The Old Coast Road / From Boston to Plymouth

by Agnes Rothery

This constant and steadily increasing trade radically affected the whole economic structure and history of New England for two centuries. Ships and all the shipyard industries; the farm, on which fish was used not only as a medium of exchange, but also as a valuable fertilizer; the home, where the many operations of curing and salting were carried on—all of those were developed directly by the growth of this particular trade. Laws were made and continually revised regarding the fisheries and safeguarding their rights in every conceivable fashion; ship carpenters were exempt from military service, and many special exemptions were extended to fishermen under the general statutes.

The oyster is now a dish for the epicure and the lobster for the millionaire. But in the old days when oysters a foot long were not uncommon, and lobsters sometimes grew to six feet, every one had all he wanted, and sometimes more than he wanted, of these delicacies. The stranger in New England may notice how certain customs still prevail, such as the Friday night fish dinner and the Sunday morning fish-cakes; and also that New Englanders as a whole have a rather fastidious taste in regard to the preparation of both salt- and fresh-water products. The food of any region is characteristic of that region, and to travel along the Old Coast Road and not partake of one of the delicious fish dinners, is as absurd as it would be to omit rice from a menu in China or roast beef from an English dinner.

While the fishing trade was highly important in all the South Shore towns, yet it was especially so in Scituate. In 1770 more than thirty vessels, principally for mackerel, were fitted out in this one village, and these vessels not infrequently took a thousand barrels in a season. In winter they were used for Southern coasting, carrying lumber and fish and returning with grain and flour. The reason why fishing was so persistently and exclusively followed in this particular spot is not hard to seek. The sea yielded a far more profitable and ready crop than the land, and, besides, had a jealous way of nibbling away at the land wherever it could. It is estimated that it wastes away from twelve to fourteen inches of Fourth Cliff every year.

But in spite of the sea's readily accessible crop it was natural that the "men of Kent" who settled the town should demand some portion of dry land as well. These men of Kent were not mermen, able to live in and on the water indefinitely, but decidedly gallant fellows, rather more courtly than their neighbors, and more polished than the race which succeeded them. Gilson, Vassal, Hatherly, Cudworth, Tilden, Hoar, Foster, Stedman, and Hinckley had all been accustomed to the elegancies of life in England as their names testify. The first land they used was on the cliffs, for it had already been improved by Indian planting; then the salt marshes, covered with a natural crop of grass, and then the mellow intervales near the river. When the sea was forced to the regretful realization that she could not monopolize the entire attention of her fellows, she was persuaded to yield up some very excellent fertilizer in the way of seaweed. But she still nags away at the cliffs and shore, and proclaims with every flaunting wave and ripple that it is the water, not the land, which makes Scituate what it is.

And, after all, the sea is right. It is along the shore that one sees Scituate most truly. Here the characteristic industry of mossing is still carried on in primitive fashion. The mossers work from dories, gathering with long-handled rakes the seaweed from the rocks and ledges along the shore. They bring it in, a heavy, dark, inert mass, all sleek and dripping, and spread it out to dry in the sun. As it lies there, neatly arranged on beds of smoothest pebbles, the sun bleaches it. One can easily differentiate the different days' haul, for the moss which is just spread out is almost black and that of yesterday is a dark purple. It shimmers from purple into lavender; the lavender into something like rose; and by the time of the final washing and bleaching it lies in fine light white crinkles, almost like wool. It is a pretty sight, and the neatness and dispatch of the mossers make the odd sea-flower gardens attractive patches on the beach. Sometimes a family working together will make as much as a thousand dollars in a season gathering and preparing the moss. One wonders if all the people in the world could eat enough blancmange to consume this salty product, and is relieved to be reminded that the moss is also used for brewing and dyeing.

It is really a pity to see Scituate only from a motor. There is real atmosphere to the place, which is worth breathing, but it takes more time to breathe in an atmosphere than merely to "take the air." Should you decide to ramble about the ancient town you will surely find your way to Scituate Point. The old stone lighthouse, over a century old, is no longer used, and the oil lantern, hung nightly out at the end of the romantic promontory, seems a return to days of long ago. You will also see the place where, in the stirring Revolutionary days, little Abigail and Rebecca Bates, with fife and drum marched up and down, close to the shore and yet hidden from sight, playing so furiously that their "martial music and other noises" scared away the enemy and saved the town from invasion. You will go to Second Cliff where are the summer homes of many literary people, and you will pass through Egypt, catching what glimpse you can of the stables and offices, paddocks and cottages of the immense estate of Dreamwold. And of course you will have pointed out to you the birthplace of Samuel Woodworth, whose sole claim to remembrance is his poem of the "Old Oaken Bucket." The well-sweep is still where he saw it, when, as editor of the New York Mirror, it suddenly flashed before his reminiscent vision, but the old oaken bucket itself has been removed to a museum.

After you have done all these things, you will, if you are wise, forsake Scituate Harbor, which is the old section, and Scituate Beach, which is the newer, summer section, and find the way to the burial ground, which, after the one in Plymouth, is the oldest in the State. Possibly there will be others at the burial ground, for ancestor worshipers are not confined to China, and every year there springs up a new crop of genealogists to kneel before the moss-grown headstones and, with truly admirable patience, decipher names and dates, half obliterated by the finger of time. One does not wonder that their descendants are so eager to trace their connection back to those men of Kent, whose sturdy title rings so bravely down the centuries. To be sure, what is left to trace is very slight in most cases, and quite without any savor of personality. Too often it is merely brief and dry recital of dates and number of progeny, and names of the same. Few have left anything so quaint as the words of Walter Briggs, who settled there in 1651 and from whom Briggs Harbor was named. His will contains this thoughtful provision: "For my wife Francis, one third of my estate during her life, also a gentle horse or mare, and Jemmy the negur shall catch it for her."

The good people who came later (1634) from Plymouth and Boston and took up their difficult colonial life under the pastorate of Mr. Lathrop, seem to have done their best to make "Satuit" (as it was first called, from the Indians, meaning "cold brook") conform as nearly as possible to the other pioneer settlements, even to the point of discovering witches here. But religion and fasting were not able to accomplish what the ubiquitous summer influx has, happily, also failed to effect. Scituate remains different.

Perhaps it was those men of Kent who gave it its indestructibly romantic bias; perhaps it is the jealousy of the ever-encroaching sea. The gray geese flying over the iridescent moss gleaming upon the pebbled beaches, the solitary lantern on the point are all parts of that differentness. And those who love her best are glad that it is so.