Lands of Sippican on Buzzards Bay, Part 17

Author: Ryder, Alice Austin
Publication date: 1934
Publisher: New Bedford, Mass. : Reynolds Printing
Number of Pages: 838

USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Marion > Lands of Sippican on Buzzards Bay > Part 17

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

The letter was signed by the committee, Capt. Peleg Blankinship and Dr. Walton Ellis. And so the little town be- gan its public Library. In 1856 it had 558 volumes and $5.80 in the treasury, but by 1859 it had 65 proprietors' names on the books at $5.00 a share, and the books were being given out from an upper room in the Seminary building.

The report of the School Committee for 1856-1857 begins with a quotation from Cicero "Cultivation is as necessary to the mind as food is to the body."

There have been quarrels, "interminable bickerings" about dividing the town into school districts but "the public has at last been awakened and those ill-contrived, inconvenient dilapidated buildings are fast being superseded by edifices more suited to the enlightened spirit of the age which concedes

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AND IT SHALL HAIL AS "MARION"

that there should be about as much attention paid to school houses as to barns and hen houses".

So they proceed to raise one half more money for Public Schools than they usually received as a village of Rochester Towne.

The Public Schools are kept four months a year, and the town is censured for paying such high wages to its seven teach- ers, the women being paid $16 to $18 a month and the men $33 with one man receiving $50.

Rochester-Towne with its old Landing cut away and the wharf and its shore land, has to watch the great scissors open and shut again and from the lands is clipped Mattapoisett, the bustling village that started the mutiny.

The times are "very modern". One reads in the Atlantic monthlies, along with the wonderful one Horse Shay in the "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table", about "Credit the new principle of trade", and laments on the "mechanical tendency of the age"; how in another century crops will be "harvested by iron horses, iron oxen, or iron men under the free and intelligent supervision of people who know how to feed, drive, doctor and make the most of them."

There would be "an iron slave, the illustrious man Friday of our modern civilization, whether air, water or ether are used for power."

There was already an automatic machine that it took 17 years to make, but it sang "God save Victoria" and "Hail Columbia"! Gigantic machines clanking in the distance, and the little new towns look out soberly on the changes, out over the great country stretching west.

They have read of trouble in Kansas! John Brown!

"Let the men of Kansas remember that the battle they are to fight in this quarrel is for the whole North, for the country - for the world."

Big problems; but Marion must look after its schools, and roads, and in 1858 it appropriates $1,000 for schools, re- ceiving from the state $43.99.

אוניחירי

CHAPTER XIII.

THE SOUND OF DRUMS.

"My Angel - his name is Freedom choose him to be your king; He shall cut pathways East and West And fend you with his wing".

Drum beats again in the air!

Old Dr. Robbin's words against the abolitionists have vanished to some far corner of the universe, but the villages stir with the throes of a restless country, restless against bands that tie too tightly, that are beginning to cut into raw flesh.

The negro servants in old Rochester are long since dead. Many years since any family in the villages had owned a black servant. Many denied that any such had lived in Roch- ester.

True, "Cambridge, negro of Widow Keziah Sprage" is dead a hundred years; and "Barbary", and "Caesar", "dies very old" in 1820; and "Cornelius" in 1825; and "Peter Hix" and "Sylvia" in 1829.

"Sarah Scippio" and "Cuff", "Cate", and "Will", negro servants of Samuel Wing who got married a century ago; "Cyrus", "Judah", "Judith", "Troy", "Deborah", "Lot", "To- by", "Peggy, a black servant girl of Mary Handy", "Thomas", "Jack", "Sarah", "Violetta", "William", and the others who sat in the gallery "pues" in the old meeting houses - don't deny these their place in the life of the old Rochester-Towne.

Their names are written in the Records!

Few of the older people admired abolitionists.

The Captains in the New Orleans and Liverpool trade came up from the South with their sympathy aroused by the plight of the cotton growers, their friends on the great planta- tions.

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THE SOUND OF DRUMS

Capt. Nathan Briggs, living like a Southern gentleman in "Rose Cottage", argues with the good Dr. Ellis until the sparks fly, and families divide and the village is agog with excitement.

The Briggs family and friends trudge up to the Old Land- ing to trade, and uncles, aunts, cousins, pass each other on the sandy roads, and never look to right or left.

And the good doctor goes from his patients, his little library, his post office; and Capt. Nathan builds a little post office of his own, and passes out letters and papers in the shad- ow of the white meeting house.

