Chapter I: Part 1

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

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have been placed at the end of the book.

These footnotes make numerous references to pages in Josselyn’s
“An Account of Two Voyages to New-England”. This book can be
accessed at: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66922

This edition of 1865 is a faithful reproduction of the original
Josselyn edition of 1672, and the original spelling and punctuation
have been carefully preserved without change, in both the printed
1865 book and in this etext.

The page numbering of the 1672 book has been preserved and inserted
at the appropriate points of the text. These page numbers were in
[ ] in the 1865 edition, but have been changed to { } in this etext
to avoid confusion with the footnote numbering notation.

Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.

NEW-ENGLAND’S RARITIES.

_NEW-ENGLAND’S_

RARITIES

DISCOVERED IN BIRDS, BEASTS, FISHES,
SERPENTS, AND PLANTS OF
THAT COUNTRY.

_By JOHN JOSSELYN, Gent._

With an Introduction and Notes,

_By EDWARD TUCKERMAN, M.A._

Boston:
WILLIAM VEAZIE.
MDCCCLXV.

Two Hundred and Fifty Copies printed, Small Quarto.

BOSTON: PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON.

Publisher’s Advertisement.

In the reproduction of this quaint and curious treatise, which is one of the earliest, on the _Natural History of New England_, it has been the intention of the Publisher to enhance its value as a literary curiosity, by making it as nearly as possible an exact Fac-simile of the original edition, in accordance with the projected plan of a series of reprints, in which the present work is comprised.

In the furtherance of this intention, the precise orthography, punctuation, and also the arrangement,—with the exception of the commencement and termination of pages,—have been preserved.

The valuable Introduction and Notes of Prof. TUCKERMAN, incorporated in this edition, have been previously issued in vol. iv. of “The Transactions of the American Antiquarian Society,” which contains a reprint of “The Rarities” in a more modern style. The notes have, however, undergone a thorough revision by the author; and some few additions have been made by him, during the progress of the present edition through the press.

Some additional matter concerning the Genealogy of the Josselyn Family may be found contained in the Preface of the “Two Voyages to New England in 1638 and 1663, by John Josselyn,” published in uniform style with the present work.

BOSTON, MAY 15, 1865.

INTRODUCTION.

Mr. John Josselyn, the writer of this book, was only brother, as he says, to Henry Josselyn, Esq., many years of Black Point in Scarborough, Me.; and both were sons to Sir Thomas Josselyn, Knt., of Kent, whose name is at the head of the new charter obtained by Sir Ferdinando Gorges for his Province in 1639, but who did not come to this country. Mr. Henry Josselyn was at Piscataqua, in the interest of Capt. John Mason, at least as early as 1634; but, in 1636, he is one of the Council of Gorges’s Province in Maine, and continued in that part of the country the rest of his life. He succeeded in 1643, by the will of Capt. Thomas Cammock, to his patent at Black Point, and soon after married his widow. He is afterwards Deputy-Governor of the Province; and until 1676, when the Indians attacked and compelled him to surrender his fort, he was, says Mr. Willis,—whose valuable papers are cited below,—“one of the most active and influential men in it;” holding, “during all the changes of proprietorship and government, the most important offices.” He is then a magistrate of the Duke of York’s Province of Cornwall, and, as late as 1680, a resident of Pemaquid; when he is spoken of, in a letter of Gov. Andros to the commander of the fort at Pemaquid, as one “whom I would have you use with all fitting respect, considering what he hath been and his age.” He is living in 1682; but had died before the 10th of May, 1683,[1] leaving no descendants.[2]

Notwithstanding the evidence, above afforded, of the social position of the family of which Henry and John Josselyn were members, the present writer failed in tracing it, doubtless from not knowing in which county it had its principal seat. In this uncertainty, it occurred to him to make application to the eminent English antiquary,—the Rev. Joseph Hunter, Vice-President of the Society of Antiquaries of London,—to whom he was indebted for former kind attentions; and was favored by this gentleman with such directions as left nothing to be desired. “The Josslines,” writes Mr. Hunter “(the name is written in some variety of orthographies, and now more usually Joceline), are quite one of the old aristocratic families of England, having several knights in the early generations; being admitted into the order of baronets, and subsequently into the peerage.... Their main settlement was in Hertfordshire, at or near the town of Sabridgeworth; and accounts of them may be read in the histories—of which Chauncy’s, Salmon’s, and Clutterbuck’s are the chief—of that county. But a fuller and better account is to be found in the ‘Peerage of Ireland,’ by Mr. Lodge, keeper of the records in the Birmingham Tower, Dublin: 4 vols. 8vo, 1754.”[3]

