Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast. Drake Samuel Adams
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is as toothsome as is supposed. The whole process was in marked contrast with the scrupulous neatness with which similar operations are elsewhere conducted; nor was there particular scrutiny as to whether the lobsters were already dead when received from the vessels.
Wood, in the "New England Prospect," mentions that lobsters were so plenty and little esteemed they were seldom eaten. They were frequently, he says, of twenty pounds' weight. The Indians used lobsters to bait their hooks, and ate them when they could not get bass. I have seen an account of a lobster that weighed thirty-five pounds. Josselyn mentions that he saw one weighing twenty pounds, and that the Indians dried them for food as they did lampreys and oysters.
The first-comers into New England waters were not more puzzled to find the ancient city of Norumbega than I to reach the fabulous Down East of the moderns. In San Francisco the name is vaguely applied to the territory east of the Mississippi, though more frequently the rest of the republic is alluded to as "The States." South of the obliterated Mason and Dixon's line, the region east of the Alleghanies and north of the Potomac is Down East, and no mistake about it. In New York you are as far as ever from this terra incognita. In Connecticut they shrug their shoulders and point you about north-north-east. Down East, say Massachusetts people, is just across our eastern border. Arrived on the Penobscot, I fancied myself there at last.
"Whither bound?" I asked of a fisherman, getting up his foresail before loosing from the wharf.
"Sir, to you. Down East."
The evident determination to shift the responsibility forbade further pursuit of this fictitious land. Besides, Maine people are indisposed to accept without challenge the name so universally applied to them of Down Easters. We do not say down to the North Pole, and we do say down South. The higher latitude we make northwardly the farther down we get. Nevertheless, disposed as I avow myself to present the case fairly, the people of Maine uniformly say "up to the westward," when speaking of Massachusetts. Of one thing I am persuaded – Down East is nowhere in New England.
CHAPTER VI.
PEMAQUID POINT
"Love thou thy land, with love far-brought
From out the storied Past, and used
Within the Present, but transfused
Thro' future time by power of thought."
A very small fraction of the people of New England, I venture to say, know more of Pemaquid than that such a place once existed somewhere within her limits; yet it is scarcely possible to take up a book on New England in which the name does not occur with a frequency that is of itself a spur to inquiry. If a few volumes be consulted, the materials for history become abundant. After accumulating for two hundred years, or more, what belongs to the imperishable things of earth, this old outpost of English power has returned into second childhood, and become what it originally was, namely, a fishing-village.
But those who delight in ferreting through the chinks and crannies of an out-of-the-way locality, will be repaid by starting from Damariscotta on a coastwise voyage of discovery. In traveling by railway from Portland, with your face to the rising sun, you catch occasional glimpses of the ocean, and you receive imperfect impressions of the estuaries that indent her "hundred-harbored" shores; but from the window of a stage-coach journeying at six miles an hour the material and mental eye may receive and fix ideas more distinct and enduring.
I reached the little village of New Harbor, at Pemaquid Point, in time to see the sun crimson in setting, a cloudless sky, and an unruffled sea. Monhegan Island grew of a deep purple in the twilight shadows. The tower lamps were alight, and from neighboring islands other beacons twinkled pleasantly on the waters. Coasting vessels trimmed their sails to catch the land-breeze of evening. Then the moon arose.
The little harbor beneath me contained a few small fishing-vessels at anchor. One or two others were slowly working their way in. The cottages straggling by the shore were not numerous or noticeable. It was still some three miles to the light-house at the extremity of the point.
At Bristol Mills I had exchanged the stage for a beach-wagon. The driver was evidently a person of consequence here, as he usually becomes in such isolated neighborhoods out of the beaten paths of travel. His loquacity was marvelous. He had either a message or a missive for every one he met; and at the noise of our wheels house doors opened, and the noses and lips of youngsters were flattened in a whimsical manner against the window-panes. I observed that he invariably saluted the girls by their Christian names as they stood shyly peeping through half-opened doors; adding the middle name to the baptismal whenever one might be claimed, as Olive Ann, Matilda Jane, or Hannah Ann. I should have called some of them plain Olive, or Matilda, or Hannah. The men answered to such names as Dominicus, Jott, and 'Life (Eliphalet). Thus this brisk little fellow's passing was the great event over four miles of road.
I should have gone directly to the old settlement on the other side of the Neck, now known as "The Factory;" but here, for a wonder, were no hotels, and travelers are dependent upon private hospitality. "Do you think they will take me in over there?" I queried, pointing to the old mansion on the site of Fort Frederick. The driver shook his head.
"Are they quite full?"
"Solid," was his reply, given with an emphasis that conveyed the impression of sardines in a box. So I was fain to rest with a fisherman turned store-keeper.
The little rock-environed harbor on the side of Muscongus Bay is a mere roadstead, unfit for shipping in heavy easterly weather. This place, like many neighboring sea-coast hamlets, was busily engaged in the mackerel and menhaden fishery. The latter fish, usually called "porgee," is in demand at the factories along shore for its oil, and among Bank fishermen as bait. Some old cellars on the north side of New Harbor indicated the locale of a former generation of fishermen. On this side, too, there existed, not many years ago, remains of a fortification of ancient date.45 Shot, household utensils, etc., have been excavated there. There is also by the shore what was either the lair of wild beasts, or a place of concealment frequented by savages. Mr. M'Farland, one of the oldest residents, mentioned that he had found an arrow-head in the den. Various coins and Indian implements, some of which I saw, have been turned up with the soil on this neck of land.
The visitor will not leave New Harbor without hearing of sharp work done there in the war of 1812. The enemy's cruisers kept the coast in perpetual alarm by their marauding excursions in defenseless harbors. One day a British frigate hove to in the Bay, and in a short time a number of barges were seen to push off, fully manned, for the shore. The small militia guard then stationed in Old Fort Frederick was notified, and the residents of New Harbor prepared for action. As the leading British barge entered the harbor, it was hailed by an aged fisherman, who warned the officer in charge not to attempt to land. "If a single gun is fired," replied the Briton, "the town shall be destroyed."
Not a single gun, but a deadly volley, answered the threat. The rocks were bristling with old queen's arms and ducking-guns, in the grasp of a score of resolute fellows. Every shot was well aimed. The barge drifted helplessly out with the tide, and the captain of the frigate had a sorry dispatch for the admiral at Halifax.
Leaving New Harbor, I crossed a by-path that conducted to the factory road. Here and elsewhere I had listened to the story of the destruction of the menhaden, from the fishermen's point of view. They apprehend nothing less than the total disappearance of this fish at no distant day. "What are we poor fellows going to do when they catch up all the porgees?" asked one. The fishery, as conducted by the factories, is regarded by the fishermen proper as the introduction of improved machinery that dispenses with labor is looked upon by the operative. Although the oil factories purchase the catch that is brought in, the owners are considered intruders, and experience many petty vexations. As men of capital, possessed of all needful appliances for their business, they are really independent of the resident population, to whom, on the other hand, they disburse money and give employment. The question with which the political economist will have to deal is the expected extinction of the menhaden.
I went through the factory at Pemaquid Point, and was persuaded the fish could not long support the drain upon them. The porgee begins to frequent these waters in June.
This work is on an old map of the Kennebec patent. It was about twenty rods square, a bastion. A house now stands in the space it formerly occupied.