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pubOne.info present you this new edition. I CALL it an old town, but it is only relatively old. When one reflects on the countless centuries that have gone to the for-mation of this crust of earth on which we temporarily move, the most ancient cities on its surface seem merely things of the week before last. It was only the other day, then- that is to say, in the month of June, 1603- that one Martin Pring, in the ship Speedwell, an enormous ship of nearly fifty tons burden, from Bristol, England, sailed up the Piscataqua River. The Speedwell, numbering thirty men, officers and crew, had for consort the Discoverer, of twenty-six tons and thirteen men. After following the windings of "the brave river" for twelve miles or more, the two vessels turned back and put to sea again, having failed in the chief object of the expedition, which was to obtain a cargo of the medicinal sassafras-tree, from the bark of which, as well known to our ancestors, could be distilled the Elixir of Life.

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	06 novembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819935223
Langue	English

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AN OLD TOWN BY THE SEA
by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
PISCATAQUA RIVER
Thou singest by the gleaming isles,
By woods, and fields of corn,
Thou singest, and the sunlight smiles
Upon my birthday morn.
But I within a city, I,
So full of vague unrest,
Would almost give my life to lie
An hour upon upon thy breast.
To let the wherry listless go,
And, wrapt in dreamy joy,
Dip, and surge idly to and fro,
Like the red harbor-buoy;
To sit in happy indolence,
To rest upon the oars,
And catch the heavy earthy scents
That blow from summer shores;
To see the rounded sun go down,
And with its parting fires
Light up the windows of the town
And burn the tapering spires;
And then to hear the muffled tolls
From steeples slim and white,
And watch, among the Isles of Shoals,
The Beacon's orange light.
O River! flowing to the main
Through woods, and fields of corn,
Hear thou my longing and my pain
This sunny birthday morn;
And take this song which fancy shapes
To music like thine own,
And sing it to the cliffs and capes
And crags where I am known!
AN OLD TOWN BY THE SEA
I. CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH
I CALL it an old town, but it is only relativelyold. When one reflects on the countless centuries that have gone tothe for-mation of this crust of earth on which we temporarily move,the most ancient cities on its surface seem merely things of theweek before last. It was only the other day, then— that is to say,in the month of June, 1603— that one Martin Pring, in the shipSpeedwell, an enormous ship of nearly fifty tons burden, fromBristol, England, sailed up the Piscataqua River. The Speedwell,numbering thirty men, officers and crew, had for consort theDiscoverer, of twenty-six tons and thirteen men. After followingthe windings of “the brave river” for twelve miles or more, the twovessels turned back and put to sea again, having failed in thechief object of the expedition, which was to obtain a cargo of themedicinal sassafras-tree, from the bark of which, as well known toour ancestors, could be distilled the Elixir of Life.
It was at some point on the left bank of thePiscataqua, three or four miles from the mouth of the river, thatworthy Master Pring probably effected one of his several landings.The beautiful stream widens suddenly at this place, and the greenbanks, then covered with a network of strawberry vines, and slopinginvitingly to the lip of the crystal water, must have won the tiredmariners.
The explorers found themselves on the edge of a vastforest of oak, hemlock, maple, and pine; but they saw nosassafras-trees to speak of, nor did they encounter— what wouldhave been infinitely less to their taste— and red-men. Here andthere were discoverable the scattered ashes of fires where theIndians had encamped earlier in the spring; they were absent now,at the silvery falls, higher up the stream, where fish abounded atthat season. The soft June breeze, laden with the delicate breathof wild-flowers and the pungent odors of spruce and pine, ruffledthe duplicate sky in the water; the new leaves lisped pleasantly inthe tree tops, and the birds were singing as if they had gone mad.No ruder sound or movement of life disturbed the primeval solitude.Master Pring would scarcely recognize the spot were he to landthere to-day.
Eleven years afterwards a much cleverer man than thecommander of the Speedwell dropped anchor in the Piscataqua—Captain John Smith of famous memory. After slaying Turks inhand-to-hand combats, and doing all sorts of doughty deeds whereverhe chanced to decorate the globe with his presence, he had comewith two vessels to the fisheries on the rocky selvage of Maine,when curiosity, or perhaps a deeper motive, led him to examine theneighboring shore lines. With eight of his men in a small boat, aship's yawl, he skirted the coast from Penobscot Bay to Cape Cod,keeping his eye open. This keeping his eye open was a peculiarityof the little captain; possibly a family trait. It was Smith whoreally discovered the Isles of Shoals, exploring in person thosemasses of bleached rock— those “isles assez hautes, ” of which theFrench navigator Pierre de Guast, Sieur de Monts, had caught abird's-eye glimpse through the twilight in 1605. Captain Smithchristened the group Smith's Isles, a title which posterity, withsingular persistence of ingratitude, has ignored. It was a tardysense of justice that expressed itself a few years ago in erectingon Star Island a simple marble shaft to the memory of JOHN SMITH—the multitudinous! Perhaps this long delay is explained by anatural hesitation to label a monument so ambiguously.