According to Lodge, the family begins with a Sir Egidius, who passed into England in the time of Edward the Confessor, and was descended from “Carolus Magnus, King of France, with more certainty than the houses of Lorraine and Guise.” Of this Sir Egidius was Sir Gilbert de Jocelyn, who accompanied the Conqueror, and had Gilbert—called St. Gilbert, being canonized by Pope Innocent III. in 1202—and Geoffry. To this Geoffry is traced back John Jocelyn, living in 1226; who married Catherine, second daughter and co-heir to Sir Thomas Battell, and had Thomas, who married Maud, daughter and co-heiress of Sir John Hide, of Hide Hall in Sabridgeworth, county of Hertford, Knt., by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of John Sudeley; Baron Sudeley, in the county of Gloucester. He had Thomas Jocelyn, Esq., who married Joan, daughter of John Blunt, and had Ralph, who married Maud, daughter of Sir John Sutton _alias_ Dudley, and had Geoffry of Hide Hall, 1312. Geoffry married Margaret, daughter of Robert Rokell or Rochill, and had Ralph, who married Margaret, daughter and heir to John Patmer, Esq., and had Geoffry (died 1425), who married Catherine, daughter and heir to Sir Thomas Bray, and had four sons and two daughters. Of these, the eldest was Thomas Jocelyn, Esq., living in the reign of Edward IV., who married Alice, daughter of Lewis Duke of Dukes in Essex, Esq., by his wife Anne, daughter of John Cotton, Esq., and had issue George, his heir, called Jocelyn the Courtier, who married Maud, daughter and heir to Edmond Bardolph,—Lord Bardolph,—and had one daughter and three sons. John Jocelyn, Esq.,—“auditor of the augmentations, upon the dissolution of the abbeys by King Henry VIII.,”—was son and heir to the last-mentioned George, and married Philippa, daughter of William Bradbury, of Littlebury in Essex; by whom he had Sir Thomas, of Hide Hall,—created a Knight of the Bath at the coronation of King Edward VI.,—who married Dorothy, daughter of Sir Geoffry Gales or Gates, Knt., and had issue;[4] one daughter marrying Roger Harlakenden, of Carnarthen in Kent, Esq.; and the fifth son being Henry Jocelyn, Esq., who married Anne, daughter and heir to Humphrey Torrell, otherwise Tyrrell, of Torrell’s Hall in Essex,—became seated there, and had six sons and six daughters. The second son of this family was Sir Thomas Jocelyn (father to our author), who was twice married. His first wife was Dorothy, daughter of John Frank, Esq.; by whom he had six sons and five daughters,—Torrell, born 28th May, 1690; Henry, and Henry, both died infants; Thomas, who died without issue, in 1635, at Bergen op Zoom; Edward, who, by a lady of Georgia, had a daughter Dorothy, and died at Smyrna in 1648; Benjamin, born 19th May, 1602; Anne, married to William Mildmay, Esq., by whom she had Robert, John, Anne, and Elizabeth; Dorothy, married to John Brewster, Esq., and left no issue; Elizabeth, married to Francis Neile, Esq., and had Francis, John, and Mary; Frances, born 26th March, 1600, and married Rev. Clement Vincent; and Mary, died unmarried. The second wife of Sir Thomas Jocelyn was Theodora, daughter to Edmond Cooke, of Mount Maschall in Kent, Esq.; and by her he had Henry, John, Theodora, and Thomazine. Torrell, the eldest son, married, first, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Richard Brooke of Cheshire,—heir to her grandfather (by the mother), Dr. Chaderton, Bishop of Lincoln,—by whom he had a daughter, Theodora, married to Samuel Fortrie, Esq.,[5] to whom our author dedicates the present volume, with acknowledgment of the “bounty” of his “honored friend and kinsman.”

The principal line of the family was continued by Richard, heir to Sir Thomas of Hide Hall; the said Richard being brother to our author, John Josselyn’s grandfather. In 1665, Sir Robert Jocelyn of Hide Hall was advanced to the dignity of baronet. The fifth son of this Sir Robert was Thomas; whose son, Robert Jocelyn, Esq., was bred to the law; was Solicitor-General and Attorney-General and Lord High Chancellor of Ireland; and created, in 1743, Baron Newport of Newport, and Viscount Jocelyn in 1755. Robert, son and successor of this nobleman, was created, in 1771, Earl of Roden, of High Roding, County of Tipperary; and was ancestor to the present Lord Roden.[6]

Our author, John Josselyn, made his first voyage to New England in 1638; arriving in Boston Harbor the 3d of July, and remaining with his brother at Black Point till the 10th of October of the following year. While at Boston, he paid his respects to the Governor and to Mr. Cotton, being the bearer to the latter of some poetical pieces from the poet Quarles; and, as he says, “being civilly treated by all I had occasion to converse with.” In the account of his first voyage, there is no appearance of that dislike to the Massachusetts government and people which is observable in the narrative of the second, and may there not unfairly be connected with his brother’s political and religious differences with Massachusetts.[7] His second voyage was made in 1663. He arrived at Nantasket the 27th of July, and soon proceeded to his brother’s plantation, where he tells us he staid eight years, and got together the matter of the book before us. This was first printed in 1672, but occurs also with later dates. It was followed, in 1674, by “An Account of Two Voyages to New England; wherein you have the Setting-out of a ship, with the Charges; the Prices of all Necessaries for furnishing a Planter and his Family at his first Coming; a Description of the Country, Natives, and Creatures; the Government of the Countrey as it is now possessed by the English, &c. A large Chronological Table of the most Remarkable Passages, from the first Discovering of the Continent of America to the Year 1673.” 12mo, pp. 279. Reprinted in the third volume of the Third Series of the Collections of the Historical Society; which edition is quoted here. A large part of the “Voyages” is taken up with observations relating to natural history; and it is quite likely that the author tried in this second work to supply some of the defects of his “Rarities.” Compare especially the accounts of beasts of the earth, of birds, and of fishes; each of which is better done in the “Voyages.”

Josselyn was, it appears, a man of polite reading. He quotes Lucan, Pliny, and Du Bartas; he has Latin and Italian proverbs; he is acquainted with the writings of Mr. Perkins, that famous divine; with Van Helmont; with Sandys’s “Travels,” and Capt. John Smith’s. His curiosity in picking up “excellent medecines” points to an acquaintance with physic; of his practising which, there occur, indeed (pp. 48, 58, 63), several instances.[8] Nor is he, by any means, uninterested in prescriptions for the kitchen; as see his elaborate _recipe_ for cooking eels (Voyages, p. 111), and also that (_ibid._, p. 190) for a compound liquor “that exceeds _passada_, the Nectar of the country;” which is made, he tells us, of “Syder, Maligo-Raisons, Milk, and Syrup of Clove-Gilliflowers.” But his curiosity in natural history, and especially in botany, is his chief merit; and this now gives almost all the value that is left to his books.[9] William Wood, the author of “New-England’s Prospect” (London, 1634[10]), was a better observer, generally, than Josselyn; but the latter makes up for his other short-comings by the particularity of his botanical information.

The “Voyages” was Josselyn’s last appearance in print. He was already advanced in years, and alludes to this at page 69 of the present book, where he says he shall refer the further investigation of a curious plant—of which a neighbor, “wandering in the woods to find out his strayed cattle,” had brought him a fragment—“to those that are younger, and better able to undergo the pains and trouble of finding it out.” “Henceforth,” he declares in his “Voyages,” p. 151, “you are to expect no more Relations from me. I am now return’d into my Native Countrey; and, by the providence of the Almighty and the bounty of my Royal Soveraigness, am disposed to a holy quiet of study and meditation for the good of my soul; and being blessed with a transmentitation or change of mind, and weaned from the world, may take up for my word, _non est mortale quod opto_.”

