Chapter VI: Part 6

The old house bought by the Ipswich Historical Society is the best surviving example in New England of the earliest Seventeenth-Century colonial architecture. There are several finer and grander specimens of the domestic architecture of later periods in Essex County, but in all the category of colonial houses there is no such perfectly preserved and authentic type of the domestic architecture of the middle of the Seventeenth Century. The exact date of its erection is unknown, but all the valid evidence available, in the absence of documentary records bearing directly on this point, indicates that it was built as early as 1650, and there are architects who believe that it was erected still earlier. The extreme rarity of houses dating from that remote period, so soon after the settlement of Massachusetts, is due primarily to the limited longevity of wooden building, and secondarily to the fact that the colonists were at first obliged by the paucity of proper building materials to erect only temporary cabins of logs, which were subsequently abandoned and neglected, after more comfortable dwellings were made possible by the establishment of saw-mills and forges and roads. Ipswich was settled in 1633. The first saw-mill in the town was established in 1649. The great posts and girders, with other surviving timbers of the frame of the old house in question, bear no marks of the axe or the adze, and it would be a fair inference that they were sawed, though not necessarily by water power, for we know that some extensive sawing was done by hand in sawpits.

... There are three or four successive parts or chapters in the serial story of the old house. The west end of the main structure was built first; of this there is evidence in the material, the workmanship, the age of the woodwork, and in indirect, but convincing written evidence. The main beams of the frame--the posts, sills, girders, joists, rafters, etc.--in this wing are of American larch or tamarack, a soft wood, which, however, has shown astonishing durability in every part except where it has been exposed to moisture. The east part of the main structure, the second chapter, was possibly added in the time of the affluent and pious Captain John Whipple, the second of that name, who, in 1683, was estimated to be “worth” $16,570. In this part of the house the main beams are of oak, and the posts and girders are carved with some attempt at elegance of finish. Later a lean-to was added, the rafters on the north (rear) side of the roof being supplemented by a new set of rafters at an easier angle, carrying the roof at one point almost to the ground. Whether the lean-to was entirely built at one time, or in two sections, is unknown and is not of importance. The lean-to is a relatively modern part, and the original profile of the exterior must have been very angular and high-shouldered in proportion to its ground area.

Now, here are the more interesting dimensions of the building, as it stands. Length, on the ground, fifty feet; width, thirty-six feet. Great east room, ground floor, twenty-four by seventeen and one-half feet; height seven feet. Fireplace in this room, seven feet and three inches wide; two feet, nine inches deep. Dimensions of oak girders, fourteen by fourteen inches. Windows, diamond panes, and hung on hinges, five feet, three inches wide, and two feet, six inches high; three sashes each; should be leaded glass. East chamber, same measurements as east room below. Fireplace in this room, six feet, two inches wide, and two feet, two inches deep. These figures may mean but little to the layman, but they are full of significance to the architect, the builder, and the antiquarian. The exterior of the Whipple house has nothing in its aspect that would serve to draw especial attention to it; but the interior possesses these two distinct points of architectural merit, remarkable massiveness of construction, and fine, dignified proportions. The two main rooms on the ground floor are in fact superb for their simplicity, size and solidity. The beautiful rich brown tone of the old oak posts, girders and joists gives the key of colour. There is a white plastered ceiling between the joists, the plaster being put directly on the floor-boards of the second story....

One thing is evident, to any visitor who stands in the great east room, and contemplates the stately proportions of the interior; that is, that the Whipples must have been great swells in their day, to possess such a mansion. Indeed, no further proof of their status, so far as means are concerned, is needed than is furnished by the entertaining inventory of Captain John Whipple’s estate in 1683, with its painful particularity, itemizing each separate article of household use, apparel, tools, edibles, beverages, and even “Lawrence ye Indian,” who was valued at four pounds, a sum which seems inexpensive, even where the supply of Indians exceeded the demand. It is enough to make collectors’ mouths water to run over this list of old furniture, silverware, pewter, china, arms, andirons, brasses, coppers, gallipots, buckles and buttons, “kittles,” warming-pans, trenchers, candlesticks, “tin lanthorns,” beakers, flagons, “basons,” piggins, “sully bub” pots, spinning wheels, and a score of other things, more or less phonetically spelled, after the excellent fashion of the epoch, when, as George Eliot remarks, spelling was mostly a matter of taste.

The first John Whipple, whose estate was inventoried in 1669, was not nearly so well off as his son afterwards became, though he had a farm of about 360 acres of land, worth $750, and houses and lands in the town, worth $1,250, with $45 worth of “apparell,” $35 worth of “feather beds,” $6.75 worth of “chayres,” and $12 worth of “bookes.”

