USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880. Vol. I > Part 5
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Of clams (" Clames," " Clammes," or "Clamps," as they were variously designated), it is said " there is no want, every shore is full." Besides their ordinary uses they were esteemed " a great commoditie for the feeding of
1 Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., xii. p. 403. 2 New English Canaan, p. 90.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Swine, both in Winter and Summer; for being once used to those places, they will repaire to them as duely every ebbe, as if they were driven to them by keepers." Swine were doubtless instrumental in eradicating clams and mussels at the points they visited, since it is well-known that, at localities in the West where they are allowed to run at large, they quickly destroy the fresh-water mussels in all the streams where in seasons of drought they can gain access to these animals. The use of clams for fish-bait has also tended greatly to their decrease. At many points along the coast of Massachusetts Bay they have become wholly exterminated, since a com- paratively recent date, over areas embracing hundreds of acres in extent. Their extinction, however, seems not in all cases to have been the result of human agency, but is known, in some instances, to have been caused by exposure of the tracts they inhabited to extreme cold during very low tides.
The changes in respect to insect-life have unquestionably been great, some species having decreased while others have become more numerous. Many obnoxious species have been fortuitously introduced from other countries, while some have reached us by migration from distant parts of the West. Of the latter, the Colorado potato-beetle is the best-known example, which has recently reached the Atlantic coast by a gradual migration from the Great Plains, and which at present constitutes the most dreaded foe with which the farmer has to contend. In early times, as is well-known, the locusts, or " grasshoppers," occasionally appeared in such numbers as to commit serious depredations.
CHAPTER III.
THE FLORA OF BOSTON AND ITS VICINITY, AND THE CHANGES IT HAS UNDERGONE.
BY ASA GRAY, LL.D., Fisher Professor of Natural History in Harvard University.
T THE changes of climate which are referred to in a preceding chapter have led to corresponding changes in the vegetation. It is only by conjecture and analogy that we can form some general idea of the vegeta- tion of Massachusetts in the days which immediately preceded the advent of the glacial period, when the ancestors of the present trees, shrubs, and herbs of New England, which had long flourished within the Arctic Circle, were beginning to move southward before the slowly advancing refrigera- tion. But, as the refrigeration at the north increased, a warm-temperate vegetation, which may have resembled that of the Carolinas and of Florida at present, must have been forced southward, and have been replaced very gradually by a flora very like that which we now look upon. This, in its turn, must have been wholly expelled from New England by the advanc- ing ice-sheet, under and by which our soil has been completely re- modelled. After this ice-sheet had melted and receded, and the new soil had become fit for land vegetation, - that is, at a time geologically re- cent, - the vegetation of Boston and its environs must have closely resem- bled that of northern Labrador or of Greenland, or even have consisted mainly of the same species of herbs and stunted shrubs which compose the present Arctic-alpine flora. The visitor to the summit of Mount Washing- ton will there behold a partial representation of it, as it were an insular patch, - a vestige of the vegetation which skirted the ice in its retreat, and was stranded upon the higher mountain summits of New England, while the main body retreated northward at lower levels. In time, the arborescent vegetation, and the humbler plants which thrive in the shade of trees, or such of them as survived the vicissitudes of a southern migration, returned to New England ; and our coast must have been at one time clothed with white spruces ; then probably with black spruce and arbor-vitæ, with here and there some canoe birches and beeches; and these, as the climate ame- liorated, were replaced by white and red pines, and at length the common pitch pine came to occupy the lighter soils; and the three or four species VOL. 1 .- 3.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
of oak, the maples, ashes, with their various arborcal and frutescent asso- ciates, came in to complete the ordinary and well-known New England forest of historic times.1
Even without historical evidence, we should infer with confidence that New England before human occupation was wholly forest-clad, excepting a line of salt marshes on certain shores, and the bogs and swamps not yet firm enough to sustain trees. The islands in our bay were well wooded under Nature's planting, although we now find it difficult, yet by no means im- possible, to reforest them.
The Indian tribes found here by the whites had not perceptibly modi- ficd the natural vegetation; and there is no evidence that they had here been preceded by any agricultural race. Their inconsiderable plantation of maize, along with some beans and pumpkins, -originally derived from much more southern climes, but thriving under a sultry summer, - how- ever important to the raisers, could not have sensibly affected the face of the country; although it was said that "in divers places there is much ground cleared by the Indians." But, whatever may have been the amount of their planting, if the aborigines had simply abandoned the country, no mark of their occupation would have long remained, so far as the vegetable kingdom is concerned.