We may suppose that a rude acquaintance with the more common or important animals of a new country will commence with the discovery of it. Thus the beginning of European knowledge of the marine animals of America goes back, doubtless, to the earliest fisheries of Newfoundland; and these began almost immediately after the discovery of the continent. Game and peltry were also likely to come to the knowledge of the earliest adventurers; and scattered among these, from the first, were doubtless men capable of regarding the world of new objects around them with an intelligent, if not a literate eye. Descriptions in this way, and specimens, at length reached Europe, and became known to the learned there—to Gesner, Clusius, and Aldrovandus—from as early as the middle of the sixteenth century. Without being naturalists, such observers as Heriot in Virginia (1585-6) and Wood in Massachusetts (1634) could give valuable accounts of what they saw; and more, it may well be, was due to the Christian missionaries, who accompanied or followed the adventurers, for the conversion of the heathen. Gabriel Sagard was one of these missionaries, a _recollet_ or reformed Franciscan monk, who went from Paris to Canada in 1624, and spent two years in the country of the Hurons; publishing his “Grand Voyage du Pays des Hurons” in 1632, and enlarging it in 1636 to “Histoire du Canada et Voyages que les Freres Mineurs recollets y ont faits pour la Conversion des Infidelles,” &c., in four books; of which the third treats of natural history,[11] and is cited by Messrs. Audubon and Bachmann (Vivip. Quadrupeds of N.A., _passim_) for a good part of our more common and noticeable _Mammalia_. Something considerable thus got to be known of marine animals of all sorts, and of quadrupeds. But it was much longer before our birds—if we except a very few, as the blue-jay and the turkey—came to the scientific knowledge of Europeans; and this remark is, as might be expected, at least equally true of our reptiles.

Quite as accidental, doubtless, was the beginning of European acquaintance with our plants. There are, indeed, traces of the knowledge of a few at a very early period. Dalechamp, Clusius, Lobel, and Alpinus—all authors of the sixteenth century—must be cited occasionally in any complete synonymy of our _Flora_. The Indian-corn, the side-saddle flower (_Sarracenia purpurea_ and _S. flava_), the columbine, the common milk-weed (_Asclepias Cornuti_), the everlasting (_Antennaria margaritacea_), and the _Arbor vitæ_, were known to the just-mentioned botanists before 1600. _Sarracenia flava_ was sent either from Virginia, or possibly from some Spanish monk in Florida. Clusius’s figure of our well-known northern _S. purpurea_—of which he gives, however, only the leaves and base of the stem (_Clus. Hist. Pl._, _cit._ Gerard _a_ Johnson)—was derived from a specimen furnished to him by one Mr. Claude Gonier, apothecary at Paris, who himself had it from Lisbon; whither we may suppose it was carried by some fisherman from the Newfoundland coast. The evening primrose (_Œnothera biennis_) was known in Europe, according to Linnæus, as early as 1614. _Polygonum sagittatum_ and _arifolium_ (tear-thumb) were figured by De Laet, probably from New-York specimens, in his “Novus Orbis,” 1633. Johnson’s edition of Gerard’s “Herbal” (1636)—which was possibly our author’s manual in the study of New-England plants—contains some dozen North-American species, furnished often from the garden of Mr. John Tradescant, who had other plants from “Virginia” beside the elegant one which bears his name; and John Parkinson—whose “Theatrum Botanicum” (1640) is declared by Tournefort to embrace a larger number of species than any work which had gone before it—describes, especially from Cornuti, a still larger number. But the first treatise especially concerned with North-American plants was that of the French author just mentioned; which, on several accounts, deserves particular attention.

John Robin—“second to none,” says Tournefort, “in the knowledge and cultivation of plants”—was placed in charge of the Royal Botanical Garden at Paris, about the year 1570; and Vespasian Robin, “a most diligent botanist,” followed, in similar connection[12] with the larger garden founded by Lewis the Thirteenth. Both are said to have assisted the writer whose book we are to notice; but especially the latter,[13] who, there is little doubt, deserves credit for all the American species described in it.

The history of Canadian and other new plants—“Canadensium Plantarum, aliarumque nondum editarum Historia” of Jacobus Cornuti, Doctor of Medicine, of Paris—was printed in that city (pp. 238) in 1635, under the patronage just mentioned; and contains accounts, accompanied, in every case but one, with figures on copper, of thirty-seven of our plants; of which the meadow-rue is known to botanists as _Thalictrum Cornuti_; and the common milkweed, as _Asclepias Cornuti_. Though himself not eminent as a botanist,[14] the work of Cornuti was valuable for its elegant presentation of much that was new; and it will always deserve honorable remembrance in the history of our _Flora_. There are several passages of it—as at pp. 5 and 7, and in the account of the two baneberries at p. 76, where we read, “Opacis et sylvestribus locis in eadem Americæ parte frequentissimum est geminum genus”—which look a little like a proper botanical collector’s notes on his specimens; and these specimens, and the others from the same region, may well have been results of the herborizing of that worthy Franciscan missionary, whose early observations on the natural history of Canada have been mentioned already above. Nor were the North-American plants possessed by Cornuti entirely confined to this region; for he speaks at the end (p. 214) of his having received a root, _ex notha Anglia_, as he strangely calls it, known, it appears, by the name of _Serpentaria_, or, in the vernacular, _Snaqroel_,—a sure remedy for the bite of a huge and most pernicious serpent _in notha Anglia_,—which was no doubt the snake-root so famous once as a cure for the bite of a rattlesnake, and one of the numerous varieties of _Nabalus albus_ (L.) Hook., if not, as Pursh supposed, what is now the _var. Serpentaria_, Gray. But some view of the scantiness of scientific knowledge of our _Flora_, near forty years after Cornuti, may be had by reckoning the number of species for which Bauhin’s “Pinax” and “Prodromus” (1671) are cited by Linnæus in the “Species Plantarum.” Most of them are Southern plants; and the few decidedly Northern ones which meet us—as _Cornus canadensis_, _Uvularia perfoliata_, _Trillium erectum_, _Arum triphyllum_, and _Adiantum pedatum_—are all indicated, by Bauhin’s phrase, as from Brazil!

