most profitable hunting-ground in the world.
What the lion is to the common cat, the sea-elephant or Morunga proboscidea is to the seal—the mammoth representative. Though not uniform in size, they frequently attain a length of thirty feet, and a circumference of fifteen or eighteen feet, the blubber of a single individual sometimes yielding three hundred gallons of oil, which is considered more valuable than that of the whale. The grown males have an elongated snout, which gives them the name they bear; their teeth are short and deeply rooted, the molars small and pointed, the canines very large, and the power of their jaws so great that an angry male elephant has been known to seize a dead comrade weighing a ton and toss him a considerable distance as a dog would a rat. When quite young they are called silver grey pups from their colour, but as they mature they become brown, the males inclining to a dark blue, and the females to a yellow shade; their home is the sea, but they have a fashion of spending much of their time upon the shore, occasionally going inland two or three miles and luxuriating in fresh-water marshes; they are sluggish in their movements, and somewhat stupid, and in certain localities they congregate in large herds or corrals; their tongues are used by the sailors as a welcome delicacy, and by the Yankee boys frequently worked into mince pies; the scraps which are left after the blubber has been “tried out” are employed as fuel, with which the trying-out process is conducted; their food is supposed to consist chiefly of cuttle-fish and sea-weed, and the instrument employed in killing them is a sharp lance, which penetrates the throat and causes them to bleed to death. In sailor parlance, the old males are called beach-masters and bulls, and the females pupping-cows and brown cows. During the season of courtship the bulls fight desperately with each other, uttering a kind of roar, and inflicting fearful wounds, while the lady elephants, in groups of from fifteen to twenty, look on in dignified silence and satisfaction, as if ready, with expanded flippers, to welcome the victor into their midst. The mothers usually remain in charge of their young about two months, and during all that time it is said that the lord of each harem occupies a convenient eminence, with his head generally toward the sea, and acts as sentinel to prevent the mothers from abandoning their young, or to protect his favourites from the ungallant assaults of any roving individuals. The number of these animals which annually resort to Heard’s Island, coming from unknown regions, is truly immense. In former times, the men who hunted them invariably spared all the cubs they met with, but in these latter days the young and old are slaughtered indiscriminately! We can give no figures as to the total yield of elephant oil in this particular locality, but we know that the men who follow the business lead a most fatiguing and wild life, and well deserve the largest profits they can make. While Kerguelen’s Land is the place where the ships of the elephant-hunters spend the summer months, which season is literally the “winter of their discontent,” it is upon Heard’s Island that the big game is chiefly, if not exclusively, found. Then it is that gangs of men have the hardihood to build themselves rude cabins upon the island, and there spend the entire winter. Among those who first exiled themselves to this land of fogs and snow and stormy winds, was one Captain Henry Rogers, then serving as first mate; and from his journal, which he kept during this period, we may obtain a realising sense of the loneliness and hardships of the life to which Americans, for the love of gain, willingly subject themselves in the far-off Indian Ocean.
Having taken a glance at the leading men who identified themselves with the Desolation Islands, and also at the physical peculiarities of those islands, we propose to conclude this sketch with a running account of Captain Henry Rogers’s adventures during his winter on Heard’s Island.
He left New London in the brig “Zoe,” Captain James Rogers master, October 26, 1856, and arrived at the place of destination February 13, 1857. For about five weeks after their arrival the crew was kept very busy in rafting to the brig several hundred barrels of oil, which had already been prepared and left over by the crew of a sister vessel, and on the 22d of March the wintering gang, with Captain Henry Rogers as their leader, proceeded to move their plunder to the shore, and when that work was completed the brig sailed for the Cape of Good Hope. The gang consisted of twenty-five men, and after building their house, which was merely a square excavation on the ground, covered with boards, and made air-tight with moss and snow, they proceeded to business. Those who were expert with the lance did most of the killing; the coopers hammered away at their barrels; and, as occasions demanded, all hands participated in skinning the huge sea-elephants, or cutting off the blubber in pieces of about fifteen pounds each, and then, on their backs, or on rude sledges, transporting it to the trying works, where it was turned into the precious oil. Not a day was permitted to pass without “bringing to bag” a little game, and the number of elephants killed ranged from three to as high a figure as forty. According to the record, if one day out of thirty happened to be bright and pleasant, the men were thankful; for the regularity with which rain followed snow, and the fogs were blown about by high winds, was monotonous beyond conception. And when night came, and the monotonous suppers were packed away, the stories which followed were monotonous, and as the tired men wrapped themselves in their blankets for the night, there was a monotony in their very dreams—but they were of home—of wives and children and friends—far, far away, over illimitable sea—and that was a monotony which they enjoyed. When one of these men chanced to be wakeful at the hour of midnight, and went forth from the pent-up cabin to enjoy the fresh air, or to commune with himself, how must the blackness of darkness, and the wild wailing of the ocean, mingled with the screams of the penguins, or the moon and stars shining in their marvellous beauty on the tranquil deep, have filled him with awe! The great waves, perhaps, like beasts of prey, came careering out of the abyss of space, and as they dashed and perished against the icy cliffs, would give an unearthly howl, which the winds carried entirely across the island, only to be welcomed by an answering roar from the waves on the opposite shore.
Month after month passes away, and there is no cessation in the labours of the elephant-hunters. Mist and snow and slaughter, the packing of oil, hard bread and bad beef, fatigue and heavy slumbers—these are the burthen of their song of life. Those who chance to remember with pleasure the sound of Sabbath bells may cherish a Sabbath feeling in their hearts, but while their children are in attendance at the Sunday-school, in the far-off New England church, stern necessity compels them, with lance in hand, to do battle with the sea-elephant. But when the anniversary of their National Independence arrives, they must needs devote one hour of their precious time to the bidding of their patriotism, notwithstanding the fact that their cabin may be covered with snow, and a snow-storm raging. With the aid of their pistols for muskets, and a hole in a rock for artillery, they fire a national salute; with a tin pan for a kettle-drum, and a piece of wire for a triangle, they have an abundant supply of music; forming themselves into a procession, they march with stately pace in front of a snow-drift, instead of a grand hotel; and with the tongue of an elephant for roast beef, and some ginger-pop for Catawba wine, they have a glorious feast, and leaving their bunting to flap itself into a wet rag over their island home, they pick up their lances and are soon busy again among the elephant herds. Another month, and perhaps two more have passed away, when lo! there comes the brig again, with the latest news from the Cape of Good Hope, but with nothing new from dear New England. The vessel drops her anchor; in a few weeks she is filled to the brim, by rafting and boating, with the barrels of oil which have been collected during the long and tedious winter (misnamed summer), and on the approach of Christmas the sails of the brig are again unfurled, and away she goes, homeward bound; and at sunset, on 3d April 1858, the keeper of the Montauk Light points to the south-east, and says to his wife: “There comes a brig from the Desolation Islands!”
When Mr. Charles Dickens first visited this country, he met upon a steamboat, on the Ohio river, a noted Choctaw chief, with whom he had the pleasure of a long conversation. In the American Notes we find an agreeable account of this interview, in which the Indian is described as a remarkably handsome man, and, with his black hair, aquiline nose, broad cheek-bones, sun-burnt complexion, and bright, keen, dark and piercing eye, as stately and complete a gentleman of nature’s making as the author ever beheld. That man was Peter P. Pitchlynn. Of all the Indian tribes which acknowledge the protecting care of the American Government, there are none that command more respect than the Choctaws, and among their leading men there is not one more deserving of notice by the public at large than the subject of this chapter. Merely as a romantic story, the leading incidents of his life cannot but be read with interest, and as a contribution to American history, obtained from the man himself, they are worthy of being recorded.
His father was a white man, of a fighting stock, noted for his bravery and forest exploits, and an interpreter under commission from General Washington, while his mother was a Choctaw. He was born in the Indian town of Hush-ook-wa, now Noxabee county in the State of Mississippi, January 30, 1806. He commenced life by performing the duties of a cow-boy, and when old enough to bend a bow, or hold a rifle to his shoulder, he became a hunter, roaming the forests for game, and unconsciously filling his mind with the refining influences of nature. At the councils of his nation, however, he sometimes made his appearance as a looker-on, and once, when a member of the tribe, who had been partially educated in New England, was seen to write a letter to President Monroe, Pitchlynn resolved that he would himself become a scholar. The nearest school to his father’s log cabin was at that time two hundred miles off, among the hills of Tennessee, and to that he was despatched after the usual manner of such important undertakings. As the only Indian boy at this school, he was talked about and laughed at, and within the first week after his admission he found it necessary to give the “bully” of the school a severe thrashing, thereby gratifying the public generally, and causing his antagonist to be expelled. At the end of the first quarter he returned to his home in Mississippi, where he found his people negotiating a treaty with the General Government; on which occasion he made himself notorious by refusing to shake the hand of Andrew Jackson, the negotiator, because, in his boyish wisdom, he considered the treaty an imposition upon the Choctaws. Nor did he ever change his opinion on that score. His second step in the path of education was taken at the Academy of Columbia, in Tennessee, and he graduated at the University of Nashville. Of this institution General Jackson was a trustee, and on recognising young Pitchlynn, during an official visit to the College, he remembered the demonstration which the boy had made on their first meeting, and by treating him with kindness, changed the old feeling of animosity to that of warm personal friendship, which lasted until the death of the famous Tennesseean.
On his return to Mississippi our hero settled upon a prairie, which became known by his name, and became a farmer, but amused himself by an occasional hunt for the black bear. He erected a comfortable log cabin, and having won a faithful heart, he caused his marriage ceremony to be performed in public, and according to the teachings of Christianity, the Rev. C. Kingsbury being the officiating missionary, a man long endeared to the Southern Indians, and known as “Father Kingsbury.” As Pitchlynn was the first man among his people to set so worthy an example, we must award to him the credit of having given to polygamy its death-blow in the Choctaw nation, where it had existed from the earliest times.
Another reform which young Pitchlynn had the privilege and sagacity of inaugurating among his people was in reference to the cause of Temperance, which had for some years been advocated by an Indian named David Folsom. In a treaty made in 1820, an article had been introduced by the Choctaws themselves, prohibiting the sale, by red men as well as white men, of spirituous liquors within their borders, but up to 1824 it remained a dead letter. During that year the Council of the Nation passed a law, organising a corps of light horse, to whom was assigned the duty of closing all the dram-shops that could be found carrying on their miserable traffic contrary to treaty stipulations. The command of this band was assigned to young Pitchlynn, who from that time was recognised by the title of Captain. In one year from the time he undertook the difficult task of exterminating the traffic in liquor, he had successfully accomplished it, but with the loss of a favourite horse, which was shot down by a drunken Indian. As a reward for his services he was elected a member of the National Council, being the only young man thus honoured.
His first proposition, as a member of the National Council, was for the establishment of a school; and that the students might become familiar with the customs of the whites, it was decided that it should be located in a more enlightened community than the Choctaw country. The Choctaw Academy, thus founded, near Georgetown, Kentucky, and supported by the funds of the nation, was for many years a monument of their advancing civilisation. But in a sketch of this kind we cannot pretend to go into all the particulars of Captain Pitchlynn’s life. We propose only to glance at a few of his personal adventures in the wilderness, and conclude our essay with some specimens of his talk respecting the legendary lore of his people.
One of the most important and romantic incidents in his career grew out of the policy, on the part of the General Government, for removing the Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Creeks from their old hunting-grounds to a new location west of the Mississippi river. At the request and expense of the United States, a delegation of Indians was appointed in 1828 to go upon an exploring and peace-making expedition into the Osage country, and of this party Pitchlynn was appointed the leader. He was gone from home about six months, and the substance of what he saw, and heard, and performed, may be stated as follows:—
The delegation consisted of six persons—two from each of the three tribes interested,—and the first town at which they stopped was Memphis, before reaching which the more superstitious of the party were made quite unhappy by the screeching of an owl near their encampment, while the whole of them suffered much from the want of water. Their next halt was at St. Louis, where they were supplied with necessaries by the Indian superintendent; and their last was Independence, which was then a place of a dozen log-cabins, and where the party received special civilities from a son of Daniel Boone. On leaving Independence, the members of the delegation, all well mounted, were joined by an Indian agent, and their first camp on the broad prairie-land was pitched in the vicinity of a Shawnee village. This tribe had never come in conflict with the Choctaws (though the former took the side of Great Britain in the war of 1812), and, according to custom, a council was convened and pledges of friendship were renewed by an exchange of wampum and the delivery of speeches. The sentiments of the Shawnee chief or prophet were to this effect:—
“Brothers, we have been strangers for a long time. The Great Spirit has been kind to us, and we are made happy by this meeting. You all know how we acted in the big war. We were deceived by the bribes of the English, while you remained friendly to the Americans, and we have paid for our ignorance. When the earthquake happened in 1811, I thought it was the voice of the Great Spirit telling our nation to exterminate the white man; but I was mistaken, and now tell you so. The British were defeated, and we have been compelled to seek the protection of the Americans, against whom we have fought. But, what is more, we lost by that war many of our bravest warriors. Even the great Tecumseh, who was my oldest brother, was called away to sleep in his grave. This wampum I wish you to take home and give it to your chiefs; hold it before the eyes of your warriors, and tell them it is from their ancient friends the Shawnees. This tobacco which I give you must be smoked by your chiefs in council. Let the first smoke be in remembrance of the Shawnees; let the second be for the protection of our wives and children; and when you blow the third smoke to the sky, they must wish in their hearts that the Great Spirit will be pleased with this meeting.”
To the above, after the pipe of peace had been duly smoked, Captain Pitchlynn replied as follows:—“This, chiefs of the Shawnees, is a happy meeting. It reminds me of the traditions I have heard, and of what my father has many times told me, that in old times the Shawnees and Delawares, the Cherokees, Creeks, and Chickasaws, and the Choctaws, all lived like brothers on their separate hunting-grounds. It was once their custom to meet often in council and to exchange kind words. But the pushing of the white men gave all our fathers much trouble, and those friendly meetings could not be kept up. It is true you took sides with the British against the Americans, but the Choctaws from the beginning have been at peace with the United States. On meeting several of our chiefs in Philadelphia a great many years ago, George Washington, the President, gave our nation some friendly advice, and we have tried to remember his words. He told us we must conform as near as possible to the customs of the white man. We have done so, and the benefit to our nation has been great. We have always been anxious to preserve peace with all the Indian tribes, and we are at present on friendly terms with all of them excepting the Osages. The object of our present expedition is to make a treaty with them. They have for a long time been our bitterest enemies, and if we can succeed in our wishes we shall be very happy not only to smoke your tobacco, but theirs also, when we return to our country.”
After the ceremony a grand feast was proposed, which took place at a neighbouring village on the following day, after which the expedition continued its march towards the Osage country. For a time their course lay along the famous Santa Fe trail, and then, turning to the south-west, they journeyed over a beautiful country of rolling prairies skirted with timber, until they came to an Osage village located on a bluff of the Osage river. The delegation came to a halt within a short distance of the village, and quietly tying their horses, proceeded to make themselves comfortable. For several days the Osages showed signs of their original enmity, and refused to meet the strangers in council; and as it was well known that several Osages had recently been killed by a wandering band of Choctaws, the probability of hostilities and an attempted surprise was quite apparent. At the rising and the setting of the sun, the entire body of Osages joined in a song of invocation, commencing with a low moaning strain and ending with loud yells and whoops. The delegation consulted seriously, and the mooted question was, “Shall we propose a treaty of peace, or shall we retreat?” to which the unanimous response was, “We will propose a treaty of peace, or die in the attempt.” The proposal was made; after a long delay the Osages agreed to meet the delegation in general council; and Captain Pitchlynn stated that he and his party were the first Choctaws who had ever met the Osages with peaceful intentions; they had travelled over two thousand miles by the advice of the United States Government, in order to propose to the Osages a treaty of perpetual peace.
To this an orator of the Osages replied: “I am surprised. I never expected to hear anything from a Choctaw but the war-whoop and the crack of his rifle. I think you have acted wrong in becoming so friendly with the President. My wish is to fight on. I do not desire a peace between the Osages and the Choctaws. The Osages were made to fight by a law of their fathers. The tribes of the north, of the west, and of the south, will tell you that we have adhered to this ancient law. The Osages never sue for peace, and their scalps are always ready for those to take them who can. I speak for all the warriors present, and have nothing more to say. We will meet you again to-morrow at noon, and will hear what you have to say.”
At the appointed time another council was held, and a regular war speech having been decided upon by the delegation, an effort was made by the Indian agent and interpreter who accompanied the party to bring about a spirit of harmony, but their efforts were vain. When the moment arrived, Captain Pitchlynn, as before, was the only speaker. After casting a defiant look upon Belle Oiseau, the Osage orator, as well as upon the other Osages present, he proceeded in these words: “After what the Osage warrior said to us yesterday, we find it very hard to restrain our ancient animosity. You inform us that by your laws it is your duty to strike down all who are not Osage Indians. We have no such law. But we have a law which tells us that we must always strike down an Osage when we meet him. I know not what war-paths you may have followed west of the Big River, but I very well know that the smoke of our council fires you have never seen, and we live on the other side of the Big River. Our soil has never been tracked by an Osage excepting when he was a prisoner. I will not, like you, speak boastingly of the many war-paths we have been upon. I am in earnest, and can only say that our last war-path, if you will have it so, has brought us to the Osage country and to this village. Our warriors at home would very well like to obtain a few hundred of your black locks, for it is by such trophies that they obtain their names. I mention these things to prove that we have some ancient laws as well as yourselves, and that we, too, were made to fight. Adhere to the laws of your fathers, refusing the offer for peace that we have made, and you must bear the consequences. We are a little band now before you, but we are not afraid to speak our minds. Our contemplated removal from our old country to the sources of the Arkansas and Red Rivers will bring us within two hundred miles of your nation, and when that removal takes place, we will not finish building our cabins before you shall hear the whoop of the Choctaws and the crack of their rifles. Your warriors will then fall, and your wives and children shall be taken into captivity. And this work will go on until the Osage nation is entirely forgotten. You may not believe me, but our numbers justify the assertion; and it is time that the Indian race should begin a new kind of life. You say you will not receive the white paper of our father, the President; and we now tell you that we take back all that we said yesterday about a treaty of peace. A proposition for peace, if we are to have it, must now come from the Osages.”
The council adjourned in silence, to meet again at noon on the following day, when, as before, Belle Oiseau took the lead. He held in his hand a peace-pipe, which was painted white, and the tips of all the arrows in his quiver were also stained with white. The substance of his talk was as follows:—“The Osages have been up all night, considering the words of the Choctaws and their friends. Your boldness convinces us that you are speaking the mind of the Great Spirit. Your words sounded like the war-whoop. We are not afraid of your threats, but you talk like men and not like children, and we will treat you like men. We are willing to blot out the war-path, and to make in its place the white path of peace, upon which our wives and children may travel in safety without fear, and which will never be stained in blood, nor be obstructed by anything but the fallen oak or trailing vine, which we can surmount or remove. We offer the words of truth; we desire to be friends.”
Peace was declared, and a universal shaking of hands succeeded. After this the whole assembly took their seats again, and a deep silence of many minutes prevailed; after which Belle Oiseau, with flint and steel, struck a fire, and lighted the pipe of peace. Camp fire was not used because of its supposed impurity, and on all such important occasions it was deemed necessary to have the purest fire. The first man who smoked was the chief White Hair, by whom the pipe was turned over to Belle Oiseau, then to the Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Creeks, then to the Indian agent and interpreter and finally to the Osages promiscuously. A grand feast next followed, and the entire Osage village during the succeeding night presented as joyous and boisterous an appearance as jerked buffalo meat and water could inspire. Speeches made up a large part of the entertainment; and to Captain Pitchlynn was awarded the honour of delivering the closing argument. He told the Osages that his people had adopted the customs of civilisation, and were already reaping much benefit therefrom. They encouraged missionaries, established schools, and devoted attention to the pursuits of agriculture and the mechanic arts. He advised the Osages to do the same; to give up war as an amusement, and the chase as a sole dependence for food; and then they would become a happy and prosperous people. This was their only means of preservation from the grasping habits of the white man. If they would strive for civilisation, the American Government would treat them with greater kindness; and, though they might throw away their eagle feathers, and live in permanent cabins, there was no danger of losing their identity or name. During the last night of these prolonged festivities a great snow-storm occurred, and on the following morning, which was particularly mild and brilliant, the prairie on every side, and as far as the eye could reach, was covered with the pure white element. While the members of the delegation were making arrangements for their departure, a large number of the Osages waited upon them to pay their parting compliments. Belle Oiseau was of the party, and, with a countenance bespeaking real pleasure, he said that the Great Spirit had certainly approved of the treaty which had been made, for he had not only covered the path of the Choctaws with white, but had also made all the paths of the country white paths of peace. He and a party of warriors, selected for the purpose, then offered to escort the delegation to the borders of the Osage country, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles, which kindness they duly performed. During the several nights which they spent together before parting, Belle Oiseau was the chief talker, and he did much to entertain the whole party while seated around their camp-fires by relating what adventures and traditions he could remember, which he mixed up in the most miscellaneous manner with facts of aboriginal history. He claimed that his people were descended from a beaver, and that the Osage hunters never killed that animal from fear of killing one of their own kindred. He boasted that if his tribe was not as large as many others, it had always contained the largest and handsomest men in the world; that their horses were finer than those owned by the Pawnees and the Comanchees; that they preferred buffalo meat for food to the fancy things which they used in the settlements; that the buffalo robe suited them better than the red blanket; the bow and arrows were better than the rifle or gun; and he thought their Great Spirit was a better friend to them than the Great Spirit of the white man, who allowed his children to ruin themselves by drinking the fire-water.
In returning to their own homes, the Choctaws pursued a southern course, passed down the Canadian river, the agents leaving them at a point near Fort Gibson, and so continuing along the valley of the Red River; and as before stated, after an absence of several months, they all reached their cabins in safety. The incidents of the homeward journey were in keeping with the wild and romantic country through which they travelled. They had some severe skirmishes with the Comanchee Indians, and two of the party got lost for a time while hunting buffaloes and bears. On one occasion, when encamped at night on the Canadian, one of the men came into camp and announced the fact that he had heard a great splashing in the stream, and he was certain a party of Comanchees were ascending the river in stolen canoes. Upon examination, however, the red enemies proved to be a large flock or herd of beavers, both male and female, which were splashing their way up the river in a very jolly mood, and uttering meanwhile a guttural noise resembling the human voice. During this expedition also, Captain Pitchlynn picked up in one of the frontier cabins a bright little Indian boy, belonging to no particular tribe, as he said, and carried him to Mississippi, had him educated at the Choctaw Academy in Kentucky, and that boy is now one of the most eloquent and faithful preachers to be found in the Choctaw nation. The expedition here sketched was the first step taken by the Government towards accomplishing the removal of the Indian tribes eastward of the Mississippi river, to a new and permanent home in the Far West. The several tribes, collected on the sources of the Arkansas and Red rivers, and now living in a happy and progressive community, will probably number fifty thousand souls. Cherokees, to the number of some eighteen thousand, and Seminoles, numbering three thousand, have followed their example; so that while thirty-six hundred of the Southern Indians are said to be living at the present time in the country where they were born—the States of Mississippi, Alabama, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida,—seventy-one thousand have made themselves a new home westward of the Mississippi river.
One of the first expeditions performed by Captain Pitchlynn, after his people had emigrated to the west, was one of exploration. He did not exactly like the place on the Arkansas where he had built his first cabin, and with a party of five men, and a slave-boy named Solomon to lead his pack-horse, he crossed a range of mountains and visited the Red River valley. They took no provisions with them, but counted on a full supply of game. The trail which they followed took them into the midst of very grand and wild scenery, but when about half way across, the equinoctial gale commenced, and the rain came down in torrents for three days and nights without ceasing for a single moment. During that whole time they were without fire, wet to the skin, and entirely without food. On the fourth day the clouds dispersed, and even the bright sunlight could not bring his companions out of the savage mood into which they had fallen. They said they knew they must die, and would do nothing to help themselves. With his own hands he built a large fire, and only asked the men to keep it up, and he would go after some food. He had always confided in a superintending Providence, and that occasion was only one of many which he has always delighted to mention in confirmation of his faith. Having thoroughly dried his rifle, he went forth, and in less than twenty minutes after leaving camp he had killed a deer. The report of the gun attracted the men, when they came to his help, and the deer was taken to camp. The entire night was spent in feasting, and by the morning not a fragment of the venison was left. The next day, one of the party killed a turkey, and some fish were penned up and caught in a small mountain stream. The next night, Pitchlynn had a dream, in which he was told that a calamity had occurred in his family. Though not a believer in dreams, this one troubled him, and he resolved to return at once and give up any further explorations. He did so, and while crossing the O-kai-mi-shi he was convinced that this river had a right to its name, which means the gathering waters; and on reaching the Indian settlement he found that every member of his family, and all his slaves, were very sick with the fever of the country, and that the floods had been so great that a large proportion of his cattle had been drowned, and all the people were suffering from a storm which has never been equalled in the Choctaw country since that time.
It was about this time also that, while spending the night entirely alone with his horse, on a large prairie, that he witnessed a great shower of falling stars. To him, on that occasion, there was no such thing as sound in all the world, and the very flowers which peered duskily above the surrounding grasses were without the slightest motion; and then it was that the glory of the heavens came down upon the earth—a marvel and a mystery. That he was greatly alarmed, or rather astonished, cannot be denied, but he has said the utter loneliness of feeling which overcame him at the time was never equalled in any of his subsequent wanderings. If astonished at that time, not less was he in 1834, during the total eclipse of the sun. He had gone down the Red River in a flat-boat, and having sold her at a certain point, started for home by a direct though blind route across the country. He had several companions, and at high noon, while crossing an extensive piece of bottom-land, very heavily timbered, the darkness began to develop itself. As it increased, and could not be accounted for, his friends became greatly alarmed, but for himself, he suspected the real cause. The birds stopped singing and retired to their places of repose, and ever and anon an owl, on noiseless wing, winnowed across their pathway. The gloom increased, and now there came stealing through the intricate woods a strange wild scream, and the men wondered what a woman could be doing in such a dreadful place. The scream soon gave place to a whine, attended by a mysterious scratching noise, when lo! two panthers could be seen leaping from limb to limb, and cutting a thousand antics, as if gloating over their intended victims, or manifesting their anger at the strange doings of the sun. In this manner, for nearly half a mile, were the Choctaws attended, and the feline companions only disappeared, without doing any harm, as the sun again made his appearance in the blue above.
In 1834 the health of Captain Pitchlynn became so feeble on account of the anxieties and troubles attending the removal of the nation westward, that his friends told him something must be done for its restoration, if possible, and he decided to go upon a buffalo-hunt. He was accompanied by ten friends and a negro boy, was absent on the prairies about three months, and during nearly all that time he lived upon buffalo and bear meat and honey. When he left home he was so weak that he could not mount his horse without help, and his servant was obliged to carry his gun; but he returned in splendid health and strength. He killed as many buffaloes as to fill two large canoes with their hides, which he sent home by the Red River; had many skirmishes with hostile tribes; and, as they were constantly on the move over the prairies, they but seldom spent two nights on the same spot. On one occasion the Captain wandered away from his friends, and was compelled to spend the night alone. He selected for his resting-place a spot on the margin of a stream, and directly at the base of a lofty precipice. He tied his horse to a tree, and placed before him a pile of nourishing reeds, which the locality needed; then built himself a fire, made a tent of his blanket, placed his weapons in convenient positions, and rolled himself up for a refreshing sleep. And a better rest he never enjoyed. A short time before daybreak, however, he was awakened by the snorting of his horse; spoke a word of recognition, and fell to sleep again. He was again awakened by the uneasy horse, and then it was that he first heard the howling of wolves. From the woods across the river, from the stream both above and below, and from the very top of the cliff over his head, he heard their dismal howling; to his excited mind there were thousands of them, but they did not trespass any further upon his privacy. With the rising of the sun the wolves all disappeared; but then, within a few steps from his sleeping-place, he found no less than three rattle-snakes coiled up and enjoying a blissful repose; and before recovering from his consternation, the air, in every direction, became filled with flying ravens and buzzards. They were so numerous as actually to darken the sky, and Pitchlynn’s mode of accounting for these strange visitations was, that a large herd of buffaloes was at that time crossing the plains, and the wolves and ravens were the vagabond attendants upon the moving of the herd. The next day he regained his friends.
In 1837, by way of finding out the condition of affairs in the country west of Arkansas by personal observation, Captain Pitchlynn went upon an expedition into the Comanchee country. He was accompanied by twenty-two men, all well mounted, and they were gone three months. After passing beyond what was called the Cross Timbers, and over an immense prairie, where the silence was so intense as to sadden the most hilarious, they came in sight of an encampment of three thousand Comanchees. While yet two miles away, the party was met by another party of the prairie Indians, headed by a chief mounted upon a splendid black horse, who extended the right hand of welcome. While this interview was going on, the mounted sentinels, who formed an immense circle around the great encampment, were seen rushing with the utmost speed to the centre of the circle, as if to prepare for any emergency. On reaching the village the Choctaws were conducted among the tents to the place for strangers, and while they saw on every side boys engaged in shooting at targets, girls playing, and women at work making saddles, not one of all the multitude would venture to look upon the passing cavalcade, but all pursued their avocations as if nothing unusual was going on. All the conversation that transpired was carried on by signs. Pitchlynn and two of his men were entertained in the tent of the principal chief, and they feasted gloriously on boiled buffalo. The Choctaws remained a week with their entertainers, and they formed a league to defend each other from the Indians of Texas and Mexico during the coming year. Before the visit was finished one of the Choctaw horses was stolen, and the defiant manner in which his return was demanded by Pitchlynn made a deep impression upon the Comanchees—so the animal was returned, and they burnt tobacco on the ground, by way of proving their respect for the Choctaws. This band of Comanchees in their persons were generally corpulent, but healthy; and had with them many Mexican and other prisoners, who were domesticated. Among them was a white boy who had strayed westward two years before, and been captured, and whose freedom Captain Pitchlynn secured at the expense of his favourite pistol, the Comanchee chief cementing the bargain by throwing in a horse for the boy to ride on his return out of the wilderness.
Though a lover of peace, there were times when our friend Pitchlynn was compelled to be somewhat stern in his conduct as a ruler, as the following incident will prove. In 1838 the Choctaw settlement was infested by a large gang of horse thieves. To put a stop to their inroads, chief Pitchlynn offered a large reward to one set of robbers, if they would capture the other set, and punish them by whipping at the post. The movement was successful, and the day was one of great rejoicing among the rulers of the people, and the people themselves, when the impenitent thieves were flogged by their speculating captors. A short time afterwards, however, these two opposing parties met in a pass of the mountains, and had a fight, which was so desperate and bloody that the entire gang was virtually exterminated, only two or three escaping to tell the story of the conflict.
Colonel Pitchlynn was always an admirer of Henry Clay, and his first acquaintance with the great statesman commenced in 1840. The Choctaw was ascending the Ohio in a steamboat, and at Maysville, during the night, the Kentuckian came on board, bound to Washington. On leaving his state-room at a very early hour, Pitchlynn went into the cabin, where he saw two old farmers earnestly engaged in a talk about farming, and drawing up a chair listened with great delight for more than an hour. Returning to his state-room he roused a travelling companion, and told him what a great treat he had been enjoying, and added—“If that old farmer with an ugly face had only been educated for the law, he would have made one of the greatest men in this country.” That “old farmer” was Henry Clay, and the subsequent consternation of Pitchlynn may be imagined; and it should be added that the statesman expressed the greatest satisfaction at the compliment that had been paid him. The steamboat upon which these fellow-travellers met was afterwards delayed at the mouth of the Kanawha, and, as was common on such occasions, the passengers held some mock trials, and improvised a debate on the relative happiness of single and married life. Mr. Clay consented to speak, and took the bachelor side of the question, and the duty of replying was assigned to the Indian. He was at first greatly bewildered, but recollecting that he had heard Methodist preachers relate their experiences on religious matters, he thought he would relate his own experiences of married life. He did this with minuteness and considerable gusto, laying particular stress upon the goodness of his wife, and the different shades of feeling and sentiment which he had enjoyed, and after he had finished, the ladies who happened to be present and Mr. Clay vied with each other in applauding the talented and warm-hearted Indian.
When the war of the rebellion commenced in 1861, the subject of our sketch was in Washington attending to public business for his people, but immediately hurried home, in the hope of escaping the evils of the impending strife. Before leaving, however, he had an interview with President Lincoln, and assured him of his desire to have the Choctaws pursue a neutral course, to which the President assented as the most proper one to adopt under the circumstances. But Pitchlynn’s heart was for the Union, and he made the further declaration that if the General Government would protect them, his people would certainly espouse the cause of the Union. He then returned to the South-west, intending to lead the quiet life of a planter on his estate in the Choctaw country. But the white men of Arkansas and Texas had already worked upon the passions of the Choctaws, and on reaching home he found a large part of the nation already poisoned with the spirit of rebellion. He pleaded for the National Government, and at the hazard of his life denounced the conduct of the Southern authorities. Many stories were circulated to increase the number of his enemies; among them was one that he had married a sister of President Lincoln, and another that the President had offered him four hundred thousand dollars to become an abolitionist. He was sustained, however, by the best men in the nation, who not only made him colonel of a regiment of militia for home defence, and afterwards elected him head chief of the nation; but all this did not prevent two or three of his children, as well as many others in the nation, from joining the Confederate army. But he himself remained a Union man during the entire war. Not only had many local positions of honour been conferred upon him in times past, but he had long been looked upon by all the Choctaws as their principal teacher in religious and educational matters, as their philosopher and faithful friend, and also as the best man to represent their claims and interests as a delegate to Washington. He had under cultivation, just before the rebellion, about six hundred acres of land, and owned over one hundred slaves; and though he annually raised good crops of cotton and corn, he found the market for them too far off, and was beginning to devote all his attention to the raising of cattle. His own stock, and that of his neighbours, was, of course, a prize for the Confederates, who took everything, and left the country almost desolate. When the Emancipation Proclamation appeared, he acquiesced without a murmur; managed as well as he could in the reduced condition of his affairs; and after the war he was again solicited to revisit Washington as a delegate, in which capacity he had assigned to his keeping and management a claim for unpaid treaty-money of several millions of dollars. An address that he delivered as delegate before the President, at the White House in 1855, was commented upon at the time as exceedingly touching and eloquent; and certain speeches that he made before Congressional Committees in 1868, and especially an address that he delivered in 1869 before a Delegation of Quakers, called to Washington by President Grant, for consultation on our Indian affairs, placed him in the foremost rank of orators. William H. Goode, who was long a missionary among the Southern Indians, gave this opinion of him in 1863:—“He was a member of the Presbyterian Church, and esteemed pious; an ardent promoter of learning, morals, and religion; President of the National Council; and altogether the most popular and influential man in the Choctaw nation, and, from occasional notices, I infer that he still maintains his position.”
While it is true that the most populous single tribe of Indians now living in this country is that of the Cherokees, the Choctaws and Chickasaws, who form what is known as the Choctaw nation, outnumber the former by about five thousand, and they claim in the aggregate near twenty thousand souls. They speak the same language, and have attained a higher degree of civilisation than any other of the Southern tribes. The nation is divided into four districts, one of which is composed exclusively of Chickasaws. Each district was formerly under one chief, but now they are all ruled by a single chief or governor; and they have a National Legislative Council. They have an alphabet of their own, and are well supplied with schools and academies, with churches and benevolent institutions, and until lately with a daily press, all of which betoken a gratifying progress in the career of enlightened prosperity. They are the only tribe which has never, as a whole, been in hostile collision with, nor been subdued by, the United States. Never have they broken a promise or violated their plighted faith with the General Government. What certain individuals may have done during the late war ought not certainly to be charged against the nation at large.
And here, for the want of a better place, we may, in addition to what has already been incidentally mentioned, submit a few particulars respecting the present condition of the Choctaws and Chickasaws. They claim for their territory that it is as fertile and picturesque as could be desired. To speak in general terms, it forms the south-east quarter of what is called the Indian territory. It is about two hundred miles long by one hundred and thirty wide, forms an elongated square, and while the Arkansas and Canadian rivers bound it on the north, it joins the State of Arkansas on the east, and the Red River and Texas bound it on the south and west. These two nations, now living in alliance, consider themselves much better off now than they were in the “old country,” the designation which they love to apply to Mississippi. Their form of government is similar in all particulars to that of the States of the Union. While it is true that the rebellion had a damaging effect upon their prosperity, it cannot be long before they will be restored to their former prosperous condition. They adopted and supported before the war a system of what they called “neighbourhood schools,” as well as seminaries, taught for the most part by ladies from the New England States, the intention of which was to afford the children a primary course of instruction, which would fit them for the colleges and seminaries in the States, to which many pupils have hitherto been annually sent. The prime mover in all these educational enterprises was Colonel Pitchlynn, and it is now one of the leading desires of his heart that the good lady teachers, who were driven off by the war, would either return themselves, or that a new supply of just such Christian teachers might be sent out from New England. In his opinion these lady teachers were the best civilisers who ever visited the Choctaw nation. To New England clergymen also are the Choctaws indebted for their best translations of the Scriptures and other religious books. The school system of the Choctaws, which was eminently prosperous until interfered with by the rebellion, was founded in 1842. Up to that date, the General Government undertook to educate that people, and the funds set aside for that purpose were used by designing parties for their own benefit, or for local schemes. For the Indians, everything was wrong, and while Colonel Pitchlynn well knew that he would have to fight an unscrupulous opposition, he resolved, single-handed, to see if he could have the School Fund transferred from the United States to the Choctaws. After many delays, he obtained an interview with John C. Spencer, then Secretary of War, and was permitted to tell his story. The Secretary listened attentively, was much pleased, and told the chief he should have an interview with the President, John Tyler. The speech which he then delivered in the White House, and before the Cabinet, was pronounced by those who heard it as truly wonderful. It completely converted the President, who gave immediate orders that Pitchlynn’s suggestions should all be carried out. The good Secretary fully co-operated, and before the clerks of the Indian Office left their desks that night, all the necessary papers had been prepared, signed, sealed, and duly delivered. Pitchlynn left Washington with flying colours, and was one of the happiest men in the land. On reaching the Choctaw country he was honoured with all the attentions his people knew how to confer; and on a subsequent Fourth of July he delivered an oration of remarkable beauty and power, in which he recapitulated the history of their emigration from Mississippi—comparing his people to the captive Jews by the waters of Babylon—and after describing their subsequent trials, urged them to be contented in their new homes, and then set forth at great length his views on the subject of universal education, the whole of which, to the minutest particular, were subsequently adopted. The first academy organised under the new arrangement was named for the then Secretary of War, and from that year until the death of John C. Spencer, that wise and warm-hearted lover of the Indians, had not a more devoted friend than Peter Pitchlynn. At the commencement of the rebellion, the number of slaves in the Choctaw nation was estimated at three thousand, and there, in the capacity of Freedmen, are now waiting for the General Government to keep its promises in regard to their welfare. By a treaty which was ratified in 1866 they were to be adopted by the Choctaws and Chickasaws, and those tribes were to receive a bonus of three hundred thousand dollars; if this stipulation should fail, the Government was to remove them to some public lands, where they might found a colony; and as the Indians have thus far failed to adopt the Freedmen, the latter are patiently waiting for the Government to keep its solemn promises. These unfortunate people are said to be more intelligent and self-reliant than many of their race in the Southern States, and it certainly seems a pity that they should continue in their present unsatisfactory and disorganised condition. It is due to Colonel Pitchlynn to state, that from the beginning he advocated the adoption of the Freedmen, and he has many reasons for believing that during the coming winter the measure will be carried through. In that event the Government will be excused for its negligence by paying over the stipulated sum of money. Ever since the removal of the Choctaws and Chickasaws to their Western territory, missionaries and school-teachers have laboured among them with great faithfulness, and the denominations which have chiefly participated in this good work are the Baptists, the Methodists, and the Cumberland and Old School Presbyterians. Upon the whole, the cause of Temperance has been quite as well sustained by them as by any of the fully civilised people of the Atlantic States. In certain interior parts of the nation, alcoholic drinks are seldom if ever seen, but those parts bordering on Arkansas and Texas are sufficiently civilised to participate in the well-nigh universal curse. While the Choctaws are very willing to import all the good they can from the haunts of civilisation, no white man is allowed citizenship among them unless he marries a Choctaw. Some years ago they concluded to adopt one man, but during the next winter no less than five hundred petitions were sent in for the same boon, which were not granted. And here comes in an anecdote respecting Colonel Pitchlynn. On his way to the Council, some years ago, he was attacked by a fever, and was obliged to spend several days with a friend. In a fit of temporary delirium he talked a great deal about going to Scotland and Germany to bring out a thousand worthy and good mechanics, and a thousand women, to settle among the Choctaws, and intermarry with them. On his recovery he was laughed at for his queer idea, but he replied that whether sane or insane, he was ready to carry out that identical proposition. He thought it would be a blessing to his people; but he did not wish to be bothered with the adventurers and horse thieves from Texas and Arkansas. That there has always been a want of harmony among this people on all moral, as well as political questions, cannot be disputed, and the fact may be attributed to the existence among them of a few influential families, whereby unprofitable jealousies and a party spirit are kept up, to the disadvantage of the masses. If there is anything among them which might be called aristocracy, it consists more in feeling than in outward circumstances, for all the people live alike in plain but comfortable log-cabins, and are content with a simple manner of life. Among them may be found a goodly number of really intellectual men, but it is undoubtedly true that, so far as all the higher qualities are concerned, the particular man of whom we have been writing is without a peer, as was his father during the preceding generation.
To have been the leading intellect among such a people is of course no ordinary honour, and Colonel Pitchlynn has always cherished with affectionate pride the history and romantic traditions of his people. Not only has he accumulated an inexhaustible store of this interesting lore, but his love of nature is so acute, and his appreciation of the beautiful so delicate, that his narratives are oftentimes exceedingly charming. He is indeed the poet of his people; and he has communicated to the writer many Choctaw legends, stored up in his retentive memory, which have never appeared in print, and which but for his appreciation of their beauty would scarcely have been repeated to a white man. For a few of those legends I refer the reader to my work entitled A Winter in the South.
P.S.—In the month of January 1881 this splendid specimen of one of nature’s noblemen died at his residence in Washington City, and was buried in the Congressional Cemetery, with Masonic honours, the poet Albert Pike having delivered a touching eulogy over his remains.
It was the first day of November, and in the city of New York. Among the people who passed along the outer line of the Battery was a well-grown youth absorbed in a kind of reverie. He was a confidential clerk in a first-class counting-house, and his prospects for the future were as bright as his friends could desire. He was talented, but had a wayward disposition, and having concluded that the life of a clerk was irksome, he resolved to visit a friend in Boston, through whose influence he hoped to obtain a passage to India. On the following day he settled his affairs with his employers, who treated him with great kindness, and vainly tried to make him change his plans. On sending his trunk to the Norwich boat, and while waiting for her departure, he chanced to fall into conversation with the owner and captain of the ship “Evadne,” just then getting ready for a voyage to Valparaiso. In that city, the boy happened to have a sister residing, and having been tempted by the captain to join him as a kind of clerk or supercargo, he recalled his trunk from the steamboat, transferred it on board the ship, wrote an affectionate letter to his parents, and forthwith started for Cape Horn. From that day, until his subsequent arrival in Boston, he kept a minute journal of his observations and experiences, and from this record,—barring all dates, notes on latitude and longitude, and personal recollections,—have been culled the subjoined particulars. They refer chiefly to the natural history of the ocean, and the reader will understand that no attempt has been made to connect the paragraphs, which were written at widely different places and periods of the voyage.
We hauled into the stream on Monday, and weighed anchor on Tuesday. A portion of the crew came on board very much intoxicated, and though the captain took the precaution to arm me with a pistol and “slung-shot,” it was not necessary to use them. The moment we lost sight of Neversink, we were caught by a heavy gale, and for three days I was terribly sick; but I soon recovered, and, since then, have been in splendid trim. The wind was fair; we have had a fine run; are now in a warm climate, and I am ready to enjoy the wonders of the ocean. I have already seen two whales, and have caught a dolphin, a flying-fish, and a poor hawk that had taken refuge in our rigging. The dolphin was nine feet long, and had none of the brilliant colours attributed to him by poets, but was only black and white; and if, as a race, they are fond of music, it must be the wild music which the wind makes in a ship’s rigging, for it was in the midst of a gale that at least a hundred of them flocked about our ship. They are associated, as the sailors tell me, by a family tie, with the grampus, which sometimes attains the length of twenty-five feet, and is a deadly enemy of the whale. As to my flying-fish, he did not measure over a foot, and his wing-fins were not less than eight inches in length. I have been told that it is a dull business to follow the sea, but I do not think so; the sunrises and sunsets and moonlight nights would alone pay any man for the longest voyage, and, as for myself, I can never tire of the “Book of Nature opened wide.” When not studying the sea and the sky, I employ my time reading, writing, making nautical calculations, and taking observations, so that the time cannot hang heavily, if I may but have the control of my mind. In looking over the manifest of our vessel, I find that we have on board a marble monument which is to be placed over the grave of a Connecticut man in far-off Valparaiso. Should it be my lot to die on a foreign shore, will any of my kindred think enough of me to treat my memory with like respect? We have on our ship as passenger a young Spaniard, and he and I spend much of our time teaching each other our several languages.
We have long since passed what is called the Gulf Stream, and are in the midst of the great Equatorial or Tropical Stream, which is considered by naturalists the grandest movement of the ocean. This wonderful phenomenon proceeds from east to west on both sides of the Equator. Off the coast of Brazil, as the captain tells me, it divides into two great branch currents, one of which passes to the south-west, and rushing through the Straits of Magellan and around Cape Horn, loses itself in the Pacific Ocean; while the other rolls on towards the north, forms the Gulf Stream in the vicinity of the United States, and then makes a circle, which touches Newfoundland, the Azores, and the coast of Africa, until it again reaches the coast of South America. We thus see that the Equatorial Stream is in reality a whirlpool of prodigious extent; and when told that the Gulf Stream carries the sediment of the Mississippi river, so as to scatter it over the “floor of the Northern Atlantic,” we obtain an idea of the volume of the great river and of the power of the Gulf Stream, which cannot be fully comprehended.
Intimately associated with the foregoing are the celebrated Trade Winds. They are met with between the Tropics, are permanent, follow the same direction all the year, and their limits are the parallels of twenty-eight degrees of north and south latitude. They are known as the “North-east and South-east Trades,” and between them calms and fogs abound. They were discovered by Columbus, and their origin was first explained by George Hadley, his theory being that they are founded on the rarefaction of the atmosphere of the torrid zone, by the powerful heat to which that region is subject. They derive their name from the facilities which they afford to commerce; and the mariners have always been delighted to be within their range, because of their genial influences, and their power in promoting the most transparent atmosphere, sunsets of surpassing splendour, and the unapproachable brilliancy of unclouded skies.
