AN OLD TOWN BY THE SEA

by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

 PISCATAQUA RIVER

 Thou singest by the gleaming isles, By woods, and fields of corn, Thou singest, and the sunlight smiles Upon my birthday morn. 

 But I within a city, I, So full of vague unrest, Would almost give my life to lie An hour upon upon thy breast. 

 To let the wherry listless go, And, wrapt in dreamy joy, Dip, and surge idly to and fro, Like the red harbor-buoy;

 To sit in happy indolence, To rest upon the oars, And catch the heavy earthy scents That blow from summer shores;

 To see the rounded sun go down, And with its parting fires Light up the windows of the town And burn the tapering spires;

 And then to hear the muffled tolls From steeples slim and white, And watch, among the Isles of Shoals, The Beacon's orange light. 

 O River! flowing to the main Through woods, and fields of corn, Hear thou my longing and my pain This sunny birthday morn;

 And take this song which fancy shapes To music like thine own, And sing it to the cliffs and capes And crags where I am known!

CONTENTS

 I. CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH II. ALONG THE WATER SIDE III. A STROLL ABOUT TOWN IV. A STROLL ABOUT TOWN (continued) V. OLD STRAWBERRY BANK VI. SOME OLD PORTSMOUTH PROFILES VII. PERSONAL REMINISCENCES

 INDEX OF NAMES

AN OLD TOWN BY THE SEA

I. CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH

I CALL it an old town, but it is only relatively old. When one reflectson the countless centuries that have gone to the for-mation of thiscrust of earth on which we temporarily move, the most ancient cities onits surface seem merely things of the week before last. It was only theother day, then--that is to say, in the month of June, 1603--that oneMartin Pring, in the ship Speedwell, an enormous ship of nearly fiftytons burden, from Bristol, England, sailed up the Piscataqua River. TheSpeedwell, numbering thirty men, officers and crew, had for consort theDiscoverer, of twenty-six tons and thirteen men. After following thewindings of "the brave river" for twelve miles or more, the two vesselsturned back and put to sea again, having failed in the chief objectof the expedition, which was to obtain a cargo of the medicinalsassafras-tree, from the bark of which, as well known to our ancestors, could be distilled the Elixir of Life. 

It was at some point on the left bank of the Piscataqua, three or fourmiles from the mouth of the river, that worthy Master Pring probablyeffected one of his several landings. The beautiful stream widenssuddenly at this place, and the green banks, then covered with a networkof strawberry vines, and sloping invitingly to the lip of the crystalwater, must have won the tired mariners. 

The explorers found themselves on the edge of a vast forest of oak, hemlock, maple, and pine; but they saw no sassafras-trees to speak of, nor did they encounter--what would have been infinitely less to theirtaste--and red-men. Here and there were discoverable the scattered ashesof fires where the Indians had encamped earlier in the spring; theywere absent now, at the silvery falls, higher up the stream, where fishabounded at that season. The soft June breeze, laden with the delicatebreath of wild-flowers and the pungent odors of spruce and pine, ruffledthe duplicate sky in the water; the new leaves lisped pleasantly in thetree tops, and the birds were singing as if they had gone mad. No rudersound or movement of life disturbed the primeval solitude. Master Pringwould scarcely recognize the spot were he to land there to-day. 

Eleven years afterwards a much cleverer man than the commander of theSpeedwell dropped anchor in the Piscataqua--Captain John Smith of famousmemory. After slaying Turks in hand-to-hand combats, and doing all sortsof doughty deeds wherever he chanced to decorate the globe with hispresence, he had come with two vessels to the fisheries on the rockyselvage of Maine, when curiosity, or perhaps a deeper motive, led himto examine the neighboring shore lines. With eight of his men in a smallboat, a ship's yawl, he skirted the coast from Penobscot Bay to CapeCod, keeping his eye open. This keeping his eye open was a peculiarityof the little captain; possibly a family trait. It was Smith who reallydiscovered the Isles of Shoals, exploring in person those masses ofbleached rock--those "isles assez hautes, " of which the French navigatorPierre de Guast, Sieur de Monts, had caught a bird's-eye glimpse throughthe twilight in 1605. Captain Smith christened the group Smith's Isles, a title which posterity, with singular persistence of ingratitude, hasignored. It was a tardy sense of justice that expressed itself a fewyears ago in erecting on Star Island a simple marble shaft to the memoryof JOHN SMITH--the multitudinous! Perhaps this long delay is explainedby a natural hesitation to label a monument so ambiguously. 

The modern Jason, meanwhile, was not without honor in his own country, whatever may have happened to him in his own house, for the poet GeorgeWither addressed a copy of pompous verses "To his Friend Captain Smith, upon his Description of New England. " "Sir, " he says--

 "Sir: your Relations I haue read: which shew Ther's reason I should honor them and you: And if their meaning I have vnderstood, I dare to censure thus: Your Project's good; And may (if follow'd) doubtlesse quit the paine With honour, pleasure and a trebble gaine; Beside the benefit that shall arise To make more happy our Posterities. "

The earliest map of this portion of our seaboard was prepared by Smithand laid before Prince Charles, who asked to give the country a name. Hechristened it New England. In that remarkable map the site of Portsmouthis call Hull, and Kittery and York are known as Boston. 

It was doubtless owing to Captain John Smith's representation on hisreturn to England that the Laconia Company selected the banks of thePiscataqua for their plantation. Smith was on an intimate footingwith Sir Ferinand Gorges, who, five years subsequently, made a tour ofinspection along the New England coast, in company with John Mason, thenGovernor of Newfoundland. One of the results of this summer cruise isthe town of Portsmouth, among whose leafy ways, and into some of whoseold-fashioned houses, I purpose to take the reader, if he have an idlehour on his hands. Should we meet the flitting ghost of some old-timeworthy, on the staircase or at a lonely street corner, the reader mustbe prepared for it. 

II. ALONG THE WATER SIDE

IT is not supposable that the early settlers selected the site of theirplantation on account of its picturesqueness. They were influencedentirely by the lay of the land, its nearness and easy access to thesea, and the secure harbor it offered to their fishing-vessels; yet theycould not have chosen a more beautiful spot had beauty been the soleconsideration. The first settlement was made at Odiorne's Point--thePilgrims' Rock of New Hampshire; there the Manor, or Mason's Hall, wasbuilt by the Laconia Company in 1623. It was not until 1631 that theGreat House was erected by Humphrey Chadborn on Strawberry Bank. Mr. Chadborn, consciously or unconsciously, sowed a seed from which a cityhas sprung. 

The town of Portsmouth stretches along the south bank of the Piscataqua, about two miles from the sea as the crow flies--three miles followingthe serpentine course of the river. The stream broadens suddenly at thispoint, and at flood tide, lying without a ripple in a basin formed bythe interlocked islands and the mainland, it looks more like an islandlake than a river. To the unaccustomed eye there is no visible outlet. Standing on one of the wharves at the foot of State Street or CourtStreet, a stranger would at first scarcely suspect the contiguity of theocean. A little observation, however, would show him that he was in aseaport. The rich red rust on the gables and roofs of ancient buildingslooking seaward would tell him that. There is a fitful saline flavor inthe air, and if while he gazed a dense white fog should come rolling in, like a line of phantom breakers, he would no longer have any doubts. 

It is of course the oldest part of the town that skirts the river, though few of the notable houses that remain are to be found there. Likeall New England settlements, Portsmouth was built of wood, and has beensubjected to extensive conflagrations. You rarely come across a brickbuilding that is not shockingly modern. The first house of the kind waserected by Richard Wibird towards the close of the seventeenth century. 

Though many of the old landmarks have been swept away by the fatefulhand of time and fire, the town impresses you as a very old town, especially as you saunter along the streets down by the river. Theworm-eaten wharves, some of them covered by a sparse, unhealthy beard ofgrass, and the weather-stained, unoccupied warehouses are sufficientto satisfy a moderate appetite for antiquity. These deserted piersand these long rows of empty barracks, with their sarcastic cranesprojecting from the eaves, rather puzzle the stranger. Why this greatpreparation for a commercial activity that does not exist, and evidentlyhad not for years existed? There are no ships lying at the pier-heads;there are no gangs of stevedores staggering under the heavy cases ofmerchandise; here and there is a barge laden down to the bulwarks withcoal, and here and there a square-rigged schooner from Maine smotheredwith fragrant planks and clapboards; an imported citizen is fishing atthe end of the wharf, a ruminative freckled son of Drogheda, in perfectsympathy with the indolent sunshine that seems to be sole proprietorof these crumbling piles and ridiculous warehouses, from which even theghost of prosperity has flown. 

Once upon a time, however, Portsmouth carried on an extensive trade withthe West Indies, threatening as a maritime port to eclipse both Bostonand New York. At the windows of these musty counting-rooms whichoverlook the river near Spring Market used to stand portly merchants, in knee breeches and silver shoe-buckles and plum-colored coats withruffles at the wrist, waiting for their ships to come up the Narrows;the cries of stevedores and the chants of sailors at the windlass usedto echo along the shore where all is silence now. For reasons not worthsetting forth, the trade with the Indies abruptly closed, having ruinedas well as enriched many a Portsmouth adventurer. This explainsthe empty warehouses and the unused wharves. Portsmouth remains theinteresting widow of a once very lively commerce. I fancy that fewfortunes are either made or lost in Portsmouth nowadays. Formerly itturned out the best ships, as it did the ablest ship captains, in theworld. There were families in which the love for blue water wasin immemorial trait. The boys were always sailors; "a grey-headedshipmaster, in each generation, retiring from the quarter-deck to thehomestead, while a boy of fourteen took the hereditary place before themast, confronting the salt spray and the gale, which had blasted againsthis sire and grandsire. " (1. Hawthorne in his introduction to TheScarlet Letter. ) With thousands of miles of sea-line and a score or twoof the finest harbors on the globe, we have adroitly turned over ourcarrying trade to foreign nations. 

In other days, as I have said, a high maritime spirit was characteristicof Portsmouth. The town did a profitable business in the war of 1812, sending out a large fleet of the sauciest small craft on record. Apleasant story is told of one of these little privateers--the Harlequin, owned and commanded by Captain Elihu Brown. The Harlequin one day gavechase to a large ship, which did not seem to have much fight aboard, and had got it into close quarters, when suddenly the shy stranger threwopen her ports, and proved to be His Majesty's Ship-of-War Bulwark, seventy-four guns. Poor Captain Brown!

Portsmouth has several large cotton factories and one or two corpulentbreweries; it is a wealthy old town, with a liking for first mortgagebonds; but its warmest lover will not claim for it the distinctionof being a great mercantile centre. The majority of her young men areforced to seek other fields to reap, and almost every city in the Union, and many a city across the sea, can point to some eminent merchant, lawyer, or what not, as "a Portsmouth boy. " Portsmouth even furnishedthe late king of the Sandwich Islands, Kekuanaoa, with a prime minister, and his nankeen Majesty never had a better. The affection which allthese exiles cherish for their birthplace is worthy of remark. On twooccasions--in 1852 and 1873, the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary ofthe settlement of Strawberry Bank--the transplanted sons of Portsmouthwere seized with an impulse to return home. Simultaneously and almostwithout concerted action, the lines of pilgrims took up their march fromevery quarter of the globe, and swept down with music and banners on themotherly old town. 

To come back to the wharves. I do not know of any spot with such afascinating air of dreams and idleness about it as the old wharf at theend of Court Street. The very fact that it was once a noisy, busy place, crowded with sailors and soldiers--in the war of 1812--gives an emphasisto the quiet that broods over it to-day. The lounger who sits of asummer afternoon on a rusty anchor fluke in the shadow of one of thesilent warehouses, and look on the lonely river as it goes murmuringpast the town, cannot be too grateful to the India trade for havingtaken itself off elsewhere. 

What a slumberous, delightful, lazy place it is! The sunshine seems tolie a foot deep on the planks of the dusty wharf, which yields up to thewarmth a vague perfume of the cargoes of rum, molasses, and spicethat used to be piled upon it. The river is as blue as the inside of aharebell. The opposite shore, in the strangely shifting magic lightsof sky and water, stretches along like the silvery coast of fairyland. Directly opposite you is the navy yard, and its neat officers' quartersand workshops and arsenals, and its vast shiphouses, in which the keelof many a famous frigate has been laid. Those monster buildings on thewater's edge, with their roofs pierced with innumerable little windows, which blink like eyes in the sunlight, and the shiphouses. On yourright lies a cluster of small islands, --there are a dozen or more in theharbor--on the most extensive of which you see the fading-away remainsof some earthworks thrown up in 1812. Between this--Trefethren'sIsland--and Peirce's Island lie the Narrows. Perhaps a bark or asloop-of-war is making up to town; the hulk is hidden amoung theislands, and the topmasts have the effect of sweeping across the dryland. On your left is a long bridge, more than a quarter of a mile inlength, set upon piles where the water is twenty or thirty feet deep, leading to the navy yard and Kittery--the Kittery so often the theme ofWhittier's verse. 

This is a mere outline of the landscape that spreads before you. Itschangeful beauty of form and color, with the summer clouds floatingover it, is not to be painted in words. I know of many a place where thescenery is more varied and striking; but there is a mandragora qualityin the atmosphere here that holds you to the spot, and makes thehalf-hours seem like minutes. I could fancy a man sitting on the endof that old wharf very contentedly for two or three years, provided itcould be always in June. 

Perhaps, too, one would desire it to be always high water. The tidefalls from eight to twelve feet, and when the water makes out betweenthe wharves some of the picturesqueness makes out also. A corrodedsection of stovepipe mailed in barnacles, or the skeleton of a hoopskirtprotruding from the tide mud like the remains of some old-time wreck, isapt to break the enchantment. 

I fear I have given the reader an exaggerated idea of the solitudethat reigns along the river-side. Sometimes there is society here ofan unconventional kind, if you care to seek it. Aside from the foreigngentleman before mentioned, you are likely to encounter, farther downthe shore toward the Point of Graves (a burial-place of the colonialperiod), a battered and aged native fisherman boiling lobsters on alittle gravelly bench, where the river whispers and lisps among thepebbles as the tide creeps in. It is a weather-beaten ex-skipper orex-pilot, with strands of coarse hair, like seaweed, falling about aface that has the expression of a half-open clam. He is always readyto talk with you, this amphibious person; and if he is not the mostentertaining of gossips--more weather-wise that Old Probabilities, and as full of moving incident as Othello himself--then he is not thewintery-haired shipman I used to see a few years ago on the strip ofbeach just beyond Liberty Bridge, building his drift-wood fire under agreat tin boiler, and making it lively for a lot of reluctant lobsters. 

I imagine that very little change has taken place in this immediatelocality, known prosaically as Puddle Dock, during the past fifty orsixty years. The view you get looking across Liberty Bridge, WaterStreet, is probably the same in every respect that presented itself tothe eyes of the town folk a century ago. The flagstaff, on the right, is the representative of the old "standard of liberty" which the Sonsplanted on this spot in January, 1766, signalizing their oppositionto the enforcement of the Stamp Act. On the same occasion the patriotscalled at the house of Mr. George Meserve, the agent for distributingthe stamps in New Hampshire, and relieved him of his stamp-master'scommission, which document they carried on the point of a sword throughthe town to Liberty Bridge (the Swing Bridge), where they erected thestaff, with the motto, "Liberty, Property, and no Stamp!"

The Stamp Act was to go into operation on the first day of November. Onthe previous morning the "New Hampshire Gazette" appeared with a deepblack border and all the typographical emblems of affliction, for wasnot Liberty dead? At all events, the "Gazette" itself was as good asdead, since the printer could no longer publish it if he were to behandicapped by a heavy tax. "The day was ushered in by the tollingof all the bells in town, the vessels in the harbor had their colorshoisted half-mast high; about three o'clock a funeral procession wasformed, having a coffin with this inscription, LIBERTY, AGED 145, STAMPT. It moved from the state house, with two unbraced drums, throughthe principal streets. As it passed the Parade, minute-guns were fired;at the place of interment a speech was delivered on the occasion, stating the many advantages we had received and the melancholy prospectbefore us, at the seeming departure of our invaluable liberties. Butsome sign of life appearing, Liberty was not deposited in the grave;it was rescued by a number of her sons, the motto changed to Libertyrevived, and carried off in triumph. The detestable Act was buried inits stead, and the clods of the valley were laid upon it; the bellschanged their melancholy sound to a more joyful tone. " (1. Annals ofPortsmouth, by Nathaniel Adams, 1825. )

With this side glance at one of the curious humors of the time, weresume our peregrinations. 

Turning down a lane on your left, a few rods beyond Liberty Bridge, you reach a spot known as the Point of Graves, chiefly interesting asshowing what a graveyard may come to if it last long enough. In 1671 oneCaptain John Pickering, of whom we shall have more to say, ceded tothe town a piece of ground on this neck for burial purposes. It is anodd-shaped lot, comprising about half an acre, inclosed by a crumblingred brick wall two or three feet high, with wood capping. The placeis overgrown with thistles, rank grass, and fungi; the black slateheadstones have mostly fallen over; those that still make a pretense ofstanding slant to every point of the compass, and look as if theywere being blown this way and that by a mysterious gale which leaveseverything else untouched; the mounds have sunk to the common level, andthe old underground tombs have collapsed. Here and there the moss andweeds you can pick out some name that shines in the history of the earlysettlement; hundreds of the flower of the colony lie here, but theknown and the unknown, gentle and simple, mingle their dust on a perfectequality now. The marble that once bore a haughty coat of arms is assmooth as the humblest slate stone guiltless of heraldry. The lion andthe unicorn, wherever they appear on some cracked slab, are very muchtamed by time. The once fat-faced cherubs, with wing at either cheek, are the merest skeletons now. Pride, pomp, grief, and remembrance areall at end. No reverent feet come here, no tears fall here; the oldgraveyard itself is dead! A more dismal, uncanny spot than this attwilight would be hard to find. It is noticed that when the boys passit after nightfall, they always go by whistling with a gayety that isperfectly hollow. 

Let us get into some cheerfuler neighborhood!

III. A STROLL ABOUT TOWN

AS you leave the river front behind you, and pass "up town, " the streetsgrow wider, and the architecture becomes more ambitious--streets fringedwith beautiful old trees and lined with commodious private dwellings, mostly square white houses, with spacious halls running through thecentre. Previous to the Revolution, white paint was seldom used onhouses, and the diamond-shaped window pane was almost universal. Many ofthe residences stand back from the brick or flagstone sidewalk, and havepretty gardens at the side or in the rear, made bright with dahlias andsweet with cinnamon roses. If you chance to live in a town where theauthorities cannot rest until they have destroyed every precious treewithin their blighting reach, you will be especially charmed by thebeauty of the streets of Portsmouth. In some parts of the town, whenthe chestnuts are in blossom, you would fancy yourself in a garden infairyland. In spring, summer, and autumn the foliage is the glory of thefair town--her luxuriant green and golden treeses! Nothing could seemmore like the work of enchantment than the spectacle which certainstreets in Portsmouth present in the midwinter after a heavy snowstorm. You may walk for miles under wonderful silvery arches formed by theoverhanging and interlaced boughs of the trees, festooned with a draperyeven more graceful and dazzling than springtime gives them. The numerouselms and maples which shade the principal thoroughfares are not theresult of chance, but the ample reward of the loving care that is takento preserve the trees. There is a society in Portsmouth devoted toarboriculture. It is not unusual there for persons to leave legaciesto be expended in setting out shade and ornamental trees along somefavorite walk. Richards Avenue, a long, unbuilt thoroughfare leadingfrom Middle Street to the South Burying-Ground, perpetuates the name ofa citizen who gave the labor of his own hands to the beautifying of thatwindswept and barren road the cemetery. This fondness and care for treesseems to be a matter of heredity. So far back as 1660 the selectmeninstituted a fine of five shillings for the cutting of timber or anyother wood from off the town common, excepting under special conditions. 

In the business section of the town trees are few. The chief businessstreets are Congress and Market. Market Street is the stronghold ofthe dry-goods shops. There are seasons, I suppose, when these shops arecrowded, but I have never happened to be in Portsmouth at the time. Iseldom pass through the narrow cobble-paved street without wonderingwhere the customers are that must keep all these flourishing littleestablishments going. Congress Street--a more elegant thoroughfarethan Market--is the Nevski Prospekt of Portsmouth. Among the prominentbuildings is the Athenaeum, containing a reading-room and library. From the high roof of this building the stroller will do well to takea glance at the surrounding country. He will naturally turn seawardfor the more picturesque aspects. If the day is clear, he will see thefamous Isle of Shoals, lying nine miles away--Appledore, Smutty-Nose, Star Island, White Island, etc. ; there are nine of them in all. OnAppledore is Laighton's Hotel, and near it the summer cottage of CeliaThaxter, the poet of the Isles. On the northern end of Star Island isthe quaint town of Gosport, with a tiny stone church perched like asea-gull on its highest rock. A mile southwest form Star Island liesWhite Island, on which is a lighthouse. Mrs. Thaxter calls this the mostpicturesque of the group. Perilous neighbors, O mariner! in any butthe serenest weather, these wrinkled, scarred, are storm-smitten rocks, flanked by wicked sunken ledges that grow white at the lip with ragewhen the great winds blow!

How peaceful it all looks off there, on the smooth emerald sea! and howsoftly the waves seem to break on yonder point where the unfinishedfort is! That is the ancient town of Newcastle, to reach which fromPortsmouth you have to cross three bridges with the most enchantingscenery in New Hampshire lying on either hand. At Newcastle the poetStedman has built for his summerings an enviable little stone chateau--aseashell into which I fancy the sirens creep to warm themselves duringthe winter months. So it is never without its singer. 

Opposite Newcastle is Kittery Point, a romantic spot, where Sir WilliamPepperell, the first American baronet, once lived, and where his tombnow is, in his orchard across the road, a few hundred yards from the"goodly mansion" he built. The knight's tomb and the old PepperellHouse, which has been somewhat curtailed of it fair proportions, are theobjects of frequent pilgrimages to Kittery Point. 

From the elevation (the roof of the Athenaeun) the navy yard, theriver with its bridges and islands, the clustered gables of Kittery andNewcastle, the illimitable ocean beyond make a picture worth climbingfour or five flights of stairs to gaze upon. Glancing down on the townnestled in the foliage, it seems like a town dropped by chance in themidst of a forest. Among the prominent objects which lift themselvesabove the tree tops are the belfries of the various churches, thewhite façade of the custom house, and the mansard and chimneys of theRockingham, the principal hotel. The pilgrim will be surprised to findin Portsmouth one of the most completely appointed hotels in the UnitedStates. The antiquarian may lament the demolition of the old BellTavern, and think regretfully of the good cheer once furnished thewayfarer by Master Stavers at the sign of the Earl of Halifax, and byMaster Stoodley at his inn on Daniel Street; but the ordinary travelerwill thank his stars, and confess that his lines have fallen in pleasantplaces, when he finds himself among the frescoes of the Rockingham. 

Obliquely opposite the doorstep of the Athenaeum--we are supposed to beon terra firma again--stands the Old North Church, a substantial woodenbuilding, handsomely set on what is called The Parade, a large openspace formed by the junction of Congress, Market, Daniel, and Pleasantstreets. Here in days innocent of water-works stood the town pump, whichon more than one occasion served as whipping-post. 

The churches of Portsmouth are more remarkable for their number thantheir architecture. With the exception of the Stone Church they areconstructed of wood or plain brick in the simplest style. St. John'sChurch is the only one likely to attract the eye of a stranger. Itis finely situated on the crest of Church Hill, overlooking theever-beautiful river. The present edifice was built in 1808 on the siteof what was known as Queen's Chapel, erected in 1732, and destroyed byfire December 24, 1806. The chapel was named in honor of Queen Caroline, who furnished the books for the altar and pulpit, the plate, and twosolid mahogany chairs, which are still in use in St. John's. Within thechancel rail is a curious font of porphyry, taken by Colonel John TuftonMason at the capture of Senegal from the French in 1758, and presentedto the Episcopal Society on 1761. The peculiarly sweet-toned bellwhich calls the parishioners of St. John's together every Sabbath is, I believe, the same that formerly hung in the belfry of the old Queen'sChapel. If so, the bell has a history of its own. It was brought fromLouisburg at the time of the reduction of that place in 1745, and givento the church by the officers of the New Hampshire troops. 

The Old South Meeting-House is not to be passed without mention. It isamong the most aged survivals of pre-revolutionary days. Neither itsarchitecture not its age, however, is its chief warrant for our notice. The absurd number of windows in this battered old structure is whatstrikes the passer-by. The church was erected by subscription, andthese closely set large windows are due to Henry Sherburne, one of thewealthiest citizens of the period, who agreed to pay for whatever glasswas used. If the building could have been composed entirely of glass itwould have been done by the thrifty parishioners. 

Portsmouth is rich in graveyards--they seem to be a New Englandspecialty--ancient and modern. Among the old burial-places the oneattached to St. John's Church is perhaps the most interesting. It hasnot been permitted to fall into ruin, like the old cemetery at the Pointof Graves. When a headstone here topples over it is kindly lifted upand set on its pins again, and encouraged to do its duty. If it utterlyrefuses, and is not shamming decrepitude, it has its face sponged, andis allowed to rest and sun itself against the wall of the church with arow of other exempts. The trees are kept pruned, the grass trimmed, and here and there is a rosebush drooping with a weight of pensive paleroses, as becomes a rosebush in a churchyard. 