Speaking of books, the Ipswich Historical Society has in its custody, in the west room of the old house, the most unmitigatedly pious lot of old books I ever saw. They come from the Religious Society in Ipswich, and the visitor may while away long hours in reading such light literature as Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (Salem, 1786), Increase Mather’s “Angelagraphia” (Boston, 1696), or “The Loving Invitation of Christ to the Aged, Middle-Aged, Youth and Children, from the mouth of Elizabeth Osborn, only Three Years and Nine Months Old.” The collection of books, manuscripts, autographs, etc., displayed in this room embraces a copy of the Breeches Bible (1615); an autograph letter from John Winthrop, Jr., founder of Ipswich (1634); an inventory of the household goods in Winthrop’s house in Ipswich; several old petitions, deeds, wills, and other Colonial and Revolutionary documents of interest. On rainy days, when the outside world is dark and dismal, and the time hangs heavy on one’s hands, it will be consoling for the people who like that sort of thing to sit down and run through Owen’s work on “Indwelling Sin,” Baxter’s “Call to the Unconverted,” Woodward’s “Fair Warning,” Crawford’s “Dying Shots,” the account of “Count Struensee’s Conversion,” Cooper on “Predestination,” Edwards on “Original Sin,” Shepard’s “Sound Believer,” Langdon on “The Revelation,” Coleman’s “Parable of the Ten Virgins,” Webb’s “Direction for Conversion,” Bellamy’s “Glory of the Gospel,” Ditton on “The Resurrection,” Doddridge on “Regeneration,” or Stoddard’s “Safety of Appearing in ye Righteousness of Christ.” But, though the theology of these stalwart Calvinists may seem a bit inflexible and unlovely to modern eyes, what they did not know about setting up a title-page was not worth knowing. As religionists they were of their day, took their creeds straight and hot, and their rum ditto; but they were first-rate printers!

The house is a veritable museum of Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century relics and curios. There is a buffet full of old china in the west room which contains some very rare and choice pieces. The andirons in this room are cast-iron figures of Hessians, in grenadier caps, picked out with gilt. The iron fire-back is dated 1693. The andirons in the east room are dated 1596. The great east room is fitted up as a kitchen. The fire burns on the hearth as of yore, and the spacious fireplace is fully equipped with ancient cooking utensils. Huge pewter platters and obsolete fire-arms adorn the walls. The spinning-wheels, cheese-press and churns are in their places. Here we find the yarn reels, the great winnowing fan, the old cradle, foot-stove, candle-mould, candlesticks, nice pieces of old needlework, samplers, old lamps, pewter porringers, tinder-boxes, trivets, lanthorns, trammels, tin kitchens with spits, etc., and a highly interesting collection of old furniture. In the west room are the cabinet of old china, sundry heirlooms, an ancient piano, antique chairs and pictures. The paintings comprise a smoky old panel depicting the harbour of Ipswich, in which the vessels fly the British flag, showing that it was painted prior to the Revolution, and a life-size bust portrait of Whitefield, anonymous, and somewhat queer about the eyes. Whitefield preached in Ipswich, and he did so to such good effect that Satan fled through the meeting-house window, leaving on the window-ledge the print of his cloven hoof. Mr. Waters may not believe this, but it is just as true as some other local traditions.

“The old mansion,” says President Waters, in a passage of retrospect which shows how sympathetic is his vein of fancy, “is a constant reminder of all the glorious names which hallow and illumine the early years of our town life,--Saltonstall and Winthrop, Symonds and Denison, Ward and Norton and Hubbard and all the rest. They were all friends of the Elder. Every one of them may have crossed our threshold. As we sit here in the flickering firelight we seem to see them sitting, as of old, and conversing on the great themes.... The old pavement in the dooryard rings again with the hoof-beats of Captain Whipple’s horse hurrying to lead his troopers on a swift ride to Andover to repel an Indian assault. John Appleton and Thomas French are talking in this very room of their imprisonment and trial for advocating resistance to the royal governor’s edict and demanding representation before they would submit to taxation. Colonel Hodgkins and Colonel Wade and Major Burnham smoke and sip their steaming cups and chat of Bunker Hill and Yorktown, of Burgoyne and Cornwallis, Washington and Lafayette.” And he evokes a vision of the ancient life, its feasts, weddings, funerals, departures and home-comings, its daily toil, and all the lights and shadows of the remote Puritan home life, that revives the far-off days with a singular and touching reality.

FORT MARION, ST. AUGUSTINE

IZA DUFFUS HARDY

From Jacksonville to St. Augustine is like a going back from the Nineteenth Century into the Sixteenth. This, the oldest city in the United States--with its history that should be printed in red letters, being one volume of war and siege and bloodshed--is to all appearance the old Spanish settlement still. The world seems to have gone on and left it behind; the march of modern improvement has passed it by; the tourist has found it out, and the hotel-keeper, of course, keeps him company; but they have failed to spoil, or modernize and mar the quaint old town. Step outside your hotel, and you at once step into a bygone age. The old Spanish city lies wrapt in a dreamy peace; it seems asleep in the sunshine. Narrow, unpaved, sandy streets; quaint wooden houses breaking out into balconies and piazzas; untidy yards with ragged banana-trees and palms and oleanders and climbing roses; “coquina” houses, relics of old days, massive of wall and scant of window, built of the curious material “coquina,” found only hereabouts (formed of masses of crushed shell dug out of Anastasia Island, just across the river)--this is St. Augustine at a first glance!

The oldest inhabitant is sitting at his door under his own vine and figtree, smoking the pipe of peace in his shirt sleeves. He bids us good evening; we stop and chat awhile with the old man, who is like a picture, his snow-white hair and beard framing a rugged brown face. He is a Spaniard, he tells us, born here, and nearly grown to manhood when the Spanish flag was hauled down to give place to the Stars and Stripes. He points out one of the oldest Spanish houses, a pink house, built of “coquina,” and plastered over with a delicious soft pink like the flush of sunset. Its little lattice windows are broken, so that we can see the thickness of its massive “coquina” walls; it is empty and falling rapidly to ruin. Down the narrow, sunny, sandy, almost deserted street comes a riderless horse, trotting at a brisk pace. He knows his home, and turns in under his own archway smartly. Next comes a solitary cow, and presently a mare, also unencumbered by rider or saddle, followed by a pretty little foal. They are all returning to their respective homes in a quiet, business-like way.