We have nothing illustrating the _Flora_ of New England from Cornuti till Josselyn. In Virginia, Mr. John Banister, a correspondent of Ray’s, began to botanize probably not long after the middle of the seventeenth century. He was succeeded by several eminent names; as Mark Catesby, F.R.S. (born 1679), John Clayton, Esq. (born 1685), and John Mitchell, M.D., F.R.S.,—a contemporary of the other two,—who together gave to the botany of Virginia a distinguished lustre; as did Cadwalader Colden, Esq. (born 1688),—a selection from whose correspondence has been lately edited by Dr. Gray,—to that of New York; John Bartram (born 1701), “American botanist to his Britannic Majesty,” to that of Pennsylvania; and, somewhat later, Alexander Garden, M.D., F.R.S. (born 1728), to that of South Carolina. Josselyn himself is, indeed, little more than a herbalist; but it is enough that he gets beyond that entirely unscientific character. He certainly botanized, and made botanical use of Gerard and his other authorities. The credit belongs to him of indicating several genera as new which were so, and peculiar to the American _Flora_. It may at least be said, that, at the time he wrote, there is no reason to suppose that any other person knew as much as he did of the botany of New England. “The plants in New England,” he says in his “Voyages,” p. 59, “for the variety, number, beauty, and virtues, may stand in competition with the plants of any countrey in Europe. Johnson hath added to Gerard’s ‘Herbal’ three hundred, and Parkinson mentioneth many more. Had they been in New England, they might have found a thousand, at least, never heard of nor seen by any Englishman before.”[15] Nor did our author fail to adorn his “Rarities” with recognizable figures, as well as descriptions, of some of these new American plants; and his arrangement is also creditable to his botanical knowledge. By this arrangement, his collections are distinguished into—

1. “Such plants as are common with us in England.”
2. “Such plants as are proper to the country.”
3. “Such plants as are proper to the country, and have no name.”
4. “Such plants as have sprung up since the English planted and kept
cattle in New England.”

The last of these divisions is the most valuable part of Josselyn’s account, as it affords the only testimony that there is to the first notice among us of a number of now naturalized weeds, which it is an interesting question to separate from the more important class of plants truly indigenous in, and common to, both hemispheres; and the author’s treatment of the latter—as indeed of the other two lists mentioned above—shows that he was competent, in a measure, to reckon the former. This furnishes a date, and an early one; and there is no other till 1785, when Dr. Manasseh Cutler’s Memoir, to be spoken of, enables us to limit the appearance of some other species not mentioned by Josselyn.

There is no work of any size or importance on New-England plants, after Josselyn, for the whole century which followed. We were not, indeed, without men in distinguished connection with the European scientific world. The most eminent New-England family gained honors in science, as well as in the conduct of affairs. John Winthrop the younger, eldest son of the first Governor of Massachusetts,—and the “heir,” says Savage, “of all his father’s talents, prudence, and virtues, with a superior share of human learning,”[16]—was himself the first Governor of Connecticut, and had, in this connection, a certain scientific position and reputation. “The great Mr. Boyle, Bishop Wilkins, with several other learned men,” says Dr. Eliot, “had proposed to leave England, and establish a society for promoting natural knowledge in the new colony of which Mr. Winthrop, their intimate friend and associate, was appointed Governor. Such men were too valuable to lose from Great Britain; and, Charles II. having taken them under his protection, the society was there established, and obtained the title of the Royal Society of London.... Mr. Winthrop sent over many specimens of the productions of this country, with his remarks upon them: ‘and, by an order of the Royal Society, he was in a particular manner invited to take upon himself the charge of being the chief correspondent in the West, as Sir Philiberto Vernatti was in the East Indies.’ ‘His name,’ says the same writer, Dr. Cromwell Mortimer, Secretary of the Royal Society, in his flattering dedication of the fortieth volume of the Philosophical Transactions to the Governor’s grandson, ‘had he put it to his writings, would have been as universally known as the Boyles’s, the Wilkins’s, and Oldenburghs’, and been handed down to us with similar applause.’”[17] There is, in the volume of Philosophical Transactions for 1670, “An Extract of a Letter written by John Winthrop, Esq., Governor of Connecticut in New England, to the Publisher, concerning some Natural Curiosities of those Parts; especially a very strange and curiously-contrived Fish, sent for the Repository of the Royal Society” (pp. 3); in which are mentioned, as sent, specimens of scrub-oak; “bark of tree with fir-balsam, which grows in Nova Scotia, and, as I hear, in the more easterly part of New England;” pods of milk-weed, “used to stuff pillows and cushions;” and “a branch of the tree called the cotton-tree, bearing a kind of down, which also is not fit to spin.”

Fitz John Winthrop, Esq., F.R.S. (died 1707), son of the last, and also Governor of Connecticut, is said to have been “famous for his philosophical” (that is, scientific) “knowledge.”[18] And the second Governor’s nephew, John Winthrop, Esq., F.R.S. (died 1747), who left this country and passed the latter part of his life in England, is declared by the author of the dedication already above cited, to have “increased the riches of their” (the Royal Society’s) “repository with more than six hundred curious specimens, chiefly in the mineral kingdom; accompanied with an accurate account of each particular.” “Since Mr. Colwell,” it is added, “the founder of the Museum of the Royal Society, you have been the benefactor who has given the most numerous collection.” Dr. John Winthrop, F.R.S. (died 1779), Hollisian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, N.E., whose important papers on astronomical and other related phenomena are to be found in the Philosophical Transactions, was of another line of the same family.

