USA > Connecticut > In olde Connecticut; being a record of quaint, curious and romantic happenings there in colonial times and later > Part 5
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others the exclusive privilege of catching whales "within these liberties" for the period of seven years .* In 1785, Sag Harbor, on the Long Island coast, sent the brig "Lucy, " Mckay master, and the brig "Ann, " Havens master, on a whaling voyage. The "Lucy" returned, May 15, with three hundred and sixty barrels of oil on board; the "Ann" June 4, with three hundred barrels. The success of this venture created quite a ripple of excitement in nautical circles. Thomas Allen, the eccentric genius who compiled the marine lists of the " New London Gazette," appended to his an- nouncement of their return the following stirring piece of advice: "Now, my horse jockeys, beat your horses and cattle into spears, lances, harpoons and whaling-gear, and let us all strike out. Many spouts ahead; whales are plenty, and to be had for the catching." But the shrewd old veterans of the West India trade still declined the hazard- ous enterprise. In 1805 a spirited attempt was
* An old diary of the date of 1718, still preserved in the city, contains the following item: "Jan. 13, Comfort Davis hath hired my whale-boat to go a-whaling to Fisher's Is- land till the 20th of next month, to pay 20 shillings for her hire, and if he stays longer 30 shillings. If she be lost, and they get nothing, he is to pay me £3, and if they get a fish, £3 10s."
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made to open the whale-fishery and make it one of the industries of the port. Early in that year the New London Company, of which Dr. S. H. Lee was the controlling spirit, purchased of Captain John Barber his new vessel, the " Dauphin," which had been built with special reference to the whale- fishery. Shortly after, the company purchased the ship "Leonidas, " of New York. Both vessels sailed in 1806, and returned full in 1807. Several other voyages were made by them with equal suc- . cess; but the Embargo Act and the war which shortly followed summarily ended this and all other traffic. The business revived in 1819, influenced, no doubt, by the high price to which whale-oil ad- vanced, following its general use for illuminating purposes, and from this period became the one en- grossing, hazardous, lucrative pursuit of the port. Two men were the pioneers of the trade in New London-Thomas N. Williams and Daniel Des- lon, the former's name still borne by one of the only two firms in the city that continue in the bus- iness. Both were experienced merchants and practical seamen. Williams sent out the brig "Mary," Captain Davis, and Deslon the brig "Mary Ann, " Captain Englis, and the ship "Car- rier, " Captain Alexander Douglas (all three com-
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manders had made voyages during the temporary revival of business in 1805-08). The "Mary" sailed down the Atlantic coast, cruised about the Brazil Banks, and was back in ten months and twenty days with seven hundred and forty-four barrels of whale-oil and seventy-eight of sperm on board. The "Carrier" returned about the same time with nine hundred and twenty-eight. These voyages were counted fairly successful; but when the "Mary" returned from her second voyage, after a year's absence, with two thousand barrels on board, the possibilities of the whale-fishery fairly dawned on the minds of merchant and skip- per, and much the same scenes of excitement were witnessed as had occurred at the founding of the West India trade, nearly a century before. The shipyards were unequal to the demands made upon them by the eager merchants, and agents were sent into the neighboring ports as far west- ward as New York to purchase ships. The skip- per on the Sound in those days, when asked his destination, would generally answer, "New Lon- don and a market, " but it was his craft, and not her cargo, for which the market was sought. Ves- sels of pretty much every description were pur- chased if they had the two requisites of stout
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timbers, and good carrying capacity, and no more novel and interesting sight could be witnessed than a whaling-fleet in those days, made up, as it was, - of every class of vessels known to nautical science, from the stately three-decked ship to the dimin- utive but rakish schooner.
By 1830 six heavy firms and fifty vessels were actively engaged in the industry, and the town once more began to assume the appearance of an active commercial center. The streets were again vocal with the din of traffic. The great ware- houses were filled with bales of whalebone and boxes of pure white, odorless spermaceti. On the docks thousands of barrels of oil were piled tier above tier, the upper layer being covered with sea- weed and kept moist by daily douches of sea- water; this, it was early discovered, being the best method of preserving the oleaginous product. Heavy farm wagons laden with provisions again rattled into the town; and all day long the din of the anvil and tap of the cooper's adze were to be heard in the long, low shops that covered every available inch of ground along the docks, where the stout oaken casks with hoops of iron which were to hold the precious product were manufac- tured, hundreds in a day.