Very different was the effect of European immigration, and the occupa- tion of the land by an agricultural, trading, and manufacturing people. Yet, with all the change, it is not certain that any species of tree, shrub, or herb has been extirpated from eastern Massachusetts, although many which must have been common have become rare and local, and their continua- tion precarious ; and the distribution and relative proportions of the land flora, and even that of the streams, have been largely altered.
Regarded simply as to number of species, no doubt an increase in the variety has been the net result, even after leaving all cultivated and pur-
1 Palfrey, in his Ilistory of New England, i. 16, enumerates the characteristic trees of New England. Most are indigenous to the vicinity of Boston. All were different in species from the trees of old England, except the white birch and the chestnut, which are here represented by American varieties ; but the greater part were of familiar genera. Those which must have been new to the settlers were such as the flowering dogwood, the sassafras, the tupelo, and the hickory, - to which the tulip-tree would be added on taking a wider range; and, among evergreens, the hemlock-spruce, and the three trees of as many different genera to which the colonists gave the name of cedar, though it rightfully belongs to none of them. The white pine - the noblest and most useful tree of New England - must also have been a novelty, no pine of that type having been known to the settlers; and their sense of its value and char-
acteristicalness was soon expressed in the pine- tree money, its effigy being impressed upon their only coinage. The wealth of the oak-genus, even in the vicinity of Boston, must have been noted ; and among the larger shrubs or low trees the magnolia and rhododendron (if, indecd, they were early met with here), the kalmia, the larger sumach, the hawthorns and the Juneberry with edible fruit, several species of viburnum, the sweet pepper-bush, the pink and the white azalea, must have attracted early attention. It would be interesting to know how soon the epigæa, or May-flower - deliciously-scented precursor of spring, blossoming among russet fallen leaves from which the winter's snow has just melted away-came to be noticed and prized. It is not much to his credit as an observer that Josselyn takes no account of it. But he equally omits all mention of huckleberries and blueberries.
A
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THE FLORA OF BOSTON AND ITS VICINITY.
posely introduced plants out of view. For while it is doubtful if any spe- cies has been entirely lost from the environs of Boston (taking these to include the counties of Norfolk, Middlesex, and Essex), a very consid- erable number has been acquired, although the gain has not always been an advantage. Some of the immigrant plants, indeed, are ornamental or useful; others are the pests of the fields and gardens, showy though seve- ral of them are; and perhaps all of them are regarded by the botanist with dislike when they mix themselves freely or predominantly with the native denizens of the soil, as if " to the manner born," since their incoming tends to confuse the natural limits and characteristics of floras.
The influx of European weeds was prompt and rapid from the first, and has not ceased to flow; for hardly a year passes in which new comers arc not noticed in some parts of the country.
The carliest notices of the plants of this vicinity which evince any botani- cal knowledge whatever are contained in John Josselyn's New Englands Rarities discovered, published in 1672,1 and in his Voyages, published in 1674. The next-after a long interval -are by Manasseh Cutler, of Ipswich (Hamilton), in his " Account of Some of the Vegetable Produc- tions naturally growing in this part of America, botanically arranged," published in the first volume of the Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1785. Next in order was Dr. Bigelow's Florula Bostoniensis, issued in 1814.
More interesting to us than his account of the indigenous vegetation of the country is Josselyn's list " of such plants as have sprung up since the English planted and kept cattle in New England." Twenty-one of such plants are mentioned by their popular English names, and most of them arc to be identified. And the list of "garden' herbs " comprises several plants - among them sorrel, purslane, spearmint, ground-ivy, clecam- pane, and tansy - which have since become naturalized weeds. More- over, several herbs arc mentioned as indigenous both to New England and to the mother country which are certainly not of American origin, but manifest introductions from the Old World.
There is no need to specify the numerous plants of the Old World which, purposely or accidentally imported by European settlers, have been added to the flora not only of Boston, but of the Atlantic United States generally. They are conspicuous in all our manuals and catalogues, and indeed are even more familiar to people in general than are most of the indigenous plants. Yet attention may be called to those which are some- what peculiarly denizens of Boston, - that is, which have thoroughly estab- lished themselves in this vicinity, yet have manifested a disinclination to spread beyond castern New England. Some of them, however, occur in the seaboard districts of the Middle States.