We had a severe storm last night. It is indeed a fearful thing to be thus cuffed about like a log of wood upon the waters. What with the leaping and the plunging of the ship, the roaring of the winds and waves, the shouting of the men when taking in sail, the trumpet blasts of the captain, and the intense darkness, we had a tolerably disagreeable time; but all these things only combine to give the “landlubber” such thoughts and feelings as he could never dream of on the peaceful shore. In spite of all that I have had to do, I have taken time to think of home, and the many loved ones far, far away. How distinctly, through all the gloom, have I seen the place where I was born, with its romantic hills and very beautiful streams! I feel myself to be quite plucky, but these thoughts will make my lips quiver, and yet my confidence is in God.
At this present writing we are exactly on the line of the Equator. The heat which now prevails is simply fearful. This thing called the Line was first crossed by the Portuguese in 1471, and I do not think it strange that the ancients should have considered the equatorial regions of the earth uninhabitable by man. If it were not for the constant showers, which come upon us with astonishing suddenness, it would be unendurable by northern constitutions. I wear nothing but shirt and pantaloons, never think of occupying my berth, but during the whole night flounder about on the deck very much like a bear in his cage.
During the whole of yesterday our ship’s pathway lay through immense fields of floating sea-weed or algæ. Where it all came from none could conjecture; it was, perhaps, the result of a continuous storm on a rock-bound coast one or two thousand miles away. In its variety, as well as in its beauty, this marine botany or vegetation of the ocean is as wonderful and complete as that of the land, and different temperatures and localities have their diversified species. I have myself seen specimens that were as fine as a woman’s hair, and as delicate as gossamer; our captain says he has seen rolls of it floating on the water at the Falkland Islands as large as a man’s body, and two hundred feet long; and on the authority of the navigator Cook, we know that at the Desolation Islands specimens have been found that were not less than three hundred and sixty feet in length; while a scientific man named Lamouroux asserted that there was a species of sea-weed with a stem eight hundred feet long. On the score of colour it is exceedingly various, but the prevailing tints are green, brown, olive, and red; and as to its value, I suppose it is only beginning to be appreciated as the foundation of many chemical commodities. In some parts of the world, moreover, it is so thick on rocky reefs as actually to be a protection to the ships as they sail in unknown regions; and the marine meadows among the Azores and near the Bahama Islands have a world-wide reputation. With regard to the living creatures which it harbours and supports, their extent is simply wonderful.
To-day the water around our ship was perfectly alive with thousands of porpoises, cutting all sorts of capers. They have, indeed, as their name implies, a piggish cast of countenance, and are decidedly original in one of their habits. We succeeded in harpooning two or three, and I saw verified the story that when one of them has been wounded so as to lose any blood, his beloved brethren pounce upon him and eat him up without mercy. But after all, in this particular they do not differ very much from some of the human race that I wot of; for when a man makes a single stumble in his life, his fellow-beings are very apt to help him along to destruction with their jeers and unkind words. Some of the sailors on board entertain the queer notion that all the porpoises in the ocean are descended from the herd of swine spoken of in Scripture which were driven into the sea. These creatures always swim in schools, and, like the wild geese, always have a leader, and move in the form of a triangle.
I saw under full sail, this morning, what the sailors call a Portuguese man-of-war. It is a fish which can hoist a little sail at will, and shoot away just like a real ship. What they call the sail has a gossamer appearance, and is very brilliant in colour; and when the little fellow is frightened, the way he “takes in sail” and dives out of sight is exceedingly interesting. This creature belongs to the family of jelly-fishes; its transparent body, when fully extended, is frequently a foot in diameter, and from under it depends a long lock of bluish tendrils, which are said to be its sucking tubes and weapons of defence. This appendage is sometimes fifteen feet long, and is trailed through the water like a net, and the rapidity with which it can be immediately collected in a small lump is truly amazing; its object is said to be to capture the fish upon which it feeds, its favourite game being the flying-fish and bonita, which it has the power of poisoning; and I can testify, from personal experience, that the effect of handling the creature is to pain and temporarily paralyse the arm.
The phosphorescence of the sea I last night witnessed in great perfection. In every direction the waves seemed to be on fire, and the spectacle was one which afforded me intense pleasure, although said to be the certain harbinger of a storm. The flames, as they appeared to be, were both red and blue, and at times so very bright as almost to afford light enough to read. This phenomenon is said to be caused by a variety of living gelatinous creatures, and also by certain kinds of fishes, as well as by putrefying organic matter. In looking over my books of poetry I find that Crabbe and Byron both described the wonder, but neither of them approached the marvellously accurate description of Coleridge, which I copy from his “Ancient Mariner:”—
“Beyond the shadow of the ship
I watched the water-snakes;
They moved in tracks of shining white,
And, when they rear’d, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.
“Within the shadow of the ship
I watch’d their rich attire—
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black—
They coil’d and swam, and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.”
Christmas night! and my thoughts are with the loved ones at home! When the sun went down there was not a single object to be seen upon the waters in any direction, and in the air not a single gull or any other bird. I must confess this was rather impressive; and finding that I could only keep my spirits above zero by talking, I have been very busy in that line with the officers of the ship. The captain is an exceedingly kind-hearted man, and treats me as if I were his son; but the chief mate has seen more of the world, and here is a bit of his conversation. He was a petty officer on board the “Great Republic” during her service in the Crimea, and happened to be an eye-witness of the battle of Inkerman. He says the charter-money paid by the British Government amounted to twenty thousand dollars per month, and that her cargo on one occasion amounted to fifteen hundred horses (seven hundred of which were Arabians) and thirty-five hundred soldiers. She also did a large business in conveying the sick and wounded from Sebastopol to Constantinople, and was employed by the English for seventeen months. In his opinion Constantinople is one of the meanest cities in the world, with few handsome buildings excepting the mosques, and with streets that are only disgraceful to the Turkish Government.
To-day we captured a very large shark. He was of the white variety, and measured nearly twenty feet in length. The captain says he has known them half as long again. We had great difficulty, after harpooning him, to get him alongside of the ship, so that we might have a good look at his royal ugliness. We had no use for him, and so we studied his anatomy and then threw him into the sea again. We took out his heart, with its various belongings, and forty minutes after we did this its pulsations could be distinctly felt thumping the hand that pressed it. Among the stories which the sailors have narrated in regard to this tyrant of the ocean, I note the following:—First, that when the mother shark is afraid of losing her offspring, she swallows them to secure their safety, disgorging them when the danger is past; also, that in the pilot-fish it has a friend that sticketh closer than a brother, and that they have been known to travel together for weeks; and while the shark profits by the engineering qualities of the pilot-fish, the latter has a good time enjoying the fragments of spoil which the tyrant does not require for his support. The sailors also believe that while some varieties of the shark family are viviparous and bring forth their young alive, other varieties bring forth their young in those horny cases called mermaid’s purses, which are so frequently picked up in a dry state along the shores of Long Island Sound.
Last night one of those gales which the captain calls a Pampero burst upon us, and we had a very exciting time. He says they belong to the monsoon family; that they get their name from the fact that they have their birth among the snowy Andes, and after sweeping across the great arid plains, or pampas, of South America, become hurricanes on the Atlantic; and that they are the sure harbingers of health, although their effect on land and sea is frequently terrific.
This is the first day of the New Year, and the air, the sea, and the sky are perfectly delightful to the feelings and the vision. Just before the old year left us, the captain was on the watch, and by way of getting up a small excitement, he stole into the cabin, and, placing his trumpet near my ear, shouted, “I wish you a happy New Year!” It was fun to him and the officers, but the unearthly sound very nearly frightened me out of my skin. The effect of the row upon our Spanish passenger was very laughable. He thought there was a murder going on, and the way he ran about the cabin with nothing on but his shirt, crying out, “What’s the matter? what’s the matter?” was quite equal to a first-class play.
To-day the captain reports that we are off the coast of Patagonia, and near the Straits of Magellan; and as one of the crew visited that country and passed through the Straits a few years ago, I have been pumping him for information, with the following result:—It is a wild and uncultivated country, and sparsely populated by a race of Indians who, though finely formed and large, are not in keeping with the accounts of the early travellers. The Atlantic coast is level, while that on the Pacific is mountainous and well wooded, and the winters are long and bitter cold. It gets its name from the original inhabitants, who were called Patagons; and besides the bow and arrows, the present inhabitants employ a ball fastened to a thong of hide as their most effective and deadly weapon. As to the Straits of Magellan, which connect the two oceans, they were so named after the explorer who first navigated them in 1520. They extend more than three hundred miles from east to west, varying in width from five to fifty miles, and abound in spacious bays; and while the entrance from the Atlantic is fifteen miles wide, that on the Pacific side is about twenty in width, and is a favourite resort of sea-lions. The tide rises about fifty feet and runs with great rapidity, and in opposite directions; and although some vessels have passed through in three weeks, others have been detained for four months. The Spaniards once planted a colony of four hundred men at one point, all of whom were abandoned to starvation and death, and the appropriate name was afterward given to it of Port Famine. In 1850 a colony of one hundred and fifty Germans formed a small settlement within the Straits, which they called the Harbour of Mercy. A portion of the scenery belongs to the Norwegian type, one of the mountains, called Mount Tarn, rising more than three thousand feet, and having pointed offshoots covered with perpetual snow; while the river Sedger, which comes from the north, runs through extensive forests of beech and pine, and is blocked up at its mouth with an incredible quantity of drift-wood. In 1831 the Straits were surveyed by the British Government, and the charts subsequently published have done much to improve the navigation of that inhospitable region.
The southern boundary of the Straits consists of a large cluster of islands, large and small, and called Tierra del Fuego, because of one or two volcanoes. On the southern side of the group, and running inside of Staten Land Island, is a strait called Le Maire, where the coast scenery is particularly grand.
During the past week the birds have greatly multiplied in our vicinity, and I have seen with great pleasure the famous albatross. It closely resembles a goose in shape; its prevailing colour is white, diversified with black and grey, and it is sometimes so large as to measure twelve feet between the tips of the wings. On account of its size, it is called the monarch of the sea, as well as the man-of-war bird; it possesses the traits of a highway robber, and because of its gluttony is frequently stigmatised as the vulture of the ocean. It rises from the water with difficulty, but when once on the wing it glides over the rolling billows with exquisite grace, soaring high in the air with perfect grandeur; and the manner in which it is wont to face the fiercest gales elicits the heartiest admiration. It will follow in the wake of a ship for weeks, and this is perhaps the secret of its introduction into poetry; but why the killing of it should have brought such tribulation and woe upon the “Ancient Mariner” of Coleridge will always be a mystery. It is said to be partial to the stormy regions of Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope; seems to be the sworn enemy of the whole race of booby-birds; and yet, when seen fast asleep, with its head under its wings, on the unbroken waves, one would imagine it a lover of peace and to be as innocent as the dove. A favourite breeding-place for these birds is the Auckland Islands. With one exception, it is the only bird found on the high seas at every distance from the land. The exception alluded to is the Stormy Petrel, which, I am surprised to learn, is called the crow of the ocean. This, of all web-footed birds, is the smallest known to naturalists; and although often seen in the Southern hemisphere, it does not here follow in the wake of sailing vessels, as is the habit of its northern kindred; and like the auk, the puffin, the guillemot, and fulmer, it lays but one egg during the breeding season, and that upon a naked rock. The several varieties of the albatross commonly known to seamen are as follows:—the sooty, the dusky, the wandering, the short-tailed, and the yellow-nosed albatross; while the common petrels are known as the stormy, forked-tailed, and the white and black petrels, as well as Mother Carey’s chickens.
When we left New York, the captain tells me, he had a sufficient amount of provisions to last eighteen months; for, during a previous voyage in the Pacific, he had spent seventy-eight days beating about Cape Horn, and he did not wish to be starved to death. And this reminds me of our style of living on ship-board. The sailors have all they want in the way of salt beef and pork, beans, mush, and navy bread, with coffee and tea every day; they have no table or knives or forks, but feed like animals out of a “mess-kid,” each one putting in his thumb and pulling out anything but a plum; and when two men sometimes happen to seize the same piece of “salt-horse” or bone of contention, they have a jolly row. In the cabin we have everything as nice as circumstances will allow, including hot bread every day, with pickles and puddings and soups; one of the latter being more of a mockery than suits my taste.
We spoke a ship to-day, bound to Boston, from Valparaiso. She started for the former port a few days after I did the same thing, and I think will get there before me. As she faded away on the northern horizon, she looked indeed like a phantom of the deep, and although alone—all, all alone—I knew that before midnight she would be well freighted with dreams; dreams of much-loved and far distant friends.
Last night, after a day that was fifteen hours and forty minutes long, was lovely beyond the power of words to describe. We had a gentle breeze; the sky was without a cloud, and when the moon rose at ten o’clock it was red as blood. I was on deck until daybreak, and after one of the officers and I had regaled ourselves on red herrings and pickled pigs’ feet, we abandoned this swinish business and devoted ourselves to astronomy; and if, by remaining on this side of the equator, I could always thus rise from the ridiculous to the sublime, I would not care ever to return. The starry novelties of this Southern hemisphere, all of which it has been my privilege to look upon, are especially interesting. The Southern Cross, as it is called, is composed of four stars; large, but of varying magnitude; and although very beautiful in themselves, the idea associated with them is one that appeals to the most sacred and sublime emotions of the soul. They are always looked upon as a token of peace; and as they indicate, according to their position, the hours of the night, there is to my mind something very poetical in the custom which prevails among many of the South Americans, as I am informed, of shouting at night, in their lone wanderings over the hills and plains—
“Midnight is past, the Cross begins to bend.”
The stars known as the Magellan Clouds are nebulous in their character, and there are three distinct clusters. And what we read of as the Northern Crown is composed of seven stars encircling two-thirds of an oval figure. But the Southern Cross in its distinctness and beauty eclipses all the other constellations ever discovered, and no wonder that Mrs. Hemans was inspired to write that admirable poem on this wonder of the heavens, which concludes as follows:—
“But thou to my thoughts art a pure blazing shrine,
A fount of bright hopes, and of visions divine;
And my soul, like an eagle, exulting and free,
Soars high o’er the Andes to mingle with thee.”
Of all those who have a right to talk about the delights of home, none can excel the New England boy, when he is a wanderer upon the ocean. The times are very frequent when I feel like shedding tears in my loneliness, but whenever I think of a song my sisters used to sing, about some poor fellow who had died “upon a foreign shore,” I become a veritable child in my weakness. Home! what a precious word, and how sacred are its memories! The very house, with its cosy rooms, where we were born, the neighbouring hills over which we frolicked after chestnuts and blackberries, the lovely river and charming lakes where we sported as anglers, and the books we were wont to read to our beautiful playmates and companions—how do they live in perpetual freshness! Whatever a man may lose in his hostile battle with the world, he never can become so hardened as not to think sometimes of his early home. Of my own home I never tire of thinking, and when I contrast its pleasures and many lessons of virtue with those I have experienced elsewhere, the latter always sink into insignificance. But it is when I think of the manner in which I have trifled with my own home, and with the affections of my dear parents and sisters, that my poor heart is bowed to the very dust, and I feel that I deserve all the severest pangs of home-sickness and the evils which follow in the pathway of a wayward, heedless, and extravagant life. I can only hope and constantly pray that God will have mercy upon me, and make me an honour to my name.
Yesterday, which was Sunday, by request of the captain, I read aloud a portion of the morning service in the Prayer-Book, and then, for my own enjoyment, a sermon by Jeremy Taylor, and several of the heart-touching poems of Robert Burns. The captain has an ear for music, and we had a large amount of very good psalm-singing. We concluded the day with a regular feast of Yankee “dough-nuts,” made under the immediate direction of the captain, and, as the sun went down over the far-off Andes in unspeakable glory, the day was very enjoyable. Early this morning we saw an iceberg; it was white as snow, and the captain says not less than one hundred and fifty feet high. It formed a grand and beautiful picture, which I can never forget; and thus you see that within the last twenty-four hours there has been no monotony in our occupations nor in what we have seen.
To-day we saw a very large dead whale floating upon the waters, and I should imagine a million of birds were in the full enjoyment of the rare banquet. Of course, a long talk followed on the subject of whales, as two of the officers had served their time as whalemen. To those who go down to the sea in ships, it is well known that the carcasses of whales are frequently seen floating far out on the ocean, or stranded on the shore; but it is not so generally known how these monsters come to die. Man is the worst enemy of the whale, but he always preserves his spoil; the sword-fish is the second worst enemy of leviathan; but the creature that claims the third rank as an ocean-butcher is a fish called the Killer. He is occasionally sufficiently large to yield ten barrels of oil, has a sharp nose, two very large and wing-like fins; and out of his back grows another fin, which, when the fish is swimming near the surface, projects three or four feet out of the water, and somewhat resembles a moving post. Now it is said that to this fish the habits of the whale are well known, and when the former is on his feeding-ground, and has arranged his huge mouth as a kind of trap to catch the shrimp and other aquatic creatures, the killer watches his chance, and suddenly seizing the tongue of the whale, tears it out with great violence, which exploit terminates in a gorgeous feast for the killer, and in the untimely death of the whale!! By some, this fish is said to belong to the shark family; but by others it is considered a relative of the grampus. The whale naturally has a horror of them, and when a mother is accompanied by her young, and happens to discover one of these “killers,” she at once places them on her back, and then swims so near the surface that, for a time, the offspring are entirely out of the water. The variety here alluded to is the black, or right whale of the Pacific, which also has a habit of protecting its young when in danger, by shielding them under its fins, while the sperm whale is more selfish by nature, and always seems unconcerned about the fate of its offspring. The “killers” sometimes swim in schools, and when thus leagued together have been known to attack and capture a wounded or dead whale at the very moment when the whalemen were about to secure the prize for which they had long struggled. But more curious than the above is the subjoined story, told by one of my companions:—
He was on his way from San Francisco to Panama, when, one pleasant day, a large “sulphur-bottom whale” suddenly made his appearance alongside of his ship, now on one quarter, and then on the other, and sometimes within five yards of the vessel. After blowing two or three times, he would pass under the ship and rub his back against the keel, and this he continued to do for several days. The sailors had never heard of such doings before, and were somewhat troubled. Some of the passengers amused themselves by shooting bullets into the monster, and although they drew blood, he would not go away. On his back were clinging a number of small fish, which they called suckers. Day after day and night after night, the huge creature kept on his way, as if he were an appendage to the ship. After this intimacy had lasted twenty days, and the fish had followed the vessel full two thousand miles, a large school of cow-fish or porpoises made their appearance, and also a devil-fish, when the whale made a few tumbles into their midst, and the whole lot of strange creatures disappeared from view for ever.
The announcement was made, to-day, that we had “sighted” Cape Horn. Whether true or not, we have certainly sighted a rousing gale, a heavy snow-storm, another storm of hail and rain, very cold weather, several large whales, any number of white porpoises, a large whale-ship dashing gloriously through the foam, and a big commotion generally. We have been doing a great deal of what they call “standing off and standing on,” but it has not been a stationary business. The particular spot called Cape Horn is a lofty and desolate rock forming the southern extremity of Hermit Island, and belonging to the Tierra del Fuego group of islands. We were two or three times in close proximity to the Cape, but found it expedient to keep a respectful distance. We had one experience of what are called “long-footed swells,” but, generally speaking, the waters were a “Hell Gate” on a magnificent scale. To “double Cape Horn” means to sail entirely around it, and not merely to pass it; and this feat was first performed in 1616 by a navigator named Schouten of Hoorn in Holland. From his native place the Cape obtained its name. It was on one of the many islands in the immediate vicinity of Cape Horn that the great navigator Cook admired the remarkable harmony reigning among the different species of mammifera and birds, and which he described in substance as follows: “The sea-lions occupied the greatest part of the sea-coast, the bears the inland; the shags were posted on the highest cliffs, the penguins in such places as had the best access to the sea, and the other birds chose more retired places. Occasionally, however, all these animals were seen to mix together, like domestic cattle and poultry in a farm-yard, without one attempting to hurt the other in the least. Even the eagles and the vultures were frequently seen sitting together on the hills among the shags, while none of the latter, either old or young, appeared to be disturbed by their presence. No doubt the poor fishes had to pay for the touching union of this happy family.”
We arrived at Valparaiso this afternoon. It took us about twenty days to get entirely around the Horn; it is now one hundred and twenty-six days since we left New York, and we have sailed not less than thirteen thousand six hundred and ninety miles, although by direct measurement the distance is only four thousand and three hundred miles.
The present is the last day of my four months’ sojourn in Valparaiso. Of course, I have been rambling about the country to some extent, and the substance of my observations may be summed up as follows: One of my visits was to an estate about twenty miles from the city, which consists of three thousand acres without a wall or fence upon it, and upon which I saw not fewer than one thousand cows, with a large number of sheep and horses. I went out with the son of the owner—a Spaniard—and on horseback, and enjoyed myself amazingly. We had to pass over a range of mountains where the roads were so narrow that my legs were frequently scraped against the rocky cliffs, and on reaching the estate or hacienda, I found it to be a perfectly level plain; and the place in some particulars, and especially its remoteness, reminded me of the happy valley where Rasselas resided, as recorded by Dr. Johnson. The people who work upon it are called peons—in reality a variety of slaves—and the cluster of reed cabins in which they live are known as ranchos. Although the raising of cattle for butchering was the chief business, the estate was well supplied with vineyards, wheat fields, and orchards or fruit gardens. Connected with this hacienda was a kind of shop or country store, called bodegon; and from what I had myself seen and been told, this particular estate was a fair sample of those to be found in all the more settled parts of Chili. Some of them, however, are much larger, and contain as many as twenty thousand head of cattle. They give employment here to an extensive class of men called vaqueros, or herdsmen, who are continually roaming on horseback among the cattle, while grazing upon the hills or in the forests. One of the most notable pictures that I witnessed consisted of a flock of condors feasting upon a dead horse; and another was of a corral of five thousand head of cattle in charge of not less than fifty horsemen. Of regular Indians, or aborigines, I saw none, but my friend told me there were not less than fifteen tribes in the Republic. On our way home, I enjoyed some very imposing mountain views, and was informed that the highest of the Chilian Andes was named Tupungato, and attained an elevation of nearly twenty-three thousand feet.
I have also made a flying visit to Santiago, which is not only the seat of government of Chili, but a somewhat flourishing city of eighty thousand inhabitants. Although considered at the foot of the Andes, it is, nevertheless, one thousand eight hundred and fifty feet above the ocean, and is admirably located on the Mapocho River. If it had been in the hands of any other people, it would not have taken three hundred years to reach its present population. It is the centre of an extensive mineral region, abounding in gold, silver, and copper, and is well supported by an agricultural country. It is a jolly sort of place, and its people are polite and musical, and sufficiently intelligent to possess a public library with twenty-five thousand volumes, such as they are. It is thirty-two Spanish leagues from Valparaiso, and by the tough horses of the country the journey is made in one day. On the score of horsemanship, no people can excel the Chilians; but they treat their horses badly, which trait, to my mind, is characteristic of Spanish blood. In their frivolity and want of sense, they will make more fuss over a fancy saddle than over a beautiful horse. The prevailing religion is Roman Catholic, and its customs cast a more depressing shadow upon society than do the mountains upon the streets of the city. The scenery, in every direction, is very beautiful, but especially so at the sunset hour, when the mountain peaks are clothed in the colours of the rainbow. Taken as a whole, however, Santiago, in spite of its novelties and the wonderful country which hems it in, is just one of those places where I would not spend my days if it were given to me in fee-simple.
And now for a passing word about Valparaiso. It was, originally, merely the seaport for Santiago, but is now abundantly able to hold its own as a city of fifty thousand souls. It lies on the declivity of a high hill, and overlooks a handsome bay. It derives its name from Va-al-Paraiso, or Go to the Paradise, which is what the earliest settlers used to say to strangers, when they wished them to visit their capital—Santiago. The commerce of the port is well represented by the four nationalities of France, England, Germany, and the United States. Business is thriving, and the society is really enjoyable. At the present time, the most noted novelty of the town is an affair called The Fabrica, and established by William P. Williams, of New York. It is a kind of universal manufacturing establishment, where useful articles, composed of wood and iron, are turned out to an extent that is simply amazing. I cannot give the total number of his operations, but I know that he brought out from Connecticut and New York, at one time, a party of not less than fifty first-class mechanics. The establishment has done much to increase the household comforts of the people in these parts, and I trust is making lots of money for its owner.
It was while carrying on his extensive shipping interests in the Pacific that he accidentally visited Valparaiso, and one of his first thoughts was the creation of the Fabrica. The harbour of Valparaiso is not a safe one, and at times the shipping suffers severely from what are called Northers. Vessels are frequently wrecked directly in front of the city, and it is quite common to hear the minute-guns at sea during a gale. The city supports a large barometer in the City Exchange, from the top of which a signal is elevated, which tells the seamen in port to “look out for bad weather.” Notwithstanding all this, it is a favourable resort for the men-of-war of all nations, where they are always abundantly furnished with supplies. It is a little singular that there is a point of the city which they call “Cape Horn,” while it is asserted that, without any real authority, the Government of Chili claims the veritable Cape Horn as within its jurisdiction.
But I must not forget the earthquakes of this Castilian country. They are very common and very terrible, but it is said the local accounts have often been exaggerated. Familiarity with them never breeds contempt, for the people of to-day seem to dread them more than did their ancestors three hundred years ago. Some of the Chilian cities have been destroyed by them two or three times; and it is said of them that, besides destroying an immense amount of property and many lives, they are also frequently detrimental to the public health, by changing the surface of the country and poisoning the vegetation. I am fond of collecting curiosities, but do not think that I shall carry off an earthquake.
At sea again. And now I hope to reach Boston without any further detention, growing out of my deplorable habit of wandering by the wayside. My present ship is the “Crusader,” and the money I chanced to make as clerk or supercargo has now been presented to its captain, as a return for his kindness in receiving me as a passenger.
Once more off Cape Horn: and I have to-day celebrated the event by stepping over the line which separates youth from manhood. I have reached the age of twenty-one, and hope to put away all childish habits. An hour ago a splendid English frigate passed us bound to the Pacific, and as we dipped our ensign she gave us the glorious music of Yankee Doodle; and at this moment there are five additional ships in full view. It is twenty days since we left Valparaiso, and having stopped at one or two out-of-the-way ports, I will describe them briefly. The first was Talcahuano, which is considered the best port on the coast of Chili; it is on the Bay of Concepcion, and has about five thousand inhabitants. It bears the same relative position to the city of Concepcion that Valparaiso does to Santiago. Concepcion, however, is only nine miles from the sea, contains about ten thousand inhabitants, and while it possesses many advantages for business, and is the centre of a very rich mineral region, it has, from time immemorial, suffered from the warfare of hostile Indians, having been pillaged by them on four occasions, and three times, at least, has it been destroyed by earthquakes. It is flanked by some of the finest forests in the world, and yet much of the lumber used in building is brought from the United States. During our stay at Talcahuano, I made a visit to the neighbouring island of Quiriquina, where I had a talk with its one solitary male inhabitant, who, as a shepherd, was attending to a flock of one thousand sheep. He had his family with him in a small hut, and was about as happy a man as I saw on the Pacific coast.
At this present writing we are anchored in the port of Stanley, among the Falkland Islands, two hundred and fifty miles north-east from Cape Horn, to the right of which the “Evadne” passed on her way to Valparaiso. It is said that these islands number not less than two hundred, but there are only two of any great size, and these, upon the map, look as much like a pair of spiders as anything else. They are, respectively, eighty and eighty-five miles long, and from forty to fifty in width. The bays, and sounds, and harbours which encircle them are enough to mystify a weak-headed man. Towards the north the land is elevated to the extent of more than two thousand feet, but on the south it is almost level with the ocean; they are without any trees, and present the appearance of moorland covered with grass and lichens, and watered by many small streams, and are desolate enough to satisfy the most desperate anchorite, but the climate is very agreeable, equable, and without any extremes of heat or cold. The land is admirably adapted to grazing, and cattle-raising is the leading business; in several of the islands wild horses are found in abundance; seals of various kinds and any number of birds frequent all the shores; and the little port of Stanley is a favourite resort for the ships of all nations. These islands were discovered by Davis in 1592, are considered the key to the Pacific Ocean, and belong to the Government of Great Britain.
To-day I witnessed one of those wonderful displays known as water-spouts. It came up about a mile from our ship, seemed to be about twice as high, and in shape resembled an hour-glass. The sea was quite calm at the time, and in various directions on the horizon we could see showers of rain. The spectacle lasted about twenty minutes, and this is what the sailors have told me about them:—The spouts are formed by two currents of air, which meet and suck up the water into a kind of cone, when the vapours, which are thus produced, rise into the upper air like a lily, and thus produce the hour-glass appearance. They are frequently accompanied by flashes of lightning, and sometimes emit a sulphurous odour. They are considered dangerous, for if one should happen to burst near a ship, she would be filled with water in an instant. After the spout had disappeared, a stiff breeze sprang up, and we had a sunset that was indescribably brilliant and grand.
It is now just three hundred and forty days since I started from New York for Boston, during which period I sailed not less than twenty-seven thousand miles, and at four o’clock this afternoon the good “Crusader” dropped her anchor within a mile of the Bunker Hill monument. To say that I am thankful would seem like trifling, and it is not necessary. My recent experiences have given me many new views of the wonderful goodness and power of God, and this truth is one which I cannot too highly estimate.
As a sequel to the above, it may be well enough to append the following. The voyage to Valparaiso made by our young adventurer was, as might have been expected, only the precursor to a more elaborate voyage around the world. When the rebellion commenced in 1861, he happened to be in this country, and was not slow in offering his services in defence of the grand old flag. He entered the rank and file of the army, under an assumed name, served with fidelity as a corporal, until wounded at Cold Harbour, after which he was occupied for a year as a quartermaster’s clerk; tiring of that employment, he solicited from President Lincoln an appointment in the navy, in his real name, as a master’s mate, and was immediately transferred from the army to a small vessel on the Lower Potomac, in which he performed much hard duty, and rendered many services of value, until the close of the war; after which he went to sea in at least two of our naval vessels, and circumnavigated the globe; and after his many wanderings, while on his way from Cuba to this country, he was attacked by the yellow fever, died in less than three days, and was buried in the ocean, which he loved with an unconquerable passion. And that wild rover of the sea, and most noble-hearted boy, was the only brother of the present writer.
My first pilgrimage to Montauk Point, or Montaukett, was made in 1858, since which time I have frequently re-visited it, and always with renewed pleasure. My favourite mode of reaching it has been by yacht and fishing smack; but the route by steamboat to Sag Harbour is full of interest; and so also is the journey by railway from New York city, through the lovely garden-farms of Long Island, by the way of Greenport, Sag Harbour, and East Hampton. I have sketched its scenery and manifold attractions both with pencil and pen, and I now propose to submit a summary of my observations.
That portion of Long Island known as Montauk Point, or the Place of the Manito Tree, consists of nine thousand acres, and, excepting a small Indian reservation, is owned in common by the farmers of East Hampton and Bridgehampton, having been purchased of the Montauk tribe of Indians more than two hundred years ago. Among the peculiar features of the old deeds or treaties was this:—“That the Rev. Thomas James and his two associates should have exclusive right to all the whales that might be driven upon the shore, while the natives reserved the privilege of having ‘all the fins and tails.’ ” The property is divided and sub-divided into shares, and is used from April to December almost exclusively as a grazing domain, and the cattle and horses and sheep which spend their summers there may be counted by the thousand. The number of shares, which are divided into eighths, is now thirty-four; and as each eighth is valued at five hundred dollars, we find the total value of the property to be one hundred and fifty-two thousand dollars. Near its centre, or three miles from the extreme point, and midway between Long Island Sound and the ocean, which are here only one mile and a half apart, is located a rude but comfortable farm-house, whose occupant is placed there by election, and whose duties as herdsman are to look after the stock owned by the farmers generally. The present occupant of this position is a worthy man named Samuel T. Stratton; but when I first visited it (in 1858), Patrick T. Gould was the occupant, as he had been for nine years before, and a more obliging and agreeable family than his, with his three stalwart sons, was never met with by summer tourists, and a better table than was that of our amiable hostess can only exist in dreams. Besides the farm-house just mentioned, another three miles further inward, where a second herdsman named Osborne is stationed, and the lighthouse, the only habitable buildings on the promontory are those belonging to a small remnant of Indians, clustered on the northern shore on what are called the Indian Fields. As may be supposed, therefore, the leading artificial feature of the region is the lighthouse. It was built in 1799, of red sandstone brought from Connecticut by one John M‘Comb, at a cost of twenty-five thousand dollars. It stands within a few hundred paces of the extreme eastern point of Long Island—a spot called by the Indians Wamponomon. The turf above which it rises is eighty feet above high tide, and its lantern eighty-six feet from the ground. For fifty-three years it performed its office, after the fashion of the olden times, during which period it was surmounted by the effigy of an Indian’s head; but in 1849 the Government thought proper to dress it up with modern improvements at a cost of eleven thousand dollars, so that the prospects have been much brightened. The very complete and beautiful lantern now there was a present from the French Government, and has its history. When it arrived in this country, the collector of New York was not informed as to its destination, and after the lapse of a certain time he had it sold to pay the duty; and having been purchased for seventy dollars by a lover of auction elephants, that person subsequently sold it to the Government for nine hundred, and it was assigned to Montauk.
The lighthouse has now been on duty about seventy-four years, and the names of the men—most of them good men and true—who have been its keepers are Jacob Hand, Henry Baker, Patrick T. Gould (who occupied the position for nearly eighteen years), John Hobert, Silas P. Lopez, Jason M. Terbel, Jonathan E. Paine, William S. Gardiner, Joseph Stanton, J. A. Miller, and Thomas P. Ripley, the present incumbent. In former times the dwelling of the keeper stood in a little hollow, back of the lighthouse, and his pay was three hundred and fifty dollars per annum; at present his dwelling is attached to the lighthouse itself, and his pay is seven hundred dollars, with two assistants. A better place to study the phases of the ocean, the beauties of the sky, the powers of the wind, or the fantastic performances of the fog, cannot be found on the Atlantic coast; and any lover of nature who may be privileged to spend a week or a month on this spot will have freighted his mind with emotions and thoughts that will be cherished to the end of his days.
But now for a topographical description of Montauk Point. Its surface is undulating to a remarkable degree, and it is well named, for the meaning of Montauk is hilly country; and while all the hills are covered with a green sward, in many of the little valleys or hollows is to be found a rank growth of stunted forest. The tops of the trees are invariably on a level with the surrounding hills, for the winter storms long since issued a mandate that there should be no towering aristocracy among the woods of Montauk. To my mind the general scenery bears a striking resemblance to the rolling prairies of the Far West, and a friend who has visited England informs me that nothing could be more like the Downs of Devonshire than the hills of Montauk; only that the former are more lofty, and have more imposing coast scenery. One thing is certain, lofty as many of them are, and woodless as are the whole, and looking out as they do upon the ocean, they are very grand, and inevitably make a deep impression upon the mind of the beholder. But such has not always been the character of the country. Originally it was completely covered with luxuriant forests, but in 1815 and 1823 it was visited by two hurricanes, which levelled all the towering vegetation, and the trees having rotted away or been used as fuel, the hills have only in later years put on their beautiful vesture of green. In no part of the region is to be found anything like a running stream, but tiny ponds, teeming with white and yellow lilies, are met with in all directions; and on the western border of the reserve, or common domain, are two more ambitious sheets of water, which might be called lakes. The larger one is called Great Pond, is perhaps two miles and a half in length, and most abundantly supplied with white perch; the other is Fort Pond, something over half a mile long, and has upon its shores many interesting memorials of the Indian race, who once inhabited what is now known as the “Indian Fields.” Two smaller sheets of water, contiguous to the above, are Oyster Pond and Reed Pond. Westward of the above-mentioned ponds there is a strip of country which really belongs to Montauk, for its western boundary consists of the Nommonock Hills, and here are to be found two or three farm-houses, but they only increase the loveliness of the scenery. The rock formation of Montauk is almost exclusively confined to boulders; and while the southern or ocean coast is lofty and imposing, it is composed of gravelly points, with grass growing to their crumbling edges, and everywhere looking down upon a fine beach or shingle, and upon as superb a surf as the world affords. The northern, or Sound shore, though less imposing, is perhaps more varied, and is to some extent supplied with harbours for small vessels.
With regard to the early history of Montauk, it is chiefly associated with the Indians, and although involved in much obscurity, what has come down to us in an authentic form proves that they were a remarkable and interesting people. It was said of them by one of their descendants, on being questioned as to their numbers—“If you can count the spears of grass, you can count the Indians who were living when I was a boy.” The earliest of their chiefs, of whom anything is positively known, was Wyandanch, or Wyandannee; he assumed the royal authority in 1651; had thirteen tribes under his sway; and was sachem of the whole of “Paumanacke,” or Long Island. In person the men of the tribe were tall and of lofty bearing, and they were expert in the arts of war. In religion they were idolaters, and had gods for the four corners of the earth, the four seasons of the year, the elements of fire, air, and water, and for the products of the earth, one each for the day and night, the sun and moon and stars, and one for the hearthstone of home. Their canoes were of the largest class, some of them capable of holding eighty persons, and in them did they extend their coasting voyages as far as the towns of Boston and New York. The canoe of the great chief was so large that it required eight men to draw it upon the shore. In the arts their advancement was limited, and their principal articles of manufacture were shell beads or wampum, which they supplied to the nations on the main shore. The earliest efforts to introduce civilisation and Christianity among them were made in 1660, and the worthy man who pioneered the way in this enterprise was the Rev. Thomas James, but of his success little is known. In 1740 the Rev. Azariah Horton succeeded him in that missionary field, and in 1798 the Rev. Paul Cuffee, a Shinecock Indian, entered upon a missionary life among the Montauk Indians, in which capacity he served until his death in 1812.
When Sag Harbour was successfully engaged in the whaling business, many of the Montauk Indians shipped as sailors, and seldom returned to reside in their native village, and at the present time the nation has been reduced to a remnant of five miserable families. As in the olden times, they live upon fish and berries, and on such vegetables as their small gardens will afford; and yet they claim that one of their number, who died about one year ago, was their legitimate chief, or king, as they loved to call him. His son, a young man, is the present occupant of the throne; his disputed dominion comprises the entire area of the “Indian Fields.”
The precise time when this aboriginal nation began rapidly to decline is not known, but the great event which caused their downfall has been graphically narrated by their best historian, the late John Gardener. The Montauk Indians, as he tells us, were the allies of the Pequots. When the country was first settled, a war prevailed between the Pequots on the one side and the Narragansetts, who were very numerous, on the other. The Block Island Indians took part with the latter, the Montauks with the former; and in this war the Montauks received a heavy blow from the Block Island Indians. On one memorable evening the fighting men of both tribes set out on an expedition in their war canoes. It was the summer season and at the full of the moon. They met about half way between their several camping grounds, but owing to the glare of the moon the Block Island Indians were not seen by their enemies, and profiting by this accident, they hurriedly returned to their island, secreted their wives and children, and arranged themselves in ambush. The Montauks, not dreaming of the danger, arrived at their landing-place, hauled up their canoes, and silently approached the wigwams of their enemies, supposed to be asleep. They fell into the ambush, and while one party was killing them, another proceeded to destroy the canoes, slaying a number of men who attempted to get away. They were all killed or captured, excepting a few who escaped in one canoe and carried the melancholy news to their friends. The leader of this Montauk band was taken alive and carried to Narragansett. There a large rock was heated to excess, by building fires upon it, and the unfortunate captive was ordered to walk to and fro upon it with his bare feet. He sang his death song, and with erect form and unflinching eye obeyed the cruel orders; and after his feet had been burned to a crisp, he fell, and the barbarians finished as usual in such cases. And this event ended the long continued war between the two nations.
As to the number of wrecks that have occurred on Montauk Point within the last thirty years, they have been numerous and disastrous both to life and property. Among the more noted vessels lost were the schooner “Triumph,” the whale-ship “Forrester,” the brig “Marcellus,” the bark “Algea,” the light boat “Nantucket,” the brig “Flying Cloud,” the ship “John Milton,” and the steamship “Amsterdam,” laden with fruit from Malaga. The incidents which have been narrated to me touching these various calamities, do not incline me to fall in love with the ocean on the score of humanity, and I was surprised to learn that much the larger proportion of the poor mariners wrecked on the coast of Montauk had been saved. The most fearful calamity was that which befell the ship “John Milton,” and her wreck was almost the first object that I saw and sketched on my first visit to the region, and it was long before I could banish the story of her fate from my mind. Her burden was nearly fifteen hundred tons. She was from the South Pacific, bound to New York, laden with guano, and went ashore in a snow-storm, on the night of the 19th of January 1858. Her crew consisted of twenty-six persons, and on the day following the catastrophe their dead bodies were all found scattered along the beach, and were subsequently buried in the village of East Hampton. Not content with having sent this noble ship upon the shore, the ocean for some weeks was unceasingly hammering away with its huge and savage breakers upon the timbers of the poor hulk, until every vestige had disappeared for ever. And thus has it been in every clime; “man marks the earth with ruin; his control stops with the shore.”
In connection with the frequent shipwrecks, it is due to the General Government that its wisdom and beneficence should be mentioned. At various localities on the Montauk coast there have been established a number of Relief Houses, where at all times may be found a supply of fuel and food and clothing, as well as signal guns, appropriate cordage and life-boats, which, during the rigour of winter, have been found of the greatest benefit to the unfortunate mariners. Nor has this region of solitude been without its deeds of personal heroism. I have seen a beautiful gold medal, upon which are inscribed these words: “Vita Feliciter Ausis Servata. Presented, January 1857, to Patrick T. Gould, for his courage and humanity in saving from inevitable death the crew of the brig Flying Cloud, wrecked on Montauk Point, L. I., December 14, 1856.” Reverse: “Life Saving Benevolent Association of New York. Incorporated March 29, 1849.” Of this worthy man I would further remark that he was born in East Hampton, spent his early life as a carpenter in New York city, was keeper of the Montauk Light for seventeen and a half years, and keeper also for nine years of the Herdsman’s House at Indian Fields, where I formed his acquaintance and that of his interesting family; and at the present time leading, in the seventy-first year of his age, the peaceful life of a farmer on the outskirts of East Hampton, and occupying the identical house where he spent his childhood.
On the score of fishing and shooting, Montauk Point is decidedly a region of the first water. Of striped bass and blue-fish, in their season, there literally seems to be no end. On a reef near the lighthouse, there have been taken with the net, in the autumn, as many as a thousand bass in a single night; but all along the ocean shore, the bass and blue-fish are taken by trolling with an ivory or leaden squid; and, what I have never known elsewhere, both these fish are taken here continually, by “heaving and hauling,” while standing on the beach. On these occasions the squid is covered with an eel-skin, and you throw the bait directly in the surf. The sport is rather laborious, but nothing could be better to expand the chest, and there is certainly something quite novel in the idea of dragging your prize by main strength, directly on the smooth white shore. In this manner, on one occasion, I saw two fishermen capture a cart-load of fish in less than one hour, ranging in weight from six to twenty pounds. Another mode of fishing with the hand-line is to float along the shore in a surf-boat, throwing the bait into the surf as before, while the boatman keeps the little craft in a proper and safe position. The only trouble is, that if you happen to be caught by one of the big waves at the moment of breaking, you may be instantly swamped and drowned. In your excitement, however, you are apt to forget all this; and especially is this the case when, through the pure water, you see the huge fish darting to and fro between the great boulders, which seem to cover the bottom of the ocean immediately around Montauk Point. Black-fish, sea bass and paugies, flounders and cod-fish, may also be taken in this vicinity; but they are not much sought after, when the bass and blue-fish are about. Indeed, so abundant are all these varieties, that, during the summer, you may see, at all times of day, a fleet of fishing smacks floating in bird-like beauty upon the neighbouring waters. As already stated, the white perch are found in the Montauk lakes; and it is worthy of note that the Rev. Dr. William Berrian, of New York, by way of enjoying the ocean and fine scenery of the Point, was in the habit of annually catching perch there for about thirty years, excepting when travelling in Europe, and always tarried with the Goulds. It is only now and then, in the later years, that whales are to be seen in these parts, but in the olden times they were abundant. Two hundred years ago, according to the old records, the art of killing whales seems to have been unknown; and there were parties of men from the interior, who in “squadrons” visited Montauk, for the purpose of taking possession of the carcasses that were stranded on the shores. At a later period it was customary to fit out expeditions of several whale boats, and cruise along the coast in the whaling season, camping out at night on the Montauk headlands, and leading as wild and romantic a life as could well be imagined. These expeditions usually lasted from one to two weeks, and the adventurers were composed of white men from the interior villages of Long Island, and the Indians of Montauk.
But the shooting on Montauk is quite as good as its fishing. Foxes were formerly very abundant, but are becoming less so; and as there is nothing to prevent you from seeing them running over the hills, when a mile distant, the chase with hounds might be indulged in to the greatest perfection.
Beavers were also abundant in former times, but are now extinct, and their place has been supplied by musk-rats, which are found in every pond. In the autumn, however, the whole Point swarms with wild fowl, such as geese, swan, brant, a dozen varieties of ducks, hill plover and curlew. A single gun, carried by a good sportsman, has often brought to wagon, instead of bag, a dozen or twenty geese before breakfast of a November morning. Indeed, so abundant has been the game here, and so extensive the reputation of Mrs. Gould’s table, during her husband’s occupancy of the Herdsman’s Retreat, that she has on many occasions been willingly obliged to harbour for the night half a hundred wild and happy sportsmen from the neighbouring as well as distant cities.
And here, leaving the aforesaid sportsmen engaged in recounting their unnumbered adventures around the blazing fire in the Retreat, I will repeat a bird-story which is almost pathetic. On one occasion, in 1857, Mr. Gould stumbled upon the skeleton of a dead eagle, about one mile from his house, and found attached to one of its legs an iron trap. Six months before, a Sag Harbour newspaper had stated that a large eagle had flown over the town with something hanging to its body, and as the trap was after a pattern not found in the Eastern States, it was presumed that the noble bird had put his foot into the cruel iron somewhere on our Western frontier, and had flown just far enough to die within sound of the ocean’s roar. Had the poet Campbell known of such an incident as this, he might have added a new sentiment to his splendid poem of “The Dead Eagle.”
With regard to the bathing facilities of Montauk I have not found them what I expected, but not on account of a scarcity of water, certainly. There are no bathing-houses, and, excepting when there is a dead calm, the surf is too rough on the southern shore and the sandy slopes too steep, while the northern shore is not only too far off from the Lighthouse or the Herdsman’s Retreat, but is generally tame. According to the experience of the ladies who have always accompanied me to this region, the best and only safe beach is directly in front of the Retreat. When we were first there, and guests of the Gould family, the hull of a wrecked brig called the “Flying Cloud,” afforded us more facilities than the best of bathing-houses. And this reminds me of one of our morning expeditions. The Gould House and the wreck were in sight of each other, although the intervening space of three quarters of a mile was filled up with gently rolling hills. I had preceded the ladies to the beach for the purpose of fishing for an hour, and they were to meet me at the wreck. When they left the house at ten o’clock there was a slight fog, but before they had walked fifty rods, it swept over the landscape in almost a solid mass, and as there was no path, they soon found themselves bewildered and lost. After waiting more than an hour, and wondering at their delay, I started in search, and very soon found myself in the same predicament. I saw three objects on a hill, and feeling confident that the lost were found, I hurried on, when three large mullen stalks waved their congratulations to me, under the influence of the breeze. At about the same time, as was afterwards made known, the ladies saw what they supposed to be their relative, with his uncouth hat, standing in anxious attitude on the summit of a hill, and shouting his name unanimously, and rushing to him for protection, they found, not him, but a withered Scotch thistle. As may be supposed, matters now became very much “mixed up,” and yet there was really nothing to be seen but fog—dense, wet, and salty fog. Without any previous arrangement, they were all in the full excitement—I cannot say enjoyment—of a fog bath, and, instead of buffeting the breakers of the sea, they were in constant danger of breaking their necks, one and all, in their ground and lofty tumbling on the hills. But a meeting-time finally arrived, and whether it was followed by a larger demonstration of laughter than of tears on the part of the way-worn and disgusted ladies, I have not been able to decide. In their opinion the “Children in the Wood” must have had a good time compared with that of the women in the fog. Soon after noon, however, the mists all cleared away, and lo! a surprise! There was the Gould House in full view of the party, and not a hundred yards distant. For consolation the entire party then went aside to the margin of a small pond, and gathering as many exquisite lilies as we could carry, turned our faces homeward, where we were welcomed by our bright and kind-hearted hostess, as well as by a general assortment of jokes touching our morning adventures.
