Eight or nine years after the erection of Faneuil Hall, it took fire from a neighbouring conflagration, and was nearly burnt to the ground. It was on one of the coldest nights of January, and the water froze so rapidly, that it was impossible to work the engines. The walls were left standing, and it was rebuilt and enlarged soon after.
Just against the end of Faneuil Hall, in a broad dock, now filled up and built upon, used to lie a cluster of oyster-boats, that were half house, half vessel, floating oyster-shops—in short, of the most canonical rudeness and simplicity. It was as necessary to go to them to eat oysters in perfection, as it is to go to Blackwall for white-bait; and no true gourmand pretended to have elsewhere found the relish. They are gone, alas! and with the old hulks are gone the amphibious venders—the rude, high-booted, superannuated oyster-openers, dressing, for years after they had given up the vocation, just as if they were embarking for the mud-bank, and talking in the same hoarse tone as if their words were meant to struggle, as of yore, with a nor’wester. So flee away before the advances of improvement all that reminded us of other days; and it is by this resolute plucking up of old associations, and resolute modernizing and improving, even upon the most sacred habits and usages of our forefathers, that this new nation keeps its unchecked headway, with neither rooted superstition nor cherished prejudice to restrain it. When it ceases to be so, we shall have the age of poetry; but adieu, then, to the age of improvement!
THE END.
PRINTED BY RICHARD CLAY, BREAD-STREET-HILL.
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings of names occur, the majority spelling was used. Changes include:
— Renssellaer to Rensselaer
— and Susquehannah to Susquehanna.
Inconsistencies in punctuation have been maintained.