) Reprinted and carefully edited, with an 1638, and came again in July, 1663, then re- maining eight years. Ile passed most of his time at his brother's plantation at Black Point, Scarborough, Maine.
introduction and commentaries, very important for the botany, by. Professor Edward Tucker- man. Josselyn first arrived in Boston in July,
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
If Josselyn is to be trusted, various introduced plants must have taken wonderfully prompt possession of the new soil; for (as just mentioned) he enumerates St. John's wort, catmint, toad-flax, Jerusalem oak ( Chenopodium Botrys), and " wood-wax, wherewith they dye many pretty colors," as indi- genous to the country. But most of these could assert no such claim in much later times; and it is probable that either the memory or the judg- ment of Josselyn may have been at fault. However this may be, the last-mentioned plant may head the list of those introduced plants which are somewhat characteristic of the environs of Boston.
Woad-waxen, or dyer's greenweed ( Genista tinctoria), which covers the sterile hills between Salem and Lynn with a full glow of yellow at flowering-time, is very local at a few other stations, and is nearly or quite unknown beyond castern New England. According to Tuckerman there is a tradition that it was introduced here by Governor Endicott, which may have been forty years before Josselyn finished his herborizing, - enough to account for its naturalization at that period, but not enough to account for its being then regarded as indigenous.
Fall dandelion (Lcontodon autumnale) is remarkable for its abundance around Boston, and its scarcity or total absence elsewhere.
Bulbous buttercup (Ranunculus bulbosus), whose decp yellow blossoms give a golden tinge to our meadows and pastures in the latter part of spring, has hardly spread beyond New England, and abounds only in eastern Mas- sachusetts, - unlike the tall buttercup (R. acris) in this respect, which is diffused throughout the Northern and Middle States.
Succory, or chichory (Cichorium Intybus), which adorns our road- sides and many fields with cerulean blue at midsummer, is of rare occur- rence beyond this neighborhood, and when met with out of New England shows little disposition to spread.
Jointed charlock ( Raphanus Raphanistrum) is a conspicuous and trouble- some weed only in eastern Massachusetts.
Bladder campion (Silene inflata), if not confined to this district, is only here abundant or conspicuous; and the list of such herbs could be con- siderably extended.
Barberry (Berberis vulgaris) is the leading shrub of the same class. It is a surprise to most Bostonians to be told that it is an intruder. Beyond New England it is seldom seen, except as planted or as spontaneous in the neighborhood of dwellings, or near their former sites.
Privet, or prim (Ligustrum vulgare), is somewhat in the same case ; but it has obtained its principal foothold in the sea-board portion of the Middle States.
The only trees which tend to naturalize themselves are one or two European willows, perhaps the Abele tree or white poplar, and the locust, - the last a native of the United States farther south.
It would much exceed our limits to specify the principal trees and shrubs which, by being extensively planted for shade or ornament, have con-
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THE FLORA OF BOSTON AND ITS VICINITY.