Paul Dudley, Esq., F.R.S. (born 1675), son of Gov. Joseph Dudley, and himself Chief Justice of Massachusetts, was author of several papers in the Philosophical Transactions; one of which is an “Account of the Poison-wood Tree in New-England” (vol. xxxi. p. 135); and another, “Observations on some Plants in New-England, with Remarkable Instances of the Nature and Power of Vegetation” (vol. xxxiii. p. 129). This last is of only seven pages, and of little scientific account: though we learn from it, that, in 1726, when Mr. Dudley wrote, the Pearmain, Kentish Pippin, and Golden Russetin, were esteemed apples here, and the Orange and Bergamot cultivated pears;[19] that, in one town in 1721, they made three thousand, and in another near ten thousand barrels of cider; and that, to speak of “trees of the wood,” he knew of a button-wood tree which measured nine yards in girth, and made twenty-two cords of wood; and of an ash, which, at a yard from the ground, was fourteen feet eight inches in girth. He also expresses an intention to treat separately the evergreens of New England; and this treatise, which was possibly more valuable than the one just noticed, was in the possession of Peter Collinson, the eminent patron of horticulture, and was given by him to J. F. Gronovius; but has not, that I am aware of, appeared in print.[20]

It is likely that the early physicians of New England gave special attention to those simples of the country, the virtues of which were known to the savages; and perhaps it was partly in this way that the Rev. Jared Eliot (born 1685), minister of Killingworth in Connecticut,—who is called by Dr. Allen “the first physician of his day,”—is also designated, both by him and by Eliot, a botanist; and by the latter, “the first in New England.” There is no doubt he was a friend of Dr. Franklin’s, and a scientific agriculturist according to the knowledge of his day; and he is said to have introduced the white mulberry into Connecticut.[21] His Agricultural Essays went through more than one edition, but is now rare. Mr. Eliot died while our next character, the first native New-England botanist who deserves the name, was a student of Yale College.

Manasseh Cutler, LL.D. (born 1743), was minister of the Hamlet in Ipswich—afterwards incorporated as the town of Hamilton—fifty-one years, and was also a member of the Medical Society of Massachusetts. He is author of “An Account of some of the Vegetable Productions naturally growing in this part of America, botanically arranged,” which makes nearly a hundred pages of the first volume of the Memoirs of the American Academy, 1785. In the introduction to this paper, the author speaks of Canada and the Southern States having had attention given to their productions, both by some of their own inhabitants and by European naturalists; while “that extensive tract of country which lies between them, including several degrees of latitude, and exceedingly diversified in its surface and soil, seems still to remain unexplored.” He attributes the neglect, in part, to this,—“that botany has never been taught in any of our colleges,” but principally to the prevalent opinion of its unprofitableness in common life. The latter error he combats with the then important observation, that, “though all the medicinal properties and economical uses of plants are not discoverable from those characters by which they are systematically arranged, yet the celebrated Linnæus has found that the virtues of plants may be, in a considerable degree, and most safely, determined by their _natural_ characters: for plants of the same _natural_ class are in some measure similar; those of the same _natural_ order have a still nearer affinity; and those of the fame genus have very seldom been found to differ in their medical virtues” (p. 397). This shows, perhaps, that Dr. Cutler appreciated (for the _Italics_ in the just-quoted passage are his own) that adumbration of a natural system which was afforded or suggested by the artificial; and his instances—the _Gramineæ_, the _Borraginaceæ_, the _Umbelliferæ_, the _Labiatæ_, the _Cruciferæ_, the _Malvaceæ_, the _Compositæ_, &c.; though these are cited under the divisions, not of the natural, but of the sexual system—are still more to the point. There are other observations of interest; and the suggestion is made, that persons should collect the plants of their districts, and send them from time to time to the Academy.

Dr. Cutler was thus, possibly, the first to suggest a botanical chair in our colleges, and a general _herbarium_ to illustrate the _Flora_ of New England; and perhaps it was this last which led him to propose a still more important undertaking. “It has long been my intention,” he says in a letter to Prof. Swartz, of Upsal, dated 15th October, 1802, “to publish a botanical work, comprising the plants of the northern and eastern States; and [I] have been collecting materials for that purpose. But numerous avocations, and a variety of other engagements, has occasioned delay. It is, however, still my intention, if my health permits, to do it. But, at this time, far less than in years past, there is very little encouragement given here to publications of this kind.”[22]

About three hundred and seventy plants are indicated in the published “Account” of Dr. Cutler. It was not to be expected, that, in this beginning, numerous mistakes should not be made. It could not possibly have been otherwise. There is still evidence enough of the author’s genius, which perhaps needed only opportunity and encouragement to anticipate a part of what botany now owes to a Nuttall, a Torrey, and a Gray. The “Account” was favorably received by other botanists of the time, both in this country and abroad. In a letter of Muhlenberg to Cutler, dated 9th February, 1791, the former says, “Not till a few months ago, I was favored with the first volume of the Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, printed at Boston, 1785. Amongst other valuable pieces, I found your ‘Account of Indigenous Vegetables, botanically arranged;’ with which I was infinitely pleased, as this was the first work that gives a systematical account of New-England plants. Being a great friend to botany, and having studied it in my leisure-hours upwards of fourteen years in Pennsylvania, I know the difficulty of arranging the American plants according to the Linnæan system; and I was always eager to hear of some gentleman engaged in similar researches, that, by joining hands, we might do something towards enlarging American Botany.... This is the reason why I intrude upon your leisure-hours, and crave for your acquaintance and friendship.”[23] Drs. Withering and Stokes, of England, were other correspondents of Cutler, and furnished him with important observations upon his printed Memoir, besides specimens; as did also Swartz, and, it appears, Payshull of Sweden. Dr. Stokes followed up his various suggestions for the improvement of the Memoir, by proposing to dedicate a plant, which he took to be new, to its author. “A plant,” he says, “like a woolly heath, and which I wished to call _Cutleria ericoides_, turns out to be _Hudsonia ericoides_. I hope, however, your herborizations may furnish a new genus for you, not likely to be disturbed.”—_Letters of Stokes to Cutler_, from “Feb. 14 ’91, to Aug. 17, ’93.”[24]

