old whalers and barrels of oil.
These are the names of the islands along the south entrance to the bay which Bartholomew Gosnold, the English navigator, named for his queen the Elizabeth Islands when he entered the bay in 1602. Fortunately his attempt to substitute his own English names for these of the Indians was futile. When Gosnold landed at Cuttyhunk in the early summer of that year he found it densely wooded and abounding in game. To-day there is hardly a tree there. In the west part of this island is a pond of fresh water, in the waters of which is a considerable island, and it was on this that these adventurers built the first habitation in this section of New England of which there is any authentic account. There they were, in a sense, safe from the Indians and from wild animals.
When Gosnold prepared to return to England in his vessel, the “Concord,” with a cargo of native products, such as sassafras, cedar, etc., those who had planned to remain and settle returned with him, fearing that they might not share in the expected profits. But they could not take back with them the cellar to the house they had built, and what little vestige of the hole that still remains in that island within an island is to-day pointed out as the spot where the first white settler’s house was built hereabouts. Unfortunately for the picturesqueness and poetry of this historic incident, modern civilization has utilized the island as a hen-yard, and the historic cellar as a chicken-roost.
fish markets along the wharves.