 | New-England legends |  |
PORTSMOUTH.
An hour after leaving Newburyport, having
crossed the Merrimack, no longer on the bridge
that Blondin refused to walk, the traveler is in
Portsmouth, a town which, without possessing
the vitality of Newburyport or the world-known
traditions of Salem, is in some regards as interesting
as either. Few spots in the whole
country can boast the primeval grandeur of
which it was the possessor, and traces of
which are still to be found both in place and
people. Being the only seaport of an independent
State—for, before our present confederation,
New Hampshire was a little Republic,
governed by a President and two Houses of Congress
— much home wealth naturally centred
there, much foreign wealth and many dignitaries
were drawn there; and being a provincial capital,
for so long a time the home of Presidents
and Governors, and afterward a garrisoned and
naval place of the United States, its society has
always been of the choicest description, and its
homes and habits sumptuous. The greater part
of the old families have died out or have left
the place, but many of their dwellings remain
to tell of the degree of splendor which characterized
not only their hospitality, but their
common life.
The town lies very prettily upon land between
several creeks, just where the Piscataqua
widens—to meet the sea three miles below—
into a harbor of extraordinary but placid picturesqueness.
Martin Pring was its first visitor,
and after him John Smith, and it was originally
part of the Mason and Gorges grant, although
Mason bought out Sir Ferdinando's interest,
built a great house, and established the settlement
here himself, sending from Dover an exploring
party to the White Mountains, or Crystal
Hills, as they were then called, in the hope of
adding diamond mines to his possessions. In
the first days the central part of the town was
known as Strawberry Bank, and so many an
aged resident still speaks of it; and by a singular
circumstance it happens that nearly all this
portion of Portsmouth, containing public buildings,
banks, offices, stores and dwellings, is
owned in fee by the old North Church, being
some twelve acres in the centre of the city, together
with thirty-eight acres through which
runs the Islington Road, all of it constituting
glebe land leased to the present holders for
nine hundred and ninety-nine years, and at the
expiration of that little term to fall back with
all its improvements into the hands of the
Church, if the Church be still in existence—a
prospective wealth bearing favorable comparison
with the present wealth of Trinity Church
in New York.
The place still does a very fair business for
one of its size, Portsmouth lawns and hosiery being
known the country over, and its principal
rope-walk furnishing nearly all the rigging of
the Maine and Massachusetts marine. Many of
the well-shaded streets are paved, and there
are library and athenæum, fine schools and
churches; among the latter, St. John's, succeeding
that to which Caroline, the Queen of
George the Second, gave altar and pulpit books,
communion service, chancel furniture and a
silver christening-basin—a stately and interesting
edifice, with its mural tablets and the
porphyry font taken at the capture of an African
city.
Although Portsmouth probably shared the
prevailing sentiment of New England to some
extent, she was never thoroughly Puritan,
having been planted more for mercantile than
religious ends, and she is still a young settlement
when we read of the profane game of
shovel-board being openly played there, and
the character of its banqueting and merrymaking
has at all times more of the Cavalier than
the Roundhead. In 1711 she built an almshouse
at an expense of nearly four thousand pounds,
a thing contrary to the genius of all Puritanism;
and to the honor of Portsmouth be it known
that this was not only the first almshouse in
this country, but in the whole civilized world.
It was in Portsmouth, too, that there was made
perhaps the earliest attack on African slavery,
by a decision of the local court that it was a
thing not to be tolerated, although, having
eased their consciences by the declaration and
the law—a famous habit not confined to Portsmouth—the
good people went on keeping such
property in slaves as they chose.
The rank of the early population there was of
a much higher social type than could be found
in other settlements. There were the Parkers,
the gravestone of whose ancestress was recently
uncovered, Lady Zerviah Stanley, who
made a love-match and escaped to this country
SHE HUNG OUT MANY A SIGNAL FROM HER WINDOW FOR THE GOVERNOR TO READ ACROSS THE OPEN SPACE BETWEEN THEIR DWELLINGS.
[Description: 693EAF. Page 037. In-line image. A woman is leaning out of an open window. One foot is on the floor and the knee of the other leg is resting on the window ledge. She is holding some cloth in her hands which she is releasing to use as a signal out the window. ] from the wrath of her father, the Earl of Derby.There are the Chaunceys, immigrants here
through the persecutions of Archbishop Laud,
sprung of Chauncey de Chauncey, from Chauncey
near Amiens in France, who entered England
with the Conqueror; their head in this country
could trace his noble descent back to Charlemagne,
and back to Egbert in the year 800,
lineage not excelled by Queen Victoria's own.
