"Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,

Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart

By the women of Marblehead!"

He had refused to take some of his townsmen off a drifting wreck, because it would cost too much to feed them on the way home.

SALEM AND THE WITCHES.

Westward of the Marblehead peninsula, there stretches into the mainland another noted haven of the olden time, Salem harbor, dividing it into two arms, the North and South Rivers, having between them the town, chiefly built upon a peninsula about two miles long. This was the Indian domain of Naumkeag, a name preserved in many titles there, and meaning the "Eel-Land." It was the mother-colony on Massachusetts Bay, the first house being built in 1626, and old John Endicott having got a grant from Plymouth for the colony, he came out and founded the town two years afterwards, calling it Salem, "from the peace which they had and hoped in it." But despite this peacefulness, the people soon developed warlike tendencies. They scourged Philip Ratcliffe, and cut off his ears and banished him soon after the founding, for "blasphemy against the First Church," and when the port had got well under way, an annual trade statement showed imports of $110,000 in arms and cannon, against $90,000 in everything else. The "First Church," formed in 1629, was the earliest church organization in New England, and it still exists. There were then ten houses in the town, besides the Governor's house, which the early history describes as "garnished with great ordnance;" adding, "thus we doubt not that God will be with us, and if God be with us, who can be against us?" John Winthrop was here as Governor, briefly, in 1630, soon migrating to Shawmut, to found Boston for the capital of the colony. After the Revolution, Salem was the leading seaport of New England; but its glory has departed, and the trade has gone to Boston. In 1785 it sent out the first American vessel that doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and during a half century afterwards it held almost a monopoly of the East India and China trade with the United States, having at one time fifty-four large ships thus engaged. The Salem ships also went to the Southern seas, Japan and Africa. This trade gave its people great wealth and influence, and it was said, about 1810, that a Salem merchant was then the largest shipowner in the world. But this has retired into the dim past, and now it is a restful city of about forty thousand people, its leading townsmen, the descendants of the merchants and captains, living in comfortable mansions surrounding the Common and along the quiet elm-shaded streets in the residential section. The rest of the population have gone into shoemaking and other manufactures.

George Peabody, the philanthropist, was the most noted citizen of Salem, born in the suburb of Danvers (since changed to Peabody) in 1795, and, dying in 1869, his remains rest in Harmony Grove Cemetery. In the Peabody Institute, which he founded in Danvers, is kept as a sacred relic Queen Victoria's portrait, her gift to him in recognition of his benefactions. General Putnam, Nathaniel Bowditch, William H. Prescott, the historian, W. W. Story, the sculptor, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, were natives of Salem. The East India Marine Hall is its most noted institution, a fine building filled with a remarkable Oriental collection, gathered in the many voyages made by Salem ships, and also having a valuable Natural History Museum, designed to show the development of animal life. In the Essex Institute are interesting historical paintings and relics, including the charter given by King Charles I. to the colony of Massachusetts Bay. Also, carefully kept near by, is the original "First Church," built in 1634 for the organization formed in 1629, and of which Roger Williams was the pastor before the Puritans banished him from the colony. When the enlarging congregation built a more spacious church, this quaint little house, with its high-pointed roof, diamond-paned windows and gallery, which is revered as the shrine of Salem, was removed to its present location. In Essex Street is also the old "Roger Williams House," a low-roofed structure with a little shop in front, his home for a brief period in 1635-36. This house has acquired additional fame as a relic of the witchcraft days, for in it was held the court trying some of the witches in 1692, who were afterwards taken to the gallows or Witch Hill, on the western verge of the town, to be put to death. The witchcraft delusion began in the Danvers suburb and soon overran most of New England, the prosecutions continuing more than a year. Nineteen proven witches were executed, while one, under the ancient English law, was pressed to death for standing mute when told to plead. Old Cotton Mather, the historian and pastor, was a leader in the movement against the witches.

The North Shore, beyond Salem Harbor, stretches far along the rock-bound coast of Cape Ann. Here all the old fishing towns have become modern villa-studded summer resorts, picturesque and attractive in their newer development. Beverley, Manchester-by-the-Sea and Magnolia all have grand headlands and fine beaches. Beverley also has shoe-factories, and is proud of the memory of Nathan Dane, the eminent jurist, who named Dane Hall, the Harvard Law School. Manchester has the "Singing Beach," where the white sand, when stirred, emits a musical sound. Magnolia, on a rocky bluff, is adjoined by the attractive Crescent Beach, and has around it very fine woodland. To the eastward is Rafe's Chasm, sixty feet deep and only a few feet wide, and off shore, almost opposite, is the bleak reef of Norman's Woe. Inland is Wenham Lake, near Beverley, noted for its ice supply, upon which all these places depend, while beyond, the Ipswich River comes down through the pleasant town of Ipswich, covering both banks with houses, and flowing into Ipswich Bay north of the peninsula of Cape Ann. To the westward is Andover, where the thrifty Puritan Fathers, having bought the domain from the Indians "for twenty-six dollars and sixty-four cents and a coat," established the noted Andover Theological Seminary of the Congregational Church, where its ablest divines have been taught in what has been called "the school of the prophets." Here, on "Andover Hill," abstruse theology has been the ruling influence and intense religious controversies have been waged, over three thousand clergymen having been graduated. Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe lived here after publishing Uncle Tom's Cabin, and is buried here. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps was born here, and wrote Gates Ajar in the venerable "Phelps House." The Seminary buildings, the local guidebook tells us, cause visitors to wonder "if orthodox angels have not lifted up old Harvard and Massachusetts Halls and carried them by night from Cambridge to Andover Hill." Ipswich, too, has a famous Seminary, but it is for the opposite sex. We are told that one reason for the popularity of Ipswich Female Seminary is that its location tends to softening the rigors of study, as this is the place "where Andover theological students are wont to take unto themselves wives of the daughters of the Puritans." The indented shore of Ipswich Bay was ancient Agawam, of which Captain John Smith, coasting along in 1614, recorded in his narrative that he saw "the many cornfields and delightful groves of Agawam." The fertile valley of Ipswich River is a veritable oasis among the rocks, moors and salt-marshes that environ it.

THE MERRIMACK RIVER.

Near the northern boundary of Massachusetts is the famous Merrimack River, flowing northeastward into the Atlantic, and noted for the enormous water-powers it provides for the various mill-towns that line its banks. It is a vigorous stream, having frequent waterfalls and carrying a powerful current, the name appropriately meaning "the swift water." Oliver Wendell Holmes writes of it in The School Boy: