Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast Part 51

My pilgrimage among the haunts of the Narragansets and Wampanoags of old fame extended no farther. Setting my face again toward the sea, when on board one of those floating hotels that ply between Fall River and New York, I thought of the prediction I had cut from the Boston _Daily Advertiser_ of just half a century ago: "We believe the time will not be far distant when a steamboat will be provided to run regularly between New York and Taunton River, to come to Fall River and Dighton, and perhaps to the wharves in Taunton, a mile below the village. This route from New York to Boston would in some respects be preferable to that through Providence."

FOOTNOTES:

[301] It was the fortress of the British left wing. Two large and elegant country houses at its base, included within the lines, were occupied by the officers.

[302] He was the son of John, the son of G.o.dfrey Malbone.

[303] The first bridge spanning what was known as Howland's Ferry was completed in 1795. It was of wood, destroyed and swept to sea by a storm; rebuilt, and again destroyed by worms. The present stone structure was built in 1809-'10, and, though injured by the gale of 1815, stands firm.

[304] The battle was fought in the valley below Quaker, sometimes called Meeting-house, Hill. Sullivan commanded in chief, though Greene is ent.i.tled to a large share of the credit of repulsing the British attack.

It was a well-fought action. Pigot, by British accounts, had six thousand regular troops. Lafayette was mad as a March hare at their fighting without him.

[305] Lechford, writing between 1637 and 1641, says: "At the island called Aquedney are about two hundred families. There was a church where one Master Clark was elder: the place where the church was is called Newport, but that church, I hear, is now dissolved. At the other end of the island there is another town called Portsmouth, but no church. Those of the island have a pretended civil government of their own erection without the king's patent."

[306] To be exact, the sh.o.r.es adjacent to the rock are in the town of Berkeley, formerly part of Dighton.

[307] A copy of the inscription, made by Professor Sewall, is deposited in the Museum at Cambridge. There is another copy, by James Winthrop; see plate in vol. iii., "Memoir American Academy," and description of method of taking it, vol. ii., part ii., p. 126. Many others have been taken, more or less imperfect; the best one recollected is in the hall of the Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Ma.s.sachusetts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NEW LONDON IN 1813.]

CHAPTER XXVII.

NEW LONDON AND NORWICH.

"It seems that you take pleasure in these walks, sir."--Ma.s.sINGER.

New London is a city hiding within a river, three miles from its meeting with the waters of Long Island Sound. On the farthest seaward point of the western sh.o.r.e is a light-house. Before, and yet a little eastward of the river's mouth, is an island about nine miles long screening it from the full power of Atlantic storms, and forming, with Watch Hill,[308]

the prolongation of the broken line of land stretching out into the Sound from the northern limb of the Long Island sh.o.r.e. Through this barrier, thrown across the entrance to the Sound, all vessels must pa.s.s.

The island is Fisher's Island. It seems placed on purpose to turn into the Thames all commerce winging its way eastward. Across the western extremity of Fisher's Island, on a fair night, New London and Montauk lights exchange burning glances. From Watch Hill the low and distant sh.o.r.e of Long Island is easily distinguished by day, and by night its beacon-light flashes an answer to its twin-brother of Montauk. These two towers are the Pillars of Hercules of the Sound, on which are hung the long and radiant gleams that bridge its gate-way.

South-west of Fisher's Island are the two Gull Islets, on the smallest of which is a light-house. The swift tide which washes them is called the Horse-race. Next comes Plum Island, separated from the Long Island sh.o.r.e by a narrow and swift channel known as Plum Gut, through which cunning yachtsmen sometimes steer. In 1667, Samuel Wyllys, of Hartford, bought Plum Island for a barrel of biscuit and a hundred awls and fish-hooks.

Any one who looks at the long ellipse of water embraced within Long Island and the Connecticut sh.o.r.e, and remarks the narrow and obstructed channel through which it communicates with the Hudson, the chain of islands at its meeting with the ocean on the east, must be impressed with the belief that he is beholding one of the greatest physical changes that have occurred on the New England coast. As it is, Long Island Sound lacks little of being an inland sea. The absence of any certain indications of the channels of the rivers emptying into the Sound west of the Connecticut favors the theory of the union, at some former time, of Long Island at its western end with the main-land.

