Chapter XIII: Part 13

[368] “For Beares they be common, being a great black kind of Beare, which be most fierce in Strawberry time, at which time they have young ones; at this time likewise they will goe upright like a man, and clime trees, and swim to the Islands: which if the _Indians_ see, there will be more sportful Beare bayting than Paris Garden can afford. For seeing the Beares take water, an _Indian_ will leape after him, where they goe to water cuffes for bloody noses, and scratched sides; in the end the man gets the victory, riding the Beare over the watery plaine till he can beare him no longer.” (_New England’s Prospect_, p. 17.) “He makes his Denn amongst thick Bushes, thrusting in here and there store of _moss_, which being covered with snow and melting in the daytime with heat of the Sun, in the night is frozen into a thick coat of Ice; the mouth of his Den is very narrow, here they lye single, never two in a Den all winter. The _Indian_ as soon as he finds them, creeps in upon all four, seizes with his left hand upon the neck of the sleeping _Bear_, drags him to the mouth of the Den, where with a club or small hatchet in his right hand he knocks out his brains before he can open his eyes to see his enemy.” (_Two Voyages_, p. 91.) Wood adds that bear’s flesh was “accounted very good meete, esteemed of all men above Venison.” Clayton says that “their flesh is commended for a very rich sort of Pork.” (_Virginia_, III. _Force’s Tracts_ No. 12, p. 37.) “Beares there be manie towardes the sea-coast, which the Indians hunt most greedily; for indeed they love them above all other their flesh, and therefore hardly sell any of them unto us, unles upon large proffers of copper, beads and hatchetts. We have eaten of them, and they are very toothsome sweet venison, as good to be eaten as the flesh of a calfe of two yeares old; howbeit they are very little in comparison of those of Muscovia and Tartaria.” (Strachey’s _Historie_, p. 123.) See, also, Josselyn’s _New England’s Rarities_, pp. 13-14, and _Two Voyages_, pp. 91-2.

[369] The well-known Muskrat or Musquash (_Fiber zibethicus_) of our ponds. The “stones” are the oder glands. In respect to _Cunny_, see _supra_ 204, _note_ 2.

[370] The _Porcupine_ is the Canadian Porcupine (_Erethizon dorsatus_).

[371] The _Hedgehogg_ is the same as the Porcupine, the author being in error in regarding it as “of the like nature to our English Hedgehoggs.” The English Hedgehog belongs to a very different order of mammals, and has no representative in America.

[372] The _Conyes_ are Hares, the small ones of the “Southerne parts” being the little Gray Hare or Wood Rabbit (_Lepus sylvaticus_) of southern New England. Those of “the North” are the Varying Hare (_Lepus Americanus_), or White Rabbit, which is brown in summer and white in winter. The reference to _black_ ones is an error, wild black hares being unknown except in cases of Melanism, which are of extremely rare occurrence. We have no _species_ of hare which is black. Rabbit, it may be added, is a name not strictly applicable to any indigenous mammal of America, it being the vernacular specific designation of an Old World species of hare.

[373] The “_Squirils_ of three sorts” are (1) the Gray Squirrel (_Sciurus Carolinensis_); (2) the Red Squirrel, or Chickaree (_S. Hudsonius_); (3) the Flying Squirrel (_Sciuropterus volucellus_). A fourth kind, the Striped Squirrel, or Chipmunk (_Tamias striatus_) is not mentioned. The “batlike winges” are of course neither batlike, nor even wings at all, but merely a narrow furred membrane extending along the sides of the body, from the fore to the hind limbs.

[374] [and] See _supra_, 111, _note_ 1.

[375] “1639. _May_, which fell out to be extream hot and foggie, about the middle of _May_, I kill’d within a stones throw of our house, above four score Snakes, some of them as big as the small of my leg, black of colour, and three yards long, with a sharp horn on the tip of their tail two inches in length.” (Josselyn’s _Two Voyages_, pp. 22-3.)

[376] Mr. J. H. Trumbull writes: “Morton’s _ascowke_ is Eliot’s _askook_, R. Williams’s _askùg_, ‘a snake.’ In Zeifberger’s Delaware, _achgook_; whence (through Heckewelder) Cooper’s _Chingachgook_, ‘the Great Serpent,’ in the _Last of the Mohicans_.”

[377] Williams, in his _Key_, gives the name as _Sések_. See, also, Mr. Trumbull’s note in his edition of the _Key_ (p. 130), in the publications of the Narragansett Society. Wood gives it as _seasicke_. (_Prospect_, p. 86.)

[378] The stories first told in Europe of the Rattlesnake (_Crotalus durissus_) were of the most exaggerated kind. He was described as a reptile of prodigious size, which could fly, and which poisoned by its breath. (_New England’s Prospect_, p. 39.) The first mention of this snake in Massachusetts is found in Higginson’s _New England’s Plantation_ [1630]. It is as follows: “This country being very full of woods and wildernesses, doth also much abound with snakes and serpents, of strange colors and huge greatness. Yea, there are some serpents, called rattlesnakes, that have rattles in their tails, that will not fly from a man as others will, but will fly upon him and sting him so mortally that he will die within a quarter of an hour after, except the party stinged have about him some of the root of an herb called snake-weed to bite on, and then he shall receive no harm.” (Young’s _Chron. of Mass._, p. 255.) Wood gives an admirable description of the rattlesnake (_Prospect_, pp. 38-9), and also speaks of “the Antidote to expel the poyson, which is a root caled Snake weede, which must be champed, the spittle swallowed, and the roote applied to the sore.... Five or six men have been bitten by them, which by using of snakeweede were all cured, never any yet losing his life by them.” Josselyn, in his _Rarities_ (p. 39), says: “The _Indians_ when weary with travelling, will take them up with their bare hands, laying hold with one hand behind their Head, with the other taking hold of their Tail, and with their teeth tear off the Skin of their backs, and feed upon them alive; which they say refresheth them.” He further says that the heart of the rattlesnake “swallowed fresh” (_Rarities_, p. 39), or “dried and pulverized and drunk with wine or beer” (_Voyages_, p. 114), is an antidote against its poison. In Clayton’s _Virginia_ (III. _Force’s Tracts_, No. 12, p. 39), there is a very entertaining passage, too long to extract, on Rattlesnakes, and the use of East India snake-stones “that were sent [to Virginia] by King _James_ the Second, the Queen, and some of the Nobility, purposely to try their Virtue and Efficacy,” at curing the bite of vipers, &c.