This allusion to one of our Montauk mishaps brings vividly to my mind just now some other interesting recollections. It was a glorious day, for example, and I had gone forth alone, determined to give all its golden hours to what men call idleness. I started from the Gould Retreat after an early breakfast, and the roar of the surf attracted me first to the southern beach, where, in a ramble of half a mile, I saw in my very pathway wonders enough to fill me with amazement. In a little pool, hemmed in by a huge boulder, I captured two crabs, one of which was an awkward creature, resembling a spider, whose entire body was covered with zoophytes, while the other had flattened legs, which he used as oars, and whose active motions were allied to those of a man playing on a fiddle. I picked up also a number of star fish, and watched them pretending to be dead; saw them travel in a perfectly straight line in spite of every obstacle; tried, but in vain, to count their feet or suckers, and as I examined their tiny mouths, felt disposed to doubt the naturalists, who tell us that these nondescripts have it in their power to eat oysters. I seated myself upon the spar of a wrecked vessel, which was covered with barnacles, and while digging in the sand, turned up a splendid specimen of the jelly-fish, known as the Portuguese man-of-war, which, my fancy told me, might have voyaged a thousand miles in the Gulf Stream only to be washed ashore, where rested the remains of the goodly vessel made by man, both of them meeting with a similar and unexpected fate. The eggs of the skate and shark, which look so much like articles of human manufacture as to have received the name of mermaid’s purses, were to be seen in every direction, but they were all empty, while their sometime denizens, perhaps, were at that time roaming along the coast from Hatteras to Cape Cod. Pausing at a pile of sea-weed, I plucked some specimens that were so small and delicate as to be hardly visible to the naked eye, and at the same time drew forth other specimens which were a foot wide and twenty feet long. Bright pebbles and curious shells, flocks of sand-pipers and gulls, and sand-skippers by the myriad, all in their turn attracted my attention and excited my wonder. And now I paused, for the hundredth time, to gaze upon the wild careering waves, as they came from tropic climes, all clothed in living green, only to die in foam upon the shore. But the music of the ocean seemed to delight me more, if that were possible, than its magnificent evolutions. To my ear there was the deep moan of the ground swell, then the roaring and the laughing of curling breakers, afterwards the cannon-like reports of the water dashing on the rocks and pebbles; and, finally, the surging and the hissing of the waves as they melted in the sand. Ascending to the summit of a cliff, and casting another look upon the sea, I could not discover a single sail, and as I recollected that a line drawn from the spot where I stood to the Cape of Good Hope would not cross a foot of land, I turned away, more deeply impressed than ever before with the immensity of the ocean and the omnipotence of that Great Being who holds it in the hollow of His hand.
My second lounging place was on the margin of one of the forest islands peculiar to Montauk. The whole mass of vegetation seemed to spring from a bed of water, and from its density and impenetrable character, it was impossible fully to comprehend its botanical features. The predominating trees, however, were scrubby oaks and stunted pines, oddly shaped and fantastic, and covered with moss, which seemed to have braved a thousand years the storms of the sea and land. On the edges of the swampy wood, the sweet briar vied with the yellow lily in perfuming the air; blackberry bushes held aloft great clusters of fruit, as if to mock the barren and nameless vines that were running and twisting themselves in every direction; and luxuriant ferns formed everywhere hiding-places for the wood duck and her brood. On approaching one particular alder bush, two blackbirds suddenly appeared, flew rapidly in a circle just above my head, and their cries of alarm convinced me that a nest of young birds was near, and when I discovered them, the parents would not be quiet until I was entirely out of the way. They thought it very uncivil of me even to look at them, and yet the rascals would, in a short time, be busily engaged, with thousands of their kindred, in robbing the neighbouring corn-fields. Having thus been driven from the wood, where I expected to be amused for at least an hour, I concluded it was only a fit place for corn robbers to hatch their young in, and so passed on, when I was suddenly startled by a grey fox, that came down the hill-side like the wind, and bolted directly into the wood. There is another robber, thought I, and this swamp is his home, and so I departed forthwith in pursuit of more agreeable companions.
My next saunter was along the eastern border of the Great Pond. Mr. Gould’s sail boat, the only thing which identified that sheet of water with civilisation, was floating idly at her moorings, and I determined to have a sail, and perhaps a little sport in the way of fishing. Turning over a few stones, I obtained some bait, and knowing that the boat was supplied with tackle, I waded out, pulled up anchor, hoisted sail, and bore away before a pleasant breeze. In every direction, even where the lake was fifteen feet deep, I found grass, or a kind of weed resembling it, growing abundantly; but finally coming to an open spot, I put the boat about, and in half an hour caught white perch enough to supply a regiment. By this time the breeze had died away, and as I fancied it would take me a month to sail back to “the haven where I would be,” I seized an oar, and worked my passage to the nearest shore, which proved to be the northern extremity of the Pond. Here I found a stray Indian! and having hired him to take the boat back to its harbour, presented him with my fish, and continued my independent journey. I visited the Indian hamlet, was pleased with the rude but picturesque cabins and gentle manners of the Indian women, but could derive no pleasure from realising the sad events of their national history, and so I turned my face to the Herdsman’s Retreat. I then had a walk before me of nearly three miles over the highest of the Montauk hills, and upon which nearly all the live stock of the farmers happened at that time to be congregated. A more delightful walk than that I have seldom enjoyed. The height of this hill I do not know, but by the aborigines it was called “Shagwannock,” or Big Hill, and upon its summit they built their watch fires in time of war. But the panoramic pictures which appeared to my eyes, as well as those of which it formed a part, were all as peaceful as the soft summer air which slumbered upon land and ocean. In the north and north-west were the waters of the Sound, dotted with snowy sails, the green island owned by the Gardiner family, and beyond it the blue Connecticut shore; on the east and south, nothing but the great Atlantic, with the horizon line only broken by the towering lighthouse; and in the west were the gentle hills of Long Island fading to the sky. At one time, I saw a splendid bull standing on a hill, with a flock of sheep grazing by his side; a glance into one of the deep glens revealed a herd of perhaps five hundred head of cattle, of all colours and many kinds, and in groups and attitudes that would have delighted the Cattle Queen of France; anon I came in sight of a small group of sleepy oxen, standing so near the extreme summit of a hill, that they were pictured wholly against the sky; and finally, I was permitted to enjoy the poetry of motion, as a cavalcade of horses, which had been frightened by an Indian dog, came swooping over the hills, tearing up the sod in their way, and snorting with the rare excitement. With these and similar pictures, I amused myself until the middle of the afternoon, and while counting on a glorious sunset scene, a thunderstorm rose in the west, and in half an hour after I had reached the Retreat, it burst in all its indescribable beauty and gloom: its horrors having been enhanced by the wild bellowing of the cattle, which had now congregated in one vast herd, and were goring each other and madly running to and fro. The lightning struck in many places, and among its victims was one of the finest bulls on Montauk.
And here, in passing, I must not forget to make an additional remark about Gardiner’s Island, alluded to in the last paragraph. I had seen it a hundred times before resting like a cloud on the tranquil bosom of the Sound, and have often trolled for blue-fish in the adjacent waters, but because it was a private domain, and although the original proprietor was of my kindred, I never landed upon its shores. Its dimensions are about equal to those of Montauk, which it somewhat resembles in its general characteristics. It was purchased of the Manchonock Indians in 1639, by Lyon Gardiner, and by him was called the Isle of Wight, in honour of his native island, but as it has always been occupied by his descendants, it has come to bear his name. The present proprietor is the tenth in descent from the original purchaser, and the estate was styled a manor or lordship, although none of the family ever claimed the kindred title. It was one of the few places where the pirate Kidd actually buried some of his treasures, consisting of gold and silver and precious stones, and which, when discovered, were turned over to the colony of Massachusetts. The woodland upon this island has been protected with care, and is of a larger growth than any other in this latitude, and about one-third of the land is in a high state of cultivation. The main dwelling and various outhouses were built about one hundred years ago; the inhabitants number nearly a hundred, and are all under the rule of the proprietor. The farming operations are on a large scale, the leading products being corn, oats, and wheat, neat cattle, sheep, and horses, as well as butter and cheese from a very large and very well managed dairy. Taken as a whole, on account of its beauty, its extent, its history and relics of the past, it is one of the most interesting places on the Atlantic seaboard, and those who may desire to visit it may count upon always being received according to the most approved rules of hospitality. With regard to one of the members of the Gardiner family, the late John Lyon, it may be said that he was a devoted antiquarian, thoroughly versed in the history of Eastern Long Island, and probably did more than any other man to perpetuate the history of the Montauk Indians.
As the Montauk Lighthouse, by virtue of its position and duties, exercises a kind of guardian care over all who may come within the range of its influence, and as I have already touched upon its history, I would fain pay to it a “passing paragraph of praise.” On no other spot of earth, it seems to me, could a lover of nature ever be brought in closer contact with the ocean and the sky.
To be there in a heavy fog, when the alarm bell is sounding forth its dismal warnings; or when the trampling surf and the booming thunder, all in the glare of sheeted lightning, are striving to excel each other in their tumultuous roarings, would be to have experiences never to be forgotten. But if a thing of beauty is indeed a joy for ever, it only requires a brief sojourn at the Point, for a man to store away in his memory an ever-varying collection of pictures, marvellous for their loveliness. First come the glories of sunrise, as “the king of the bright days” emerges from the deep, accompanied by his retinue of crimson and golden clouds; then the effulgence of noon, when the ocean is sleeping; the afternoon, when the sky and the sea are blended together in one vast domain of pearly loveliness, vague and wonderful; the sunset hour, when we might fancy the gates of paradise are opening in the west; the long twilight, with its brood of treasured memories, roused into activity by the plaintive monotone of the waves; the rising moon, scattering its treasures of silver across the ocean, in the wake of the distant ships, and on the tops of the remote hills; midnight, with its silence and its starry worlds; and then the dawn, when the land-birds begin to sing, and the sea-birds leap from their resting-places to wander everywhere in search of food, on tireless pinions free. And then the views from the lantern of the lighthouse are interesting in the extreme, whether you look down, as it was my fortune, upon a fleet of more than a hundred mackerel fishermen, with a whale rolling along in the offing, and sporting defiance to the toilers of the sea; whether you watch a brilliant sunset above a sea of fog; or look upon the Montauk hills when covered with a thin fog, and the immense herds of cattle as they fade away resemble the spectres of a dream. These, and unnumbered others of their character, are the treasures which the true-hearted lover of Nature may enjoy in the greatest perfection on old Montauk.
I have been informed, by one who has known this region for more than fifty years, that even within his recollection marked changes have taken place in the outline of its shores; and while the encroachments are generally made by the sea, there are one or two spots near the Point where new land has been formed and is still forming. Indeed, very important changes have taken place within my own recollection. It seems to me that the lighthouse itself is not on a secure foundation, and it may have to be rebuilt in twenty or thirty years. But this subject of the changes which time is continually making upon the earth’s surface recalls to my mind a very beautiful passage from the pen of Mohammed Kazwyny, a naturalist, who lived in the thirteenth century; the original manuscript is preserved in the Royal Library at Paris, the English translator from the French translation was Charles Lyell, and the extract is given as the narrative of an imaginary personage as follows:—
“I passed one day by a very ancient and wonderfully populous city, and asked one of its inhabitants how long it had been founded. ‘It is, indeed, a mighty city,’ replied he, ‘we know not how long it has existed, and our ancestors were on this subject as ignorant as ourselves.’ Five centuries afterwards, as I passed by the same place, I could not perceive the slightest vestige of the city. I demanded of a peasant, who was gathering herbs upon its former site, how long it had been destroyed. ‘In sooth, a strange question!’ replied he. ‘The ground here has never been different from what you now behold it.’ ‘Was there not of old,’ said I, ‘a splendid city here?’ ‘Never,’ answered he, ‘so far as we have seen, and never did our fathers speak to us of any such.’ On my return there five hundred years afterwards, I found the sea in the same place, and on its shores were a party of fishermen, of whom I inquired how long the land had been covered by the waters. ‘Is this a question,’ said they, ‘for a man like you? This spot has always been what it is now.’ I returned again five hundred years afterwards, and the sea had disappeared. I inquired of a man who stood alone upon the spot, how long ago this change had taken place, and he gave me the same answer I had received before. Lastly, on coming back after an equal lapse of time, I found there a flourishing city, more populous and more rich in beautiful buildings than the city I had seen the first time, and when I would fain have informed myself concerning its origin the inhabitants answered me: ‘Its rise is lost in remote antiquity; we are ignorant how long it has existed, and our fathers were, on this subject, as ignorant as ourselves.’ ”
As Montauk is one of the pleasantest places in the world to visit, so is it a most agreeable place from which to depart, especially if you have visited it by sea, and return by the way of East Hampton. It is a drive of twenty-one miles, almost continually in view of the ocean, but at the same time remarkable for its variety of scenery. The first stopping-place as you come westward is the house of George Osborne, which is flanked by a bay running up from the Sound, and directly in front of which is a splendid beach, where may always be seen the skeleton of a stranded ship or the bones of a whale. Mr. Osborne’s business is to look after the sheep for the Montauk Company, and, on account of his superior qualities as a host, he is a great favourite with the sporting fraternity. But the most striking feature which you cross is Neapeague Beach or water land, which connects Montauk with the main part of Long Island, and where the grassy feature is only relieved by artificial landmarks, and where nothing is heard but the hum of mosquitoes, the scream of the bittern and plover, and the roar of the ocean. Before reaching and after leaving Neapeague, you pass through picturesque woods and an occasional house, where comfort and repose are quite at home, catch charming glimpses both of the ocean and the Sound, and are tempted to exclaim: “This is glorious, and I would like to go back and try it all over again.”
Then comes the lovely little hamlet called Amagansett, which is the easternmost cluster of houses to be found on Long Island, and finally you enter for a good long rest, as you will try to make it, the exquisite rural village of East Hampton. Here you will find in their greatest perfection grassy streets, brown houses, flanked by cheerful gardens and orchards, two pretty little churches, a comfortable inn or summer hotel, all the advantages of the best sea-bathing, and such polite, kind-hearted, and unpretending people, that you will fain for the time being almost forget Montauk, and look about you for a permanent location. This gem of an old-fashioned village was founded in 1648, and is the only place in the United States, that I remember, excepting St. Augustine, in Florida, which has not been visited by the blasting influences of Mammon. It was purchased of the Indians by two Colonial Governors, named Eaton and Hopkins, and assigned to the original settlers for the sum of £30, 4s. 8d. sterling. The first name given to the plantation was that of Maidstone, after the English town from which the inhabitants had emigrated. It has been stated as a singular fact, that in the one hundred and ninety-fifth year of its existence, the village contained precisely the same number of houses that it did when the settlement was first completed.
The laws which governed the community were those of Connecticut, and were noted for their Puritan strictness; and one of the first steps taken by the people, after they had furnished their thatched cottages, was to erect a church in 1651. That church was enlarged in 1673, and again in 1698, remodelled in 1717 and in 1822, and in June of the year 1871 razed to the ground. Queen Anne of England honoured herself by furnishing it with a bell, which, however, was cracked many years ago; and the fragments, as well as the original vane of the church, have passed into the possession of the Long Island Historical Society. For about one hundred and fifty years after it was founded, its pulpit was supplied by a number of very able and sincerely zealous preachers, whose memories are fondly cherished by the present inhabitants, viz., Thomas James, who did much good as a missionary among the Indians; Nathaniel Huntting, a kinsman of the famous martyr John Rogers; Samuel Buell, who studied with Jonathan Edwards, and founded the village academy; and Lyman Beecher, who was settled in 1799, and for eleven years filled the old church with his fiery eloquence. But the fact that John Howard Payne, the author of “Home, Sweet Home,” spent a portion of his boyhood here (where his father was a teacher in the village academy), is alone sufficient to endear the place to every home-loving American. If Eastern Long Island may boast that she once harboured the progenitor of the distinguished Beecher family, so may Central Long Island claim the honour of having fostered Ebenezer Prime, another celebrated clergyman, who was also the ancestor of a brotherhood of highly gifted men in the departments of theology, medicine, and literature.
Some of my friends, the wise of their generation, have occasionally expressed surprise at my fondness for angling. While the phantoms of their summer pursuit have been associated with conventional life in pent-up cities, it has been my choice, supplied with sketching-materials and fishing-tackle, to breathe the pure air of the wilderness. I have no desire to combat the prejudices alluded to; but, by way of showing how much may be seen and enjoyed during a single fishing excursion, I propose to write a chapter about the Jacques Cartier river, in Lower Canada. In 1859 I made a flying visit to this stream, which resulted, first, in my tumbling into its pure waters, and secondly, in my falling in love with one of the most beautiful rivers on the continent. On several occasions since then have I visited it; and if I can now impart to my reader a tithe of my pleasurable experiences, I shall be quite contented. On the score of novelty, moreover, I desire no better fortune to attend this chapter than has already attended my descriptions of the Saguenay river and Lake Memphremagog, since it was not long ago that two distinguished American authors, after travelling far over the world, first visited them, and expressed surprise at their grandeur and beauty. I beg the favourite authors alluded to not to rest satisfied until they have followed me a little further in my American wanderings, and have finally spent a summer on the Jacques Cartier.
This river derives its name from the famous discoverer of Canada, who wintered at its mouth in 1536. It rises in a mountain wilderness, bounded on the north by Lake St. John and the Saguenay river, and, after a winding course of perhaps one hundred miles, empties into the St. Lawrence twenty-five miles above or westward of Quebec.
Its waters are dark, but very pure, and its entire bed and banks are extremely rocky, slate, granite, and limestone lending their strata to diversify the scenery.
In the variety of its scenery, indeed, as well as in beauty, it is probably not excelled by any other river, and from its fountain-head to the St. Lawrence it is made up of a continued succession of small lakes and rapids, deep pools and falls, with high and fantastic banks, everywhere covered with luxuriant vegetation in a state of nature. The country out of which it runs is a vast forest, only intersected by the hunting-trails of the Lorette Indians, who go there in the winter to kill the boar and the caribou. Just before emerging from this wild region, it runs along the eastern base of a mountain called Tsonnontonan or Great Mountain, which, although only two thousand feet high, commands a view of about one hundred miles of the St. Lawrence valley, as well as the blue tops of the Vermont and New Hampshire mountains. The country lying south of the Great Mountain is comparatively level and tolerably well cultivated, the population being wholly composed of habitans, but the immediate banks and valley of the Jacques Cartier are everywhere in their primeval condition. Indeed, on account of its ravine-like character, it was marked out more than one hundred years ago by military men as a natural barrier that could be made available for the protection of Quebec from a foe marching upon it from the west; and it is well known that in 1759 the French, after they were expelled from the citadel city, found a safe retreat on the western side of the Jacques Cartier. Good fording-places are almost unknown, and the localities where bridges are practicable are few and far between, the only bridges now spanning the stream being one ten miles from its mouth, another about a mile below, called Dery’s Bridge, and one in sight of the St. Lawrence. My stopping-place has always been in the immediate vicinity of Dery’s Bridge, and I must now tell the reader how this delightful locality may be reached. (And here I would notify my readers, that while writing in the present tense, the time of which I speak was before the building of the railroad from Montreal to Quebec.) From Montreal you have to take the regular evening steamboat for Quebec, which will, provided you have despatched a proper telegram beforehand, transfer you into a small boat off Cape Sante, about three o’clock in the morning, and in that pleasant village you can obtain a calash that will take you to Dery’s Bridge in less than two hours. From Quebec, and that I think the better starting-place, there are two routes, and either of them will repay the tourist or angler; but the best course to pursue is to go by the river route and return by the other, which is inland. Every mile of the first-named road commands some object of interest, and while the first seven miles are as smooth as a floor, and lined on either side by elegant country residences and mansions, the balance of the way presents a continuous view of the superb St. Lawrence, the neat cottages and thatched barns of the habitant yeomanry seeming to vie with each other in making delightful impressions upon the mind by their rural and picturesque charms; green fields sloping down to the margin of the great stream, giving place to pretty villages on the hill-tops, and they, in their turn, when the tide is low, looking away upon broad reaches of a barren strand. The inland route is equally interesting, only that mountain views and glimpses of a forest land take the place of the grand St. Lawrence. At Quebec the most comfortable of vehicles may be obtained, with accommodating drivers; and those who propose to make an extended visit to the Jacques Cartier ought not to omit a quiet talk, respecting supplies, with the butler of Russell’s Hotel, than whom no man better understands the art of satisfying the desires of the human appetite.
And now for the accommodations that are to be met with on the Jacques Cartier river. There are two cottages at the middle bridge belonging to Louis Dery and Bazile Trepanier. The former is a regular inn, and adjoins the western extremity of the bridge, and with its romantic views above, around, and below, with its comfortable rooms, pretty garden, curious sign-board, cosy outhouses, and agreeable habitant family, is just the spot that anglers and artists are wont to visit in their dreams. The other cottage alluded to stands on an open plateau overlooking the narrow valley through which the river runs, and about 300 yards from the eastern extremity of the bridge, the proprietor and his family, like their friends under the hill, being habitans. An accident took me to this house originally, and since then it has been my headquarters when in that region. M. Trepanier cultivates several hundred acres of good land, and has surrounded himself with all the substantial comforts to be found among the more prosperous farmers of Canada. He is also an inveterate angler, and knows everything about the doings and haunts of the salmon, and while he willingly devoted himself to me personally, his wife seemed wholly bent upon making the two ladies who always accompanied me as comfortable and happy as possible. One-half of the main cottage was entirely given up to us, who were the only guests, and with clean beds, nice cooking, and every possible attention, it was not difficult to enjoy the good things that were placed upon the board. From the Post-Office of Point aux Trembles, six miles distant, we were daily supplied with Washington and New York papers. The mornings and evenings were devoted to fishing by the deponent, and the noontide hours, by all of the party, to scenery, hunting, and sketching. Thus divided as was our attention between matters pictorial and piscatorial, the weeks flew rapidly away, and our enjoyment of the bracing air, the fresh scenery, and the sparkling waters, only seemed to become more acute the longer we remained. But now for the main idea of this disjointed essay.
As it would be impossible to sketch either with pen or pencil all the more striking points on the Jacques Cartier river, I will confine myself to a space of perhaps three miles, near the middle of which is located Trepanier’s cottage, and I begin with a place called the Rocky Reach.
The river at this point, after fighting its way through a regular herd of huge boulders, spreads itself to the width of a quarter of a mile, makes a broad bend, and then flows over a multitude of large flat rocks, the tops of which, when the water is low, forming tiny islands, as smooth and clean as a marble floor. If water spirits do ever haunt this northern stream, those granite islands must be their midnight meeting-places. Emptying into the river at this place is a small stream of extremely cold water, and for that reason the bend is a favourite congregating place for trout, which are very numerous, so that the pleasure of throwing the fly, while wading from one rock to another, is only to be equalled by the delight of lounging on the islands to rest like seals on the sandy bars of Labrador. A locality designated as the Red Bridge is not worthy of note, on account of that structure which is commonplace; but here the river makes another of its graceful sweeps, fretting itself into foam, then a plunge, as if angry at the boldness of a rocky point bristling with cedars and trying to impede its course, and soon hushing itself into a repentant mood, passes under the bridge and glides onward, rejoicing in the sunbeams. Here small trout may be taken in abundance. Onward still, and we come to a cluster of islands around which the water tumbles in every conceivable manner, and from which spring up against the sky a number of stupendous pines; and while the right-hand shore is covered with a dense forest, that on the left presents the appearance of a causeway, formed of limestone by the hands of man; but when the foundation stones were laid the world itself must have been in its infancy. The next spot that has a character of its own is known as “The Basin,” lying directly by the side of a pretty fall, and deriving its name from a huge hollow, filled with pure water to the depth of ten or fifteen feet, and which the trout have monopolised as a kind of breeding-place. It is indeed an aquarium of magnificent proportions. But the view from the margin of this basin, looking down the river, is remarkable from the fact that the strata of the rock and the outline of the hills converge just at the point where the stream disappears from sight, and the idea of a funnel is strikingly realised. Further down and we come to a long, curving stretch of water, where the river seems to have fallen into a profound slumber, deep and peaceful; on one side the rocky bank rising perpendicularly from the water’s edge to the height of perhaps fifty feet, haunted by echoes and looking precisely like the inner walls in ruin of a stupendous amphitheatre, crowned and greatly beautified by a vigorous growth of Alpine vegetation; on the opposite side, the rocks sloping smoothly to the water, as if nature had made an unusual but most successful effort to please the brotherhood of anglers. And such big trout as have been, and may still be taken there when the weather is favourable, no man will ever number, and the capture of a brace or two of three-pounders in the midst of such scenery at the sunset hour, is an event long to be remembered. But the river is now beginning to murmur in its sleep, and after a few more fantastic performances with two or three islands, we shall soon behold it on our friend Trepanier’s land, making the two grand plunges of its life. What the entire descent may measure cannot be stated with accuracy, but for a distance of perhaps a quarter of a mile, the bed of the river presents a mass of foam, at the foot of which the whole river rushes through a space not more than fifteen feet wide, with a mossy bluff bulging up on one side, and on the other a kind of broad domain of flattened limestone. Just below the Trepanier Falls the river is spanned by the picturesque bridge that bears the name of Dery, and in a deep black pool directly under the bridge, and almost under a part of Dery’s garden, hundreds of salmon may sometimes be seen resting themselves before attempting to surmount the roaring torrent in their pathway up the stream. From Dery’s bridge to a spot called the Hospital, a distance of half a mile, the course of the river is through a gorge or chasm of solid rock, very closely resembling the Montmorency Gorge, where the rapids are terrific, and the sides have been washed out or undermined, and made into innumerable caves; one side immediately overhung with primeval vegetation, a few trees spanning the entire stream, and the others presenting a kind of frieze-work pavement, broad, uneven, and peculiar, covered with tiny streamlets of spring water, and flanked by forest-covered hills. The Hospital is the paragon of salmon pools, and derives its name from the supposed fact that here the salmon spend a considerable time recruiting their strength after the toils experienced in their rough passage from the St. Lawrence, some nine miles away. Passing down a little further, we come to what appears to be the mouth of a small but wild mountain stream; a second glance reveals a picturesque old mill partly hidden in a cleft of the hills, and from which the water issues; and on entering into conversation with the worthy miller, he will mention the singular circumstance that the supposed brook which turns his great wheel is a part of the Jacques Cartier itself, which has performed an underground journey of a mile, having left the parent stream some distance above the Trepanier Falls. Onwards still, for a few hundred yards, and a lovely spot called the Schute reveals itself to view. It is a sloping rock spanning the entire river, down which the waters rush without making a great noise over a long inclined plane, until they find their level some ten or fifteen feet below, and form a line of foam across the stream. Above this schute are two of the finest salmon casts imaginable, and below it a number of charming pools, with a beautiful island, and a glimpse downward of rough water hemmed in by perpendicular ledges, far as the eye can reach, all crowned with deep green vegetation. The Everett Cliff, as it is called after the proprietor, is the last feature that I would specify as coming within the range of the three miles already mentioned, and it is a fitting climax to the whole. It consists of a slaty cliff, said to be two hundred feet high, and perpendicular, more than half a mile in extent, covered with feathery foliage, out of which come gushing here and there little streamlets, only to be lost in the deep black pools and wild rapids below. At the upper extremity of this cliff is a kind of lake-like sheet of marvellously dark and still water, into which another cliff from the opposite side of the river pushes its lofty and jagged profile, as if for the very purpose—which it certainly succeeds in—of filling the beholder with amazement. Grand in itself, it faces a scene that is both grand and beautiful; and, indeed, like every other prospect on this charming river, after having once been witnessed, cannot be forgotten.
But the piscatorial attractions of the Jacques Cartier now deserve attention. The principal game fish of this river are salmon and trout, though the black bass and dory, or pike-perch, are frequently taken in some of the lower pools. The trout always have been, and still continue to be, abundant; and specimens weighing three and four pounds are no great rarity. A few years ago the salmon were even more numerous than the trout, but the cunning arts of pot-fishermen or poachers had well-nigh exterminated the race, and would have done so entirely but for the interposition of the Quebec anglers, who caused stringent laws to be enacted, and now see to it that the river is properly protected. Judging from my own experience, an industrious angler might count upon a barrel of fine salmon in one month; but how, as a pot-fisherman might say, can the unnumbered pleasures of a month on such a river be compared with a lot of fish swimming in their brine? In weight the salmon range from eight to sixteen pounds, and the season for throwing the fly generally extends from the twentieth of June to the twentieth of August. As to the extent of their journeys up the Jacques Cartier, accounts strangely differ; some of the inhabitants allege that they never go higher up than Trepanier’s Falls; others think that they go to the source of the river, but never return (which is, of course, a mistake); and Trepanier informed me that he had once taken six hundred in one night with a net, some distance above his falls. As to that locality, I have myself seen them cleaving its foamy waters and passing upwards and onwards in high glee. The proverb about the early bird is particularly applicable to the angler who would kill a fair proportion of salmon. On that score my own zeal was seldom at fault, and one gentleman who chanced to find me at work on his arrival at the pools on three successive mornings, gave it as his opinion that I slept upon the rocks all night, and that Trepanier was sufficiently foolish to do the same thing. The real truth of the matter was this. I usually left my bed at three o’clock, and never had to wait for my companion; and the walk of ten minutes down to the chosen pool was invariably delightful. On arriving at that spot our first business was to collect some drift wood and make a good large fire, not only to warm ourselves at the moment, but to dry our clothes after having had a struggle with a salmon; and while waiting for the sun to rise and the fog to disappear, Trepanier would smoke his pipe, and leisurely examine my book of flies, and generally went to some convenient place to enjoy a bath. We stopped fishing usually about eight o’clock and went to breakfast; and if, during the morning, we hooked five or six salmon and lost them all, fighting one or two of them for more than an hour, we only considered the sport as good; if we actually captured two fish we were well satisfied; but if we could stagger home under the weight of four salmon, two grilse, and a large trout, as the writer once did, we were decidedly hilarious, especially if one of the beauties happened to be a sixteen-pounder. And when it is remembered that such a labour of love was usually rewarded by a breakfast made up of such things as broiled trout or salmon, stewed pigeons, fresh eggs, rare café au lait, with richest cream, French pancakes, and maple syrup, and two or three kinds of berries, the reader may imagine that the “good time” of philosophers had finally arrived. The middle hours of those pleasant days were wholly devoted to the ladies, with whom calash drives, or walks in pursuit of the picturesque, were enjoyed by both Trepanier and myself; for after his afternoon nap of thirty minutes, he was always on hand to play the escort with his rough but kind-hearted attentions. As evening approached, all the anglers who happened to be congregated at Dery’s home—and there were sometimes eight or ten—would assemble on the two banks of the river, all in sight of each other, and if there happened to be a sprinkling of ladies who had accompanied their husbands, which was oftentimes the case, the movements of the anglers while throwing the fly were perhaps more graceful than usual, but their success more doubtful. In all my adventures, I do not remember a single locality with more pleasure than this spot known as Dery’s Bridge, nor one which, on the score of scenery and sport, and the refined and cultivated character of its visitors, so completely realises my idea of the golden prime of good old Izaak Walton.
I would have my readers remember, however, that the pleasures of salmon-fishing in the Jacques Cartier are derived more from the surrounding associations than from the number of fish captured; and many persons undoubtedly carry with them from the river more distinct recollections of the springs gushing from the hills, of a certain angler’s cabin, with its supply of newspapers, and of the picturesque groups occasionally assembled there, than of the “oceans of fish” which fortune may yield. Many salmon, however, are taken, and a few incidents touching their capture will appropriately conclude this chapter of riverside talk.
On one occasion, for example, I saw an army officer (who had served with honour in the Crimea) capture, within one hour, at the right-hand cast, above the Schute, no less than three fine salmon, landing them without the assistance of his habitant attendant. The only man who can compete with Trepanier as an angler is Edward Dery, the son of Louis, and a bolder or more expert fisherman can nowhere be found. He it is, by the way, who, in times past, when the salmon would not rise to a fly, was wont to descend a rope ladder, suspended over a fearful caldron of foam, and take out with his gaff a few salmon bolder than himself. He is about the only man also who has the hardihood or courage to throw the flies directly under Dery’s Bridge; for where he secures one, after hooking him, he loses a dozen that rush down the gorge to the Hospital pool, carrying all before them. One fish that I saw him hook there not only smashed his rod, but carried one-half of it a mile down the river in less than five brief moments.
That the excitement of salmon-fishing is sometimes contagious the following incident will prove. I had hooked a large fish at a rapid spot known as the Black Rock, when Trepanier gave his accustomed shout, which caused a gentleman on the opposite side of the river to run down and witness the fun. After my salmon had made his third magnificent leap and rush, and I was keeping him away from a dangerous rock, my spectator became quite frantic, and, to my astonishment, plunged into the stream, and, just as Trepanier had gaffed my fish, up came the stranger to my side out of the water, panting like a “spent swimmer” as he was. He had crossed the river—kicking a few fish under the chin, perhaps, as he passed along—simply for the purpose of having a look at my prize. He was a lawyer, just arrived from Quebec, and a novice in the art of salmon-fishing; and I subsequently heard that he has, on more than one occasion, swam across the great St. Lawrence just for the fun of the thing. I also heard that the art he seemed to understand so well was inherited, and that his father had saved from drowning no less than a dozen Americans during the war of 1812, which kindness an American gentleman reciprocated by putting him in prison. Though Trepanier’s exploits have not been as daring as those of young Dery, he kills quite as many fish during a season, and, upon the whole, is probably better acquainted with the river. The very last fish I saw him capture gave him a pretty hard run. He hooked the salmon near the head of the Black Rock Island, but on the western side, followed him to the foot of the island, played him half an hour in a pool at that point, when the fish started up stream again, but now on the eastern side of the island, on reaching the middle of which he seemed ready to give up the battle, when he broke away, and Trepanier made a rush, catching the salmon in his arms. The largest fish it was my fortune to capture on the Jacques Cartier weighed sixteen pounds. I hooked him while wading, and after tiring my arms until I could hardly hold the rod, he gave me two duckings and nearly carried me down a rapid, and then, by way of displaying his genius, ran completely around Trepanier’s legs, tangling my line dreadfully; but a successful sweep of the gaff was soon made, and he was landed in triumph. As to the flies that do the best execution on the river, their merits I shall not discuss, because I never knew two anglers to agree on the subject, and my experience has taught me that strength and size are of more importance than colour or beauty.
My last view of the dear Jacques Cartier was from a railway car, about nine o’clock at night, while passing like the wind from the St. Maurice to Quebec, and within a stone’s throw from the Red Bridge.
Stratford-on-Housatonic was founded in 1639, and by a small colony of emigrants chiefly from Stratford-on-Avon. This fact alone might well make us respect the place, but there is not a town or village in New England that could better rest satisfied with its many attractions. It stands on the western bank of the Housatonic, or River beyond the Mountains, on a level plain, with the Sound three miles away on the south, the city of Bridgeport a little further off on the west, and with a rolling, rich, well-cultivated, and picturesque country on the north; and although crossed by the line of the New York and New Haven railroad, is one of the most quiet and lovely villages in the land. Its original name was Cupheag, and an Englishman named Fairchild purchased the land of the Poquanock Indians, and was the first white man vested with authority over the town. When the purchase was first made, the whole township comprised what have since been known as the towns of Trumbull, Huntington, Monroe, and Bridgeport, the last of which has become a flourishing city. The price paid for the whole grant is not known, but it is on record that a neighbouring tract of land cost ten blankets, six coats, one kettle, and a small assortment of hoes, hatchets, knives, and glasses. It was on account of similar outlays, undoubtedly, that the authorities of Stratford, thirty years after its settlement, voted that the Indians should not be permitted to plant corn anywhere, have their weapons mended by the smith, nor be employed by any citizens to look after “the horses, hogs, and other cattle.” Other curious facts which we gather from the old records were as follows:—In 1707 a house and lot in the town were sold for a single negro man; the salaries of the clergy were paid in produce and in wampum; and in 1678 a mill was sold for £140, payable in pork, wheat, rye, corn, and £40 in good and well-conditioned winter cider, made in October.
The town was named in memory of the English Stratford, is said to have been laid out after the same fashion, and, by those who have seen the two, the American town has been pronounced the more beautiful. The principal street is a mile long, runs north and south, and is intersected by a number of others, all of which are lined by unpretending houses, each one flanked by a handsome garden. The streets are wide, richly carpeted by a green sward, and fringed on either side by regular rows of elm and other trees, which are constantly composing themselves into beautiful pictures; while the rural beauty of the place is greatly enhanced by two or three of those open spaces which the old men of New England love to remember, in connection with their boyhood, as the village green. Two handsome churches with graceful spires, and another with less pretension, loom up above the sea of foliage; there is not a tavern in the place, nor any groggeries or drinking saloons; a local newspaper was never dreamed of; and the few shops, whose owners do not deem it necessary to hang out any signs, are stocked with very small and very miscellaneous assortments of merchandise. Birds build their nests in every direction, and their sweet singing may be heard through all the hours of the summer day. Each householder in the town seems to be the possessor of a cow, and these cattle are driven to pasture in the morning, watched during the day, and brought home at sundown by a regular herdsman; and were it not for the occasional whistle of the passing locomotive, the charming quiet of the place would be profound and unbroken. It was surveyed, and a handsome map made of the place in 1824 by one of its distinguished citizens, James H. Linsley.[1]
[1] Not only was Mr. Linsley identified with the educational interests of the town, but he was devoted to the several sciences of ornithology, geology, and conchology, and left to his family an exceedingly valuable cabinet of specimens in all those departments. His birds of Connecticut number five hundred, and his shells not less than two thousand.
Two stories are told illustrative of the repose which reigns in Stratford.
Some years ago a strange gentleman and his wife arrived in the village in their carriage, and after driving from one end of it to the other two or three times without meeting a single person, they became alarmed, and fancied that a plague might have depopulated the place. On further reflection, however, the stranger determined to stop at one of the pleasant houses he saw on every side. He did so, and the sound of the knocker on the door almost startled him with its terrible noise. In due time a lady made her appearance, and was saluted with this question—
“Can you tell me, madam, if this town is inhabited?”
“Yes, sir, it is,” replied the lady; “and by way of relieving your anxiety I will mention one fact. The reason why our streets are so quiet is this: the men of the place are all in the fields at work, the children are at school, and the housewives are at home preparing a good dinner for their families.” The gentleman thus obtained a new idea, and was satisfied.
The other is as follows:—A Stratford gentleman one day entered his house in a troubled manner, pale and fainting, and earnestly called upon his wife and daughters for some camphor or cologne. These things were promptly administered, and after he had fairly recovered his speech, his wife bent over him and said—
“What is the matter with you, my dear?”
To this the invalid replied, “Nothing very serious, I hope, but while passing along Elm Street I actually saw a man!”
The condition of things in Stratford has somewhat changed during the past few years, but the quiet and repose of the village are still delightful. Many of its native citizens continue to live in the pleasant homes where they were born; others who were tempted to try and obtain fortunes in New York and other cities were successful, and, like men of sterling sense, have returned here to spend their declining years in peace.
That such a town as Stratford should afford anything in the way of romantic personal histories was hardly to be expected, but the subjoined story is authentic as well as interesting. At the commencement of the present century a young man made his appearance in the village, and spent a few weeks at the tavern which then existed to afford shelter to stage-coach travellers. Whence he came and what his business, none could guess. Directly opposite the tavern stood the small cottage and the forge of a blacksmith named Folsom. He had a daughter who was the beauty of the village, and it was her fortune to captivate the heart of the young stranger. He told his love, said that he was from Scotland, that he was travelling incog., but in confidence gave her his real name, claiming that he was heir to a large fortune. She returned his love, and they were married. A few weeks thereafter the stranger told his wife that he must visit New Orleans; he did so, and the gossips of the town made the young wife unhappy by their disagreeable hints and jeers. In a few months the husband returned, but before a week had elapsed he received a large budget of letters, and told his wife that he must at once return to England, and must go alone. He took his departure, and the gossips had another glorious opportunity to make a confiding woman wretched. To all but herself it was a clear case of desertion; the wife became a mother, and for two years lived on in silence and in hope. At the end of that time a letter was received by the Stratford beauty from her husband, directing her to go at once to New York with her child, taking nothing with her but the clothes she wore, and embark in a ship for her home in England. On her arrival in New York she found a ship splendidly furnished with every convenience and luxury for her comfort, and two servants ready to obey every wish that she might express. The ship duly arrived in England, and the Stratford girl became the mistress of a superb mansion, and, as the wife of a baronet, was known as Lady Stirling of Glorat. On the death of her husband many years ago, the Stratford boy succeeded to the title and wealth of his fathers, and in the “Peerage and Baronetage” he is spoken of as the issue of “Miss Folsom of Stratford, North America.” When the late Professor Silliman visited England some years since, he had the pleasure of meeting Lady Stirling at a dinner party, and was delighted to answer her many questions about her birthplace in Connecticut.
If this paper were designed to be a complete history of Stratford, it would be necessary to print many pages about the early struggles and subsequent success of religion in this region. That is out of the question; but, on account of the personal history of one most interesting divine and author connected with it, a passing notice of the Episcopal Church in Stratford is indispensable. It was the first established in Connecticut, and its founder was one who left the Puritans to become an Episcopalian, and whose name was Samuel Johnson. He was born at Guilford, Connecticut, October 14, 1696, where were also born his father and grandfather, both men of distinction, and deacons in the Congregational Church, while his great-grandfather, who came from Yorkshire, England, was one of the first settlers of New Haven. He was educated at the College of Saybrook, which subsequently found a permanent resting-place in New Haven, and after the change of location, and while only twenty years of age, he became a tutor in what is now known as Yale College; was honoured with the degree of Master of Arts; and was the first man who, in 1718, lodged and set up housekeeping in the institution. In 1720 he became a preacher of the Gospel, and was settled at West Haven as a Congregationalist. He soon afterwards became the leader of a party of three or four who pioneered their way into the Episcopal Church, and, resigning his charge, he went to England to obtain orders, received from Oxford and Cambridge the degree of Master of Arts, and in 1723 was settled in Stratford as the first regularly ordained Episcopal clergyman in the colony. At first his flock consisted of only thirty families, and the persecutions which he endured from the Congregationalists were almost unparalleled. Some of them went so far as to put chains across their streets to prevent the horrible Episcopalians from going to church, while others would not sell him vegetables and other country produce for the support of his family. His great ability, however, as well as his high character as a man and a Christian, overcame all these obstacles, and he was triumphantly successful.
On the arrival in this country of Berkeley (the Dean of Derry and Bishop of Cloyne) in 1729, the rector of Stratford became his intimate friend, corresponded with him for many years, introduced his works to the literati of America, made him so interested in Yale College as to secure a present of one thousand valuable books to that institution, as well as a present of ninety acres of land in Rhode Island for its benefit. After a continuous battle of twenty years in behalf of his Church, the University of Oxford conferred upon our rector the degree of Doctor of Divinity, which honour was followed by many kind letters from the best men in England. In 1754, against his own wishes, but because eminent friends told him it was his duty, he accepted the presidency of the newly-established King’s College in New York (now Columbia College), where his services were invaluable until 1762, when he returned to Stratford to spend the remainder of his days in ease and leisure. Here he died on the 6th of January 1772, and lies buried in the graveyard of Christ Church, where two church buildings were erected under his eye, and were the predecessors of the present tasteful edifice occupying the same site. On the monument which commemorates his death are inscribed, after a Latin inscription, the following lines:—
“If decent dignity and modest mien,
The cheerful heart and countenance serene;
If pure religion and unsullied truth,
His age’s solace, and his search in youth;
If piety in all the paths he trod,
Still rising vigorous to his Lord and God;
If charity thro’ all the race he ran,
Still willing well, and doing good to man;
If Learning, free from pedantry and pride;
If Faith and Virtue, walking side by side;
If well to mark his being’s aim and end,
To shine through life a husband, father, friend,—
If these ambition in thy soul can raise,
Excite thy reverence, or demand thy praise;
Reader, ere yet thou quit this earthly scene,
Revere his name, and be what he has been.”
Myles Cooper.
For a sketch of the life of Doctor Johnson, and an eloquent estimate of his exalted character as the first scholar of the day in America, the reader is referred to a small volume, published in 1805, by Dr. Thomas B. Chandler, of New Jersey, while the subjoined list of his writings will afford an opportunity of estimating his services as an author, viz., “Plain Reasons for Conforming to the Church;” “Compendium of Logic and Metaphysics,” printed by Franklin; “Demonstration on the Reasonableness and Duty of Prayer;” “Beauty of Holiness in the Worship of the Church of England;” an English grammar, a Church catechism, a Hebrew grammar, an English and Hebrew grammar, and a variety of pamphlets on theological and literary subjects, published between the years 1732 and 1771.
Another man of note associated with Stratford was William S. Johnson, son of Dr. Samuel. He was born here October 7, 1727, graduated at Yale College in 1744, and was a lawyer of distinction and an eloquent orator. In 1765 and 1785 he was a delegate to the Congress at New York, and in 1776 an agent for the colony to England, where he formed the acquaintance of many leading men. In 1772 he was Judge of the Connecticut Supreme Court, and a member of the convention that formed the Federal Constitution. He was also a Senator in Congress from 1789 to 1791; received from Oxford the degree of Doctor of Laws; and from 1792 to 1800 he was president of Columbia College, New York, after which he returned to Stratford, where he died November 14, 1819, and lies buried by the side of his distinguished father.