We walk on to the Plaza, the central spot in which the sluggish currents of life in St. Augustine seem to meet and eddy and make a little stir in the sleepy old place. Facing on the Plaza is the old Catholic church, with its high quaint belfry, to which the guide-books and residents invariably call the attention of the tourist. Here is the old market, under whose arched roof, men, women and children were bought and sold once upon a time, and not so long ago, before the slave traffic (which brought its curse with it, and pulled down the pillars of the temple, and drew ruin, at least for a season, on these fair lands of the South), gave place to the innocent bargaining for fish, flesh, fowl and fruit, which is all these old walls look down upon to-day.

Beyond the Plaza we come upon the “sea-wall,” which our little guide-book has led us to anticipate as a “promenade.” When we behold it, however, our dreams of promenading vanish. It runs along the shore, from the modern barracks at one end of the town to the ancient fort at the other. It is simply a low, massive stone wall, the top of which, unprotected by any rail or parapet, is described as the favourite “Lover’s Walk”; but, if it is so, St. Augustine lovers must be slender as well as affectionate. We find it quite enough to walk singly upon it with a steady head. The tourist is “promenading himself” there, of course, with his wife in her palmetto-hat; and we perceive, on observation of the various couples, that lovers, when young and slim, _may_ walk double, though more frequently _he_ walks behind _her_. A soft, fresh breeze blows up from the unseen Atlantic, which is shut from our view by the long slip of Anastasia Island, running parallel with the sea-wall, between the ocean, whose salt fragrance floats faintly to us, and the river lapping the base of the wall. The sea-wall walk leads us to the old Fort Marion, which is, perhaps _the_ sight to be seen here.

The first stone was laid in 1592, the last, as the inscription over the gateway tells us, in 1756. The great fortress is in excellent preservation. Its massive “coquina” walls stand almost untouched by time or siege, though the wild grass waves under our feet in the barbican and blue flowers blossom from the chinks in the “coquina” blocks. A grim silence broods over the ancient walls, as we explore turret and drawbridge, casement and bastion. There is an old sergeant whose mission is to show visitors over the place, but he is apparently off duty, for we seek and find him not. A fellow-tourist, however, gives us all the information we require. We sit on damp blocks of stone on a mud floor under a vaulted roof, while he tells us of the “locked dungeon,” into which admission can only be gained through the absent sergeant. He pioneers us into the “bakehouse,” a huge, dimly-lit stone room, also with mud floor and vaulted roof, with a recess which served as oven, and one aperture which combined the offices of chimney and window. It was here that, during the siege of St. Augustine, all the townsfolk collected for shelter; and a wretched community they must have been! From this bakehouse a gloomy archway leads into a pitch-dark dungeon. Our escort lights matches, which only serve to make the darkness visible. By their feeble glimmer we can see neither roof nor walls, nothing but the thick blackness which closes round us like a pall. We are told, however, that the obscurity here is nothing to the inky darkness of the “locked dungeon,” wherein, the story goes, skeletons were found in iron cages,--but this is, by the best authorities, denied.

We next inspect a comparatively light and airy cell, with a narrow grating high up, to our eyes unattainable and impassable, but through which the Indian chief, “Wild Cat,” is said to have effected his escape. The great Osceola, his companion in obscurity, nobly refused to avail himself of the same means. It strikes me as possible that the “Cat” was the slenderer and more agile of the two. From the fort we cross a rough and pathless stretch of sand and turf to another relic of the past--to the old city gates. They are built of “coquina,” of course. We inspect the barred and grated sentinel-boxes, the high towers flanking the gateway and dutifully resist the temptation to chip off a piece of “coquina” as a souvenir.

The next day is Easter Sunday; the quaint old streets are crowded with gaily-dressed people; the Plaza is swarming with happy pairs. This is truly the “Land of Flowers.” As we saunter in the shade of the great trees that make King Street rather a forest-glade than a street, and linger to gaze into the groves and gardens which surround almost every residence, we drink in the fragrant breeze, heavy with perfumes of myriad blossoms, and revel in the luxuriance of tropical bloom and foliage all around us. Here is the lance-leaved palmetto, and here the beautiful feathery date-palm; here the oleanders droop their pink and pearl, starred and scented boughs high out of reach above our heads; here climbing roses straggle up to the housetops; here are great forest-like trees covered with the sweet yellow flowers of the apoppinac; here the giant magnolia, tall as a poplar and sturdy as an oak, is opening the great white petals of its mammoth flower. Now and then we come upon the bridal blossoms of the orange and again upon branches weighed down under their globes of ruddy gold.

We take a farewell stroll down St. George’s Street--where the oldest inhabitant still sits smoking under his figtree, and the ragged bananas and spiky palms in the gardens stand out against the deepening glow in the west--as evening draws on. We wander down to the sea-wall, which is nearly deserted now. There are one or two wild-looking men on horseback, their saddles mere mats of crimson or blue embroidered cloth, their feet thrust into the unsightly bags known as Mexican stirrups. There are several dogs, one large yellow mastiff taking his siesta on the sea-wall, occupying the entire width of the “promenade”; a canine friend, coming to interview him, stands on his hind legs, with his fore-paws on the top of the wall. This somehow makes the “Lover’s Walk” look a very small affair. One of the riders spurs his horse up on to the wall, and, like the successful admirer of “the Lady Kunigonde of the Kynast,” he “rides along the battlemented parapet,” breaking up the canine _tête-à-tête_. Fortunately, there are no lovers on the wall to be startled from off their own particular domain, only the yellow mastiff scuttles down in a hurry as horse and rider gallop by.

