USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Nahant > Some annals of Nahant, Massachusetts > Part 8
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35
This sounds like a society column, but today a society column would have to apologize for not introducing the name of a lady. Another citation from a Salem paper in the same year reads:
Nahant contains about a dozen dwellings, and has about three hundred and five acres of fertile land under high cultivation. ... Nahant has long been a place of resort in the warm season for the fashionable and gay from the metropolis who are in pursuit of amuse-
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ment and recreation, and for invalids from the vicinity and interior of the country, who are in pursuit of health, in the most oppressive heat and sultry weather of summer. ... Immense quantities of seaweed are cast by the ocean on the beach and shore of the peninsula. Not less than three thousand tons a year are conveyed to the mainland by the farmers. ... The number of visitors at Nahant this year has never been equalled. Strangers are enticed here from the more southern cities. The point of attraction is Nahant, which, like the orbit of a circle, encloses all the taste, elegance and fashion of the country. The balls are splendid and gay, the conversation lively and amusing.
Nahant seems to have had variations from this most fashion- able life, in the time now considered, before the Civil War. George William Curtis in "Lotus Eating," in an article "Nahant," says of it:
Nahant would not satisfy a New Yorker, nor, indeed, a Bos- tonian, whose dreams of seaside summering are based on Newport life. The two places are entirely different. It is not quite true that Newport has all of Nahant and something more. For the repose, the freedom from the fury of fashion, is precisely what endears Nahant to its lovers, and the very opposite is characteristic of Newport.
This book was first published in 1852. Apparently changing managers and varying business success at the big hotel, which certainly set the pace for a time, made a difference in the speed of life and society which is reflected in descriptions of succeed- ing years. Nahant still appears, however, as remarkable for its time as the two or three best known resorts or hotels of Cali- fornia or Florida are notable for today. Another attempt to picture the life of the period for summer-time Nahant will be the following article, which is the entire report made by Pro- fessor Felton, once President of Harvard College, of a lecture by his brother-in-law, Professor Agassiz, in 1854. Professor Felton evidently enjoyed writing about the Nahant he also loved so well. A copy of it was sent to Senator Lodge by the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop for the Nahant Public Library in 1898 or 1899, and it was published with some other material on Nahant by the Library in the latter year.
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NAHANT IN 1854
The attractions of Nahant the present season appear to have surpassed all former example. It is a wonderful place. It seems as if the agencies of nature had kept in view, while forming it, the special wants of the good people of Boston and their summer visitors. While the tri-mountain penin- sula was shaping for the purposes of a large commercial city, with its harbor and beautiful islands, fitted alike for the ornaments of peace and defenses in war, the same beneficent agencies were also cutting out the promontory of Nahant for a summer retreat, to which the future citizens of the three- hilled town might flee from the hot air of the city, to refresh themselves with the cool breezes of the sea. The new hotel, with its spacious accommodations, has been opened opportunely for the unusual heat of this summer, and gasping multitudes have rushed hither for fear of melting down and running away on the parched and dusty mainland.
Nahant, however, does not agree with all constitutions or suit all tastes. To some, the rugged rocks that bound its shores are a barren and a dismal spectacle; and "old ocean's gray and melancholy waste" but a tedious and monotonous picture. The bracing air is too much for them. In half an hour they fall into a slumberous state, from which neither the splendor of evening nor the freshness of morning can arouse them. A desperate headache and preternatural stupidity deaden the joy of social intercourse and make the unhappy victim feel as if, in running away from home, he has left all his pleasures and all his duties behind him. You may see him, Ulysses like, sitting sadly on the shore and looking wistfully toward the distant horizon, content to die "if he may once more see the smoke leaping up from his dear native land." "Lasciate ogni speranza o voi ch' entrate" would be his motto if he had his wits sufficiently to think of one. But even in these pitiable cases, a few days of suffering open the way to a very tolerable state of existence. The gods have placed labor before virtue; and pain heightens the sensation of pleasure when it comes. The iron band around the head gradually loosens its pressure; the swollen eyes subside into their natural cavities; sleep relaxes his hold and contents himself with ten or a dozen hours out of the twenty-four. Signs of animation show that the case is not so desperate as was at first supposed and life regains some of its old interests, as to a man recovering from a trance. You may see the convalescent stroll- ing languidly over the rocks and even looking out upon the sea, as if the notion were beginning to dawn upon him that there is, after all, something in it not unworthy of his attention. A week or a fortnight generally works a radical cure; reconciles the man to his mortal condition, and to Nahant.
These are exceptional cases. To most men, women and children Nahant presents a welcome refuge during the excessive heats of our summer months. The merchant gladly escapes from his counting house; the lawyer from his
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office; the clergyman from his study, to enjoy the rest and air of Nahant. Men of business easily reach the city by the morning boat, and after a day of delving in the dust of the town, return eagerly to a late chowder and a soothing cigar and a cool night for sleeping. And after all Nahant is not such a dreary rock as some people, who ought to know better, suppose. There is a pleasant valley between its craggy barriers with soft green turf, and running waters, and thick-leaved trees, worthy to be the scene of an- other Decameron. The Ice-King, who cools the tropics with the harvest of our winters and who seems born for victorious struggles with natural difficul- ties, has planted beautiful lines of trees over the peninsula, which grow and flourish in spite of summer's heat and winter's cold. May he live a thousand years, and may his shadow, personal and arboricultural, never grow less.
There is variety enough in the society here, whether we look at the per- manent settlers who occupy the cottages, or the more flighty elements that change from day to day. Hither comes the youthful dandy, with the sus- picion of a mustache on his lip, and a cigar in his mouth. Middle aged men and old men, fat men and lean men, stout ladies and slender ladies, disport themselves on the rocks, and repair the waste of exercise by the daily chowder, prefixed to the far fetched luxuries of a city dinner. A fleet of yachts dot the sea with their white sails and afford topics of interest, when other subjects of conversation flag. The morning concerts and evening dances at the hotel fill up the time and employ the heels and voices of the performers, as well as the ears and eyes of the spectators in the most agree- able manner. The spectacle of the yacht race, the other day, drew the beauty and fashion of Nahant to the cliffs; and the birds of the sea spread their snowy plumage for the sport under the inspiring presence of gay multitudes of ladies -
Whose bright eyes Rain influence and adjudge the prize.
Nahant is the resort, also, of men of thought and letters. Prescott, to be sure, has deserted the rock on which he used to perch himself, and set up his workshop of history among the shoemakers of "the pleasant town of Lynn." But he wrote "Ferdinand and Isabella" and the "Conquest of Mexico" here; and it remains to be seen whether "Philip the Second" will come off as well among the leather and prunella of yonder sole hammering town. If history has retired, Eloquence and Poetry and Science have come. Win- throp is here, the orator and statesman, who won his laurels at an age when most men are still toiling unknown to fame. He is at present retired from public life, but only to enter the scene of his former triumphs with energies invigorated and renewed, and with a mind more amply stored with the wealth of learning and experience for the high service of the country. Long- fellow is here musing on the "Sea and Shore," and doubtless meditating some rhythmical theme, to be as immortal as the harmonies of the deep. Agassiz has pitched his tent upon the rocks where he can gather his beloved
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fishes around him and subject them to his microscopic analysis. It is said the finny tenants of the sea already know the philosopher, who has done so much to sound their fame all over the world. They surrender themselves cheerfully without hook or bait, bob or sinker, for the good of science, into his hands. Sourel, the artist, is at work taking their portraits; and any fish may well be content to have his delicate tissues, admirable frame work and splendid coloring, rescued from the obscurity to which most ichthyological beauties are doomed, far down the dark depths of the sea, and to sacrifice a few draughts of his watery existence to be endowed with the immortality of a chapter in the great work on the embryology of the animal kingdom, which has been so many years preparing. St. Anthony preached to the fishes; they came up in their several ways to his call; they listened with great edification to the texts and doctrines of the godly man. But the sermon over they plunged back again, and like so many human hearers of the word, resumed their ancient wriggling courses. All the odd fish, star fishes, sea urchins, shovel sharks and the like find the way to the workshop of Agassiz, but none of them get back again. Perhaps they chose to remain; perhaps they prefer their lot; for they are forthwith thrown into bottles or casks and continue in liquor the rest of their days.
A solitary ramble around Nahant is, however, the greatest pleasure one can enjoy. It is pleasant to hear the singing at the concerts; it is pleasant to talk with friends, lying on the grass or stretched uneasily on the rocks; it is pleasant to drive or ride with a lively party on the long beach; it is pleasant to look upon the lovely faces gathered here from the north, south and west; but it is a deeper pleasure to sit on the massive piles of syenite that stand so firmly against the encroachments of the waters, and listen to the tones of the ocean as it sweeps up against the grey cliffs from its mysteri- ous depths; to gaze upon the sparkling crests of the waves as they chase each other with "laughter innumerous" up to the shore, and play hide and seek in the sea-worn caves, which they fill with their multitudinous voices; to watch the fleets of commerce which daily cross the horizon, flying on their woven wings to every part of the world; to speculate on the messages they are bearing and the fortunes that await them on their adventurous ways. Sometimes the blue expanse seems crowded with them; at other times only here and there a single sail glimmers in the light. The changing colors of the sea are a never failing spectacle of beauty. The play of purple, blue, green, and the flash of the foaming waves as they break along the rocks; the march of the clouds across the sky, and now and then a fog-bank slowly and majestically sweeping landward and hiding all behind it like a solid wall, give to the contemplation of the sea an infinite and unsatiating variety.
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods; There is a rapture in the lonely shore; There is society where none intrudes; By the deep sea, and music in its roar.
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Nahant has not only its picturesque attractions but its scientific interests: There is much in its geological formation deserving the attention of the visitor; and so thought the inmates of the hotel. They seized upon the lucky circumstance of Agassiz's presence to invite him to give a lecture upon the geological structure of Nahant; and Friday evening was appointed for this novel entertainment. At a quarter past eight o'clock the spacious drawing-room was converted into a hall of lecture, and the fashionable company assumed the appearance of a learned society, occupied with the investigations of natural science. Everybody knows the personal appearance of the great philosopher; everybody has listened to the solid and earnest eloquence with which he discourses on the laws of Nature, and how impos- sible it is to escape the charm which concentrates every thought upon the lecturer and his theme.
At the appointed time the room was filled, and after a few moments of whispered communication and rustling of garments, the lecturer mounted the table, which was placed at the upper end of the room for a temporary rostrum. He was received with applause, and then in the midst of the pro- found silence, commenced. I can only give you the leading topics of the admirable discourse, which commanded the unbroken attention of the crowded and brilliant audience for more than an hour. Mr. Agassiz, in explaining the form of Nahant, made use of an excellent map, executed by Mr. Alonzo Lewis, the Historian, of Lynn, and illustrated the details of the structure by diagrams drawn on a blackboard.
Ladies and Gentlemen: Did I not know that it is in the nature and dispo- sition of men to love change and variety, I should hardly venture to introduce among the guests of a place like this, dedicated to gayety, a question of scientific interest. This evening I propose to ask your attention to the geology of Nahant; to the structure of the spot over which we pass in our daily walks, in order to show how much instruction may be drawn from a subject appar- ently so circumscribed. Indeed, its features warrant a minute study of months, or even years, for we should constantly find new subjects of interest. To the student of nature, Nahant is a geological museum in miniature, in which he may examine on a small scale all the great features of the globe.
The outlines of a country do not furnish by themselves indications of the internal structure of the land. Nahant, for instance, which projects as a promontory in a west easterly direction, is by no means composed of rocks structurally connected in that way, but of bands of strata running exactly in the opposite direction.
