Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast

by Samuel Adams Drake

As is well known to all who have followed the fortunes of the little band of eighteen—and who has not followed them in their toilsome progress in search of a haven of rest?—their shallop, after narrowly escaping wreck among the shoals of Saquish, gained a safe anchorage under the shelter of one of the then existing islands. It is probable that when they rounded Saquish Head they found themselves in smoother water.

The gale had carried away their mast and sail. Their pilot proved not only ignorant of the place into which he was steering, but a coward when the pinch came. They were on the point of beaching the shallop in a cove full of breakers, when one of the sailors bid them about with her, if they were men, or else they would be all lost. So that the fortunes of the infant colony hung, at this critical moment, on the presence of mind of a nameless mariner.

Cold, hungry, and wet to the skin, they remained all night in a situation which none but the roughest campaigner would know how rightly to estimate. The Indians had met them, at Eastham, with such determined hostility that they expected no better reception here. Their arms were wet and unserviceable. As usual, present discomfort triumphed over their fears, for many were so much exhausted that they could no longer endure their misery on board the shallop. Some of them gained the shore, where with great difficulty they lighted a fire of the wet wood they were able to collect. The remainder of the party were glad to join them before midnight; for the wind shifted to north-west, and it began to freeze. They had little idea where they were, having come upon the land in the dark. It was not until day-break that they knew it to be an island. Surely, these were times to try the souls of men, and to wring the selfishness out of them.

This night bivouac, this vigil of the Pilgrims around their blazing camp-fire, the flames painting their bronzed faces, and sending a grateful warmth into benumbed bodies, was a subject worthy the pencil of Rembrandt. I doubt that they dared lay their armor aside or shut their eyes the live-long night. I believe they were glad of the dawn of a bright and glorious December day.[207] They dried their buff coats, cleansed their arms of rust, and felt themselves once more men fit for action. Then they shouldered their muskets and reconnoitred the island. Probably the eighteen stood on the summit of this rock.

I found Clark's Island to possess a charm exceeding any so-called restoration or monumental inscription—the charm of an undisturbed state. No doubt much of the original forest has disappeared, and Boston has yet to return the cedar gate-posts so carefully noted by every succeeding chronicler of the Old Colony. A few scrubby originals of this variety yet, however, remain; and the eastern side of the island is not destitute of trees. The air was sweet and wholesome, the sea-breeze invigorating. In the quietude of the isle the student may open his history, and read on page and scene the story of a hundred English hearts sorely tried, but triumphing at last.

History has not told us how the eighteen adventurous Pilgrims passed their first Sabbath on Clark's Island. One writer says very simply "wee rested;" and his language re-appears on the tablet of imperishable rock. Bradford says, on the "last day of y^e weeke they prepared ther to keepe y^e Sabbath." If ever they had need of rest it was on this day; and if ever they had reason to give thanks for their "manifold deliverances," now was the occasion. They would hardly have stirred on any enterprise without their Bible; and probably one having the imprint of Geneva, with figured verses, was now produced. Bradford, yet ignorant of his wife's death, may have prayed, and Winslow exhorted, as both admit they often did in the church. Master Carver may have struck the key-note of the Hundredth Psalm, "the grand old Puritan anthem;" and even Miles Standish and the "saylers" three, may have joined in the forest hymnal.[208]

Hood, in his "History of Music in New England," speaking of the early part of the eighteenth century, says: "Singing psalms, at that day, had not become an amusement among the people. It was used, as it ever ought to be, only as a devotional act. So great was the reverence in which their psalm-tunes were held, that the people put off their hats, as they would in prayer, whenever they heard one sung, though not a word was uttered."

On leaving Clark's Island we steered for Captain's Hill. By this time the water had become much roughened, or, to borrow a word from the boatmen's vocabulary, "choppy;" I should have called it hilly. Our attempt to land at Duxbury was met with great kicking, bouncing, and squabbling on the part of the boat, which seemed to like the chafing of the wharf as little as we did the idea of a return to Plymouth against wind and tide. Quiet perseverance, however, prevailed, and, after clambering up the piles, we stood upon the wharf. A short walk by the cart-way, built to fetch stone from the pier to the monument, brought us to the brow of the hill.

Captain's Hill, named from Captain Miles Standish, its early possessor, is on a peninsula jutting out between Duxbury and Plymouth bays. Its surface is smooth, with few trees, except those belonging to the farm-houses near its base. The soil, that is elsewhere in Duxbury sandy and unproductive, is here rather fertile, which accounts for its having become the seat of the puissant Captain Standish. The monument, already mentioned as in progress, had advanced as high as the foundations. As originally planned, it was to be built of stones contributed by each of the New England States, and by the several counties and military organizations of Massachusetts.

Standish, about 1632, settled upon this peninsula, building his house on a little rising ground south-east of the hill near the shore. All traces that are left of it will be found on the point of land opposite Mr. Stephen M. Allen's house. The cellar excavation was still visible when I visited it, with some of the foundation-stones lying loosely about. Except a clump of young trees that had become rooted in the hollows, the point is bare, and looks anything but a desirable site for a homestead. Plymouth is in full view, as is also the harbor's open mouth. The space between the headland on which the house stood and Captain's Hill was at one time either an arm of the sea, or else in great gales the water broke over the level, forming a sort of lagoon. Mr. Winsor, in his "History of Duxbury," says the sea, according to the traditions of the place, once flowed between Standish's house and the hill. The ground about the house, he adds, has been turned up in years past, the search being rewarded by the recovery of several relics of the old inhabitant.[209] The house is said to have been burned, but so long ago that even the date has been quite forgotten. On this same neck Elder Brewster is believed to have lived, but the situation of his dwelling is at best doubtful.