NIX’S MATE LIGHT IN BOSTON HARBOR.
The Story of an Island Which Disappeared and the Curious Old Legend of the Spot Now Marked by This Interesting Beacon.
As a person enters Boston Harbor by the main ship channel, having threaded his way between Lovell’s Island and Gallup’s Island, and just before passing between Long Island and Deer Island, he sees at his left a unique monument marking a dangerous ledge and shoal. So peculiar is its appearance that every stranger is sure to ask, “What is that?” To this some local wiseacre promptly responds, “Nix’s Mate”; but usually he cannot explain its meaning or even spell the name correctly.
The “Mate” is a massive piece of copper-riveted masonry, forty feet square and twelve feet high (with stairs on one side), upon whose top rises a black wooden pyramid, twenty feet high. Two hundred years ago, where this weird pyramid now stands, there was a fertile island of twelve acres, furnishing excellent grazing, and called, in consequence, Green Island. So much is history. A curious old book, long out of print,[[4]] has woven the legend of the name into a pleasing romance, which in brief is as follows:
[4]. Nix’s Mate: an Historical Romance of America, by the author of “Athenia of Damascus,” etc. In two volumes. Published by Samuel Colman, No. VIII Astor House, Broadway, 1839.
When Sir William Phips made his celebrated expedition to the Spanish Main in 1687, under the auspices of the Duke of Albemarle, in which he recovered some millions of sunken gold and enriched himself for life, he was accompanied by one Captain Nix and his first mate, Edward Fitzvassal. As the first expedition was so wonderfully successful, Captain Nix went out on another search and raised another precious cargo from the bottom of the deep. But on his return the crew of his vessel, the Dolphin, mutinied, under the leadership of the mate, and turned pirates.
Captain Nix and six others were set adrift early in the year 1689, in an open boat, and left to their fate. After incredible hardships they reached land, only to be captured by savages. Toward spring they escaped in a canoe, and finally landed on Green Island, June 1, 1689. They contrived to reach Boston Town, and there they found the Dolphin and Fitzvassal, too, who had assumed the name of Captain Nix. Fitzvassal was tried for piracy, convicted, and sentenced to be executed on Green Island on June 5. But for some service which he had rendered to the colony while bearing his assumed name he was pardoned by the governor (Bradstreet). Before the news of the pardon reached him, however, he took a fatal dose of poison.
He was buried on Green Island, and his sole mourner was an Indian maid and sibyl who had loved him. She prophesied that the island would wash away, and her prediction was fulfilled: little by little, the earth slid off the rock into the sea, and now nothing remains but a dangerous ledge upon which stands the curious beacon—Nix’s Mate.