The modern Jason, meanwhile, was not without honorin his own country, whatever may have happened to him in his ownhouse, for the poet George Wither addressed a copy of pompousverses “To his Friend Captain Smith, upon his Description of NewEngland. ” “Sir, ” he says—
"Sir: your Relations I haue read: which shew
Ther's reason I should honor them and you:
And if their meaning I have vnderstood,
I dare to censure thus: Your Project's good;
And may (if follow'd) doubtlesse quit the paine
With honour, pleasure and a trebble gaine;
Beside the benefit that shall arise
To make more happy our Posterities. "
The earliest map of this portion of our seaboard wasprepared by Smith and laid before Prince Charles, who asked to givethe country a name. He christened it New England. In thatremarkable map the site of Portsmouth is call Hull, and Kittery andYork are known as Boston.
It was doubtless owing to Captain John Smith'srepresentation on his return to England that the Laconia Companyselected the banks of the Piscataqua for their plantation. Smithwas on an intimate footing with Sir Ferinand Gorges, who, fiveyears subsequently, made a tour of inspection along the New Englandcoast, in company with John Mason, then Governor of Newfoundland.One of the results of this summer cruise is the town of Portsmouth,among whose leafy ways, and into some of whose old-fashionedhouses, I purpose to take the reader, if he have an idle hour onhis hands. Should we meet the flitting ghost of some old-timeworthy, on the staircase or at a lonely street corner, the readermust be prepared for it.
II. ALONG THE WATER SIDE
IT is not supposable that the early settlersselected the site of their plantation on account of itspicturesqueness. They were influenced entirely by the lay of theland, its nearness and easy access to the sea, and the secureharbor it offered to their fishing-vessels; yet they could not havechosen a more beautiful spot had beauty been the soleconsideration. The first settlement was made at Odiorne's Point—the Pilgrims' Rock of New Hampshire; there the Manor, or Mason'sHall, was built by the Laconia Company in 1623. It was not until1631 that the Great House was erected by Humphrey Chadborn onStrawberry Bank. Mr. Chadborn, consciously or unconsciously, soweda seed from which a city has sprung.
The town of Portsmouth stretches along the southbank of the Piscataqua, about two miles from the sea as the crowflies— three miles following the serpentine course of the river.The stream broadens suddenly at this point, and at flood tide,lying without a ripple in a basin formed by the interlocked islandsand the mainland, it looks more like an island lake than a river.To the unaccustomed eye there is no visible outlet. Standing on oneof the wharves at the foot of State Street or Court Street, astranger would at first scarcely suspect the contiguity of theocean. A little observation, however, would show him that he was ina seaport. The rich red rust on the gables and roofs of ancientbuildings looking seaward would tell him that. There is a fitfulsaline flavor in the air, and if while he gazed a dense white fogshould come rolling in, like a line of phantom breakers, he wouldno longer have any doubts.
It is of course the oldest part of the town thatskirts the river, though few of the notable houses that remain areto be found there. Like all New England settlements, Portsmouth wasbuilt of wood, and has been subjected to extensive conflagrations.You rarely come across a brick building that is not shockinglymodern. The first house of the kind was erected by Richard Wibirdtowards the close of the seventeenth century.
Though many of the old landmarks have been sweptaway by the fateful hand of time and fire, the town impresses youas a very old town, especially as you saunter along the streetsdown by the river. The worm-eaten wharves, some of them covered bya sparse, unhealthy beard of grass, and the weather-stained,unoccupied warehouses are sufficient to satisfy a moderate appetitefor antiquity. These deserted piers and these long rows of emptybarracks, with their sarcastic cranes projecting from the eaves,rather puzzle the stranger. Why this great preparation for acommercial activity that does not exist, and evidently had not foryears existed? There are no ships lying at the pier-heads; thereare no gangs of stevedores staggering under the heavy cases ofmerchandise; here and there is a barge laden down to the bulwarkswith coal, and here and there a square-rigged schooner from Mainesmothered with fragrant planks and clapboards; an imported citizenis fishing at the end of the wharf, a ruminative freckled son ofDrogheda, in perfect sympathy with the indolent sunshine that seemsto be sole proprietor of these crumbling piles and ridiculouswarehouses, from which even the ghost of prosperity has flown.
Once upon a time, however, Portsmouth carried on anextensive trade with the West Indies, threatening as a maritimeport to eclipse both Boston and New York. At the windows of thesemusty counting-rooms which overlook the river near Spring Marketused to stand portly merchants, in knee breeches and silvershoe-buckles and plum-colored coats with ruffles at the wrist,waiting for their ships to come up the Narrows; the cries ofstevedores and the chants of sailors at the windlass used to echoalong the shore where all is silence now. For reas