[379] The _Mice_, which our author found in “good store,” belong chiefly to three species,--namely, the common short-tailed Meadow Mouse (_Arvicola riparius_), the White-footed Mouse, or Deer Mouse (_Hesperomys leucopus_), and the Long-tailed Jumping Mouse, or Kangaroo Mouse (_Zapus Hudsonius_). The common House Mouse (_Mus musculus_) is an exotic pest, which doubtless had not at that time made its appearance. Morton is quite right in stating: “but for Rats, the Country by Nature is troubled with none.” The Black Rat (_Mus rattus_) was quite early introduced, but the Gray, Wharf, or Norway Rat (_Mus decumanus_) probably did not make its appearance till fully a century after Morton wrote his _New English Canaan_.

[380] Morton, as was natural for a keen sportsman who had himself been in the tropics, was wiser on the subject of Lions than other Englishmen in New England. From the first landing at Plymouth, when John Goodman and Peter Browne, getting lost in the woods, heard “two lions roaring exceedingly,” down to 1639, when Josselyn heard “of a young Lyon (not long before) kill’d at Pascataway by an Indian,” there were vague stories of these animals having been either seen or heard in the New England woods. Josselyn argued on the great probability that there were lions because there were jackals (_Rarities_, p. 21); and Wood said that “the Virginians saw an old Lyon in their Plantation, who having lost his Iackall, which was wont to hunt his prey, was brought so poore that he could goe no further.” (_Prospect_, p. 17.) Strachey speaks of having found the skins and claws of lions in the hands of the Indians. (_Historie_, p. 124.) The animal referred to in all these cases was doubtless the Panther or Catamount (_Felis concolor_). On this subject see also Young’s _Chron. of Pilg._, p. 176, _note_; Tuckerman’s _New England’s Rarities_, p. 57, _note_; and the _Mem. History of Boston_, vol. i. p. 9.

[381] For the scientific and technical notes to this chapter I am indebted to Professor N. S. Shaler of Harvard University. As in the three preceding chapters, certain other notes of my own have been added, which are of a wholly different character, and will readily be distinguished from Professor Shaler’s.

[382] The marble of Marble Harbor, or Marblehead, is not, in the present sense of the word, a marble at all, but is, in fact, a porphyry. In the old sense of the word it designated any smooth-striped or spotted stones, such as are found there.

[383] No limestone, good or bad, is known to exist on the Monatoquit now; the nearest limestone is at Bear (or Bare) Hill, in Stoneham.

[384] There is a locality in East Braintree, included in the Wainwright estate, at the foot of Wyman’s Hill and facing the Weymouth Fore-river, into which the Monatoquit flows, where is a quarry from which stone bearing some external resemblance to limestone was formerly taken for ballast. This place has always been locally called the Quaw, though the origin and meaning of the name have never been known. It would seem that this must be the place referred to in the text, and that Quaw, or Quor, is a corruption of the Indian Attaquatock.

[385] There are no “chalke stones” at Squanto’s Chapelle, _i.e._, Squantum, or anywhere else in this part of the world. Morton may possibly have mistaken pebbles of decayed felspar for chalk.

[386] There is some slate in Quincy and Weymouth that _might_ be used for roofing, and a quarry of it was long worked for material for gravestones, &c., on Squantum Bay, a mile or so from Mount Wollaston; but it is slate of a very poor sort. The nearest workable slate is in Vermont and Maine.

[387] This passage is more than usually confused, even for Morton. It is difficult to say whether he is perpetrating a clumsy joke, or indulging in a malicious insinuation. John Billington was hanged at Plymouth in September, 1630, being apparently the second person so executed in what is now Massachusetts, the first having been executed at Weymouth during the winter of 1622-3. (_Infra_, *108-10.) The man shot by Billington, and for whose murder he was hung, was John New-comin (Bradford, p. 277), whence Morton’s play upon the name. Billington had two sons, but he was by no means “beloved.” As Bradford, writing about him as early as 1625, said, “he is a knave,” adding prophetically “and so will live and die.” (Savage’s _Winthrop_, vol. i. p. *36). Why Morton should have called him “Ould Woodman” is not clear. From his immediately going on to talk of the “woodden prospect,” and the wish of its author to secure for himself a monopoly of the Richmond Island whetstones, which “Ould Woodman labored to get a patent of,” it would seem as if he had intended to convey the idea that William Wood, the author of the _New England’s Prospect_, was one of the “many sonnes” of “Old Woodman,” who had been hanged at Plymouth. That such was Morton’s intention, however, is not clear. The passage is muddled, but not necessarily malicious.

[388] The words quoted are not Ovid’s, but Virgil’s. _Eclogues_, viii. 43.

[389] _Supra_, 124.

[390] Josselyn, in his _Two Voyages_ (p. 202), speaks of the “excellent whetstones” then (1670) found at Richmond Island.

“There is a species of slate quite abundant on Richmond’s Island, and some other Islands in Casco Bay, which has been used for oil-stones. Josselyn, in his _Voyages_, says that ‘tables of slate could be got out long enough for a dozen men to sit at.’” See a communication on this passage of the _New Canaan_, signed J. P. B., in the _Portland Press_ of January 2, 1883. Professor Shaler adds: “It is interesting to note the fact that Morton saw that whetstones could be made the basis for trade. Stones suitable for this purpose are rare in Europe, and to-day a New Hampshire company ships large quantities to Europe and even to Australia.”

[391] Richmond Island lies directly south-east of Cape Elizabeth and close to it. From what Morton says in the next chapter and elsewhere (_infra_, *149), it would seem that before his arrest by Standish in June, 1628,--that is, in the summer of 1627,--he had a fur station on the coast of Maine. (_Supra_, 23.) Winthrop, writing under date of October 22, 1631, mentions the murder of “Walter Bagnall, called Great Watt, and one John P---- who kept with him,” by the Indians at Richmond Island. He adds: “This Bagnall was sometimes servant to one in the bay, and these three years had dwelt alone in the said isle, and had gotten about £400 most in goods. He was a wicked fellow, and had much wronged the Indians.” (Winthrop, vol. i. p. *63). Bagnall would, from this, appear to have been one of Morton’s servants at Mount Wollaston, as he alone in “the bay,” at that time, had any number of servants, or was engaged in trade on the Maine coast. As Bagnall was killed in 1631, and had then lived alone at Richmond Island three years, he seems to have taken up his abode there in 1628, the time of the breaking up of the company at Mount Wollaston by Standish and Endicott, and the settlement at Richmond Island was thus the Maine offshoot of that at Merry-mount. Bagnall was probably that one of Morton’s servants who, he says, was reputed, when he died, to have made a thousand pounds in the fur trade in five years, “whatsoever became of it.” (_Supra_, *78). Morton’s expression here of “five years” agrees with Winthrop’s “three years,” and confirms this surmise. Bagnall had died in 1631. Morton had gotten control at Mount Wollaston in 1626. (_Supra_, 15.) Bagnall had remained there as his servant two years, until 1628; then had been frightened away and gone to Richmond Island, where he had lived three years more, as Winthrop says,--making in all Morton’s five years. In his phrase “whatsoever became of it” Morton characteristically throws out an insinuation in regard to Bagnall’s possessions. He probably meant to imply some underhand proceeding to get hold of them on the part of the Massachusetts Bay people. Recently a theory has been advanced in the Maine press, that Bagnall was an Episcopalian, and competitor in trade of the Massachusetts Company; and that Winthrop and his associates, not being able otherwise to get rid of him, compassed his death by indirect means. (See a letter of S. P. Mayberry in _Portland Press_ of Jan. 9, 1883.) Winthrop says that most of the possessions in question were in goods. A portion would naturally be in the form of money, and it was left for the present generation to form a most plausible surmise as to “whatsoever became” of some of this money. On May 11, 1855, an old stone pot was turned up by the ploughshare, on Richmond Island, containing fifty-two coins; and Mr. Willis, the historian of Portland, then took occasion, in a letter to the Massachusetts Historical Society (_Proceedings_, May 1857, pp. 183-8), to “express the belief that the money [was] connected with the fate of Walter Bagnall, who was killed by Sagamore Squidraket and his party, Oct. 3, 1631.” There was nothing to show that any of the coins were of a later date than 1631. A patent for Richmond Island, together with fifteen hundred acres on the main land, was issued to Bagnall by the Council for New England, Dec. 2, 1631, just three months after his death. (_Records of the Council_, pp. 51-2.) Morton was then in England, and unquestionably in communication with Gorges. (_Supra_, 49.)

[392] Doubtless the magnetic iron oxides. None of these are known to me nearer than in the mountains forming the westerly part of the Berkshire Hills, from New York City to the Adirondacks, except in Cumberland, R. I., where there is some iron of this nature.

[393] No ironstones are known around Massachusetts bay; the nearest deposits are in Rhode Island.

[394] Small quantities of galena ore have been found in Woburn and that vicinity. There are some localities near Newburyport where the savages may have found small quantities of galena.

[395] Black leade is doubtless plumbago, or graphite; it is found in Wrentham and in Worcester, Mass., as well as at various points in Rhode Island.

[396] Red leade is doubtless an ochre, such as may have been found near Cranston, R. I.

[397] Boll armoniack is the _Bolus armeniaca_ of the old apothecaries. _Bolus_ is the prefix to several old pharmacopial names, having lost its original special signification and come to be a given term for all lumpy substances. Here it means a sort of reddish clay, such as may be used for marking,--a clayey ochre such as may have come from about Providence, R. I.

[398] Vermilion oxide of mercury is not known to occur this side of the Rocky Mountains. It is likely that he mistook some brilliant ochre for true vermilion. It may be, however, that the aborigines traded for it with western tribes. Their copper implements probably came from Lake Superior. Many evidences of almost as wide a commerce could be adduced.

[399] Brimstone, or sulphur, does not exist in its metallic state this side of the Cordilleras. He may have seen some pyrite-bearing schists, such as occur in Maine, which in dumping give a sulphuric smell.

[400] Tin does not occur in this region. Some localities are known in Maine and elsewhere in New England, but they could hardly have been found by the Savages, or known to Morton.

[401] Copper in its metallic state, the only form in which he would have recognized it, does not occur about Massachusetts Bay. A very little of it has been found in Cumberland, R. I., in the valley of the Blackstone River.

[402] No silver, except when combined with lead and zinc ore, has ever been found in this district. Some occurs in the district from Woburn to Newburyport. Metallic silver could not have been known to the natives. The nearest localities for metallic gold are the streams of Vermont, New Hampshire, and western Maine, in which district placer gold occurs in considerable quantities, and some auriferous quartz veins are known.

Professor Shaler adds to his foregoing notes: “The general impression which I get from the writer is that he was a bad observer, but not more untruthful than most of the seventeenth century travellers. He does not say that gold or silver had been seen by him, and limits his hearsay evidence to a single mine. Except for the extraordinary stuff about the whetstones,--wherein we may perhaps see something of the _Maypole_ humor,--it is, for its time, a rather sober and reasonable story.”

[403] This is the name by which Morton invariably designates John Endicott. For reasons which have been explained in the preliminary matter to this edition of the _New Canaan_ (_supra_, pp. 38-42), its author felt--and, as will be seen, never missed an opportunity to express--a peculiar bitterness towards Endicott.

[404] For the notes to this chapter I am indebted to Theodore Lyman, of the Massachusetts Fish Commission. Higginson, in his _New England’s Plantation_, has a passage on Fish (Young’s _Chron. of Mass._, pp. 248-51), and Williams, in his _Key_, devotes a chapter (xix.) to the same subject. Wood again, in his _Prospect_ (pp. 27-31), deals with it in his peculiar manner, and Josselyn, both in his _Voyages_ (pp. 104-15) and in his _Rarities_ (pp. 22-37), devotes a good deal of space to the enumeration of the different kinds of New England fishes, their peculiarities, and the methods of taking them. In editing the _Rarities_, Mr. Tuckerman remarked that he had “little to offer in elucidation of the list [of fishes], which, indeed, in good part, appears sufficiently intelligible,”--a remark equally applicable to the present chapter of the _New Canaan_.

[405] Portland Harbor. See _supra_, 218, _note_ 1.

[406] This proves that the _local_ Cod, _i. e._, those that breed close to the shore, have much decreased; and this partly by over-fishing, and partly by the falling-off of their food in the form of young fishes coming to the sea from rivers and brooks.

[407] This is perhaps the first mention in America of cod-liver oil, now so much used in medicine.

[408] The Striped Bass (_Labrax_). The Bass mentioned four paragraphs below, as chasing mackerel “into the shallow waters,” may perhaps be the Bluefish (_Temnodon_).

[409] This is either an expression which has wholly passed out of use, or else a misprint. Probably the latter. It may, however, also be surmised that Morton characteristically coined a word from the Latin, and here meant to refer to the various large fish in New England waters, such as the Horse Mackerel (_Thynnus secundo dorsalis_), the Mackerel Shark (_Lamna punctata_), and the common Dogfish (_Acanthias Americanus_), all of which follow schools of mackerel, bass, &c., into shoal waters and prey upon them.

[410] “These Macrills are taken with drailes, which is a long small line, with a lead and a hooke at the end of it, being baited with a peece of a red cloath.” (_New England’s Prospect_, p. 30.) This instrument still bears the same name and is used in the same way.

[411] When caught in the Thames, within the jurisdiction of the Lord Mayor of London, the Sturgeon (_Acipenser_) is a royal fish reserved for the sovereign. “The Sturgeon is a Regal fish too, I have seen of them that have been sixteen foot in lenghth.” (Jossel., _Two Voyages_, p. 105.)

[412] But little attention has been paid as yet in the United States to the Sturgeon fisheries, in spite of their great abundance.

[413] [jieele.] See _supra_, 111, _note_ 1.

[414] “There be a greate store of Salt water Eeles, especially in such places where grasse growes: for to take these there be certaine Eele pots made of Osyers, which must be baited with a peece of Lobster, into which the Eeles entering cannot returne backe againe; some take a bushell in a night in this maner, eating as many as they have neede of for the present, and salt up the rest against Winter. These Eeles be not of so luscious a tast as they be in England, neither are they so aguish, but are both wholsom for the body, and delightfull for the taste.” (_New England’s Prospect_, p. 30.)

[415] Morton confounds the Shad (_Alosa præstabilis_), or Allize (corruption of the French _Alose_), with the smaller Alewife. This, with the Smelt and the Eel, are among the few shore fishes that are still found in comparative plenty. The Menhaden is used in our time to set corn.

[416] At the present time the Halibut (_Hippoglossus_) is seldom caught near the shore or in shoal water. It is taken by the Gloucester fishermen along the outer banks, in depths of a hundred to two hundred fathoms. The New England Turbot (_Lophopsetta_) of our coasts is a different fish, and rarely ventures to the north of Cape Cod. The fishermen frequently sell our turbot as chicken-halibut.

[417] The Flounder (_Pseudopleuronectes_), whereof there are several species.

[418] Hake (_Phycis_) are still somewhat common.

[419] Morton probably means the Menhaden (_Brevoortia_). The European Pilchard, the adult of the Sardine, is not found on our coast.

[420] Probably the Double-crested Cormorant (_Phalacrocorax dilophus_). The Common Cormorant (_P. carbo_) also occurs in New England, but it is rare to the southward of Maine. Both species breed abundantly on rocky shores about the Gulf of St. Lawrence and northward, visiting New England waters during the autumn and winter. While with us they are exclusively maritime, frequenting by choice the vicinity of outlying ledges and small, rocky islands. When passing from place to place, they often fly in large flocks, which are usually arranged in long lines or single files. They live on fish, which they capture by diving.

[421] This paragraph, and the one on clams immediately following it, throw considerable light on the formation of the shell-heaps, a question which has been recently much discussed. See the paper of Professor F. W. Putnam, read at the meeting of the Maine Historical Society in Portland, in December, 1882, which will appear in the report of the proceedings of that meeting in the Collections of the Society.

[422] We, in this country, have not retained the European taste for mussels and for razor-shells (_Solen_).

[423] The eating of scallops (_Pecten_) has been revived within a few years.

[424] A strong spirit of emulation existed in the early years of the seventeenth century, between the advocates of New England and those of Virginia, as sites for colonization. Morton was always a stanch New Englander, and in this chapter, as well as in those which immediately precede and follow it, he loses no opportunity to assert the superiority of the Massachusetts climate and products over those of the country further south. It is needless to point out that his advocacy led him into ludicrously wild statements.

[425] There is no natural spring of any kind at Mount Wollaston, though water is easily obtained by digging.

[426] Winnisimmet, the Indian name of Chelsea. Upon the significance of the name Mr. Trumbull writes: “I have my doubts about Morton’s Weenasemute, but am inclined to believe that his interpretation is founded on fact. _Ashim_ (= _asim_, in local dialect) is once used by Eliot (_Cant._ iv. 12) for ‘fountain.’ It denotes a place from which water (for drinking) is taken. _Winn’ashim_, or _Winn’asim_, means ‘the good fountain,’ or spring; and _Winn’asim-ut_ (or _et_) is ‘at the good spring.’ The efficacy of the water ‘to cure barrenness’ may have been Morton’s embellishment, but not improbably was an Indian belief.”

[427] Squantum, in Quincy.

[428] This is a gross exaggeration. Thomas Wiggin, in November, 1622, wrote: “For the plantation in Mattachusetts, the English there being about 2000 people, yonge and old.” (III. _Mass. Hist. Coll._, vol. viii. p. 322.) Writing on May 22, 1634, about the time Morton referred to (_Supra_, 78), Governor Winthrop says: “For the number of our people, we never took any surveigh of them, nor doe we intend it, except inforced throughe urgent occasion (David’s example stickes somewhat with us) but I esteeme them to be in all about 4000: soules and upwarde.” (_Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc._, Dec. 14, 1882.) So in the _New England’s Prospect_ (p. 42), Wood speaks of the population of Massachusetts as “foure thousand soules.” In the spring of 1634 there may have been five hundred persons in the Plymouth colony, and as many more in New Hampshire and Maine, making a total New England population of five thousand at the time Morton was writing. When the _New Canaan_ was published, however, in 1637, the population undoubtedly was as large as 12,000.

[429] _Supra_, 187, _note_ 4.

[430] This astounding proposition was in the early days of the settlement not peculiar to Morton. Higginson, in his _New Englands Plantation_, speaks of the “extraordinary clear and dry air, that is of a most healing nature to all such as are of a cold, melancholy, phlegmatic, rheumatic temper of body,” and concludes what he has to say on the subject with his often-quoted sentiment that “a sup of New-England’s air is better than a whole draught of Old England’s ale.” (Young’s _Chron. of Mass._, pp. 251-2.) Williams, too, says in his _Key_ (ch. xiii.): “The _Nor-West_ wind (which occasioneth _New-England_ cold) comes over the cold frozen Land, and over many millions of Loads of Snow: and yet the pure wholesomnesse of the Aire is wonderfull, and the warmth of the Sunne, such in the sharpest weather, that I have often seen the Natives Children runne about starke naked in the coldest dayes.” Again, in the pamphlet entitled _New England’s First Fruits_, printed in London in 1643, it was stated, in reply to the objection of extreme winter cold, that “the cold there is no impediment to health, but very wholsome for our bodies, insomuch that all sorts generally, weake and strong, had scarce ever such measure of health in all their lives as there.... Men are seldome troubled in winter with coughes and Rheumes.” (I. _Mass. Hist. Coll._, vol. i. p. 249.) Josselyn, however, writing nearly thirty years later, remarks: “Some of our _New-England_ writers affirm that the _English_ are never, or very rarely, heard to sneeze or cough, as ordinarily they do in _England_, which is not true.” (_Two Voyages_, p. 184.)

[431] _Supra_, 201, _note_ 2.

[432] _Supra_, *17.

[433] Wood in his _Prospect_ (p. 2), referring to the approach to Boston Bay from Cape Anne, had said: “The surrounding shore being high, and showing many white Cliffes, in a most pleasant prospect.”

[434] The Second Book of the _New Canaan_, it would seem, originally ended with this chapter. The next chapter was an afterthought of the author, written before December, 1635, as is evident from the allusions in it to events then taking place. (_Supra_, 78.) Wood’s _Prospect_ was published in 1634, and the constant references to it in the first two books of the _New Canaan_ show that they were both written subsequent to its publication, probably during that year. In the Third Book there are no allusions to the _Prospect_, and the reference to the Third Book in the Second (_Supra_, *51), to which attention has already been called, show that it must have been written before the others, and probably during the year 1633. It would seem to have been completed in May, 1634. There is, however, also a reference to be found in the Third Book to the Second (_Infra_, *120), but it was probably interpolated during a revisal of the manuscript.

[435] Now Lake Champlain. “By the Indians north of the St. Lawrence and the Lakes, it was called the Lake of the Iroquois, as likewise the River Richelieu, connecting it and the River St. Lawrence, they called the River of the Iroquois. Champlain discovered the lake in 1609, and gave it his own name. (_Voyages_, Prince Soc. ed., vol. ii. pp. 210-20; Parkman’s _Pioneers of France_, p. 316.) On some of the early maps it is put down ‘Lake Champlain or Irocoise.’ It is so called in Purchas’s _Pilgrims_ (vol. iv. p. 1643). The region about the lake was sometimes called Irocosia. The Iroquois lived on the south of the lake, and, as their enemies on the north approached them through this lake, they naturally called it the Lake of the Iroquois.” (_MS. letter of Rev. E. F. Slafter._)

[436] The measurement and distance here given are very nearly correct. Lake Champlain is 126 miles long by about 14 in width at its broadest part. Burlington is not far from 240 miles from Boston.

[437] In regard to the imaginary attractions and advantages of Laconia and its great lake, see Belknap’s _American Biography_, vol. i. p. 377.

[438] The two brothers, William and Emery de Caen, became prominent in the history of Canadian settlement in 1621, and remained so for a number of years. They did not, however, plant a colony of French in America, nor was the name of Canada, or of its famous river, derived from their name. On this point see Parkman’s _Pioneers of France_, pp. 184, _note_, and 391-5. Morton’s derivation of the name Canada is entitled to much the same weight as his derivation of the names Pantucket and Mattapan. (_Supra_, 124.) It was not, however, peculiar to him as, forty years later, Josselyn also speaks (_Rarities_, p. 5) of “the River _Canada_, (so called from Monsieur _Cane_).”

[439] On the breaking out of the war between England and France in 1627, under the influence of Buckingham, Sir William Alexander had been instrumental in organizing an expedition to seize the French possessions in America. At its head were three Huguenots of Dieppe,--David, Louis and Thomas Kirk, brothers. The expedition was successful, and on the 20th of July, 1629, Champlain surrendered Quebec to Louis Kirk. Daniel Kirk, the admiral of the expedition, returned to England in November of the same year; but his brother Thomas remained in Canada and held Quebec as an English conquest until July, 1632, when, in accordance with the conditions of the peace of April 14, 1629, it was restored to France. See Kirke’s _First English Conquest of Canada_, pp. 63-93; Parkman’s _Pioneers of France_, pp. 401-11; also Mr. Deane’s note in _Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc._ for 1875-6, pp. 376-7.

[440] The number of beaver-skins really carried to England by Kirk was seven thousand. (Kirke’s _First English Conquest of Canada_, p. 85.)

[441] It is unnecessary to say that Morton was here writing at random. He confounds the Potomac with the Hudson, though, a few paragraphs further on (_Infra_, *99), he states the facts in regard to the latter river correctly; and the latitude he gives has no significance, being that of Poughkeepsie, on the Hudson, and Cleveland, on Lake Erie. The Potomac nowhere flows so far north as 40°. The falls referred to are probably those of Niagara. They had not then been discovered (Parkman’s _Jesuits in North America_, p. 142), though vague reports concerning them had reached the French through the Indians, and they are plainly indicated on Champlain’s map of 1629. (_Voyages_, Prince Soc. ed., vol. i. p. 271, _note_.) Some loose stories in regard to the rivers, falls, lakes and islands of the interior had been picked up by Morton, probably in his talks with seamen and others who had taken part in Kirk’s expedition. He certainly fell in with these in London, and it is more than likely that at the house of Gorges he saw Champlain’s map of 1629; though upon that the falls are placed at 43-1/2 degrees of latitude, instead of at 41-1/2. In 1634 there was no other map. On the strength of the information thus gathered, he made the statements contained in this chapter. The little he knew had been obtained in England, after his return there in 1631; for the Massachusetts Indians can hardly have known much of the remote interior, and in 1630 no attempts even at exploration away from the seashore had been made by the straggling occupants of the New England coast.

[442] The stories here referred to probably came from the Indians of Connecticut and Maine, and referred to the rivers and lakes of New England, but were afterwards supposed to have had a wider significance.

[443] Williams (_Key_, 64) gives _Macháug_ as the Indian word for _No_, but it really signifies _no-thing_ (_Key_, 182). _Matta_, as Morton gives it, is the simple negative.

[444] Henry Josselyn was a brother of John Josselyn, author of _New Englands Rarities_ and the _Two Voyages to New England_, frequently quoted in the notes to this edition of the _New Canaan_. He came out from England in the interest of Mason, as stated in the text, in 1634, and passed the remainder of his life in Maine, living at Black Point in the town of Scarborough. He died in 1683. He was deputy-governor of the province, and one of the most active and influential men in it, holding, through all changes of proprietorship and government, the most important offices. See Mr. Tuckerman’s Introduction to the _New Englands Rarities_; _Hist. of Cumberland County, Maine_, p. 362.

[445] Of Captain John Mason of New Hampshire and the Laconia enterprise, it is not necessary to speak at length in this connection. Mason was the most prominent character in the early history of New Hampshire, and the loss which his death, in December 1635, entailed on the projects of Gorges and Morton has already been referred to (_Supra_, 76). The late Charles W. Tuttle, of Boston was at the time of his death engaged in preparing a life of Mason, which would unquestionably have been a valuable addition to the history of the settlement of New England. The material he had collected is now in the possession of his family. In regard to the Laconia Company and its projects, see Belknap’s _American Biography_, under the title _Gorges_, and Mr. Deane’s note in the _Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc._, 1875-6, pp. 376-80.

[446] Wood’s statement here referred to is found on the first page of the _Prospect_, and is as follows: “The Place whereon the _English_ have built their Colonies, is judged by those who have best skill in discovery, either to bee an Island, surrounded on the North side with the spacious River _Cannada_, and on the South with _Hudsons_ River, or else a _Peninsula_, these two Rivers overlapping one another, having their rise from the great Lakes which are not farre off one another, as the _Indians_ doe certainly informe us.”

[447] In 1631 no less than 15,174 skins, the greater portion beaver, were exported from the New Netherlands, valued at about £12,000. (O’Callaghan’s _New Netherland_, p. 139.)

[448] The Nipmucks, or Nipnets, inhabited the present county of Worcester. (_Hist. of Worcester County_, vol. i. p. 8.)

[449] This is a confused, rambling account of the familiar Indian incidents which took place during the first year after the landing at Plymouth. There is nothing of historical value in it, and nothing which has not been more accurately and better told by Bradford, Winslow, Mourt and Smith.

[450] Captain Thomas Hunt, who commanded one of the vessels of Smith’s squadron, in his voyage of 1614. (Bradford, p. 95.)

[451] Morton, in this chapter, confounds Samoset with Squanto. It was Squanto who was kidnapped by Hunt and had been in England, but it was Samoset who walked into the Plymouth settlement, on the 26th of March [N. S.], 1621, and saluted the planters with “wellcome in the English phrase.” Squanto was a native of Plymouth, but Samoset belonged at Pemaquid, in Maine. (Mourt, Dexter’s ed., _note_ 295, p. 83.) Hence Morton speaks of his having been detained by Massasoit as a captive. He apparently came to Massachusetts the year before on Captain Dermer’s vessel, in company with Squanto. Dr. Dexter is seriously in error in his account of Squanto in _note_ 315 of his edition of Mourt. Squanto could not have been one of the Weymouth captives of 1605.

[452] This is the familiar anecdote of Squanto. (Bradford, p. 113; Young’s _Chron. of Pilg._, p. 292.)

[453] See _supra_, 133, _note_.

[454] The most connected account of Thomas Weston and his abortive plantation at Wessagusset, already referred to (_Supra_, 2), is that contained in Adams’s _Address on the 250th Anniversary of the Settlement of Weymouth_, pp. 5-22. Winslow in Young’s _Chron. of Pilg._, Bradford, and Phinehas Pratt (IV. _Mass. Hist. Coll._, vol. iv.) are the original authorities.

[455] This is a wholly confused and misleading account of the skirmish which took place between the Plymouth party, under command of Miles Standish, and the Massachusetts Indians living near Wessagusset, immediately after the killing of Pecksuot and Wituwamat, in March, 1623. The correct account of the affair is in Young’s _Chron. of Pilg._, p. 341. Why Morton speaks of it as a battle between the English and the French is inexplicable.

[456] See _supra_, pp. 11, 162, 170. The Plymouth people may have despoiled the grave of Chickatawbut’s mother of its bear-skins during some one of their earlier visits to Boston Bay. Their last visit to those parts, prior to the “battle” spoken of in this chapter, was in November, 1622 (Young’s _Chron. of Pilg._ p. 302), when they got little in the way of supplies, and heard nothing but complaints from the Indians of Weston’s people, who had then been several months at Wessagusset. It is far more probable that these latter stripped the grave at Passonagessit. In any event there can be little doubt that Morton himself had visited the spot while taking his “survey of the country” during the previous summer (_Supra_, 6), and it is quite clear that the despoiling the grave had no connection with the subsequent “battle,” in which Chickatawbut took no part.

[457] “Insomuch as our men could have but one certain mark, and then but the arm and half face of a notable villain, as he drew [his bow] at Captain Standish; who, together with another both discharged at once at him, and brake his arm.” (Young’s _Chron. of Pilg._, p. 341.)

[458] This is the famous Wessagusset hanging which Butler introduced into his poem of _Hudibras_ (Canto II. lines 409-36), in the passage already referred to (_Supra_, 96). It is as follows:--

“Our Brethren of New-England use
Choice malefactors to excuse,
And hang the Guiltless in their stead,
Of whom the Churches have less need;
As lately ’t happen’d: In a town
There liv’d a Cobler, and but one,
That out of Doctrine could cut Use,
And mend men’s lives as well as shoes.
This precious Brother having slain,
In times of peace an Indian,
(Not out of malice, but mere zeal,
Because he was an Infidel),
The mighty Tottipottymoy
Sent to our Elders an envoy,
Complaining sorely of the breach
Of league held forth by Brother Patch,
Against the articles in force
Between both churches, his and ours,
For which he craved the Saints to render
Into his hands, or hang th’ offender;
But they maturely having weigh’d
They had no more but him o’ th’ trade,
(A man that served them in a double
Capacity, to teach and cobble),
Resolv’d to spare him; yet to do
The Indian Hoghan Moghan too
Impartial justice, in his stead did
Hang an old Weaver that was bed rid.”

That a man was hung at Wessagusset, in March 1623, for stealing corn from the Indians, there can be no doubt. There is equally little doubt that it was the real thief who was hung. (Pratt’s _Relation_, IV. _Mass. Hist. Coll._, vol. iv. p. 491; Young’s _Chron. of Pilg._, p. 332; Bradford, p. 130.) I have already (_Supra_, 96) given my own theory as to how the incident came to take the shape it did in Butler’s poem. He wrote, I think, from a vague recollection of an amusing traveller’s-story, which he had heard told somewhere years before. There is no reason to suppose that he had ever seen the _New Canaan_.

It has always been assumed that Butler’s version of the affair,--the vicarious execution version,--coming out as it did in 1664, at a period of violent reaction against Puritanism, and when the New England colonies were in extreme popular disfavor,--obtained a foothold in English popular tradition; much such a foothold, in fact, as the Connecticut Blue Laws. It was an intangible something, always at hand to be cast as a mocking reproach in the face of a sanctimonious community. As such it was sure to be resented and disproved; but never by any disproof could it be exorcised from the popular mind, or finally set at rest. This may have been the case, and the references to the matter in Hutchinson (vol. i. p. 6, _note_), in Hubbard (p. 77), and in Grahame (Ed. 1845, vol. i. p. 202, _note_), certainly look that way. I do not remember, however, to have myself ever met this particular charge among the many and singular charges, much more absurd, which English writers have from time to time gravely advanced against America. In Uring’s _Voyages_ (p. 116-8) there is a singular account of a similar vicarious execution, which never could have met the eye of the author of _Hudibras_, inasmuch as it was not published until 1726; but it shows that either some such event did take place, or that its having taken place was at one period a stock traveller’s-tale.

[459] Three of Weston’s company were among the Massachusetts Indians at the time of the Wessagusset killing; one of the three had before domesticated himself with them; the other two, disregarding Standish’s orders, had straggled off, the day before the massacre, to a neighboring Indian village. After the massacre the savages put all three to death by torture. (Pratt’s _Narrative_, IV. _Mass. Hist. Coll._, vol. iv. p. 486; Young’s _Chron. of Pilg._, p. 344.)

[460] Will Sommers was the famous jester and court fool of Henry VIII. His witticisms are frequently met with in the plays and annals of the period; and the portrait, said to be by Holbein and of him, looking through a window and tapping on the glass, was formerly a prominent feature in the gallery at Hampton Court. It is very questionable, however, whether the story alluded to in the text belongs to Sommers. He had been dead eighty years or more when Morton wrote, and the stories connected with him had been gotten together by Armin, and printed in his _Nest of Ninnies_, in 1608. This book Morton had probably seen. In it there is a story of another famous fool, Jack Oates, of an earlier period, which is probably the one Morton had in mind. Oates is represented as giving an earl, the guest of his patron, Sir William Hollis, “a sound box on the ear,” for saluting Lady Hollis, and then excused himself on the ground of “knowing not your eare from your hand, being so like one another.” (Doran’s _Court Fools_, p. 182.) Remembering this story in the _Nest of Ninnies_, Morton, with his well-developed faculty for getting everything wrong, seems to have fathered it on the most famous and popular of the occupants of the _Nest_.

[461] For the detailed account of the Wessagusset killing, see Winslow’s _Relation_ in Young’s _Chron. of Pilg._, pp. 336-41; Adams’s _250th Anniversary of Weymouth_, pp. 18-22.