There were the families of Pepperrell and Went
worth, baroneted for illustrious deeds; and
there are to be found the first mention of the
old names of Langdon, Frost, Newmarch, Cushing,
She fe Penhallow, names which revive
the traditions of a magnincent hospitality.
Here was born Tobias Lear, the friend and
secretary of Washington, and his house remains
to-day full of mementoes of his chief;
there lived John Langdon, first President of the
United States Senate; the handsome face of
many a time looked out of that window; there
stands the house in which successively lived
Jeremiah Mason and Daniel Webster; there the
handsome dwelling of Levi Woodbury, and
there were born the Blunts, whose charts to-day
define the courses of all modern commerce.
Many other mansions of note are still standing.
Here on the corner of Daniel and Chapel
streets, with its gambrel-roof and luthernlights,
is the old Warner House, the first brick
house of the place, and whose material was
brought from Holland; there are still preserved
in it the gigantic pair of elk-horns presented to
the head of the house by the Indians with whom
he traded, and who, out of their skillfully-painted
portraits, still look down at the guest
who mounts the staircase; there are paintings
by Copley hanging in another place within, and
on repapering its hall, a few years since, four
coatings of paper being removed, a full-length
likeness of Governor Phipps on his charger was
discovered, together with other life-sized frescoes,
of more or less value, of whose existence
people of eighty years had never heard; this
house ought to be as secure from the fires of
Heaven as a person vaccinated by Jenner ought
to be from disease, for it has a lightning-rod
put up under Dr. Franklin's personal inspection,
and the first one used in the State. Fire
has destr yed the spacious house where, a hundred
years ago, in the midst of guests assembled
with all the illumination and cheer of the
times, the beautiful Miss Sheafe sat in her
bridal-dress waiting for the bridegroom who
never came, but who left his great wealth, his
love, and his good name, left his bride to her
destiny of alternating doubt and terror, and
disappeared out of the world for ever. This
same fire, or another, has left no mark of the
house to which High Sheriff Parker once hurried
so hungrily with Ruth Blay's blood upon
his hands—a young girl condemned for murdering
her child, though afterward found to be innocent,
and her reprieve sent forward to arrive
only two minutes too late, for she had been
driven to the scaffold, clothed in silk and filling
the air with her cries, and hurried out of life
before the appointed hour because the sheriff
feared lest his dinner should cool by waiting.
But there still stands the old “Earl of Halifax”
inn, shabby enough now, but once a place of
Tory revelry and Rebel riot; a house that has
had famous guests in its day, for, not to mention
the platitude of Washington's and Lafayette's
entertainment, here John Hancock had
his headquarters, with Elbridge Gerry, Rutledge,
and General Knox; here General Sullivan,
President of New Hampshire, convened
his council; and here, something later, Louis
Phillippe and his two brothers of Orleans were
cared for. On an island in the harbor, whence
is seen the wide view of fort and field and lighthouse,
and the sea stretching away till the Isles
of Shoals and Agamenticus lie in the horizon
like clouds, stands the old Prescott mansion,
where the Legislature was wont to be entertained,
but whose wide-doored hospitality has
given place to that of the State, since it is now
another almshouse. In Kittery, a sort of suburb
of Portsmouth, the garrison-house, two
hundred years old, is still shown, and Sir William
Pepperrell's residence by the water, with
its once deer-stocked park and avenues of
mighty elms; and, on the other side of the
river, in Little Harbor, two miles from the
business centre, the old house erected by Governor
Benning Wentworth, but now passed out
of the hands of his family, remains to delight
the antiquary. This house, built around three
sides of a square, though only two stories in
height, contains fifty-two rooms, and looks like
an agglomeration of buildings of various dates
and styles: in its cellars a troop of horse could
be accommodated in time of danger, and here
are still kept in order the council-chamber and
the billiard-room, with the spinet and buffet
and gun-rack of their time, and the halls, finished
in oak and exquisitely carved with the
year's work of a chisel, are lined with ancient
portraits. Here lived and kept a famous table
the old Governor Benning Wentworth, as headstrong
and self-willed and passionate as any
Wentworth of them all. It is told of him that,
when long past his sixtieth year, he lost what
was left of his heart to pretty Patty Hilton, his
maid-servant; and, assembling a great dinner-party
round his board, with the Rev. Arthur
Brown, when the walnuts and the wine were
on, he rung for Patty, who came and stood
blushingly beside him, and then, as Governor
of New Hampshire, he commanded the ciergyman,
who had hesitated at his request as a private
gentleman, to marry him; and Patty
straightway became Lady Wentworth, in the
parlance of the day, and carried things with a
high hand ever afterward, until, the old Governor
dying, she married Colonel Michael Wentworth,
who ran through the property and then
killed himself, leaving the legacy of his last
words: “I have had my cake, and ate it.”