As allusions have already been made to five generations of the Johnson family of Stratford, it may here be mentioned, for the sake of completeness, that Samuel William Johnson, a lawyer and judge of retired habits, was the son of the senator, and that his son, William Samuel Johnson, is the present representative of the family, who has several brothers to participate with him in bearing the honoured name. And this fact brings us (as did the courtesy of that gentleman bring the writer of this chapter) into the Johnson Library of Stratford. This collection numbers between four and five thousand volumes, and seven generations of highly educated men have participated in the labour of bringing them together. It was also enriched by contributions from such men as Bishop Berkeley, Benjamin Franklin, and Samuel Johnson, the great English author. The several proprietors of this rare and truly precious private library have occasionally given away what we might call a swarm of books; but perhaps the most graceful present of this kind was one of several hundred volumes, printed between the years 1577 and 1791, and presented to Columbia College by the present owner. The collection, as it now stands, is especially rich in theology, the early English classics, the antiquities of England, the Greek and Latin authors, and in its dictionaries, with a rare sprinkling of black letter and Elzevir volumes. Here may also be found several curious editions of the Bible; but perhaps the most curious, interesting, and valuable single volume is the “Icon Basilike; or, The Works of that Great Monarch and Glorious Martyr, King Charles I., both Civil and Sacred; and Pourtraicture of his Sacred Majesty in his Solitudes and Sufferings.” The edition here mentioned was printed at the Hague in 1648, a few days after the death of the King, and hence its special value. Those acquainted with the work need not be told that the proof is quite conclusive as to its having been the veritable production of the king, though long disputed; that it went through fifty editions in one year; that Hume declares it to have led to the restoration of the royal family; that it was greatly praised even by Milton, the personal friend of Cromwell; that, as the alleged production of the murdered sovereign, it caused an intense interest throughout the world; and that the critics of the time pronounced it the best specimen of English writing then in existence.
The man whose taste and learning are chiefly represented by this admirable library was the Reverend Dr. Samuel Johnson. Here it was that, after his return from New York, surrounded by these venerable tomes, he lived the happy and peaceful life of a Christian scholar, and kept up an extensive correspondence with the most learned and eminent men of England and America. And that mass of correspondence, which is still preserved with an elaborate journal kept by Dr. Samuel, may perhaps be considered the very cream of the Johnson library. That portion of it bearing upon church history has already been extensively studied by clerical pilgrims from all parts of the land; while that portion which is of a miscellaneous character, addressed to the rector and senator, is quietly awaiting the fate of all unpublished correspondence by men of distinction. From the latter collection the writer of this article has been permitted to copy three letters by Bishop Berkeley, Benjamin Franklin, and the great Samuel Johnson of England, the reading of which cannot but be interesting, as fresh material bearing upon the characters of the several distinguished writers.
The first of the letters in question, from the Bishop, exhibits the interest which he felt in King’s College, New York, as well as the methodical character of his mind:—
“Cloyne, August 23, 1749.
“Rev. Sir,—I am obliged for the account you have sent of the prosperous state of learning in your college of New Haven. I approve of the regulations made there, and am particularly pleased to find your sons have made such progress, as appears from their elegant address to me in the Latin tongue. It must indeed give me a very sensible satisfaction to hear that my weak endeavours have been of some service to that part of the world. I have two letters of yours at once on my hands to answer, for which business of various kinds must be my apology. As to the first, wherein you enclosed a small pamphlet relating to tar-water, I can only say in behalf of those points in which the ingenious author seems to differ from me, that I advance nothing which is not grounded on experience, as may be seen at large in Mr. Prior’s narrative of the effects of tar-water, printed three or four years ago, and which may be supposed to have reached America.
“For the rest, I am glad to find a spirit towards learning prevails in those parts, particularly New York, where you say a college is projected, which has my best wishes. At the same time, I am sorry that the condition of Ireland, containing such numbers of poor uneducated people, for whose sake charity schools are erecting throughout the kingdom, obligeth us to draw charities from England; so far are we from being able to extend our bounty to New York, a country, in proportion, much richer than our own. But as you are pleased to desire my advice upon this undertaking, I send the following hints, to be enlarged and improved by your own judgment.
“I would not advise the applying to England for charters or statutes (which might cause great trouble, expense, and delay), but to do the business quietly within yourselves.
“I believe it may suffice to begin with a president and two fellows. If they can procure but three fit persons, I doubt not the college, from the smallest beginnings, would grow considerable. I should conceive good hopes were you at the head of it.
“Let them by all means supply themselves out of the seminaries in New England; for I am apprehensive none can be got in Old England (who are willing to go) worth sending.
“Let the Greek and Latin classics be well taught. Be this the first care as to learning. But the principal care must be good life and morals, to which (as well as to study) early hours and temperate meals will much conduce.
“If the terms for degrees are the same as at Oxford or Cambridge, this would give credit to the college, and pave the way for admitting their graduates ad eundem in the English Universities.
“Small premiums in books, or distinctions in habit, may prove useful encouragements to the students.
“I would advise that the building be regular, plain, and cheap, and that each student have a room (about ten feet square) to himself.
“I recommended this nascent seminary to an English bishop, to try what might be done there. But by his answer it seems the Colony is judged rich enough to educate its own youth.
“Colleges, from small beginnings, grow great by subsequent bequests and benefactions. A small matter will suffice to set one agoing; and when this is once well done, there is no doubt it will go on and thrive. The chief concern must be to set out in a good method, and introduce from the first a good taste into society. For this end its principal expense should be in making handsome provision for the president and fellows.
“I have thrown together these few crude thoughts for you to ruminate upon and digest in your own judgment, and propone from yourself, as you see convenient.
“My correspondence with patients that drink tar-water obliges me to be less punctual in corresponding with my friends; but I shall always be glad to hear from you. My sincere good wishes and prayers attend you in all your laudable undertakings.—I am, your faithful servant,
“G. Cloyne.”
The next letter, which has never been published, is from Benjamin Franklin. Like everything he wrote, it is characteristic of the man:—
“Philadelphia, August 9, 1750.
“Rev. Sir,—At my return home I found your favour of June the 28th, with the Bishop of Cloyne’s letter enclosed, which I will take care of, and beg leave to keep a little longer.
“Mr. Francis, our Attorney-General, who was with me at your house, from the conversation then had with you, and reading some of your pieces, has conceived an esteem for you equal to mine. The character we have given of you to the other trustees, and the sight of your letters relating to the academy, has made them very desirous of engaging you in that design, as a person whose experience and judgment would be of great use in forming rules and establishing good methods in the beginning, and whose name for learning would give it a reputation. We only lament that, in the infant state of our funds, we cannot make you an offer equal to your merit. But as the view of being useful has most weight with generous and benevolent minds, and in this affair you may do great service, not only to the present, but to future generations, I flatter myself sometimes that if you were here and saw things as they are, and conversed a little with our people, you might be prevailed with to remove. I would therefore earnestly press you to make us a visit as soon as you conveniently can, and in the meantime let me represent to you some of the circumstances as they appear to me.
“1. The trustees of the academy are applying for a charter, which will give an opportunity of improving and modelling our constitution in such a manner as, when we have your advice, shall appear best. I suppose we shall have power to form a regular college. 2. If you would undertake the management of the English education, I am satisfied the trustees would on your account make the salary £100 sterling (they have already voted £150 currency, which is not far from it), and pay the charge of your removal. Your son might also be employed as tutor at £60, or perhaps £70 per annum. 3. It has been long observed that our church is not sufficient to accommodate near the number of people who would willingly have seats there. The buildings increase very fast towards the south end of the town, and many of the principal merchants now live there, which, being at considerable distance from the present church, people begin to talk much of building another; and ground has been offered as a gift for that purpose. The trustees of the academy are, three-fourths of them, members of the Church of England, and the rest men of moderate principles. They have reserved in the large building a large hall for occasional preaching, public lectures, orations, etc.; it is seventy feet by sixty, furnished with a handsome pulpit, seats, etc. In this Mr. Tennent collected his congregation, who are now building a meeting-house. In the same place, by giving now and then a lecture, you might with equal ease collect a congregation that would in a short time build you a church (if it should be agreeable to you).
“In the meantime, I imagine you will receive something considerable yearly arising from marriages and christenings in the best families, not to mention presents that are not unfrequent from a wealthy people to a minister they like; and though the whole may not amount to more than a due support, yet I think it will be a comfortable one. And when you are well settled in a church of your own, your son may be qualified by years of experience to succeed you in the academy; or if you rather choose to continue in the academy, your son might probably be fixed in the church.
“These are my private sentiments, which I have communicated only with Mr. Francis, who entirely agrees with me. I acquainted the trustees that I would write to you, but could give them no dependence that you would be prevailed on to remove. They will, however, treat with no other till I have your answer.
“You will see by our new paper, which I enclose, that the Corporation of this city have voted £200 down and £100 a year out of their revenues to the trustees of the academy. As they are a perpetual body, choosing their own successors, and so not subject to be changed by the caprice of a governor or of the people, and as eighteen of the members (some of them leading) are of the trustees, we look on this donation to be as good as so much real estate, being confident it will be continued as long as it is well applied, and even increased if there should be occasion. We have now near £5000 subscribed, and expect some considerable sums besides may be procured from the merchants of London trading hither. And as we are in the centre of the colonies, a healthy place, with plenty of provisions, we suppose a good academy here may draw numbers of youth for education from the neighbouring colonies and even from the West Indies.
“I will shortly print proposals for publishing your prices by subscription, and disperse them among my friends along the continent. My compliments to Mrs. Johnson and your son, and Mr. and Mrs. Walker, your good neighbours.—I am, with great esteem and respect, sir, your most humble servant,
“B. Franklin.
“To Dr. Samuel Johnson, Stratford.”
“P. S.—There are some other things best treated of when we have the pleasure of seeing you. It begins now to be pleasant travelling; I wish you would conclude to visit us in the next month at furthest. Whether the journey produce the effect we desire or not, it shall be no expense to you.”
The last of the choice letters to which allusion has been made, was written by the author of “Rasselas” to his friend William S. Johnson, the Senator. That gentleman received several others from his illustrious namesake (but who was not a relative), all of which have been lost excepting the one now printed for the first time. When written, Boswell must have been asleep, as he does not mention it in his microscopic publication. The allusion in the letter to an Arctic sea would have surprised the late Dr. E. K. Kane:—
“Sir,—Of all those whom the various vicissitudes of life have brought within my notice, there is scarce any man whose acquaintance I have more desired to cultivate than yours. I cannot indeed charge you with neglecting me, yet our mutual inclination could never gratify itself with opportunities; the current of the day always bore us away from one another. And now the Atlantic is between us.
“Whether you carried away an impression of me as pleasing as that which you left me of yourself, I know not; if you did, you have not forgotten me, and will be glad that I do not forget you. Merely to be remembered is indeed a barren pleasure, but it is one of the pleasures which is more sensibly felt as human nature is more exalted.
“To make you wish that I should have you in my mind, I would be glad to tell you something which you do not know; but all public affairs are printed, and as you and I had no common friends, I can tell you no private history.
“The Government, I think, grows stronger; but I am afraid the next general election will be a time of uncommon turbulence, violence, and outrage.
“Of literature no great product has appeared or is expected. The attention of the people has for some years been otherwise employed.
“I was told two days ago of a design which must excite some curiosity. Two ships are in preparation, which are under the command of Captain Constantine Phipps, to explore the Northern Ocean; not to seek the North-east or the North-west passage, but to sail directly north, as near the pole as they can go. They hope to find an open ocean, but I suspect it is one mass of perpetual congelation. I do not much wish well to discoveries, for I am always afraid they will end in conquest and robbery.
“I have been out of order this winter, but am grown better. Can I ever hope to see you again? or must I be always content to tell you that in another hemisphere I am, sir, your most humble servant,
“Saml. Johnson.
“Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street,
“London, March 4, 1773.
“To Dr. Johnson, in Stratford, Connecticut.”
A desultory account of Stratford, like the present, should not omit an allusion to General David Wooster, who was born here in 1711. He graduated at Yale College in 1738, served as the captain of an armed vessel in the Spanish war, as a captain of militia in the expedition against Louisburg in 1745, went to France with a lot of prisoners, and from thence to England, when he received certain honours, served as commandant of a brigade in the French war, espoused the cause of America in 1764, aided in defending New York, had command of our troops in Canada, where he rendered important services, was subsequently made a Major-General of the Connecticut militia, and during a skirmish with the British troops at the time of their incursion to Danbury in 1776, received a shot which terminated his life in a few days. He was a brave officer, an ardent patriot, and a man of the highest integrity and virtue.
Another gallant soldier who was born and died in Stratford, was Colonel Aaron Benjamin. He served in the Revolutionary War as a Lieutenant, a Captain, and an Adjutant; was honoured with the personal friendship of La Fayette; and, as a Colonel in the army, had command of Fort Trumbull during the last war with England. With regard to his family, the singular fact is mentioned that John Benjamin was the name borne by the eldest sons of no less than seven generations. Nor should it be forgotten that the American Navy has also a representative in Stratford, which is the residence of the present Commodore Joshua R. Sands, whose father was once a Senator in Congress from New York.
But a few additional words must be devoted to the Stratford of the present time. A love of religion and of the intellectual and beautiful seems to permeate its entire population; and although its two leading denominations of Christians were wont to battle valiantly for the cause of truth and prejudice in the olden times, the most perfect harmony now exists between them, and both alike deserve honourable mention for what they have accomplished. To church people alone the history of the Congregational Church is quite as interesting as that of the Episcopal, but the latter had the advantage on the score of general interest on account of its distinguished founder. Among the novelties of Church government in those Puritan days was that of seating the congregation, by a committee, according to age, rank, and property; and, in 1718, it was directed that the “married men and ancient bachelors be seated in the west gallery of the Congregational Church, and the married women and ancient maidens in the east gallery.” The first church of this denomination was organised about the year 1640; and as the Episcopalians now stand up when the Gospels are read, so did the Presbyterians stand in their seats when the minister gave out his text; and while, in New Haven and elsewhere, the people were convened for worship by the blowing of a horn, here, in Stratford, they enjoyed the ringing of a bell.
American literature has also been enriched by two citizens of Stratford, viz., Rev. J. Mitchell and J. Olney, Esq. “The Reminiscences of Scenes and Characters of College, by a Graduate of Yale,” the work of the former, is an exceedingly well written volume, useful in purpose, and full of sound wisdom and Christian feeling. And the same compliment may be paid to his other productions, viz., “Notes from Over the Sea,” “My Mother; or, Recollections of Maternal Influence,” “Days of Boyhood,” a tale entitled “Rachell Kell,” and “The New England Churches,” in which the subject of Congregationalism is well-nigh exhausted. This gentleman was also for many years editor of the Christian Spectator in New Haven, and his books were published anonymously. The school geographies and histories of the latter are well known, as having acquired an almost unequalled circulation. While the art treasures of the town are not extensive, there are a few pictures here which will be found worth hunting up by men of taste. In the Johnson Library may be found the best portrait extant of Jonathan Edwards, a connection of the family, painted by or copied after Copley; one of Rev. Dr. Johnson, also by Copley; one of Senator Johnson, by Stuart; and a print of Samuel Johnson of England, after Reynolds, which was presented to Senator Johnson by the original, and pronounced by him the best likeness ever executed. In other mansions are to be found some of the best pictures after Guido, Da Vinci, and other old masters, ever brought to this country—two admirable paintings by the French artist De Lacroix. And by way of proving that the Stratfordites are lovers of music, we only need to mention the fact that amateur concerts are constantly given here, graced by the presence of ladies of rare intelligence and beauty, which are seldom equalled in other parts of the country.
Chicoutimie is an oasis of incipient civilisation, located in the Hudson’s Bay Territory, and surrounded on all sides by a pathless wilderness. Its appearance on the map is that of an oblong square, eighty miles long by forty wide; and while about one-third of the northern part embraces Lake St. John, the remaining portion is equally divided by the wild waters of the Upper Saguenay. It consists of two parishes, is intersected by a good road leading from the head of navigation on the Saguenay river to the Hudson’s Bay Post on Lake St. John, and contains some four or five hamlets, or small villages, including Chicoutimie, Grand Bay Village, and the Blue Point Settlement; and the population is chiefly composed of Habitants (or French Canadians) and Indians. The principal business of the district is connected with the fur trade and lumbering. The first was established towards the latter part of the seventeenth century by the Hudson’s Bay Company, and has continued under that exclusive jurisdiction until the present time; and the idea of establishing extensive lumber-mills in this remote region originated with the late William Price of Quebec, who was for many years the “Lumber King of Canada.” It was chiefly through his individual enterprise that the post of Chicoutimie became an important shipping place for deals and timber, and all the improvements which he commenced for the welfare of the people in that region have been and are still continued by his sons, David and William E. Price. It was while upon an angling expedition with the former of these gentlemen, in 1847, that the writer captured his first Canadian salmon, and he it was who had the pleasure of entertaining the Prince of Wales during his visit to the Lower Saguenay in 1860.
But it is on account of its varied and charming scenery that the district of Chicoutimie deserves particular mention. After ascending the Saguenay from its mouth to the village and post of Chicoutimie, just below the head of the tide, and having gazed with wonder and admiration upon its deep and sullen waters and towering cliffs—described by the present writer more than twenty years ago—the summer tourist will find that the lakes and rivers of Chicoutimie, which all pay tribute to the magnificent Saguenay, are not one whit less impressive and interesting. Foremost among its attractions is Lake St. John, the aboriginal name of which was Peaquagomi, or broad shallow water. The length of the lake is nearly thirty miles, and its width about twenty. The hills which surround it on all sides vary in height from seven hundred feet on the south side to perhaps two thousand on the north. At the same time, extensive reaches of flat and cultivatable land extend in various directions; while the whole aspect of the surrounding country is that of a dense forest, composed of the white birch and white pine, the balsam, spruce, cedar, elm, poplar, ash, yellow birch, basswood, maple, tamarack, and a little oak. Although the lake is two degrees of latitude directly north of Quebec, Indian corn, wheat, and other grains ripen well in the few settlements; and all the garden vegetables thrive as well as they do at Montreal. The fish of the lake consist of salmon and trout, a large variety of pike, a kind of whitefish, and chub. All the northern varieties of wild-fowl are also abundant. As the seasons change, its waters rise at times as high as fifteen feet; and, when at their lowest mark, portions of the lake are skirted with sandy beaches of great length, and very remarkable width. It is navigated chiefly by the birch canoe of the Indian, and its primeval solitude is only relieved by the screaming of birds, as they float or swoop over its waters, or by the presence of the toiling lumbermen, as they wield the axe in winter in the dim woods, or sing their wild songs while piloting their extensive rafts in summer. But the one particular in which Lake St. John differs from all similar lakes on this continent is in regard to its large and numerous tributaries, and it might also be awarded the compliment of being the fountain-head of one of the most superb rivers on the globe.
The principal rivers that flow into the lake are, first, La Belle Riviere, which comes in from the south, is about twenty yards in width, and has a beautiful fall nearly one hundred feet high; further on to the westward is the Metabetchouan, about twice as large as the former, and at the mouth of which is located a trading post of the Hudson’s Bay Company; next comes the Ouiatchouan, upon which is a fall of one hundred and thirty feet in height, and near the mouth of which are two lovely islands; and farther on is the Ouiatchouanish, which runs out of a lake known as Commissioner Lake, particularly famous for its water-fowl of many varieties, and as a breeding-place for wild geese. The next two rivers are the Chamouchouan and the Mistassini, each of which is about half a mile wide, and when the waters of the lake are high, they join into one current for several miles before reaching the lake. A river, called the Peribonka, comes down from the north, and is noted for a continuous alternation of still and rapid water, for its great variety of scenery, and because, before reaching the lake, it is compelled to cross a sand beach, which is not less than two miles wide. It has been estimated that these several streams drain a country, or basin, of not less than five thousand square miles in extent; and after they have coalesced and formed the whole lake of St. John, they rest in peace for a little while, and gathering themselves for a new career of activity, glide quietly through a maze of islands into two outlets, known as the Great and the Little Discharge, and win themselves a splendid name as the Upper Saguenay. This part of the great river averages about half a mile in width, and from the parent lake to the vicinity of the village of Chicoutimie, a distance of about thirty-five miles, it consists of a succession of rapids, tumbling over a great variety of rocky strata; portions of the stream may be navigated by the birch canoe, but for the most part it is only enlivened by the presence of lumbermen, driving down their logs to the mills at the head of tide water. As there is a district and a village named Chicoutimie, so is there a river bearing the same name. It is the leading tributary of the Upper Saguenay, and is the outlet of two beautiful lakes bearing the names of Kenogami and Kenogamish, which combine with the Chicoutimie River and La Belle Riviere to form a water communication between the Lower Saguenay and Lake St. John.
With regard to the original inhabitants of the country surrounding this lake, the best authorities assert that it was the great rendezvous for the Montagnais, Nasquapee, and other Indian tribes, who spoke dialects of the Algonquin tongue. In 1671, a French missionary, named Saint Simon, made the first voyage from the St. Lawrence to Hudson’s Bay, by the route of the Saguenay and Lake St. John. He described it as having formerly been the place where all the nations inhabiting the country “between the two seas” assembled to barter their furs. He saw the representatives of more than twenty nations assembled there. But in a few years afterwards the population of these regions had greatly diminished, on account of the small-pox and the wars with the Mohawks. The Jesuit missions of the Saguenay country commenced as early as 1616; they were regularly continued for just one hundred years; abandoned for some unknown cause from 1716 to 1720, when they were again started, but finally abandoned in 1776. Since that time the Romish Bishops of Quebec have had them in charge, but the Indians of the present day, fit to work upon, are few and far between, although the Habitants are all good Catholics, and appreciate the teachings of the priesthood. And in this connection the interesting fact may be mentioned, that the inhabitants of the post of Chicoutimie allege that the first bell ever brought to North America was hung up in the church of their little hamlet; and whether true or not, it was cracked about the year 1820, and a piece of the metal is now in the cabinet of the writer of this paper.
During a late angling expedition to Canada, the writer formed the acquaintance in Quebec of an interesting youth, who had but recently returned from a winter’s residence in the inhospitable district of Chicoutimie. Though not more than seventeen years of age, his love of wild life and adventure had induced him to forego the comforts of home in Quebec, and to spend several months among the snow-covered hills of the farther north; and, failing to find a suitable companion, had performed the expedition alone. Boy-like, he kept a minute journal of his daily experiences, noting down all that he saw and heard, and it is now proposed to lay before the reader a few selections from that journal, by way of illustrating the manner of life, the productions, sporting capabilities, and the scenery of Chicoutimie. The young adventurer left Quebec on the 30th of August in a steamer, accompanied by his dog Dash, and after a pleasant sail of one hundred and forty miles down the St. Lawrence, and spending a night in Tadousac, continued up the Saguenay and landed in the village of Chicoutimie at the close of the following day.
Off again the next morning, first in a charette, and then in a canoe manned by two Indians, when his next stopping-place was at an Indian wigwam on Lake Kenogami. At this lake he killed a number of ducks, and on reaching the hamlet at the foot of the lake, marked on the maps as the “Church,” he became domiciled in the cabin of a Habitant, and commenced his sporting operations. His first venture was after trout, which he captured with a fly made of oakum (for he had neglected to bring any regular flies), and also with a piece of squirrel meat for bait. After his first supper in this lonely and out-of-the-way place, he was called upon to take a hand in a game of whist, with an Indian girl for his partner, and moralised upon the circumstance to this effect: “Her eyes are very black, she is bashful in the extreme, and I have well-nigh lost my heart already. It’s all very fine to talk about loving a squaw, but I have seen some Indian girls who would not lose in comparison with many white ones that I have known. Young squaws are only brunettes.”
The style of our young sportsman will be found to possess a freshness which is quite in keeping with his daily experiences:—
September 4.—Went fishing to-day and caught three kinds of fish. One of them was a “witloosh,” a fish which resembles the whitefish, only it is larger and deeper in the belly. Bought a pair of moccasins; and as Dash was not well, took him over to a neighbouring cabin to consult a dog doctor. Towards sunset I killed a pair of teal.
September 6.—Rained cats and dogs all the morning. In the afternoon explored the whole of this side of Lake Kenogamish in a birch canoe. In the evening read for an hour in a History of the United States, which had strayed into this settlement, and which nobody else could read. I was so unlucky as to put my landlady in the sulks to-day, because I asked her for a box to sleep on in the middle of the floor, as I could not stand another night in a bed on account of its permanent inhabitants. I praised her baby, a black little wretch that I would not have touched with a pole, when she became pleased again, and I was supplied with a box. Some confounded fool has spread a report that I have got £200 in my pocket. I suppose he may have seen a roll of bills, but they were all one-dollar bills. I am afraid now the Habitants will charge me extravagantly for anything I may want.
September 8.—The box wouldn’t do, and so I have changed my quarters. The “blood of this Englishman” was not intended to be squandered after this fashion.
September 9.—A charette passed the house to-day, upon which was fastened a canoe. Following behind was a Scotchman, attended by two voyageurs; they were on their way to Lake St. John for a week’s shooting. If I had not been so shy, and had asked the stranger in to take a cup of coffee, I might have been invited to join the party. An old trapper entertained me with his talk to-night. He told me that his line of traps usually extended about twenty miles, and that his camp was about midway between the two extremities. It took him four days to visit all the traps travelling on snow-shoes, and when he caught fifty marten in one winter he was satisfied. He baited with fish or any kind of fresh meat; carried no provisions for himself but flour and pork; his lodge or camp was commonly a hole scooped in the snow, the bottom covered with fir or spruce branches; and for several years past he has received about one Canadian pound for each of his marten skins. They are more valuable now than all the other peltries put together.
September 10.—Little sick, and rather lonesome. Too much black bread and omelette won’t do; by permission, shot a hen for my dinner with pistol. Towards evening shot a teal before the house with my gun, and then went out with my new landlord to watch for musk-rats, shooting two. One of my rats was shot in the head, and so I secured a capital skin. Frost on the ground this morning. They say that for every foot of snow that falls at Lake St. John, which is perhaps twenty miles distant, two feet fall here.
September 11.—Moulded bullets in the morning, and waited alone for musk-rats all the afternoon. Strange thoughts passed through my mind as I sat there on the banks of the lonely bayou; nor were my feelings cheered by the continual screaming of a loon. On my way home shot a few golden plover. In the evening an old trapper, with hair as white as snow, came in, and I got him to talking, when I was much interested in his stories of wild life. One of them was about a cannibal. About ten years ago there was an Indian trader named Pullen, two white men, and an Indian, who were living at a fort on Pelly river. Provisions were scarce, and the Indians were bringing nothing in. That was in September, and in November a fire destroyed nearly everything, including their ammunition. For a time they lived entirely upon a few furs which they had saved; but in December the Indian, with his wife and a child, left for the woods, where they got a few rabbits and roots, while Pullen went off to a lake to see what relief he could obtain. He was gone five days, and on his return, with a few fish and a little game, he found that one man was missing. The survivor said that his companion had died, that he had been buried, but that the wolves had taken off the body. Pullen saw some bones in the fireplace, and when told they were the bones of a deer, he knew better, and his suspicions were aroused. He sought out the Indian, who had visited the fort unexpectedly, and who confirmed the horrid suspicions, and soon afterwards the cannibal confessed his crime. The thought made Pullen sick, and he left the fort, but returned in three days to look after the wretch, when he found him dead before the fireplace, a ghastly skeleton.
September 15 (Sunday).—Got into a great discussion with my landlord to-day about the Catholic and Protestant religions, but I am afraid I was hardly competent to show that ours was the right one. He is a precious rascal at any rate. He appropriates everything of mine, just as if it were his own. He takes my powder, shot, caps, brush and comb, and to-day he even asked me for my cap to wear to church, which I lent him. This is what they call Indian or half-breed manners, I suppose. Begin to speak a little Indian.
September 17.—I have been alone during the entire day, as all the family went off on some domestic expedition yesterday. Fixed up my own breakfast, prepared the coffee, fried a piece of pork, and made some pancakes with flour and water, which I greatly prefer to the confounded black bread which these people live upon. This afternoon the fields around the house were covered with birds, which they call “Étourneaux.” I killed a number, and found them good eating. Also killed a brace of “quacks,” and have been excited over the news that an Indian killed a bear at the mouth of La Belle Riviere, where the black fellows and wild geese are said to be abundant, and I intend soon to go.
September 28.—I have been on a bear hunt with a man named Bolu, but we didn’t kill anything but a lot of ducks and partridges. I saw one spot where a regular beaten path had been made by the bears, and although we stumbled upon two of them I couldn’t get a good shot, but Bolu brought one to bay, drew blood from him, and then let him escape. We encamped on the shore of the St. John, from which point we could distinctly see the Hudson’s Bay Post, nine miles away. When we were in camp a canoe came down La Belle Riviere, managed by two Indians, with a “young lady” on board, half Scotch and half Indian, who was going to do housework at the Post. I gave her a tip-top breakfast, and she continued her journey. As we sat in our camp one night Bolu told me this legend: A long time ago the great Atchocam of the Indians went hunting with lynxes instead of dogs. Just when he came upon a herd of caribou he called to the lynxes to help him, when he saw them swimming into the middle of a lake, where they disappeared. He waded into the lake after them, when the waters began to rise, and continued to rise until they covered the whole world. After a while Atchocam became sorry for what he had done, and, sending an otter a great way down into the waters to get a little earth, he worked with it until the land became again as it was before, and the lake—which we call St. John—looked exactly as if nothing had happened; but along its shores wild cats or lynxes have always been abundant. This man Bolu is a strange creature, and he is my bedfellow, or, rather, we sleep under the same blanket. Up to this time my sleeping-places have been somewhat varied: on a bed and a box when under a roof, and when out hunting, on spruce or fir boughs, on downy moss, and on a pebbly beach or flat rock. But I never sleep better than I do in these forest camps.
October 2.—We had a terrible hail-storm last night, and to-day it is bitter cold. Flocks of robins and étourneaux have been passing towards the south all day. On examining my box of groceries I found that more than half of my tea had been abstracted. Generally speaking, these half-breed people are honest, so that this discovery puzzles me. Five étourneaux alighted near our cabin to-day, and on putting them up I killed four on the wing. While out in the woods to-day I gathered up an armful of mosses and brought them to the house to examine. They are all of them very beautiful and wonderful, and are found everywhere growing in great luxuriance throughout this region, from Hudson’s Bay to the eastern coast of Labrador. One of them is called the caribou moss, because it is the chief winter food of that animal; and another kind, called tripe de roche, is employed as a medicine and in healing wounds, and in times of scarcity is prepared and used as an article of food. There is also a very beautiful scarlet lichen, which some of our naturalists, I am told, have supposed to be identical with the manna of the Bible.
October 4.—Two magnificent canoes, filled with lumbermen, passed our house to-day, bound to Lake St. John; and two small canoes, with Indians in them, passed the house, bound to Chicoutimie. One of my new acquaintances, a queer stick, wanted me to tattoo his name upon his arm. I did so; and, after he had endured all the pain, he did not have the satisfaction of seeing his name; the Indian ink was spurious, and swelled his arm to an enormous size, and I was afraid he would die. In that event, he ought certainly to be properly labelled. This afternoon, in less than half an hour, I killed one partridge, three ortolans, and thirteen étourneaux. The man I live with has been getting in his potatoes, and will have a crop of two hundred bushels. The mode of keeping them for winter use is to bury them in the ground.
October 9.—Had an attack of croup to-day, and was afraid, if it got worse, I should be a “gone goose.” There is not a drop of anything about here in the shape of medicine, excepting a kind of pain killer, a small bottle of which is carried by almost every Canadian in his pocket. In spite of my bad feelings, however, I went out to a certain spot in the woods and built myself a cabin, near which I hope to hunt for moose later in the season. This afternoon I put a few plover out of breath as they were going towards the south.
October 17.—Since my last entry I have made an excursion with an Indian down La Belle Riviere, which runs towards the north, a short distance along the shore of St. John, and down to a lumber “slide” on the Little Discharge. We damaged our canoe while passing a rapid, and were nearly swamped in the lake. There was a heavy fog, and the lake was white with foam; and, although we could not see them, the air was filled with the screaming of wild-fowl. We abandoned our canoe at the slide, and walked back to my quarters, a distance of fifteen miles, through the woods. I killed five partridges; but, instead of a bear, I demolished a skunk. All the way from Quebec to kill one of these refreshing creatures! My dog Dash bothers me. He wants pluck, and spends too much of his time with his tail between his legs. There is a man here who wants him, and I think I shall sell. Perhaps the dog does not like this vagabond life that his master is leading. Does he think that sleigh-riding with the pretty girls in Quebec would pay better? or that I ought to be at home studying “like a dog”? Time enough for those duties yet.
October 22.—Killed a musk-rat before sunrise this morning. I enjoy hunting for these creatures very much, for it is generally so still on the banks of the streams where they are found, and this being in the woods, entirely alone, seems to do me good in many ways. In old times, the hunters tell me, musk-rat skins were extensively used in manufacturing beaver hats, and were a profitable peltry. Musk-rats are nocturnal in their habits, but in their more secluded haunts frequently leave their holes and wander about, swimming on the top of the water. They live upon roots and vegetables, and in spite of their musky flavour are eaten by the Indians. Like the beaver, they build little houses for the comfort of their families, but are without the wisdom or cunning of the superior animal; and while they resemble the other in general appearance, they do not capture fish for a living, nor swim with the same rapidity; but whatever naturalists may say, it seems to me that there is not any greater difference between these several inhabitants of the wilderness, than we find existing between the white, Indian, and negro races of men. In the afternoon I was up in the woods with only my axe, making a road, when Dash put up a hare, which came within ten feet of me and squatted on his hind legs, as if he had something to say, and then disappeared. Immediately afterwards the dog started a cock partridge, which quietly perched upon a tree within twelve feet of me. This impudence provoked me, and I threw the axe at the bird, but without effect. After considering the matter, I think I acted like a fool. Perhaps that innocent bird had an affection for me, and how mean it was in me to be angry because I could not take its life.
October 31.—I returned from a trip to Paribonca this morning, disgusted. We started full of hope; camped the first night on the outside island, near the mouth of the Little Discharge, and there met a chap, in the employ of the Prices, who was searching for two boats that had drifted away from the Post. He was a very funny fellow; had been all over the world; fought in the Crimea and in India as a soldier; and had once been captain of a gun on board a man-of-war. We enjoyed a pork breakfast together immensely. While at that camp we heard that there were large numbers of geese at Paribonca, but at the same time that an entire tribe of Indians had gone there to lay in a winter supply of provisions. When we started on our return I felt as Dash usually looks when his tail is down. This is just the season when the wild geese leave the north for a sojourn in the far south, during the time of frost and snow. Their advent is hailed with great delight by the Indians, and they inaugurate this harvest-time by various ceremonies, incantations, and dances. The same interest is again manifested in the spring, when the geese leave the south, and return to spend a short summer in the north, where they rear their young. Before leaving the lake, we spent a night with a lot of thirsty raftsmen, who were a jolly set of fellows, and among whom were a set of Yankees.
November 1.—All Saints’ Day.—More than half the people in the settlement went to church last night to practise singing, and my host, I find, is leader of the choir. This has been a quiet day with me, and I have been reading and writing letters. The people are afraid to stir out of their houses to-night, as they believe all the dead come out of their graves on this particular night, and sit upon them to beg for prayers, and do not return to their coffins until to-morrow night. Masses were held all day in the church for the souls of the dead.
November 2.—To-day I enjoyed a novel kind of sport, that of shooting trout in Lac Vert, a beautiful sheet of water near here. The trout have a habit, at this season, of swimming near the shore, and concealing myself in the bushes near by, I saw them distinctly, and fired away as if they had been birds. I killed a good lot of them, most of them measuring about eighteen inches in length. Sometimes the Indians shoot very large ones in that way.
November 4.—Went trout-shooting again to-day, and had tip-top luck, so far as the fish were concerned, but wound up by falling head first into the water from an overhanging tree, at the very instant I was about to fire. As there had been a storm, and the weather was cold, I had a miserable time. My companion made a fire, and after warming myself, and drying my clothes, we returned home.
November 13.—The ground is everywhere covered with snow, two or three feet deep, and for several days I have been setting traps for marten and hare. Provisions are getting scarce in the settlement, and the people seem to be dreadfully poor. No bread, butter, or meat in the house, and we are living on potatoes and milk. I took a drive to-day, in a cariole, to a lake nine miles off; stopped long enough to get six partridges. On my return, my host wanted me to shoot an old horse of his which he thought was dying; I did so, and the family are counting upon a good supply of soap fat. But I am amazed that they should ever talk of soap in this region.
November 20.—The lakes and rivers were all frozen hard last night, for the first time this season. I longed for my skates, and after some trouble managed to borrow a pair; but they were so rickety and dull that I cracked my crown a number of times, and then retired to nurse my wrath to keep my body warm.
November 23.—Went to Lac Vert to-day to fish for trout through the ice; used some spring hooks that I brought with me; didn’t miss a fish, and brought home a big lot, but I nearly froze to death in the cold wind. On my return from the lake I visited my traps, and added to my spoils two hares, one marten, and one mink. Had a talk to-night with my landlord about beaver. He said they were not as abundant in this region as formerly, and not in great demand among the fur-traders. After describing their houses and mode of trapping them, he said that for a few weeks in each year the beaver was wholly absorbed by the instinct for building, and that it was quite impossible to interfere with its mechanical labours at that time. But the most curious fact that he mentioned was to this effect: One kind of trap occasionally used here is a small square crate, made of tough wood, into which the young beavers are easily decoyed, but the old ones never; and it is positively stated, that when the old beaver finds any of its young imprisoned, it clandestinely feeds them at night with a poisonous plant, which causes immediate death. If this be true, it is indeed wonderful that a representative of the brute creation should prefer death to a life-long imprisonment.
November 30.—I have been very near to death’s door to-day. This morning I started off alone to fish for trout in Lac Vert, my host promising to join me in two or three hours. On my way out I met a young acquaintance, who was induced to join me. When we were altogether at one end of the lake, and had caught several fish, we agreed to go down the lake to a certain point. I took the lead, and we walked about twenty yards apart. At a place where the water was fifty feet deep, I broke through; at first I went completely under; then supported myself by holding on to the edge of the ice, which, as I tried to get upon, kept crumbling off, and under would I go again; but after a while, and when my hands were so benumbed that I could not hold on to anything, but held myself with my elbows, the men, with the help of two long poles, got me out alive, and slid me along the ice to the shore. The men then made a big fire, and while one of them gave me his shirt and the other his coat, to put on while mine were drying, we soon got ready and made for home in double-quick time. Had it not been for my companions, I should most certainly have perished.
December 12.—The man with whom I have been living heretofore is such a vagabond that I have been obliged to quit his cabin and find board and lodging elsewhere. I am now nicely fixed, and pay fifteen dollars per month for board and lodging. Wheat-bread now, breakfast and pancakes, all the sugar and tea I want, and I do not have to act as cook. Visited all my mink traps to-day, and found that they had been sprung by the cunning weasels. Have bought a pair of moccasins, and find them much better for snow travelling than any white man’s shoe or boot. My new host and all his family have been singing to-night, by way of preparation for Christmas.
December 20.—Went hunting in a sleigh to-day with a young half-breed; he drove the pony, and on our return, we were upset; no bones broken, but one of the guns went off, sending a buckshot through my coat-sleeve, and lodging two of them in the fleshiest part of my companion’s body, which I extracted without much harm. If this young man is a careless driver, he more than makes up the loss by his good looks. He is straight as an arrow, has intensely black hair, and his usual dress at this season is a white blanket capote, blue cloth leggings, tight moccasins, and the scarlet cap usually worn by the better class of Labrador Indians, altogether forming the combination which the Quebec artist (Krieghoff) is so fond of painting.
December 31.—Went down to Chicoutimie village seven days ago on a little trip, and the Prices were so kind that I accepted their invitation to spend Christmas. They have a regular little palace, as it seemed to me. You may judge of my sensations when I saw a table laid out for me in half an hour after my arrival, covered with all sorts of cold meats, toast, preserves, etc.; and then the pleasure of looking over their papers and magazines, of which they take a great number! I was quite amazed to see the extent of the lumbering operations carried on at that place, but was more interested in the farm belonging to Messrs. David and Wm. Price. This farm is very large, and has already cost the sum of £32,000. It has long been, and is still, under the management of the same experienced farmer who organised it for the original owner, Wm. Price. He has separate buildings for the cows, bulls, oxen, calves, sheep, and pigs, and keeps about fifty horses. The cattle are a cross between the Canadian and short-horn—a part of the stock for beef and the balance for hauling timber; and in the summer sawdust, instead of straw, is used in the various stables; and all the grain and vegetables which grow around Quebec are found here in equal perfection. The farmer’s family consists of his wife, four daughters (elegant young ladies), and two sons; and such a dinner as they gave me I can never forget. After being treated with so much kindness I found it hard to get away; but I made a bolt, and came back to my habitant quarters in a cariole alone.
January 1.—There was quite a party at our house last night. All the pretty girls of the settlement were on hand, and we had two or three cushion dances, or what the French call round dances. I received many more kisses than were satisfactory. Of course the case would have been different if some of the dancers had been my old flames. The Quebec fashion of making visits on New Year’s Day is kept up here, but the habit of “kissing all round” is carried to a preposterous extent in this wild region. We’ve had a terrible storm, and the weather is very cold. A man made his appearance here to-day, connected with the fur-company, who is about to perform a journey on snow-shoes of two hundred and fifty miles, and he expects to complete it in eight days.
January 6.—There was a wedding at the church yesterday morning at seven o’clock. The victim was one of my habitant cronies. I was invited, but forgot all about it, and went to look after my snares. As I came back from the woods the party was returning, and I joined them with my gun on shoulder. I went the rounds with the married couple, took dinner at the bride’s house, officiated as master of ceremonies, and had the seat of honour on the right of the wedded pair. The dancing commenced an hour or two after dinner, and continued with unabated fury until daylight this morning, after which there was a lucid interval of a few hours, when they all went at it again, and as I am about going to bed decidedly conquered, bedlam still reigns. One of the wedding-guests came on foot from his surveying camp on the Great Discharge, a distance of forty miles, and he is going back to-morrow on foot again. Another of the guests was an Irish pedlar, and the fun which he afforded by his frolicking, his stories, and his use of Canadian French, was something rich and rare.
January 13.—Snow, snow, for two nights and two days, but to-night it is cold and clear, and the northern lights are perfectly magnificent—the seven prismatic colours vying to eclipse each other in brilliancy.
January 22.—Didn’t feel well this morning, and thinking that exercise was all I wanted, took a long walk on snow-shoes; on my return, chopped some wood for my good host, and then amused myself by watching the whole family while butchering two or three hogs. I am generally fond of fresh pork, but think I shall not indulge until I reach Quebec.
January 27.—A great deal of snow has fallen, and the hunters promise me some good moose-hunting. Doubt it. Haven’t forgotten my blasted expectations in regard to bear.
February 4.—Have been upon a visit to the Hudson’s Bay Post on Lake St. John. It is a strange and lonely place, with the usual number of hunters and trappers hanging about the store adjoining the factor’s house. I was shown the room where the peltries are kept. There were about five hundred beaver skins, a thousand marten, nine hundred mink, and about a thousand wolf, fox, fisher, and bear skins. Still, they say this has been one of the poorest years. In sending the peltries down to Lachine in the summer, they are all packed in lots weighing seventy-five pounds. Three packs of marten, sent down last year, contained not less than twenty-two hundred and fifty marten skins, and the total number of packs was forty. I saw the Hudson’s Bay Company’s stamp or seal, with the curious motto of “Skin for Skin” in Latin, and made a sketch of the four one-story-and-a-half buildings which comprise the post. I also saw here some of those preposterous pieces of wood which the factors give the poor Indian hunters in the place of money. They are called castors, and though they answer very well as a kind of due bill, are, of course, entirely useless except at the post where they are issued. I borrowed at this place a copy of Dickens’s “Bleak House;” to see a genuine home of that sort the great novelist ought to visit these parts. This post is only one of thirty-one belonging to the Montreal Department, while the Northern Department numbers thirty-four, the Southern Department twenty-eight, and the Department of Columbia seventeen. The grades recognised at these posts are seven—a labourer, an interpreter, the postmaster, the apprentice clerks, full clerks, the trader, and the chief factor,—and it is thought that three-fourths of the Company’s servants are Scotchmen, with a large sprinkling of half-breeds and French Canadians. Returned to the settlement partly on snow-shoes. Snow-shoeing is splendid.
March 1.—Have been down to Chicoutimie village again. Was invited to another wedding at Grand Bay. Went with the farmer’s family. Danced many times with the young ladies, and one of them made me happy by taking a seat in my cariole back to Chicoutimie. The next day I drove two of them over to Grand Bay again, and did not cast a thought on moose or any other kind of hunting. Altogether I had as pleasant a time as could be expected. Of course the weather prevented me from leaving Chicoutimie as soon as I at first desired. The weather, however, is getting spring-like. On my return, I found that my landlord had, for a whole week, been as “tight as a bucket,” as the Irish pedlar would say.
March 3.—The winding-up dance of the winter came off last night, for as soon as Lent begins these people are dreadfully good. As to the weather, it is all drizzle and slush. A regular rainy season is about commencing, they say, and before the roads are impassable, I must turn my face towards Quebec. Snow-shoeing and hunting are about finished for the season.
March 9.—Have made my last visit to the Post, where I expected to make an arrangement for a moose hunt, but only heard that one man had killed seven caribou during the past week, and while there another hunter brought in a splendid old moose. When I left Quebec, my chief hope was that I might at least see a wild moose in these woods, if I could not kill one; but I have not had a chance to do either, and the season is breaking up, and I must soon leave the country. From what the men tell me, perhaps a single hunt would have used me up for ever. The hunter told me that he fell upon the track of his game more than fifty miles from Lake St. John; that he followed him two whole days on snow-shoes, camping out one night without anything to eat; and finally killed him when in sight of the lake, from which spot he brought him to the Post on a sledge made of bark.
Chicoutimie Village, March 19.—I came here yesterday from Kenogamish, my winter quarters, with the postman; and soon after my arrival, my late landlord of the woods made his appearance, bringing a handsome bearskin and a pair of moose horns as presents for me. I did my best last night to make him have a good time, and he bade me good-bye this morning. I have a little engagement with certain ladies here, and after my duty to them has been performed, I shall start on my return journey to Quebec.
Once on a time a delegation of chiefs of the Choctaw nation waited upon Mr. Calhoun, then Secretary of War, on matters of business connected with the welfare of their people. After several interviews, and the business had been finished, the secretary threw aside his official dignity, and had a long and familiar talk with the chiefs on topics of mutual interest. Among other things, he said to them that, as they were all reputed to be the great men of their tribe, he would like to have them tell him how they had acquired their influence and fame. All eyes were at once turned upon the head of the delegation, but he pointed to the youngest man present to begin with his story, and intimated that he himself would “close the debate.” All the chiefs present then proceeded in turn, and briefly recounted the leading events of their lives, the main idea of their several speeches seeming to be that all their ancestors were very distinguished people. In due time the head chief of the delegation stood up in his place and uttered these words:—
“Pushmatahaw never had a father nor a mother. A little cloud was once seen in the northern sky. It came before a rushing wind, and covered the Choctaw country with darkness. Out of it flew the angry fire. It struck a large oak, and scattered its limbs and its trunk all along the ground, and from that spot sprung forth a warrior fully armed for war; and that man was Pushmatahaw.” It is the history of this man that we now propose to record, and our principal authority for what follows is Peter Pitchlynn, the Choctaw chief whose father, John Pitchlynn, was an intimate friend of the warrior during the long period that he held the position of interpreter in the Choctaw nation.
