Russell told me that he once bought some primitive woodland in Plymouth which was sold at auction—the biggest pitch pines two feet diameter—for eight shillings an acre. If he had bought enough, it would have been a fortune. There is still forest in this town which the axe has not touched, says George Bradford. According to Thatcher’s History of Plymouth, there were 11,662 acres of woodland in 1831, or twenty square miles. Pilgrims first saw Billington Sea about January 1st; visited it January 8th. The oldest stone in the Plymouth Burying Ground, 1681. (Coles (?) Hill, where those who died the first winter were buried, is said to have been levelled and sown to conceal loss from Indians.) Oldest on our hill, 1677. In Mrs. Plympton’s garden on Leyden Street, running down to Town Brook, saw an abundance of pears, gathered excellent June-eating apples, saw a large lilac about eight inches diameter. Methinks a soil may improve when at length it has shaded itself with vegetation.
William S. Russell, the registrar at the court-house, showed the oldest town records, for all are preserved. On first page a plan of Leyden Street dated December, 1620, with names of settlers. They have a great many folios. The writing plain. Saw the charter granted by the Plymouth Company to the Pilgrims, signed by Warwick, dated 1629, and the box in which it was brought over, with the seal.
Pilgrim Hall. They used to crack off pieces of the Forefathers’ Rock for visitors with a cold chisel, till the town forbade it. The stone remaining at wharf is about seven feet square. Saw two old armchairs that came over in the Mayflower, the large picture by Sargent, Standish’s sword, gun-barrel with which Philip was killed, mug and pocket-book of Clark the mate, iron pot of Standish, old pipe-tongs. Indian relics: a
flayer; a pot or mortar of a kind
of fire-proof stone, very hard, only seven or eight inches long. A commission from Cromwell to Winslow (?), his signature torn off. They talk of a monument on the Rock. The Burying Hill 165 feet high. Manomet 394 feet high by State map. Saw more pears at Washburn’s garden. No graves of Pilgrims.
Seaweed generally used along shore. Saw the Prinos glabra, ink-berry, at Billington Sea. Sandy plain with oaks of various kinds cut in less than twenty years. No communication with Sandwich. Plymouth end of world; fifty miles thither by railroad. Old Colony road poor property. Nothing saves Plymouth but the Rock. Fern-leaved beach.
Saw the king crab (Limulus polyphemus), horseshoe and saucepan fish, at the Island, covered with sea-green and buried in the sand for concealment.