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The whaling industry was far more beneficial to the town in general than the West India trade which it supplanted. The latter made a few rich, but added little to the general wealth of the town and nothing to its population; in addition, it made the vile liquors of the tropics almost as free as water, introduced a looseness of morals from which the port suffered for years. The whaling system, on the other hand, was cooperative in spirit and practice, and its immense profits were divided equitably among those engaged in it. The owner was careful to see that the right de- scription of vessel was furnished, and that she was properly equipped and provisioned. The cooper put no defective stock in his barrels; the black- smith tested his iron before using it. The captain on the quarter-deck, mate, sailing-master, boat- steerer, cook in the galley, sailor before the mast, each felt that on his individual skill, energy, and fidelity depended in a measure the success of the voyage and the magnitude of the "share" that would fall to him at its close; and this spirit of self-interest placed the town in the front rank of the oil-producing ports, and poured two millions of dollars into its coffers annually for a term of +years.
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The stores of a vessel of the first class fitted for a two years' voyage consisted of two hundred and fifty barrels of pork, two hundred barrels of beef, and fifty of flour, with bread, rice, corn, vinegar, codfish, pease and molasses in proportion. Her equipment comprised lances, harpoons, spades, several hundred fathoms of line, and between two and three thousand empty barrels. She was manned by from thirty to thirty-five men, who were generally selected by the captain. She also carried a carpenter, a cooper, and occasionally, if one presented himself, a surgeon, but ordinarily the captain's medicine chest was the only resource in case of sickness. In shaping their courses the vessels always followed the movements of their prey. Early voyages extended no farther than the Brazil Banks, as by the time these were ex- hausted the vessel was "full;" later the cold, bar- ren shores of Desolation Island, Delagoa Bay, the west coast of Patagonia, the islands of the Pacific, the Kamtchatkan Sea, Baffin's Bay, and the icy waters of the Arctic yielded fruitful harvests to the bold voyagers. A favorite two years' voyage . in later times was to proceed first to the Gulf of Guinea, thence around the Cape of Good Hope, through the Indian and Pacific Oceans to the Sea
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of Kamtchatka, which was the half way station in this circumnavigation of the globe. From this point the vessel proceeded south through the Pacific, touching at the Sandwich and Society Islands, coasted along the Patagonian shore, rounded Cape Horn, and then proceeded home- ward via the Brazil Banks and the West Indies. When, after all this weary round, she entered the familiar harbor, if she counted two thousand bar- rels of oil in her hold her voyage was considered a successful one; if three thousand, a fortunate one .* On being laid alongside the dock a careful inventory of her cargo was taken, as to both qual- ity and quantity; it was then divided in the fol- lowing proportions: to the captain, one-sixteenth; the first mate, one twenty-fifth; the second mate, one-fortieth; the third mate, one sixty-fifth; the boat-steerer, one seventy-fifth; and each seaman, one one hundred and twenty-fifth; the remainder going to the owners, from which, however, they
* Even the latter figure was sometimes exceeded. Cap- tain James Smith, in three successive voyages to the Island of Desolation, in 1840-42-44, made four thousand barrels each time, and the ship "Robert Bowne " is recorded as coming into port in 1848 with four thousand eight hundred and fifty barrels on board. But these were exceptional cases.
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must deduct the cost of equipment, insurance and other expenses. Whale-oil has been known to sell in the port as high as forty cents per gallon, and as low as eighteen and one-half; but, placing the average price at thirty cents, and the average " catch " at two thousand five hundred barrels, we find that the ordinary seamen received $190 as his share; the boat-steerer, $316.50; the mates, $365, $475, and $950, respectively; and the captain, $1,484; leaving to the owners $14,440. If to these figures we add as much more for sperm-oil, sper- maceti and whalebone, we have a handsome re- turn for the outfit and labor.