spicuously supplemented our indigenous vegetation. Most of these are of com- paratively recent introduc- tion, and the number is still rapidly increasing. One of the earliest ac- cessions of this kind must have been the English elm, - some trees of which, in the Boston Mall and else- where, may have been only a century younger than the celebrated American elm, which was until re- cently the pride of Boston Common. Perhaps the very first introduced trees were the white willow and the Lombardy poplar, both
THE GREAT ELM.1
1 [This cut follows a photograph taken about a score of years since, and before the tree was shorn of all its majestic proportions. The gate of the surrounding fence bore this inscription : "This Tree has been standing here for an un- known period. It is believed to have existed before the settlement of Boston, being full-grown in 1722, exhibited marks of old age in 1792, and was nearly destroyed by a storm in 1832. Pro- tected by an iron inclosure in 1854." The tree was again seriously dismembered in a storm, June 29, 1860. One of the remaining large limbs fell in another storm in September, 1869. Its final destruction took place Feb. 16, 1876, when it was broken off near the ground. Shurt- leff, Desc, of Boston, P. 335, says it is reasonable to believe it was growing before the arrival of the first colonists. A vague tradition, on the other hand, assigns its setting out to Ilezekiah Henchman about 1070, or to his father Daniel, of a somewhat earlier day. No. Amer. Rev., July, 1844, p. 204. One hundred and ninety rings were counted in the great branch which fell in 1860. Dr. Holmes, Autocrat of the Break- fast Table, p. 5, puts the tree in the second rank of large elms, those measuring, at five feet from the ground, from fourteen to eighteen feet in girth. The measurements recorded are: In IS25, sixty-five feet high ; twenty-one feet eight inches girth, at two feet and a half from the ground ; diameter of spread, eighty-six feet. Mr. George B. Emerson, in his Trees and Shrubs growing naturally in the forests.of Massachusetts, 2d ed., 1875, vol. ii. p. 326, says : "The great elm
on Boston Common was measured by Professor Gray and myself in June of 1844. At the ground it measures twenty-three feet six inches; at three feet, seventeen feet eleven inches; and at five feet, sixteen feet one inch. The largest branch, towards the southeast, stretches fifty-one feet." In I855 it was measured by City Engineer Ches- borough, giving a height of seventy-two feet and a half, and sixteen and a half feet to the lowest branch; girth, twenty-two feet and a half at one foot from the ground, seventeen feet at four ; average spread of the largest branches, one hundred and one feet. In 1860 its measure was taken by Dr. Shurtleff, twenty-four feet girth at the ground, eighteen feet and a quarter at three feet, and sixteen and a half at five feet. After its destruction a chair was made of its wood, and is now in the Public Library, Pic- tures of it on veneer of the wood were made by the city, and one of them is now in the IIis- torical Society's library. Dr. J. C. Warren printed an account of The Great Tree in 1855; this and the account in Shurtleff's Desc. of Bos- ton, p. 332, tell the essentials of the story. The Rev. R. C. Waterston reviewed its associations in the " Story of the Old Elm" in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., March, 1876. Pictures of it since the application of photography are numerous; of the earlier ones may be mentioned those in the Boston Book, 1836; in Boston Common, 1838; in the view of the Common in Snow's Boston, 1824 ; in the Boston Book, 1850, drawn by Billings, &c. Shurtleff says there exists a picture of it painted by H. C. Pratt in 1825 .- ED.]
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
readily brought over in the form of cuttings, both of rapid growth, and more valued in the days of our great grandfathers than at present. The small- leaved variety or species of the European linden, or lime-tree, must also have been planted in colonial times. The horse-chestnut, the ailantus, the Norway maple, and the European larch are of more recent introduction. The carliest Norway spruces- not yet very old - were imported by Colonel Perkins, and planted upon the grounds around what was then his country residence at Brookline.
The common lilac and the snowball were planted in door-yards, where these for a long time were almost the only ornamental shrubs, as they still are around New England farm-houses. Fruit trees were of more account, and in greater variety. But their consideration belongs rather to the chapter on horticulture.1
Ara way
1 [By the Hon. Marshall P. Wilder, to appear in Vol. IV .- ED.]
Carly History.
CHAPTER I.
EARLY EUROPEAN VOYAGERS IN MASSACHUSETTS BAY.
BY GEORGE DEXTER, Recording Secretary of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
T' HE earliest European visitors to New England, of whose alleged voyages any account is preserved, were the Northmen, who had re- discovered and colonized Iceland toward the close of the ninth century. The following is a brief outline of the story.
Erik, surnamed the Red, was driven from Norway with his father, on account of a murder, and removed to Iceland. From thence Erik sailed to the westward and found Greenland, which he colonized about 985. Among his companions was one Herjulf, who also made a settlement in Greenland. The son of this Herjulf, by name Bjarni, or Biarne, was absent in Norway when his father left Iceland, and upon his return resolved to follow him to Greenland. Starting about the year 990, he was driven from his course by northerly winds, and reached his destination only after having seen new and strange lands at three distinct times.1
Leif, the son of Erik, excited by the relation of the new lands seen by Biarne, prepared for a voyage of discovery about the year 1000. The first land he reached was the one seen last by Biarne on his return northward after his rough handling by the northerly storm. Leif landed, and " saw there no grass. Great icebergs were over all up the country ; but like a plain of flat stones was all from the sea to the mountains, and it appeared to them that this land had no good qualities."2 To this country they gave the name of HELLULAND (flat stone land). The second land seen by Leif is described as " flat and covered with wood, and white sands
1 This Biarne is supposed to have been the first European to see the New England coast, and the three lands he sighted may have been (it is thought) Cape Cod, Nova Scotia, and
Newfoundland. See Dr. Kohl's Discovery of Maine (2 Maine Ilist. Soc. Coll. i.), pp. 62, 63.