To resume our survey of the coast, we see on the map, about midway between Point Judith and Montauk, the pear-shaped spot of land protruding above the ocean called Block Island.[309] It is about eight miles long, diversified with abrupt hills and narrow dales, but dest.i.tute of trees. A chain of ponds extending from the north and nearly to the centre, with several separate and smaller ones, const.i.tutes about one-seventh of the island. There is no ship harbor, and in bad weather fishing-boats are obliged to be hauled on sh.o.r.e, though the sea-mole in process of construction by Government will afford both haven and safeguard against the surges of the Atlantic; for the island, having no rock foundation, is constantly wasting away. Cottages of wood, whitewashed every spring, are scattered promiscuously over the island, with wretched roads or lanes to accommodate every dwelling. The total disappearance of the island has often been predicted, and I recollect when the impression prevailed to some extent on the main-land that the islanders had only an eye apiece.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NEW LONDON HARBOR, NORTH VIEW.]

Ascending now the river toward New London, wind, tide, or steam shall sweep us under the granite battlements of Fort Trumbull, on the one side, and the gra.s.sy mounds of Fort Griswold on the other.[310] Near the latter is standing a monument commemorating the infamy of Benedict Arnold and the heroism of a handful of brave men sacrificed to what is called the chances of war.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NEW LONDON LIGHT.]

New London is seen straggling up the side of a steep and rocky hill, dominated by three pointed steeples. Descending from the crest, its princ.i.p.al street opens like the mouth of a tunnel at the water-side into a broad s.p.a.ce, always its market-place and chief landing. Other avenues follow the natural shelf above the sh.o.r.e, or find their way deviously as streams might down the hill-side. The glory of New London is in its trees, though in some streets they stand so thick as to exclude the sunlight, and oppress the wayfarer with the feeling of walking in a church-yard.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The destruction of New London by Arnold's command, in 1781, has left little that is suggestive of its beginning. Its English settlement goes no farther back than 1646. In that year and the next a band of pioneers from the Ma.s.sachusetts colony, among whom was John Winthrop, Jun.,[311]

built their cottages, and made these wilds echo with the sounds of their industry.

Old London and Father Thames are repeated in New England, because, as these honest settlers avow, they loved the old names as much as they disliked the barbaric sounds of the aboriginal ones, though the latter were always typical of some salient characteristic. They settled upon the fair Mohegan, in the country of the Pequots, a race fierce and warlike, who in 1637 had made a death-grapple of it with the pale-faces, and had been blotted out from among the red nations. Pequot was the name of the harbor, changed in 1658 to New London.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD BLOCK HOUSE, FORT TRUMBULL.]

I first visited New London in 1845. It was then a bustling place--a little too bustling, perhaps, when rival crews of whalemen in port joined battle in the market-place, unpaving the street of its oyster-sh.e.l.ls, and shouting war-cries never before heard except at Otaheite or Juan Fernandez. A large fleet of vessels, engaged in whaling and sealing voyages, then sailed out of the Thames. The few old hulks laid up at the wharves, the rusty-looking oil-b.u.t.ts and discarded paraphernalia pertaining to the fishery, yet reminded me of the hunters who la.s.soed the wild coursers of sea-prairies.[312]

I have already confessed to a weakness for the wharves. There is one in New London, appropriated to the use of the Light-house Board, on which are piled hollow iron cylinders, spare anchors, chain cables, spars and spindles, buoys and beacons. A "relief" light-ship, and a tug-boat with steam up, lay beside it. The danger and privation of life in a light-house is not to be compared with that on board the light-ship, which is towed to its station on some dangerous shoal or near some reef, and there anch.o.r.ed. It not unfrequently happens in violent storms that the light-ship breaks from its moorings, and meets the fate it was intended to signal to other craft.[313] The sight of a raging sea as high as the decks of the vessel is one familiar to these hardy mariners.

When I expressed surprise that men were willing to hazard their lives on these c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.ls, a veteran sea-dog glanced at the scanty sail his vessel carried as he replied, "We can get somewhere."

On the light-ship the lanterns are protected by little houses, built around each mast, until lighted, when they are hoisted to the mast-head.

A fog-bell is carried on the forecastle to be tolled in thick weather. A more funereal sound than its monotone, deep and heavy, vibrating across a sea shrouded in mist, can scarcely be imagined.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A LIGHT-SHIP ON HER STATION.]

Old sailors are considered to make the best keepers of either floating or stationary beacons. Their long habit of keeping watches on shipboard renders them more reliable than landsmen to turn out in all kinds of weather, or on a sudden call. They are also far more observant of changes of the weather, of tides, or the position of pa.s.sing vessels. I have found many persons in charge of our sea-coast lights who had been ship-masters, and were men of more than ordinary intelligence. When the Fresnel lenticular light was being considered, it was objected by those having our system in charge that it would be difficult to procure keepers of sufficient intelligence to manage the lens apparatus. M.