When a town has a hundred vessels and two thousand men-half its population-at sea, it be- comes weatherwise; the volumes it chiefly con- sults are the sky, the winds, the sea, and the clouds; then the cry of the sea-gull forebodes a storm; seaweed and kelp, borne in by the tides, are harbingers of wreck; each trivial incident pos- sesses a deep significance; and though cheerful- ness and even mirth may seem to prevail, a latent element of dread, a feeling that disaster is about to fall upon the town, lurks in every breast. After a storm, wan women climb the hills and scan the sea-line with anxious eyes; the wise old sea-dogs
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who linger about the taverns in various stages of dismemberment shake their heads; and news from Race Rock, Point Judith, and Montauk is awaited with feverish anxiety. The most stren- uous efforts were made in those days to obtain early intelligence of the approach of vessels mak- ing the harbor. Each of the eight principal shipping firms had its own code of signals. Keen eyes were ever on the watch, and when a home- faring vessel pushed her bows around the head- lands of Fisher's Island with her signals at the peak, her name, condition and owners were at once known to the eager watchers. If she flew the blue crest of Williams & Havens, it was known to half the town in a few moments that their good ship the "Leonidas, " last reported at Fayal, and daily expected, was making the harbor; or if she flew the red pennant of Benjamin Brown's Sons, it could be no other than their ship the." Clematis," which had sailed round the world in ten months and twenty-nine days. News of the arrival of a ship spread rapidly through the town,-if long overdue or reported lost it was announced by joy- ous peals of the church bells,-and long before the vessel reached her pier the wharves were crowded with women and children half frantic
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with joy at the prospect of meeting dear ones after years of absence. And when at last the vessel was made fast, and wives and mothers were locked in the embrace of manly arms, even a pessimist must have been impressed with the capacity for happiness exhibited at times by the great heart of humanity. There was a dark side to the picture, however, and far too frequently the smothered groan or the cry of despair was heard, as a familiar face was not found amid the throng, and some sympathizing comrade related the particu- lars of the death of husband or son, perhaps from fever in the tropics, or amid Arctic ice, or in the casualties attending the capture of their prey. It was rarely that a ship came in with the roll of her crew intact. In the oldest churchyard are some pathetic memorials of the dangers of the traffic. It is a pretty place, this churchyard, on the crest of the hill on which the city is built, al- beit sadly neglected now, with lush grass covering the graves and its stones scarred and broken by the elements .* Here, side by side with governors, senators, judges, generals, the fathers of the com- monwealth, rests the dust of many of these toilers
* This in 1888. The ground is now kept in excellent order.
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of the sea; nor are the tombstones rare that bear inscriptions like the following: "In memory of Pyram Adams, Esq., who died July 1, 1776, aged 64 years, and of his three sons, William, who died at St. Pierre's, Martinico, Apr. 4, 1778, aged 33 years; Alexander, who was lost at sea in the year 1782, aged 35 years; and Thomas, who died in the island of St. Helena, Sept. 8, 1815, aged 55 years." How many of the warm young lives of the town were sacrificed in the traffic cannot be computed. The two other churchyards within the city limits, and the pretty Cedar Grove Cem- etery, a mile outside, hold the dust of many, but the large majority " dropped in their heavy-shotted hammock-shrouds" into their ocean sepulcher, and their names are borne by no mortuary piles.
To-day the tide of the city's prosperity is again at its ebb, and the stranger who sojourns here is surprised to find, amid the evidences of former business activity, the quiet and retirement of an inland country town, albeit there are sanguine ones who hold that the flood will return again, and that a brilliant commercial future yet awaits the port. No old continental town with a thou- sand years of history could be more attractive to the man of vivid fancy and antiquarian tendencies.
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Even to make the tour of the docks intelli- gently, mastering all they teach, would require weeks. The shipping offices, the warehouses, the junk shops, the government pier, with the "Re- lief" lightship alongside, its lighthouse stores and other impedimenta scattered about, and the genial, generous old tar in charge, who lets one into all the secrets of Uncle Sam's coast service with a freedom simply astonishing in a government official, the gray old hulks swinging to the tide, the fishing-smacks and the fishermen with their weird tales of the sea, the custom house, a massive stone building, presided over by a gallant Major of the late war, wherein the drowsy air of a by- gone period prevails and two ancient clerks trans- act all the routine business,-each is a study in itself, and presents new phases and possibilities as one advances.
