A fine delicate seaweed, which some properly enough call sea-green. Saw here the staghorn, or velvet, sumach (Rhus typhina), so called from form of young branches, a size larger than the Rhus glabra common with us. The Plantago maritima, or sea plantain, properly named. I guessed its name before I knew what it was called by botanists. The American sea-rocket (Bunias edentula) I suppose it was that I saw,—the succulent plant with much cut leaves and small pinkish (?) flowers.
July 27. Sunday. Walked from Cohasset to Duxbury and sailed thence to Clark’s Island.
Visited the large tupelo tree (Nyssa multiflora) in Scituate, whose rounded and open top, like some umbelliferous plant’s, I could see from Mr. Sewal’s, the tree which George Emerson went twenty-five miles to see, called sometimes snag-tree and swamp hornbeam, also pepperidge and gum-tree. Hard to split. We have it in Concord. Cardinal-flower in bloom. Scituate meeting-houses on very high ground; the principal one a landmark for sailors. Saw the buckthorn, which is naturalized. One of Marshfield meeting-houses on the height of land on my road. The country generally descends westerly toward the sources of Taunton River.
After taking the road by Webster’s beyond South Marshfield, I walked a long way at noon, hot and thirsty, before I could find a suitable place to sit and eat my dinner,—a place where the shade and the sward pleased me. At length I was obliged to put up with a small shade close to the ruts, where the only stream I had seen for some time crossed the road. Here, also, numerous robins came to cool and wash themselves and to drink. They stood in the water up to their bellies, from time to time wetting their wings and tails and also ducking their heads and sprinkling the water over themselves; then they sat on a fence near by to dry. Then a goldfinch came and did the same, accompanied by the less brilliant female. These birds evidently enjoyed their bath greatly, and it seemed indispensable to them.
A neighbor of Webster’s told me that he had hard on to sixteen hundred acres and was still buying more,—a farm and factory within the year; cultivated a hundred and fifty acres. I saw twelve acres of potatoes together, the same of rye and wheat, and more methinks of buckwheat. Fifteen or sixteen men, Irish mostly, at ten dollars a month, doing the work of fifty, with a Yankee overseer, long a resident of Marshfield, named Wright. Would eat only the produce of his farm during the few weeks he was at home,—brown bread and butter and milk,—and sent out for a pig’s cheek to eat with his greens. Ate only what grew on his farm, but drank more than ran on his farm.
Took refuge from the rain at a Mr. Stetson’s in Duxbury.
I forgot to say that I passed the Winslow House, now belonging to Webster. This land was granted to the family in 1637.
Sailed with tavern-keeper Winsor, who was going out mackereling. Seven men, stripping up their clothes, each bearing an armful of wood and one some new potatoes, walked to the boats, then shoved them out a dozen rods over the mud, then rowed half a mile to the schooner of forty-three tons. They expected [to] be gone about a week, and to begin to fish perhaps the next morning. Fresh mackerel which they carried to Boston. Had four dories, and commonly fished from them. Else they fished on the starboard side aft, where their lines hung ready with the old baits on, two to a man. I had the experience of going on a mackerel cruise.
They went aboard their schooner in a leisurely way this Sunday evening, with a fair but very slight wind, the sun now setting clear and shining on the vessel after several thunder-showers. I was struck by the small quantity of supplies which they appeared to take. We climbed aboard, and there we were in a mackerel schooner. The baits were not dry on the hooks. Winsor cast overboard the foul juice of mackerels mixed with rain-water which remained in his trough. There was the mill in which to grind up the mackerel for bait, and the trough to hold it, and the long-handled dipper to cast it overboard with; and already in the harbor we saw the surface rippled with schools of small mackerel. They proceeded leisurely to weigh anchor, and then to raise their two sails. There was one passenger, going for health or amusement, who had been to California. I had the experience of going a-mackereling, though I was landed on an island before we got out of the harbor. They expected to commence fishing the next morning. It had been a very warm day with frequent thunder-showers. I had walked from Cohasset to Duxbury, and had walked about the latter town to find a passage to Clark’s Island, about three miles distant, but no boat could stir, they said, at that state of the tide.[265] The tide was down, and boats were left high and dry. At length I was directed to Winsor’s tavern, where perchance I might find some mackerel-fishers, who were going to sail that night to be ready for fishing in the morning, and, as they would pass near the island, they would take me. I found it so. Winsor himself was going. I told him he was the very man for me; but I must wait an hour. So I ate supper with them. Then one after another of his crew was seen straggling to the shore, for the most part in high boots,—some made of india-rubber,—some with their pants stripped up. There were seven for this schooner, beside a passenger and myself. The leisurely manner in which they proceeded struck me. I had taken off my shoes and stockings and prepared to wade. Each of the seven took an armful of pine wood and walked with it to the two boats, which lay at high-water mark in the mud; then they resolved that each should bring one more armful and that would be enough. They had already got a barrel of water and had some more in the schooner, also a bucket of new potatoes. Then, dividing into two parties, we pulled and shoved the boats a dozen rods over the mud and water till they floated, then rowed half a mile or more over the shallow water to the little schooner and climbed aboard. Many seals had their heads out. We gathered about the helmsman and talked about the compass, which was affected by the iron in the vessel, etc., etc.[266]
Clark’s Island, Sunday night.—On Friday night December 8th, O. S., the Pilgrims, exploring in the shallop, landed on Clark’s Island (so called from the master’s mate of the May-Flower), where they spent three nights and kept their first Sabbath. On Monday, or the 11th, O. S., they landed on the Rock. This island contains about eighty-six acres and was once covered with red cedars which were sold at Boston for gate-posts. I saw a few left, one, two feet in diameter at the ground, which was probably standing when the Pilgrims came. Ed. Watson, who could remember them nearly fifty years, had observed but little change in them. Hutchinson calls this one of the best islands in Massachusetts Bay. The town kept it at first as a sacred place, but finally sold it in 1690 to Samuel Lucas, Elkanah Watson, and George Morton. Saw a stag’s-horn sumach five or six inches in diameter and eighteen feet high. Here was the marsh goldenrod (Solidago lævigata) not yet in blossom; a small bluish flower in the marshes, which they called rosemary; a kind of chenopodium which appeared distinct from the common; and a short oval-leaved, set-looking plant which I suppose is Glaux maritima, sea milkwort, or saltwort.