Pushmatahaw was born in what is now the State of Mississippi about the year 1764, and he distinguished himself on the war-path before he had attained his twentieth year. He joined an expedition against the Osages on the western side of the Mississippi, and, because of his youth and propensity for talking, he was a good deal laughed at by the more experienced men of the party. Every night, after making their camp-fires, some of the more fluent warriors were wont to deliver speeches touching their intended movements, and the boy-warrior did not hesitate to express his views and intentions; but the older men shook their heads in derision. In due time the war party reached the Osage country, and a desperate fight soon occurred. It lasted nearly a whole day, and, when concluded by the defeat of the Osages, it was whispered around that the boy had disappeared early in the conflict, and he was condemned as a coward. At midnight he rejoined his friends at their rendezvous, and they jeered him to his face for running away. To this he made reply by saying:—“Let those laugh who can show more scalps than I can,” whereupon he took from his pouch no less than five scalps, and threw them upon the ground. They were the result of a flank movement which he had made single-handed on the rear of the enemy. From that night they looked upon the young warrior as a great man, and gave him the name of the Eagle.
His second expedition to the west was for the harmless purpose of hunting buffaloes, but met with an unexpected termination. While roaming on the headwaters of the Red River, he and his party of one hundred were attacked by a band of five hundred Toranqua Indians, and although several of his companions were killed, and he lost his favourite cap—which was ornamented with eagle’s feathers and the rattles of the rattlesnake—he made his escape into the borders of Mexico, where he spent several years with the Mexican Indians. On his return to his own country he went alone in the night to a Toranqua village, where he killed seven men with his own hand, set fire to several tents, and made his retreat uninjured.
For a few months afterward he tried hard to lead a quiet life among his own people, but the old spirit of revenge still rankled in his breast; and, as he could always count upon any number of followers, during the next two years he performed three expeditions into the Toranqua country, and added eight fresh scalps as a fringe to his war costume. The Toranquas, or Man-eaters, were so named because they sometimes indulged in cannibalism, and our hero, because of his success in fighting them, came to be known among his own people as the Man-eater. Once, on being questioned as to the secret of his success in fighting, he simply replied:—
“I scare them first, and then I whip them.”
Passing over about fifteen years of his life, in regard to which we know nothing that merits special notice, we find him, in 1810, boasting that his name was Pushmatahaw, or “the warrior’s seat is finished,” and enjoying the reputation of being a famous ball-player. He was then living on the Tombigbee, and while engaged in a national game, which kept him away from home for several days, a party of Creek Indians visited his cabin and burned it to the ground. His bloodthirsty nature was at once roused, and, summoning his most faithful friends, he suddenly invaded the Creek country, killing many of these new enemies and destroying much of their property. He travelled with such rapidity, and performed such desperate deeds, that he became a terror to the entire tribe; and this agreeable pastime he kept up until the commencement of the English and American war of 1812, when he promptly took sides with the United States.
The council which decided the course of the Choctaws lasted ten days. All the warriors and leading men were for neutrality, excepting John Pitchlynn the interpreter and Pushmatahaw. Up to the last day he had not uttered a word, but at that time he made the following speech:—“The Creeks were once our friends. They have joined the English, and we must now follow different trails. When our fathers took the hand of Washington, they told him the Choctaws would always be the friends of his nation, and Pushmatahaw cannot be false to their promises. I am now ready to fight against both the English and the Creeks. I have seventeen hundred men, who are willing and ready for battle. You who may wish to do so, can stay at home and attend to the pots. I and my warriors are going to Tuscaloosa, and when you hear from us again the Creek fort will be in ashes.” And his prophecy was duly fulfilled. It was some months before this period that the great prophet of the Shawnees, Tecumseh’s brother, visited the Southern Indians, and tried to mass them together against the United States. He craved an audience with Pushmatahaw, and was permitted to attend a council at a spot in what is now Noxaby County. In the course of his speech he said that the earthquake which had lately occurred was the Great Spirit stamping his foot upon the ground; that it was a signal for all the Indians to begin war against the Americans, whose powder would not burn; and that after the victory they were sure to gain, the buffaloes would come back again into their country. Pushmatahaw made this reply: “Every word you have uttered is a lie. You are a prophet, but there are other prophets beside yourself. The cause of the earthquake no prophet can tell. If it had any meaning, it was a signal for Pushmatahaw and all his warriors to rush at once upon the English and all the enemies of the United States. If you were not my guest, I would make you feel my tomahawk. I advise you to leave this country at once.”
The Creeks and Seminoles allied themselves to the British. Pushmatahaw made war upon them with such energy and success that the whites gave him the title of the Indian General, which he and his people considered a decided advance on his previous titles of warrior, hunter, man-eater, and ball-player. It was while helping the American cause, and playing the part of a general, that he one day struck a white soldier with his sword. When brought up by the officer in command, and questioned as to his reasons for such conduct, he replied that the soldier had insulted his wife, and he only struck the offender with the side of his sword to teach him his duty; but that if the act had been done by an officer instead of a common soldier, he should have used the sharp edge of his sword in defence of his wife, who had come from a great distance to visit him. Indeed, the fearlessness of this man was one of his leading characteristics; and that trait, allied to his proud and energetic spirit, gave him unbounded influence among his people. Though delighting in revenge, and though he had stained his hands in the blood of many enemies, he was generous to those who were poorer than himself, and always took pleasure in extending the hospitality of his cabin to strangers. During all his matured life he indulged in the luxury of two wives, and he defended his conduct on that score by saying that there were more women than men in the world, and no woman should be without a husband. As there was something intemperate in all the actions of his life, as well when trying to take a scalp as when feasting a friend upon venison, it was to be expected that he should drink to excess. He seldom indulged, however, when he had important business on hand; but the wickedness of being drunk never weighed heavily on his mind. On one occasion during the war, when he was figuring as “general,” a soldier was arrested and confined to the guard-house for drunkenness, but when Pushmatahaw had heard the particulars, he ordered the man to be released, remarking, “Is that all? many good warriors get drunk.”
At the conclusion of the war he returned to the Tombigbee, hung up his sword as the principal ornament of his cabin, was made chief of the Choctaw nation, and devoted a number of years to quiet enjoyment.
It was at this period that the following incident occurred. A large number of Choctaws, including Pushmatahaw, had come together for the purpose of having a frolic. When the festivities had reached fever-heat, two half-breeds, named James Pitchlynn and Jerry Folsom, took it into their heads to insult the chief, whereupon his friends came to the rescue and gave the offenders a sound thrashing. One year afterward, as these half-breeds were sitting together in a cabin and telling some bystanders, in very glowing language, how they would revenge themselves upon Pushmatahaw if they ever met him again, it so happened that the chief made his appearance in front of the house, mounted upon his horse. He had ridden sixty miles, and was on his way to Columbus, in Mississippi. On being told who was in the cabin he dismounted and entered. An embarrassing silence prevailed for some minutes, which was finally broken by these words from the lips of the chief: “I am glad to see you, my friends. I have actually shed tears on account of our trouble last year. We were all drunk and all fools. I offer you the hand of a friend.” The hand was gladly accepted by the frightened half-breeds.
But soon the white man began to press upon the hunting-grounds of his people, and the disagreeable subject of emigrating to the West was forced upon his attention. He made several treaties with the General Government, and with one of them, signed in 1820, is connected the following incident. General Andrew Jackson was the commissioner on the part of the United States, and one of the stipulations that he introduced displeased Pushmatahaw, and he refused to affix his name. On seeing this the General put on all his dignity and thus addressed the chief:—
“I wish you to understand that I am Andrew Jackson, and, by the Eternal, you shall sign that treaty as I have prepared it.”
The chief was not disconcerted by this haughty address, and springing suddenly to his feet, and imitating the manner of his opponent, thus replied:—
“I know very well who you are, but I wish you to understand that I am Pushmatahaw, head chief of the Choctaws; and, by the Eternal, I will not sign that treaty.”
The General concluded that he had found his match in the frontier style of diplomacy, and, having modified his views, the chief was satisfied, and then promptly affixed his signature to one of the parchments, which was to banish the Choctaws from the land of their fathers.
As Pushmatahaw was by nature determined and dictatorial, he very frequently put himself into positions of great hazard by his official as well as private conduct, an instance of which occurred at the village of Columbus in 1823. A Choctaw named Attoba, while crossing a ferry, had accidentally killed the ferryman with his pistol, and as the deceased was a white man and popular, the excitement became great, and the Indian was arrested for the alleged murder. The moment the Choctaw chief heard of the affair, he went to Columbus and insisted that the prisoner, whether guilty or not, must be given up to the custody of the Choctaw nation, to be tried by the Indian laws. The civil authorities objected; but the chief was furious, and in a speech of great power he said that no Choctaw had ever spent a night in the white man’s prison, or had ever been hanged, and that Attoba must be released. The prisoner was released, and, after undergoing a perfectly fair trial according to the Choctaw code, it was proven that he had been drinking at the time of the calamity; that he had long been on the most friendly terms with the ferryman, and that the killing was purely accidental; whereupon he was acquitted, and all parties, white as well as red, acquiesced in the result.
Notwithstanding the fact that Pushmatahaw had taken the lives of many fellow-beings and had a ferocious disposition, he was greatly beloved by his own people, as well as by the whites. By the citizens of Mobile especially he was treated with real affection, and they were in the habit of speaking of him as the saviour of their city from the depredations of the Creeks. He was fond of children, and when in the mood would join them in their little games, and loved to talk with them about his adventures and the wonders he had seen. Indeed he was greatly gifted, not only as a story-teller but as a wit, when the spirit moved him in that direction. He had five children of his own, and although he could not himself speak a word of English, he took pains to have them as well educated as his circumstances would allow. As already intimated, he had a kind of passion for all sorts of games, and especially for the ball-play, but he was honest in his dealings, and scrupulously observant of his word. In 1823 he was present at a council near the residence of his friend, John Pitchlynn, the interpreter. By way of celebrating the 4th of July, the latter personage had given a feast to the resident Indian agent, at which a number of leading Choctaws were present, including Pushmatahaw. When the guests were about to depart, it was observed that he had no horse, and as he was getting to be too old to prosecute his journey home on foot, the agent suggested to the interpreter the propriety of presenting him with a horse. This was agreed to on condition that the chief would promise not to exchange the horse for whisky; and the old warrior, mounted on a fine young animal, went on his way rejoicing. It was not long before he visited the agency on foot, and it was found that he had lost his horse by betting at a ball-play.
“Did you not promise,” said the agent, “that you would not sell the horse for whisky?”
“I did so,” replied the chief; “but I did not promise that I would not risk the animal at a game of ball.”
In 1824 Pushmatahaw went to Washington with a delegation of his principal men, for the purpose, to use his own style of speaking, of brightening the chain of peace between the Americans and the Choctaws. President Monroe and Secretary of War Calhoun both treated him with the respect due to his position, and with special consideration, on account of his high bearing, ability, and important services during the war. The primary object, on the part of the Government, in this negotiation, was to induce the Choctaws to sell a new portion of their valuable lands in Mississippi, but the members of the delegation were united in following the advice of the head chief not to part with any more of their possessions; and in the American State Papers will be found several communications from Pushmatahaw, signed by himself and colleagues, setting forth their reasons for rejecting all overtures.
Soon after his arrival in Washington, Pushmatahaw took a severe cold, and was too much indisposed to do and say all that he desired; but a second little speech, which he made to the Secretary of War, has been preserved. It was to this effect:—
“Father,—I have been here some time. I have not talked, because I have been sick. You shall hear me now. You have no doubt heard of me—I am Pushmatahaw.
“When in my own country, I often looked toward this council-house, and wanted to come here. I am in trouble, and will tell you why. I feel like a small child, not half as high as his father, who comes up to look in his father’s face, hanging in the bend of his arm, to tell him his troubles. So, father, I hang in the bend of your arm, look in your face, and now hear me speak. In my own country I heard there were men appointed to talk to us. I would not speak there; I chose to come here and speak in this beloved house. I can boast and say, and tell the truth, that none of my forefathers, nor any Choctaws, ever drew bows against the United States. They have always been friendly. We have held the hands of the United States so long that our nails have grown to be like birds’ claws, and there is no danger of their slipping out. My nation has always listened to the white people. They have given away their country until it is very small. I repeat the same about the land east of the Tombigbee. I came here, when a young man, to see my father, President Jefferson. He told me if ever we got into trouble we must run and tell him. I am come. This is a friendly talk. It is like a man who meets another and says, ‘How you do?’ Others will talk further.”
One of the objects of this delegation was to sell certain lands which they owned on the Red River. After Pushmatahaw had described them, in the most glowing terms imaginable, as a country where the valleys were filled with black earth, and the waters were very pure, the Secretary of War said to him—
“Good chief, you are contradicting yourself. When you wanted to buy these very lands in 1820, you told General Jackson they were all rocks and hills, and that the waters were only fit to overflow the crops, put out fires, and float canoes. What is the meaning of the great change?”
“I can only say, good father,” was the reply, “that I am imitating the white man. In 1820 we wanted to buy; now we are anxious to sell.”
Another speech that Pushmatahaw delivered in Washington was remarkable from the fact that it expressed the opinion of a Stoic of the woods, concerning one of the leading men of the time, General La Fayette, who was then in the metropolis. The Choctaws called upon him in a body, and after several of them had spoken, Pushmatahaw rose and said—
“Nearly fifty snows have melted since you drew the sword as a companion of Washington. With him you fought the enemies of America. You mingled your blood with that of the enemy, and proved yourself a warrior. After you finished that war you returned to your own country, and now you have come back to revisit a land where you are honoured by a happy and prosperous people. You see everywhere the children of those by whose side you went to battle, crowding around you, and shaking your hand, as the hand of a father. We have heard these things told in our distant villages, and our hearts longed to see you. We have come; we have taken you by the hand, and are satisfied. This is the first time we ever saw you; it will probably be the last. We have no more to say. The earth will part us for ever.”
Shortly after this interview, the symptoms of the old Choctaw’s sickness became alarming; and, when told that he might die, he spoke of the event with the utmost coolness. His uppermost thought seemed to be that the capital of the nation was an appropriate place to die in, and his leading desire that he might be buried with military honours, and that big guns might be fired over his grave. Toward the last he called his companions around him, and gave them particular directions as to his arms and ornaments; for he said he wanted to die like a man, and his dying words to them were as follows:—
“I am about to die; but you will return to our country. As you go along the paths you will see the flowers, and hear the birds sing; but Pushmatahaw will see and hear them no more. When you reach home they will ask you, ‘Where is Pushmatahaw?’ and you will say to them, ‘He is no more,’ They will hear your words, as they do the fall of the great oak in the stillness of the midnight woods.”
And then the Stoic died. The Government had him buried, with suitable honours, in the Congressional Cemetery. A procession, more than a mile long, followed his remains along Pennsylvania Avenue; minute guns were fired from Capitol Hill, and a “big gun” over the grave of the chief. Among those who attended his funeral was Andrew Jackson, who frequently expressed the opinion that Pushmatahaw was the greatest and the bravest Indian he had ever known.
A number of years after his death, John Randolph pronounced upon him, in the United States Senate, the following eulogy:—
“In a late visit to the public graveyard, my attention was arrested by the simple monument of the Choctaw chief, Pushmatahaw. He was, as I have been told by those who knew him, one of Nature’s nobility, a man who would have adorned any society. He lies by the side of our statesmen and high magistrates in the region—for there is one such—where the red man and the white man are on a level. On the sides of the plain shaft which marks his place of burial, I read these words: ‘Pushmatahaw, a Choctaw chief, lies here.’ This monument to his memory was erected by his brother chiefs, who were associated with him in a delegation from their nation, in the year 1824, to the Government of the United States. He was wise in counsel, eloquent in an extraordinary degree, and, on all occasions and under all circumstances, the white man’s friend. He died at Washington, on the 24th of December 1824, of the croup, in the sixtieth year of his age.”
I am now an old man, and have been the chief fisherman in this locality for thirty-five years. I first saw the light in this region, and here I expect to die. Time is beginning to tell on my storm-exposed bones, but as I have raised around me a large family of good boys and girls, I shall be quite willing to go away when my Maker calls. Such swarms of fish—of rock-fish and shad, of herring, catfish, and sturgeon—as I have caught in the old Potomac, and such quantities of ducks, rabbits, and partridges as I have killed in this valley during the winters, it would be hard to estimate. And oh! how many and what awful freshets have I witnessed! I have worked hard, tried to do my duty, and, upon the whole, have led a happy life. I can remember when the first chain bridge was thrown across the river, just below the “Big Eddy;” that bridge and all its successors I have seen carried away. Little did I think in those old days that I should ever hear the guns of civil war on this spot, and see thousands upon thousands of soldiers marching from one side of the river to shoot down in cold blood their brothers on the other side. But the rebellion is over now, and I am very glad and thankful. The fighting is at an end, and all the troops have long since gone to their various homes, excepting those who are sleeping on the hills of Arlington. It used to be a real pleasure to me to see these poor fellows enjoying themselves when in camp at the Little Falls, and to hear the music of their regimental bands. That music was very grand, I know, and the blast of the bugle stirred one’s blood; but to my ear, after all, nothing sounded so sweetly as did the singing of the birds, the roar of the river, and the mellow horns of the canal boatmen, in the good old times, when you might have travelled many miles up this valley in the pleasant autumn without meeting a single man. Peace and real comfort filled the land in those days, and such sounds as the railroad whistle and the beating of the drum were unknown.
The drum! That makes me think of the drummer boy who perished in these waters more than a hundred years ago. It is an old tradition, and a sad one too; and now that my steps are getting feeble and slow, I cannot well drive it from my mind, as I could in former years. It was in the time of one of the Indian wars, and a band of British infantry, on their way from the Old Dominion to the regions of the great lakes, chanced to cross the Potomac at this point. They crossed in a bateau, and although the first of them stepped into the boat, to the music of the drum, before the last of them were ferried over, an accident occurred, and the favourite of the band, the drummer boy, with his drum about his neck, was drowned, and for ever disappeared from human sight. The soldiers had no more music, and their march through the interminable woods was sorrowful indeed. They could not forget their happy little comrade, the drummer boy; and since that time the valley of the Potomac has ever and anon resounded with the music of the phantom drum. Old men tell me that it was often heard in revolutionary times, and I know that I have heard something like it in my own—yes, more than a hundred times. It was often heard at midnight in the pauses of a thunderstorm, now mingling, with the roar of waters in a spring flood, and again stealing softly through the quiet summer or autumnal atmosphere. But what was very strange, whenever that phantom drum was heard, the river was sure to bring up from its depths the body of some man who had been drowned. It was thought by many that the man who first heard the pealing of this strange sound was sure to lose his life by drowning before the coming morrow. I am not superstitious, but this may be something more than fancy. I very well know that when I fell from a high rock into the upper pool, or “spout,” of the Little Falls, I heard a mysterious sound, and thought of the phantom drum. So, also, when once a floating tree upset my boat, and plunged me into the hell of waters below the Falls. That the ghost of the drowned drummer once haunted this place was believed by many of the inhabitants of this part of Virginia, which has been long known as Cooney; and there is a man still living who will take his oath that the phantom once, on a moonlight night, climbed into his boat while he was fishing, and that he sat there for a long time beating the air as if performing a tattoo or reveille. The drumming of the spirit is said to have been heard most frequently before the building of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, when the river was navigated by boats which were taken around the two Falls of the Potomac by short canals, built under the direction of George Washington; and we all know that the number of people drowned in the Potomac was greater then than it has been in later years, except during the Rebellion. Under contending flags, alas! drowned men and the discordant drum have lately been of far too frequent occurrence in the valley of the Potomac. There was a time when these fancies made me unhappy, but now they do not trouble me. I am growing old, and though I might prefer to have my body laid under the green sod, I should not be surprised, nor care, at any time to hear the wild music of the phantom drum.
Other sounds besides that of the drum were heard in this valley in the olden times. In the hollow, on the Virginia side, just below the Falls, there was, until recent years, a great building with wheels. First it was a flour-mill, then a woollen factory, afterwards a distillery, and lastly a paper-mill. When the rebellion commenced, the walls of the paper-mill were standing, but the troops made a target of them for their cannon, and now you can hardly recognise the spot upon which they stood. At this point, too, in former years there was a store, and of course a tavern, and it was for many years the regular loafing-place for the people of Cooney. Here a lot of the wild Cooneys could always be found, cutting all kind of capers, ruining themselves and starving their families by drink; and one of their pastimes, on Sunday afternoons, was to fight with each other, like cats and dogs, simply for the wager of a drink of rum or whisky. But those wretched people are all gone away for ever. In the days which I now speak of, small cargoes of flour were brought down the Potomac in keel-boats, and once in a while a man would appear who preferred to run the Falls with his boat, instead of going around by the canal. At the Great Falls above, this could never be done, but here the feat was sometimes performed. Of one of these daring men, named Cameron, it is said that he was thrown from his boat on the top of the Spouting Rock, or middle landing, where he was compelled to remain in a continuous rain for three days. During that time he could only be fed by catching loaves of bread or pieces of meat which were thrown to him from the southern shore. He was finally rescued by means of a boat which was drawn up the rapid by long ropes from either side of the river; and on the next day after his escape the water had risen at least twenty feet above the top of Spouting Rock, and the ordinary width of the river, of perhaps two hundred feet, was increased until the flood was half a mile wide, and washed the high hills of the Maryland shore.
But nothing so convinces me of my declining years as the changes which have taken place in my family, and among my acquaintances and friends. The little boy who twenty-five years ago brought me my meals to the riverside while dipping for shad, fishing for rock-fish, or grappling for sturgeon, is now a great strong man, and the eldest of my ten children. Of my old friends, many of them have wandered to unknown parts, and many of them are dead. They came here oftentimes bleached by the confinement of city life, and after spending a day with me at the Falls, drinking in the pure air and enjoying the wild scenery and good sport, they always went away happier and in better health than when they came. Some of them had roamed much over the world, and it did me good to hear them talk about the wonders they had seen. Among my departed friends and patrons were some who were great men, or had names that were known throughout the land.
Foremost among these was Daniel Webster. When Secretary of State, he used to come here, always early in the morning, and accompanied by his private secretary. He liked the fresh morning air as much as any man I ever saw, and when he talked to me freely about fish and fishing, I could believe that he had been in the business all his life. He was always liberal, and where other men would give me one dollar for a morning’s sport, he would give me ten. And for an old man, as he then was, he was a good fisherman. I remember well the day that he caught his biggest rock-fish. I had taken him in one of my boats to the “catting rock,” and as he swung across the roaring waters, the great man clapped his hand like a little child. The fish weighed sixteen pounds, and gave him much trouble, and when I gaffed the prize, and we knew it was safe, he dropped his rod in the bottom of the boat, jumped to his feet, and gave a yell—a regular Indian yell—which might have been heard in Georgetown. He came often, was always pleasant in his ways, generally on the ground as early as five o’clock, and once he gave me as a reason for winding up the sport at nine o’clock, that he was President Fillmore’s clerk, and was obliged to be at the Department before noon. But his fishing days are long since ended; and I have thought that if he had lived at the time, we might have been spared the great Rebellion.
Another glorious old man who used to fish with me at the Falls was General George Gibson. In his love of the sport he was ahead of many other men, and I am told that in the army he was universally beloved. He used light tackle, fancy hooks, and flies that were made in Europe, and was always as kind and gentle as any man could be. He threw the fly with great dexterity, and usually preferred to fish from the rocks with the fly, and in the afternoon, when there was a shadow on the stream. He was very fond of talking about old times, and there was no end to his stories about the fish he had caught in every part of the land. His last visit to the Falls was made a short time before his death, and I remember well that he was so infirm and feeble from old age, that his body-servant and myself were obliged to support him on his feet as he threw the fly. He was lucky to the last; but he, too, is now sleeping in the grave.
Governor George M. Bibb was another of my old friends. That man was positively almost mad on the subject of fishing. He always fished with bait in a boat, and was as patient as the day is long. He was kind-hearted, genial, generous to a fault, a great talker, and had so many harmless eccentricities, that he was wont to keep his fishing companions in a continual roar of laughter. After an unlucky day, in his perverseness he would sometimes spend the greater part of the night upon the river, as if determined to turn the tide of luck in his favour. He fished with me in those days when he was Secretary of the Treasury, and also in those more unfortunate days when, for a bare support, he held a subordinate position in the same department building, though paid by the Attorney-General. Peace to the memory of Governor Bibb!
Many amusing stories are related of him, and I give you one of them. One day, early in the morning, he planted himself on a certain wharf for a quiet day of sporting. At noon a friend passed by and asked him about his luck. “I hain’t had a bite,” replied the Governor; “the fish are scarce.” At sundown another friend passed by, and seeing a handsome yellow frog crouching by the side of the Governor, and evidently enjoying the scenery, suddenly exclaimed, “What’s that?” “That,” replied the Governor, with a look of horror, “is my bait, and the d—d thing has been squatting there, I suppose, ever since nine o’clock this morning.”
Of my distinguished friends, now living, I may mention with pride and pleasure the late British minister, John F. Crampton. He too was very fond of sport, and ever proved himself to be a true and kind gentleman. When he came here, he never allowed himself to go away disappointed, for if the fish did not bite, he would take out his sketch-book and go to work upon a picture of the Falls or of some curious rock. His fishing companion invariably was the same good friend of mine who fished with Daniel Webster, and who has now fished with me at the Little Falls for twenty-four years; and whose eyes I yesterday saw glisten with delight as he caught a ten-pound rock-fish.
Among those who have visited the Little Falls from curiosity, I must mention the distinguished authoress, Frederika Bremer. Never can I forget the excitement of the little lady. She clambered over the rocks, plucking more flowers and plants than she could carry without assistance; she ran about like a child, exclaiming at the grand bluffs and the emerald water, and she questioned me as to my manner of life until I became bewildered. I enjoyed her visit, however, and she was happy, but I have thought that it was not exactly kind in her to speak of me, in her book on America, as a wild giant of the wilderness.[2] On that occasion she was accompanied by Doratha L. Dix, that other lady who, as I am told, has won a great name for her unselfish life in the cause of Christian philanthropy.
[2] The exact language she used, and which I copy from her book, is as follows:—“I went one day with a handsome, young, new-married pair, and Miss Dix, to the Little Falls on the Potomac, in a wild and picturesque district. There dwells here, in great solitude, a kind of savage, with seven fingers on each hand, and seven toes on each foot. He is a giant in his bodily proportions, and lives here on fish; he is said to be inoffensive when he is left at peace, but dangerous if excited. I can believe it. He looked to me like one of those Startodder natures, half human and half enchanter, which the old Scandinavian ages produced at the wild falls of Trollhätta, and which the wildernesses of America seem to produce still.”
Note.—Good and honest Joseph Payne, the hero of this paper, had two sons who were killed by accident, one by his gun, and the other while working in a quarry; and he himself died at the Little Falls in January 1877, since which time, strange as it may seem, there has been but little sport on the Potomac.
Having been somewhat of a wanderer throughout the length and breadth of the United States, we propose to pass in review, as we have studied them, the leading or more prominent classes which compose the American nation of the present time. Subjects of this character, when treated in a general manner, are well calculated to give the untravelled reader comprehensive ideas of our huge Republic, and we cannot but hope that we shall be able to submit a few particulars possessing interest for the multitude.
Bowing our respects to the spirit of antiquity, we begin with the red race, or native Indians. From the fact that these people are gradually withering away before the march of civilisation, our chief interest in them centres in their extent and geographical location. According to the most authentic data, the number of Indians who, in this the year 1868, theoretically recognise the President as their Great Father, is about three hundred thousand. Of these, the Creeks, Cherokees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws, who occupy what is called the Creek country, on the headwaters of the Arkansas, number some fifty-four thousand; and, excepting four thousand of the Six Nations in New York, one thousand Cherokees in North Carolina, six hundred Penobscots in Maine, and perhaps forty-one thousand of various tribes still holding reservations on the Great Lakes and the Upper Mississippi and Missouri rivers, they are the only tribes that have made any satisfactory advances in acquiring the arts and comforts of civilisation. It would thus appear that the wild Indians who live entirely by the chase, and who inhabit our territories, excluding Alaska, number two hundred thousand souls. Although nominally obedient to the laws of the United States, these hunting tribes are in reality as free to roam as if there were no central government. But with those who are partially civilised the case is quite different. In 1866 their wealth in individual property was estimated at nearly three millions and three hundred thousand dollars, while they supported sixty-four schools, sixty-one missionaries, and farmed about seventy thousand acres of land; while the present liabilities of the General Government to all the Indian tribes, under treaty stipulations, amount to seven millions and two hundred thousand dollars. The different names by which these tribes are known number no less than one hundred and fifty, and their geographical condition is co-extensive with the area of our territorial possessions.
On leaving the hunting-grounds of the red men for the haunts of civilisation, our first stopping-place is at the cabin of a frontier farmer.
But here, before entering, let us take a glance at the past, when the condition of affairs was somewhat different from what it is at the present time. In the first settling of the west, if a man, after entering eighty acres of land, had only a single horse, he was considered as one prepared to take a fair start in life. In a single day, with the assistance of a few neighbours, he would erect a log cabin from sixteen to twenty feet in size, and without a nail or pane of glass, and on the following day move into the new house with his wife and such traps as she might possess. Soon as he could obtain a few sheep, his wife made all their winter clothing, and out of an acre of flax all their summer apparel. When caught in bed by the rising sun he was talked about as a lazy fellow. To get a little cash to pay his taxes and purchase a bit of coffee and sugar once a year at the distant “store,” he would hire himself out, for a few days, to some more prosperous emigrant at the rate of forty cents for twelve hours of hard work; but when his hogs and cattle began to multiply, this playing the part of a hireling ceased to be necessary. In those days young men were appreciated by the number of rails they could split and the quantity of ground they could clear in a month; and when the buxom lasses went to the house of some distant neighbour on Sunday, where there was to be preaching, they would, on approaching the house, doff their brogans and put on their nice calf-skin shoes, which had come all the way from New York or Boston.
The frontier life of to-day is still rude, but there has been great improvement. Though born and bred in a settled country, the spirit of enterprise has tempted the man of to-day to purchase a few hundred acres of land at the low Government price, which he is clearing away as rapidly as possible, and in the midst of which he has fixed his home. It is still built of logs, small, and poorly furnished, and, but for the smoke issuing from its rustic chimney, could hardly be distinguished from the stable or barn, where he shelters one or two horses, a yoke of oxen, and two or three cows. Every girdled tree in the neighbouring field has quivered under the blows of his sharp axe; the stump fence which surrounds his incipient meadow or cornfield has been engineered out of the black earth by his patience and skill; and the fallow-fires, which fill the air with smoke and at night give the skies a lurid glow, are ignited and kept burning by his hand. Hard work and rough fare are the lot of this poor yeoman; but his mission as a man demands our highest respect. He has a growing family about him, and in their welfare are centred all his hopes. Though far removed from schools, and churches, and the refinements of life, he plods on, year after year, thankful that his boys are approaching man’s estate, and cheered with the fair but perhaps remote prospect that, like many of his predecessors in a new country, he will yet acquire a fortune and spend his old age in a large frame house and in peace. Five, ten, or it may be fifteen miles from his cabin is another built on the same model, and whose owner is a counterpart of himself. Farther on, still another log cabin comes in view, and so on do they continue to appear until you have compassed the entire frontiers of civilisation. Excepting the fond anticipations which are cherished by this great brotherhood of stalwart pioneers, it would seem as if to them the enjoyments of life were few and far between; and yet, with good health, constant exercise, pure air, an occasional hunt for the deer, the wild turkey, the wolf, or the bear, and an abundance of plain but wholesome food, and with their happy families about them, it would hardly be reasonable for them to complain. The ancestors of these very men were among the first to gather around the flag during the Revolutionary war; and they themselves, with their brothers and sons, flocked by thousands to its rescue during the Great Rebellion. As one of our poets has written, they are the “Spirit of our land, personified,” and in history they will be long remembered with honour and gratitude for what they are doing in making clear the pathway of empire. But this allusion to log-cabin life impels us to a remark upon the log-cabins themselves. Our recollections of these homes in the wilderness are so numerous and so agreeable, that we would fain celebrate them in a song. We have slept in them on the borders of New Brunswick, Canada, and the Hudson Bay territories; have found them occupied by some of the most worthy men we ever knew; and around the magnificent fireplaces, which they all possess, with cords of wood blazing away in unappreciated affluence, we have heard stories and legends without number about the wild life and adventures of the pioneers. And the part which these cabins perform in beautifying the scenery of the frontiers is important, and not to be forgotten by those who have seen them in their picturesque localities; here, capping the summit of a gentle hill and overlooking a beautiful lake, and there, nestled in the shadow of a primeval forest; at one time resting on a pleasant mead, washed by the waters of a sweetly-singing river, and at another commanding a broad prairie; in winter almost hidden from view by the deep snow, and in summer enveloped in festoons of vines and flowers; and at all times, in every quarter of the land, forming a simple but cosy home for those who have not been maddened by the follies of artificial life.
Under the head of Farm-life, we comprehend in this paper the great mass of our population who live by tilling the soil and are established as husbandmen, in all the Northern and Western States of the Union. By virtue of their numbers and wealth they are that particular class of the American people who constitute the vital element of our prosperity. The figures are indubitable; before the commencement of the late Rebellion they cultivated not less than one million and two hundred and sixty-six thousand farms, and not far from ninety millions of acres of land. Even in circumscribed New England, we ourselves have been driven over a grazing farm (by the late Hon. Ezra Meech, of Vermont), where three thousand sheep and a thousand cattle were cropping their morning repast; and we have but to recall the names of the Illinois farmers, Straum and Funk, to have our belief again staggered by their exploits in sending countless herds of cattle to market, and in cultivating corn and wheat fields that seem to have been bounded only by the sky. To be a little more particular, we might state that the farm of Isaak Funk contained nearly forty thousand acres, with one pasture field of eight thousand acres; and in 1862 he sent cattle to New York valued at $70,000, while his home stock was estimated at $1,000,000. His chief production was corn, all of which was consumed on his own farm, while his style of living was noted for its simplicity. In 1867, the most extensive farmer in Illinois, or in the whole country, was Eugene Haywood, who cultivated fifty thousand acres. The salient features of the farm life under consideration are as follows: In nineteen cases out of twenty the proprietor joins his hired men in the work to be done, whether it be in holding the plough and casting the seed, or in driving the machinery employed; they all partake alike of the same food, and occupy the same platform as citizens; free access to schools and churches is enjoyed by all, without any regard to family or fortune; and the man who is working to-day as a hired hand, knows full well that if he continues to be true to himself and his opportunities, he will yet be respected as a proprietor. The houses which our farmers occupy are comfortable and home-like; by means of newspapers and books they keep up with the spirit of the age in matters intellectual; and, though generally disinclined to participate in the partisan squabbles of the day, they are by no means indifferent to the welfare of the country, are frequently called upon to fill local offices, and when they do condescend to occupy seats in Congress, it is oftentimes their good sense which succeeds in thwarting the schemes of the demagogues. Indeed, if we had more of our solid farmers in Congress, and a greater scarcity of third-class lawyers and trading politicians, the country would not be in an everlasting uproar about suffrage, and tariffs, and questions of finance.
But if we desire to obtain a complete idea of the yeomanry of our land, we must take a glance at the plantation life of the Southern States. Before the Rebellion, the number of plantations under cultivation was estimated at about seven hundred and sixty-five thousand, and equal to nearly seventy-five millions of acres. As to the cotton, sugar, wheat, corn, and livestock which were produced upon them, they can only be fully appreciated by consulting the publications of the census office. The stupendous change that has taken place among the Southern people since the emancipation of the slaves, renders it difficult to describe their present condition. Before the war, the planter was the owner not only of broad acres almost without number, but also of from ten to two thousand menials, whom he fed and clothed for his exclusive profit, and who, for the most part, did his bidding without a murmur or a thought beyond the passing hour. He lived at his ease among books and in the dispensation of a liberal hospitality, leaving all the labour on his plantation to the direction of an overseer, who spent the most of his time on horseback, issuing his orders to the working men and women, and watching the general progress of affairs. According to his wealth the planter lived in a house or an elegant mansion, while his slaves were always domiciled in rude but comfortable cabins. But since the conclusion of the war, a very different condition of things has been inaugurated in the South. The planter still retains his broad acres, but slavery has disappeared into thin air. A large proportion of those who worked for him as slaves may yet remain upon his plantation, but they are always hired by the month or year, and though free to come and go, they now find it indispensable to work before they can be fed or clothed. On many estates indeed, as we happen to know, the changes have not been so great as one would have imagined, for where the planters have hitherto been kind-hearted and just in their dealings with the slaves, they have had but little trouble in retaining their services and goodwill. Whatever may be the present financial condition of the Southern planters, it is quite evident that their immediate future as citizens of the Republic is anything but cheerful, for they know not, practically speaking, what will be on the morrow; and as to the black race, in their delight with the idea of freedom, they seem well content to exchange their Christmas and other holiday fandangos for a pow-wow at the polls, the term master for that of boss, and a larder well supplied with “hog, hominy, and molasses,” which were formerly given them without money, for the same commodities now purchased with their individual earnings. That there is much destitution and deplorable suffering throughout the Southern States at the present time cannot be denied, and if the wisest prophet cannot tell us when peace, prosperity, and contentment will take the place of the existing chaos, we cannot but hope that this result will not be long delayed, and that many of our oldest citizens will yet witness the triumph of well-directed labour and the true spirit of Christianity from the Potomac to the Rio Grande.
In taking a survey of what we may call the foreign phase of American life, we naturally recur to the figures of the census of 1860. The first fact which rivets our attention is this:—That while the slave and free coloured population of the country amounted to 4,441,830, the foreign-born numbered 4,136,175, leaving the native-born at 18,911,556, the three classes forming the grand total of 27,489,561, and which, according to the latest estimates, has reached the number of 33,000,000. The various countries which have volunteered, through their people, to join hands with the Anglo-Saxon race in building up the leading Republic of the world, and the extent of their co-operation, may be stated as follows:—Ireland, 1,611,304; German States, 1,301,136; England, 431,692; British America, 249,970; France, 109,870; Scotland, 108,518; Norway, 43,995; Switzerland, 53,327; China, 35,565; Mexico, 27,466; Sweden, 18,625; Italy, 10,518; Denmark, 9962; Belgium, 9072; Poland, 7298; Spain, 4244; Portugal, 4116; South America, 3263; Asia, 1231; and Africa, 526, with an unimportant balance from various other regions of the globe. That the people representing the above nationalities have become identified to some extent with every part of the Union, need not be asserted, but the largest number of foreigners reside in the following States, named in the order of precedence, to wit: New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Massachusetts. Those engaged in mercantile or mechanical pursuits have generally flocked to the cities and larger towns, both in the East and West, and the farmers have settled upon the fertile lands of the Western States;—and while the former live and labour, very much as they did in their native lands, the latter have, to a great extent, adopted the implements of the American farmers, and are consequently becoming more completely amalgamated with the native race in the rural customs.
Another phase of industrial life in which the universal public feel an interest is that of mining, and we confess that a careful study of the subject has upset many of our former notions. The number of men engaged in all kinds of mining throughout the country is 147,750, but those engaged in the five leading products is 93,522; of these, 44,316 are gold and silver hunters, 36,486 are engaged in digging out coal, 5153 engaged in copper mines, 3206 in the iron mines, and 361 in the lead mines; while California gives us nearly all the gold we receive, and Nevada all the silver, Pennsylvania takes the lead in coal and iron, and Michigan has it all her own way in the copper line. Of the total number of miners in the country, more than one-half of them are said to be foreigners by birth, the Irish and English predominating in Pennsylvania, and the Chinese in California; and as they are for the most part cosmopolites or wanderers over the face of the earth, we cannot chronicle the fact that their enjoyment of the good things of life is anything to be especially envied. And yet the recent mineral developments in our vast territories are already greatly increasing the number of miners in the country.
And here, as we have, without intending it, got ourselves involved in a maze of figures, we propose to work out of it, by giving the numbers in regard to other phases of American life, where the population exceeds twenty thousand, viz.: Of apprentices there are 55,326; blacksmiths, 112,357; boatmen, 23,816; butchers, 30,103; cabinetmakers, 29,223; carpenters, 242,958; carters, 21,640; engineers, 27,437; clergymen, 37,529; clerks, 184,485; coopers, 43,624; factory hands, 87,289; farmers and farm-labourers, 3,219,574; fishermen, 21,905; gardeners and nurserymen, 21,323; grocers, 40,070; innkeepers, 25,818; lawyers, 33,193; machinists, 43,824; mantua-makers, 35,165; mariners, 67,360; masons, 48,925; mechanics, 23,492; merchants, 123,378; millers, 37,281; milliners, 25,772; public civil officers, 24,693; painters, 51,695; physicians, 54,543; planters, 85,561; printers, 23,106; railroad men, 36,567; seamstresses, 90,198; shoemakers, 164,608; students, 40,993; tailors and tailoresses, 101,868; teachers, 110,469; teamsters, 34,824; tobacconists, 21,413; weavers, 36,178; and wheel-wrights, 32,693. Such was the condition of affairs just before the late Rebellion: and, without being too precise, it is quite certain that the people who entered the two armies from every department of active life, and perished during the war, have already been more than replaced by the immigration from foreign countries. The social condition and manner of life of the great multitudes above mentioned are so familiar, that it is not necessary to descant upon them; and whatever may be their various peculiarities, it is a source of gratification to every lover of humanity to know that they are all free, proud of their American citizenship, and as truly happy as any other nation upon earth.
There are two varieties of American life which, because of their poetical associations, we must not fail to specify. The first is that led by the dwellers along the sea-coasts of New England. Their small white cottages look down upon the Atlantic from every headland, lie nestled among all the rocky bluffs, and stand exposed to the glare of the sky on all the sandy reaches from the Hudson river to the St. Croix. Obtaining their living chiefly from the sea, they cultivate just enough land to give them the vegetables they need; and while the men toss about upon the waters in their boats and vessels, the women remain at home, busy with their sewing-machines, while the children flock off in various directions to the district schools. Though living remote from the larger towns and the great highways of travel, these people have perpetually the companionship of the sea and the sky, and on that score are only to be envied. It is along these coasts, moreover, that we find that hardy race of mariners, who, when their country calls, fly to the rescue of the flag, and do their best to protect the nation’s renown. But for unadulterated peace, we must resort to the small and out-of-the-way villages of our great land. To the man who is not wildly mad on the subject of politics and money, they are among the most delightful spots to be found by the tourist, or the lover of a quiet country life. The only trouble is, that under the trampling of the fiery locomotive, they are daily disappearing from the face of the earth. A few of them are yet to be found in New England, on Long Island, and in other parts of New York, where the village green may still be seen, surrounded with graceful elms and rustic homes and meeting-houses, and the old-fashioned tavern, where the population is composed of old men and old women—fathers and mothers in Israel—whose children have grown up and married and settled in far-off places of excitement and business and turmoil. But alas! The spirit of mammon is riding rampant over the whole land, and it will not be long before a rural American village, cousin to those which have been so charmingly described by Mary Mitford, will only be mentioned by the historical writer or antiquarian.
And now for a few reflections on the leading representative cities of the Republic, beginning with Boston. Its Revolutionary history we always recall with pride; so also do we remember its golden age of commerce; and as the patron of brilliant men in statesmanship and literature, its fame will be perennial. Springing as it did from the loins of Puritanism, it has been true to its lineage, and successful in impressing its characteristics upon the whole of New England, including the cities of Worcester, Providence, Hartford, and New Haven. It is a pleasant place to arrive at, and by a lively stranger may be fully “done” in about two days, when, unless he happen to have had a taste of its cultivated society, he will be quite willing to continue the journey of life. On taking his seat in the railway train, he will begin to ponder upon what he has seen and heard, and will find the following ideas impressed upon his mind, viz.: That the charitable and learned institutions of Boston are a credit to its citizens; that nature has been kind to it, and made it a city of the sea; that its libraries, book-stores, and newspapers, are highly respectable; that the State House and Bunker Hill will never be forgotten; that the Common is an indispensable luxury in such a jammed-up city; that Choate and Webster, the Adamses and Hancock, were old fogies, and not to be mentioned with the John Browns of the present time; that the sculpture-rooms of the Athenæum are in keeping with the prevailing taste in art, very classical, but decidedly feeble; that, if Belshazzar’s Feast was the best thing Allston could produce after twenty years’ labour, he was a most diabolical painter, which is not our opinion; that its streets are clean; houses comfortable; women intelligent and cute; business men solid, but rather slow; hack-drivers respectable; and that it contains a great many people, snobs, in early manhood, who, if they dared to be so disloyal, would be glad to declare themselves a colony of England. In this connection we must of course allude to New York, but the place is so huge, and is so complete an epitome of the world at large, that it cannot be characterised in a single paragraph. I knew the place, as a citizen, for many years, and nothing less than a volume would suffice for a just account of its Dutch aristocracy, wonderful commercial enterprise, the magnificence of its leading men, its artistic, literary, and scientific institutions, and of all those qualities which it has implanted upon its daughter cities,—Buffalo, Detroit, and Chicago. It took a highly honourable part in the great events of our earlier history, and as the commercial metropolis of our country, will long continue to compare favourably with the leading cities of the Old World.
Next comes Philadelphia, the demure city of Friends! It ranks next to New York in population, but in its business traffic is excelled by Boston. Its people are not ambitious of display, excepting in the Quaker line, but they are to be depended upon; though not unmindful of their creditable position in history, they are not given to foolish boasting; they read good books and enjoy the fine arts; they dress in better taste than their intimate friends of Gotham; and as a city of quiet and pleasant homes, we suppose that Philadelphia is without a superior anywhere. If not pre-eminently influential as a commercial city, it has certainly accomplished much in making Pittsburgh what it is, and has borne its part with New England in making Cincinnati the Queen city of the west. And what of Baltimore! It has a brilliant reputation, and yet, from the day that the Catholics gave it a name, down to the present hour, it seems to have been engaged in a perpetual struggle with an opposing destiny; now thwarted by the rivalry of Philadelphia, anon made the victim of mob violence, and capping the climax of its misfortunes by spilling some of the first blood of the Rebellion. While ever famous for its brave men and beautiful women, accomplished scholars and citizens of rare culture and refinement, it has not succeeded in keeping pace with that spirit of enterprise which seems to have actuated the American people. Passing further south along the Atlantic coast we come to the cavalier city of Charleston. The sunshine of a pure and noble patriotism rests upon its early history; there was a time when it received the willing tribute of many charming towns, and commanded the respect of the entire nation; but it had an insane passion for fire and the sword, and it now lies prostrate in ashes and dust, from which, in its old character, it can never arise. To expatiate upon the phases of life now prevailing there, would hardly be amusing or profitable. In this summary of the mother cities of the nation, I must not forget New Orleans. As the guardian of the matchless Mississippi it stands alone, and deserves its world-wide fame. From time immemorial it has been in a constant struggle either with war or pestilence; but so great have been its advantages as a shipping depôt, it has ever maintained a high character, and is destined, undoubtedly, in spite of its recent misfortunes, to attain a position of still greater magnitude in the commercial world. It was here that the French race made their most successful stand within the limits of the United States, and where the gaiety of the Creole population has held perpetual sway over the city. Whatever may be the ultimate fate and character of New Orleans and its ally, or offspring, St. Louis, we can never ignore their earlier and highly romantic history. While the parent cities, with their celebrated colonies already mentioned, form a noble array, the children possessing all the characteristics of their parents, it must not be supposed that we are unmindful of the associations which cluster around such places as Mobile and Savannah, Raleigh, Richmond, Nashville, and Louisville, Indianapolis and Milwaukee, Rochester, Albany, Portland, Newark, and a host of other towns in the west and north, each one of which, as we know by personal observation, has its peculiar character and interesting phases of social life. There is one other city that we must mention, however, with more minuteness, and that is the National Metropolis. With this spot local pride has but little to do, for it is the petted child of the whole nation, and some might say, the spoiled child also. There are yet a few of the old landmarks of society remaining, and while it would afford us pleasure to give an account of the good times when statesmen instead of demagogues, and men of culture and position instead of adventurers, gave tone to society here, we think it best to describe the phases of life which have latterly prevailed, and now prevail, in Washington. And first as to the resident population. They are a people without Government, or rather, who are denied the privilege of being heard by a representative or delegate in Congress. It cannot be said, indeed, that they have no legislators to look after their interests—the trouble is, they have too many. Since 1800 they have had several thousand, “all, all honourable men.” As the residents of Washington do not possess any political rights, it might be supposed that they feel no special interest in the success of parties, and yet more bitter partisans are not to be found anywhere in the north or south. And there is something equally contradictory also in their estimation of public characters. For the reason that they have many opportunities to see our really great public men, they are seldom awed by such spectacles, and of course estimate the “ordinary run” of Congressmen and other public servants at their real value; at the same time, if they happen to find it desirable to obtain any favours from their legislative or executive rulers, they bend the knee quite as humbly as their brethren from the rural districts. Politically speaking, their condition is not to be envied. But is there any good reason why they should be the victims to every species of tyranny, to which the citizens of the States and Territories are not subjected, and that they should be pointed at as the men who have no vote, and are only Washingtonians? It is true that the people who reside in our Territories have no voice in electing the President, but they all live in the hope of soon enjoying that privilege; but not so with the citizens of the metropolis. As individuals, they are not without the vital principle of life; but they are a soulless corporation of “purest ray serene.”