2 Voyages of the Northmen (Prince Society), P. 31.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
were far around where they went, and the shore was low."1 This they called MARKLAND (woodland). Thence they sailed with a northeast wind two days, and arrived at an island to the eastward of the main-land, where they found sweet dew upon the grass. They sailed from this island west through a sound or bay, and, landing, decided to build huts and spend the winter. This place, called Leifsbúdir in the story, is thus described : "The nature of the country was, as they thought, so good that cattle would not require house-feeding in winter, for there came no frost in winter, and little did the grass wither there. Day and night were more equal than in Greenland or Iceland, for on the shortest day was the sun above the horizon from half- past seven in the forenoon till half-past four in the afternoon."2 Among Leif's crew was a German, named Tryker, who was missing one day, and who, returning " not in his right senses," announced the discovery of vines and grapes. From this discovery Leif called the country VINLAND. The party returned to Greenland not long afterward.
Thorvald, Leif's brother, was anxious to explore Vinland further, and, starting about the year 1002, spent two years there. The second summer of his stay he went from Leifsbudir eastward, and round the land to the north. His vessel encountered a storm when off a ness or promontory, was driven ashore, and her keel broken. Thorvald called the place where this happened KJALARNESS. Thence he sailed "round the eastern shores of the land, and into the mouths of the friths which lay nearest thereto, and to a point of land which stretched out, and was covered all over with wood."3 Here he had an encounter with the natives, and received a mortal wound. He gave his men directions to bury him, setting up crosses at his head and feet, and to call the place KROSSANESS. Thorvald's com- panions, after another winter spent at Leifsbúdir, returned home in the spring.
Thorfinn Karlsefne prepared an expedition which started probably in 1008, and was absent about three years. It was an important one, com- prising three vessels and one hundred and sixty persons, and was planned to establish a colony in Vinland. There are three accounts of it, with some variations in details and some repetitions of parts of the story, just narrated, of Leif. Helluland and Markland are reached and named ; a promontory, on which a kecl of a boat is found, is called KJALARNESS, -the name which had been previously given to it by Thorvald, -and the sandy beaches along it FURDUSTRANDS. An island covered with a vast number of eider-ducks' eggs is named STRAUMSEY, and at last Thorfinn builds winter quarters not far from Leifsbúdir, but on the opposite side of the bay, at a place which he calls HOP. After some traffic with the natives and some expeditions of exploration, the Northmen, in the third winter, find " that although the land had many good qualities, still would they be always exposed there to the fear of hostilities from the earlier inhabitants,"4 and the settlement is abandoned.
1 V'oyages of the Northmen (Prince Society), p. 31. 2 Ibid. p. 33. 3 Ibid p. 38. 4 Ibid. p. 58.
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EARLY EUROPEAN VOYAGERS IN MASS. BAY.
Other voyages to Vinland took place, and it is supposed that there were several settlements, and even regular trade with Greenland and Iceland ; but in time all knowledge of the new country was lost.
The accounts of these voyages of the Northmen remained the subject of oral tradition for nearly two centuries. They were handed down, how- ever, as precious heirlooms, and were preserved by successions of pro- fessional skalds and saga-men. Whatever variations and additions may have been incorporated into their stories by successive narrators, a founda- tion of facts and real events is supposed to have remained unchanged.
Although known in a somewhat general way, it was not until 1837 that these Sagas were published. In that year the Sagas of Erik the Red and of Thor- finn Karlsefne, with other homogeneous materials, were printed at Copenhagen in the original Icelandic, and in two translations, - Danish and Latin, -by the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries under the able editorship of Professor Charles Christian Rafn. 1 An English translation of the portions relating to Am- erica was published in Lon- KILBURN don in 1841 by Mr. North Ludlow Beamish; and this translation, with Professor A NORSE SHIP. Rafn's synopsis of evidence, and his attempts to identify the places visited, was incorporated among the publications of the Prince Society in 1877, under the care of the Rev. Edmund F. Slafter. Mr. De Costa had already collected in an English dress the various narratives of these voyages in his Pre-Columbian Discovery of America, published at Albany in 1868.
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