But Dr. Cutler’s printed memoir on the plants of New England is much surpassed in interest by his manuscript volumes of descriptions, still extant. These manuscript volumes commence with “Book I., 1783,” and continue, so far as I have seen them, to 1804. The late Mr. Oakes possessed six of these books; and two were given to me by my valued friend, the late Dr. T. W. Harris. They are generally entitled, “Descriptions and Notes on American Indigenous Plants,” and contain a vast number of observations and analyses, sometimes accompanied by pen-and-ink sketches. This was evidently the material accumulated for the author’s _Flora_ above mentioned; and the following extracts will serve to show that he was in many respects qualified to undertake such a work. Thus, in describing the several hickories, he points out those differences from _Juglans_, upon which Nuttall afterwards constituted his genus _Carya_. Again, in the same volume,—that for 1789,—there is a _N. Gen. Anonymos_, minutely described in several pages, which is no other than _Thesium umbellatum_, L., afterwards distinguished by Nuttall as his genus _Comandra_. Again, under _Anonymos, Yellow-Sandbind_, there is a full description of what Nuttall after named _Hudsonia tomentosa_. The same volume shows that the author had anticipated Prof. Gray in referring _Orchis fimbriata_, as it was called by Pursh and other botanists, to _O. psychodes_, L.; and the remark is also made that _O. lacera_ Michx.,—which Muhlenberg and our other writers had mistakenly referred to _O. psychodes_, till Dr. Gray corrected the error,—“must be a new species,” which it then certainly was. Again, there is another _Anomolos_ described at length, which is the same afterwards constituted by Nuttall his genus _Microstylis_. So _Campanula humida_ (Cutler mss.) is what Pursh designated, long after, _C. aparinoides_. Again, in another volume (for 1800), he anticipates Pursh by proposing for our water-shield the name _Brasenia ovalifolia_; and, in yet another, he is before Bigelow in describing as a new species what the latter, many years later, published as _Prunus obovata_. This may suffice to indicate the merits of the botanist of Ipswich Hamlet. A little shrub-willow, with clean, shining leaves, and modest catkins,—inhabiting, almost everywhere, the alpine regions of the White Mountains, and gathered by him there, before any other botanist had penetrated those solitudes,—still reminds us of his name, which deserves to be remembered by his countrymen.

After Cutler, there appeared nothing of importance[25] on our botany, till the present elder school of New-England botanists—a school characterized by the names of an Oakes, a Boott, and an Emerson—was founded, now more than forty years ago, by the classical _Florula_ of Bigelow.

_New-Englands_

RARITIES

Discovered:

IN

_Birds_, _Beasts_, _Fishes_, _Serpents_, and _Plants_
of that Country.

Together with

The _Physical_ and _Chyrurgical_ REMEDIES wherewith
the _Natives_ constantly use to Cure their
DISTEMPERS, WOUNDS, and SORES.

_ALSO_

A perfect _Description_ of an _Indian SQUA_, in all
her Bravery; with a POEM not improperly
conferr’d upon her.

LASTLY

_A CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE_
of the most remarkable Passages in that Country
amongst the ENGLISH.

_Illustrated with CUTS._

By _JOHN JOSSELYN_, Gent.

_London_, Printed for _G. Widdowes_ at the
_Green Dragon_ in St. _Pauls_ Church yard, 1672.

To the highly obliging,

His Honoured Friend and Kinsman,

SAMUEL FORTREY Esq;

_SIR_,

_It was by your assistance (enabling me) that I commenc’d a Voyage into those remote-parts of the World (known to us by the painful Discovery of that memorable Gentleman Sir_ Fran. Drake.) _Your bounty then and formerly hath engaged a retribution of my Gratitude, and not knowing how to testifie the same unto you otherwayes, I have (although with some reluctancy) adventured to obtrude upon you these rude and indigested Eight Years Observations, wherein whether I shall more shame my self or injure your accurate Judgment and better Employment in the perusal, is a question._

We read of Kings and Gods that kindly took
A Pitcher fill’d with Water from the Brook.

_The Contemplation whereof (well knowing your noble and generous Disposition) hath confirm’d in me the hope that you will pardon my presumption, and accept the tender of the fruits of my Travel after this homely manner, and my self as,_

_Sir,_

_Your highly obliged,
&
most humble Servant_,

John Josselyn.

_New-Englands_

RARITIES

Discovered.

In the year of our Lord 1663. _May 28._ upon an Invitation from my only Brother, I departed from _London_, and arrived at _Boston_, the chief Town in the _Massachusetts_, a Colony of _Englishmen_ in _New-England_, the _28th_ of _July_ following.

_Boston_ (whose longitude is 315 deg. and 42 deg. 30 min. of North Latitude) is built on the South-west side of a Bay large enough for the Anchorage of 500 Sail of Ships, the Buildings are handsome, joyning one to the other as in _London_, with many large streets, most of them paved with pebble stone, in the high street towards the Common, there are fair buildings, some of stone, and at the East End of the {2} Town one amongst the rest, built by the Shore by Mr. _Gibs_, a Merchant, being a stately Edifice, which it is thought will stand him in little less than 3000 _l._ before it be fully finished.[26] The Town is not divided into Parishes, yet they have three fair Meeting-houses or Churches, which hardly suffice to receive the Inhabitants and Strangers that come in from all parts.[27]

Having refreshed my self here for some time, and opportunely lighting upon a passage in a Bark belonging to a Friend of my Brothers, and bound to the Eastward, I put to sea again, and on the Fifteenth of _August_, I arrived at _Black-point_, otherwise called _Scarborow_, the habitation of my beloved Brother,[28] being about an hundred leagues to the Eastward of _Boston_; here I resided eight years, and made it my business to discover all along the Natural, Physical, and Chyrurgical Rarities of this New-found World.

_New-England_ is said to begin at 40 and to end at 46 of Northerly Latitude, that is from _de la Ware_ Bay to _New-found-Land_.