The place has about it an indescribable soothing atmosphere ofrespectability and comfort. Here rest the remains of the principal andloftiest in rank in their generation of the citizens of Portsmouth priorto the Revolution--stanch, royalty-loving governors, counselors, andsecretaries of the Providence of New Hampshire, all snugly gatheredunder the motherly wing of the Church of England. It is almostimpossible to walk anywhere without stepping on a governor. You growhaughty in spirit after a while, and scorn to tread on anything lessthan one of His Majesty's colonels or secretary under the Crown. Hereare the tombs of the Atkinsons, the Jaffreys, the Sherburnes, theSheafes, the Marshes, the Mannings, the Gardners, and others of thequality. All around you underfoot are tumbled-in coffins, with here andthere a rusty sword atop, and faded escutcheons, and crumbling armorialdevices. You are moving in the very best society. 

This, however, is not the earliest cemetery in Portsmouth. An hour'swalk from the Episcopal yard will bring you to the spot, alreadymentioned, where the first house was built and the first grave made, at Odiorne's Point. The exact site of the Manor is not known, but it issupposed to be a few rods north of an old well of still-flowing water, at which the Tomsons and the Hiltons and their comrades slaked theirthirst more than two hundred and sixty years ago. Oriorne's Point isowned by Mr. Eben L. Odiorne, a lineal descendant of the worthy who heldthe property in 1657. Not far from the old spring is the resting-placeof the earliest pioneers. 

"This first cemetery of the white man in New Hampshire, " writes Mr. Brewster, (1. Mr. Charles W. Brewster, for nearly fifty years theeditor of the Portsmouth Journal, and the author of two volumes oflocal sketches to which the writer of these pages here acknowledges hisindebtedness. ) "occupies a space of perhaps one hundred feet by ninety, and is well walled in. The western side is now used as a burial-placefor the family, but two thirds of it is filled with perhaps fortygraves, indicated by rough head and foot stones. Who there rest no onenow living knows. But the same care is taken of their quiet beds as ifthey were of the proprietor's own family. In 1631 Mason sent over abouteighty emigrants many of whom died in a few years, and here they wereprobably buried. Here too, doubtless, rest the remains of several ofthose whose names stand conspicuous in our early state records. "

IV. A STROLL ABOUT TOWN (continued)

WHEN Washington visited Portsmouth in 1789 he was not much impressed bythe architecture of the little town that had stood by him so stoutly inthe struggle for independence. "There are some good houses, " hewrites, in a diary kept that year during a tour through Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, "among which Colonel Langdon's maybe esteemed the first; but in general they are indifferent, and almostentirely of wood. On wondering at this, as the country is full of stoneand good clay for bricks, I was told that on account of the fogs anddamp they deemed them wholesomer, and for that reason preferred woodbuildings. "

The house of Colonel Langdon, on Pleasant Street, is an excellent sampleof the solid and dignified abodes which our great-grandsires had thesense to build. The art of their construction seems to have been a lostart these fifty years. Here Governor John Langdon resided from 1782until the time of his death in 1819--a period during which many anillustrious man passed between those two white pillars that support thelittle balcony over the front door; among the rest Louis Philippe andhis brothers, the Ducs de Montpensier and Beaujolais, and the Marquis deChastellus, a major-general in the French army, serving under the Countde Rochambeau, whom he accompanied from France to the States in 1780. The journal of the marquis contains this reference to his host: "Afterdinner we went to drink tea with Mr. Langdon. He is a handsome man, andof noble carriage; he has been a member of Congress, and is now oneof the first people of the country; his house is elegant and wellfurnished, and the apartments admirably well wainscoted" (this readslike Mr. Samuel Pepys); "and he has a good manuscript chart of theharbor of Portsmouth. Mrs. Langdon, his wife, is young, fair, andtolerably handsome, but I conversed less with her than her husband, inwhose favor I was prejudiced from knowing that he had displayed greatcourage and patriotism at the time of Burgoynes's expedition. "

It was at the height of the French Revolution that the three sons of theDue d'Orleans were entertained at the Langdon mansion. Years afterward, when Louis Philippe was on the throne of France, he inquired of aPortsmouth lady presented at his court if the mansion of ce braveGouverneur Langdon was still in existence. 

The house stands back a decorous distance from the street, underthe shadows of some gigantic oaks or elms, and presents an imposingappearance as you approach it over the tessellated marble walk. Ahundred or two feet on either side of the gate, and abutting onthe street, is a small square building of brick, one story inheight--probably the porter's lodge and tool-house of former days. Thereis a large fruit garden attached to the house, which is in excellentcondition, taking life comfortably, and having the complacent air of awell-preserved beau of the ancien regime. The Langdon mansion wasowned and long occupied by the late Rev. Dr. Burroughs, for a period offorty-seven years the esteemed rector or St. John's Church. 

At the other end of Pleasant Street is another notable house, to whichwe shall come by and by. Though President Washington found Portsmouthbut moderately attractive from an architectural point of view, thevisitor of to-day, if he have an antiquarian taste, will find himselfembarrassed by the number of localities and buildings that appeal to hisinterest. Many of these buildings were new and undoubtedly commonplaceenough at the date of Washington's visit; time and association havegiven them a quaintness and a significance which now make theirarchitecture a question of secondary importance. 

One might spend a fortnight in Portsmouth exploring the nooks andcorners over which history has thrown a charm, and by no means exhaustthe list. I cannot do more than attempt to describe--and that verybriefly--a few of the typical old houses. On this same Pleasant Streetthere are several which we must leave unnoted, with their spacioushalls and carven staircases, their antiquated furniture and old silvertankards and choice Copleys. Numerous examples of this artist's bestmanner are to be found here. To live in Portsmouth without possessing afamily portrait done by Copley is like living in Boston without havingan ancestor in the old Granary Burying-Ground. You can exist, but youcannot be said to flourish. To make this statement smooth, I will remarkthat every one in Portsmouth has a Copley--or would have if a fairdivision were made. 

In the better sections of the town the houses are kept in such excellentrepair, and have so smart an appearance with their bright green blindsand freshly painted woodwork, that you are likely to pass many an oldlandmark without suspecting it. Whenever you see a house with a gambrelroof, you may be almost positive that the house is at least ahundred years old, for the gambrel roof went out of fashion after theRevolution. 

On the corner of Daniel and Chapel streets stands the oldest brickbuilding in Portsmouth--the Warner House. It was built in 1718 byCaptain Archibald Macpheadris, a Scotchman, as his name indicates, awealthy merchant, and a member of the King's Council. He was the chiefprojector of one of the earliest iron-works established in America. Captain Macpheadris married Sarah Wentworth, one of the sixteen childrenof Governor John Wentworth, and died in 1729, leaving a daughter, Mary, whose portrait, with that of her mother, painted by the ubiquitousCopley, still hangs in the parlor of this house, which is not known bythe name of Captain Macpheadris, but by that of his son-in-law, Hon. Jonathan Warner, a member of the King's Council until the revolt of thecolonies. "We well recollect Mr. Warner, " says Mr. Brewster, writing in1858, "as one of the last of the cocked hats. As in a vision of earlychildhood he is still before us, in all the dignity of the aristocraticcrown officers. That broad-backed, long-skirted brown coat, thosesmall-clothes and silk stockings, those silver buckles, and thatcane--we see them still, although the life that filled and moved themceased half a century ago. "

The Warner House, a three-story building with gambrel roof and luthernwindows, is as fine and substantial an exponent of the architecture ofthe period as you are likely to meet with anywhere in New England. Theeighteen-inch walls are of brick brought from Holland, as were also manyof the materials used in the building--the hearth-stones, tiles, etc. Hewn-stone underpinnings were seldom adopted in those days; thebrick-work rests directly upon the solid walls of the cellar. Theinterior is rich in paneling and wood carvings about the mantel-shelves, the deep-set windows, and along the cornices. The halls are wide andlong, after a by-gone fashion, with handsome staircases, set at an easyangle, and not standing nearly upright, like those ladders by which onereaches the upper chambers of a modern house. The principal rooms arepaneled to the ceiling, and have large open chimney-places, adorned withthe quaintest of Dutch files. In one of the parlors of the Warner Housethere is a choice store of family relics--china, silver-plate, costumes, old clocks, and the like. There are some interesting paintings, too--notby Copley this time. On a broad space each side of the hall windows, atthe head of the staircase, are pictures of two Indians, life size. Theyare probably portraits of some of the numerous chiefs with whom CaptainMacphaedris had dealings, for the captain was engaged in the fur aswell as in the iron business. Some enormous elk antlers, presented toMacpheadris by his red friends, are hanging in the lower hall. 

By mere chance, thirty or forty years ago, some long-hidden paintingson the walls of this lower hall were brought to light. In repairing thefront entry it became necessary to remove the paper, of which four orfive layers had accumulated. A one place, where several coats had peeledoff cleanly, a horse's hoof was observed by a little girl of the family. The workman then began removing the paper carefully; first the legs, then the body of a horse with a rider were revealed, and the astonishedpaper-hanger presently stood before a life-size representation ofGovernor Phipps on his charger. The workman called other persons tohis assistance, and the remaining portions of the wall were speedilystripped, laying bare four or five hundred square feet covered withsketches in color, landscapes, views of unknown cities, Biblical scenes, and modern figure-pieces, among which was a lady at a spinning-wheel. Until then no person in the land of the living had had any knowledgeof those hidden pictures. An old dame of eighty, who had visited at thehouse intimately ever since her childhood, all but refused to believeher spectacles (though Supply Ham made them(1. )) when brought face toface with the frescoes. (1. In the early part of this century, SupplyHam was the leading optician and watchmaker of Portsmouth. )

The place is rich in bricabrac, but there is nothing more curious thatthese incongruous printings, clearly the work of a practiced hand. Even the outside of the old edifice is not without its interest for anantiquarian. The lightening-rod which protects the Warner House to-daywas put up under Benjamin Franklin's own supervision in 1762--such atall events is the credited tradition--and is supposed to be the firstrod put up in New Hampshire. A lightening-rod "personally conducted"by Benjamin Franklin ought to be an attractive object to even the leastsusceptible electricity. The Warner House has another imperative claimon the good-will of the visitor--it is not positively known that GeorgeWashington ever slept there. 

The same assertion cannot be made on connection with the old yellowbarracks situated in the southwest corner of Court and Atkinson streets. Famous old houses seem to have an intuitive perception of the value ofcorner lots. If it is a possible thing, they always set themselves downon the most desirable spots. It is beyond a doubt that Washington sleptnot only one night, but several nights, under this roof; for this wasa celebrated tavern previous and subsequent to the War of Independence, and Washington made it his headquarters during his visit to Portsmouthin 1797. When I was a boy I knew an old lady--not one of thepreposterous old ladies in the newspapers, who have all their facultiesunimpaired, but a real old lady, whose ninety-nine years were beginningto tell on her--who had known Washington very well. She was a girl inher teens when he came to Portsmouth. The President was the staple ofher conversation during the last ten years of her life, which she passedin the Stavers House, bedridden; and I think those ten years were in amanner rendered short and pleasant to the old gentlewoman by the memoryof a compliment to her complexion which Washington probably never paidto it. 

The old hotel--now a very unsavory tenement-house--was built by JohnTavers, innkeeper, in 1770, who planted in front of the door a tallpost, from which swung the sign of the Earl of Halifax. Stavers hadpreviously kept an inn of the same name on Queen, now State Street. 

It is a square three-story building, shabby and dejected, giving no hintof the really important historical associations that cluster about it. At the time of its erection it was no doubt considered a rather grandstructure, for buildings of three stories were rare in Portsmouth. Evenin 1798, of the six hundred and twenty-six dwelling houses of which thetown boasted, eighty-six were of one story, five hundred and twenty-fourwere of two stories, and only sixteen of three stories. The Stavers innhas the regulation gambrel roof, but is lacking in those wood ornamentswhich are usually seen over the doors and windows of the more prominenthouses of that epoch. It was, however, the hotel of the period. 

That same worn doorstep upon which Mr. O'Shaughnessy now stretcheshimself of a summer afternoon, with a short clay pipe stuck betweenhis lips, and his hat crushed down on his brows, revolving the sadvicissitude of things--that same doorstep has been pressed by the feetof generals and marquises and grave dignitaries upon whom depended thedestiny of the States--officers in gold lace and scarlet cloth, andhigh-heeled belles in patch, powder, and paduasoy. At this door theFlying Stage Coach, which crept from Boston, once a week set down itsload of passengers--and distinguished passengers they often were. Mostof the chief celebrities of the land, before and after the secession ofthe colonies, were the guests of Master Stavers, at the sign of the Earlof Halifax. 

While the storm was brewing between the colonies and the mother country, it was in a back room of the tavern that the adherents of the crown metto discuss matters. The landlord himself was a amateur loyalist, and when the full cloud was on the eve of breaking he had an earlyintimation of the coming tornado. The Sons of Liberty had long watchedwith sullen eyes the secret sessions of the Tories in Master Stavers'stavern, and one morning the patriots quietly began cutting down the postwhich supported the obnoxious emblem. Mr. Stavers, who seems not to havebeen belligerent himself, but the cause of belligerence in others, sentout his black slave with orders to stop proceedings. The negro, who wasarmed with an axe, struck but a single blow and disappeared. This blowfell upon the head of Mark Noble; it did not kill him, but left him aninsane man till the day of his death, forty years afterward. A furiousmob at once collected, and made an attack on the tavern, bursting inthe doors and shattering every pane of glass in the windows. It was onlythrough the intervention of Captain John Langdon, a warm and popularpatriot, that the hotel was saved from destruction. 