The sun is setting behind the town, and the eastern sky before us catches a tender reflected blush just on the horizon. Beyond the sea-wall lies a stretch of water, blue as heaven and calm as a dream; it scarcely laps against the old stones; the little boats on its surface “float double” boat and shadow; an indescribable softness, like a sleep, broods over its waveless tide. Beyond this entranced water lies the long dark shade of Anastasia Island; beyond that, the pale reflected rose of the eastern sky fades slowly with the dying day. The one or two stragglers on the sea-wall stand out in vivid silhouette against the blue water and blushing sky; the clatter of the horse’s hoofs, as the equestrian Blondin dashes along the top of the wall, seems to shatter the silence like the breaking of a spell.

ST. ANNE DE BEAUPRÉ, QUEBEC[19]

ANNA T. SADLIER

Long ago, in some far away time too distant for actual history to have recorded the fact, a few Breton sailors, coming up the great river were surprised by a terrific storm. In all the terror of the moment, the blackness of the night, the howling of the winds and the rushing of the waters, their hearts went back to distant Brittany. In childhood and in youth they had been taught to have recourse to the beloved patroness of their _chère Bretagne_. Never had St. Anne d’Auray failed to hear a simple and heartfelt prayer. They registered a vow: if the good saint brought them once more to land, there where their feet touched they would build her a shrine. A morning came blue and cloudless. These brave men were ashore and where? They looked about them. To the northward rose the Laurentian hills, to the southward the wide-rolling St. Lawrence, to the eastward a little stream, now the St. Anne, dividing the settlement from the neighbouring parish of St. Joachim. In such surroundings they built a simple wooden chapel and laid the foundation of a shrine now famous throughout America.

The years went on; these hardy _voyageurs_ passed on their way and were heard of no more in the village they had founded. But habitations soon grew up, and the settlement of Petit-Cap began to be known by the little temple which stood in its very heart. Meanwhile in the passing years, the springtime floods and the winter storms, and even the hand of time itself, began to tell upon the sturdy wooden frame of the good saint’s shrine. The project of rebuilding it was first seriously entertained somewhere about 1660. A prosperous farmer of the village, named Etienne Lessard, made a generous donation of land sufficient for the erection of a church, provided only that the work was begun at once. A discussion now arose as to the propriety of changing the site; but the matter was finally decided and M. Vignal, a priest from Quebec, went down to Petit-Cap to bless the foundations. He was accompanied by M. d’Aillebout, Governor of New France, who went thither expressly to lay the corner-stone.

This second church, which remained in use till 1876, was built of stone and stood just at the foot of the hill, where the present chapel for processions now is. During the years following its erection multitudes of pilgrims flocked thither.

Amongst those whose interest in the welfare of the church and the propagation of the devotion have woven a halo round this village shrine is that immortal Bishop of Quebec--he who coming of the ancient and knightly race, the Barons Montmorenci de Laval, forsook the splendours of a luxurious court and the softness of a southern climate to devote his wonderful intellect to the service of the primitive Canadian Church.

Rich gifts began to pour in and the attention of royalty itself was drawn to the spot; for a gleam from the magnificence of that traditionally splendid court of Louis le Grand fell upon that humble sanctuary hard by the blue stream, which still bore the Indian _voyageur_ upon his way. It is part of the romance which antiquity has lent to the place, this offering made by the queen-mother of Louis XIV. Anne of Austria’s own royal hands worked a handsome chasuble as a gift to the good St. Anne. The ornaments upon it are red, white and black arrows and the whole is richly wrought in gold and silver. Now, though that splendid pageant of a dream, that gorgeous phantom of a dead royalty, has passed into tradition, the vestment worked by the royal mother’s hands is still seen at the altar of St. Anne’s upon great occasions.

A costly silver reliquary adorned with precious stones and two pictures painted by the Franciscan friar, Luc Lafrançois, are the gifts of Mgr. de Laval; while there is a crucifix of solid silver presented by the hero of Iberville in 1706 in return for favours obtained. So does the past intermingle everywhere with the present, and such tokens speak like the voices of the dead, giving testimony of answered prayers. Kneeling there before that beloved mother of the Mother of Christ, we can see in fancy, as humble suppliants by our side, the great and good prelate whose name shines out from the early Canadian annals with an unsurpassed lustre, or the valiant soldiers, proud and warlike viceroys, gay and gallant barons of France, who have bent the knee here, humble, believing, hopeful as the poor fisher whose boat rocked the while upon the surging waters without. In 1875, a magnificent banner, seven feet and a half high by four and a half broad, was presented to the Curé by his Excellency Lieutenant-Governor Caron, of Quebec. On one side of it is St. Anne teaching the Blessed Virgin, the two figures encircled by a silver shower. Above and below is inscribed: “St. Anne, Consolation of the Afflicted, pray for us.” The reverse of the banner represents St. Joachim as a pilgrim, proceeding to the temple with his simple gift of two white doves. The work thereupon was done by the Sisters of Charity.