Another point of interest is the Old Mill, in a secluded dell forming part of the old Winthrop estate, where Jordan's Brook comes tumbling and foaming down amid bowlders, to plunge at last into the Mill Cove. This mill was built by one Richard Manwaring in 1712, and, after grinding steadily for a century and a half, now rests from its labors, having become the property of a gentle-
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man who will preserve it, with all its appointments complete, as a relic of the olden time.
The shipping office of to-day gives little hint of the activity that once prevailed there. It occu- pies a long, low building adjoining the warehouses of the firm, with its rear windows looking out on the company's docks. Three desks accommodate the clerical force now employed; its walls are hung with lithographs depicting various nautical scenes, -the company's vessels, the pursuit and killing of the whale, the capture of seals and sea elephants in which latter industry the firm has still several vessels employed.
In its rear, almost poking her bowsprit into the window, is a whaling barque "Nile," a veteran of 1840, a ship with a history exceeded by none in the merchant service, her owner asserts with a touch of pardonable pride. She is of the shape and rig in vogue forty years ago,-square at the bows, wide amidships, lined with six feet of solid oak forward as a protection against Arctic ice, three-decked, capacious and clumsy. She es- caped the fate of others of her class, that went to form the bottom blockade of Charleston Harbor in 1861, by being in commission at the time and absent on a whaling cruise. In the summer of
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1865 she was out on the northwest coast after whales in company with a score or more of craft of her calling from New London, Nantucket, New Bedford, and other towns along shore. Early one fine morning the "Shenandoah " was discovered in the midst of the fleet, burning and pillaging indiscriminately. Six vessels were burned as they lay powerless to escape the swift steamer, and their crews and such parts of their cargo as were deemed sufficiently valuable transferred to the privateer, which then approached the "Nile." She was not, however, destroyed, but a bond was exacted from her captain declaring the fact of her capture on the high seas and acknowledging her to be the property of the Confederate States of America. One hundred and twenty men, the crews of the burned vessels, were then transferred to the "Nile," and she was released, while the "Shenandoah" stood on her course in quest of other quarry. The "Nile," with her castaways on board, made the best of her way to San Francisco, and there had the satisfaction of learning that the war had come to an end some months before.
The quarter of the city of which we write is the favorite resort of the veteran shipmasters of the port, although but four or five of those who were
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active in the stirring days of 1830-40 remain to tell the tale. Although safely moored in a snug harbor, the worthy old tars find that time hangs heavy on their hands. They read the shipping- lists in the newspapers, walk about the streets and docks, meet in store or office, and live over old times. They are fond of lounging in the cool corridors of the custom house, and of picking up there such items of marine intelligence as may be floating about; but after all is said and done there are hours that are tedious for lack of employment. I know of no class of men more capable of satis- fying an omnivorous thirst for information. Hav- ing visited in the course of their business all coun- tries and seas, and studied with Yankee inquisi- tiveness and acuteness every object or incident that presented itself, they have almost insensibly become possessed of a fund of knowledge that many a scholar would give years to obtain. Let not the tyro, however, imagine it an easy thing to unlock these stores. A becoming humility must be observed, with due deference to the other's opinion, and instant appreciation of such bits of anecdote as are doled out, before that generous confidence can be established which will lead the veteran to display to advantage his unlimited pow-
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ers of narration. Various expedients are adopted to pass away the time. One is a grocer, and weighs out coffee and samples sugar as calmly as once he rode the billowy waste or poised the lance for the death-thrust. Another has a little office down by the docks, in the rear of a hardware store, with a junk shop underneath, and writes policies of insurance for such patrons as call upon him. He is surrounded by the insignia of his former calling,-the log-book of his first voyage, maps and charts, nautical instruments, the signal code of the port,-and, as his window looks out on the harbor and on the blue Fisher's Island headlands, which his ship has rounded scores of times in making the port, it is fair to assume that reminiscences of a well-spent seafaring life of fifty years occupy by far the largest share of the worthy captain's thoughts.
The log-book of the ship "Wabash," which sailed from New London, July 23, 1829, lies be- fore us,-a quaint volume with covers of parch- ment and leaves formed of the coarse, thick paper in use fifty years ago and still affected by gentle- men of antiquarian tendencies. In its pages are entered day by day the minutiæ of the voyage, - wind, weather, bearings, discovery of a wreck,
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calling at forts, provisions purchased or con- sumed, sickness, death, mutiny, desertion,-while every capture of a whale is celebrated by a pen- and-ink drawing of the monster in his dying agony. So the record continues for weeks and months 4 and years, until the world has been circumnavi- gated and the vessel again enters the home port.
