Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast

"_Launcelot._ Turn up on your right hand at the next turning, but at the next turning of all on your left; marry, at the very next turning, turn of no hand, but turn down indire...

On the 15th of July, 1605, as the sun was declining in the west, a little bark of fifteen tons, manned by Frenchmen, was standing along the coast of New England, in quest of a s...

"Says Tweed to Till, 'What gars ye rin sae still?' Says Till to Tweed, 'Though ye rin wi' speed, An' I rin slaw, For ae man that ye droon, I droon twa.'"--_Old Song._

Let us now take a walk in Leyden Street. Until 1802 the principal street of the Pilgrims was without a name; it was then proposed to give it the one it now so appropriately bear...

Plymouth is the American Mecca. It does not contain the tomb of the Prophet, but the Rock of the Forefathers, their traditions, and their graves. The first impressions of a stra...

"Land of the forest and the rock, Of dark-blue lake and mighty river, Of mountains reared aloft to mock The storm's career, the lightning's shock-- My own green land forever."

As it was already dark when I arrived in Provincetown, I saw only the glare from the lantern of Highland Light in passing through Truro, and the gleaming from those at Long Poin...

My next excursion was to Smutty Nose, or Haley's. Seen from Star Island it shows two eminences, with a little hamlet of four houses, all having their gable-ends toward the harbo...

New London is a city hiding within a river, three miles from its meeting with the waters of Long Island Sound. On the farthest seaward point of the western shore is a light-hous...

The sea-port of Nantucket, every body knows, rose, flourished, and fell with the whale-fishery. It lies snugly ensconced in the bottom of a bay on the north side of the island o...

One hot, slumberous morning in August I found myself in the town of Wells. I was traveling, as New England ought to be traversed by every young man of average health and active...

A very small fraction of the people of New England, I venture to say, know more of Pemaquid than that such a place once existed somewhere within her limits; yet it is scarcely p...

Newport is an equivoque. It is old, and yet not; grave, though gay; opulent and poor; splendid and mean; populous or deserted. As the only place in New England where those who f...

Whoever has turned over the pages of early New England history can not fail to have had his curiosity piqued by the relations of old French writers respecting this extreme outpo...

I confess I would rather stand in presence of the Pyramids, or walk in the streets of buried Pompeii, than assist at the unwrapping of many fleshless bodies. No other medium tha...

Having broken the ice a little with the reader, I shall suppose him present on the most glorious Christmas morning a New England sun ever shone upon. "A green Christmas makes a...

History is said to repeat itself, and why may not the whale-fishing? Now that the ships are all gone, a small whale is occasionally taken off the island, as in days of yore. Whi...

Islands possess, of themselves, a magnetism not vouchsafed to any spot of the main-land. In cutting loose from the continent a feeling of freedom is at once experienced that com...

Mohammed, it is said, on viewing the delicious and alluring situation of Damascus, would not enter that city, but turned away with the exclamation, "There is but one paradise fo...

Our way lies from Old York to Kittery Point.[81] To get from the one to the other you must pass the bridge over York River, built in 1761. It inaugurated in New England the then...

"Yes--from the sepulchre we'll gather flowers, Then feast like spirits in their promised bowers, Then plunge and revel in the rolling surf, Then lay our limbs along the tender t...

Another phase of Newport in by-gone days was the sojourn of our French allies in the Revolution. Then there were real counts, and dukes, and marquises in Newport. There had also...

There is a walk of singular beauty along the sea-bluffs that terminate the reverse of the hills on which Newport is built. It is known as the Cliff Walk. Every body walks there....

Salem Village has a sorrowful celebrity. It would seem as if an adverse spell still hung over it, for in the changes brought by time to its neighbors it has no part, remaining,...

Assuming the looker-on to be free from all qualms on the subject of grave-yard associations, I invite him to loiter with me awhile among the tombstones of buried Newport. As we...

"This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and with garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of Old, with voices...

The most famous island you can find on the New England map is Monhegan Island. To it the voyages of Weymouth, of Popham, and of Smith converge. The latter has put it down as one...

"Do not the hist'ries of all ages Relate miraculous presages, Of strange turns in the world's affairs, Foreseen by astrologers, soothsayers, Chaldeans, learned genethliacs, And...

Old Saybrook.--Disappearance of the Yankee.--Old Girls.--Isaac Hull.--The Harts.--Connecticut River.--Old Fortress.--Dutch Courage.--The Pilgrims' Experiences.--Cromwell, Hampde...

At the American Mecca.--Court Street.--Pilgrim Hall and Pilgrim Memorials.--Sargent's Picture of the "Landing."--Relics of the _Mayflower_.--First Duel in New England.--Old Colo...

Let us walk in Leyden Street.--The way Plymouth was built.--Governor Bradford's Corner.--Fragments of Family History.--How Marriage became a civil Act.--The Common-house.--John...