The walls and sanctuary are fairly covered with crutches, hearts of gold and silver, and the like, each one telling of a belief in some cure obtained, or petition heard.

The year of 1876, the year of the building of the new church was crowned by a rescript of His Holiness Pius IX., bearing date the 7th of May, by which he declared St. Anne patroness of the Province of Quebec, as long ago St. Joseph had been declared patron of all Canada.

The interior of the church is adorned with eight altars, the high altar being the gift of his Grace Mgr. Taschereau, of Quebec; the Blessed Virgin’s, that of the Bishop of Montreal; one to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, that of the Bishop of St. Hyacinth; while St. Joseph is donated by the Bishop of Ottawa, the Holy Angels by the clerks of St. Viator.

Two really beautiful stained windows which adorn the chancel are the gift of four parishioners. Various pictures upon the walls commemorate remarkable deliverances from shipwreck and the like. Such is Le Père Pierre and the crew of the ship _Saint Esprit_ making a vow to St. Anne; or the King’s vessel, _Le Héros_, on the point or foundering; or yet another caught in the ice and saved through the intercession of St. Anne. Of the artistic excellence of many of these pictures we say nothing.

Besides the relics of St. Anne, the Church of Beaupré can boast many others, such as the one of St. Francis Xavier, of St. Deodatus, St. Benedict, St. Valentine, St. Remi, St. Eulalie, St. Amantis, Pontianus, St. Cæsarius, and others. The Rev. M. Gauvreau, Curé from 1875 to 1878, almost completely finished the exterior of the new church. In 1876, he likewise built a school chapel for the children of the neighbouring concessions. He also conceived the idea of building the Chapel of the Processions out of the material of the old church. It was consecrated October 2, 1878, and is intended to perpetuate the ancient edifice, being erected after the same fashion and surmounted by the same bell-tower, whence the same sweet-toned voice calls the people to prayer that called the dead and gone generations ago. Situated upon an eminence, and being used especially when the concourse of pilgrims is very great, it is an imitation of the altar of the _Scala Sancta_ at St. Anne d’Auray. There is a fountain just before the entrance to the new church, where crowds of pilgrims are seen using the water. It is surmounted by a statue of St. Anne.

The one principal street of St. Anne’s runs along the slope of a hill which in the summer-time is thickly covered with fruit-laden trees. Canadian homesteads of comfort and of plenty line it on either side. The population consists of some hundred and fifty families, who, experiencing little of “life’s long and fitful fever,” spin out their days in a primitive and rural simplicity which belonged to the golden epoch of _la Nouvelle France_. The traveller fresh from the restless bustle of a modern Babylon seems to find himself suddenly transported to some far-away Utopia of simple content which has slept for centuries an enchanted sleep, and awakes isolated indeed from the Juggernaut of progress. The handsome church, sole token of modern enterprise, arises like a new Aladdin’s tower from amid the group of quaint, almost mediæval dwellings. In the spring and summer-time St. Anne’s awakes from a lethargy in which it has been plunged during the long winter, and, as the city of some Arabian Nights’ tale, is suddenly aglow with life and animation. Pilgrims of every rank and condition of life fill its street; matron and maiden, priest and layman, the young and the old, the grave and the gay, come thither, an eager but silent and recollected throng, to the feet of the good St. Anne. Prayers go up, hymns ring out on the stilly evening, or at tranquil morn, and the pilgrims take their homeward way, with a vision of the calm, restful loveliness of nature there in that favoured spot to haunt them for many days. They remember Nature at St. Anne’s, with her dim and night-empurpled hills, amongst which linger the memories of hundreds of years, with her flowing sunlit streams, the waving of trees and grass, the dreamy village life, and above all a something indescribable. The chant and the organ-tone and the murmur of pilgrim voices fade into a distant memory, but the voyager down that sapphire stream, the St. Lawrence, to that hill-shadowed sanctuary, keeps for a lifetime the impression of what he has seen and heard.

THE WADSWORTH-LONGFELLOW HOUSE, PORTLAND

NATHAN GOOLD

The Wadsworth-Longfellow house was built in 1785–1786, by General Peleg Wadsworth, the grandfather of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He was a native of Duxbury, a graduate of Harvard College, and a major-general in the army of the Revolution.

According to the account of his daughter, Zilpah, General Wadsworth’s appearance, at this time, was as follows:--“Imagine to yourself a man of middle age, well proportioned, with a military air, and who carried himself so truly that many thought him tall. His dress, a bright scarlet coat, buff small clothes and vest, full ruffled bosom, ruffles over the hands, white stockings, shoes with silver buckles, white cravat bow in front, hair well powdered and tied behind in a club, so-called.”

At first, the house was of two stories with a pitched roof and was the first house in Portland to have brick walls. The bricks came from Philadelphia to build these walls which are sixteen inches thick. The third story was not added until 1815.

The poet’s mother was about eight years old when her father built this house. In 1804, she was married to Stephen Longfellow, in the house which had been her home from childhood. Longfellow was born in another house in Portland, but at the early age of eight months he was brought by his parents to the Wadsworth House.

