Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast Part 17

A little east of the hotel and the pleasant manse below the river makes a n.o.ble sweep, inclosing a favorite anchorage for storm or wind bound craft. Not unfrequently a hundred may be seen quietly riding out a north-easter at snug moorings. At such times this harbor and Gloucester are havens of refuge for all coasters caught along sh.o.r.e. The sight of the fleet getting under way with the return of fine weather is worth going to see.

When at Kittery Point the visitor may indulge in a variety of agreeable excursions by land or water; the means are always at hand for boating and driving, and there is no lack of pleasant rambles. I first went to Gerrish's Island on a wild November day, and in a north-east snow-storm. I never enjoyed myself better.

In the first place, this island is one of the headlands of history as well as of the Piscataqua. It was conveyed as early as 1636, by Sir F.

Gorges, to Arthur Champernowne, a gentleman of Devon.[92] The island was to take the name of Dartington, from the manor of the Champernownes.[93]

In this indenture Brave Boat Harbor is mentioned. The Province of Maine was then sometimes called New Somersetshire.

There is something in this endeavor of all the promoters of New England to graft upon her soil the time-honored names of the Old, to plant with her civilization something to keep her in loving remembrance, that appeals to our protection. These names are historical and significant.

They link us to the high renown of our mother isle. No political separation can disinherit us. I think the tie is like the mystery of the electric wave that pa.s.ses under the sea, unseen yet acknowledged of all, active though invisible.

The island, with many contiguous acres, became the property of Francis, son of Arthur Champernowne, and nephew of Sir F. Gorges, who is buried there, his grave distinguished by a heap of stones. Tradition said he forbade in his last testament any stone to be raised to his memory.[94]

In the hands of subsequent proprietors the island was called Cutts's, Fryer's, and Gerrish's Island. It is usually spoken of as two islands, being nearly though not quite subdivided by Chauncy's Creek. The venerable Cutts's farm-house on the sh.o.r.e of the island is two hundred and thirty years old by family account.

All the islands lying northward of the ship channel belong to Kittery.[95] Many of them have interesting a.s.sociations. Trefethren's, the largest, projects far out into the river, and is garnished with the earth-works of old Fort Sullivan, from which shot might be pitched with ease on the decks of invading ships. Fernald's, now Navy Yard Island, became in 1806 the property of the United States, by purchase of Captain William Dennett, for the sum of five thousand five hundred dollars.

Badger's, anciently Langdon's Island, is a reminiscence of one of the n.o.blest of the old Romans of the revolutionary time. His still elegant mansion adorns one of the handsomest streets in Portsmouth.[96]

Washington, when there, considered it the finest private house in the town.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GOVERNOR LANGDON'S MANSION, PORTSMOUTH.]

Langdon was six feet tall, with a very n.o.ble presence. Duke Rochefoucauld Liancourt mentions that he had followed the sea first as mate, then as master of a ship. He ultimately became an eminent merchant and ship-builder. A devoted patriot, he was one of the leaders in the first act of aggression committed by the Portsmouth Whigs against the crown. As the words of a man of action and a model legislator in time of invasion by a foreign enemy, his well-known speech to the New Hampshire a.s.sembly is worth the quoting. This is his manner of cutting short useless debate: "Gentlemen, you may talk as much as you please; but I know the enemy is upon our frontiers, and I am going to take my pistols and mount my horse, and go and fight in the ranks of my fellow-citizens." And he did it.

Yet a little more about Langdon. Chastellux relates that when on his way to Gates's camp he was followed by a favorite slave. The negro, who beheld the energy with which his master pressed on, without other repose than could be s.n.a.t.c.hed in the woods, said to him, at last, "Master, you undergo great hardships, but you go to fight for liberty. I also should suffer patiently if I had the same liberty to defend." "Then you shall have it," said John Langdon; "from this moment I give you your freedom."

Continental Agent Langdon became the superintendent of war ships ordered here by Congress. He presided at the building of the _Ranger_, the _Alliance_, and the _America_, the last a seventy-four gun ship, generously given to Louis XVI. for one of his lost on our coast. Paul Jones was much here; a brave braggart, quarreling with Langdon and Congress, writing quires of memorials, little esteemed among his peers, though a lion on his own quarter-deck.

Though Langdon was a member elect of the Old Congress, as his State stipulated that only two of the delegates were to go to Philadelphia, his does not appear among the names signed to the Declaration. Matthew Thornton, elected after Langdon, was allowed to sign when he took his seat in November. Langdon became an opponent of the measures and administration of Washington, joining with Jefferson, Pierce Butler, and a few others in organizing the Republican party of that day. They had five votes in the Senate. In the House was Andrew Jackson, a member from Tennessee, who attracted little attention, though he voted with the small coterie of the Upper House, including Langdon, Butler, and Colonel Burr.

Jacob Sheaffe, who in his day carried on a more extensive business than any other merchant in Portsmouth, became the successor of Langdon as Government agent. It is said he purchased the island where the Navy Yard now is. One of the six frigates ordered under Washington's administration was begun here. We had voted to build these vessels to punish the Algerine corsairs; we then countermanded them; afterward a treaty was made with these pirates by which they were to have a new frigate of thirty-two guns, which was laid down at Portsmouth.

The family name of Sheaffe was once much more familiar in New England than now. It was of Peggy Sheaffe, a celebrated Boston beauty, that Baron Steuben perpetrated the following _mot_: When introduced to her at the house of Mrs. Livingstone, mother of the chancellor, the baron exclaimed, in his broken English, "I have been cautioned from my youth against _Mischief_, but had no idea her charms were so irresistible."