The Rock of Marblehead.--The Harbor and Neck.--Chat with the Light-keeper.--Decline of the Fisheries.--Fishery in the olden Time.--Early Annals of Marblehead.--Walks about the T...

New Harbor.--Wayside Manners.--British Repulse at New Harbor.--Porgee Factory.--Process of converting the Fish into Oil.--Habits of the Mackerel.--Weymouth's Visit to Pemaquid.-...

Cape Cod a _Terra incognita_.--Appearance of its Surface.--Historical Fragments.--The Pilgrims' first Landing.--New England Washing-day.--De Poutrincourt's Fight with Natives.--...

Excursion to Bar Harbor.--Green Mountain.--Eagle Lake.--Island Nomenclature.--Porcupine Islands.--Short Jaunts by the Shore.--Schooner Head.--Spouting Caves.--Sea Aquaria.--Audu...

Entrance to the Thames.--Fisher's Island.--Block Island.--New London.--Light-ships and Light-houses.--Hempstead House.--Bishop Seabury.--Old Burial-ground.--New London Harbor.--...

De Monts sees them.--Smith's and Levett's Account.--Cod-fishery in the sixteenth Century.--Sail down the Piscataqua.--The Isles.--Derivation of the Name.--Jeffrey's Ledge.--Star...

Excursion to Smutty Nose.--Piracy in New England Waters.--Blackbeard.--Thomas Morton's Banishment.--Religious Liberty _vs._ License.--Custom of the May-pole.--Samuel Haley.--Spa...

Behavior of the Troops.--Monarchy aiding Democracy.--D'Estaing.--Jourdan.--French Camps.--Rochambeau, De Ternay, De Noailles.--Efforts of England to break the Alliance.--Frederi...

Old Fort Pentagoët.--Stephen Grindle's Windfall.--Cob-money.--The Pilgrims at Penobscot.--Isaac de Razilly.--D'Aulnay Charnisay.--La Tour.--Descent of Sedgwick and Leverett.--Ca...

The old Voyagers again.--Derivation of the Name of Nantucket.--Sail from Wood's Hole to the Island.--Vineyard Sound.--Walks in Nantucket Streets.--Whales, Ships, and Whaling.--N...

Pentagoët.--A Fog in Penobscot Bay.--Rockland.--The Muscongus Grant.--Colonial Society.--Generals Knox and Lincoln.--Camden Hills.--Belfast and the River Penobscot.--Brigadier's...

Wells.--John Wheelwright.--George Burroughs.--On the Beach.--Shiftings of the Sands.--What they produce.--Ingenuity of the Crow.--The Beach as a High-road.--Popular Superstition...

Norumbega River and City.--Early Discoverers, and Maps of New England.--Mode of taking Possession of new Countries.--Cruel Usage of Intruders by the English.--Penobscot Bay.--Ch...

The Way to the Island.--The Pool.--Ancient Ships.--Old House.--Town Charter and Records.--Influence of the Navy-yard.--Fort Constitution.--Little Harbor.--Captain John Mason.--T...

Taking Blackfish.--Blue-fishing at the Opening.--Walk to Coatue.--The Scallop-shell.--Structure of the Island.--Indian Legends.--Shepherd Life.--Absolutism of Indian Sagamores.-...

General View of Newport.--Sail up the Harbor.--Commercial Decadence.--Street Rambles.--William Coddington.--Anne Hutchinson.--The Wantons.--Newport Artillery.--State-house Notes...

Walk up the Island.--"Tonomy" Hill.--The Malbones.--Capture of General Prescott.--Talbot's Exploit.--Ancient Stages.--Windmills.--About Fish.--Lawton's Valley.--Battle of 1778.-...

The Witch-ground.--Antiquity of Witchcraft.--First Case in New England.--Curiosities of Witchcraft.--Rebecca Nurse.--Beginning of Terrorism at Salem Village.--Humors of the Appa...

Rhode Island Cemetery.--Curious Inscriptions.--William Ellery.--Oliver Hazard Perry.--The Quakers.--George Fox.--Quaker Persecution.--Other Grave-yards.--Lee and the Rhode Islan...

Mount Agamenticus.--Basque Fishermen.--Sassafras.--The Long Sands.--Sea-weed and Shell-fish.--Foot-prints.--Old York Annals.--Sir Ferdinando Gorges.--York Meeting-house.--Handke...

About Islands.--Champlain's Discovery.--Mount Desert Range.--Somesville, and the Neighborhood.--Colony of Madame De Guercheville.--Descent of Sir S. Argall.--Treasure-trove.--Sh...

The Cliff Walk.--Newport Cottages and Cottage Life.--Charlotte Cushman.--Fort Day and Fort Adams.--Bernard, the Engineer.--Dumplings Fort.--Canonicut.--Hessians.--Newport Drives...