It was war again! War with its unrest, quarrels and general despair blowing before it, like a great wind before the crash of the lightning and the rain, and the life of the village was already shaken by it.

And then there is trouble at Harper's Ferry!

Captain Henry Delano is reading in New York a letter from the Old Landing.

Feb. 10, 1860 - "I have but just learned of your arrival into New York and from there you are to go to Europe, if so we may not expect to see you around in these parts very soon again". News of painting and completing the grape arbor. "When you do come home again you will notice some marked im- provements in the Old Landing. Capt. Obed has made quite a re- modell of his house, and has tackled right on from Boston a new horse and carriage. Ward you will find just as you left him Playing a gemme of Checquers." "This is a great Presi- dential year and among the merchants in Boston the question is not 'how shall we pay our debts' but who is to be our next President. The Ossowatome Brown tragedy has kicked up so much stir all over the union and no one can yet tell where it will end". "The Bridge is all completed and a stage running from Wareham to New Bedford in opposition to the cars, and to the accommodation of the Sippican people. Some patronage is extended to them but not enough to support them."

He adds a postscript "Fairhaven Stock Shares are selling at $1.50 per share and Scott is trying to get them up to $2.00 by excursions to Marion, etc."

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And on Captain Henry Delano's ship two gay young sailors, Roy and Robert, keep a diary log. "Log of Bark H. L. Rutgers from N. Y., Mobile, one or two ports in Europe and back."

Sailors are getting $14.00 a month.

Scrawled across the pages are quotations from favorite authors' names, addresses, a sonnet to M - beginning

"May fortune ever smile And strew thy path with flowers."

Pictures of ships, one of the Annawan, cover whole pages. Lists of books on board including Byron's Poetical Works, the life of Josephine, and "one sheet of music entitled Marin- er's Grave."

The two young sailors buy peaches and grapes in Cette, and write in the diary

"Accidentally strolled into the clubrooms of the Phila- monic Society, heard some fine music. Choir contains 4 Hun- dred singers all under the Leadership of the Celebrated Gassian."

"Wednesday evening went to see the Barber of Seville played. Gay looking theatre."

"Mademoiselle Florence

Can you grant me an interview this evening

Don't Deny

Robert."

"Meet me on the Esplanade at eight this evening". Tries his pen again and signs, "Your admirer, Robert."

"Evening most beautiful. Spent the evening watching the gondolas pass loaded with pretty women. Some singing and some playing upon the lute."

And then they sail, and Robert is sketching Gibraltar which he labels a "Formidable looking fortress".

At home Captain Nathan Briggs walks down to his post office, and the picnics go on. The Sunday School has one at Tremont for it is quite a treat to take a ride on the train.

Everybody went to a festival of the Sons of Temperance.

The summer goes by and the whalers begin to come in from their summer cruises.

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THE SOUND OF DRUMS

Friday, Sept. 31, the Admiral Blake arrives with 185 bbls. oil, and Capt. Henry Allen and Captain George Luce go up to Boston and look at some new ships, and then on to New York.

Blind to the great red figure coming up over the sky, they bend over compasses and ropes at sea, glance at the mast head: in the Rochester villages they stand high with pitch forks on the hay ricks stowing away in the barns for the winter; they jog down to the marshes for salt hay for the cattle, and sea weed for bedding for pigs, and warmth for the cellar walls of the house.

Back and forth the little ships sail!

Capt. George Luce is off on the Bark Althea, a new clipper ship 'bound to the river Amoor on charter for the Russian gov- ernment. On Jan. 22, 1861, the young mate on Capt. Henry Delano's ship is writing familiar words on the voyage from New York to Mobile. "Blowing a gale. Furled Royal Top gallant sails. 8 A. M. Double reefed topsail. 12m. closed reefed topsail, reefed stay sails, 4 P. M. furled topsail .- Night 10 o'clock furled fore sail and hove to. Blowing a gale."

By Feb. 4, they are "beating through the channel, showed our colors to the fort, they have a blue flag with a white cross. Came to anchor above the fleet in Mobile Bay at 1/2 past 8 o'clock." The next day "I understand they will not buy our hay and that American vessels cannot get half as good freight as foreign. I noticed the steam boat hoist the American flag Union down." Feb. 7 - "No freight yet" and down the page is scrawled in big letters "And no signs of any", and it is March 2 before they are loaded and off North again.

March 22 "Blowing like the devil and cold enough to freeze a Greenlander."

April 15, 1861! Fort Sumpter! President Lincoln's call for troops and the long roll of drums in the air.

War! Telegraph lines down, railways torn up and a sad eyed President waiting for news.

