Between Coy's Hill and Belchertown,
And said, 'You paltry stuff, lie there,
And make a town, and call it Ware.'"
MOUNT HOPE BAY.
On the northeastern verge of Narragansett Bay is Mount Hope Bay, its shores attractive alike in lovely scenery and the most interesting tradition. It is also a region of most venerable antiquity in America. Hither came the ancient Norsemen Vikings, who explored it, and sojourned there almost a thousand years ago. These wandering Norsemen, early colonizing Iceland and Greenland, are said to have discovered the mainland of North America in the tenth century, the energetic Leif, a son of Eric the Red, afterwards, in the year 1001, sailing along the American coast, and finding first, Helluland, or the "Flat Land," supposed to be Newfoundland, then Mark Land, or the "Wood Land," now Nova Scotia, and Vinland, or the "Vine Land," being the coasts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and wintering in Narragansett and Mount Hope Bays. The next year Leif's brother, Thorvald, came along these coasts with thirty men, and also passed a winter in Mount Hope Bay. The following season he sent a party of explorers hither, and in the year 1004 he again came personally, and was killed in a skirmish with the Indians, his companions returning to Greenland. There seem to have been subsequent Norsemen visits, and the name of Vinland was given by them on account of the profusion of vines growing on the shores and islands, which was a novelty to these wanderers from the far north.
Mount Hope Bay is the broadening estuary of Taunton Great River, and the elongated peninsula of Bristol Neck divides it from Narragansett Bay to the westward, stretching up to Providence. Upon Taunton Great River is a magnificent water-power which has produced the success of Taunton, a busy manufacturing town of thirty thousand people, where they make locomotives and tacks, bricks, screws and britannia ware, its name coming from Taunton in Somersetshire, its founder having been Elizabeth Pool, a pious Puritan lady of that place. When the first settlers explored the river they made a wonderful antiquarian discovery. Upon the shore, below Taunton, and opposite what are now the gardens and pleasure-grounds of Dighton, was found the famous "Writing Rock," lying partly submerged by the waterside, and when the tide is out, presenting a smooth face slightly inclined towards the river. It is a large greenstone boulder, the color changed to dusky red by the elements, and it now has the faint impression of hieroglyphics on its surface that have been almost effaced by the action of the water. In the early colonial days these marks were very distinct, and even after the beginning of the nineteenth century they could be plainly distinguished from the deck of a passing vessel. These inscriptions on the Dighton rock excited much wonder, and were generally attributed to the Norsemen. Old Cotton Mather described it, saying that among the "curiosities of New England, one is that of a mighty rock, on a perpendicular side whereof, by a river which at high tide covers part of it, there are very deeply engraved, no man alive knows how or when, about half a score lines, near ten foot long and a foot and a half broad, filled with strange characters." Another learned man speaks of them as "Punic inscriptions which remain to this day," made by the Phœnicians. Below, and near Fall River, many years ago, there was exhumed a skeleton in sitting posture, wearing a brass breast-plate and a belt of brass armor. Much marvel resulted from this important discovery, which was thought to have produced a veritable dead Viking, and it is said to have inspired Longfellow's poem of "The Skeleton in Armor":
"Speak! speak! thou fearful guest!
Who, with thy hollow breast
Still in rude armor drest,
Comest to daunt me!