In reality, Nahant consists of a group of islands, connected by low lands, and surrounded, on one side by the bay of Nahant, on the other by the harbor of Lynn. There is no set of rocks extending from the mainland to the end of the promontory. The strata cut across the peninsula, extending on the north through Beverly and on the south through Boston harbor.
The rocks are layers of clay-stone alternating in their succession from
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below upwards, with nodules of limestone. 2. Layer of clay-stone without such nodule. 3. Layers of syenite. 4. Layers of slaty syenite. 5. Layers of porphyry. 6. A large succession of layers of syenite, all of them inter- sected in almost every direction by dykes.
The rocks by no means are primitive rocks formed as they appear now. All the layers were deposited in horizontal position and consisted at first of materials differently combined from what they are at present. The hard silicious clay-stones were soft clay; the nodules of lime-stone forming alter- nate beds with the clay beds, were coral banks. The beds of syenite were beds of sand-stone, consisting of grains of quartz in clay-mud, with particles of iron and magnesian lime and other minerals. The slaty syenite contained some chloride; the porphyry some iron. Throughout the old peninsula the dykes are chiefly of hornblende. Now, if we were to take these materials as they are supposed to have been at the time of their deposition and to melt them in furnaces or subject them to the action of intense heat, as we subject the materials from which glass is made, upon cooling they would produce exactly the rocks we now have here, - the clays would become indurated, and we have from Nature's furnace a kind of coarse glass in the syenite.
It is the prominent peculiarity of Nahant to exhibit rocks which in their mineralogical appearance resemble the rocks of igneous origin, but in their arrangement and superposition, preserve all the peculiar features of regularly stratified rocks. This shows that this tract of land is one of the most beauti- ful examples of stratified rocks of aquatic origin, altered by the agency of internal heat and the eruption of melted masses into rocks of an apparent igneous origin.
The cause of this alteration lies deep under the surface and is apparent only at one spot - the black rocks of the northern shore, just under the window of my study; the dykes are of a later origin than the upheaval of the beds, since they run through the strata they have only filled the cracks formed by the process of cooling and the disturbance of the strata, during the transformation of the stratified rocks, by Plutotic agency.
This alteration of stratified rocks of aquatic origin by a subterranean agency of internal heat is not the only result of this change. The rocks have been not only altered in their mineralogic appearance, but their position has been changed from a horizontal into a more or less inclined dip, the direction of which is mainly north south, or more precisely north-east south-west.
This upheaval of the beds was caused by the action of the internal fires, on an axis of greatest tension, extending in the direction just mentioned.
This fact is conformable with the general structure of our shores, and owing to the degree of hardness of the successive alternate strata, has caused the alternate ridges and depressions of the country, and on a small scale, the different hills of the peninsula which run parallel to the coast in general. Such is the hill on which the hotel stands, which is separated from that on which the church is built by a low neck. Again, the highest hill on which the
Home of H. W. Longfellow, Willow Road Burned in 1896
Fremont Cottage, owned by John C. Fremont, the "Pathfinder" Built by Edward Phillips
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village is built, is separated from the second by the marsh south of Whitney's hotel.
The direction of these hills and the strata of which they are composed is very important in showing the manner in which the peninsula has been formed. It is in fact the result of a great indentation in the mainland, which has produced the bay of Swampscott and the harbor of Lynn; and such indentations occur along the whole coast. The minor bays upon the northern and southern shores of the peninsula have been hollowed in the softer lands, alternating with the more durable ones, which rise as hills, and corresponding to these bays, we find everywhere the low necks uniting the hills; some of which would be real islands but for the accumulation of drift gravel and sand between them; as for instance Little Nahant and the hill of the castle, 1 south of the short beach.