From the necessarily meek but generally solid proprietors of the soil of Washington, outside of the Government possessions, it is natural that we should turn to their chief tenants, the Executive dignitaries and the Justices of the Supreme Court. As the tenure of office of the former seldom exceeds four years, they have, in spite of themselves, a particularly lively time of it, during their whole term, spending their days in dealing out patronage, and their nights in giving and attending receptions; and as their families take the lead in fashion, and all American citizens, both “coloured and plain,” have an inalienable right to be fashionable, and as exclusiveness in the President and his ministers would not be tolerated, there is no end to the so called enjoyments of high life. If a minister is rich and liberal, he becomes, for the time being, the biggest man on the carpet, in spite of his politics; if a poor man, dependent only upon his salary of eight thousand dollars, the fact of his having to occupy a large house and to entertain the beloved people, sends him into retirement, when his time comes, a poorer man than before. From the highest to the lowest in position, they all have to pay very dear for blowing the whistle of public life in Washington. With the honourable judges the case is different. They are in office for life, receive an income of six thousand dollars, and can afford to do as they please, and they generally please to live the quiet lives of cultivated gentlemen. They go into society when the spirit moves them, are not disinclined to partake of a good private dinner with their friends, a foreign envoy, or a cabinet minister, and perhaps the greatest of their blessings is, that they are not compelled to amuse the fashionable circles, nor curry favour with the multitude. For the man of culture and of quiet habits, a seat on the Supreme Bench is undoubtedly the most enjoyable position known to the Constitution.
The next layer of Washington society to which we would allude, is made up of the heads of bureaus and the officers of the army and navy, the pay of the former ranging from three to five thousand dollars per annum. They are the men who more immediately manage the machinery of Government, and upon whom, to a very great extent, depends the success of all the public measures enacted by Congress. Though reasonably well paid, they cannot afford to live in style, and it is to their credit that their desires do not generally tend that way; in a majority of instances the civil officers are appointed on their real merits, and occasionally we find the head of a bureau who has risen to his present position from that of a subordinate; and as to the regular army and navy officers, they are in Washington what we find them everywhere, highly intelligent, prompt in performing duty, proud of the grand old flag, and fond of having a good time, when wind and tide are favourable. After the above come the clerks of Washington, or, as they are more elegantly styled, the employés of the Government. They are more numerous than any other class, and are in reality the working population of the city. Among them you will find men from every State of the Union, and from every clime; men of no particular mark, who have lost fortunes; ripe scholars, who have been rudely buffeted by the world; men of capacity, who can teach their superiors in office; rare penmen and commonplace accountants; and a sisterhood, composed chiefly of respectable widows and orphans, who have been compelled to seek relief from the pinchings of poverty, under the wings of the Government. The compensation which they receive ranges from nine hundred to twenty-five hundred dollars per annum, and while it is true that many receive more than they really earn, many of the most faithful and deserving cannot, with their families, live in any degree of comfort upon what they receive. While you may, here and there, find an individual who has grown grey in the service, and is looked upon as an oracle in Government matters, the great majority are in reality a kind of floating population. All alike are the creatures, as well as the victims, of political or personal influence. There is not in Washington a respectable reading-room, nor a single good library to which they can have access; even the Congressional library, which belongs to the nation, they can only look upon as did the cat upon the king. They place their noses upon the grindstone immediately after bolting an early breakfast, and if they can take them off before dark, they deem themselves lucky. The sensible men among them have a contempt for politics, while the foolish make themselves contemptible by becoming partisans. Like the ravens, they do indeed manage to obtain their bread, and the one magnificent privilege which the men enjoy who have not relinquished their citizenship, is to go home and vote for a governor or a candidate for Congress. While it is true that a large majority of the clerks in Washington are content to remain all their days in their present position, it is due to the more ambitious and enterprising among them to say, that they have aspirations for a wider and more influential sphere of life. Many instances might be mentioned where clerks have left the Government service and become distinguished at the bar and as merchants; and we know of some who are to-day spending all their leisure time in preparing themselves for the learned professions, in which they are certain to succeed. These subordinate positions are well enough, and perhaps desirable for those who use them as a means to an end, but poor affairs when considered, as is too often the case, the chief end of man in matters terrestrial.
And now, with a few remarks about the brotherhood known as Congressmen, we will conclude this screed on the phases of American life. Coming, as they do, from all parts of the country, and representing every variety of population, it is quite as impossible to describe them collectively as it would be to speak of their individual characteristics. Really great men—far-seeing statesmen and brilliant orators—are few and far between; and there are more upstarts than there ought to be among the law-makers of the country; and yet a large majority, we would fain believe, are like the people whom they represent, sound at heart and in mind, and truly patriotic. If some of them deliver essays prepared by competent reporters, and call them speeches, we can only commend them for their sagacity; when some of them preach economy in public affairs, and at the same time look to it that nearly all their male kindred are supported by the Government, we cannot question their exalted integrity; when we hear some of them periodically quoting Scripture, and expatiating upon all the virtues, and know that their lives are profligate, we cannot but place implicit confidence in their professions; and when we see a man who has been repudiated by his constituents, begging for a petty office, or turning himself into a claim-agent in Washington—or perhaps taking up his residence in a State far distant from his own—his former outflowings of patriotic eloquence on the floor of Congress become a source of amusement. But the many must not be judged by the follies and delinquencies of the few; and as the duties and responsibilities of public men vary with the times in which they live, it is next to impossible for any one to make a just comparison between the present and the past. The ratio of good and bad men has been about the same in all former Congresses; and as we are all human beings and Americans, it is not likely that there will be any very material changes in the future. And yet there was much pith in the reply of the school-girl who, when asked by her teacher how “Congress” was divided, said, “Civilised, half-civilised, and savage.” The number of men who have hitherto served their country as senators, representatives, and delegates, since the adoption of the Constitution, and including the Fortieth Congress, is between four and five thousand; of these, the majority have been bred to the law; while the party names which have hitherto been recognised on the floor of Congress are as follows, viz.: Federalists and Democrats, Whigs and Locofocos, Freesoilers, Abolitionists and Fire-eaters, Republicans, Copperheads, Native Americans, Radicals, and Secessionists, forming in the aggregate a conglomeration of political ideas quite in keeping with the wild and free spirit of the Universal Yankee Nation.
It was the smack “Neptune,” of New London, Captain John Blue, and we were bound after sword-fish. The 10th of July 1864 had arrived, and a school of these ocean wanderers had been seen some seventy miles off Block Island. To that region we hastened, spent ten days hunting over the blue sea, and returned home with twenty-one fish, yielding the skipper and his two men a net profit of five hundred dollars.
As game fish, the salmon and the striped bass must look to their laurels; for in these warlike times the sword-fish may chance to supersede them in gaining the affections of the more daring sportsmen,—although my own fidelity must never be questioned on that score. Fifteen years ago this fish was not captured for its edible qualities; to-day it is popular all along the New England coast as an article of food, and commands a high price, while in New York it is a drug, and hardly recognised as fit food for man. A full-grown specimen commonly measures from ten to twelve feet in length, and weighs from three to five hundred pounds. When fresh, a choice cut from the belly is really enjoyable, but when salted for winter use, they are deemed by their captors as unsurpassed by the blue-fish or mackerel. They generally swim in schools, near the surface of the water, and from their habit of leaping high out of the water, seem to be proud of their graceful appearance. The bony snout or weapon which has given them their name, is a most formidable affair, and has frequently been known to sink the smaller boats of the fishermen, and even to have penetrated the solid hull of a ship. This instrument naturally renders them a terror to every creature that swims the sea, but it is not known that they systematically make war upon any other creature than the whale. That unwieldly monster they frequently assault, and with such ferocity as often to cover the surrounding waters with blood; and when assisted, as they sometimes are, by the “thrasher,” a kind of savage shark, they cause the whale, in his agony, to bellow like a wounded bull. It is not thought by the old fishermen that these conflicts are the result of hunger on the part of the sword-fish, but are indulged in merely for amusement. The attacking party seldom or never gives his foe any quarter, and in this respect they bear a striking resemblance to the leaders of our great heartrending civil war. Generally speaking, the sword-fish makes his first appearance in the blue waters off Montauk, but as the season advances they pass to the eastward, and are followed by the fishermen even to the coast of Nova Scotia.
But the manner of capturing the sword-fish is in keeping with his novel character. The smacks which go after them, of which there are eight or ten registered in New London, are fitted out for this business exclusively, and never engage in any other unless compelled to do so by unforeseen circumstances. At the extreme end of the bowsprit and at the mast-head of each of these vessels is fixed a kind of corded or iron chair, in the first of which the man with the harpoon is stationed, while the second is occupied by the watchman. The harpoon or lily-spear, as it is called, is attached to a coil of smallish rope, the opposite extremity of which is fastened to a large keg or barrel, made water-tight, so as to answer the purpose of a buoy. When the fish seem to be abundant, some half-dozen of these affairs are rigged for immediate service. When all things are ready, the vessel is carefully guided to the spot where the fish are seen, and the moment one of them is fairly struck by the expert harpooner, the coil of rope and the buoy are thrown overboard, and the fish enters upon the lofty tumbling and the fearfully rapid paces which terminate only with his death. Sometimes, in the course of an hour, five or six fish may be effectually harpooned, and as many buoys be bobbing up and down the waves of the sea, causing an excitement among the fishermen which hardly has a parallel among the craft. In the meantime, perhaps, the guest of the expedition has had a fish harpooned for his own individual benefit, and with the line secured to the mast, may be doing all he can to play and drown him, “standing from under” when the more desperate rushes of the wounded fish are made. When the fish are dead, they are towed to the side of the vessel, and by means of pulley and tackle are hauled upon the deck, and when the vessel again resumes her course, they are cleaned and packed away in a bed of ice in the hold of the smack, and for a time the fishermen rest from their labours. The sword-fish is said to abound in the Brazilian, Northern, and Indian Seas, and in the Mediterranean, and, according to Strabo, the ancients hunted them with the harpoon as the moderns; and the superstitious Sicilians, while pursuing this fish, are wont to sing a wild and incoherent chant which they imagine secures success.
Thus much concerning the practical part of sword-fish fishing. It is immensely more interesting than halibut fishing, as that fish is taken with bait and in deep water; and it is only equalled by that wild and dangerous sport which was once practised in the waters of South Carolina by the late William Elliot while hunting the devil-fish. As is the case with every kind of fishing, the manifold charms associated with the capture of the sword-fish are what give the sport its chief zest. Not the least of the attractions is the appetite, born of hard exercise and bracing air, which makes the coarse fare of the sailor a real luxury. But when you recall the wayward wanderings of your little vessel far out on the blue and lonely ocean, the wild and stormy nights, the heavy fogs, forcing the sea to wear a placid aspect, the thousand and one wonders of the deep which constantly cross your pathway, the spectral moonlights, the glorious sunrises, the moan of the sea during the long leaden twilights, and the romantic stories of the mariners—all these things, in their reality, make a deep impression upon the mind, and are ever remembered with pleasure.
One of the favourite haunts of the sword-fish is in the vicinity of Noman’s Land, and as I have visited this romantic spot, perhaps the curiosity of some of my readers will be gratified by a brief description. It is an island which lies directly south of the Gay Head lighthouse on Martha’s Vineyard, and distant therefrom something less than ten miles. It is oblong in shape, has a small bay on its western side, and contains about one hundred acres of land; its soil is good and well cultivated; it attains an elevation in some places of thirty feet; and while its shores are generally sandy, there are one or two points where rocks abound. In approaching it the stranger would naturally imagine it to be quite populous, but the permanent habitations are only two, while the western shore is literally lined by small cabins which are occupied at times by the fishermen, who visit the island in great numbers, but not to the extent that they did in former years. Indeed, from time immemorial Noman’s Land has been a kind of stopping-place, or half-way house, for all the smack fishermen who do business in that portion of the Atlantic. It was first visited by Gosnold in May 1602, and was at first called Martha’s Vineyard, which name, however, was soon transferred to its larger neighbour.
From all that I have been able to learn, its original proprietor was a woman, whose descendants are now the lords of the manor; but whether the title is legitimate or rests on the doctrine of squatter-sovereignty, I cannot tell. In her way this woman is said to have been a decided original. Forty years ago, when in her prime, she had the chief management of the island, and nothing of consequence is remembered of her husband. She habitually wore a beard, shaved her chin and cheeks occasionally, after the manner of men, was noted for her prowess as a bass-fisherwoman with the squid, could row and land a boat in the surf as well as any sailor, and always spoke of the sailors who visited her home as “her darling boys.” She kept a large flock of sheep upon the island, from whose wool, with the assistance of several female friends, they manufactured coarse socks and a kind of Guernsey shirts, for which she found a ready market among the seafaring men who visited her domain. She was a good housekeeper and cook, and delectable were the chowders which she prepared for her guests. She kept a few cows at one time, but as the island was not happy in the beams of the constellation Taurus, her dairy operations were not of long duration. Where she was born, or where she had lived before becoming a feminine Juan Fernandez, are facts involved in mystery even to this day, and she is said to have died somewhere about the year 1840. By the sailors she was everywhere known, and is now remembered as “Aunt Nomy,” but her real name was Noman Luce, and from the fact of her proprietorship the island naturally took its present name.
I have been told that this is the identical island the poet Longfellow had in his mind when he wrote the admirable poem called “The Wreck of the Hesperus,” but I have it in my power, on the highest authority, to dispel this story: his Norman’s Woe is near Cape Ann. Between Gay Head and Noman’s Land there is a dangerous cluster of sunken rocks, which might well have been the veritable “Reef of Norman’s woe,” which caused the destruction of the poet’s ship. But if we cannot identify the first of American poets with this romantic island, we can certainly record the fact that Noman Luce firmly believed in the periodical appearance of a spectral fire-ship, which she was wont to allege she had often seen on stormy autumn nights from the window of her ocean home.
Though mariners of every grade are wont to spend a day, or a few hours, upon this island, the men who chiefly resort thither are the cod, halibut, and sword fishermen. In the deep waters all around, those fish have their favourite haunts, where they have been captured for at least half a century; and as to the striped bass fishing, at certain seasons of the year, the entire shores of Noman’s Land are said to be marvellously prolific in that highly esteemed fish, which are taken chiefly with the squid and eel-skin. Ignoring the commonplace facts connected with Noman’s Land, there is something impressive and romantic in thinking upon the life, so to speak, of this island in the lonely sea. How must the cold winds of winter sweep over this treeless fragment of mother earth!
What an appropriate place must this be for the dreadful revelries of the storm king! And how must the poor forsaken island tremble at times under the rough trampling of the surf! The great ships which pass and re-pass across its horizon, going from clime to clime, convey no tidings of the little isle, but stalwart fishermen without number look upon it as a kind of home, and old Ocean keeps it for ever in his loving embrace. The din of party strife, the song of mammon, and the wail of the dying on a hundred battlefields, coming from the great world of human life, do not disturb the serenity of the place; and were it not for the ties which bind us to the continent, and the duties which we owe to society and our fellow-men, there are few, in a time like the present, who would not be content to spend their days on this beautiful but lonely island. As was the case with Landor in the desert, so at Noman’s Land—
“Man is distant, but God is near.”
During one of my piscatorial expeditions to Northern New Brunswick, I had the pleasure of throwing the fly, for several days, in company with a highly intelligent gentleman from Newfoundland—a native of that famous island. When not talking about the splendid salmon we were now and then capturing, I devoted myself to asking questions, and the substance of the replies I received, together with a few historical facts, I propose to embody in this paper.
The original name of Newfoundland was Baccalaos, an Indian word meaning cod-fish. It was discovered by John and Sebastian Cabot in 1497, and by them named Primavista, or first-seen land, and hence its present Anglicised name. It was first colonised by masters of fishing vessels in 1502; the Portuguese took the lead, and after them came the Biscayans and French; and in 1583 Sir Humphrey Gilbert took possession of it in the name of Queen Elizabeth. But the deed thus performed was paid for by the loss of two ships and nearly two hundred men, among whom was the Admiral himself, whose dying words, addressed to his sailors, were as follows: “Courage, lads; we are as near heaven at sea as we are on land.” The second attempt to plant a colony there was made by Sir George Calvert, afterwards Lord Baltimore, in 1622; and when he abandoned it for a more congenial clime, it contained three hundred and fifty families. It was in 1635 that Charles i. granted the French permission to cure and dry fish on the shores of Newfoundland, and the British fishery was first encouraged by all exemption from tax or toll in 1663. From that year until 1728, when the first Governor was appointed, there was no such thing as law or order on the island, owing to the constant animosity existing between the settlers and the merchant adventurers; and its subsequent history only proves that it was looked upon by England merely as a nursery for hardy seamen, and its manifold natural resources have been almost wholly neglected. The first surveys of the island were made by the noted navigator Captain Cook, since which period he has always been especially appreciated by the inhabitants. But the chief interest of Newfoundland lies in its physical aspect. Its average length may be roughly stated at 350 miles, and its breadth at 200 miles, although at one point it is nearly 300 miles wide. Its area has been estimated at about 36,000 square miles. The interior of the island has been explored only to a limited extent, and many of the roads, so called, are mere Indian trails or paths worn by the wild animals. It abounds in rivers and lakes of moderate size, and the surface of the country is about equally divided between high hills or mountains, and low level land, some of the former attaining an elevation of 1200 feet, and pushing themselves now and then boldly into the sea, while the low country is composed of peat-bogs and marshy barrens, intersected in every direction by the beaten paths of the caribou deer, or varied with woods, in which boulder rocks are abundant. Its two leading rivers are the Exploit and the Humber, the last of which is noted for its fine scenery, and its two largest lakes are known as Grand and Red Indian. Various species of the spruce, the fir, and the pine grow everywhere, but seldom attain a greater height than thirty feet, and are very slender, while in the more northern portions they are so very low, and their branches so matted together, that some of the smaller animals have been known to travel a considerable distance on the tops of the stunted trees. The most useful tree indigenous to the island is the tamarack or larch, the timber of which is employed in building small vessels. The elm and the beech are rare, and the maple and oak unknown. The birch is found abundantly in some situations, and is said to have been used by the aborigines not only in making canoes, but a certain tender portion of it as food. The variety of recumbent and trailing evergreens is immense, and all the berries peculiar to northern latitudes are so abundant as to be an article of export. On leaving the wilderness and approaching the habitations of man, at the proper season, it is found that oats and potatoes thrive well, also the best of grasses and clover, and the more common vegetables, such as beans, peas, and cabbages. Indian corn does not mature, and wheat only thrives in the interior. With regard to flowers, both cultivated and wild, the varieties are very numerous, and though beautiful, few of them have any fragrance. The mineral resources are undeveloped, but coal is abundant.
The climate of Newfoundland differs from that of Canada and New Brunswick only in its extreme vicissitudes. It is not very cold, but very unpleasant; very foggy, but not unhealthy. The pictorial effects of frozen mist, which are common in the United States, are known in Newfoundland as “silver thaws,” and are said to be very beautiful. The thrush arrives in April and the shore lark is first heard in this month; in May the grass begins to sprout, cod-fish are taken, the alder shoots out its leaves, and potatoes are planted; in June the dandelion blossoms, wild catkins come out, young thrushes are hatched, capelin arrive along the shore and spawn, cherry-trees are in bloom, and the butterflies deposit their eggs; in July green peas make their appearance, house flies are numerous, and the capelin depart; in August squids appear, hay-making commences, and beetles fly in swarms; in September cherries are ripe, leaves of the birch-tree fade, and the thrush migrates to the south; in October potatoes are dug, the berries of the mountain-ash are ripe, and the snow-showers with the snow-bunting appear; in November the Indian summer fills the land with beauty; and from December to March frost and snow are universal and permanent. And it is asserted as a remarkable fact that the principal shipwrecks which have occurred on the southern coast of the island (near to which the American and English steamers are in the habit of passing), have happened on or about the time of the spring tides. Hence it has been inferred that the currents run faster there, and are more dangerous at those epochs than during the intervening time, which is a question that ought to be fully investigated.
The animal kingdom of this huge island is peculiar and highly interesting. A Swedish naturalist, who spent two years there, reported the existence of five hundred species of birds. The water birds are particularly numerous, the interior lakes affording secure breeding-places for wild geese, and the rocky coasts affording favourable situations for the eider duck. The wail of the loon is heard on every sheet of water, and a white-headed eagle has his watch-tower in every valley. Ptarmigan are abundant, but partridges unknown. The snowy owl hoots to his fellow by the light of the aurora; and at midsummer the humming-bird appears for a few days to make the children glad. Snipe, plovers, and curlews are abundant. Of the larger quadrupeds, the caribou, or American reindeer, are the most numerous, and are the only animals of the deer kind on the island. Their paths intersect the country like sheep-walks; they are not domesticated, but hunted only for food. The black bear is found in the wilder parts, and an iceberg occasionally comes floating down from the arctic regions bearing a white bear as passenger. The wolf and the fox, the hare, the marten, the beaver, the otter and musk-rat, are found throughout the interior; and the entire coasts swarm with varieties of the seal, and the morse or sea-lion is occasionally found.
Of domestic animals, the horse, sheep, cattle, and swine are all reared to a limited extent; but this island is particularly famous for its dogs. These are of two kinds, a brown wiry-haired and wolfish animal, imported from Labrador, and the curly-haired Newfoundland species. The best of them are perfectly black, and a genuine specimen can always be known by his mouth, which is invariably black on the inside. They are not large, but powerfully built, and very different from the American dog bearing the same name. They subsist entirely upon fish, and are not particular as to whether it is raw, salted, or putrid, and they have a habit of catching their own fish. They are affectionate in disposition, and are quite as much at home in the water as on dry land. They are very numerous on the island, and when removed to a warmer climate are subject to a glandular swelling in the ear, which often proves fatal. One of them that was sent to Sir John Crampton in 1853, died from the effect of heat only a few days after his arrival in Washington.
As to reptiles, not a snake, lizard, frog, or toad has ever been seen in the country. As St. Patrick did in Ireland, some other benevolent saint seems to have “banished all the varmint” from this region. In regard to the finny tribes, the species are not so abundant as might be supposed, but their immense numbers cannot be computed. In the inland lakes and rivers, nothing but salmon and trout are ever found, but with nets they are taken by the ton. Few and far between, however, are the fly-fishing streams which have yet been discovered. More numerous by far are the varieties of fish found in the surrounding sea, such as the whale and porpoise, the dolphin and herring, the mackerel and capelin, but the cod-fish outnumbers them all, and excels them, too, in local favour and commercial importance. This fish is found in certain localities all around the island, but the chief fishing grounds are off the south-east coast. The Grand Bank, where the cod-fish do mostly congregate, is the most extensive submarine plateau yet discovered. It is six hundred miles long but two hundred wide, with a depth of water varying from twenty-five to ninety fathoms; and upon this watery plain do the hardy fishermen of at least five nations annually meet to follow their laborious and venturesome business. Charlevoix, in speaking of the Grand Bank, called it a mountain under the ocean.
The resident population of Newfoundland is now estimated at more than 160,000, and transient visitors at two-thirds of this figure. It is governed by a Representative Assembly, with an Executive Council appointed, like the Governor, by the Crown of England. Although the colony has been erected into a Protestant See, most of the inhabitants are Roman Catholics, the sons and daughters of Erin predominating. Generally speaking, the inhabitants are simple in their manners, and have but few educational opportunities. That everybody is, in one way or another, connected with fishing or the seal-hunting business, is self-evident, and there is also a great variety of nationalities represented by the population. What is called the spring or seal fishery employs about five hundred vessels, while the summer, or cod-fishery, employs fifteen hundred vessels of all sizes. The total number of towns and settlements on the island is about four hundred. The people are industrious, toil without ceasing, and are contented with the necessaries of life; and those who habitually leave home for business or pleasure, have almost weekly opportunities for taking sailing packets to England, and steamers ply regularly between St. John’s and Halifax.
Prior to the year 1822 the interior of Newfoundland had never been explored by any white men, but at that time an enterprising Scotchman named Cormack, accompanied by a single Micmac Indian, crossed the island near its centre, and reached the western shore. He tried to obtain help from the Government, but in vain. His leading idea was to discover the haunts of the Red Indians, and open friendly communications with them. In its romantic adventures and delightful intercourse with nature the tour was probably never surpassed, and the hero, judging from a narrative that he published, would seem to have had a warm appreciation of all he saw. The silence and the gloom of the forests filled him with awe; the wail of the loon at night on the lonely lakes, added intensity to his feelings of solitude; he ascended to the top of a mountain-ridge, and was transported with the views of the pure primeval wilderness which faded away in all directions; wild and luscious berries, which were found in many localities, afforded him an abundance of nourishment; under a leafy canopy he nightly built his camp fire, and found refreshing repose on a bed of lichens and reindeer moss; everything that he saw, both animate and inanimate, seemed to be his own, and his will exulted in its rare freedom; he saw the breeding-places of the wild geese and bittern among the ridges, and the home of the curlew on the barren hills; he saw immense herds of the caribou moving, like an army with banners, across the plains; and just at those particular times when he longed for a little intercourse with his fellow-men, it was his fortune to stumble upon the hut of a solitary Indian hunter, or the encampment of a party of Micmac Indians. Cormack’s endeavour to find a remnant of the Red Indians was unsuccessful. The Esquimaux of Labrador occasionally visit the northern extremity of the island, and, as we have seen, a few Micmac hunters and trappers frequent the interior and southern portions, but the aborigines of Newfoundland have long been extinct. They were called the Bœothic or Red Indians, and so named because they painted their faces with red ochre. Their history is most melancholy. When first visited by Europeans, three centuries ago, they were mild and inoffensive, but they sternly refused to hold any intercourse with the invaders of their hunting-grounds, and consequently became the victims of heartless revenge. The white men, aided by the Esquimaux and Micmacs, pursued and murdered them without any mercy from time immemorial; and, as they stand alone among the savages of the western hemisphere in their undying antipathy to the white man, so is their history more purely romantic than that of any other nation of the American aborigines.
As the poet Dana made this island the scene of his fascinating story called “The Buccaneer,” we may with propriety begin our description with the opening lines, as follows:—
“The island lies nine leagues away.
Along its solitary shore
Of craggy rock and sandy bay,
No sound but ocean’s roar,
Save where the bold wild sea-bird makes her home,
Her shrill cry coming through the sparkling foam.
“But when the light winds lie at rest,
And on the glassy, heaving sea,
The black duck, with her glossy breast,
Sits swinging silently,—
How beautiful! No ripples break the reach,
And silvery waves go noiseless up the beach.”
Its exact position is at the junction of Long Island Sound and Narragansett Bay, and it is washed by those waters of the Atlantic which are perpetually blue. From Newport it is, indeed, just “nine leagues away,” about ten miles from Point Judith, eighteen from Watch Hill, and fourteen from Montauk Point. It is between eight and nine miles long, and from two to four in width. At its northern extremity, where stands a lighthouse, a sandy bar shoots out for a mile and a half under water, upon the end of which people now living allege that they have gathered berries, and from which at least two lighthouses have been removed in the last fifty years, on account of the encroachments of the sea. Clay bluffs, rising to the height of one and two hundred feet, alternate with broad stretches of white beach in forming its entire shores; its surface is undulating to an uncommon degree, and almost entirely destitute of trees, the highest hill lying south of the centre, rising more than three hundred feet above the sea; and by way of atoning for its want of running streams, it has two handsome lakes, one of which is of fresh water and the other of salt water, with an area of about two thousand acres. Small ponds fed by springs are numerous, and of great value to the farmers. The only harbour on the island lies on the eastern side, nearly midway between the two extremities, and the contrast presented by what is called the Old Harbour and the New Harbour is very striking. At this point, also, is the only collection of houses which approaches to the dignity of a village. Here the Block Island fleet, the fish-houses appertaining thereto, a relief station, one big and one smaller hotel, and several boarding-houses, half-a-dozen shops, one church, and two windmills, are scattered about in very much of a helter-skelter fashion. One of these windmills was built upon the main shore at Fall River sixty years ago; twenty years ago it stood near the Old Harbour, at which time we made a sketch of it; and to-day it is a conspicuous landmark in the interior of the island. From this village, branching out in every direction, are many winding roads, most of them private, and blocked up with gates, upon which are located the snug habitations of the islanders, numbering in all about thirteen hundred souls, three-fourths of whom are thrifty farmers, while the balance are supported by the harvests of the sea. Barring the massive and interminable stone walls which intersect the entire island, the inland landscapes are almost invariably composed of undulating pastures, studded with picturesque homes, and barns, and haystacks, the most of them commanding glimpses of the sea. From the height of land already mentioned, and known as Beacon Hill, the ocean presents nearly a complete circle, broken only by one hill, and well-nigh every house upon the island may be distinctly seen, as well as about two hundred sails per day during the summer months. Other prominent landmarks are Clay Head, a lofty and solemn promontory pointing towards the north-east; Pilot Hill, also in the north-eastern part; Bush Hill, near the Great Pond; the Great Bathing Beach, which is two miles long, and as fine as any on the Atlantic coast; and the Southern Cliffs, which are the crowning attraction of the island, next to the sea air and the ocean scenery. These great bulwarks are both imposing and beautiful, and it is in keeping with the fitness of things that the highest of them should be surmounted by a first-class modern lighthouse, which, though near the Crow, cannot be seen from the beach below. Their formation is of clay, interspersed with boulders, and hence we find here a greater variety of colours than at Mount Desert or the Isles of Shoals; the profiles of the cliffs are both graceful and fantastic, and when looming against a glowing sky or out of a bank of fog, they are imposing to the last degree; and while you may recline upon a carpet of velvety grass at their summits, you have far below you the everlasting surf of the Atlantic dashing wildly among the boulders or meeting in peace upon the sandy shore. But to enjoy this cliff scenery in its perfection you must look upon it under various aspects; in a wild storm, when all the sounds of the shore are absorbed in the dull roar of the sea coming from afar; in a heavy fog, when the cliffs have a spectral look, and the scream of the gulls is mingled with the dashing of the unseen breakers; at sunset, when a purple glow rests upon the peaceful sea and the rolling hills; at twilight, when the great fissures are gloomy, and remind you of the dens of despair; and in the moonlight, when all the objects that you see and all the sounds you hear tend to overwhelm you with amazement and awe. But the air and the ocean, after all, are the chief attractions of Block Island; the air, bland and bracing in summer, pure and delicious as nectar in the sunny autumn, and not without its attractions even in the winter and early spring; and the ocean, in conjunction with the sky, making glorious pictures for evermore, thus leading the mind from sublunary things to those that are eternal in the heavens.
The people of Newport, when they wish to be funny, have a habit of saying that Block Island is a nice place, but in danger, some of these days, of being washed away by the sea. Unlike the conies, those Newporters are a strong “folk,” but like them, they “build their houses among the rocks;” and a cynic might make the remark that it smacks of “sour grapes” for them to laugh at any of their neighbours who happen to possess a less barren land. Not only does Block Island excel Newport, in the solidity of its name, but its surrounding waters are much purer, and its breakers and surf far more magnificent. But that the island is washing away cannot be contradicted. Men of science, and chiefly Dr. Charles T. Jackson, have demonstrated that the poor island is dwindling away at the rate of twelve inches per annum, at which, in about fifty thousand years, there will not be a vestige of the beautiful place to be seen, even at low tide. This is sad to contemplate, but ought not to have a damaging influence on real estate (excepting that of sand bars, which have a habit of shifting their positions) for at least a few summers to come. The present writer would not venture to dispute the discoveries of science, but he happens to have one fact to communicate which will re-assure any summer tourists who may have thought it unsafe to visit Block Island. When he first visited it, about twenty years ago, he carefully sketched a great boulder that loomed against the sky, from the brow of one of the southern cliffs, and the only change that it has undergone since then is to be found in the grass which covers its top, and is now a little more luxuriant than it ever was before. As to the height of that boulder above the sea, the whole city of Newport, including all the rocks that Kensett has immortalised with his pencil, might be placed upon a raft and floated directly under its native bluff, and not be able to hide it with the smoke of its chimneys.
When Professor Charles T. Jackson visited the island in 1840, he chronicled some facts which were more interesting and less fearful than the washing-away theory. For example, he found that the peat or “tug” found in many of the little valleys was most excellent in quality, the surface soil granitic, that the island contained boulders precisely like those on Point Judith (why not?), and the substratum on which the whole rested was a deposit of tertiary blue clay, destitute of shells. He also discovered that there were blocks of granite in the middle of the island which had once been located in the county of Kingston. The highest cliffs he pronounced to be only one hundred feet high, but on that point his book-learning led him astray, and the boulders on the shore were found to be of granite, and the smaller ones had frequently been shipped to New York for paving the streets. He mentioned one extensive beach of white sand which contained alternate beds of black crystals of magnetic iron ore. The quantity of peat burned by each family he estimated at thirty cords, and that it was dried in squares as well as in balls. The Professor also stated that the corn crops yielded from thirty to fifty bushels per acre, and that the climate was moderate.
The aborigines of Block Island were a part of the Narragansett nation, and they gloried in the fame of their three great chieftains, Canonicus, Canonchet and Miantinomo, the first of whom it was who sold Aquidnec, now Rhode Island, to the English. It was about the year 1676 that the last two of this trio were slain, one of them at Stonington, and the other at Sachem’s Plain in Connecticut, and with them the Narragansett power virtually expired. When the white man first visited Block Island he found there about sixty large wigwams, divided into two villages, adjoining which were two hundred acres of land planted with maize; and while the records do not state when these Indians finally left the island, the presumption is that it was soon after the whites had fairly obtained possession of their new domain.
The progress of population on the island was for a time quite rapid, but of late years has been well-nigh stationary. In 1730 the population was two hundred and ninety, of whom about forty were Indians and negroes; in the next sixty years the inhabitants had increased to six hundred and eighty-two, of whom forty-seven were slaves, the latter class having decreased after the Revolution; in 1820 the population was nine hundred and fifty; in 1830 eleven hundred and eighty-five; in 1850 twelve hundred and sixty-two, of whom forty-four were negroes; in 1860 thirteen hundred and twenty; and in 1870 eleven hundred and thirteen inhabitants, two hundred and twenty-three houses, two hundred and forty-one families, thirty-seven people over seventy years of age, eight over eighty, and one over ninety.
In Colonial times the landowners were comparatively few; their estates were large, and houses somewhat pretentious. They were waited upon by slaves, and in the habit of exchanging formal visits with the great proprietors on the Narragansett shore. In modern times, however, we find the land so cut up and sub-divided, that a farm of one hundred acres is rather a novelty, while the largest proportion range from two to forty acres, and the largest on the island contains only one hundred and fifty acres. Contrary to the common belief, about three-fourths of the inhabitants are farmers and the remainder fishermen. The houses of the inhabitants are generally after the old New England model, one story and a half high, always built of wood, and nearly always painted white; the barns, however, which are neat and well kept, are frequently built of wood combined with stone walls; the stone fences which surround or cross and recross the plantations are noted for their substantial character, and the grazing lands, on account of their neatness and beauty, are invariably attractive. Not only do we find in summer fine growing crops of corn and oats, alternating with bright green pastures, but attached to almost every farm-house are to be seen clusters of haystacks, large flocks of turkeys and other poultry, and numerous cattle and sheep grazing on the hill-sides, or standing in groups pictured against the sky. It is not literally true, according to Mr. Henry T. Beckwith, that there are no trees on the island, but what there are, are so stunted in size, and the space occupied by them is so small compared to the whole extent of the island, that they make but very little show. They are placed around the houses, in the hollows, and are nearly all balm of Gilead, which has been found to succeed best. There may also be seen an occasional specimen of a willow, silver-leafed poplar, or other kind. The oldest inhabitants can remember when there were here and there a few small patches of the forest trees remaining, but the people unwisely cut them down, and have since found it difficult to grow trees of any kind. There are a few cherry trees, whose product is of a poor sour description, and quinces are the only fruit successfully raised. The island, owing to its large population, is so generally cultivated, that there is but little room for trees; but the people would do well to plant them by the roadsides,—in the hollows at least, if they would not grow upon the hills,—and some other small portions of the valleys might profitably be devoted to them.
A more complete colony of pure native Americans does not exist in the United States than is to be found on Block Island. They are a clannish race; think themselves as good as any others (in which they are quite right); they love their land, because it is their own; their ambition is to obtain a good plain support from their own exertions, in which they are successful to a man; they are simple in their habits, and therefore command respect; they are honest, and neither need nor support any jails; they are naturally intelligent, and a much larger proportion of them can read and write than is the case in Massachusetts, the reputed intellectual centre of the world; they are industrious, and have every needed comfort; and kind-hearted to such an extent that they do not even laugh at the antics of those summer visitors who have a habit of making themselves ridiculous in their deportment towards each other and strangers; they are kind and independent, because they try to do their duty as honest men; they possess great social freedom, and without arrogance, one man thinking himself as good as his neighbour; they are hospitable, and when they invite you to become a guest, they mean that you shall, for the time, become one of the family; they have no taste for politics, and would condemn a demagogue Congressman as soon as they would a low city politician; they have the greatest respect for religion and religious men, and are fond of attending church; they are frugal in their mode of living, but ever ready to part with their extra means for worthy purposes. In their physical appearance the men are brown and hardy, as it becomes those who live in sunshine, mist, and storm even from the cradle; and the women are healthy, with bright eyes and clear complexions, virtuous and true, and as yet without the pale of the blandishments and corruption of fashion.
Although the writer would not repeat himself in commenting upon these people, the following paragraph, from an article that he published twenty years ago, may not be deemed out of place:—“In their intercourse with each other they are particularly amiable and obliging, never spending money for labour, but helping each other on all occasions for nought; but they are apt to deport themselves among strangers as if jealous of their time and property. The richest men among them are perhaps worth ten thousand dollars (that estimate is far too low for the year 1875), and when their funds are not packed away in old bags, they are found deposited in the banks of Newport. All their provisions, excepting flour, tea, coffee, and sugar, they produce on their own lands, and their own private looms furnish them with clothing. Nearly all the inhabitants are natives of the island; some of them, indeed, who are more than fifty years old, boast that they never spent a night upon any other spot of earth, and the half-dozen individuals who have become naturalised are called ‘emigrants,’ The rudiments of a common school education they all possess; and though, like sensible men, they seem to care little for politics, and despise politicians, yet they are prompt in performing their election duties, and on more than one occasion have they decided the elections of their State.”
The farmers of Block Island, without making any pretensions whatever, are as sensible a community, in the way of agriculturists, as any in the country. They keep their pasture-lands as free from stones and other objectionable objects, as are the lawns around the mansions of the rich in other regions; they plough their lands with care, and plant the best of seeds; they believe in keeping their soil as rich as possible, and after every storm, you may see them by the score hauling up from the sea-shore, with their noble oxen, immense quantities of the rich sea-weed. While storing away, with a liberal hand, a supply of all the necessaries of life for their own consumption, the Block Islanders have an eye to trade, and send over to Newport and Providence, to Stonington and New London, large supplies of cattle, horses, sheep, hogs, grain, poultry, and eggs, as well as cod-livers for oil, and large quantities of sea moss, receiving in return not only money but all the necessaries of foreign growth or productions; there is, indeed, one blacksmith-shop and one carpenter-shop on the island, but, as a general rule, the farmers can perform almost any kind of work, and with more than ordinary skill. Their manner of farming, a few years ago, was most primitive; but the modern implements of husbandry are now in common use, although they have not yet cast aside the old-fashioned fulling-mill nor the picturesque windmill. The few shops for the sale of general merchandise are unpretending in appearance, but well stocked with such things as the people need; and as they have no use for such establishments as drinking-houses, dancing-halls, and ten-pin alleys, there is nothing of the kind on the island; and they are especially blessed in not having a trashy newspaper, nor a base-ball club.
The fishermen of this island live and appear very much like their brother farmers, but naturally have more intercourse with the outside world. Very frequently, indeed, we find individuals who are both farmers and fishermen. They are a quiet, but fearless and hardy race, and what they do not know about the ocean—its winds, and storms, and fogs—is not worth knowing. All the boats in their possession at the present time would not number one hundred, and the majority of these are small, but they suffice to bring from the sea a large amount of fish annually. The two principal varieties are the cod and blue-fish. The former are most abundant in May and November, and although not any better by nature than the Newfoundland cod, they are taken nearer the shore, and cured while perfectly fresh, and hence have acquired a rare reputation. There are three banks for taking them, ranging from five to ten miles distant. The blue-fish are taken all through the summer and autumn, are commonly large, and afford genuine sport to all strangers who go after them. The writer of this once saw sixty boats come to shore in a single day, every one of which was heavily laden with blue-fish. Another valuable fish taken is the mackerel, and when they are in the offing in June, the Block Island fleet, joined to the stranger fishermen, sometimes present a most charming picture. And as they anchor at night, to use the language of another, under the lea of the island, the lights in the rigging, the fantastic forms of the men dressing the fish, the shouts of old shipmates recognising each other, the splash of the waves, the creaking of the tackle, the whistling of the wind, the fleecy clouds flying across the face of the moon, conspire to make a picture that seems more like a fairy vision than reality. As to the Block Island boats, they are quite as original as their owners, who build them themselves to a great extent, but always, of course, from lumber grown on the main shore. They are sharp at both ends, deep, from fifteen to thirty feet long, and carry much ballast, have one and two sails, but never a jib, are always open, very stout, range from two to ten tons’ burthen, run nearer the wind than any others, and seldom or never cast an anchor. The smaller ones are chiefly used in fishing, and the larger ones by the pilots or for transporting cattle and produce to the mainland markets. As an evidence of their security, good qualities, and the skill of their managers, it may be stated that, in open sea navigation, in which they are used, only two of them have foundered in the last one hundred years. When Professor Jackson visited the island in 1840, he made the following observations bearing on the subject now under consideration:—
“There is no harbour on its shores in which any decked vessel can safely ride at all times, and hence open sail boats alone are employed by the islanders, who are very skilful boatmen, and rarely suffer from accidents during their frequent voyages across the waters to Newport. The only protection afforded to the boats at the landing consists of long poles driven into the sand, and this serves to break the violence of the waves. The population of Block Island at the last census was 1200 souls, and now is said to amount to about 1300. A large proportion of the inhabitants are engaged in rural pursuits, while the remainder pursue the business of fishing—its agricultural and commercial prosperity is certainly worthy of serious attention. The value of the fisheries is estimated at 2000 quintals per annum. The bounty allowed by the United States Government is $4·00 per ton to fishing vessels, and if decked schooners could be employed here, the people would largely engage in the business, and more than twice the number of fish be caught.”
But the seafaring men of Block Island are not all purely fishermen. Many of them do a profitable business as pilots, and it is astonishing to notice with what boldness they sometimes go out to sea, in the face of fierce winds, when they would board a ship, perhaps a whaler, coming home from a voyage of several years in the far north or the distant eastern seas. A goodly number of them, too, are called wreckers, and their business is to lend a helping hand, and not to rob the unfortunate, when vessels are driven upon the shore by stress of weather, or lured to destruction by the deceitful fogs. And it occasionally happens that we hear of a Block Islander who becomes curious about the world at large, and, obtaining the command of a ship at New Bedford or New London, circumnavigates the globe; but they are always sure to come back to their darling home, better satisfied with its charms than ever before.
By way of elucidating some of the foregoing remarks, correcting any erroneous statements, and adding to the interest of this paper, it affords us pleasure to submit the following facts, gathered from Mr. C. E. Perry, a native of the island:—
“The first United States mail route to Block Island was inaugurated in 1833. Previously the inhabitants depended on occasional boats going to Newport, and often got no mail for two, three, or four months.
“The Block Island boats so called are distinct and different from any other craft in existence. They are the ablest sea-going undecked craft in the world, and there does not once in five years occur a storm so perilous that the largest of these boats, well trimmed and ably manned, cannot pass to and fro between the Island and Newport. They are from twelve to thirty-five feet in length, and the largest of them will carry from ten to fifteen tons. They are lap streaked, and built of very thin cedar from a half to seven-eighths of an inch in thickness. Their knees and timbers are of oak, and are very strongly and lightly made. The largest of them draw about six feet of water when loaded. They are primarily and principally sea boats, and are not, as compared with other vessels, remarkable for speed when going with a free wind or in light weather, but in a deep beating sea, close-hauled, and especially during heavy gales of wind, they are unusually fast. They carry two sails, a foresail and mainsail, the foresheet leading aft. The origin of their model is to us unknown. Some of them are built on the island, but most of the large ones in Newport.
“The spring cod-fishery here commences about the first of April, and lasts until about the first of June, though cod-fish are generally caught to some extent during all the summer months. An average share per man for the spring fishing would be perhaps twenty-five quintals, though sometimes they do not get half that, and occasionally hand shares of nearly or quite seventy-five quintals have been divided. Block Island cod-fish are in high demand, owing to the fact that they are dressed within a few hours after being caught, and thoroughly salted and cured, and there are annually ten times the product of the fisheries here sold as Block Island cod. It would be difficult to name any price that could be said to be an average, but the highest price ever received was ten dollars fifty-five cents per quintal of one hundred and twelve pounds. One or two boat-loads only were sold at this price during the war. The summer fishing here used to consist of hook and line fishing for blue-fish, but they seem during the past few years to have left this vicinity in a large degree, and now the principal summer fisheries are the pounds or traps on the west side of the island, in which are taken a large number of varieties, among which are cod-fish, blue-fish, yellow-fins, and bonitas. The fall cod-fishing commences about the first of November, and lasts until about the middle of December, and an average catch, as compared with spring fishing, is perhaps twelve to eighteen quintals per man. When the fish are brought ashore they are thrown into five equal heaps, one of which the owners of the boat takes, and its technical appellation is “standings.” The rest are equally divided among the whole crew, owners and all.