Henry W. Longfellow lived here during his childhood, boyhood and young manhood, and here he came, to his old home, to the end of his life. Here were the scenes of his bringing up and here he profited by the examples and precepts of his honoured parents. Here he wrote his first poem and others, together with portions of his prose works. It was really his home until the purchase of the ‘Craigie House,’ at Cambridge, in 1843, a period of thirty-five years. The home remained with the old furnishings undisturbed until the death of Mrs. Pierce. Longfellow’s last visit here was in July, 1881, when he wrote to a friend in Rhode Island:--

“Portland has lost none of its charms. The weather is superb and the air equal to that of Newport or East Greenwich or any other Rhode Island seashore. I shall remain here a week or two longer, and think of running up to North Conway and to Sebago, to see the winding Songo once more. It is very pleasant sitting here and dictating letters. It is like thinking what one will say without taking the trouble of writing it. I have discovered a new pleasure.”

The poems now known to have been written in this house are:--

The Battle of Lovell’s Pond, 1820; Musings, 1825; The Spirit of Poetry, 1825; Burial of Minnisink, 1825; Song: When from the eye of day, 1826; Song of the Birds, 1826; The Lighthouse; The Rainy Day, 1841; Changed, 1858, and probably others. A portion of Hyperion was written here and, no doubt, much was outlined in this house while staying here.

The old house has sixteen rooms. It was the home of the Wadsworth and Longfellow families for one hundred and fifteen years and is in a good state of preservation. It has no

“Weather-stains upon the wall,
And stairways worn, and crazy doors,
And creaking and uneven floors.”

It was

“Built in the old Colonial day,
When men lived in a grander way,
With ampler hospitality.”

It has eight open fireplaces, and in former times, during a year, over thirty cords of wood were burned in them. What a tale of bygone days they could tell!

The living or sitting-room has the same general appearance as when occupied by the Longfellows. For about ten years it was used by the father for a law office, and the poet, his brother Stephen, George W. Pierce and others studied law here. The vestibule or “Little Room” was added as an addition or entrance to the law office. His brother wrote of Longfellow: “In this room the young graduate scribbled many a sheet.” After the removal of the office, about 1828, this room was changed into a china closet and the poet wrote his sister Elizabeth, from Göttingen, under date of March 29, 1829: “My poetic career is finished. Since I left America I have hardly put two lines together; ... and no soft poetic ray has irradiated my heart since the Goths and Vandals crossed the Rubicon of the front entry and turned the _sanctum sanctorum_ of the ‘Little Room,’ into a china closet.”

Back of the living-room is the kitchen with its broad fireplace, in which is the old iron back, on which is the fish “that forever bakes in effigy.” This fireplace has never been closed, and the utensils and china seen here were used by these families in the poet’s time and before. This room, being as of old, is one of the most interesting in the house. It tells its own story.

On the opposite side of the front hall is the “Den” or the old dining-room, made especially famous by the fact that here, between the windows, looking out into the garden, on the same desk now standing there, was written “The Rainy Day” in 1841. From these windows the poet saw the flowering grapevine mentioned in the third line,

“The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,”

which is living and is still to be seen there. The furniture on the first floor of the house, on exhibition, was theirs and was used by the family.

The second story has four rooms, the “Mother’s Room,” the “Guest’s Room,” the “Children’s Room” and Mrs. Pierce’s old room. They contain a wonderful collection of the families’ belongings for the inspection of the visitors interested.

The third story, added in 1815, is reached by a wellworn stairway of especial interest from the fact that over these stairs climbed the Longfellow children to their bedchambers where they were under the immediate charge of their aunt, Lucia Wadsworth. This floor has seven rooms. The room of rooms is the poet’s boyhood one, in which he wrote “Musings” and “The Lighthouse.” It is furnished with many of the articles of yore. “The Boys’ Room,” which, at times, has been occupied by all the Longfellow boys, looks out on the garden and the western sky. It contains the old trundle-bed and the writings of the children on the casing of the window, with many articles of much interest. The remaining rooms on this floor are used for exhibition purposes. From the front windows, in those days, could be seen the harbour, its islands, and Cape Elizabeth; from those in the rear, Back Cove, the fields and forests, back of which loomed up the White Mountains. It was a magnificent prospect. Longfellow wrote:--

“Happy he whom neither wealth nor fashion,
Nor the march of the encroaching city,
Drives an exile
From the hearth of his ancestral homestead.”

On the window casing in the “Boys’ Room” one of the children has inscribed, “How dear is the home of my childhood.” The poet expressed his sentiments of the love of the old home in words that will never be stricken from our language:--

“Truly the love of home is interwoven with all that is pure and deep and lasting in earthly affections. Let us wander where we may, the heart looks back with secret longings to the paternal roof. There the scattered rays of affection concentrate. Time may enfeeble them, distance overshadow them, and the storms of life obstruct them for a season; but they will at length break through the cloud and storm, and glow and burn and brighten around the peaceful threshold of home.”

The Wadsworth-Longfellow House came into the possession of the Maine Historical Society in 1901 by donation from Anne Longfellow Pierce, a sister of the poet. She was born here in 1810 and died here in 1901. It is now practically a museum of Longfellow relics and attracts many visitors, no less than 30,000 having been admitted since it was opened to the public.