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CHAPTER VII
GROTON AND MYSTIC
G ROTON BANK, Groton Centre, Poquon- nock, Noank, West Mystic, Mystic, Head-of- Mystic, Fort Hill, Pequot Hill, Porter's Rocks- all are localities more or less notable in the town of Groton, which lies across the Thames from New London, and covers a territory nearly eight miles square. It is a land of breezy ridges and sunny valleys, with stern, precipitous granite ledges facing the Sound and walling in the valleys, a region almost undiscovered by the tourist, but well worthy his attention, as much for its natural beauty as for its historical interest. Originally it was a part of New London, known locally as the "east side," but its inhabitants in 1705 suc- ceeded in inducing the General Court to incorpo- rate them as a separate town, which town they named Groton in honor of Governor Winthrop's English home in Suffolk County.
Our first expedition into Groton was in search
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of the town records; to our surprise and pleasure we found them lodged in one of the oldest houses in America, and one which is perhaps the best specimen of colonial architecture extant. It is known as the old Avery mansion, and was built in 1656 by Judge James Avery, one of the original settlers of Groton. It is a house of character. Even the casual passer-by notices it, and wishes to stop and inquire as to its history. It is bal- lasted by two heavy stone chimneys, its frame is of white oak, heavy enough to furnish forth two modern houses, its roofs are high and steep, the upper story projecting over the lower as in the blockhouses of colonial Indian warfare. In two large safes in the front parlor the town records are kept. This parlor is a study. Its ceiling is low, and in the center is a huge beam, white- washed, and still bearing the marks of the hewer's broad ax. The sills-8X8 beams-are placed above the flooring, and are as sound in appearance as when laid more than two hundred and thirty years ago. The present owner is the ninth Avery to whom the old house has descended from eldest son to eldest son, with the broad green fields ad- joining it. We found the aged Town Clerk, Mr. James Avery, busy transcribing the generations
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that had swarmed from the old hive for a gene- alogy of the Averys now being compiled in Roch- ester, New York.
- If these old white-oak timbers could speak, we should hear about the funeral of the first James Avery in 1681, who, having been a magistrate on the bench and representative to the General Court, was buried suitably to his rank. We should have details of the grand funeral-the name of the per- son "appointed to look to the burning of the wine . and beating of the cider for the occasion "-of the gallons of wine, the barrels of cider, the hundred- weights of sugar, the gloves and gold rings fur- nished the pallbearers, and the white kid gloves for the attending ministers. For a funeral cost something in those days-often as much as £200.
In 1718 the old house saw the first innovation of moment. Tea was brought over from the set- tlement at New London, and passed from hand to hand as the family and a few neighbors sat around the capacious fireplace. Madame Avery was skilled in all manner of cooking, but she admitted that she knew not how to prepare this bitter herb for the table. At last the council decided that it should be cooked and served with boiled pork, as greens; but there were many wry faces when the
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dish came to be eaten. At last they learned to steep it, as they did their boneset and other medi- cinal herbs, and to disguise it with milk and sugar, but it was months before the family came to enjoy the strange beverage. Two years later they had their first sight of wheat flour; rye and Indian corn having been before that the staple bread- stuffs. Then, in 1730, they were thrown into spasms of curiosity at seeing a horse and wagon driven up the lawn. Hitherto the only means of locomotion had been on horseback, the lady sitting behind her cavalier on a pillion, with her arm about his waist. A little later, in 1733, the family gathered at the breakfast table, and inspected, tasted and passed judgment upon two or three Irish potatoes which had been raised in the garden in beds, much as we now raise carrots and beets. In 1734 the old timbers might have lost their iden- tity by being smothered in paint, which that year was used for the first time in this country; as a matter of fact, however, the old house waited a century longer before receiving its first coat of paint. In 1740 the first sleigh drove up to the door, and the Avery boys and girls, of whom al- ways there was a houseful, tumbled in for their first sleigh ride. By and by war came, and the
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