These Wentworths were a powerful and hotblooded
race—nothing but the rigor of the law
ever stood between them and a purpose; their
talent made New Hampshire a power, and for
sixty years they furnished her with Governors.
On Pleasant street, at the head of Washington,
is still to be found the house of Governor John
Wentworth, a successor of Benning; old as it
is, the plush upon its walls is as fresh as newly-pressed
velvet, and valuable portraits of the
Governors and their kin a few years since still
hung upon them. Into this house, with its
pleasant garden running down to the river,
once came a bride under circumstances that
the customs of to-day would cause us to consider
peculiar. It was Frances Deering, the
pet and darling of old Sam Wentworth of
Boston, and for whom the pretty villages of
Francestown and Deering were named. When
very young, she was in love with her cousin
John, who, on leaving Harvard, went to England,
no positive pledge of marriage passing
between them; as he delayed there some years,
before his return she had married another
cousin, Theodore Atkinson by name. Some
years subsequently to their marriage, and after
a lingering illness, Theodore died. But John
had, in the meantime, returned, clothed with
honor and with the regalia of Governor, and,
finding his cousin a woman of far lovelier appearance
than even her lovely youth had promised,
had not hesitated to pay her his devoirs,
which, the gossips said, she had not hesitated
to accept, hanging out many a signal from her
window for the Governor to read across the
open space between their dwellings. On one
day Theodore breathed his last. His burial
took place on the following Wednesday; by
tolled, flags were hung at half-mast, and minute-guns
were fired from the fort and from the
ships-of-war in the harbor. On Sunday the
weeping widow, clad in crapes, listened in
church to the funeral eulogies; on Monday
her affliction was mitigated; on Tuesday all
the fingers of all the seamstresses of the country
roundabout were flying; and on the next Sunday,
in the white satins and jewels and fardingales
of a bride, she walked up the aisle the
wife of Governor Wentworth. When the Revolution
came, the Governor, a Tory, had to fly;
but his wife's beauty won favor at the Court,
she was appointed a lady-in-waiting there, and
her husband was rewarded for his loyalty to
the Crown by the governorship of Nova Scotia,
where he held his state till death humbled it.
Portsmouth, it may be seen, abounds in such
traditions as these of the Wentworths. Of
another sort is the story of Captain Samuel
Cutts. He had sent out his vessel to the Spanish
coasts, and his clerk, young William Bennett,
who had been reared in his counting-room,
and who, after the old-fashioned way, made
his master's interests his own, went supercargo;
the vessel fell among thieves, but thieves who
consented to restore their booty upon receipt
of several thousand dollars, a sum of much less
value than the vessel and cargo. Captain
Leigh, of course, had not the money with him,
nor did it seem practicable to keep the vessel
on full expense while a messenger was sent
home for it; but upon condition of leaving
hostages he was suffered to sail away, young
Bennett and a friend remaining. The terms
were carefully impressed on Captain Leigh's
memory: so many days and it would be time
for the money—till then the hostages were to
be well treated; the money not forthcoming,
the hostages were to be imprisoned on bread
and water; so many days more, and they were
to be left unfed till they starved to death. Captain
Leigh, to whom Bennett was dear as a
son, crowded on all sail for home, arrived,
told his story, and, on sacred promise that the
money should instantly be paid, delivered the
ship that still belonged to her captors into the
hands of Captain Samuel Cutts, and waited
breathlessly for the promise to be kept. Meanwhile
the friend of Bennett had escaped, Bennett
himself trusting so in his master's faith
that he refused to go. Captain Leigh waited
silently a while, but, seeing no prospect of the
ransom's being paid, he began to urge the
matter—precious time was passing; then Bennett's
parents urged, and were assured that
the money had been sent. But when, if the
money had been sent, it was time for Bennett's
return and yet he did not come, anxiety
mounted again to fever-heat; there were agonized
prayers offered in church by the parents,
and Captain Leigh heard them ringing in his
ears; he could think of nothing else; he knew
the gradations of the cruel days apportioned
to Bennett: on such a day he went into solitary
confinement on such a day he was deprived
of food; on such a day he must have
ceased to live. When that day came, Bennett
had truly undergone all his sentence and was
dead, and Captain Leigh was mad.