WASHINGTON’S HEADQUARTERS, NEWBURGH

GULIAN C. VERPLANCK

The old Hasbrook house, as it is called, situated on the west bank of the Hudson, a little south of the village of Newburgh, is one of the most interesting relics of the first and heroic age of our republic; for at several periods of the War of the Revolution, and especially from the autumn of 1782 until the troops were finally disbanded, it was occupied by General Washington as the headquarters of the American army. The views from the house and grounds, as well as the whole neighbourhood around it, are rich alike in natural beauty and in historical remembrance. You look from the old house upon the broad bay into which the Hudson expands itself just before entering the deep, rocky bed through which it flows towards the ocean between the lofty mountain-banks of the Highlands. On the opposite shore is seen the ridge of mountains, upon the bald, rocky summits of which during the war of 1776 the beacon fires so often blazed to alarm the country at the incursions of the enemy from the south, or else to communicate signals between the frontier posts in Westchester, along the line of the American positions at Verplanck’s Point, West Point and the barracks and encampments on the plain of Fishkill. As these mountains recede eastward from the river, you see the romantic stream of Mattavoan winding wildly along their base, through glens and over falls, until, at last, as if fatigued with its wanton rambles, it mingles quietly and placidly with the Hudson. On this side of it are stretched the rich plains of Dutchess County, with their woody and picturesque shores. All along these plains and shores are to be found other memorials of the Revolution; for there were the store-houses, barracks and hospitals of our army, and there, for many months, were the headquarters of the Father of American tactics, the disciplinarian Steuben. To the south, you look down upon the opening of the Highlands, and the rock of Pollopell’s Island, once a military prison, and thence follow with your eye the “Great River of the Mountains”[20] till it turns suddenly and disappears around the rocky promontory of West Point--a spot consecrated by the most exciting recollections of our history, by the story of Arnold’s guilt and André’s hapless fate and the incorruptible virtue of our yeomanry; by the memory of the virtues of Kosciusko and Lafayette; of the wisdom and valour of our own chiefs and sages.

The Hasbrook house itself is a solid, irregular building erected about 1734. The excellent landscape painted by Weir and engraved with equal spirit and fidelity by Smillie, will give the reader a better idea of its appearance and character than words can convey. The interior remains very nearly as Washington left it. The largest room is in the centre of the house, about twenty-four feet square, but so disproportionately low, as to appear very much larger. It served the General during his residence there, in the daytime for his hall of reception and his dining-room where he regularly kept up a liberal, though plain hospitality. At night it was used as a bedroom for his aides-de-camp and occasional military visitors and guests. It was long memorable among the veterans who had seen the chief there for its huge wood fire built against the wall, in, or rather under a wide chimney, which was quite open at both sides. It was still more remarkable for the whimsical peculiarity of having seven doors and but one window. The unceiled roof of this room, with its massive painted beams, corresponds to the simplicity of the rest of the building, as well as shows the indifference of our ancestors to the free communication of noise and cold air, which their wiser or more fastidious descendants take so much pains to avoid. On the north-east corner of the house, communicating with the large centre room, is a small chamber, which the General used as a study or private office.

Those who have had the good fortune to enjoy the acquaintance of officers of the northern division of our old army, have heard many a Revolutionary anecdote, the scene of which was laid in the old square room at Newburgh, “with its seven doors and one window.” In it were every day served up, to as many guests as the table and chairs could accommodate, a dinner and a supper, as plentiful as the country could supply and as good as they could be made by the continental cooks, whose deficiency in culinary skill drew forth in one of his private letters, the only piece of literary pleasantry, it is believed, in which the great man was ever tempted to indulge. But then, as we have heard old soldiers affirm with great emphasis, there was always plenty of good wine. French wines for our French allies and those who had acquired or who affected their tastes, and sound Madeira for the Americans of the old school, circulated briskly, and were taken in little silver mugs or goblets made in France for the General’s camp-equipage. They were accompanied by the famous apples of the Hudson, the Spitzenbergh and other varieties and invariably by heaped plates of hickory nuts, the amazing consumption of which by the General and his staff, was the theme of boundless admiration to the Marquis de Chastelleux and other French officers. The jest, the argument, the song and the story circulated as briskly as the wine; while the chief at the head of his table, sat long, listened to all, or appeared to listen, smiled at and enjoyed all, but all gravely, without partaking much in the conversation, or at all contributing to the laugh, either by swelling its chorus, or furnishing the occasion; for he was neither a joker nor a story-teller. He had no talent, and he knew he had none, for humour, repartee, or amusing anecdote; and if he had possessed it, he was too wise to have indulged in it in the position in which he was placed.

One evidence among many others, of the impression which Washington’s presence in this scene had made, and the dignity and permanence it could lend to every idea or recollection, however trivial otherwise, with which it had been accidentally associated, was given at Paris. The American Minister (we forget whether it was Mr. Crawford, Mr. Brown, or one of their successors), and several of his countrymen, together with General Lafayette, were invited to an entertainment at the house of a distinguished and patriotic Frenchman, who had served his country in his youth, in the United States during the war of our independence. At the supper hour the company were shown into a room fitted up for the occasion, which contrasted quite oddly with the Parisian elegance of the other apartments where they had spent their evening. A low, boarded, painted ceiling, with large beams, a single, small uncurtained window, with numerous small doors, as well as the general style of the whole, gave at first the idea of the kitchen, or largest room of a Dutch or Belgian farm-house. On a long, rough table was a repast, just as little in keeping with the refined kitchen of Paris, as the room was with the architecture. It consisted of large dishes of meat, uncouth-looking pastry, and wine in decanters and bottles, accompanied by glasses and silver mugs, such as indicated other habits and tastes than those of modern Paris. “Do you know where we are now?” said the host to General Lafayette and his companions. They paused for a few moments in suspense. They had seen something like this before, but when and where? “Ah, the seven doors and one window,” said Lafayette, “and the silver camp-goblets, such as our marshals of France used in my youth! We are at Washington’s Headquarters on the Hudson, fifty years ago!”