“The fishing grounds are many in number, and designated by a great number of names, ‘Covill’ being one of the most popular. Most of these are situated on the bank so called, it being an irregular ledge of rocks about twelve miles south of Block Island, and from ten to fifteen miles in length, with deep water within and beyond it. The proximity to this ledge is determined by sounding, and the particular grounds upon it, in clear weather, by ranges on the land, but in foggy weather when the land cannot be seen, some of the old fishermen will steer so accurately, making calculations on wind and tide, and know so well the depth of water on all parts of it, that they will go day after day and anchor on a particular spot not more than a quarter of an acre in area, as certainly and surely as though on the land.
“Coggeshall Ledge, a famous fishing-ground for late spring and summer fishing, is about thirty miles south-east from the island. Some idea of the safety of the boats may be gathered from the fact that only two or three have been lost during the past hundred years, and in all the cases referred to the accidents were traceable to gross imprudence and recklessness.”
This island was discovered by the Florentine, Giovanni de Verazzano, in 1524, while upon a voyage along the coast of North America, under a commission from the French king. The name that he gave to it was Claudia, in honour of the king’s mother, but as he did not land upon it, and never saw it afterwards, the island was utterly forgotten for well-nigh a century. After the Dutch had founded New Amsterdam some of them sailed for the north-east, on a visit to the pilgrims at Plymouth, and they saw the island also; and it was one of the white-haired race, Adrian Blok or Block, who rediscovered it, and whose name it has ever since borne. This man does not appear to have been an admiral, as has often been asserted, but more of a merchant; he had a partner whose name was Hendrick Christiaensz, and the twain chartered a vessel, in which they performed an expedition to the West Indies, and took home, when they returned, two sons of the Sachems there. Whether it was upon that voyage or another that they sighted Block Island does not appear. But upon this subject we have some interesting facts, for which we are indebted to Mr. W. H. Potter, viz.:—“The name of Captain Block’s vessel was the ‘Restless.’ She was forty-four and a half feet long and eleven wide, constructed upon the banks of the Hudson in the year 1816. He was an enterprising Dutchman who, leaving Manhattan came through ‘Hellegat’ and Long Island Sound, entering nearly every harbour, and ascending rivers on both sides of the same, giving names to all the prominent features of the sea and land he saw. Montauk he called Fisher’s Hook, Mystic River he denominated ‘Rivier va Sicemamos,’ or Sachem River, upon which the Pequatos, the great enemies of the Wampansags, dwelt. Watch Hill and Pawcatuck River he describes as ‘a crooked point in the shape of a sickle, behind which is a small stream or inlet,’ called by the navigator Oester Rivier or East River. We hear but little of Block Island or ‘Adrian’s Eyeland,’ as sometimes called, after Mynheer Adrian’s exploration, for the next twenty years, except as an occasional stopping-place for coasters, who described it as a fair island of the sea, very fertile, and abounding in Indians who were tributary to the great Narragansett tribe.” Its original owners, the Narragansett Indians, named it Manisses. In 1636, while Roger Williams was planting the standard of civilisation and Christianity on the spot where the city of Providence now stands, a certain Boston trader attempted to establish a business arrangement with the Indians on Block Island.
“The cause of our war,” according to a writer in the Historical Collections of Massachusetts, “against the Block Islanders, was for taking away the life of one Master John Oldham, who made it his common course to trade amongst the Indians. He coming to Block Island to drive trade with them, the islanders came into his boat, and having got a full view of his commodities, which gave them good content, consulted how they might destroy him and his company, to the end they might clothe their bloody flesh with his lawful garments. The Indians having laid their plot, they came to trade as pretended, watching their opportunities, knocked him in the head, and martyred him most barbarously, to the great grief of his poor distressed servants, which by the providence of God were saved. This island lying in the roadway to Lord Sey and the Lord Brooke’s plantation, a certain seaman called to John Gallop, master of the small navigation standing along to the Mathethusis Bay, and seeing a boat under sail close aboard the island, and perceiving the sails to be unskilfully managed, bred in him a jealousy whether that island Indians had not bloodily taken the life of our own countrymen, and made themselves master of their goods. Suspecting this, he bore up to them, and approaching near them, was confirmed that his jealousy was just. Seeing Indians in the boat, and knowing her to be the vessel of Master Oldham, and not seeing him there, gave fire upon them and slew some; others leaped overboard, besides two of the number which he preserved alive and brought to the Bay. The blood of the innocent called for vengeance. God stirred up the heart of the honoured Governor, Master Henry Vane, and the rest of the worthy Magistrates, to send forth one hundred well-appointed soldiers under the conduct of Captain John Hendicott, and in company with him that had command, Captain John Underhill, Captain Nathan Turner, Captain William Jenningson, besides other inferior officers. The result of the expedition was—Having slain fourteen and maimed others, the balance having fled, we embarked ourselves, and set sail for Seasbrooke Fort, where we lay through distress of weather four days; then we departed.” Captains Norton and Stone were both slain, with seven more of their company. The orders to this expedition were “to put the men of Block Island to the sword, but to spare the women and children.”
In a series of articles which Mr. Potter published on Block Island in 1860, he thus speaks of the influence of Roger Williams: “He induced Canonicus to submit to the demands of Massachusetts; to punish his tributaries on Manisses Island; to recover and send back the captives taken from Oldham’s vessel; and to render the Indians within his jurisdiction generally friendly to the whites. If the Boston Magistrates had been content to trust more to Mr. Williams’s sagacity, and listened to his counsels of moderation, doubtless the Pequot war might have been avoided, the barbarity of which, on the part of the whites, will be a standing reproach for all time, though explained, defended, and apologised for by civilians and divines for two centuries. The crimes of the Pequots,—magnified as they were by the whites of that day,—even supposing the most unfavourable accounts to be true, were trifling compared with the awful retribution which fell upon their heads, and which grew in part out of the tragedy at Block Island.”
Soon after that event the island became tributary to Massachusetts, and Winthrop informs us that on the 27th January 1638 the Indians of Block Island sent three men, with ten fathoms of wampum as a part of their tribute, and by way of atoning for their wicked conduct. In 1658 the General Court of Massachusetts granted all their right to Block Island to Governor John Endicott and three others, who, in 1660, sold it to a certain company of persons, and the first settlement was commenced in the following year. The story of that sale was duly written out at the time, and after the settlement had been effected, was placed on record among the files of the Island, where it is to be found at the present time.
In 1663 the island was annexed by the charter of Charles II. to the colony of Rhode Island, and in March of that year the Assembly directed that the Governor be requested to write to Block Island to inform them that “they are in our jurisdiction, and James Sands is appointed constable and conservator of the peace there.” In a petition which John Alcock presented to the home government for certain redress, he says, that “having been at great charges in planting the island, he invokes His Magestie’s interposition that he may not be dispossessed of it.” About that time a bill was passed by the General Court of Rhode Island, by which it was provided, “that noe parson within the said collony at any time hereafter shall be in any wayes molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question for any difference of opinion in matters of religion, and do not actually disturb the civill peace of the sayed collony.” In 1664 the Magistrates of Boston sent a committee of two men, named Denison and Dunford, to treat with the Rhode Island Government on the subject of jurisdiction, but they accomplished nothing, and the island passed quietly under the rule and authority under which it has ever since remained.
In 1665 the inhabitants of Block Island presented a petition to the General Court for aid to make a harbour; and in 1670 a committee was appointed to raise contributions for the improvement of the harbour on the eastern shore; and, after waiting only about two hundred years, as will hereafter be seen, the very patient inhabitants were permitted to have (but not from Rhode Island) a very small but secure harbour. In justice to the colony, however, it should be stated that on a certain occasion, the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, and a Mr. John Clark, were “nominated and requested by the Assembly to go to the island to see and judge whether there be any possibility to make a harbour and wharf, that there may be a conveniency for trade, and an encouragement for fishing.” Soon afterwards some slight harbour improvements were made, which were subsequently destroyed by a storm; and about seventy years later the colony appropriated twelve hundred pounds for building a new pier, or if that was not practicable, for repairing the old one.
In 1762 the island was incorporated as the town of New Shoreham, and so named, it is supposed, because some of the prominent settlers had come from the town of Shoreham, in Sussex County, England. From the start it had conferred upon itself more ample powers of self-government than had been conferred upon any other town in the colony, for the reason that they were “liveinge remote, being so far in ye sea,” and because of “ye longe spelles of weather,” which sometimes rendered it difficult to reach the island. Full powers were given the people in the trial of suits at law, and in calling meetings without the special warrant of the Colonial Magistrates, as in other towns required.
New Shoreham was the fifth town in order of time which was incorporated, and we may obtain an idea of its relative importance by glancing at the taxes which were levied in 1670, viz., for Newport, £123; Providence, £51; Portsmouth, £51; Warwick, £32; Pettequamscut, £16; and Block Island, £15. From another statement, it would appear that the above amounts could not have been paid, for we find that seven years afterwards, in 1678, the apportionment for taxes was considerably lower, but this was probably owing to the terrible war with King Philip and the Narragansetts, then just closed; but in 1684 and in 1687 the tax levied upon Block Island was greater than that of Westerley. The taxes were paid in money or produce, and we find that the prices allowed were: For pork, threepence per pound; peas, three shillings and sixpence, and wheat five shillings per bushel; wool, twelvepence, and butter sixpence per pound; and corn three shillings, and oats two shillings and threepence per bushel.
When the charter of Rhode Island, to use the language of W. H. Potter, had been annulled by the Quo Warranto of Sir Edmund Andross, and her great seal broken, I find that Block Island, though handsomely represented in Andross’s Board of Officers, was not content, but John Williams, and eleven others, in a spirited protest to the King, James II., against usurpation, which was dated July 16, a.d. 1686, and they were among the first to throw off the allegiance of the Stuarts in the Revolution that soon followed.
When war was proclaimed between France and England in 1689, Block Island came in for rather more than its share of attention from the enemies of England. In July of that year, as we learn from the Records of Massachusetts, three French privateers came to Block Island, having among their crew one William Trimming, who treacherously decoyed and betrayed those he met at sea, pretending they were Englishmen, as he had a perfect use of the English tongue. He was sent on shore, and by plausible accounts succeeded in obtaining a pilot to conduct the vessels in the harbour, whereupon the people, who imagined no treachery, were immediately made prisoners of war. They continued on the island a week, plundering houses and stripping people of their clothing, goods, etc., and destroying their bedding. This same Trimming was afterwards shot dead on the spot (it was thought through surprise) by Mr. Stephen Richardson of Fisher’s Island, lying near New London, where he had gone with others of the crew on a similar expedition, he having his gun partly concealed behind him, and not laying it down when commanded. Mr. Richardson was much blamed at the time for it.
In 1690 the French again landed upon the island, plundered it, and carried off some of the inhabitants. Great alarm was created by this attack, and men-of-war as well as troops were sent for protection from New York and Boston, as well as from Rhode Island, and the invaders were driven off. Money, provisions, and medicines were also sent over by order of the General Court of Rhode Island for the relief of the sufferers. Other attacks were made from time to time during that and the subsequent wars between England and France, viz., in 1744, 1754, as well as during the Revolutionary War and that of 1812, the island having been, from its position, peculiarly exposed to them, and it did not obtain a lasting peace until after all hostilities were ended. In 1690 the French made a descent on Block Island, plundering and carrying off some of its people; and in 1692 Turnbull wrote—“The French, last year, while the troops were employed against Canada, made a descent on Block Island, plundered the houses, and captivated most of the people.” In 1705 the General Court of the Colony ordered the soldiers to be continued on the island at the expense of the Colonial Government, excepting their support, etc., which was to be furnished by the islanders. This equivocal assistance was followed by a complaint from the Governor and Council of the Colony to the Board of Trade in London, in which they said: “We have been obliged to maintain a quota of men at Block Island for the defense of sayd island, and the security of Her Majesty’s interest therein.”
Mr. W. H. Potter, while discussing the hostile demonstrations alluded to above, gives us this information:—“In 1775, H.B.M. man-of-war ‘Rose,’ Captain Wallace, with several tenders, was stationed to guard the island, lest the islanders should transport their stock and stores to the mainland, these being wanted to supply the British ships. Notwithstanding the vigilance of Commodore Wallace, the authorities of Rhode Island, under the superintendence of Colonel James Rhodes, brought off the live stock from Block Island, and landed them at Stonington, whence they were driven into Rhode Island. It was to punish Stonington for this raid that Wallace, it is supposed, bombarded Stonington Point in the fall of 1775. I have conversed with a person who was present when the ‘Rose’ made her attack on Stonington, and he said of her destination: ‘The next day the “Rose” set sail for her station off Block Island, where I understood she was stationed to prevent the cattle of the island from being removed.’ As Newport was in possession of the enemy, the Block Islanders had their full share of trials.”
That the people were intensely loyal to the Colonies is abundantly shown by the old records, but as subsequent events proved, they paid for their patriotism by suffering much persecution. From a communication sent to us on this and one or two other topics by Dr. T. H. Mann, we cull the following:—
In August of 1875, the General Assembly ordered all the cattle and sheep to be brought off the island, except a supply sufficient for their immediate use, and two hundred and fifty men were sent to bring it off to the mainland, and such as was suitable for market immediately sent to the army, and such as was not, sold at either public or private sale. Total number of sheep and lambs removed was 1908, and the amount paid to the inhabitants for the same was £534, 9s. 6d. out of the general treasury. By an Act of the General Assembly of May 1776, the inhabitants of New Shoreham were exhorted to remove from the island, but there is no record of any general attention being paid to the exhortation. But some few did leave the island, and their petitions to the General Assembly, for permits to return, collect the rents, and look after their property, were quite frequently presented, and usually referred to the General commanding the defences of the coast of the colony.
There are a number of instances upon record of the abuse by individuals of the rights of neutrality. The Royal forces occupied the island, or held direct communication with it for nearly eight years, and it was not a difficult matter for the hardy boatmen, with their small open boats, to procure supplies from the main under cover of “needed supplies” for their own use, and sell to good advantage to the troops who occupied the island or touched at the island for such supplies. At several different times the boatmen lost their whole cargo by confiscation to the colonial forces, who eventually put a stop to the smuggling. There is no evidence that this kind of smuggling was carried on to any extent, except by a few individuals.
An exchange of prisoners took place between the contending forces upon Block Island at several different times, its location making it a very convenient station for such exchanges. The island furnished several distinguished men to the revolutionary forces, and one lady, who figured very conspicuously as the wife of General Nathaniel Green. George Washington Green, in his Life of General Nathaniel Green, says, “The maiden’s name was Catherine Littlefield, and she was a niece of the governor’s wife, the Catherine Ray of Franklin’s letters. The courtship sped swiftly and smoothly; and more than once, in the course of it, he followed her to Block Island, where, as long after her sister told me, the time passed gleefully, in merry-makings, of which dancing always formed a principal part. And on the 12th of July 1774, it was certified under the hand of David Sprague, clerke, ‘to all whom it may concern, that the intention of marriage was published in the congregation assembled for Divine worship in Newshoreham meeting-house, three days of publick worship, between Mr. Nathaniel Green of Coventry, in the county of Kent, and Catherine Littlefield, a daughter of John Littlefield, Esq., at Newshoreham, in the county of Newport, and no objection was made to forbid their marriage.’ On the same days, the worshippers at the Episcopal Church at Providence received a similar notice, as is testified in a clear copy-book hand by the rector, J. Greaves. And a third certificate being given on the 18th by Stephen Arnold, clerk of the Court of Common Pleas, the requisitions of law and custom were fulfilled. The 20th of July came, and in the little room hallowed by the recollections of Franklin, Green received the hand of his bride; and then, through those green roads and lanes, which looked greener and lovelier than ever before, he led her home to Coventry.”
She was an intimate acquaintance of General Washington’s wife Martha, meeting her many times at army headquarters whenever the army rested long enough to permit the officers’ wives to join them. In the Life of General Green above alluded to, it is stated that “an intimacy sprung up between her and Mrs. Washington, which, like that between their husbands, ripened into friendship, and continued unimpaired through life. His first child, still in the cradle, was named George Washington, and the second, who was born the ensuing year, Martha Washington.”
The restrictions upon intercourse with the island, imposed by an Act of the General Assembly, were not withdrawn till the close of the Revolution. In the May session of the General Assembly 1783, Mr. John Sands took a seat as a representative from the island, and immediately the following resolution was adopted: “Whereas, from the cessation of hostilities between the United States and the King of Great Britain, a further continuation of the restrictions on the intercourse and communication between the inhabitants on the main and the inhabitants of the town of Newshoreham has become unnecessary: It is therefore voted and resolved that the acts and resolves of this Assembly, prohibiting trade, correspondence, and intercourse between the other inhabitants of this State and inhabitants of said town of Newshoreham be, and they are hereby, repealed.”
The general confiscation of Tory property by the State Government for the uses of the State only affected one estate upon the island, so far as record can be found, and that was the estate of Ackun Sisson, confiscated at the close of the war.
One more item is here inserted, from the Colonial Records, as it is a resolution a little out of the usual custom, and introduced for the special benefit of the island. It was passed in the June session of 1783, as follows:—“Whereas, from the insular situation of the town of New Shoreham, it will often be impracticable for the deputies of the said town who reside therein to attend this Assembly; and whereas the freemen of said town, influenced by the aforesaid consideration, have made choice of Ray Sands, Esq., an inhabitant of the town of South Kingstown, who is seised of a freehold estate in the said town of New Shoreham, to represent them in General Assembly: It is therefore voted and resolved that the choice of the said Ray Sands, as aforesaid, be, and the same is hereby approved; and that the freemen of the said town of New Shoreham be, and they are hereby empowered to choose any person, being a freeman of any town in the State, who is seised in his own right of a freehold estate in the said town of New Shoreham, to represent them in General Assembly, any law, custom, or usage to the contrary notwithstanding; provided, nevertheless, that such person so elected be not allowed to act or vote as a freeman of the town of his residence during the term he shall represent the said town of New Shoreham as a deputy; and that this resolution shall not be brought into precedent by any other town in this State.”
In the old times of which we are speaking, the lottery was considered a legitimate means to be used for raising funds for any undertaking that required an extraordinary outlay of money. Even the stern old Puritans of this colony looked upon the lottery as legitimate when its gains were to be applied to a laudable purpose. But the following is a direct grant from the Assembly, as were a number of others made at about the same time:—
Extract from Proceedings of the General Assembly, held for the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, at South Kensington, the 23d day of March 1762:
“Whereas Messrs. Edmond Sheffield and Joseph Spencer, deputies from the town of New Shoreham, did, in behalf of the said town, prefer a petition, and represent unto this Assembly, that on the westernmost side of said island there is a large pond, covering above one thousand acres of land, which formerly had a communication with the sea by a creek; that then the fishing-ground for cod was well known, and bass was there to be caught in great plenty; that since the creek has been stopped, the fishing-ground for cod is uncertain, they being scattered about in many places, and the bass have chiefly left the island; that they are of opinion that a communication may be opened between the said pond and the sea, so that a passage may be obtained large enough for coasting and fishing vessels to pass and re-pass, and thereby find a safe and commodious harbour; that if this communication can be made, the fishing will again become sure and certain, and fishing vessels will not be obliged in bad weather to run to Newport, New London, or any other port, before they have got their fare, but there may find a safe harbour; that it will be attended with the greatest advantages, not only to this colony, but the neighbouring governments; and particularly the inhabitants of New Shoreham will reap so great benefit from it, as will enable them to pay a much larger proportion of the public taxes than they are now able to do; and thereupon they prayed this Assembly to grant a lottery, to defray the charge thereof, which was granted accordingly.”
We also find the following lotteries granted the same day by the same Assembly, and we reproduce it merely to exhibit the coolness of our forefathers when attending to business:—
“The following lotteries were also granted at this session: To the inhabitants of Smithfield and Cumberland to raise £2000, old tenor, to rebuild the bridge at Woonsocket Falls; directors, William Arnold, John Dexter, Amos Sprague, Chas. Capron, Hezekiah Herrenden, and Samuel Cooke.
“To Samuel Dunn, of Providence, to raise £4500, old tenor, to remunerate him for losses incurred: first, in the capture of his sloop ‘Joseph’ by a French privateer; and second, in the loss of his vessel and cargo by shipwreck on the coast of North Carolina. God save the King!”
No record can be found to show whether an attempt was ever made to carry out the schemes of the lottery. If the attempt was ever made, it was not successful, for in 1773 another petition was presented to the General Assembly for assistance towards making an opening into the great pond, that the pond might be used for a harbour. At this time they petition “that a sum of money may be granted out of the general treasury sufficient to purchase timber and provide stones for beginning, and, in some measure, carrying on the work, and that the remainder may be raised by lotteries.”
The General Assembly appointed a committee of five “to go to New Shoreham and inspect into the circumstances of the premises mentioned in the petition, and that they make report to this Assembly at the next session.”
In their report at the next session they speak favourably of the undertaking, and recommend it to the colony, but there is no record to show that any further action was taken in the matter. Probably the acts of the British Government the following year absorbed so much attention that the project for a harbour at Block Island was dropped, and the next record we have is the action that the inhabitants took in town meeting, held March 2, 1774, in relation to the importation and duty on tea.
It has already been mentioned that the poet Dana made Block Island the scene of his most brilliant poem; and although his local descriptions are poetically accurate, and he makes much of a burning ship, we must question the assertion that his hero Matthew See, the buccaneer,
“Held in this isle unquestioned sway.”
With equal ability, but in a different vein, the poet Whittier has also celebrated the leading romantic legend associated with Block Island, but he made the mistake of charging the Block Islanders with some acts of wickedness of which they were never guilty.
We now propose to give a summary of the facts connected with the famous vessel called the “Palatine,” which we are permitted to make from an elaborate paper prepared by Mr. C. E. Perry, already mentioned, who is, on account of his researches in that direction, the highest authority extant.
The passengers of the “Palatine,” it would appear, were wealthy Dutch emigrants who were coming over to America to settle near Philadelphia. Many people are accustomed to speak in a general way of all the inhabitants of Germany as Dutch, and it is quite probable that in this instance the ship may have sailed from some seaport town of Germany between the river Ems and Denmark, or it may be that the passengers on this ill-fated ship first experienced the pangs of sea-sickness on the waves of the Baltic Sea.
Her name alone is presumptive evidence that she came from German territory, and in her tragic ending one may almost imagine an anticipation of the ravages that a few years later desolated one of the fairest regions of Europe, and clouded with eternal infamy the brilliant reputation of Turenne. It has been believed by some that she sailed from Amsterdam, and Mr. Perry some years ago, armed with letters of introduction, applied to the United States consuls at Amsterdam and Rotterdam, requesting them to have the Custom-house archives searched for data bearing on this point.
Our Government officials were obliging enough to interest themselves in the matter at once, and the records of both ports were searched for a period dating back two hundred years, but nothing was found bearing the remotest connection with this ship. The archives of Rotterdam, however, had been removed to The Hague, and for a period of five years, probably covering the date of the “Palatine’s” wreck, had been lost.
There is much difference of opinion concerning this date, some placing it as early as 1720, while others suppose it to be as late as 1760. Nothing definite can be determined, but Mr. Perry’s grandmother, who is now seventy-six years of age, and retains her faculties in a remarkable degree, remembers distinctly of her grandmother’s telling her repeatedly that she was twelve years old when the “Palatine” came ashore.
If this reckoning can be depended on, the “Palatine” must have been wrecked during the winter of 1750 and 1751. She came ashore, as tradition reports, on a bright Sabbath morning between Christmas and New Year, striking on the outer end of Sandy Point, the northern extremity of the island.
The unfortunate passengers, who doubtless commenced this memorable voyage with bright hopes of a happy future in the new world, whose attractions were at that time currently believed by the common people in many parts of Europe to vie with those of the garden of Eden before the Fall, were doomed to suffer almost inconceivable miseries. For six weeks they lay off and on skirting the coasts of Delaware during a period of peculiarly fine and delightful weather, almost within sight of the region they had hoped to make their home, while an unnecessary and enforced starvation was daily reducing their numbers, and leading the survivors to pray for death as a welcome release from further suffering.
These emigrants, many of whom were quite wealthy, had with them money and valuables; and the officers of the ship, headed by the chief mate, the captain having died or been killed during the passage, cut off the passengers’ supply of provisions and water, though there was an ample sufficiency of both on board. The pangs of hunger and thirst compelled the unarmed, helpless, starving wretches to buy at exorbitant prices the miserable fragments that the crew chose to deal out to them. Twenty guilders for a cup of water, and fifty rix-dollars for a ship’s biscuit, soon reduced the wealth of the most opulent among them, and completely impoverished the poorer ones. With a fiendish atrocity almost unparalleled in the annals of selfishness, the officers and crew enforced their rules with impartial severity, and in a few weeks all but a few, who had been among the wealthiest of them, were penniless.
Soon the grim skeleton starvation stared them in the face, and as day succeeded day, the broad waters of the Atlantic closed over the remains of those who a few weeks before had been envied for their good fortune and their fair prospects.
At last even these wretches, whose villany no words in our language can adequately express, became satisfied that they had got all the plunder that was to be had, and left the ship in boats, landing perhaps on Long Island to make their way to New York, carrying with them undoubtedly a remorse which preyed upon their souls as hunger and thirst had gnawed at the vitals of their hapless victims. The famished, dying remnant of the once prosperous and happy company had no control over the ship, and she drifted wherever wind and tide might take her. How long she drifted, with the wintry winds whistling through her cordage, and the billows breaking around and across her, we shall never know. We may picture to ourselves these dying emigrants in their helpless journeying over a waste of strange waters.
Drifting here, drifting there, land always in sight, yet always inaccessible, some dying from weakness and despair, some from surfeit when the crew had gone and the provisions were left unguarded, all more or less delirious, and some raving mad. When the ship struck on Sandy Point, the wreckers went out to her in boats and removed all the passengers that had survived starvation, disease, and despair, except one woman, who obstinately refused to leave the wreck. These poor, miserable skeletons were taken to the homes of the islanders and hospitably cared for. Edward Sands and Captain Simon Ray were at that time the leading men on the island, and it was to their homes that most of these unfortunate people were taken, and on a level spot of ground at the south-west part of the island, which then formed part of Captain Ray’s estate, are still to be seen some of the graves where those who died here were buried. Edward Sands was Mr. Perry’s grandmother’s great-grandfather, and when the survivors of those who were taken to his house had sufficiently recovered to leave the island, one of them insisted upon his accepting some memento of their gratitude for the kindness shown to them during their stay, and gave to his little daughter a dress pattern of India calico. Calicos or chintz patches, as dress patterns of the Eastern calico were then called, were rare in those days even among the wealthy classes, and a little Block Island girl could not easily forget her first calico dress, especially when the gift was connected with circumstances so unusual and peculiar. Mr. Perry’s grandmother has often heard her grandmother speak of this dress, and relate its history. This anecdote, simple and unimportant as it may seem, has a bearing on the subject, for it disposes of the supposition that none of the “Palatine’s” passengers ever left the island. Where they settled, or where their descendants may be now, is one of those mysteries that hovers like a dark cloud over the whole subject, and seems to preclude all hope of its ever being completely unravelled. One, and one only, of the passengers that lived to tell of their living death on board this prison ship remained permanently on the island.
This passenger was a woman, whose original surname is not known. Her given name was Kate, and, owing to her unusual height, she was commonly spoken of as Long Kate, to distinguish her from another woman of the same name who was generally known as Short Kate. Both women were more frequently called “Cattern,” a corruption of Catherine.
Long Cattern married a coloured slave belonging to Mr. Nathaniel Littlefield, and by him had three children,—“Cradle,” “Mary,” and “Jennie.” These all died on the island. “Jennie” never had any children, “Cradle” had five children, but none of them were ever married. Mary also had a large family, but they all moved away with the exception of two sons, whose children moved away, and a daughter Lydia, who married and left several children, one of whom, familiarly known as “Jack,” still lives on the island. Long Cattern had her fortune told, before she sailed, by a seer of her native land, who prophesied that she would marry a very dark-skinned man.
The “Palatine,” it would seem, merely grounded on the extreme edge of the point, and as the tide rose she floated off, and the wreckers making fast to her in their boats, towed her ashore in a little bend further down the beach now known as Breach Cove. An easterly wind springing up, and appearances indicating that, in spite of all the efforts that could be made, she would drive out to sea, one of the wreckers set her on fire. The object of this act is not now apparent, but it is very improbable that he intended to destroy the unfortunate woman who persisted in remaining on board. No motive for such a horrible design can be imagined, and he doubtless supposed that she could be induced to leave the wreck, when she discovered that it had been set on fire.
That she did not do so, and that she was not removed by force, only adds two links to the inexplicable chain of circumstances that already perplex and embarrass us. The ship drove away into the gloom and darkness of a stormy night while the hungry flames crawled up her spars, crackled through her rigging, licked up the streaming cordage and loosened sails, and settled at last to the hull, where it finished its cruel task. So ends the material “Palatine.” So ends the life of her last unhappy passenger. So doubtless would have ended the story of her voyage and her wreck to the outer world at least, had it not been for that remarkable phenomenon that has served to perpetuate her memory, and to stimulate research into her history.
It may not be improper here to mention that there is a tradition which states that a woman drove up on the main shore shortly after the destruction of the “Palatine,” having on a silk petticoat, quilted in squares, each square enclosing a doubloon. Some have supposed that this was the woman who, though refusing to leave the burning ship, finally chose a death by water rather than by fire.
The story, or at least the suppositious connection of it with the woman of the burning ship, has many elements of improbability that will readily suggest themselves.
Let us linger for a moment in imagination on the shore as the ship recedes from sight, and picture to ourselves the weird, ghastly, horrible scene. The beach illuminated by the light of the burning vessel, and dotted here and there by the figures of the wreckers and boatmen, the fierce and angry gusts of wind, carrying with them blinding whirls of sand, the low sullen roar of the surf with its blinding spray driven backward into the darkness, the sullen merciless billows surging to and fro around and about the doomed ship, all united to form a gloomy, desolate framework to the agonising picture of that one lone figure, for whose life two great antagonistic forces of nature were angrily contending.
Tradition tells us that her shrieks of despair and agony could be plainly heard on the shore, growing each moment fainter and fainter, until death or distance finally ended them.
But the year went round, and when once more
Around their foam white curves of shore
They heard the live storm rave and roar.
Behold again with shimmer and shine,
O’er the rocks and seething brine,
The flaming wreck of the “Palatine.”
Little wonder that the great sachem, with the superstitious awe common to the Indian character, went raving mad whenever that strange light appeared in the offing.
There are various versions of the Palatine or Fire-Ship story, but the facts collected by Mr. Perry are undoubtedly the most authentic. The names of many respectable people, natives of Block Island and others, are in our possession who have declared that they had frequently witnessed the appearance of a burning ship off the shores of the island, and there are very few of its inhabitants who do not believe in the romantic legend. Several persons have attempted to account for the phenomenon on scientific principles. One of them, Dr. Aaron C. Willes, who was formerly a prominent physician on Block Island, wrote a letter in 1811, in which he asserted that he had seen this radiance himself a number of times, and after describing its peculiarities, but without hazarding any speculations, he makes this remark:—“The cause of this roving brightness is a curious subject for philosophical investigation. Some perhaps will suppose it depends upon a peculiar modification of electricity; others upon the inflammation of hydrogenous gas. But there are probably many other means, unknown to us, by which light may be devolved from those materials with which it is latently associated by the power of chemical affinities.”
A full account of the shipwrecks that have happened on its shores would take more space than we can now spare. During the last twenty years, however, there have been not less than sixty, and the records show that they have been quite frequent during all the years of the present century. The loss of property has of course been great, but the lives lost have not been as numerous as some would imagine. In 1805 a ship called the “Ann Hope” came ashore on the south side, and three lives were lost; in 1807 the ship “John Davies” was purposely driven ashore by the captain, when the steward was murdered for fear that he would tell tales. Not long afterwards three vessels came ashore in one night, but no lives lost except those of one captain and his son, whose bodies were washed ashore, clasped in each other’s arms.
In 1830 “The Warrior,” a passenger packet running between Boston and New York, and accompanied by another vessel of the same line, anchored off Sandy Point one evening in a calm. During the night the wind sprung up, leaving both vessels on a lee shore. The other vessel got under way, and went out, signalling “The Warrior” to follow, but it is supposed the watch on board “The Warrior” were asleep, and when they awoke, such a gale of wind was raging that they could not get under way, and that morning she dragged her anchors and went ashore, and every soul on board was lost. The captain, who was an expert swimmer, got ashore, and brought his little boy with him; but the child’s hat blowing off, he ran back after it, and the sea coming in rapidly, they were both lost.
The wreck of the steamship “Metis” off the shores of Watch Hill during the latter part of August 1872, is well remembered, together with the fearful suffering and loss of life there sustained. During the morning of August 31st the drift from the wreck commenced driving up on the west shore of Block Island. A large amount of the drift consisted of fruit and other articles of a perishable nature. The property was carted up in heaps on the beach. There were many cartloads of tea, soap, flour, boxes of butter, cheese, kegs of lard and tobacco, barrels of liquors, crates of peaches, boxes of lemons, barrels of apples, cases of dry goods, boxes of picture-frame mouldings, and a large quantity of drift wood, broken furniture, and general debris.
A large, fine-looking horse was washed up with the halter still fastened to the stanchion to which he was tied. About twelve o’clock on the same night the body of an infant, apparently about six months old, was found, and immediately carried to a house near, when a coffin was procured, and the next day the child was buried. The night clothing which was upon the child was carefully preserved for identification; but its father nor mother never came to shed a tear over the little grave, as they had probably gone down with the ill-fated vessel.
Two life-saving stations have been recently built upon the island, one at its eastern extremity, and the other at the western. These stations are supplied with mortars for throwing lines across shipwrecked vessels, and with life-boats calculated to ride out safely any sea that may be raised, and all other necessary apparatus for rescuing the lives of mariners who may be wrecked upon the shores.
The buildings will furnish shelter, lodging, and victuals to those who may be unfortunate enough to be wrecked upon the island. During the winter season and stormy weather, a crew of six men to each station is in constant readiness to render any assistance necessary. They are divided into three reliefs, and two reliefs are on duty at all hours through the winter season, circling the island every night in their beat, on the watch for accidents and wrecks. The crews consist of men who are hardy, well used to the sea in all its phases, and ready to do and dare anything for the relief of any unfortunate mariner or passenger who may need their assistance upon the exposed coasts of the island. These stations are not calculated, nor are they provided with apparatus for saving the vessels and property which may be stranded, but this work is done very effectually by companies which are known as “wrecking gangs,” of which there are two made up of the island people.
Each of these companies own apparatus, consisting of ponderous anchors, ropes, chains, life-boats, and lighters, for the purpose of hauling the stranded vessel from the shore into deep water, or of unloading its cargo, thereby saving all of the wreck possible, and generally, eventually succeeding in buoying up the wreck sufficiently to float her clear from the bottom, and finally into some safe port.
The stories and legends of the wreckers, so often told and written, are calculated to leave very erroneous impressions of the humane exertions of the wrecking bands scattered at intervals along our whole Atlantic coast. Although many of these bands have become quite wealthy in their avocation, it is just as true that they have saved millions upon millions of dollars to the owners of wrecked property, which, without the aid of the bold wrecker, would have been entirely lost. There being two “gangs” upon the island, it naturally follows that considerable rivalry exists between them, which redounds to the advantage of the owners of any vessel which chances to become a wreck on the coast.
Upon notice being received that a vessel has come ashore, that is, has run too near the land by mistaking the different lights along the coast during the night, or driven by storm to the shore, when the weather was so thick that the coast could not be seen, great exertions are used by the rival parties to be first aboard the wrecked vessel, and very great risks are often run by the first boat’s crew who reaches the wreck, if the surf runs high, as it usually does. This boat takes a line with it, leaving one end upon shore, and on arrival at the wrecked vessel the other end is made fast, so that by means of the strong line a comparatively safe transit can be made to and from the vessel to the shore, though generally at the expense of a thorough drenching every time the attempt is made.
After first removing the crew of the unfortunate vessel to safe quarters, if occasion requires, the question of saving the cargo and vessel is entered into. The wrecking party that first boards the vessel is generally considered as having the chances in its favour of procuring a contract for saving all the property possible, and hauling the vessel off the shore and into some safe harbour. A contract is regularly drawn up and agreed to by the captain of the unfortunate vessel and the captain of the wrecking party, who has finally procured the job upon the best terms possible. The wreckers are usually allowed one-half of all the cargo, rigging, spars, etc., that they succeed in saving, and a certain definite sum of money for taking the vessel into port, varying from four hundred to two thousand dollars.[3] If the vessel has sprung a leak so badly that the pumps cannot clear the water faster than it comes in, it is usual, after the cargo is removed, to place empty casks, tightly stopped, under her decks and round her sides, fastened below the water in sufficient number to buoy her up when hauled off into deep water.
[3] The wreckers usually have one-half the cargo and “matériel” which they land at the island, and the sum paid for getting the vessel into port varies too much to attempt any statement. One hundred to five thousand dollars would not cover the extremes.
From shipwrecks to religion the transition is not only natural, but should be profitable, and so a little information on the churches of Block Island will not be out of place in this paper. There are two church societies, and two churches. They are both of the Baptist persuasion, and founded in 1772; prior to 1818 they were united, but about that time one Enoch Rose dissented from some existing opinions, whereupon a “war of the roses” was commenced, which ended in two parties, the Associate and the Freewill Baptists; and whether this rosy war was any more beneficial than some others of like character, is a question that cannot now be settled. One thing, however, may be asserted with safety, and that is, that the islanders are a church-going people, and have generally been fortunate in having good and capable men as religious teachers. During the summer of 1875 an extensive eating-house was established at the harbour for the convenience of transient visitors, the keeper of which was an ex-preacher, who took delight in devoting his establishment to religious services on Sundays.
Block Island is entirely without wild animals,—not even a rabbit nor a wood-chuck will even appear to startle the tourist on his rounds. The traditionary lore has gone so far that the oldest inhabitant once saw a fox, but that individual was found to have come over from Point Judith on floating ice in a severe winter. Thanks to St. Patrick, there are no snakes, but any number of toads and frogs. Wild-fowl, such as geese, brant ducks, and others, were once numerous in the spring and autumn, stopping here to rest while migrating, but they have been frightened away by the roar of civilisation, which has already got thus far out to sea. Loons in large numbers sometimes winter in the bay that lies between Clay Head and the harbour. They arrive in the autumn, soon lose their wing-feathers, when they are, for several weeks, unable to fly, and can only escape from their enemies by diving; and it is a singular circumstance, that in the winter a great many hundred of them were once caught by a field of floating ice, and driven towards the shore, where they were easily killed by the native sportsmen.
The fish of Block Island, as already intimated, are numerous and of the best quality: the cod is the most abundant and valuable; the blue-fish are large, and afford superb sport during the summer and autumn, and sometimes giving full employment at once to a fleet of fifty sails; and to those who will take the trouble to hunt for them, the striped bass, black-fish, chiquit, herring, flounder, paugy, sea-bass, perch, the common and Spanish mackerel, may be taken in great quantities during their several seasons.
That Block Island was once covered with a heavy forest, is proven by many evidences; and two or three houses are still standing whose massive timbers were made from trees grown on the island. The numerous bogs are said to have a deep foundation of decayed forests. The existing trees, however, to be found on the island are few and far between, and without an exception these have been planted, and are cultivated with jealous care.
And now, leaving these to flourish as best they may, as well as many other interesting things undescribed that we might mention about this very charming island, we must hasten to conclude this screed.
Of public characters, or rather benefactors, Block Island has had two. One of them, John Card, established the first house of entertainment on the island many years ago; and the other, Nicholas Ball, is the owner to-day of a large and admirably-conducted hotel, and by the distinguished Professor Joseph Henry, was justly named the “King” of the island. Another of its noted natives was one William P. Shiffield, who was at one time a Representative in Congress, but who long ago removed to the main shore, where he acquired fame and fortune as a lawyer.
I have it from the undoubted authority of my parents, that I was born at sea, off Cape Hatteras, on the 28th of December 1807, on board the brig “Wepeawauge,” of Milford, Connecticut. My father, who was a worthy and virtuous man, commanded the brig, and, could he have foreseen at that time the glories which awaited his sea-born son, I imagine that I might possibly have found a premature resting-place in the bottom of the Gulf Stream. Be that as it may, I survived, and the loud howling of the tempest which heralded me into this breathing world passed away, and left me an inheritance of squalls which sadly tried my mother’s kind temper for several years afterwards.
The first of my childish exploits which I remember, happened before I had attained the age of two years. It occurred when my parents lived on the eastern banks of the Housatonic, and consisted in my walking off the wharf where the water was about three fathoms deep. But I was unfortunately fished up by my father, and the gallows apparently was allowed its undisputed claims. I also remember that, after this attempt at suicide, I lighted a basket of shavings in the kitchen, where I had been imprudently left by my mother, and nothing but my screams of delight prevented the house from becoming a pile of smouldering ruins.
At the commencement of the last war with Great Britain, my father moved his family to a pleasant village eastward of the Housatonic. He had command at that time of a brig called the “St. Joseph,” and having unfortunately landed a lot of contraband goods, they were confiscated, and he was ruined. In his extremity he took a berth as mate on board a privateer, called the “Chasseur,” Captain William Barry. While on a short cruise they fell in with the English ship “St. Lawrence,” and captured her after a fight of fifteen minutes. Several other prizes were secured, and for a time our family was comfortably off; but we subsequently endured privations that were cruel and of rare occurrence in a country like New England. When my father was supposed to be well off, and used to bring home quantities of fruit and other good things from the West Indies, we had more kind relations and friends than you could shake a stick at; but now that we were poor, they were as hard to find as a needle in a haystack. Untaught and alone, even in those days, I formed my estimation of the value of too many relations, and particularly that class termed cousins, or more properly speaking cozeners; and I have never had occasion to change my views since then. At length the rude shafts of adversity were turned aside, and brighter days began to appear. In the eighth year of my age I was sent to the village academy, and permitted to play with the children of respectable parents. That was about my only privilege. My father was still poor, and by our Christian preceptor I was neglected and treated unkindly; rated as a numskull and behind the other boys in everything that was good, and ahead of them in every species of mischief. My master called me a rascal, and the maiden ladies of the village, by their tongues, burnt the foul slanders upon the public mind. This business lasted for several years. Then it was that my father became engaged in the transportation of the United States mail, and at our home, which was really a tavern, boarded many of the drivers; and as these men were not noted for their virtuous conduct, it may be imagined that I was not much benefited by their companionship about the stables. I was early taught the principles of Christianity; but never to this day have I been able to forgive the cruel task-master who did all he could to injure me in the old academy, and, as he was the cause of all my troubles, I resolved to become a sailor, and live far away from all these disagreeable scenes and associations. After saving all my pocket-money for about six months, and having a purse of forty-five dollars, I secretly made a bargain with the captain of a small West India vessel, in a neighbouring seaport, and between two days left the paternal roof. Although I did not know it at the time, the captain of the vessel was my father’s friend, and the truth was my worthy parent knew all about my plans, but did not think proper to interfere. He had given his consent to my going, but with the stipulation that I should be treated with the utmost rigour. We made a voyage to Martinique, and the captain treated me like a son; but during our winter trip homeward, which lasted one hundred days, we suffered much from cold and the want of provisions, but safely returned to New Haven, and on being warmly welcomed home, was told that I need never attend the academy again.
Whilst on board the schooner in which I made my first voyage, I became very intimate with a messmate named Joe Beebe. He was the spoiled son of a good old Connecticut deacon, and while the father stood in mortal fear of the devil, the son cared very little for that personage. And the former was a very mean man also. In the winter, when oxen could draw on the sled twice what they could on wheels in summer, the deacon was in the habit of cutting wood for the market, and he actually employed one man to assist him at the expense of forty cents per cord, paying for the labour in pork and grain. One day, with the view of keeping his son out of mischief, he told him to go into the frog swamp and cut fire-wood, and that he might have one-half of the proceeds. Joe went to work, cold weather set in, the snow drifted, and the deacon got a bad cold. On his recovery, after a fortnight or so, he visited his wood lot, and found it entirely cleared, the trees were gone, and so was the wood, and also the money that had been received by the naughty boy. A cleaner job than that was never performed. I helped Joe in the wood lot, and took the place of the father in disbursing the money. The moral of this story is not what it should be, but it exhibits the old-fashioned manner of doing business in the land of steady habits.
Deacon Beebe was in the habit of fattening his own beef; and in the fall his cattle were killed and the beef salted down, and the hides of the defunct cattle were carefully dried upon long slender poles. After that commenced the business of collecting his little debts, and on one Saturday afternoon he received the sum of five hundred dollars in silver and gold. It was too late to bank it, and so he carefully put it away in his desk. On Sunday morning he was afflicted with a headache, and could not attend the meeting. After everybody but himself had gone to the house of prayer, and his own house was still, he took out his bag of shining treasure, and fearing some error, proceeded to examine and count it with care. Hardly had he finished this pleasing task when he heard a curious scraping in the chimney, and immediately afterwards a terrible bellowing. He was petrified with fear, and while gazing into the large open fireplace, he saw the tail of a brindled ox that he had slain, and in an instant more the veritable body, as he thought, of his departed friend. Dropping his gold, he rushed forth to tell his neighbours that he had seen the devil, and the whole place was fearfully agitated with his story. That was Joe Beebe’s second piece of rascality. And if I had anything to do with this business, it was only in helping Joe as he went down the chimney with the skin of the brindled ox.
Not long after Deacon Beebe had caught his first sight of the devil, another noted personage in our village enjoyed a similar experience. This was a maiden lady of considerable antiquity, and one, too, who had done much to blacken my character. Her name was Tabitha, and one winter afternoon I saw her, dressed in a new black silk gown, coming down the street on her way to spend the evening with a friend of the same kidney. She bore down with the wind astern, and her studding-sails set on both sides, alow and aloft. Arriving at her place of destination, she rounded-to and made a harbour. What then transpired the deponent saith not. But a youngster about my size procured a pair of box-shears from my father’s tools, and after nightfall, with the assistance of a friend, wrapped himself and a broom handle in a white horse-blanket, and ambushed himself on the road which Tabitha must pass on her way home. About ten o’clock she appeared with a big head of steam on, took the wind dead ahead, and a young gale was howling its requiem for the departing year. She braced sharp up in the wind’s eye, her head bent down, and her new silk dress rattling away to a noisy tune. On reaching a certain spot where the trees came together, on the edge of a swamp, and which had long been talked about as a haunted place, she suddenly encountered a gigantic figure in white. A great commotion ensued, the thing in white vanished in the swamp, aunt Tabitha reached home almost dead with fright, everything all right and in its place, with the single exception of a large piece from the skirt of her long silk dress. For some time silence prevailed among the gossips of the town, until one morning the abstracted part of aunt Tabitha’s dress was found nailed on the church door, and everybody said that all this was the work of a ghost.