The Sea Coasts are accounted wholsomest, the East and South Winds coming {3} from Sea produceth warm weather, the Northwest coming over land causeth extremity of Cold, and many times strikes the Inhabitants both _English_ and _Indian_ with that sad Disease called there the Plague of the back, but with us _Empiema_.[29]

The Country generally is Rocky and Mountanous, and extremely overgrown with wood, yet here and there beautified with large rich Valleys, wherein are Lakes ten, twenty, yea sixty miles in compass, out of which our great Rivers have their Beginnings.[30]

Fourscore miles (upon a direct line) to the Northwest of _Scarborow_, a Ridge of Mountains run Northwest and Northeast an hundred Leagues, known by the name of the _White Mountains_, upon which lieth Snow all the year, and is a Land-mark twenty miles off at Sea. It is rising ground from the Sea shore to these Hills, and they are inaccessible but by the Gullies which the dissolved Snow hath made; in these Gullies grow _Saven_ Bushes, which being taken hold of are a good help to the climbing Discoverer; upon the top of the highest of these Mountains is a large Level {4} or Plain of a days journey over, whereon nothing grows but Moss: at the farther end of this Plain is another Hill called the _Sugar-Loaf_, to outward appearance a rude heap of massie stones piled one upon another, and you may as you ascend step from one stone to another, as if you were going up a pair of stairs, but winding still about the Hill till you come to the top, which will require half a days time, and yet it is not above a Mile, where there is also a Level of about an Acre of ground, with a pond of clear water in the midst of it; which you may hear run down, but how it ascends is a mystery. From this rocky Hill you may see the whole Country round about; it is far above the lower Clouds, and from hence we beheld a Vapour (like a great Pillar) drawn up by the Sun Beams out of a great Lake or Pond into the Air, where it was formed into a Cloud. The Country beyond these Hills Northward is daunting terrible, being full of rocky Hills, as thick as Mole-hills in a Meadow, and cloathed with infinite thick Woods.[31]

_New-England_ is by some affirmed to be an Island, bounded on the North with the {5} River _Canada_, (so called from Monsieur _Cane_) on the South with the River _Mohegan_, or _Hudsons_ River, so called because he was the first that discovered it.[32] Some will have _America_ to be an Island, which out of question must needs be, if there be a Northeast passage found out into the South Sea; it contains 1152400000 Acres. The discovery of the Northwest passage (which lies within the River of _Canada_) was undertaken with the help of some Protestant _Frenchmen_, which left _Canada_ and retired to _Boston_ about the year 1669. The Northeast people of _America_ i.e. _New England_, _&c._ are judged to be _Tartars_ called _Samoades_, being alike in complexion, shape, habit and manners, (see the _Globe_:) Their Language is very significant, using but few words, every word having a diverse signification, which is exprest by their gesture; as when they hold their head of one side the word signifieth one thing, holding their hand up when they pronounce it signifieth another thing. Their Speeches in their Assemblies are very gravely delivered, commonly in perfect _Hexamiter_ Verse, with great silence and attention, and answered again _ex tempore_ after the same manner.[33]

{6} Having given you some short Notes concerning the Country in general, I shall now enter upon the proposed Discovery of the Natural, Physical, and Chyrurgical Rarities; and that I may methodically deliver them unto you, I shall cast them into this form: 1. Birds. 2. Beasts. 3. Fishes. 4. Serpents and Insects. 5. Plants, of these, 1. such Plants as are common with us, 2. of such Plants as are proper to the country, 3. of such Plants as are proper to the Country and have no name known to us, 4. of such Plants as have sprung up since the _English_ Planted and kept Cattle there, 5. of such Garden Herbs (amongst us) as do thrive there and of such as do not. 6. Of Stones, Minerals, Metals, and Earths.

First, Of Birds.[34]

_The Humming Bird._

The _Humming Bird_, the least of all Birds, little bigger than a _Dor_, of variable glittering Colours, they feed upon Honey, which they suck out of Blossoms {7} and Flowers with their long Needle-like Bills; they sleep all Winter, and are not to be seen till the Spring, at which time they breed in little Nests, made up like a bottom of soft, Silk-like matter, their Eggs no bigger than a white Pease, they hatch three or four at a time, and are proper to this Country.

_The Troculus._[35]

The _Troculus_, a small Bird, black and white, no bigger than a Swallow, the points of whose Feathers are sharp, which they stick into the sides of the Chymney (to rest themselves, their Legs being exceeding short) where they breed in Nests made like a Swallows Nest, but of a glewy substance, and which is not fastened to the Chymney as a Swallows Nest, but hangs down the Chymney by a clew-like string a yard long. They commonly have four or five young ones, and when they go away, which is much about the time that Swallows use to depart, they never fail to throw down one of their young Birds into the room by way of Gratitude. I have more than once observed, that against the ruin of the Family these Birds will suddenly forsake the house and come no more.

{8} _The Pilhannaw._[36]

The _Pilhannaw_ or _Mechquan_, much like the description of the _Indian Ruck_, a monstrous great Bird, a kind of Hawk, some say an Eagle, four times as big as a Goshawk, white Mail’d, having two or three purple Feathers in her head as long as Geeses Feathers they make Pens of the Quills of these Feathers are purple, as big as Swans Quills and transparent; her Head is as big as a Childs of a year old, a very Princely Bird; when she soars abroad, all sort of feathered Creatures hide themselves, yet she never preys upon any of them, but upon _Fawns_ and _Jaccals_: She Ayries in the Woods upon the high Hills of _Ossapy_, and is very rarely or seldome seen.

_The Turkie._[37]

The _Turkie_, who is blacker than ours; I have heard several credible persons affirm, they have seen _Turkie Cocks_ that have weighed forty, yea sixty pound; but out of my personal experimental knowledge I can assure you, that I have eaten my share of a _Turkie Cock_, that when he was pull’d and garbidg’d, weighed thirty {9} pound; and I have also seen threescore broods of young _Turkies_ on the side of a marsh, sunning of themselves in a morning betimes, but this was thirty years since, the _English_ and the _Indians_ having now destroyed the breed, so that ’tis very rare to meet with a wild _Turkie_ in the Woods; But some of the _English_ bring up great store of the wild kind, which remain about their Houses as tame as ours in _England_.

_The Goose._[38]

The _Goose_, of which there are three kinds; the _Gray Goose_, the _White Goose_, and the _Brant_: The _Goose_ will live a long time; I once found in a _White Goose_ three Hearts, she was a very old one, and so tuff, that we gladly gave her over although exceeding well roasted.