We relate the story as we have heard it told by the late Colonel Fish, and, if we mistake not, the host was the excellent M. Marbois.

There is another anecdote of a higher and more moral interest, the scene of which was also laid in this house. A British officer had been brought in from the river, a prisoner and wounded. Some accidental circumstance had attracted to him General Washington’s special notice, who had him placed under the best medical and surgical care the army could afford, and ordered him to be lodged at his own quarters. There, according to custom, a large party of officers had assembled in the evening to sup with the commander-in-chief. When the meats and cloth were removed, the unfailing nuts appeared, and the wine, a luxury seldom seen by American subalterns, except at “his Excellency’s” table, began to circulate. The General rose much before his usual hour, but, putting one of his aides-de-camp in his place, requested his friends to remain, adding, in a gentle tone: “I have only to ask you to remember in your sociality, that there is a wounded officer in the very next room.” This injunction had its effect for a short time, but, as the wine and punch passed around, the soldier’s jest and mirth gradually broke forth, conversation warmed into argument, and, by-an-by, came a song. In the midst of all this, a side-door opened, and some one entered in silence and on tiptoe. It was the General. Without a word to any of the company, he passed silently along the table, with almost noiseless tread to the opposite door which he opened and closed after him as gently and cautiously as a nurse in the sick room of a tender and beloved patient. The song, the story, the merriment died away at once. All were hushed. All felt the rebuke, and dropped off quietly, one by one, to their chambers or tents.

But the Newburgh Headquarters are also memorable as the scene of a far more important transaction.

In the autumn of 1783, the war had closed with glory. The national independence had been won. The army, who had fought the battles, who had gone through the hardships and privations of that long and doubtful and bloody war without a murmur, were encamped on the banks of the Hudson, unpaid, almost unclothed, individually loaded with private debt, awaiting to be disbanded, and to return to the pursuits of civil life, without the prospect of any settlement of their long arrears of pay and without the means of temporary support until other prospects might open upon them in their new avocations. It was under these circumstances, while Congress, from the impotence of our frame of government under the old confederation, and the extreme poverty of the country, found themselves utterly unable to advance even a single month’s pay, and, as if loth to meet the question, seemed but to delay and procrastinate any decision upon it; the impatient and suffering soldiery, losing, as their military excitement died away with its cause, all feeling of loyalty towards their civil rulers, began to regard them as cold-hearted and ungrateful masters who sought to avoid the scanty and stipulated payment of those services, the abundant fruits of which they had already reaped. Then it was that the celebrated anonymous Newburgh letters were circulated through the camp, touching with powerful effect upon every topic that could rouse the feelings of men suffering under the sense of wrong and sensitive to every stain upon their honour. The glowing language of this address painted their country as trampling upon their rights, disdaining their cries and insulting their distress.

The power of this appeal did not consist merely in its animated and polished eloquence. It was far more powerful, and, therefore, more dangerous, because it came warm from the heart and did but give bold utterance to the thoughts over which thousands had long brooded in silence. Precisely that state of feeling pervaded the whole army, that discontent towards their civil rulers, verging every hour more and more towards indignation and hatred, that despair of justice from any other means or quarter than themselves and their own good swords, that rallying of all their hopes and affections to their comrades in arms and their long-tried chief, such as in other countries have again and again enthroned the successful military leader upon the ruins of the Republic he had gloriously served.

The disinterested patriotism of Washington rejected the lure to his ambition, his firm and mild prudence repressed the discontents and preserved the honour of the army, as well as the peace, and, probably, the future liberties of his country. It was the triumph of patriotic wisdom over the sense of injury, over misapplied genius and eloquence, over chivalrous, but ill-directed feeling. The opinions and the arguments of Washington, expressed in his orders and in the address delivered by him to his officers, calmed the minds of the army and brought them at once to a sense of submissive duty; not solely from the weight of moral truth and noble sentiment, great as that was, but because they came from a person whom the army had long accustomed to love, to revere and to obey; the purity of whose views, the soundness of whose judgment and the sincerity of whose friendship, no man could dream of questioning. Shortly after, the army disbanded itself. The veterans laid down their swords in peace, trusting to the faith and gratitude of their country, leaving the honour of the “Continental Army” unstained and the holy cause of liberty unsullied by any one act of rebellious, or ambitious, or selfish insubordination. They fulfilled the prophetic language of their chief, when, in the closing words of his address on this memorable occasion, he expressed his sure confidence that their patient virtue, rising superior to the pressure of the most complicated sufferings, would enable “posterity to say, when speaking of the glorious example they had exhibited to mankind, had this day been wanting, the world had never seen the last stage of perfection to which human nature is capable of attaining.”

Why should we dilate here on the particulars of this transaction? They form the brightest page in our history, the noblest theme of our orators; but no eloquence can increase the interest and dignity of the narrative, as told in the plain language of Marshall and in the orders and address of Washington himself.

Let it suffice for us to fulfil faithfully the humbler task of the local antiquary, which we have here undertaken to perform. When any of our readers visit this scene, they will feel grateful to us for informing them that it was in the little northeastern room of the “old stone house” at Newburgh, that Washington meditated on this momentous question and prepared the general orders to the army and the address which he read with such happy effect to the military convention that assembled on his invitation, on the 15th of October, 1783, at a large barrack or storehouse, then called “the new building,” in the immediate neighbourhood.