In the mean while Master Stavers had escaped through the stables inthe rear. He fled to Stratham, where he was given refuge by his friendWilliam Pottle, a most appropriately named gentleman, who had suppliedthe hotel with ale. The excitement blew over after a time, and Staverswas induced to return to Portsmouth. He was seized by the Committee ofSafety, and lodged in Exeter jail, when his loyalty, which had reallynever been very high, went down below zero; he took the oath ofallegiance, and shortly after his released reopened the hotel. Thehonest face of William Pitt appeared on the repentant sign, vice Earlof Halifax, ignominiously removed, and Stavers was himself again. In thestate records is the following letter from poor Noble begging for theenlargement of John Stavers:--

PORTSMOUTH, February 3, 1777. To the Committee of Safety of the Town ofExeter: GENTLEMEN, --As I am informed that Mr. Stivers is in confinementin gaol upon my account contrary to my desire, for when I was at Mr. Stivers a fast day I had no ill nor ment none against the Gentleman butby bad luck or misfortune I have received a bad Blow but it is so wellthat I hope to go out in a day or two. So by this gentlemen of theCommittee I hope you will release the gentleman upon my account. I amyours to serve. MARK NOBLE, A friend to my country. 

From that period until I know not what year the Stavers House prospered. It was at the sign of the William Pitt that the officers of the Frenchfleet boarded in 1782, and hither came the Marquis Lafayette, allthe way from Providence, to visit them. John Hancock, Elbridge Gerry, Rutledge, and other signers of the Declaration sojourned here at varioustimes. It was here General Knox--"that stalwart man, two officersin size and three in lungs"--was wont to order his dinner, and in astentorian voice compliment Master Stavers on the excellence of hislarder. One day--it was at the time of the French Revolution--LouisPhilippe and his two brothers applied at the door of the William Pittfor lodgings; but the tavern was full, and the future king, with hiscompanions, found comfortable quarters under the hospitable roof ofGovernor Langdon in Pleasant Street. 

A record of the scenes, tragic and humorous, that have been enactedwithin this old yellow house on the corner would fill a volume. A vividpicture of the social and public life of the old time might be paintedby a skillful hand, using the two Earl of Halifax inns for a background. The painter would find gay and sombre pigments ready mixed for hispalette, and a hundred romantic incidents waiting for his canvas. Oneof these romantic episodes has been turned to very pretty accountby Longfellow in the last series of The Tales of a Wayside Inn--themarriage of Governor Benning Wentworth with Martha Hilton, a sort ofsecond edition of King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid. 

Martha Hilton was a poor girl, whose bare feet and ankles and scantdrapery when she was a child, and even after she was well in the bloomof her teens, used to scandalize good Dame Stavers, the innkeeper'swife. Standing one afternoon in the doorway of the Earl of Halifax, (1. The first of the two hotels bearing that title. Mr. Brewster commitsa slight anachronism in locating the scene of this incident in JaffreyStreet, now Court. The Stavers House was not built until the year ofGovernor Benning Wentworth's death. Mr. Longfellow, in the poem, doesnot fall into the same error. 

 "One hundred years ago, and something more, In Queen Street, Portsmouth, at her tavern door, Neat as a pin, and blooming as a rose, Stood Mistress Stavers in her furbelows. ")

Dame Stavers took occasion to remonstrate with the sleek-limbed andlightly draped Martha, who chanced to be passing the tavern, carrying apail of water, in which, as the poet neatly says, "the shifting sunbeamdanced. "

"You Pat! you Pat!" cried Mrs. Stavers severely; "why do you go lookingso? You should be ashamed to be seen in the street. "

"Never mind how I look, " says Miss Martha, with a merry laugh, lettingslip a saucy brown shoulder out of her dress; "I shall ride in mychariot yet, ma'am. "

Fortunate prophecy! Martha went to live as servant with GovernorWentworth at his mansion at Little Harbor, looking out to sea. Sevenyears passed, and the "thin slip of a girl, " who promised to be no greatbeauty, had flowered into the loveliest of women, with a lip like acherry and a cheek like a tea-rose--a lady by instinct, one of Nature'sown ladies. The governor, a lonely widower, and not too young, fell inlove with his fair handmaid. Without stating his purpose to any one, Governor Wentworth invited a number of friends (among others the Rev. Arthur Brown) to dine with him at Little Harbor on his birthday. Afterthe dinner, which was a very elaborate one, was at an end, and theguests were discussing their tobacco-pipes, Martha Hilton glided intothe room, and stood blushing in front of the chimney-place. She wasexquisitely dressed, as you may conceive, and wore her hair threestories high. The guests stared at each other, and particularly at her, and wondered. Then the governor, rising from his seat, "Played slightly with his ruffles, then looked down, And said unto the Reverend Arthur Brown: 'This is my birthday; it shall likewise be My wedding-day; and you shall marry me!'"

The rector was dumfounded, knowing the humble footing Martha had heldin the house, and could think of nothing cleverer to say than, "To whom, your excellency?" which was not cleaver at all. 

"To this lady, " replied the governor, taking Martha Hilton by thehand. The Rev. Arthur Brown hesitated. "As the Chief Magistrate of NewHampshire I command you to marry me!" cried the choleric old governor. 

And so it was done; and the pretty kitchen-maid became Lady Wentworth, and did ride in her own chariot. She would not have been a woman if shehad not taken an early opportunity to drive by Staver's hotel!

Lady Wentworth had a keen appreciation of the dignity of her newstation, and became a grand lady at once. A few days after her marriage, dropping her ring on the floor, she languidly ordered her servant topick it up. The servant, who appears to have had a fair sense of humor, grew suddenly near-sighted, and was unable to the ring until LadyWentworth stooped and placed her ladyship's finger upon it. She turnedout a faultless wife, however; and Governor Wentworth at his death, which occurred in 1770, signified his approval of her by leaving her hisentire estate. She married again without changing name, accepting thehand, and what there was of the heart, of Michael Wentworth, a retiredcolonel of the British army, who came to this country in 1767. ColonelWentworth (not connected, I think, with the Portsmouth branch ofWentworths) seems to have been of a convivial turn of mind. He shortlydissipated his wife's fortune in high living, and died abruptly in NewYork--it was supposed by his own hand. His last words--a quite uniquecontribution to the literature of last words--were, "I have had mycake, and ate it, " which showed that the colonel within his own modestlimitations was a philosopher. 

The seat of Governor Wentworth at Little Harbor--a pleasant walk fromMarket Square--is well worth a visit. Time and change have laid theirhands more lightly on this rambling old pile than on any other of theold homes in Portsmouth. When you cross the threshold of the dooryou step into the colonial period. Here the Past seems to have haltedcourteously, waiting for you to catch up with it. Inside and outside theWentworth mansion remains nearly as the old governor left it; and thoughit is no longer in the possession of the family, the present owners, intheir willingness to gratify the decent curiosity of strangers, show ahospitality which has always characterized the place. 

The house is an architectural freak. The main building--if it is themain building--is generally two stories in height, with irregular wingsforming three sides of a square which opens in the water. It is, inbrief, a cluster of whimsical extensions that look as if they hadbeen built at different periods, which I believe was not the case. Themansion was completed in 1750. It originally contained fifty-two rooms;a portion of the structure was removed about half a century ago, leavingforty-five apartments. The chambers were connected in the oddest manner, by unexpected steps leading up or down, and capricious little passagesthat seem to have been the unhappy afterthoughts of the architect. Butit is a mansion on a grand scale, and with a grand air. The cellar wasarranged for the stabling of a troop of thirty horse in times ofdanger. The council-chamber, where for many years all questions of vitalimportance to the State were discussed, is a spacious, high-studdedroom, finished in the richest style of the last century. It is said thatthe ornamentation of the huge mantel, carved with knife and chisel, cost the workman a year's constant labor. At the entrance to thecouncil-chamber are still the racks for the twelve muskets of thegovernor's guard--so long ago dismissed!

Some valuable family portraits adorn the walls here, among which is afine painting-yes, by our friend Copley--of the lovely Dorothy Quincy, who married John Hancock, and afterward became Madam Scott. This ladywas a niece of Dr. Holme's "Dorothy Q. " Opening on the council-chamberis a large billiard-room; the billiard-table is gone, but an ancientspinnet, with the prim air of an ancient maiden lady, and of a wheezyvoice, is there; and in one corner stands a claw-footed buffet, nearwhich the imaginative nostril may still detect a faint and tantalizingodor of colonial punch. Opening also on the council-chamber are severaltiny apartments, empty and silent now, in which many a close rubber hasbeen played by illustrious hands. The stillness and loneliness of theold house seem saddest here. The jeweled fingers are dust, the merrylaughs have turned themselves into silent, sorrowful phantoms, stealingfrom chamber to chamber. It is easy to believe in the traditional ghostthat haunts the place--

 "A jolly place in times of old, But something ails it now!"

The mansion at Little Harbor is not the only historic house that bearsthe name of Wentworth. On Pleasant Street, at the head of WashingtonStreet, stands the abode of another colonial worthy, Governor JohnWentworth, who held office from 1767 down to the moment when thecolonies dropped the British yoke as if it had been the letter H. Forthe moment the good gentleman's occupation was gone. He was a royalistof the most florid complexion. In 1775, a man named John Fenton, andex-captain in the British army, who had managed to offend the Sons ofLiberty, was given sanctuary in this house by the governor, who refusedto deliver the fugitive to the people. The mob planted a small cannon(unloaded) in front of the doorstep and threatened to open fire ifFenton were not forthcoming. He forth-with came. The family vacatedthe premises via the back-yard, and the mob entered, doing considerabledamage. The broken marble chimney-place still remains, mutely protestingagainst the uncalled-for violence. Shortly after this event the governormade his way to England, where his loyalty was rewarded first with agovernorship and then with a pension of L500. He was governor of NovaScotia from 1792 to 1800, and died in Halifax in 1820. This house isone of the handsomest old dwellings in the town, and promises tooutlive many of its newest neighbors. The parlor has undergone no changewhatever since the populace rushed into it over a century ago. Thefurniture and adornments occupy their original positions and the plushon the walls has not been replaced by other hangings. In the hall--deepenough for the traditional duel of baronial romance--are full-lengthportraits of the several governors and sundry of their kinsfolk. 

There is yet a third Wentworth house, also decorated with the shade ofa colonial governor--there were three Governors Wentworth--but we shallpass it by, though out of no lack of respect for that high officialpersonage whose commission was signed by Joseph Addison, Esq. , Secretaryof State under George I. 

V. OLD STRAWBERRY BANK

THESE old houses have perhaps detained us too long. They are merely thecrumbling shells of things dead and gone, of persons and manners andcustoms that have left no very distinct record of themselves, exceptinghere and there in some sallow manuscript which has luckily escaped thewithering breath of fire, for the old town, as I have remarked, hasmanaged, from the earliest moment of its existence, to burn itself upperiodically. It is only through the scattered memoranda of ancient townclerks, and in the files of worm-eaten and forgotten newspapers, thatwe are enabled to get glimpses of that life which was once so real andpositive and has now become a shadow. I am of course speaking of theearly days of the settlement on Strawberry Bank. They were stormy andeventful days. The dense forest which surrounded the clearing was alivewith hostile red-men. The sturdy pilgrim went to sleep with his firelockat his bedside, not knowing at what moment he might be awakened bythe glare of his burning hayricks and the piercing war-whoops of theWomponoags. Year after year he saw his harvest reaped by a sickle offlames, as he peered through the loop-holes of the blockhouse, whitherhe had flown in hot haste with goodwife and little ones. The blockhouseat Strawberry Bank appears to have been on an extensive scale, withstockades for the shelter of cattle. It held large supplies of stores, and was amply furnished with arquebuses, sakers, and murtherers, aspecies of naval ordnance which probably did not belie its name. It alsoboasted, we are told, of two drums for training-days, and no fewerthan fifteen hautboys and soft-voiced recorders--all which suggests amediaeval castle, or a grim fortress in the time of Queen Elizabeth. To the younger members of the community glass or crockery ware was anunknown substance; to the elders it was a memory. An iron pot was thepot-of-all-work, and their table utensils were of beaten pewter. Thediet was also of the simplest--pea-porridge and corn-cake, with a mug ofale or a flagon of Spanish wine, when they could get it. 

John Mason, who never resided in this country, but delegated themanagement of his plantation at Ricataqua and Newichewannock tostewards, died before realizing any appreciable return from hisenterprise. He spared no endeavor meanwhile to further its prosperity. In 1632, three years before his death, Mason sent over from Denmark anumber of neat cattle, "of a large breed and yellow colour. " The herdthrived, and it is said that some of the stock is still extant on farmsin the vicinity of Portsmouth. Those old first families had a kind ofstaying quality!