_The Bloody-Flux Cured._

A Friend of mine of good Quality living sometime in _Virginia_ was sore troubled for a long time with the _Bloody-Flux_, having tryed several Remedies by the advice of his Friends without any good effect, at last was induced with a longing desire to drink the _Fat Dripping_ {10} of a Goose newly taken from the Fire, which absolutely cured him, who was in despair of ever recovering his health again.

_The Gripe and Vulture._

The _Gripe_, which is of two kinds, the one with a White Head, the other with a black Head, this we take for the _Vulture_. They are both cowardly _Kites_,[39] preying upon Fish cast up on the shore. In the year 1668 there was a great mortality of Eels in _Casco Bay_, thither resorted at the same time an infinite number of _Gripes_, insomuch that being shot by the Inhabitants, they fed their Hogs with them for some weeks; at other times you shall seldom see above two or three in a dozen miles travelling. The _Quill Feathers_ in their Wings make excellent _Text Pens_, and the Feathers of their Tail are highly esteemed by the _Indians_ for their Arrows, they will not sing in flying; a _Gripes_ Tail is worth a _Beavers_ Skin, up in the Country.

_A Remedy for the Coldness and pain of the Stomach._

The Skin of a _Gripe_ drest with the doun on, is good to wear upon the Stomach for the Pain and Coldness of it.

{11} _The Osprey._

The _Osprey_, which in this Country is white mail’d.

_A Remedy for the Tooth-ach._

Their Beaks excell for the Tooth-ach, picking the Gums therewith till they bleed.

_The Wobble._[40]

The _Wobble_, an ill shaped Fowl, having no long Feathers in their Pinions, which is the reason they cannot fly, not much unlike the _Pengwin_; they are in the Spring very fat, or rather oyly, but pull’d and garbidg’d, and laid to the Fire to roast, they yield not one drop.

_For Aches._

Our way (for they are very soveraign for _Aches_) is to make Mummy of them, that is, to salt them well, and dry them in an earthern pot well glazed in an Oven; or else (which is the better way) to burn them under ground for a day or two, then quarter them and stew them in a Tin Stewpan with a very little water.

{12} _The Loone._

The _Loone_ is a Water Fowl, alike in shape to the _Wobble_, and as virtual for Aches, which we order after the same manner.[41]

_The Owl._

The _Owl_, _Avis devia_, which are of three kinds; the great _Gray Owl_ with Ears, the little _Gray Owl_, and the _White Owl_ which is no bigger than a _Thrush_.[42]

_The Turkie Buzzard._

The _Turkie Buzzard_, a kind of _Kite_, but as big as a _Turkie_, brown of colour, and very good meat.[43]

_What Birds are not to be found in_ New-England.

Now, by what the country hath not, you may ghess at what it hath; it hath no _Nightingals_, nor _Larks_, nor _Bulfinches_, nor _Sparrows_, nor _Blackbirds_, nor _Mag_{13}_pies_, nor _Jackdawes_, nor _Popinjays_, nor _Rooks_, nor _Pheasants_, nor _Woodcocks_, nor _Quails_, nor _Robins_, nor _Cuckoes_, _&c._[44]

Secondly, Of Beasts.[45]

_The Bear, which are generally Black._[46]

The _Bear_, they live four months in Caves, that is all Winter; in the Spring they bring forth their young ones, they seldome have above three Cubbs in a litter, are very fat in the Fall of the Leaf with feeding upon Acorns, at which time they are excellent Venison; their Brains are venomous; They feed much upon water Plantane in the Spring and Summer, and Berries, and also upon a shell-fish called a _Horse-foot_; and are never mankind, i.e. fierce, but in rutting time, and then they walk the Country twenty, thirty, forty in a company, making a hideous noise with roaring, which you may hear a mile or two before they come so near to endanger the Traveller. About four years since, Acorns being very scarce up in the Country, some numbers of them came down {14} amongst the _English_ Plantations, which generally are by the Sea side; at one Town called _Gorgiana_ in the Province of _Meyn_ (called also _New-Sommerset-shire_) they kill’d fourscore.

_For Aches and Cold Swellings._

Their Grease is very good for Aches and Cold Swellings, the _Indians_ anoint themselves therewith from top to toe, which hardens them against the cold weather. A black Bears Skin heretofore was worth forty shillings, now you may have one for ten, much used by the _English_ for Beds and Coverlets, and by the _Indians_ for Coats.

_For Pain and Lameness upon Cold._

One _Edw. Andrews_ being foxt,[47] and falling backward cross a Thought[48] in a Shallop or Fisher-boat, and taking cold upon it, grew crooked, lame, and full of pain, was cured, lying one Winter upon Bears Skins newly flead off, with some upon him, so that he sweat every night.

_The Wolf._[49]

The _Wolf_, of which there are two kinds; one with a round-ball’d Foot, and {15} are in shape like mungrel Mastiffs; the other with a flat Foot, these are liker Greyhounds, and are called _Deer Wolfs_, because they are accustomed to prey upon _Deer_. A _Wolf_ will eat a _Wolf_ new dead, and so do _Bears_ as I suppose, for their dead Carkases are never found, neither by the _Indian_ nor _English_. They go a clicketing twelve days, and have as many Whelps at a Litter as a Bitch. The _Indian Dog_[50] is a Creature begotten ’twixt a _Wolf_ and a _Fox_, which the _Indians_ lighting upon, bring up to hunt the _Deer_ with. The _Wolf_ is very numerous, and go in companies, sometimes ten, twenty, more or fewer, and so cunning, that seldome any are kill’d with Guns or Traps; but of late they have invented a way to destroy them, by binding four _Maycril Hooks_ a cross with a brown thread, and then wrapping some Wool about them, they dip them in melted Tallow till it be as round and as big as an Egg; these (when any Beast hath been kill’d by the _Wolves_) they scatter by the dead Carkase, after they have beaten off the _Wolves_; about Midnight the _Wolves_ are sure to return again to the place where they left the slaughtered Beast, and the {16} first thing they venture upon will be these balls of fat.

_For old Aches._