But all the traditions of splendor are not
confined to the gentility of Portsmouth. A
colored man, steward of a ship sailing from the
Piscataqua, went into loftier society than many
of his betters ever saw. He was in a Russian
port, during a review held by the Emperor in
person, and went on shore, only to attract as
much attention as the Emperor himself, for a
black skin was rarer than black diamonds
there. The next day officials came on board
the ship, to learn if the black man's services
could be had for the imperial family, and the
fortunate fellow left his smoky caboose, hard
fare and half-contemptuous companions, to
become an object of admiration behind an Emperor's
chair; and, being allowed to return to
Portsmouth for his wife and children, had the
satisfaction of parading his gold-laced grandeur
before the humbler citizens to his heart's content.
It is not only in legends of the elegancies of
colonial life, however, that Portsmouth is rich.
She had her valiant part in all the old French
and Indian wars, and the only ship-of-the-line
owned by the Continental Government was
here constructed, on Badger's Island, where a
hundred ships had been built before. Congress
having in 1776 ordered her agents to procure,
among others, three seventy-four-gun ships,
the America was begun, being the heaviest
ship that had ever been laid down on the continent.
Little was done about her, though, till
nearly three years afterward, when John Paul
Jones was ordered to command her. Jones
came to Portsmouth, found the ship only a
skeleton, and, without material or money and
in the face of countless obstacles, pushed forward
her construction, though declaring it the
most tedious and distasteful service he was
ever charged with. As soon as the British
heard of the progress the ship was making,
they devised a thousand plans to destroy her,
intelligence of which was constantly furnished
to Jones, in cipher; and at last, on an alarm
sent by General Washington himself, failing to
obtain a guard from New Hampshire, he prevailed
upon the carpenters to keep watch by
night, and paid them from his own purse; and
they were otherwise rewarded by the sight of
large whaleboats stealing into the river on
muffled oars, and creeping, with their armed
companies, up and down by the America, without
daring to board her. At the birth of the
French Dauphin, Jones mounted artillery in
the ship, decorated her with the flags of all nations,
fired salutes, gave a great entertainment
on board, and alter dark illuminated her from
truck to keelson, kept up a feu de joie till midnight,
and on the anniversary of Independence
repeated his rejoicings. The America was superbly
built—botn stern and bows made so
strong that the men might always be under
cover. Her sculpture, also, is said to have
been of a noble order: America, at the head,
crowned with laurels, one arm raised to heaven,
and the other supporting a buckler with thirteen
silver stars on a blue ground, while the rest
of the person was enveloped in the smoke of
war. Other large figures in relief were at the
stern and elsewhere, representing Tyranny
and Oppression, Neptune, and Mars, and Wisdom
surrounded by the lightnings. Jones,
however, was destined never to command this
ship on which he had lavished so much. The
Magn fique, a seventy-four-gun ship of the
French, having just been wrecked in Boston
Harbor, Congress magnanimously presented to
France the only ship-of-the-line in the American
possession, and for the tenth time Jones was
the ship, and at last launched her; the
launching being no easy task in that little bay,
with the bluff of the opposite shore but a hundred
fathoms distant, and ledges of rock and
conflicting currents everywhere between. But,
letting her slide precisely at high water, dropping
the bow anchors and slipping the cable
fastened to the ground on the island, at a signal
she was off and afloat in safe water, and
given over to the late commander of the
Magniflque. It was not long, though, before
the British captured her—admiring her structure
and ornament so much, that they added to
her carvings the crest of the Prince of Wales,
and considered her peerless in all their flne
navy.
During the last war with England she did
service against her builders, and is still afloat, a
fifty-gun ship of the Queen's, “an honor,” says
Mr. Brewster in his Rambles, “to Piscataqua
shipwrights and to our coast oak.”
| New-England legends | |