If these structural features were well understood, a methodical search might be easily made of all the irregularities below water; and the safety to the entrance to Boston Harbor, now that ships so much larger than formerly are built, would not depend on the accidental discoveries of rising rocks, some of which have been found even within the last three months, but might be ascertained in their position by a regular examination. This is another of the instances of the importance of geological surveys, which, however, to be thus practically useful, ought to be prosecuted with a degree of minuteness and precision which no state has yet allowed to be applied in the surveys they have ordered and directed. Egg Rock affords a beautiful example of this connection with the mainland of apparently isolated islands. It is in reality the prolongation of the Spouting Horn Hill. The Graves are another hill running parallel with the general bend of the strata of the island, only more remote from the point than this is from the village, but bearing the same relation to it that the village bears to Little Nahant.
At what period the transformation I have spoken of occurred it is not easy to say, except relatively. No fossils are found here. The igneous action has obliterated all remains, except some traces very imperfectly seen in the lime-stone nodules. But the trend of these layers, if followed out, connects them with the coal beds of Marshfield. The deposition of the beds occurred at the time when the plants lived, which have formed the coal at Marshfield, or during the coal period. The American continent has been above water since the coal period. It is the oldest of the continents, and had its present conformation when Europe appeared only as a series of scattered islands or of archipelagos.
There is another series of facts observable here, of a very interesting character. Over the surface of Nahant, as well as of the mainland, large quantities of lava materials, pebbles and boulders, are thickly scattered, which are not the fragments of the rocks on which they rest. Many of the pebbles are rounded and polished; the large boulders are left standing in beds of
1 Now known as Fox Hill.
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small pebbles, in equilibrium; and sometimes on the ridges of hills, as for instance, Ship Rock - apparently having travelled over the whole space from Lake Huron and Lake Superior. These materials constitute a contin- uous sheet of unstratified sand, gravel, pebble and boulders. Where these are not found at present, they have been removed by rain or by the encroach- ments of the sea. Their internal arrangement, the form of the isolated pebbles, the nature of the surfaces upon which they rest, show plainly that they have been brought to their resting places by an agent capable of moving such immense masses of detritus from a considerable distance, and that the direction of the motion has been from the north to the south; for the rock, of which these materials are composed, can in every instance be traced to the north of their present position. From Labrador to the Rocky Mountains there extends a smooth, level and polished surface, over which these masses have been moved; and this surface is easily marked by straight lines, scratches, grooves or furrows, all of which point northward also. These have been made by the rocks and the pebbles in their onward course from the north southward. The question is by what agency these materials have been transported from their original position to the places where they are now found. No question in geology has perplexed to a greater degree the in- vestigators of nature and few are more complicated. Upon the facts there is no discrepancy of opinion among observers; but they differ in opinion as to the moving agent. Some believe it to have been water. But an insuperable objection to this theory exists in the fact that the larger boulders are fre- quently uppermost, which could not have been the case if they had been swept along by a current of water. Again, the larger are angular, whereas the action of water is to polish the pebbles, subjected to its agency on all sides. Then the action of water is to wear away the softer materials more rapidly than the harder, thus producing irregularities. But, all over this worn surface, the dykes composed of harder materials than the masses at their sides, are nevertheless cut down to the same level. These facts seem to show that the moving agent could not have been fluid. The other theory is that the agent was ice. This is the opinion which I hold, though standing almost alone. The effects described must have been produced by a solid mass, keeping the pebbles together and moving along in one direction. I believe the mass to have been ice - in other words a glacial agency - a sheet of ice moving from the north to the south - like the existing glaciers, which produce all the phenomena we witness here - the rounded masses - pol- ished pebbles - scratched surfaces - accumulation of loomy paste resulting from abrasion - boulders - in short, all the same features on a smaller scale. The theory of drifted icebergs is liable to the same objections as the theory of water action. The only difficulty is to account for the for- mation of such extensive glaciers and the origin of the motion. There are facts, however, which show that amazing changes have taken place in the temperature of our globe. The discovery of tropical animals imbedded in
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polar ice, is one of them. How these changes have been produced I am unable to explain; but it is only necessary to suppose that, in the glacial period, the meteorogical conditions should have produced upon extensive sheets of ice the same effects now observed, on a smaller scale, among the glaciers of the Alps, where great changes are seen from year to year.
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