The next step in my important life was to enter Yale College, which I did against my will, and passed my examination by the skin of my teeth. I disliked the rules of the college, and young as I was I felt my incompetency to become anything more than a country schoolmaster, and that was a trade I could not endure. As for the pulpit, I was as fit for that as a certain place mentioned in Scripture is for a powder-house. I felt myself to be too honest and kind-hearted to be a lawyer; and as to pharmacy, I might possibly have got along by not killing more than a proper allowance of patients. In less than three months after becoming an official freshman, I took the lead in a kind of gunpowder plot, and was duly expelled from college, thereby saving many a hard dollar for my father’s purse.
It having been proven that the paths of literature were not for my feet, I was sent to the city of New York to become a merchant. I obtained a position as clerk with a Quaker gentleman, who was a ship chandler. He was a good man, but quite as fond of money as those who do not wear drab coats and breeches. I was attentive to business, won his confidence, and in less than six months I acted as his book-keeper. At the end of a year I began to dress like a fop or a fool, and went to a dancing academy, and of course considered myself a greater man than my master. One day, when alone in the store, a man suddenly made his appearance, and telling me that “Old Hayes,” the sheriff, was after him, asked that he might hide himself in some corner for a short time. I could not refuse the appeal, and told him to get into the oakum bin, which he did. Presently the sheriff made his appearance, and went away as wise as he came. After hearing the story of the runaway, that he was the commander of a privateer of sixteen guns, then lying in the East River, and that he was bound to Buenos Ayres, I became interested in him. After the store was closed, I hunted up my most intimate friend, Jim Williams, who lived in Brooklyn, whose father was an old friend of my father, and introduced him to the captain. We three went down to Whitehall, and with a small boat boarded the privateer. We had a good time, talked over some new plans, and returned to the shore. For several weeks, on account of some troubles, the vessel remained at her mooring. Jim and I had often talked about going to sea in the privateer, and when we decided to do so, we made an arrangement, with much difficulty, with the captain, who advised us against the step. But we soon quietly left our places of employment, and with our traps duly went on board the vessel. We sailed for Buenos Ayres, and from there we went upon a cruise. Our crew consisted mostly of Americans, but we had a few English and Dutch on board—the majority from New York city and vicinity. We shortly visited the island of St. Helena, for what purpose I do not positively know, but I suppose to get the news. This was about eight months before the death of Napoleon Bonaparte. The captain took Jim and me on shore to Jamestown, and up to the Emperor’s residence. We had a fair sight of the great warrior, who appeared no way displeased at our staring at him. He was more corpulent than I expected to find him, and he seemed to have a prematurely old appearance. He looked like anything else but the being before whom the whole of Europe had trembled.
About a month after leaving St. Helena, we fell in with and captured the polacre “Amigo Hidalgo,” a letter-of-marque, with fourteen guns. My feelings were very queer before going into action, and the Lord’s Prayer I repeated frequently, vowing that if I got clear this time I would “cow out,” and return home. We did up the business in about one hour. We lost three men killed, and seven were wounded, and the prize we sent to Buenos Ayres. In the course of two years we took thirteen prizes.
The last action that our schooner was engaged in I will now describe. It was the 19th day of November 1823, and we were on the coast of Spain, seeking whom we might devour. At daylight we were in the midst of a fleet of merchantmen we had been looking for. We had heard they were convoyed by only a sloop of war, and we carried three of them before the convoy arrived. She was a brig of twenty-two guns, and had a ship with her of equal force. They deceived us somehow, and we were cornered, and so we went at it for full dues. We fought for about fifty minutes, causing both the brig and ship to haul off, they being much more damaged than we were. We lay in sight of the town of Algesiras, near Gibraltar. The wind died away, and we remained three or four hours repairing damages. About one o’clock we saw a vessel coming out of the Spanish harbour, bringing a breeze with her, and she proved to be a corvette of twenty-eight guns. Escape was now out of the question, so the grog tub was brought on deck, and we prepared for action. We welcomed the enemy with three cheers, and commenced our music, which she returned with equal spirit. We came so near together that our guns almost touched, and for a while the two vessels seemed enveloped in one huge blaze. We finally obtained the weather-gage of her, when she wore, and we raked her fore and aft three times. Being satisfied, she hauled upon her wind and ran in for the shore, and we followed; she grounded; the men took to the small boats, and we returned. Our craft was very badly cut up; seventeen of our brave fellows lay dead upon the gratings, and twenty-seven were badly wounded. There was not a man or boy on board who had not been somewhat hurt. One of my cronies was struck by a shot when standing close by me; his vitals were torn out, and I was almost blinded by the blood that flew in my face, and, I must say, I thought it was all over with me. I was wounded in two places below the knee, one of which was bleeding profusely. I felt a little sick, and everything looked dark to me, and I rolled over in the blood and dirt, wholly unconscious of the glory of my position. I had fainted from loss of blood. When consciousness returned I found myself in the cockpit, with the surgeon and his assistants standing by, as bloody as a lot of butchers. A ball in my leg was cut out, and I was soon ready to try my luck again, and my friend Jim Williams got off about as well as I did. Our vessel put into Gibraltar, right under the guns of the English; here we repaired damages, and shipped enough men to make eighty-one, all told.
In December 1823, Gibraltar was visited by one of the most terrible gales ever known there. More than a hundred vessels were lost. Amongst the rest we parted our cables and drifted on the Spanish shore, directly under a small fort, where our vessel, the “General Soublette,” went to pieces. While we were struggling in the water some Spanish troops opened fire upon us, and they would have murdered the whole of us had not the British troops interfered. We were all made prisoners, put in irons, and carried to the fort—forty-one of us, including the captain, being placed in one room, and the others scattered in different apartments. Our irons were inspected every two hours, and the people came to stare at our window grating as if we had been a show. We had no beds, but were huddled together on a stone floor. One of the men who fed us was a Frenchman, and he and the captain became quite intimate. In a few days it was whispered that there was a polacre not far off, loaded with jerked beef and wines, and that if we could only surprise the men in the fort, we might get clear. By special arrangements several boats were ready on the beach. When the proper time came the captain gave the watchword, “Soublette and Liberty,” when we made a rush, and after much trouble, the majority of our crew, including friend Williams, got away and on board the polacre. One shot from the fort struck our vessel in the tafferel, and in thirty-five days from that time we were safely moored in the port of Buenos Ayres. Among the poor fellows that we were obliged to leave with the Spaniards was one of my particular friends. After hearing nothing about him for thirty years, I fell in with him in 1853 at Monte Video, where he was staying, not living. He was then the mere remains of a once likely man. He was known among the Americans who visited the place as Poco Roco. All arguments were useless to persuade him to return home. His widowed mother was living in 1857, and when I visited her, she told me that she was well off, and that she would give all her property to her self-exiled son if he would only return to make her happy. But he is still a lonely wanderer on a foreign shore.
After remaining a few weeks in Buenos Ayres, where we had a first-rate time, our captain obtained a new vessel, about the size of the “Soublette,” and we were soon cruising along the southern coast of Cuba and in the Carribean Sea. We were in sight also of Porto Cabello, when the decisive battle was fought there between the patriots and the royal troops of Spain. I obtained many particulars of the fight, but this is not the place to write about them. The royal troops were beaten, and they surrendered, the slaughter having been dreadful. But the fort that protected the city would not give up until its commander should hear from Spain. It was then besieged, and held out for three months. An order finally came to capitulate, but it came too late, for now the patriots would show no mercy. In the rear of this fort the garrison, consisting of four hundred men, had cut a passage through, underground, into a ravine: the aperture was just large enough to admit one man. Through it the hunters used to go and kill what they could, and return at night with food for their comrades, and this was kept up during the whole siege. At the time of the surrender, each man belonging to the garrison was driven into this passage and murdered. Some years afterwards I visited this fort. It stands in a spot almost impregnable, and it was with difficulty that we could clamber into it. There were the muskets of the Spaniards, standing in stacks, partly eaten up with rust, and the heavy guns remained as they were left after the battle. Everything was in a state of ruin, and I believe the patriots forbore to move anything, concluding to let the fort remain as a monument of vengeance or perhaps of patriotic humanity.
In March 1824, we were on the coast of Cuba, and near Trinidad de Cuba we fell in with a Spanish letter-of-marque carrying ten guns. We pitched in, fought hard for about an hour, and carried her by boarding. None of our men were killed, but seventeen were wounded, and I received a cutlass gash over my eyes. Her crew in reality did not surrender; they were the bravest Spaniards we had ever met.
From a man on board this vessel we heard that a Spanish war-brig had been ordered to Havana with one million and a half of dollars, to pay the Spanish troops in Cuba. So, taking only a few things from our prize, and not wishing to be bothered with prisoners nor to weaken our force by manning her, we allowed her to proceed. And then we started for that lot of shiners which bore the stamp of “Dei gratia.” When abreast of Cardenas we descried a brig steering in the direction of Havana. We made chase, fired a shot, but she would not stop. We fired again and injured her main top-mast, but she still kept ahead of the wind. She, as in duty bound, kept on, amusing us by making jobs for our sail-makers, when suddenly we saw her making signals, and then we sighted Moro Castle. We chased the brig so near the Moro, that some of the castle’s shot told over us, when we bade her adieu, and hauled off out of harm’s way.
At daylight, on a fine April morning, we were off Mariel, becalmed. Around us was some greasy water and a lot of wine bottles, with other evidence that we were not the only inhabitants in the world, and we were in a thick fog. When that cleared away we saw several things that we did not expect to see. The first was the rock-bound coast of Cuba, about eight miles away; and then immediately in our vicinity, two Spanish frigates, one sloop of war, and two corvettes, and—we were captured. Thus ended my career of glory as a pirate. We were taken to Havana and locked up in that mortal hell, the Moro Castle. Admiral La Borde, whose squadron had captured us, was a truly brave man, and as generous as he was brave. He complimented our captain, of whose exploits he had heard, and did not permit anything to be taken from us but our knives. Jim Williams and I had about nine hundred dollars in gold, and not a penny of it was touched. The only trouble was that we had to live six upon four—that is, six men were obliged to live upon the allowance of four, and Spanish rations at that,—garlic and fish; and we had no beds but the stone floors. Here we remained, eighty-eight of us, for nine weeks, when La Borde obtained our discharge on parole. We were told to go where we pleased, and so our captain, Jim, and myself took our bags and obtained a passage at Havana on board the schooner “Agnes,” which took us to Laguira. From that place we returned to Havana, and there we shipped for Charleston, South Carolina, and thence to New York, where we arrived in time to see the good La Fayette.
And now for a parting reflection on this wild life. I have been an outlaw, I was with outlaws, and became acquainted with the private history of the greater part of them; and as a halter had a strong claim upon this very humble servant, I whiled away many an hour in tracing the lives of the most talented among them. The mainspring of their crimes, as was the case with myself, consisted in the fact that they had been the victims of denunciation and slander. Denunciation never yet protected the innocent, confirmed the wavering, or recovered the falling. That spirit of ferocity which breaks the bruised reed, partakes more of relentless pride than virtuous disapprobation. When repentant guilt trembled before Him whose divine example is our guide, no malediction fell from His lips. His absolving injunction was, “Go and sin no more.” That brief injunction conveys more good, more true good, than all the hell and brimstone sermons which ever issued from the combined pulpits of the world. That I have been a pirate is admitted. Men talk about the horrors of slavery, of the slave trade, of intemperance, of stealing, of murder, of arson, and yet some kind of excuse may possibly be given for each of these crimes; but this is not so with the one crime that is common in every community—I mean the crime of slander. Want and suffering may tempt a man to rob or murder; revenge may find an excuse for its depraved conduct; but not one word can be offered in defence of slander, the meanest, most cowardly, mischievous, and cruel vice in the world. It has no favours to confer upon its votary excepting the demoniacal pleasure of seeing others suffer innocently. I speak strongly, perhaps, but I have suffered from this curse of what is called genteel society, and I cannot mince my words. As Shakespeare says—
“Slander lives upon succession;
For ever housed where it once gets possession.”
On our arrival in New York, Jim Williams and I were in great tribulation. We wanted to see our parents, but were afraid, and expected to receive what cannot be bought at the apothecaries. While taking up our traps to a house near Peck Slip, we seriously thought of putting off to sea again, but before doing that we thought we would call upon my old Quaker employer. I had raised heavy whiskers, and he did not recognise me. I called for some sail needles, and after he had mentioned the price, I pointed at the private mark, and said one hundred per cent. profit was rather high. To this he replied, “What, sir! do you know my private mark?” I told him that I did, and that he had given it to me himself. Soon after that he shook me by the hand, but said nothing about his high prices. He then told me that my father had been at his store only a week before, and had given me over as dead, but was still very anxious about me.
After that interview Jim and I had a confab, and we determined to go at once to his father’s house in Brooklyn. To do this I had no objection, because I had not yet forgotten that my messmate once had a pretty sister. As we approached the house his courage failed him, and while he stopped at a grocery store, I went ahead to explore. I knocked, got in, and a young lady, who was sewing by a window, very soon had her hands in mine, if not her arms around my neck. Her first inquiry was for her brother, and I told her he was all right, and gave her a kiss with my news. A part of this scene was witnessed by Captain Williams, and he came into the room looking as black as thunder, but when he saw who I was, and that Jim was at hand, he at once became genial. Jim was forthwith brought in, and his parents and all hands were very happy. The next day the captain took us over to New York, gave each of us a set of rigging and the time of day in our pockets, and as Jim and I agreed to consort together for the future, and the captain was obliged to visit Philadelphia on business, my good friend and his sister were packed off for the banks of the Housatonic. We went up the Sound in a sloop, and at my own father’s house was enacted another scene like that we had figured in at Brooklyn.
This return home was an era in my life. The joy of my parents and sisters and brother, the congratulations of friends, the kind and beneficent advice of the aged pastor of the Episcopal Church (which my parents always attended), and other delightful circumstances have impressed themselves on my memory in characters which the intervening years have only brightened instead of diminishing. I am now descending the hill of life, and of that circle of affectionate ones, my one sister and my brother are all that remain on this side of the grave. Since death snatched away those loved ones of my home, as well as one who did not then bear our family name, I have felt myself to be an isolated and lonely man amongst a generation, many of whom were unborn when the aforesaid events occurred.
For six weeks after my arrival on the Housatonic, Jim and I enjoyed ourselves shooting and fishing, and during that time Captain Williams and wife made us a short visit. Winter was approaching, and when our visitors returned to Brooklyn I went with them. The very next day, as Jim and I were walking on the Battery in New York, we were accosted by a merchant, whose name I must not give, who was deeply engaged in the affairs of the sloop of war “Bolivar,” of twenty-two guns, and commanded by a man from near the Housatonic. We were offered commissions, which, like fools, we accepted, and each received two hundred dollars for quieting our parole consciences. The “Bolivar” was suspected of illegally enticing men on board, and she was ordered away from the foot of Rooseveldt Street, and soon after out of the waters of the United States. For three days we stood off and on at Sandy Hook, receiving reinforcements from two Egg Harbour coasters. The United States cutter “Honduras” crossed our path, and we gave her a broadside, and then put out to sea. We ran down to Block Island, where we expected to receive some more precious fools like ourselves. Jim and I now began to doubt. We were of the crew who went ashore to get the new men, and while the officer in command went up to see about the business, we pretended to go off in another direction after some rum. Soon as we were out of sight, we made the best of our way to the south part of the island, and there secreted ourselves in a barn. We soon heard a gun, and coming out on a hill, we saw the “Bolivar” booming it off southward. That was the last we ever saw of this vessel; but from what we afterwards read in an English paper, we concluded that she had been captured and burned as a pirate off the Western Islands by a Spanish frigate. From Block Island we took a pilot boat, and boarding a packet from Boston, returned to New York.
About that time there was a ship launched called the “Great Britain,” and with the exception of the “Washington,” was deemed the largest and finest merchantman owned in the country. Her burthen was seven hundred and sixty-three tons, and her captain was an old friend of my father and was acquainted with Captain Williams. Winter was at hand, and we had been cruising along the equator; but we faced the music, and both went before the mast on the “Great Britain,” and made a voyage to Havre. We suffered much from the cold, but did our duty manfully, and were complimented by the captain. Jim and I were both pathetic, and wrote home to our parents that we would never go to sea again. Our return voyage was even more uncomfortable than the outward. On the banks of Newfoundland we encountered a terrible gale, which caused us to heave-to under a close-reefed main-topsail. A heavy sea was running, and we first loosed the topsail, then squared the yards and kept the ship on her course. We shipped three tremendous seas directly over the tafferel, washed away both round houses, stove a hole in the cabin, and broke the thighs of our leading steersman. The ship came to the wind, and the fore tack parted, and converted our foresail into the nautical adornment which seamen call “ribbons,” and although this business lasted three days, we sustained no serious damage. On our arrival in New York the ship hauled in for repairs, and with our chests Jim and I went over to his father’s house. I had written a letter to Jim’s sister, which she kept to herself, and, for some reason or other, my feelings toward her were queer. She treated me kindly. I read Lord Chesterfield, and began to be polite, and actually wrote some sentimental verses. They were very touching, and had they been read by any lady’s lapdog, having the least claim to dog sense, he would have sickened and jumped out of the window to avoid hydrophobia. But my poetical powers were admired, and I admired my lady. I had just been reading his Lordship’s advice that “if a man notoriously insults you, knock him down,” when it occurred to me that I had lately been insulted by the mate of a vessel at a store in New York, this man having made game of my polite manners. I met him and struck him, but the brute would not fall down. He then struck me on the side of my pericranium and I did fall down, when he applied his dirty boots to my seat of honour, and I involuntarily left the shop where we had met. As I gathered little glory from this transaction, I accounted for the bump on my sconce by talking about the miserable main hatchway of the “Great Britain.”
It was now almost the pleasant spring-time, and while Jim’s father took him to a farm near Babylon, on Long Island, I squatted down on the banks of the Housatonic, resolved also to become a farmer, and like many another spoiled child, scratch the face of my dear mother for a living. And now that I was a farmer in prospective, I considered myself as legally entitled to the use of horse-flesh, and consequently the universal cry, from mothers, pretty girls, old maids with shrivelled muzzles, and young men about town, was, Behold how he drives! My father was blamed for not stopping me in my madness; and as for the poor horses, I believe if they had been gifted with speech, I should have received more imprecations than were showered upon Balaam by his ass. The time at length arrived when vegetation began to show itself, and I was to receive my introductory lesson in the garden. And for this I was prepared, for I had procured Cobbet’s “Gardener,” had become a subscriber to the “New England Farmer,” had also bought a new spade, hoe, shovel, rake, lines, etc., and was very near purchasing the entire stock of an itinerant vendor of Quaker garden seeds. At length the morning of trial arrived, and until sunset I worked as if my life depended on my exertions. For one week, three days, and a quarter, did I persevere with a resolution that has since astonished me. The day which I credit with only one quarter was broken into by the arrival of Jim Williams from New York, with whom I went upon a frolic, which lasted several days, during which time the pigs got into my garden and rooted up everything, and a lot of cows destroyed my young fruit trees, and in less than a week after this I was again ready for
“A life on the ocean wave.”
On his farm Jim stayed two days, but, as he said, he could not stand their cracked corn, salt horse, and cabbage, and so he parted from his agricultural friends near Babylon. It was Jim’s opinion that barnacles would be worn by ladies for ornaments before we could be made farmers. Then it was that Jim’s sister came down to make my sister another visit, and for a week we had a great time together. He was a shrewd fellow, and gave it as his opinion that I was in love with his sister. He told me I was deranged, and she told him it was arranged; he said I was as blind as a parson besieged by a beggar, but I replied that I was one of the beggars who choose to be choosers. It was indeed arranged, and how I came to the point I will very briefly mention. It was Sunday, and, after a walk on Milford Beech, we had seated ourselves on some dry sea-weed on a rock. I had just uttered about three heavy sighs, and my lady could not but see that there was the devil and turn-up-jack in the matter. I felt something in my throat like a thirty-two pounder. She asked me if I felt badly about the garden. I told her no! very decidedly no! and my face was as long as a sick pig’s. She asked me if I was sick, and I replied, “No—yes—not very,” and then I out with it, and
“She loved me for the dangers I had passed,
And I loved her that she did pity them.”
In less than a week after this interview, Jim and your humble servant were again on board the “Great Britain,” bound to Liverpool.
Among our passengers, when homeward bound, was Clara Fisher, the celebrated actress of that day, accompanied by her mother. It was my good fortune to become quite a favourite with this lady, and from a very small circumstance. We had just left the “Chops of the Channel,” when a sudden squall of rain came up one afternoon, and surprised Miss Fisher at her needle-work outside of her cabin. In her haste to escape the shower, she dropped a string of gold beads behind a spar, which remained unperceived until the next morning. I discovered them just before they would have been washed out of the scuppers. They were rich and beautiful, and for an instant I thought how they would look on somebody’s neck; but I drove the devil away, and reported my discovery to the mate. He told me to keep quiet until they were called for. After breakfast the captain summoned all hands, alluded to the loss, and said that Miss Fisher would give thirty dollars for the string of beads. I gave them to the fair owner, and she counted out the money; she handed it to me, and I declined it; she blushed (thinking that I considered the amount too small) and said the captain told her she must not offer a bigger reward; I then remarked that I was very happy to restore the ornament to its rightful owner, and that I could not think of being mean enough to require money to pay for my honesty, and calling into requisition one of the French monkeyisms, sometimes called a bow, and scraping the deck with my left foot—vanished. The beads were precious to Miss Fisher as an heirloom, and she tried hard, through my friend Jim, to make me take the reward. When she found that neither of us could be moved, she began to send us all sorts of good things to eat, and one day she asked Jim how it happened that we were so intimate? He said we had been in eighteen battles together, and that I would probably before long become his brother-in-law. At that her tragic muse was a little stumped. On her arrival in New York she played at the Park Theatre, through me sent tickets to the whole crew of the “Great Britain,” and honoured Jim and myself by taking us into the green-room of the theatre. It was not long after that her beautiful form was deposited in the graveyard of Old Trinity Church, not far from that statue of Bishop Hobart in the rear of the chancel upon which they used to throw a soft and tinted light that I always remember with pleasure.
Altogether, Jim and I made four voyages to Europe in the “Great Britain.” During our last stay in Liverpool our ship attracted much attention in Prince’s Dock, especially on Sundays, when hundreds came to see the “Yankee ship.” One Sunday when I was keeping ship, a strange gentleman came on board, and, after satisfying his curiosity, turned his eyes upon me, and asked if I were an American. I replied “Yes,” and then he added, “and from the Housatonic, I suppose?” He knew me, but I did not recollect him. He told me that, when sick and miserable, he had sailed from New Haven to New York in a sloop with me, and that I had treated him with special kindness. Perhaps so, but I had forgotten all about it. He never forgot such things, he said; and after a long talk with the captain, I was invited to the stranger’s house in Duke Street, where I was treated very handsomely. The next day my new friend, whose name was Henry Dorlag, called again, and told the captain he wanted me to go into the country with him. The captain consented, but said that I hardly ever went ashore without my bosom friend Jim Williams. “So much the better,” said Mr. Dorlag, and we obtained leave of absence for seven days. We were then shipped on board a handsome carriage, and with Mr. Dorlag as captain, we visited Birmingham, Manchester, and Sheffield, had all that we wanted to eat and drink, enjoyed the beautiful scenery of that part of England, and finally returned to the ship,—not having spent a single penny of our own money.
Liverpool now began to have some attractions for me, and I almost fancied myself as big as a captain. The great cotton fever of 1826 was then at its height, and the captain of our ship was a speculator to a considerable extent. Through Mr. Dorlag and some of his commercial friends, I obtained some information, which I communicated to the captain, and which enabled him, after a while, to make a good deal of money. The consequence was, whether I deserved it or not, I was treated with great consideration by the captain and owners of the “Great Britain.” On a subsequent voyage to England, I had an opportunity to do something for myself, and a little tar speculation I went into with Jim Williams, brought us something handsome. In addition to this I was made a square-rigged second mate and Jim a third—a degree not often known in these days, excepting among whalemen. On our return to New York, Captain Williams complimented me and his son on our success, but gave us a side-wiper by expressing his astonishment that such a pair of unwhipped cubs should have been called upon to perform the duties of full-grown seamen. In spite of all that I felt my oats, and carried a stiff upper lip. I talked big, and made even the old tars stare; and many gentlemen listened to my stories with a patience that did not increase my estimation of their knowledge or common sense. I am confident now that, at that time, I mistook mere politeness for esteem. No young man of my age had more of what are called friends than I had, and money-loving old ladies and pretty girls were alike devoted to my happiness. As a lunatic asylum did not then bring me up, I have often thought that perhaps there was indeed something in me like the virtue of stability. I made another voyage to Europe with my inevitable companion, and during our absence, when not at work, nearly all that we did was to talk about my getting married, a step upon which I had resolved. We talked over the unkind treatment I had occasionally received from his father: we knew the biggest fence I had to climb would be “the old folks at home,” and when I spoke of running away, Jim swore that he would stand by me to the bitter end; and by the time we arrived in New York again our plans were all settled, and we waited for the tide.
Shortly after our arrival in New York, I told my secret to a friend who was captain of a sloop that traded up the Housatonic. He rather encouraged me, and promised to stand by me in the event of my needing his help. The dark clouds of fear now gave way to the sun of hope, and the star of Venus was in the ascendant, and in the sloop. I went home on a visit to my parents. While there I was accused of a small piece of rascality by the saints of my native village, connected with the ringing of a church bell, and though entirely innocent, I was fined seven dollars. I then returned to New York.
The “Great Britain” went into winter quarters, all hands were paid off, and as my friend Jim and I had our pockets pretty full, we felt well, and I thought it time to commence business. One morning, after spending the night with Jim Williams, and when nearly through breakfast, I intimated to the father that I desired a private interview, as I had a business matter on hand, and wanted his advice. The young lady at the table fairly gasped, and Jim dropped his hot coffee on the back of the cat, which went off like a streak of lightning. The captain looked up, and exclaimed, “What, in the devil’s name, is the matter with you all? you seem to be struck comical! And so you want to talk with me, Tom? I suppose you and Jim are going to Buenos Ayres as commodores!” When left alone, I proceeded to tell my story, winding up with the remark that I intended to be married. The captain was astonished, and said, “Why, Tom, you are crazy; no girl would be fool enough to have you!” I told him I had given my word more than six months before, and that the lady was very willing. He asked me if she was well off, and I said that her parents were highly respectable, and quite rich. He then inquired if she was good-looking, if I really loved her, and thought that I could support her, and if her parents were willing? I replied yes to the first two questions, and no to the last. “And that’s the particular point upon which I want your advice,” said I. To this he replied, “If all you say is true, I advise you to get spliced as soon as possible. This step may keep you out of bad company, and make you a respectable man. As a mere matter of policy, you had better speak to the old man, and then if he objects, trust to Providence, and go ahead.” I told him I was a thousand times obliged to him for his disinterested advice, and would endeavour to set upon it to the very letter. “That is worthy of your name, my boy; and now, I suppose, you’ll have no objection to telling me the name of the fortunate lady?” I made a respectful bow, and replied, “Her name, sir, is Jane Williams.” Heavenly powers! it makes me dodge my head even now, when I picture to myself the change! The captain was naturally testy, but now he grew fairly purple. Observing the fiery old captain moving toward the fireplace, and by his looks meaning mischief, I waited for no mature deliberations, but decamped in far greater haste than I entered. At the hall door I encountered my love, informed her of the answer, snatched a kiss and was off, as Jack says, like a struck dolphin.
The old gentleman immediately assembled his dutiful children, and told them what had happened. Miss Jane wept dreadfully, but not from sorrow I fancy, and Jim, as in duty bound, swore, by the rising sun of Buenos Ayres, that he would shoot me. The very next day Jane was sent into New Jersey to visit an aunt and to remain there until I had gone to sea again, and as the father was deep in a lawsuit, Jim was to accompany her. The sloop in which they might have sailed to Amboy did not go in that direction, but to the Housatonic river, and by some queer accident I was a passenger. She duly arrived at her place of destination, and at the house of the captain of the sloop I was, in due form, married to Jane Williams, and thus followed the capital advice of her worthy father. My wife immediately addressed a handsome letter to him, and we began to enjoy ourselves in our new quarters. On the second day after this important event, my wife and I, our host and his wife and Jim Williams—who lay on the carpet like a crab, smoking a Spanish cigar—were assembled in the parlour talking over the probabilities, and on looking down the road, who should we see coming up like a young hurricane but Captain Williams! He bolted into the house, wild as a tiger, and meeting our host inquired for the viper. “Which one?” was the reply. “Tom Cleaveland,” stammered out the furious visitor. The scene that followed was truly terrible, and I cannot give all the particulars. When my dear father-in-law was very sternly informed that he was in the house of a stranger, and in old Connecticut, where the laws were carried out, he became a little pacified. On my giving him a little of my own mind, he melted still more. And when my wife, looking like the picture of Niobé, rushed into his arms, and implored his forgiveness, the matter was settled, and his curses were changed into a blessing upon both our heads, and the whole affair was clenched by a good glass of old Jamaica rum all round. Dinner came on, which we all enjoyed, and after we had got through, father Williams leaned back in his chair, in true Yankee fashion, only that he did not put his feet on the table,—he was not enough of a Yankee for that,—and then we had a long talk about cash prospects and going to sea. After stating that he would return to New York in the very sloop that had brought away the runaways, he called his daughter to his side, and thus addressed her:—“Here, you hussy, is something to frighten the wolf from the door for a few weeks to come,” and he counted out six one-hundred-dollar bills. “You do not deserve it! Hist! not a word of thanks;” and turning to me he continued:—“And you, Mr. Tom, I freely forgive you, and will receive you as my son. Treat your wife as she deserves. She has made her own choice, and must abide by it. I never want you to tell me of your family troubles, but I shall be disappointed if you don’t fight a battle royal in less than six months. But whether you quarrel or not, remember, sir, that she has a father who loves her; and rather than see you hang down your head because your wife wears the breeches, and has got the money, and in consideration of the good qualities you have and have not, I insist upon your acceptance of this check for six hundred dollars. Silence, sir—no thanks. Now, Tom, you and your girl must man a carriage and go down and surprise the old folks at home, and tell your father it is my request he will not put you in jail. I will go home in a sloop and will immediately send up to Jane any clothing that she may need, and send her mother along at the same time.”
He did return to New York, and I took my bride to my father’s house, where we surprised the family, had a noisy but very happy re-union, and I began to look upon life as a serious business.
A new life was now opened before me, and for some unaccountable reason I began to be thoughtful and almost melancholy. I did not regret what I had done, but to this day I have never been able to satisfy myself as to the cause. It was perhaps a reaction after having been too happy. I have conversed with others who, like me, married young, and I have always found that they had experienced a similar despondency. But these blue devils only kept me in bondage for a week, and then I became as happy as in the olden times.
For two or three months my wife and I rambled about the State wherever we pleased. At length a north-eastern storm caught us among the beautiful hills of the Upper Housatonic, near what are called the Hundred Hills. Here we became acquainted with some pleasant people, and concluded to tarry for a while. We stumbled upon a handsome little farm which we fancied, and found could be purchased for some two thousand dollars. We wrote to our parents and they furnished us with the money, hoping that we would settle down. In the vicinity of this place we had secured board, and the price paid for it, in those good old times, was one dollar and a half per week; and the worthy farmer who became our host was not one of the sanctimonious sort, but could enjoy a harmless frolic, and was a real Christian; and his wife was a model of goodness and neatness.
It is with regretful remembrance that I recall the local practices of that time, and with shame for the degeneracy of the present generation. Blue-skins may call what I term degeneracy reformation; but be it what it may, it has neither added to the comfort nor the friendly feelings of the community. It was customary in the region of country where we were, for neighbours to call in, during the long winter evenings, and around a table covered with apples and nuts and some good sparkling cider, to have a pleasant conversation; and people were disposed to be grateful for those indulgences which a kind Providence had bestowed upon us in such unlimited profusion. But now the times are sadly changed. The warm old-fashioned welcome and good cheer are all gone for ever. In these days, the stiffly-received visitor is perhaps informed by the lady of the house that her husband has joined the Temperance Society; that he has made no cider this year; that he has cut down the thrifty apple-trees planted by his father; that even tea and coffee have been found bad for the health, and that now the only beverage in use is cold water. He is also informed that they have a piano that the oldest daughter plays, and so Jemima is trotted out. It is the dead of winter, and he is taken to the parlour, where it is cold enough to freeze an Esquimaux. Jemima pitches in and makes a fool of herself over some Italian music, which would give a bull-frog the horrors. After this punishment for his friendly visit, the victim is then permitted to return to the room which he left, where there is a fire, and where he is expected to tell a dozen deliberate lies about the music and all that. He is then offered some greasy cake and a dirty tumbler of cold water, and when he takes his departure he is invited to come again and pass what is called a pleasant evening. Now, if this is reformation, may I be forgiven for wishing to remain in my sins.
We did not take possession of our new home until late in the fall—too late, as the neighbours said, to build a new fence that was needed. I disagreed with that opinion, and having bought some cedar posts, which people said would last for ever, a few days after, I turned carpenter, and made a tip-top fence, which the two “governors” complimented when they came to see us. As Christmas approached, we went down to spend the holidays with my father, in the village where I had suffered as a schoolboy. At that place I gave an oyster supper to eighteen of my friends on Christmas Eve, which concluded with certain fantastic performances connected with one of the churches (and which I have since repented of), and I was compelled to quit the place rather suddenly and visit New York.
I found it advisable to remain there some little time, until the Christmas frolic should be forgotten. Away from my wife, time weighed heavily, and I found it difficult to amuse myself. Just then, and it was Saturday afternoon, I stumbled upon a former schoolmate, and while talking about old times, the name of the schoolmaster who had so often abused me was mentioned, and my friend asked me how I would like to see my affectionate preceptor. I replied that I would willingly give fifty dollars to see him, as I was indebted to him for a bruised face. My friend added that he also owed him a small debt, and that we would foul his head-gear in less than forty-eight hours, as the blasted hypocrite was living at Trenton, New Jersey. We at once started for a livery stable, and engaged a horse and buggy for a Sunday cruise. On the following morning we departed for Trenton, and having arrived within three miles of the place, engaged another horse and wagon, and arrived at our place of destination just before the close of morning service. Taking a convenient position, we waited until the people came out of the church, and at length the object of our brotherly solicitude appeared. When separated a little from the crowd, we approached to proffer our respects. He pretended not to recognise us, and when I told him that I had, when a boy, sworn to revenge the wrongs he had committed against me, he manifested some uneasiness. He threatened us with the law and told us to clear out; and then it was that we pitched in, and one after the other, with our fists and a cowhide, we fully accomplished the object of our visit. Two or three citizens attempted to interfere, but when they caught sight of the pistols we carried, they kept quiet until we reached our wagon, and in a moment after we were bound back to New York, where we arrived in safety at a late hour that night. From New York I next day wrote the rascal a letter filled with my private sentiments, but as I heard nothing in reply, I presumed he concluded to view the incident with Christian resignation. I never saw this man afterward, but I know that his bad character prevented him from being ordained as a Presbyterian minister; that he figured for a while as an Episcopal minister in the State of New York, but was turned out of that church when discovered; and when last heard from, he was again following the trade of a schoolmaster.
After this little episode I ventured to return to Connecticut, and was happy to find the talk about the Christmas fantasticals had about blown over, and I only suffered some well-merited reproofs from my parents, who really entertained the opinion that I had not been conducting myself like a staid, married man.
Upon the whole, the first winter of my married life was quite happy. Spring was now approaching, and our neighbours on the Upper Housatonic were preparing for their employment of rafting timber down to the Sound. I was just thinking of trying my hand at that business, when I received a letter from my father-in-law directing me to shut up our house and come down to New York. We obeyed orders, and after going down and spending a night with my own parents, we went directly to headquarters in Brooklyn.
The object of my summons to New York was to have me accept from Captain Williams the command of a small brig, with Jim as my mate, to make a trading voyage to Para in South America, of which quarter of the globe, I may say, I had some slight recollection. My mission was to hunt up horns, hides, and tallow, and as I thought that would be dull business, I felt that I would like to have my wife join me on the voyage. I “said nothing to nobody,” but tipped a wink to her ladyship, and she brought her genius to bear upon the senior captain. He couldn’t say no, and she was counted in. My crew was of the best quality, every one of them old friends, and my second mate a man who was ten years older than myself. At that time liquor was reckoned as part of a ship’s ration, but I offered to each of my men one dollar and eighty cents per month, in addition to their pay, to go without the grog, and they willingly agreed. At the same time, I told them they might take a reasonable supply on private account, but that it would never do for me to see one of them drunk. On the spot we “spliced the main brace,” then hauled into the stream, and I never had cause to complain of a single man for improper conduct as the result of drink.
I have, at this present writing, been about forty years at sea, and believe I know something of matters nautical. I do not hesitate to say that when there is any difficulty between master and men, in nine cases out of ten the fault lies at the door of the master and his officers. The poor sailor is too often swindled and wronged, from the commencement of the voyage until he is turned over to the land-sharks or landlords who so eagerly welcome him to their dens. The little regard for law and justice, the utter absence of principle evinced by many of our business men, would appear incredible, did not the shameful facts too plainly speak for themselves. Our maritime laws decree that every American vessel sailing from an American port must have two-thirds of her crew, and the chief officer or second in command, citizens of the United States. Protections are granted to every American citizen on the production of sufficient authority that he is a citizen. It is supposed some pains might be taken to ascertain these facts. But this is not the case, nor has it ever been difficult to obtain protection without showing any papers whatever; and the result has been that American sailors are one-half the time pushed out of the way by a squad of Dutch, English, Irish, and Portuguese. With regard to our beautiful clipper ships, I firmly believe that at least two-thirds of them are wholly manned by foreigners, to the direct detriment of Americans. When the American sailor is honest and poor, woe be to his prospects of advancement! To such an extent have foreigners got possession of our ships, both in the merchant and naval services, that it is quite common to hear American boys jeered at as Yankees, the term being mixed up with obscene oaths.
It is a fact which cannot be disputed, that amongst our recently manufactured seamen, not more than one in ten can properly cast the lead, scud a vessel with skill, or send down a top-gallant yard properly; and as for stowing a hold, our second mates with rich fathers employ stevedores for such low work, not choosing to dip their hands in tar or slush, as the practice is detrimental to pretty skins, and might render them almost as masculine as their sisters. My opinion is that there has been a retrograde movement in seamanship since the grog rations were curtailed. Poor Jack loses his grog, and the princely owners of our European packets add to their wealth in the same ratio, and can therefore afford to drink the most costly wines, which is all just and very proper, of course. And the custom which has prevailed of decoying good American sailors on board these packets, and after working them hard on the outward passage, of driving them off to obtain foreigners at lower wages, is simply infamous. American sailors have done more than any other class of men to reflect glory upon the national flag, and yet there is not another class which has had to put up with so much wrong and outrage. The rights of American seamen have been most cruelly and shamefully neglected.
When we passed south and were still in sight of the Neversink Hills, my wife came out of the cabin to take a last fond look of the dear old country she was leaving, and she felt pretty blue, but soon got over her bad feelings. A Connecticut girl had volunteered for six dollars per month to come with her as a friend, and they had a chance to do up a big lot of sewing after a few days of sea-sickness. That voyage was completed in five and a half months, and was successful. The real happiness that I enjoyed with my wife seemed to have a softening effect upon my character, and had it not been for one calamity that happened to me a few months afterwards, I suppose I might have settled down, and have become of some use to my country, and lived so as not to have dishonoured my name. The calamity alluded to was the untimely death of my wife. She was one of the very best of women, and very dear to me; and the few letters which she had an opportunity to write to me I value beyond calculation, and I have carried them about with me in all my subsequent wanderings. The love of novelty and excitement made me a wanderer when a boy, and the great grief which came upon me in my prime made me a still more reckless wanderer than I was before. To change the unhappy language of Byron, I can well say from the core of my heart—
The wanderer is alone as heretofore,
The beings which surrounded me are gone,
Or are at war with me; I am a mark
For blight and desolation. Compassed round
With Hatred and Contention: Pain is mixed
In all that is served up to me, until,
Like to the Pontic monarch of old days,
I feed on poisons, and they have no power,
But are a kind of nutriment; and I’ve lived
Through that which had been death to many men.
I was born upon the sea, I have spent the greater part of my life on the sea, and when I come to die I hope to die upon the sea. That I have shed human blood in self-defence I will not deny. That I have defied the laws of the whole world, have preyed on merchant vessels, have evaded the toils of the West India police, and rendered the name of my favourite “Van Tromp” a scarecrow, is all true. Many that I wot of will long remember the Island of Taches and its ghostly dogs, the execution of the unfortunate Alquazil, the terror of Aquadillo, and one in particular will remember with a shudder what were his feelings when he first saw the “Star of Horror” in 1833. This “star” consisted of the bodies of three human beings—poor slaves—impaled upon a single handspike set in a tree above a spring where vessels used to get their water. These things never appeared in the papers, and in their full development they never will. This was all very bad business, and I wish that it could be forgotten. Well, well, my father is dead, and in the cold grave beside him repose the remains of my adored mother. The house where I was born has passed into the hands of strangers, and on the hearthstone of my early home bright fires are annually burning and cheering the hearts of those who never saw me, never loved me, but who have been taught, perhaps, to associate my name with that of the pirate Kidd. Everything that makes life desirable has been wrested from me, and I am often tempted to disown and abandon for ever the land of my fathers. Owing to my long absence, as a rover of the sea, I am compelled to look upon the scenes, and mates, and pleasures of my home as passed away for ever; even the old dog “Watch” would not remember his former playmate. Yes, I have outlived my parents, a great share of my relations, and most of the companions of my youth; have lived the life of a reckless dare-devil, and if I ever had any traits of real goodness, they are so wretchedly conglomerated with my follies, that nothing, I sometimes fear, will ever redeem me from the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity which seem to be my lot.
How happily for us is it ordained that, in the most stirring life there are, here and there, little resting spots for reflection, from which, as from an eminence, we can look over the past, and think about the future. Our youth, when we trusted all things and believed all things, comes back to us, and is reflected in everything we meet, and, like Narcissus, we worship our own image in the stream. As we advance in life, and become engrossed with the anxieties and cares of the world, such periods become more brief and less frequent. Many a bright dream has been dissolved, and fairy vision replaced by some dark reality; and blighted hopes and false friendships have gradually made the heart callous to every gentle feeling. Is it not natural, therefore, that we should love these bright spots in our pathway through life? As we look back upon our career we become convinced that “the child is father of the man;” and how frequently are the projects of our manhood the fruit of some boyish predilection! In the emulative ardour that stirs the schoolboy’s heart we may oftentimes read the record of that high daring which either wrecks or makes a hero of its possessor. These moments, too, are scarcely more pleasurable than they are salutary. That still small voice of conscience, unheard amid the din and bustle of life, speaks audibly to us now; and while chastened by regrets, we are sustained by some approving thought, or by promises for the future, and cannot but feel “how good it is to be here.”
I have served in vessels from a clam-boat to a seventy-four, and in all capacities, in the merchant service, from cook to captain. As a whaleman, I have made several voyages entirely round the world. My last was performed in 1845, 1846, and 1847 in the good ship “Henry” of Sag Harbour, and this voyage I had the vanity to describe in a wretched lot of verses of six hundred lines. During that cruise we visited Kamschatka, New Zealand, New Holland, Japan, the Cape of Good Hope, Cape Horn, the Sandwich Islands, and endured all the hardships of whaling life. Connected as I have been for many years with the Navy, as a man-of-war’s man it may be well enough for me to give a list of the Government vessels in which I have served. My first was the frigate “Macedonian,” in which, under Commodore M. C. Perry, I spent the years 1843, 1844, and part of 1845 on the coast of Africa; after that I made the whaling voyage already mentioned, and on my return, again entered the service, and was transferred to the frigate “Raritan,” for a cruise in the Pacific under Captain Charles Gauntt, who was succeeded by Captain W. W. M‘Kean, and he by Captain C. S. M‘Cauley; I then shipped on board the frigate “Savannah,” first under Captain W. D. Salter, and secondly under Captain Samuel Mercer, for a cruise on the coast of Brazil, during which I acted as a clerk on board the frigate. I subsequently went to China and Japan in the lamented frigate “Mississippi;” and on the breaking out of the rebellion I shipped on board the gun-boat “Pampero” and spent on her the years 1861, 1862, and 1863; from the “Pampero” I was transferred to the United States steamer “Vicksburg,” in which I served a part of 1863, the whole of 1864, and a part of 1865, this having been my last service at sea.
From what I have already recorded in the course of this disjointed narrative, it may be inferred that I have seen something of the world. I only regret that my advantages have not had a more salutary influence upon my reflective powers. Wisdom cometh by experience undoubtedly, but as I have spent very much the life of a fool, I must conclude that mine is the exceptional case which only confirms the universal rule. But I must defend myself by saying that I have occasionally had some thoughts, not wholly frivolous I hope, about the ways of mankind and matters and things in general, which, with my experiences, I have recorded in a kind of private Log-Book, which I have kept by me in my old chest for many years.
But my yarn is getting long and it is time that I should wind it up, and poor Jack may be pardoned, I trust, if he does so with a flourish. I do not pretend to anything like extra intelligence (if I am a Yankee), but I have a sufficient amount of common sense to know that I am not an artist nor a poet. But I have tried my hand at making pictures, and my Log-Book contains a pretty big lot of them. Some of my sketches and charts taken in China were once begged from me by a British Admiral, and were subsequently of service to his fleet in their hostile operations against the Chinese, and for which I was officially thanked by Lord Elgin, the Governor-General; and several of my storm pictures and views of famous places have been engraved and published. I like poetry, have always been a reader of it, and have been fool enough, occasionally, as already stated, to perpetrate some verses. It sounds like nonsense, I know, for a poor old sailor, whose chief business is with tar and the marline-spike, to be talking about poetry and painting, but it is not my fault that God has given me a love for refinement. He intended me for a better fate and a happier life than I have been willing, in my consummate folly, to accept at His hands. May I be forgiven for all that I have done that was wrong, and for having left undone what I should have done.
P.S.—The last time that I saw the hero of the foregoing story, he called upon me at my house in Georgetown, D.C., to borrow a little money, which I gave him most cheerfully. He was then employed in some appropriate capacity at the Washington Navy Yard; and not long afterwards, I received a letter from one of his relatives, informing me of his death, which had occurred on the banks of the Housatonic. He was one of those men who sometimes became admirals, but poor “Tom Cleaveland” was himself his worst enemy, and was always in the way of deserved promotion.
C. L.
THE END
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PRINTED BY T. AND A. CONSTABLE, PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY,
AT THE EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS.
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Two of the chapter headings do not match what is listed in the CONTENTS: “Louis Gamache of Anticosti” is listed in the Contents as “The Wizard of Anticosti”, “Round Cape Horn” is listed in the Contents as “Around Cape Horn”.
Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.
Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.
Book cover is placed in the public domain.
[The end of Recollections of Curious Characters and Pleasant Places by Charles Lanman]