يحب.

அடிரோடு ஒஷ ராசியஸ் ஸா

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Ten days! With little figures, heads up, scurrying out of their accustomed paths

"and the great drums pounding

And the small drums steady whirring."

Sippican captains all over the world, whalers out at sea, catching but faintly the sound of the drums.

April 29, 1861, the young mate of the H. G. Rutgers is writing "Capt. sick and growly. Called down to Doctor him last night, gave him a mustard and Plaster on his right side."

May 1. "I would like to be at home to go may flowering."

A week later. "Spoke the Parthenon of Baltimore. Got the news of the Capture of Fort Sumpter (By the Southerners) 81/2 spoke the West Wind, gave him the news."

"May 11, Key West in sight .. Got a pilot at 6 o'clock. Got into Key West at 10 o'clock. Came to anchor abreast the fort, a formidable looking fortress. Capt. went on shore to get the news - don't think that we go to New Orleans. May go to Havannah. Got some papers containing all the news up to the 25 of April."

"May 12 - Steamer Corvette just arrived, brings troops to garrison the fort here. Schooner Ralph Post is anchored close along side. Captain went ashore this afternoon. The Steamer Crusader didn't bring any troops as was at first sup- posed. She brought some laborers."

"May 13. Understand that we sail for New York on Wednesday.

Saw the Yacht Wanderer, saucy looking craft. No news from the North yet, neither from Washington. The Ralph Post just sailed for the North."

"May 14 - Last night a steamer came in here from New Orleans, and they have seized her - it is the Havannah. No news yet. Expect to sail in the morning."

"May 15, 1861 Wednesday morning. Commenced Rainy. Went on shore, went on board of the Steamer Corvette, Crusader. Saw them bring a steamer to, then went on board of the Wand- erer. Capt. gave me permission to examine her handsome cabin. Crusader just got another prize, a fishing smack. They

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claim the Wanderer for a prize. Went ashore this afternoon for some medicine for our sick man. No news yet."

"May 16 - Capt. on shore. 12 o'clock the Havannah mail just coming in. Capt. is going on shore again after the news. Expect to sail this afternoon! Head wind and warm enough to roast one."

And then plowing up the coast in a gale that sent over the ship seas "which filled cabin and my room" writes the young mate and "wet most of my clothes."

May 31, New York, and uncertainty in the air. Capt. Henry Delano is thinking of home, and the young mate is reading all about the "Death of Col. Ellsworth", and counts "five clipper ships coming out of East River."

"Understand that we do not go to Boston. She is to be sold at auction. Hard at work this afternoon unbending our sails. Unbent all square sails."

"June 4. Steamer just gone out with troops. Great cheering and some music."

And Capt. Henry Delano goes home to sit with the other captains in the Old Landing Store.

Capt. George is writing in distant waters "July 14, 1861. Two Russian gentlemen from shore dined with me, also a young Englishman. Went on board Japanese war steamer. Don't hurry enough" comments this Yankee Captain.

He sells ship and fixtures to the Japanese government for $24,000, and puts his baggage on board of a Russian Steamer bound for Shanghai.

In Shanghai banks the $24,000, out to dinner and to the races with friends, then on the Kathay for Hong Kong and on to San Francisco.

Hurrying home! The steamer for Panama, chased by the U. S. war steamer Lancaster, and boarded. Panama to Aspen- wall, Northern Light for New York, and home to find the boys marching, marching; whalers dodging in, the Emerald, the Hopeton, the James, the Altamaha; and little schooners carry- ing supplies; captains restless and uneasy, wondering where it is all to end; and the young life slowly drawn from the villages to be trampled by the God of war to the sound of drums! drums!

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On the sea a fire brand is lighting the waters, where the little coasters and whalers cruise, and the Annawan flares up to the heavens in a shining death.

Perhaps it was a glorious ending to those lumbering ad- venturers! Better than to be wrecked and abandoned on strange shores.

Better than to be filled with the old stone walls of Dart- mouth and Rochester, as were the Cossack, the America, the Herald, and sixteen whalers sailing out of New Bedford har- bor, Nov. 26, under sealed orders, with twenty others, sunk to block Charleston harbor on Dec. 17, 1861.

Better to meet the thin dark terror of the seas, Semmes, with his waxed moustache and white gloves, who cleared from Liverpool two weeks after, in his Confederate cruiser, alive and deadly.

But the noise and glare of the war between the states is far from Sippican village.

The Rev. Leander Cobb preaches on the last Sunday Dec. 29, 1861, on "memories of the past and thoughtful musings on the works of God's hands."

