TO THE READER.
"I stand by the old thought, the old thing, the old place, and the old friend." Lowell.
I TAKE it that we, of this generation, can form little conception of the value which every visible token of our ancestors, however humble, will have for those who shall come after us. And that simple statement carries its own moral. In the broadest and most enlightened sense, we, of to-day, are but the passing custodians of all those visible and authentic memorials which Time and Progress have yet spared to us. They belong not to us, but to History. We can tear down, hut who shall build up again?
It was, in the main, this thought which first prompted the writing of this book. And it is true that, within comparatively few years, something has been realized in that direction thanks to the praiseworthy efforts of our patriotic societies; but Old Father Time is a relentless iconoclast, even of our most cherished idols, and much more remains to be done if we are to stand fully acquitted of our obligations, not only to ourselves, but to what may mean so much to posterity.
I have long been convinced that nothing so healthfully stimulates the study of history, especially to young people, as a visit to scenes made memorable by the lives of great men or the march of great events. Seeing is believing, the world over. Unless one is wholly wanting in imagination, it is hardly possible to visit such places without feeling something of the living presence of the actors themselves, or fail to carry away far more vivid and lasting impressions than could be received from the most graphic descriptions alone. At all events, there is a vast deal of satisfaction in being able to say that we have stood on the very spot where our national life began.
Since you and I, most kind reader, went over the ground together, covered in these pages, the changes, I had almost said the havoc, wrought on every side by the steady outreaching of a great and growing city have rendered a thorough revision of the whole work indispensable to a correct reading.
To this end, every place mentioned therein has been revisited, in order that present conditions might be established. Attention is especially called to the illustrations, which do not appear in earlier editions, but which form so attractive a feature of this present volume In having so many places of the highest interest, situated at our own doors, so to speak, we are indeed a favored community, since at almost every corner one may turn some page of history. Every old house we shall visit is a voice speaking to us from out of the Past.
At parting, I shall hope you may have no reason to regret our companionship.
May, 1899
CHAPTER I. THE GATEWAY OF OLD MIDDLESEX.
"A sup of New England's Aire is better than a whole draught of Old England's Ale."
THE charming belt of country around Boston is full of interest to Americans. It is diversified with every feature that can make a landscape attractive. Town clasps hands with town until the girdle is complete where Nahant and Nantasket sit with their feet in the Atlantic. The whole region may he compared to one vast park, where nature has wrought in savage grandeur what art has subdued into a series of delightful pictures. No one portion of the zone may claim precedence.
There is the same shifting panorama visible from every rugged height that never fails to delight soul and sense. We can liken these suburban abodes to nothing but a string of precious gems flung around the neck of Old Boston.
Nor is this all. Whoever cherishes the memory of brave deeds and who does not? will find here the arena in which the colonial stripling suddenly sprang erect, and planted a blow full in the front of the old insular gladiator, a blow that made him reel with the shock to his very center. It was here the people of the "Old Thirteen" first acted together as one nation, and here the separate streams of their existence united in one mighty flood. The girdle is not the less interesting that it rests on the ramparts of the Revolution. It is in a great measure true that what is nearest to us we know the least about, and that we ignorantly pass over scenes every day, not a whit less interesting than those by which we are attracted to countries beyond the seas. An invitation to a pilgrimage among the familiar objects which may be viewed from the city steeples, while it may not be comparable to a tour in the environs of London or of Paris, will not, our word for it, fail to supply us with materials for reflection and entertainment. Let us beguile the way with glances at the interior home life of our English ancestors, while inspecting the memorials they have left behind. Their habitations yet stand by the wayside, and if dumb to others, will not altogether refuse their secrets to such as seek them in the light of historic truth. We shall not fill these old halls with lamentations for a greatness that is departed never to return, but remember always that there is a living present into which our lives are framed, and by which the civilization of what we may call the old regime may be tested. Where we have advanced, we need not fear the ordeal; where we have not advanced, we need not fear to avow it.
We suppose ourselves at the water-side, a wayfarer by the old bridge leading to Charlestown, with the tide rippling against the wooden piers beneath our feet, and the blue sky above calling us afield. The shores are bristling with masts which gleam like so many polished conductors and cast their long wavy shadows aslant the watery mirror. Behind these, houses rise, tier over tier, mass against mass, from which, as if disdainful of such company, the granite obelisk springs out, and higher yet, a landmark on the sea, a Pharos of liberty on the shore.
The Charles, to which Longfellow has dedicated some charming lines, though not actually seen by Smith, retained the name with which he christened it. It was a shrewd guess in the hold navigator, that the numerous islands he saw in the bay indicated the estuary of a great river penetrating the interior.
It is a curious feature of the map which Smith made of the coast of New England in 1614, that the names of Plymouth, Boston, Cambridge, and many other towns not settled until long afterwards, should be there laid down. Smith's map was the first on which the name of New England appeared.
In the pavement of St. Sepulchre, London, is Smith's tombstone. The inscription, except the three Turk's heads, is totally effaced, but the church authorities have promised to have it renewed as given by Stow.
The subject of bridging the river from the old ferry-way at Hudson's Point to the opposite shore which is hero of about the same breadth as the Thames at London Bridge was agitated as early as 1712, or more than seventy years before its final accomplishment. In 1720 the attempt was renewed, but while the utility of a bridge was conceded, it was not considered a practicable undertaking. After the Revolution the project was again revived, and a man was found equal to the occasion. An ingenious shipwright, named Lemuel Cox, was then living at Medford, who insisted that the enterprise was feasible. Some alleged that the channel of the river was too deep, that the ice would destroy the structure, and that it would obstruct navigation; while by far the greater number rejected the idea altogether as chimerical. But Cox persevered.