Kittery is mentioned by Josselyn as the most populous of all the plantations in the Province of Maine. It engrosses the left bank of the Piscataqua from the great bridge at Portsmouth to the sea. The booming of guns at the Navy Yard often announces the presence of some dignitary, yet none, I fancy, more distinguished than Washington have set foot in Kittery. I regret he has not much to say of it, but more of the fishing-party of which he was, at the moment, a member.

"Having lines," he says, "we proceeded to the fishing banks without the harbor, and fished for cod, but it not being a proper time of tide, we caught but two." The impregnable character of the President for truthfulness forbids the presumption that want of skill had aught to do with his ill-luck.

It would be matter for general regret if the selectmen of Kittery should again, as long ago happened, be presented by a grand jury for not taking care that their children were taught their catechism, and educated according to law. The number of steeples and school-houses seen by the way indicates, in this respect, a healthy public opinion. Kittery church-yard contains many mute appeals to linger and glean its dead secrets. Mrs. Thaxter sweetly sings as she felt the story of one of these mildewed stones:

"Crushing the scarlet strawberries in the gra.s.s, I kneel to read the slanting stone. Alas!

How sharp a sorrow speaks! A hundred years And more have vanished, with their smiles and tears, Since here was laid, upon an April day, Sweet Mary Chauncey in the grave away, A hundred years since here her lover stood Beside her grave." * * *

I found both banks of the Piscataqua charming. The hotels at Newcastle, Kittery, Old York, etc., are of the smaller cla.s.s, adapted to the comfortable entertainment of families; and as they are removed from the intrusion of that disagreeable const.i.tuent of city life known over-seas as the "swell mob," real comfort is attainable. They are not faultless, but one may always confidently reckon on a good bed, a polite, accommodating host, and well-provided table.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

FOOTNOTES:

[81] The name of Kittery Point is from a little hamlet in England. It is the first and oldest town in the State, having been settled in 1623.

Gorgeana, settled 1324, was a city corporate, and not a town. Kittery first included North and South Berwick and Eliot.

[82] Captain Joseph Cutts was born in 1764, and died on his birthday anniversary, aged ninety-seven. He married a granddaughter of President Chauncy, of Harvard College. Sarah Chauncy, known to us as "Sally Cutts," was removed during her last illness to the house of her cousin, where she was kindly cared for. When near her end she became more rational, and was sensible of the attentions of her friends. She died June 30th, 1874. Her brother Charles was hopelessly insane forty-four years, and often so violent as to make it necessary to chain him.

Joseph, the other brother, entered the navy: overtaken by his malady, he was sent home. Under these repeated misfortunes, added to the care of her father and brothers, Sally's reason also gave way. The town allowed a small sum for the board of her father and brothers, and her friends provided wood and clothing. Her house even was sold to satisfy a Government claim for duties, owed by her father. It has now been renovated, and is occupied by Oliver Cutts, Esquire.

[83] My appearance within Fort M'Clary caused a panic in the garrison. A few unimportant questions concerning the old works were answered only after a hurried consultation between the sergeant in charge and the head workman. The Government was then meditating war with Spain, and I had reason to believe I was looked upon as a Spanish emissary.

[84] The house was also occupied at one time as a tenement by fishermen.

It exhibits no marks, either inside or out, of the wealth and social consequence of its old proprietor.

[85] Mr. Longfellow has, at Cambridge, a painting by Copley, representing two children in a park. These children are William Pepperell and his sister, Elizabeth Royall Pepperell, children of the last baronet.

[86] Both were made colonels in the regular British establishment; their regiments, numbered the Fiftieth and Fifty-first respectively, were afterward disbanded.

[87] Marshal Saxe, unable to mount his horse, was carried along his lines in a litter.

[88] The year 1745 was also signalized by the death of Pope in June, and of the old d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough in October, who died at eighty-five, immensely rich, and "very little regretted either by her own family or the world in general."--SMOLLETT.

[89] Mr. E. F. Safford, the proprietor, exercises watch and ward over this and other relics of the Pepperells with a care worthy of imitation all along the coast.

[90] Mr. Sabine notes in his "Loyalists" that the tomb, when entered some years ago, contained little else than bones strewed in confusion about its muddy bottom; among them, of course, the remains of the victor of Louisburg, deposited in it at his decease in 1759.

[91] The best biography of Sir William Pepperell is that by Dr. Usher Parsons.

[92] The relation in Purchas, vol. iv., p. 1935, of the voyage of Robert, earl of Ess.e.x, to the Azores in 1597, has a supplementary or larger relation, written by Sir Arthur Gorges, knight, a captain in the earl's fleet of the ship _Wast-Spite_. There is mention of a Captain Arthur Champernowne, who appears to have sailed with the admiral in this expedition.

[93] The father of James Anthony Froude, the historian, was rector of Dartington; the historian was born there.

[94] He is fully recognized as a personage of distinction in the beginnings of Kittery. Charles W. Tuttle gives him a touch of royal blood. I failed to find such a provision in his own draft of his will.

[95] They are, in descending the river, Badger's, Navy Yard, Trefethren's, or Seavey's, Clark's, and Gerrish's Island.

[96] In Pleasant, near Court Street.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WHALE'S-BACK LIGHT.]

CHAPTER XI.

THE ISLES OF SHOALS.

"O warning lights, burn bright and clear, Hither the storm comes! Leagues away It moans and thunders low and drear-- Burn 'til the break of day!"

CELIA THAXTER.