It is 158 years since Arnold had said to their forefathers "It hath pleased our Gracious God to shine in this dark corner of the wilderness." It is all a little sad this year of war, and he ends by speaking of "the beautiful harbor, and all its islands, and its cheery light at the entrance; to all the land around it with the trees and houses: to the sweet solemn spot - where we have often gone in silent procession."

The boys are leaving the whalers. Theodore Tripp and Phil Sisson looking very smart in their naval suits. A Rochester boy fires the last shot on the sinking Cumberland and on town meeting day the balance in the Treasury is $276.13 and the town borrows $11,440.46 of Capt. John Pitcher, Capt. Emerson Hadley, Captain Russell Grey, Capt. Peleg Blankenship, and Capt. Stephen Hadley.

It is paying bounty to volunteers $2,398.21 863.68

For Schools and Schoolhouses

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THE SOUND OF DRUMS

Repairs on Pound 15.00

Roads and Bridges . 13.40

Capt. Obed Delano and R. B. Swift are selectmen.

And over the Atlantic whaling grounds is a pall of smoke wreaths. Semme is sailing, sailing to capture the Yankee whaleman "perhaps the best specimen of a sailor the world over"; but as a gentleman should fight, of course, with valet by his side.

The Admiral Blake, the Altamaha, the James venture out for the summer voyage.

The Altamaha cruised all summer without any luck. Sud- denly, one night, the red glow of a burning ship flared upon the horizon.

Starbuck writes that the Altamaha and other whalers at- tracted by the burning of the Ocean Rover hastened to rescue their shipmates whose lives they believed to be "imperilled."

Semmes in his Memories of Service afloat writes of the Ocean Rover "looming up like a frigate, in the northwest, with which we came up to about sunset. . We had showed her the American colors and she approached us without the least sus- picion that she was running into the arms of an enemy. - She had been out three years and four months cruising in various parts of the world; had sent home one or two cargoes of oil, and was now returning with another cargo of eleven hundred barrels."

Semmes goes on to comment that although the Captain was "anxious to see his wife, and daudle on his knee the babes that were no longer babies, with true Yankee thrift thought he would just take the Azores in on his way home and make an- other 'strike' or two, to fill up his empty casks."

He writes of how he allowed the men to take everything from the ship they liked even "the tabby cat and parrot." He tells of the six boats with 6 men in each shoving off in the moonlight, and calls "the night loading of this whaler's crew a beautiful spectacle."

"Flores which was sending off to us, even at this distance, her perfumes of shrub and flower, lay sleeping in the moon- light."

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War! A northern captain from the lands of Sippican, his ship burning - long miles from home, and a Southerner thinking poetically. "The boats moving swiftly and mysterious- ly towards the shore might have been mistaken, when they had gotten a little distance from us, for Venetian gondolas with their peaked bows and sterns, especially when we heard coming over the sea, a song sung by a powerful and musical voice, and chorussed by all the boats."

Brave boys from the Rochester villages singing to keep up their spirits in the glare of three flaming whalers. Semmes goes on -

"Two days elapsed without a capture, on the third day the welcome cry of 'Sail ho!' again rang from the mast head, and on making sail in the direction indicated by the lookout, we soon discovered the chase was a whaler, and in an hour or two more we were alongside of the American Whaling Brig, Altamaha, from New Bedford five months out. The Altamaha had had but little success and was comparatively empty. She did not make so beautiful a bonfire therefore as the other whalers had done."

In his list of whalers burned Semmes calls her the "Alta- maha of Sippican".

The Altamaha with Capt. Russell Gray and Judah Hath- away as Ist mate, James R. Blankinship as 2nd, Will Cobb, John Perry from Mary's Pond, and Mathew Hiller and Albert Barden, dodging, dodging, watching the red glow on the sky, but at last, the Altamaha, and Semmes, the pirate meet!

And the guns blaze, and on Sept. 13, 1862, there they are lined upon the deck of the cruiser, handcuffed like convicts. Little Albert Barden, frightened that the irons would slip down over his thin wrists, under the darting eyes of the tall thin Southerner, with his waxed moustaches.

Fear and grief in sailors' hearts that night in mid-ocean. Three whalers burning with eyes from Provincetown, New Bed- ford and the Rochester villages watching.

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THE SOUND OF DRUMS

Did the old song ring in the boys' ears?

"All hands up anchor for home!"

"We're homeward bound for New Bedford town! When we get there we'll walk around

Hurrah, my boys, we're homeward bound!"