In May, 1653, the inhabitants of the settlement petitioned the GeneralCourt at Boston to grant them a definite township--for the boundarieswere doubtful--and the right to give it a proper name. "Whereas the nameof this plantation att present being Strabery Banke, accidentlly soecalled, by reason of a banke where strawberries was found in this place, now we humbly desire to have it called Portsmouth, being a name mostsuitable for this place, it being the river's mouth, and good as any inthis land, and your petit'rs shall humbly pray, " etc. 

Throughout that formative period, and during the intermittent Frenchwars, Portsmouth and the outlying districts were the scenes of bloodyIndian massacres. No portion of the New England colony suffered more. Famine, fire, pestilence, and war, each in turn, and sometimes inconjunction, beleaguered the little stronghold, and threatened to wipeit out. But that was not to be. 

The settlement flourished and increased in spite of all, and as soon asit had leisure to draw breath, it bethought itself of the school-houseand the jail--two incontestable signs of budding civilization. At atown meeting in 1662, it was ordered "that a cage be made or someother meanes invented by the selectmen to punish such as sleepe or taketobacco on the Lord's day out of the meetinge in the time of publiqueservice. " This salutary measure was not, for some reason, carried intoeffect until nine years later, when Captain John Pickering, who seems tohave had as many professions as Michelangelo, undertook to construct acage twelve feet square and seven feet high, with a pillory on top; "thesaid Pickering to make a good strong dore and make a substantiale payreof stocks and places the same in said cage. " A spot conveniently nearthe west end on the meeting-house was selected as the site for thisingenious device. It is more than probable that "the said Pickering"indirectly furnished an occasional bird for his cage, for in 1672 wefind him and one Edward Westwere authorized by the selectmen to "keepehouses of publique entertainment. " He was a versatile individual, thisJohn Pickering--soldier, miller, moderator, carpenter, lawyer, andinnkeeper. Michelangelo need not blush to be bracketed with him. In thecourse of a long and variegated career he never failed to act accordingto his lights, which he always kept well trimmed. That Captain Pickeringsubsequently became the grandfather, at several removes, of the presentwriter was no fault of the Captain's, and should not be laid up againsthim. 

Down to 1696, the education of the young appears to have been a ratherdesultory and tentative matter; "the young idea" seems to have beenallowed to "shoot" at whatever it wanted to; but in that year it wasvoted "that care be taken that an abell scollmaster [skullmaster!] beprovided for the towen as the law directs, not visious in conversation. "That was perhaps demanding too much; for it was not until "May ye 7" ofthe following year that the selectmen were fortunate enough to put theirfinger on this rara avis in the person of Mr. Tho. Phippes, who agreed"to be scollmaster for the the towen this yr insewing for teaching theinhabitants children in such manner as other schollmasters yously doethroughout the countrie: for his soe doinge we the sellectt men inbehalfe of ower towen doe ingage to pay him by way of rate twenty poundsand yt he shall and may reserve from every father or master that sendstheyer children to school this yeare after ye rate of 16s. For readers, writers and cypherers 20s. , Lattiners 24s. "

Modern advocates of phonetic spelling need not plume themselves ontheir originality. The town clerk who wrote that delicious "yously doe"settles the question. It is to be hoped that Mr. Tho. Phippes was notonly "not visious in conversation, " but was more conventional in hisorthography. He evidently gave satisfaction, and clearly exerted aninfluence on the town clerk, Mr. Samuel Keais, who ever after shows amarked improvement in his own methods. In 1704 the town empowered theselectmen "to call and settell a gramer scoll according to ye best ofyower judgement and for ye advantag [Keais is obviously dead now] of yeyouth of ower town to learn them to read from ye primer, to wright andsypher and to learne ym the tongues and good-manners. " On this occasionit was Mr. William Allen, of Salisbury, who engaged "dilligently toattend ye school for ye present yeare, and tech all childern yt canread in thaire psallters and upward. " From such humble beginnings wereevolved some of the best public high schools at present in New England. 

Portsmouth did not escape the witchcraft delusion, though I believe thatno hangings took place within the boundaries of the township. Dwellersby the sea are generally superstitious; sailors always are. There issomething in the illimitable expanse of sky and water that dilates theimagination. The folk who live along the coast live on the edge of aperpetual mystery; only a strip of yellow sand or gray rock separatesthem from the unknown; they hear strange voices in the winds atmidnight, they are haunted by the spectres of the mirage. Their mindsquickly take the impress of uncanny things. The witches thereforefound a sympathetic atmosphere in Newscastle, at the mouth of thePiscataqua--that slender paw of land which reaches out into the oceanand terminates in a spread of sharp, flat rocks, lie the claws of anamorous cat. What happened to the good folk of that picturesque littlefishing-hamlet is worth retelling in brief. In order properly to retellit, a contemporary witness shall be called upon to testify in the caseof the Stone-Throwing Devils of Newcastle. It is the Rev. Cotton Matherwho addresses you--"On June 11, 1682, showers of stones were thrownby an invisible hand upon the house of George Walton at Portsmouth[Newcastle was then a part of the town]. Whereupon the people going outfound the gate wrung off the hinges, and stones flying and fallingthick about them, and striking of them seemingly with a great force, butreally affecting 'em no more than if a soft touch were given them. Theglass windows were broken by the stones that came not from without, butfrom within; and other instruments were in a like manner hurled about. Nine of the stones they took up, whereof some were as hot as if theycame out of the fire; and marking them they laid them on the table; butin a little while they found some of them again flying about. The spitwas carried up the chimney, and coming down with the point forward, stuck in the back log, from whence one of the company removing it, itwas by an invisible hand thrown out at the window. This disturbancecontinued from day to day; and sometimes a dismal hollow whistlingwould be heard, and sometimes the trotting and snorting of a horse, butnothing to be seen. The man went up the Great Bay in a boat on to a farmwhich he had there; but the stones found him out, and carrying fromthe house to the boat a stirrup iron the iron came jingling after himthrough the woods as far as his house; and at last went away and washeard no more. The anchor leaped overboard several times and stopt theboat. A cheese was taken out of the press, and crumbled all over thefloor; a piece of iron stuck into the wall, and a kettle hung thereon. Several cocks of hay, mow'd near the house, were taken up and hung uponthe trees, and others made into small whisps, and scattered about thehouse. A man was much hurt by some of the stones. He was a Quaker, andsuspected that a woman, who charged him with injustice in detainingsome land from here, did, by witchcraft, occasion these preternaturaloccurrences. However, at last they came to an end. "

Now I have done with thee, O credulous and sour Cotton Mather! so getthee back again to thy tomb in the old burying-ground on Copp'sHill, where, unless thy nature is radically changed, thou makest ituncomfortable for those about thee. 

Nearly a hundred years afterwards, Portsmouth had another witch--atangible witch in this instance--one Molly Bridget, who cast her malignspell on the eleemosynary pigs at the Almshouse, where she chancedto reside at the moment. The pigs were manifestly bewitched, and Mr. Clement March, the superintendent of the institution, saw only oneremedy at hand, and that was to cut off and burn the tips of theirtales. But when the tips were cut off they disappeared, and it wasin consequence quite impracticable to burn them. Mr. March, who was agentleman of expedients, ordered that all the chips and underbrush inthe yard should be made into heaps and consumed, hoping thus to catchand do away with the mysterious and provoking extremities. The fireswere no sooner lighted than Molly Bridget rushed from room to room ina state of frenzy. With the dying flames her own vitality subsided, andshe was dead before the ash-piles were cool. I say it seriously when Isay that these are facts of which there is authentic proof. 

If the woman had recovered, she would have fared badly, even at thatlate period, had she been in Salem; but the death-penalty has neverbeen hastily inflicted in Portsmouth. The first execution that ever tookplace there was that of Sarah Simpson and Penelope Kenny, for the murderof an infant in 1739. The sheriff was Thomas Packer, the same officialwho, twenty-nine years later, won unenviable notoriety at the hanging ofRuth Blay. The circumstances are set forth by the late Albert Laightonin a spirited ballad, which is too long to quote in full. The followingstanzas, however, give the pith of the story--

 "And a voice among them shouted, "Pause before the deed is done; We have asked reprieve and pardon For the poor misguided one. '

 "But these words of Sheriff Packer Rang above the swelling noise: 'Must I wait and lose my dinner? Draw away the cart, my boys!'

 "Nearer came the sound and louder, Till a steed with panting breath, From its sides the white foam dripping, Halted at the scene of death;

 "And a messenger alighted, Crying to the crowd, 'Make way! This I bear to Sheriff Packer; 'Tis a pardon for Ruth Blay!'"

But of course he arrived too late--the Law led Mercy about twentyminutes. The crowd dispersed, horror-stricken; but it assembled againthat night before the sheriff's domicile and expressed its indignationin groans. His effigy, hanged on a miniature gallows, was afterwardsparaded through the streets. 

 "Be the name of Thomas Packer A reproach forevermore!"

Laighton's ballad reminds me of that Portsmouth has been prolific inpoets, one of whom, at least, has left a mouthful of perennial rhyme fororators--Jonathan Sewell with his

 "No pent-up Utica contracts your powers, But the whole boundless continent is yours. "

I have somewhere seen a volume with the alliterative title of "Poets ofPortsmouth, " in which are embalmed no fewer than sixty immortals!

But to drop into prose again, and have done with this iliad of odds andends. Portsmouth has the honor, I believe, of establishing the firstrecorded pauper workhouse--though not in connection with her poets, asmight naturally be supposed. The building was completed and tenanted in1716. Seven years later, an act was passed in England authorizing theestablishment of parish workhouses there. The first and only keeper ofthe Portsmouth almshouse up to 1750 was a woman--Rebecca Austin. 

Speaking of first things, we are told by Mr. Nathaniel Adams, in his"Annals of Portsmouth, " that on the 20th of April, 1761, Mr. JohnStavers began running a stage from that town to Boston. The carriage wasa two-horse curricle, wide enough to accommodate three passengers. Thefare was thirteen shillings and sixpence sterling per head. The curriclewas presently superseded by a series of fat yellow coaches, one ofwhich--nearly a century later, and long after that pleasant mode oftravel had fallen obsolete--was the cause of much mental tribulation (1. Some idle reader here and there may possibly recall the burning ofthe old stage-coach in The Story of a Bad Boy. ) to the writer of thischronicle. 

The mail and the newspaper are closely associated factors incivilization, so I mention them together, though in this case thenewspaper antedated the mail-coach about five years. On October 7, 1756, the first number of "The New Hampshire Gazette and Historical Chronicle"was issued in Portsmouth from the press of Daniel Fowle, who in theprevious July had removed from Boston, where he had undergone a briefbut uncongenial imprisonment on suspicion of having printed a pamphletentitled "The Monster of Monsters, by Tom Thumb, Esq. , " an essaythat contained some uncomplimentary reflections on several officialpersonages. The "Gazette" was the pioneer journal of the province. Itwas followed at the close of the same year by "The Mercury and WeeklyAdvertiser, " published by a former apprentice of Fowle, a certainThomas Furber, backed by a number of restless Whigs, who considered the"Gazette" not sufficiently outspoken in the cause of liberty. Mr. Fowle, however, contrived to hold his own until the day of his death. Fowlehad for pressman a faithful negro named Primus, a full-blooded African. Whether Primus was a freeman or a slave I am unable to state. He livedto a great age, and was a prominent figure among the people of his owncolor. 

Negro slavery was common in New England at that period. In 1767, Portsmouth numbered in its population a hundred and eighty-eight slaves, male and female. Their bondage, happily, was nearly always of a lightsort, if any bondage can be light. They were allowed to have a kindof government of their own; indeed, were encouraged to do so, and nounreasonable restrictions were placed on their social enjoyment. Theyannually elected a king and counselors, and celebrated the event with aprocession. The aristocratic feeling was highly developed in them. Therank of the master was the slave's rank. There was a great deal of ebonystanding around on its dignity in those days. For example, GovernorLangdon's manservant, Cyrus Bruce, was a person who insisted on hisdistinction, and it was recognized. His massive gold chain and seals, his cherry-colored small-clothes and silk stockings, his ruffles andsilver shoe-buckles, were a tradition long after Cyrus himself waspulverized. 

In cases of minor misdemeanor among them, the negros themselves werepermitted to be judge and jury. Their administration of justice wasoften characteristically naive. Mr. Brewster gives an amusing sketch ofone of their sessions. King Nero is on the bench, and one Cato--we arenothing if not classical--is the prosecuting attorney. The name of theprisoner and the nature of his offense are not disclosed to posterity. In the midst of the proceedings the hour of noon is clanged from theneighboring belfry of the Old North Church. "The evidence was not gonethrough with, but the servants could stay no longer from their homeduties. They all wanted to see the whipping, but could not convenientlybe present again after dinner. Cato ventured to address the King: Pleaseyou Honor, best let the fellow have his whipping now, and finish thetrial after dinner. The request seemed to be the general wish of thecompany: so Nero ordered ten lashes, for justice so far as the trialwent, and ten more at the close of the trial, should he be foundguilty!"