[462] Mr. Trumbull, in a note (125) to Williams’s _Key_ (p. 59). explains a blunder here made by Morton. The correct word is _wotawquenauge_, which means “coat-men,” or men wearing clothes, the _waútacone-nûaog_ of Williams. This, Morton confounded with another name for Englishmen, _chauquaqock_, meaning, “knife- [_i. e._, sword-] men,” which he understood to mean “cut-throats.”

[463] Weston, in 1622, got into serious trouble with the English government, in regard to some ordnance and military stores, which he had obtained a license to send to New England, and had then sold to the French, with whom the English were at war. (Bradford, p. 150.) He seems to have been in hiding in consequence of this transaction; and early in 1623 went on board of one of the fishing-vessels in the disguise of a blacksmith, and came out in her to the stations on the Maine coast. There he must have learned of the extreme straits, if not of the abandonment, of his plantation at Wessagusset, and he set out, with a companion or two, in an open boat, for Massachusetts Bay. He was wrecked near the mouth of the Merrimac, and barely escaped with his life. The savages there stripped him to his shirt, and in this plight he reached Thomson’s plantation at Piscataqua. Thence he found his way to Plymouth, arriving there, not as Morton says, “with supply and means to have raised [his company’s] fortunes,” but in absolute destitution. Bradford’s account of his reception and of what ensued (pp. 133-4, 149-53) is very different from that given in the text; and, it is hardly necessary to add, reads much more like the truth.

[464] _Supra_, 14.

[465] The incident here alluded to was the seizure of the _Swan_, under a warrant issued by Captain Robert Gorges, acting as Lieutenant of the Council for New England, in November, 1623. The _Swan_ was a small vessel of 30 tons measurement, which Weston had sent out with his expedition, in 1622. His plan was, when the larger vessel--the _Charity_, in which his company went out--returned to England, to have the _Swan_ remain in New England, to be used for trading purposes. Accordingly, all through the winter of 1622-3, it had been at Wessagusset, except when employed by the people there in obtaining supplies in connection with the Plymouth people. When, in March, 1623, Wessagusset was abandoned, the company went in the _Swan_ to the Maine fishing-stations. Here Weston found the vessel in the course of the following summer, and recovered possession of her. He then began to trade along the coast. Meanwhile, in September, Captain Robert Gorges arrived, and immediately set out to look for Weston, in order to call him to account for the ordnance transactions referred to in the preceding note, and also for the disorderly conduct of his people at Wessagusset during the previous winter. Starting for the eastward, he was driven into Plymouth Harbor by heavy weather, and while he was lying there the _Swan_ made its appearance with Weston on board. Bradford’s account of what ensued, including the seizure of the vessel, differs _toto cœlo_ from that in the text. He says that Captain Robert Gorges, acting as governor-general under his commission from the Council for New England, at once organized a sort of a court,--he, Bradford, acting as an assistant in it,--and proceeded to arraign and try Weston. As a result of the whole proceedings Gorges threatened to send Weston under arrest back to England. Through the intercession of Bradford, however, he was mollified, and finally Weston was released on his own promise to appear when called for. Gorges then went to Wessagusset, leaving Weston with the _Swan_ at Plymouth. After a time Gorges seems to have concluded that it would be very convenient for him to have control of the _Swan_, at any rate for that winter. Accordingly he sent a warrant to Plymouth for its seizure and the arrest of Weston. Bradford, not liking this proceeding, took some exception to the warrant, and refused to allow it to be served. At the same time it was intimated to Weston that he had better take himself and his vessel off. This he would not do. Apparently his crew was mutinous and unruly, their wages being long in arrears, and the _Swan_ destitute of supplies. He seems to have looked upon arrest and seizure as the best way out of his difficulties. Presently a new warrant came from Gorges, and both vessel and prisoner were removed to Wessagusset. This was in November. There they passed the winter of 1623-4. Towards spring Gorges went in the _Swan_ to the eastward, Weston accompanying him, apparently as a pilot. The tidings received there led the disappointed young Lieutenant of the Council to decide on immediately returning to England. Accordingly he came back to Wessagusset, and thence went probably to the fishing-stations, very possibly in the _Swan_. Before leaving he effected some sort of a settlement with Weston,--Bradford intimates much to the advantage of the latter,--who was released from arrest, had his vessel restored to him, and was compensated for whatever loss he had sustained. Weston thereupon reappeared at Plymouth, and thence went to Virginia. He seems to have traded along the coast for some years, but finally drifted back to England, where in 1645 he died, at Bristol, of the plague. (Bradford, pp. 140-53. Young’s _Chron. of Pilg._, pp. 296-8, 302.)

[466] This chapter relates to incidents of no apparent consequence, and of which there is no other record. It is not easy even to fix the time at which they occurred, and it would seem as if Morton, in his rambling, incoherent way, had confused the events of one year with those of another. The only time when “35 stout knaves” were landed, at all in the way described, at Plymouth, was in July, 1622, when the _Charity_ brought in there Weston’s company. Yet Morton speaks of there then being “three cows” at Plymouth, which would indicate that Morton’s arrival, referred to in the text, was not in July 1622, but at some time subsequent to the spring of 1624, when Winslow brought over “three heifers and a bull, the first beginning of any cattle of that kind in the land.” (Bradford, p. 158.) Yet Weston, again, had no “barque” at Plymouth after 1623. The chapter seems to have been introduced simply for the purpose of working on the church prejudices of Laud against the Puritans. (See _supra_, 93-4.) There is in it a combination of “the booke of common prayer” and “claret sparklinge neate,” which is suggestive of the _Book of Sports_ as well as of “the Word of God.”

[467] Bradford, p. 158.

[468] Facilis descensus Averno. _Æneid_, vi. 127.

[469] A _killock_ is a small anchor. The phrase in the text means that the wind caused the boat to drag her anchor, and she went ashore and was stove in.

[470] The episode of Lyford and Oldham, in the history of the Plymouth plantation, is told in detail by Bradford. The account in the text differs from Bradford’s account only in that it is the other side of the story. (See Bradford, pp. 172-88.)