The flames shoot high, with flare and crackle, and at last sank down, harpoons from the blacksmith shop in Sippican to the bed of the ocean, the ashes like ghost wreaths to the far shores of the earth.

In Fayal when the handcuffs were taken from Sippican wrists Mathew Hiller concealed his manacles and brought them home.

At home the little James, the Admiral Blake, and the Em- erald have gone out again, but the Shenandoah and the Alabama are like great birds of prey hovering over the waters, and the James is withdrawn only to be lost on the Fortune Islands the next February, loaded with salt. The Sunbeam was sold to Plymouth for mackerel fishing!

A better fate! The Ocean Rover, the Altamaha, their oil- soaked timbers, their tall straight masts, their great sails flung flaring to the skies - ships of flame sailing into the heavens.

Capt. R. F. Hart, in the schooner named for him, was carrying supplies for the government to the Union Army at Port Royal, where Capt. and Mrs. Hart had met President and Mrs. Lincoln.

As the schooner came through Hampton Roads to Cape Henry at night, they saw the sign of the Alabama - a blazing vessel!

Capt. Hart ordered all lights and torches lit on the vessel, and like a ship on fire, she drifted safely out of sight.

War! Captains leaving ships tied up in New York with their young officers, ensigns in the Navy.

Capt. Henry Delano, Capt. Emerson Hadley, Capt. Peleg Blankinship, Capt. Stephen Hadley, Scott Pitcher, many of them too old to go a soldiering, and Massachusetts volunteers marching up State St., Boston singing

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THE SOUND OF DRUMS

Did the old song ring in the boys' ears? "All hands up anchor for home!"

"We're homeward bound for New Bedford town! When we get there we'll walk around

Hurrah, my boys, we're homeward bound!"

In Fayal when the handcuffs were taken from Sippican wrists Mathew Hiller concealed his manacles and brought them home.

A better fate! The Ocean Rover, the Altamaha, their oil- soaked timbers, their tall straight masts, their great sails flung flaring to the skies - ships of flame sailing into the heavens.

Capt. R. F. Hart, in the schooner named for him, was carrying supplies for the government to the Union Army at Port Royal, where Capt. and Mrs. Hart had met President and Mrs. Lincoln.

As the schooner came through Hampton Roads to Cape Henry at night, they saw the sign of the Alabama - a blazing vessel!

Capt. Hart ordered all lights and torches lit on the vessel, and like a ship on fire, she drifted safely out of sight.

War! Captains leaving ships tied up in New York with their young officers, ensigns in the Navy.

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"Glory Hally Hallelujah!

John Brown's body lies a mouldering in his grave!"

"He's gone to be a soldier in the army of our Lord He's gone to be a soldier in the army of our Lord

He's gone to be a soldier in the army of our Lord His soul's march-ing on!"

Bearded young faces under the blue caps, the feet sound- ing on the paved streets, and the drums steady beat.

From the farm of Quaker proprietors who had received the land from its Indian owners, on whose fields he had picked up their arrow and spear heads, from a loving family of father, mother and adoring small sisters and brothers a boy went marching.

He was working in Wareham when the call came to him.

He used to come walking through the woodland from his work, along the old Sandwich path, Saturday nights.

Little sister listened for the latch to click. He took her in his arms and told her stories.

And the little brothers! He praised them for the long hot hours of work in the melon patch, or the hay field, or weeding onions, or digging potatoes, going after the cows and feeding the hens. He talked of school, and many things. Often he brought them gifts. He had brought home the strange, bright lamp.

And then Saturday nights came and went, and brother was far away, out in a heart-breaking world of which they could only think in terrified wonder.

What if he never came home!

But that could not be; so they went on with the farm work, cooking the hen's food in the big iron kettle over the outdoors fire, going after the cows in the pasture, bringing them home to be milked in the cobwebby barn by the light of the lantern, because winter was coming.

One day little sister had a letter all her own!

---

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Camped near Falmouth Va. Dec. 6th, 1862

Dear Sister

Thinking you would like to hear from me I will try to send you a word or two, I am now in good health with a good appetite and hope this will find you and the rest of the family the same. I received a letter from Obed day before yesterday.

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Lands of Sippican on Buzzards Bay, Part 17

Author: Ryder, Alice Austin Publication date: 1934 Publisher: New Bedford, Mass. : Reynolds Printing Number of Pages: 838

Author: Ryder, Alice Austin
Publication date: 1934
Publisher: New Bedford, Mass. : Reynolds Printing
Number of Pages: 838