Slavery in New Hampshire was never legally abolished, unlessAbraham Lincoln did it. The State itself has not ever pronouncedany emancipation edict. During the Revolutionary War the slaves weregenerally emancipated by their masters. That many of the negros, who hadgrown gray in service, refused their freedom, and elected to spend therest of their lives as pensioners in the families of their late owners, is a circumstance that illustrates the kindly ties which held betweenslave and master in the old colonial days in New England. 

The institution was accidental and superficial, and never had any realroot in the Granite State. If the Puritans could have found in theScriptures any direct sanction of slavery, perhaps it would havecontinued awhile longer, for the Puritan carried his religion into thebusiness affairs of life; he was not even able to keep it out of hisbills of lading. I cannot close this rambling chapter more appropriatelyand solemnly than by quoting from one of those same pious bills oflanding. It is dated June, 1726, and reads: "Shipped by the grace of Godin good order and well conditioned, by Wm. Pepperills on there own acct. And risque, in and upon the good Briga called the William, whereof ismaster under God for this present voyage George King, now riding atanchor in the river Piscataqua and by God's grace bound to Barbadoes. "Here follows a catalogue of the miscellaneous cargo, rounded off with:"And so God send the good Briga to her desired port in safety. Amen. "

VI. SOME OLD PORTSMOUTH PROFILES

I DOUBT if any New England town ever turned out so many eccentriccharacters as Portsmouth. From 1640 down to about 1848 there must havebeen something in the air of the place that generated eccentricity. In another chapter I shall explain why the conditions have not beenfavorable to the development of individual singularity during the latterhalf of the present century. It is easier to do that than fully toaccount for the numerous queer human types which have existed from timeto time previous to that period. 

In recently turning over the pages of Mr. Brewster's entertainingcollection of Portsmouth sketches, I have been struck by the number andvariety of the odd men and women who appear incidentally on the scene. They are, in the author's intention, secondary figures in the backgroundof his landscape, but they stand very much in the foreground of one'smemory after the book is laid aside. One finds one's self thinking quiteas often of that squalid old hut-dweller up by Sagamore Creek as ofGeneral Washington, who visited the town in 1789. Conservatismand respectability have their values, certainly; but has not theunconventional its values also? If we render unto that old hut-dwellerthe things which are that old hut-dweller's, we must concede him hispicturesqueness. He was dirty, and he was not respectable; but he ispicturesque--now that he is dead. 

If the reader has five or ten minutes to waste, I invite him to glanceat a few old profiles of persons who, however substantial they oncewere, are now leading a life of mere outlines. I would like to givethem a less faded expression, but the past is very chary of yielding upanything more than its shadows. 

The first who presents himself is the ruminative hermit alreadymentioned--a species of uninspired Thoreau. His name was Benjamin Lear. So far as his craziness went, he might have been a lineal descendant ofthat ancient king of Britain who figures on Shakespeare's page. Familydissensions made a recluse of King Lear; but in the case of Benjaminthere were no mitigating circumstances. He had no family to troublehim, and his realm remained undivided. He owned an excellent farm on thesouth side of Sagamore Creek, a little to the west of the bridge, andmight have lived at ease, if personal comfort had not been distastefulto him. Personal comfort entered into no part of Lear's. To be alonefilled the little pint-measure of his desire. He ensconced himself ina wretched shanty, and barred the door, figuratively, against all theworld. Wealth--what would have been wealth to him--lay within his reach, but he thrust it aside; he disdained luxury as he disdained idleness, and made no compromise with convention. When a man cuts himselfabsolutely adrift from custom, what an astonishingly light sparfloats him! How few his wants are, after all! Lear was of a cheerfuldisposition, and seems to have been wholly inoffensive--at a distance. He fabricated his own clothes, and subsisted chiefly on milk andpotatoes, the product of his realm. He needed nothing but an island tobe a Robinson Crusoe. At rare intervals he flitted like a frost-bittenapparition through the main street of Portsmouth, which he alwaysdesignated as "the Bank, " a name that had become obsolete fifty or ahundred years before. Thus, for nearly a quarter of a century, BenjaminLear stood aloof from human intercourse. In his old age some of theneighbors offered him shelter during the tempestuous winter months; buthe would have none of it--he defied wind and weather. There he lay inhis dilapidated hovel in his last illness, refusing to allow any one toremain with him overnight--and the mercury four degrees below zero. Learwas born in 1720, and vegetated eighty-two years. 

I take it that Timothy Winn, of whom we have only a glimpse, would liketo have more, was a person better worth knowing. His name reads like thetitle of some old-fashioned novel--"Timothy Winn, or the Memoirs of aBashful Gentleman. " He came to Portsmouth from Woburn at the close ofthe last century, and set up in the old museum-building on MulberryStreet what was called "a piece goods store. " He was the third Timothyin his monotonous family, and in order to differentiate himself heinscribed on the sign over his shop door, "Timothy Winn, 3d, " and wasever after called "Three-Penny Winn. " That he enjoyed the pleasantry, and clung to his sign, goes to show that he was a person who would ripenon further acquaintance, were further acquaintance now practicable. His next-door neighbor, Mr. Leonard Serat, who kept a modest tailoringestablishment, also tantalizes us a little with a dim intimation oforiginality. He plainly was without literary prejudices, for on oneface of his swinging sign was painted the word Taylor, and on the otherTailor. This may have been a delicate concession to that part of thecommunity--the greater part, probably--which would have spelled it witha y. 

The building in which Messrs. Winn and Serat had their shops was theproperty of Nicholas Rousselet, a French gentleman of Demerara, thestory of whose unconventional courtship of Miss Catherine Moffatt ispretty enough to bear retelling, and entitles him to a place in ourlimited collection of etchings. M. Rousselet had doubtless already madexcursions into the pays de tendre, and given Miss Catherine previousnotice of the state of his heart, but it was not until one day duringthe hour of service at the Episcopal church that he brought matters toa crisis by handing to Miss Moffatt a small Bible, on the fly-leaf ofwhich he had penciled the fifth verse of the Second Epistle of John--

 "And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another. "

This was not to be resisted, at lease not by Miss Catherine, whodemurely handed the volume back to him with a page turned down at thesixteenth verse in the first chapter of Ruth--

 "Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me. "

Aside from this quaint touch of romance, what attaches me to thehappy pair--for the marriage was a fortunate one--is the fact that theRousselets made their home in the old Atkinson mansion, which stooddirectly opposite my grandfather's house on Court Street and was torndown in my childhood, to my great consternation. The building had beenunoccupied for a quarter of a century, and was fast falling into decaywith all its rich wood-carvings at cornice and lintel; but was it notfull of ghosts, and if the old barracks were demolished, would not theseghosts, or some of them at least, take refuge in my grandfather'shouse just across the way? Where else could they bestow themselves soconveniently? While the ancient mansion was in process of destruction, Iused to peep round the corner of our barn at the workmen, and watch theindignant phantoms go soaring upward in spiral clouds of colonial dust. 

A lady differing in many ways from Catherine Moffatt was the MaryAtkinson (once an inmate of this same manor house) who fell to the lotof the Rev. William Shurtleff, pastor of the South Church between 1733and 1747. From the worldly standpoint, it was a fine match for theNewcastle clergyman--beauty, of the eagle-beaked kind; wealth, her shareof the family plate; high birth, a sister to the Hon. Theodore Atkinson. But if the exemplary man had cast his eyes lower, peradventure he hadfound more happiness, though ill-bred persons without family plate arenot necessarily amiable. Like Socrates, this long-suffering divine hadalways with him an object on which to cultivate heavenly patience, andpatience, says the Eastern proverb, is the key to content. The spiritof Xantippe seems to have taken possession of Mrs. Shurtleff immediatelyafter her marriage. The freakish disrespect with which she used hermeek consort was a heavy cross to bear at a period in New England whenclerical dignity was at its highest sensitive point. Her devices fortorturing the poor gentleman were inexhaustible. Now she lets hisSabbath ruffs go unstarched; now she scandalizes him by some unseemlyand frivolous color in her attire; now she leaves him to cook his owndinner at the kitchen coals; and now she locks him in his study, whitherhe has retired for a moment or two of prayer, previous to setting forthto perform the morning service. The congregation has assembled; thesexton has tolled the bell twice as long as is custom, and is beginninga third carillon, full of wonder that his reverence does not appear;and there sits Mistress Shurtleff in the family pew with a face ascomplacent as that of the cat that has eaten the canary. Presently thedeacons appeal to her for information touching the good doctor. MistressShurtleff sweetly tells them that the good doctor was in his study whenshe left home. There he is found, indeed, and released from durance, begging the deacons to keep his mortification secret, to "give it anunderstanding, but no tongue. " Such was the discipline undergone bythe worthy Dr. Shurtleff on his earthly pilgrimage. A portrait ofthis patient man--now a saint somewhere--hangs in the rooms of the NewEngland Historical and Genealogical Society in Boston. There he can beseen in surplice and bands, with his lamblike, apostolic face lookingdown upon the heavy antiquarian labors of his busy descendants. 

Whether or not a man is to be classed as eccentric who vanishes withoutrhyme or reason on his wedding-night is a query left to the reader'sdecision. We seem to have struck a matrimonial vein, and must workit out. In 1768, Mr. James McDonough was one of the wealthiest men inPortsmouth, and the fortunate suitor for the hand of a daughter of JacobSheafe, a town magnate. The home of the bride was decked and lightedfor the nuptials, the banquet-table was spread, and the guests weregathered. The minister in his robe stood by the carven mantelpiece, book in hand, and waited. Then followed an awkward interval--there wasa hitch somewhere. A strange silence fell upon the laughing groups; theair grew tense with expectation; in the pantry, Amos Boggs, the butler, in his agitation split a bottle of port over his new cinnamon-coloredsmall-clothes. Then a whisper--a whisper suppressed these twentyminutes--ran through the apartments, --"The bridegroom has not come!". Henever came. The mystery of that night remains a mystery after the lapseof a century and a quarter. 

What had become of James McDonough? The assassination of so notable aperson in a community where every strange face was challenged, whereevery man's antecedents were known, could not have been accomplishedwithout leaving some slight traces. Not a shadow of foul play wasdiscovered. That McDonough had been murdered or had committed suicidewere theories accepted at first by a few, and then by no one. On theother hand, he was in love with his fiancee, he had wealth, power, position--why had he fled? He was seen a moment on the public street, and then never seen again. It was as if he turned into air. Meanwhilethe bewilderment of the bride was dramatically painful. If McDonoughhad been waylaid and killed, she could mourn for him. If he had desertedher, she could wrap herself in her pride. But neither course lay open toher, then or afterward. In one of the Twice Told Tales Hawthorne dealswith a man named Wakefield, who disappears with like suddenness, and lives unrecognized for twenty years in a street not far from hisabandoned hearthside. Such expunging of one's self was not possible inPortsmouth; but I never think of McDonough without recalling Wakefield. I have an inexplicable conviction that for many a year James McDonough, in some snug ambush, studied and analyzed the effect of his ownstartling disappearance. 

Some time in the year 1758, there dawned upon Portsmouth a personagebearing the ponderous title of King's Attorney, and carrying muchgold lace about him. This gilded gentleman was Mr. Wyseman Clagett, ofBristol, England, where his father dwelt on the manor of Broad Oaks, in a mansion with twelve chimneys, and kept a coach and eight or tenservants. Up to the moment of his advent in the colonies, Mr. WysemanClagett had evidently not been able to keep anything but himself. Hiswealth consisted of his personal decorations, the golden frogs on hislapels, and the tinsel at his throat; other charms he had none. Yet withthese he contrived to dazzle the eyes of Lettice Mitchel, one of theyoung beauties of the province, and to cause her to forget that she hadplighted troth with a Mr. Warner, then in Europe, and destined to returnhome with a disturbed heart. Mr. Clagett was a man of violent temper andingenious vindictiveness, and proved more than a sufficient punishmentfor Lettice's infidelity. The trifling fact that Warner was dead--hedied shortly after his return--did not interfere with the course ofMr. Clagett's jealousy; he was haunted by the suspicion that Letticeregretted her first love, having left nothing undone to make her do so. "This is to pay Warner's debts, " remarked Mr. Clagett, as he twitchedoff the table-cloth and wrecked the tea-things. 

In his official capacity he was a relentless prosecutor. The nounClagett speedily turned itself into a verb; "to Clagett" meant "toprosecute;" they were convertible terms. In spite of his industriousseverity, and his royal emoluments, if such existed, the exchequer ofthe King's Attorney showed a perpetual deficit. The stratagems towhich he resorted from time to time in order to raise unimportant sumsreminded one of certain scenes in Moliere's comedies. 

Mr. Clagett had for his ame damnee a constable of the town. They weremade for each other; they were two flowers with but a single stem, andthis was their method of procedure: Mr. Clagett dispatched one of hisservants to pick a quarrel with some countryman on the street, or somesailor drinking at an inn: the constable arrested the sailor or thecountryman, as the case might be, and hauled the culprit before Mr. Clagett; Mr. Clagett read the culprit a moral lesson, and fined himfive dollars and costs. The plunder was then divided between theconspirators--two hearts that beat as one--Clagett, of course, gettingthe lion's share. Justice was never administered in a simpler manner inany country. This eminent legal light was extinguished in 1784, and thewick laid away in the little churchyard in Litchfield, New Hampshire. Itis a satisfaction, even after such a lapse of time, to know that Letticesurvived the King's Attorney sufficiently long to be very happy withsomebody else. Lettice Mitchel was scarcely eighteen when she marriedWyseman Clagett. 

About eighty years ago, a witless fellow named Tilton seems to have beena familiar figure on the streets of the old town. Mr. Brewster speaks ofhim as "the well-known idiot, Johnny Tilton, " as if one should say, "thewell-known statesman, Daniel Webster. " It is curious to observe how anysort of individuality gets magnified in this parochial atmosphere, whereeverything lacks perspective, and nothing is trivial. Johnny Tilton doesnot appear to have had much individuality to start with; it was onlyafter his head was cracked that he showed any shrewdness whatever. Thathappened early in his unobtrusive boyhood. He had frequently watched thehens flying out of the loft window in his father's stable, which stoodin the rear of the Old Bell Tavern. It occurred to Johnny, one day, thatthough he might not be as bright as other lads, he certainly was inno respect inferior to a hen. So he placed himself on the sill of thewindow in the loft, flapped his arms, and took flight. The New EnglandIcarus alighted head downward, lay insensible for a while, and washenceforth looked upon as a mortal who had lost his wits. Yet at oddmoments his cloudiness was illumined by a gleam of intelligence such ashad not been detected in him previous to his mischance. As Polonius saidof Hamlet--another unstrung mortal--Tilton's replies had "a happinessthat often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not soprosperously be delivered of. " One morning, he appeared at theflour-mill with a sack of corn to be ground for the almshouse, and wasasked what he knew. "Some things I know, " replied poor Tilton, "and somethings I don't know. I know the miller's hogs grow fat, but I don't knowwhose corn they fat on. " To borrow another word from Polonius, thoughthis be madness, yet there was method in it. Tilton finally brought upin the almshouse, where he was allowed the liberty of roaming at willthrough the town. He loved the water-side as if he had had all hissenses. Often he was seen to stand for hours with a sunny, torpid smileon his lips, gazing out upon the river where its azure ruffles itselfinto silver against the islands. He always wore stuck in his hat afew hen's feathers, perhaps with some vague idea of still associatinghimself with the birds of the air, if hens can come into that category. 

George Jaffrey, third of the name, was a character of anothercomplexion, a gentleman born, a graduate of Harvard in 1730, and one ofHis Majesty's Council in 1766--a man with the blood of the lion andthe unicorn in every vein. He remained to the bitter end, and beyond, a devout royalist, prizing his shoe-buckles, not because they were ofchased silver, but because they bore the tower mark and crown stamp. Hestoutly objected to oral prayer, on the ground that it gave rogues andhypocrites an opportunity to impose on honest folk. He was punctiliousin his attendance at church, and unfailing in his responses, though notof a particularly devotional temperament. On one occasion, at least, hissincerity is not to be questioned. He had been deeply irritated by someencroachments on the boundaries of certain estates, and had gone tochurch that forenoon with his mind full of the matter. When the ministerin the course of reading the service came to the apostrophe, "Cursed behe who removeth his neighbor's landmark, " Mr. Jeffrey's feelings weretoo many for him, and he cried out "Amen!" in a tone of voice thatbrought smiles to the adjoining pews. 

Mr. Jaffrey's last will and testament was a whimsical document, in spiteof the Hon. Jeremiah Mason, who drew up the paper. It had originallybeen Mr. Jaffrey's plan to leave his possessions to his beloved friend, Colonel Joshua Wentworth; but the colonel by some maladroitness managedto turn the current of Pactolus in another direction. The vast propertywas bequeathed to George Jaffrey Jeffries, the testator's grandnephew, on condition that the heir, then a lad of thirteen, should drop the nameof Jeffries, reside permanently in Portsmouth, and adopt no professionexcepting that of gentleman. There is an immense amount of Portsmouthas well as George Jaffrey in that final clause. George the fourthhandsomely complied with the requirements, and dying at the age ofsixty-six, without issue or assets, was the last of that particular lineof Georges. I say that he handsomely complied with the requirements ofthe will; but my statement appears to be subject to qualification, for on the day of his obsequies it was remarked of him by a causticcontemporary: "Well, yes, Mr. Jaffrey was a gentleman by profession, butnot eminent in his profession. "

This modest exhibition of profiles, in which I have attempted topreserve no chronological sequence, ends with the silhouette of Dr. Joseph Moses. 

If Boston in the colonial days had her Mather Byles, Portsmouth had herDr. Joseph Moses. In their quality as humorists, the outlines of boththese gentlemen have become rather broken and indistinct. "A jest'sprosperity lies in the ear that hears it. " Decanted wit inevitably losesits bouquet. A clever repartee belongs to the precious moment inwhich it is broached, and is of a vintage that does not usually beartransportation. Dr. Moses--he received his diploma not from the Collegeof Physicians, but from the circumstance of his having once druggedhis private demijohn of rum, and so nailed an inquisitive negro namedSambo--Dr. Moses, as he was always called, had been handed down to us bytradition as a fellow of infinite jest and of most excellent fancy; butI must confess that I find his high spirits very much evaporated. His humor expended itself, for the greater part, in practicalpleasantries--like that practiced on the minion Sambo--but thesediversions, however facetious to the parties concerned, lack magnetismfor outsiders. I discover nothing about him so amusing as the fact thathe lived in a tan-colored little tenement, which was neither clapboardednor shingled, and finally got an epidermis from the discarded shinglesof the Old South Church when the roof of that edifice was repaired. 

Dr. Moses, like many persons of his time and class, was a man of proteanemployment--joiner, barber, and what not. No doubt he had much pithy andfluent conversation, all of which escapes us. He certainly impressed theHon. Theodore Atkinson as a person of uncommon parts, for the HonorableSecretary of the Province, like a second Haroun Al Raschid, oftensummoned the barber to entertain him with his company. One evening--andthis is the only reproducible instance of the doctor's readiness--Mr. Atkinson regaled his guest with a diminutive glass of choice Madeira. The doctor regarded it against the light with the half-closed eye ofthe connoisseur, and after sipping the molten topaz with satisfaction, inquired how old it was. "Of the vintage of about sixty years ago, " wasthe answer. "Well, " said the doctor reflectively, "I never in my lifesaw so small a thing of such an age. " There are other mots of his onrecord, but their faces are suspiciously familiar. In fact, all thewitty things were said aeons ago. If one nowadays perpetrates anoriginal joke, one immediately afterward finds it in the Sanskirt. Iam afraid that Dr. Joseph Moses has no very solid claims on us. I havegiven him place here because he has long had the reputation of a wit, which is almost as good as to be one. 

VII. PERSONAL REMINISCENCES

THE running of the first train over the Eastern Road from Boston toPortsmouth--it took place somewhat more than forty years ago--wasattended by a serious accident. The accident occurred in the crowdedstation at the Portsmouth terminus, and was unobserved at the time. Thecatastrophe was followed, though not immediately, by death, and thatalso, curiously enough, was unobserved. Nevertheless, this initialtrain, freighted with so many hopes and the Directors of the Road, ranover and killed--LOCAL CHARACTER. 

Up to that day Portsmouth had been a very secluded little community, andhad had the courage of its seclusion. From time to time it had calmlyproduced an individual built on plans and specifications of its own, without regard to the prejudices and conventionalities of outlyingdistricts. This individual was purely indigenous. He was born in thetown, he lived to a good old age in the town, and never went out of theplace, until he was finally laid under it. To him, Boston, though onlyfifty-six miles away, was virtually an unknown quantity--only fifty-sixmiles by brutal geographical measurement, but thousands of miles distantin effect. In those days, in order to reach Boston you were obligedto take a great yellow, clumsy stage-coach, resembling a three-storymud-turtle--if zoologist will, for the sake of the simile, tolerateso daring an invention; you were obliged to take it very early in themorning, you dined at noon at Ipswich, and clattered into the great citywith the golden dome just as the twilight was falling, provided alwaysthe coach had not shed a wheel by the roadside or one of the leaders hadnot gone lame. To many worthy and well-to-do persons in Portsmouth, thisjourney was an event which occurred only twice or thrice during life. Tothe typical individual with whom I am for the moment dealing, it neveroccurred at all. The town was his entire world; he was a parochial asa Parisian; Market Street was his Boulevard des Italiens, and the NorthEnd his Bois de Boulogne. 

Of course there were varieties of local characters without hislimitations; venerable merchants retired from the East India trade;elderly gentlewomen, with family jewels and personal peculiarities; oneor two scholarly recluses in by-gone cut of coat, haunting the Athenaeumreading-room; ex-sea captains, with rings on their fingers, like SimonDanz's visitors in Longfellow's poem--men who had played busy parts inthe bustling world, and had drifted back to Old Strawberry Bank in thetranquil sunset of their careers. I may say, in passing, that theseancient mariners, after battling with terrific hurricanes and typhoonson every known sea, not infrequently drowned themselves in pleasantweather in small sail-boats on the Piscataqua River. Old sea-dogs whohad commanded ships of four or five hundred tons had naturally slightrespect for the potentialities of sail-boats twelve feet long. But therewas to be no further increase of these odd sticks--if I may call themso, in no irreverent mood--after those innocent-looking parallel barsindissolubly linked Portsmouth with the capital of the Commonwealth ofMassachusetts. All the conditions were to be changed, the old anglesto be pared off, new horizons to be regarded. The individual, as aneccentric individual, was to undergo great modifications. If he were notto become extinct--a thing little likely--he was at least to lose hisprominence. 

However, as I said, local character, in the sense in which the termis here used, was not instantly killed; it died a lingering death, andpassed away so peacefully and silently as not to attract general, orperhaps any, notice. This period of gradual dissolution fell during myboyhood. The last of the cocked hats had gone out, and the railway hadcome in, long before my time; but certain bits of color, certain halfobsolete customs and scraps of the past, were still left over. I wasnot too late, for example, to catch the last town crier--one NicholasNewman, whom I used to contemplate with awe, and now recall with a sortof affection. 

Nicholas Newman--Nicholas was a sobriquet, his real name beingEdward--was a most estimable person, very short, cross-eyed, somewhatbow-legged, and with a bell out of all proportion to his stature. I havenever since seen a bell of that size disconnected with a church steeple. The only thing about him that matched the instrument of his office washis voice. His "Hear All!" still deafens memory's ear. I remember thathe had a queer way of sidling up to one, as if nature in shaping himhad originally intended a crab, but thought better of it, and made atown-crier. Of the crustacean intention only a moist thumb remained, which served Mr. Newman in good stead in the delivery of the Bostonevening papers, for he was incidentally newsdealer. His authentic dutieswere to cry auctions, funerals, mislaid children, traveling theatricals, public meetings, and articles lost or found. He was especially strong inannouncing the loss of reticules, usually the property of elderly maidenladies. The unction with which he detailed the several contents, whenfully confided to him, would have seemed satirical in another person, but on his part was pure conscientiousness. He would not let so much asa thimble, or a piece of wax, or a portable tooth, or any amiable vanityin the way of tonsorial device, escape him. I have heard Mr. Newmanspoken of as "that horrid man. " He was a picturesque figure. 

Possibly it is because of his bell that I connect the town crier withthose dolorous sounds which I used to hear rolling out of the steepleof the Old North every night at nine o'clock--the vocal remains ofthe colonial curfew. Nicholas Newman has passed on, perhaps crying hislosses elsewhere, but this nightly tolling is still a custom. I canmore satisfactorily explain why I associate with it a vastly differentpersonality, that of Sol Holmes, the barber, for every night at nineo'clock his little shop on Congress Street was in full blast. Many atime at that hour I have flattened my nose on his window-glass. It was agay little shop (he called it "an Emporium"), as barber shops generallyare, decorated with circus bills, tinted prints, and gaudy fly-catchersof tissue and gold paper. Sol Holmes--whose antecedents to us boys werewrapped in thrilling mystery, we imagined him to have been a prince inhis native land--was a colored man, not too dark "for human nature'sdaily food, " and enjoyed marked distinction as one of the few exoticsin town. At this juncture the foreign element was at its minimum; everyofficial, from selectman down to the Dogberry of the watch, bore aname that had been familiar to the town for a hundred years or so. The situation is greatly changed. I expect to live to see a Chinesepoliceman, with a sandal-wood club and a rice-paper pocket handkerchief, patrolling Congress Street. 

Holmes was a handsome man, six feet or more in height, and as straightas a pine. He possessed his race's sweet temper, simplicity, and vanity. His martial bearing was a positive factor in the effectiveness of thePortsmouth Greys, whenever those bloodless warriors paraded. As hebrought up the rear of the last platoon, with his infantry cap stuckjauntily on the left side of his head and a bright silver cup slung ona belt at his hip, he seemed to youthful eyes one of the most imposingthings in the display. To himself he was pretty much "all the company. "He used to say, with a drollness which did not strike me until yearsafterwards, "Boys, I and Cap'n Towle is goin' to trot out 'the Greys'to-morroh. " Though strictly honest in all business dealings, histropical imagination, whenever he strayed into the fenceless fields ofautobiography, left much to be desired in the way of accuracy. Comparedwith Sol Holmes on such occasions, Ananias was a person of morbidintegrity. Sol Holmes's tragic end was in singular contrast with hissunny temperament. One night, long ago, he threw himself from the deckof a Sound steamer, somewhere between Stonington and New York. What ledor drove him to the act never transpired. 

There are few men who were boys in Portsmouth at the period of which Iwrite but will remember Wibird Penhallow and his sky-blue wheelbarrow. I find it difficult to describe him other than vaguely, possibly becauseWilbird had no expression whatever in his countenance. With his vacantwhite face lifted to the clouds, seemingly oblivious of everything, yetgoing with a sort of heaven-given instinct straight to his destination, he trundled that rattling wheelbarrow for many a year over Portsmouthcobblestones. He was so unconscious of his environment that sometimes asmall boy would pop into the empty wheelbarrow and secure a ride withoutWibird arriving at any very clear knowledge of the fact. His employmentin life was to deliver groceries and other merchandise to purchasers. This he did in a dreamy, impersonal kind of way. It was as if a spirithad somehow go hold of an earthly wheelbarrow and was trundling it quiteunconsciously, with no sense of responsibility. One day he appeared ata kitchen door with a two-gallon molasses jug, the top of which waswanting. It was not longer a jug, but a tureen. When the recipient ofthe damaged article remonstrated with "Goodness gracious, Wibird! Youhave broken the jug, " his features lighted up, and he seemed immenselyrelieved. "I thought, " He remarked, "I heerd somethink crack!"

Wibird Penhallow's heaviest patron was the keeper of a variety store, and the first specimen of a pessimist I ever encountered. He was anexcellent specimen. He took exception to everything. He objected to thetelegraph, to the railway, to steam in all its applications. Some of hisarguments, I recollect, made a deep impression on my mind. "Nowadays, "he once observed to me, "if your son or your grandfather drops dead atthe other end of creation, you know of it in ten minutes. What's theuse? Unless you are anxious to know he's dead, you've got just two orthree weeks more to be miserable in. " He scorned the whole business, andwas faithful to his scorn. When he received a telegram, which was rare, he made a point of keeping it awhile unopened. Through the exercise ofthis whim he once missed an opportunity of buying certain goods to greatadvantage. "There!" he exclaimed, "if the telegraph hadn't been inventedthe idiot would have written to me, and I'd have sent a letter by returncoach, and got the goods before he found out prices had gone up inChicago. If that boy brings me another of those tapeworm telegraphs, I'll throw an axe-handle at him. " His pessimism extended up, or down, togenerally recognized canons of orthography. They were all iniquitous. Ifk-n-i-f-e spelled knife, then, he contended, k-n-i-f-e-s was the plural. Diverting tags, written by his own hand in conformity with this theory, were always attached to articles in his shop window. He is long sinceded, as he himself would have put it, but his phonetic theory appears tohave survived him in crankish brains here and there. As my discouragingold friend was not exactly a public character, like the town crier orWibird Penhallow, I have intentionally thrown a veil over his identity. I have, so to speak, dropped into his pouch a grain or two of thatmagical fern-seed which was supposed by our English ancestors, inElizabeth's reign, to possess the quality of rendering a man invisible. 

Another person who singularly interested me at this epoch was a personwith whom I had never exchanged a word, whose voice I had never heard, but whose face was as familiar to me as every day could make it. Foreach morning as I went to school, and each afternoon as I returned, Isaw this face peering out of a window in the second story of a shamblingyellow house situated in Washington Street, not far from the corner ofState. Whether some malign disease had fixed him to the chair he sat on, or whether he had lost the use of his legs, or, possible, had none (theupper part of him was that of a man in admirable health), presented aproblem which, with that curious insouciance of youth I made no attemptto solve. It was an established fact, however, that he never went out ofthat house. I cannot vouch so confidently for the cobwebby legend whichwove itself about him. It was to this effect: He had formerly been themaster of a large merchantman running between New York and Calcutta;while still in his prime he had abruptly retired from the quarter-deck, and seated himself at that window--where the outlook must have been thereverse of exhilarating, for not ten persons passed in the course of theday, and the hurried jingle of the bells on Parry's bakery-cart was theonly sound that ever shattered the silence. Whether it was an amatoryor a financial disappointment that turned him into a hermit was left toingenious conjecture. But there he sat, year in and year out, with hischeek so close to the window that the nearest pane became permanentlyblurred with his breath; for after his demise the blurr remained. 

In this Arcadian era it was possible, in provincial places, for anundertaker to assume the dimensions of a personage. There was a sextonin Portsmouth--his name escapes me, but his attributes do not--whoseimpressiveness made him own brother to the massive architecture of theStone Church. On every solemn occasion he was the striking figure, even to the eclipsing of the involuntary object of the ceremony. Hisoccasions, happily, were not exclusively solemn; he added to his otherpublic services that of furnishing ice-cream for the evening parties. I always thought--perhaps it was the working of an unchastenedimagination--that he managed to throw into his ice-creams a peculiarchill not attained by either Dunyon or Peduzzi--arcades ambo--the rivalconfectioners. 

Perhaps I should not say rival, for Mr. Dunyon kept a speciesof restaurant, while Mr. Peduzzi restricted himself to preparingconfections to be discussed elsewhere than on his premises. Bothgentlemen achieved great popularity in their respective lines, butneither offered to the juvenile population quite the charm of thoseprim, white-capped old ladies who presided over certain snuffy littleshops, occurring unexpectedly in silent side-streets where the footballof commerce seemed an incongruous thing. These shops were never intendedin nature. They had an impromptu and abnormal air about them. I do notrecall one that was not located in a private residence, and was notevidently the despairing expedient of some pathetic financial crisis, similar to that which overtook Miss Hepzibah Pyrcheon in The Houseof the Seven Gables. The horizontally divided street door--the uppersection left open in summer--ushered you, with a sudden jangle of bellthat turned your heart over, into a strictly private hall, hauntedby the delayed aroma of thousands of family dinners. Thence, throughanother door, you passed into what had formerly been the front parlor, but was now a shop, with a narrow, brown, wooden counter, and severalrows of little drawers built up against the picture-papered wall behindit. Through much use the paint on these drawers was worn off in circlesround the polished brass knobs. Here was stored almost every smallarticle required by humanity, from an inflamed emery cushion to apeppermint Gibraltar--the latter a kind of adamantine confectionerywhich, when I reflect upon it, raises in me the wonder that anyPortsmouth boy or girl ever reached the age of fifteen with a singletooth left unbroken. The proprietors of these little knick-knackestablishments were the nicest creatures, somehow suggesting venerabledoves. They were always aged ladies, sometimes spinsters, sometimesrelicts of daring mariners, beached long before. They always wore crispmuslin caps and steel-rimmed spectacles; they were not always amiable, and no wonder, for even doves may have their rheumatism; but such asthey were, they were cherished in young hearts, and are, I take it, impossible to-day. 

When I look back to Portsmouth as I knew it, it occurs to me that itmust have been in some respects unique among New England towns. Therewere, for instance, no really poor persons in the place; every one hadsome sufficient calling or an income to render it unnecessary; vagrantsand paupers were instantly snapped up and provided for at "the Farm. "There was, however, in a gambrel-roofed house here and there, adecayed old gentlewoman, occupying a scrupulously neat room with just asuspicion of maccaboy snuff in the air, who had her meals sent in to herby the neighborhood--as a matter of course, and involving no sense ofdependency on her side. It is wonderful what an extension of vitality isgiven to an old gentlewoman in this condition!

I would like to write about several of those ancient Dames, as they wereaffectionately called, and to materialize others of the shadows thatstir in my recollection; but this would be to go outside the lines of mypurpose, which is simply to indicate one of the various sorts of changesthat have come over the vie intime of formerly secluded places likePortsmouth--the obliteration of odd personalities, or, if not theobliteration, the general disregard of them. Everywhere in New Englandthe impress of the past is fading out. The few old-fashioned men andwomen--quaint, shrewd, and racy of the soil--who linger in little, silvery-gray old homesteads strung along the New England roads andby-ways will shortly cease to exist as a class, save in the record ofsome such charming chronicler as Sarah Jewett, or Mary Wilkins, on whosesympathetic page they have already taken to themselves a remote air, anatmosphere of long-kept lavender and pennyroyal. 

Peculiarity in any kind requires encouragement in order to reach flower. The increased facilities of communication between points once isolated, the interchange of customs and modes of thought, make this encouragementmore and more difficult each decade. The naturally inclined eccentricfinds his sharp outlines rubbed off by unavoidable attrition with alarger world than owns him. Insensibly he lends himself to the shapinghand of new ideas. He gets his reversible cuffs and paper collars fromCambridge, Massachusetts, the scarabaeus in his scarf-pin from Mexico, and his ulster from everywhere. He has passed out of the chrysalis stateof Odd Stick; he has ceased to be parochial; he is no longer distinct;he is simply the Average Man. 

INDEX OF NAMES

 ADAMS, NATHANIEL ADDISON, JOSEPH ALLEN, WILLIAM ANANIAS ATKINSON, THEODORE AUSTIN, REBECCA BEAUJOLAIS, DUC DE BLAY, RUTH BOGGS, AMOS BREWSTER, CHARLES WARREN BRIDGET, MOLLY BROWN, REV. ARTHUR BROWN, CAPTAIN ELIHU D. BRUCE, CYRUS BURROUGHS, REV. DR. CHARLES BYLES, REV. MATHER CAROLINE, QUEEN CHADBORN, HUMPHREY CHARLES, PRINCE CHASTELLUX, MARQUIS DE CLAGETT, WYSEMAN COPLEY, JOHN SINGLETON D'ORLEANS, DUC DUNYON, WILLIAM ELIZABETH, QUEEN FENTON, JOHN FOWLE, DANIEL FOWLE, PRIMUS FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN FURBER, THOMAS GEORGE I GERRY, ELBRIDGE GORGES, SIR FERDINAND GUAST, PIERRE DE HAM, SUPPLY HANCOCK, JOHN HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL HILTON, MARTHA HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, SOL JAFFREY, GEORGE JAFFRIES, GEORGE JAFFREY JEWETT, SARAH ORNE KEAIS, SAMUAL KEKUANAOA KENNY, PENELOPE KNOX, GENERAL HENRY LAFAYETTE, MARQUIS DE LAIGHTON, ALBERT LAIGHTON, OSCAR LANGDON, COLONEL JOHN LEAR, BENJAMIN LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH MACPHEADRIS, ARCHIBALD MCDONOUGH, JAMES MASON, JEREMIAH MASON, JOHN MASON, JOHN TUFTON MARCH, CLEMENT MATHER, REV. COTTON MESERVE, GEORGE MICHELANGELO MITCHEL, LETTUCE MOFFATT, CATHERINE MOLIERE MONTPENSIER, DUC DE MOSES, JOSEPH NEWMAN, EDWARD NOBLE, MARK ODIORNE, EBEN L. PACKER, THOMAS PEDUZZI, DOMINIC PENHALLOW, WIBIRD PEPPERELL, SIR WILLIAM PEPYS, SAMUAL PHILIPPE, LOUIS PHIPPES, THOMAS PHIPPS, GOVERNOR PICKERING, JOHN PITT, WILLIAM POTTLE, WILLIAM PRING, MARTIN QUINCY, DOROTHY ROCHAMBEAU, COUNT DE ROUSSELET, NICHOLAS RUTLEDGE, EDWARD SERAT, LEONARD SEWELL, JONATHAN SHAKESPEARE SHEAFE, JACOB SHERBURNE, HENRY SHURTLEFF, MARY ATKINSON SHURTLEFF, REV. WILLIAM SIMPSON, SARAH SMITH, CAPTAIN JOHN SOCRATES STAVERS, DAME STAVERS, JOHN STEDMAN, EDMUND CLARENCE STOODLEY, JAMES THAXTER, CELIA THOREAU, HENRY DAVID TILTON, JOHNNY TOWLE, GEORGE WILLIAM WALTON, GEORGE WARNER, JONATHAN WASHINGTON, GEORGE WEBSTER, DANIEL WENTWORTH, BENNING WENTWORTH, JOHN WENTWORTH, JOHN 2D WENTWORTH, COLONEL JOSHUA WENTWORTH, MARY WENTWORTH, MICHAEL WENTWORTH, SARAH WESTWERE, EDWARD WHITTIER, JOHN GREENLEAF WIBIRD, RICHARD WILKINS, MARY E. WINN, TIMOTHY WITHER, GEORGE XANTIPPE