Fresnel replied that this difficulty had been most singularly exaggerated, as in France the country keepers belonged almost always to the cla.s.s of ordinary mechanics or laborers, who, with eight or ten days' instruction, were able to perform their duties satisfactorily.[314]

All visitors to New London find their way, sooner or later, to the Old Hempstead House, a venerable roof dotted with moss-tufts, situated on Jay Street, not far west of the court-house. It is one of the few antiques which time and the flames have spared. As one of the old garrison-houses standing in the midst of a populous city, it is an eloquent reminder of the race it has outlived. It was built and occupied by Sir Robert Hempstead, descending as entailed property to the seventh generation, who continued to inhabit it. The Hempstead House is near the cove around which the first settlement of the town appears to have cl.u.s.tered. The last remaining house built by the first settlers stood about half a mile west of the court-house, on what was called Cape Ann Street: it was taken down about 1824. Governor Winthrop lived at the head of the cove bearing his name at the north end of the city.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COURT-HOUSE, NEW LONDON.]

The court-house standing at the head of State (formerly Court) Street has the date of 1784 on the pediment, having been rebuilt after the burning of the town by Arnold.[315] At the other end of the street was the jail. The court-house, which formerly had an exterior gallery, has a certain family resemblance to the State-house at Newport. It is built of wood, with some attempt at ornamentation. Freshened up with white paint and green blinds, it looked remarkably unlike a seat of justice, which is usually dirty enough in all its courts to be blind indeed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BISHOP SEABURY'S MONUMENT.]

In the chancel of St. James's repose the ashes of Samuel Seabury, the first Anglican bishop in the United States. He took orders in 1753 in London, and on returning to his native country entered upon the work of his ministry. In 1775, having subscribed to a royalist protest, declaring his "abhorrence of all unlawful congresses and committees," he was seized by the Whigs, and confined in New Haven jail. Later in the war, he became chaplain of Colonel Fanning's regiment of American loyalists. After the war, Mr. Seabury went to England in order to obtain consecration as bishop, but, meeting with obstacles there, he was consecrated in Scotland by three non-juring bishops. The monument reproduced is from the old burying-ground of New London.[316]

The ancient burial-place of New London is in the northern part of the city, on elevated ground, not far from the river. An old fractured slab of red sandstone once bore the now illegible inscription:

"An epitaph on Captaine Richard Lord, deceased May 17, 1662, Aetatis svae 51.

... Bright starre of ovr chivallrie lies here To the state a covnsellorr fvll deare And to ye trvth a friend of sweete content To Hartford towne a silver ornament Who can deny to poore he was releife And in composing paroxyies he was cheife To Marchantes as a patterne he might stand Adventring dangers new by sea and land."

The harbor of New London being considered one of the best in New England, its claim to be a naval station has been urged from time to time upon the General Government. It is s.p.a.cious, safe, and deep. During the past winter, which has so severely tested the capabilities of our coast harbors, closing many of them with an ice-blockade of long continuance, that of New London has remained open. In 1835, when the navigation of the harbor of New York was suspended, by being solidly frozen, New London harbor remained un.o.bstructed, vessels entering and departing as in summer.[317]

Among other observations made among the shipping, I may mention the operations of the destructive worm that perforates a ship's bottom or a thick stick of timber with equal ease. I now had an opportunity of confirming what I had often been told, yet scarcely credited, that the worm could be distinctly heard while boring. The sound made by the borer exactly resembled that of an auger. It is not a little surprising to reflect that so insignificant a worm--not longer than a cambric needle when it first attacks the wood--is able to penetrate solid oak. I noticed evidences where these dreaded workmen were still busy, in little dust-heaps lying on the timber not yet removed from a vessel.

With the aid of a wheezy ferry-boat that landed me on Groton side, I still pursued my questionings or communings under the inspiration of a sunny afternoon, a transparent air, and a breeze brisk and bracing, bringing with it the full flavor of the sea. A climb up the steep ascent leading to the old fort was rewarded by the most captivating views, and by gales that are above blowing in the super-heated streets of a city.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GROTON MONUMENT.]

The granite monument, which is our guide to the events these heights have witnessed, was built with the aid of a lottery. A marble tablet placed above its entrance is inscribed: