USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880. Vol. I > Part 6
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The accounts of these voyages of the Northmen have been rejected by a few writers as unworthy of serious consideration,2 and accepted by others as true and accurate in their minute particulars.3 Helluland has been identified with Newfoundland; Markland with Nova Scotia; Kjalar- ness with Cape Cod. Krossaness is to some Gurnet Point, to others Point Allerton. Leifsbúdir and Furdustrands, Straumsey, and Hop have been assigned definite locations on the map.
1 Antiquitates American, sive Scriptores Sep- tentrionales Rerum Ante-Columbianarum in America, - a noble 4to volume of over 500 pages, enriched with fac-similes of the manuscripts, genealogical tables, maps, and engravings. VOL. I. - 4.
2 As by Mr. Bancroft, who styles them " myth- ological in form and obscure in meaning."
3 As by the Danish antiquaries and their fol- lowers. A project is on foot to erect in Boston a statue to Leif as the discoverer of this region.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Two kinds of evidence have been brought forward to support the stories of these voyages. The first - that furnished by supposed remains of the Northmen still extant in New England - is not now often advanced. It is generally conceded that no vestiges of their visits remain. The famous Digh- ton Rock and the Newport Mill, offered once as positive proofs of the truth of these stories, are no longer thought to be works of the Northmen.1 The evidence upon which modern defenders of the narratives rely is that offered by the Sagas themselves. I have no space here to discuss the character of these documents.2 It is possible only now to say that, while they are ac- cepted generally as historical narratives by most historians, the data which they offer for the identification of places are considered by many scholars as too slight to warrant the conclusions sometimes drawn from them. The direction of the wind and the time occupied in sailing from point to point are not enough to prove the exact position of the place reached. The descriptions of the countries are not thought by all to be applicable to New England. The astronomical observation of the length of the winter day, on which so much stress has been laid, is still obscure, and capable of more than one interpretation.3 Some argument has been based on the supposed similarity of Indian and Norse names of places, but no great stress has been laid upon it.4 While, then, it is very probable that the Northmen reached America, it is not safe to assert that they discovered Massachusetts Bay, much less so to say that Thorvald, Erik's son, was killed at the mouth of Boston Harbor.5
It is not my purpose to recount all the supposed pre-Columbian discoveries of America. Only the voyagers who are thought to have visited New England claim notice here.6 I pass by, therefore, the story of the discoverics of the Welsh Prince Madoc ap Owen Gwyneth. He is supposed to have reached
1 See an excellent note in Dr. Palfrey's //ist. lished critically] I fancy a person who knows of New England, i. 55.
2 The interested reader may be referred to Wheaton's History of the Northmcu, ch. v .; Laing's Heimskringla, introduction ; Sir George W. Dasent's introduction to his Njal's Sag., Story of Burnt Njal: Slafter's introduction to the Prince Society's Voyages of the Northmen ; and to the Prolegomena to Vigfussen's Stur- lunga Saga.
3 See Laing's Heimskringla, i. 172; Foreign Quarterly Review, xxi. 109, 110; Palfrey's Vew England, i. 55, note ; Cleasby and Vigfussen's Icelandic-English Dictionary, s. v. Eykt. The arguments of Finn Magnusen and Rafn are in the Mémoires of the Danish Antiquaries' Society, 1836-39, p. 165, and 1840-44, p. 128. The fol- lowing extract from a letter written by the great philologist, Erasmus Rask, in 1831, 10 Mr. Henry Wheaton is not without interest. I have printed the whole letter in the Proceedings of the Massa- chusetts Historical Society for April, ISSo : " Then [when the text of the Sagas shall have been pub-
the natural appearance of the coast of Labrador, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, &c., will be able to ascertain the places tolerably correctly from the descriptions given of each of them in the Sagas ; never from the length of the shortest day, it being liable to so different interpretation."
4 Antiquilates Americana, p. 455; Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., February, 1865, pp. 193-199.
5 Krossaness, the place of Thorvald's death and grave, has been identified with Point Aller- ton by Rafn (Antiquitates Americana, PP. 430, 431), who leans more, however, toward Gurnet Point, and by Dr. Kohl (Discovery of Maine, p. 69). See also Bryant's Popular History of the United States, i. 44, note. The French translation of Wheaton's History of the North- men, made by Paul Guillot and sanctioned by Mr. Wheaton, leans also toward this view.
6 Mr. Major's introduction to the Select Let- ters of Columbus ( Hakluyt Society, 2d edition, 1870), contains a good account of the earliest voyages to America.
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EARLY EUROPEAN VOYAGERS IN MASS. BAY.
only the southern parts of the United States, or perhaps Mexico. I come next to the story of the Zeni brothers, which is briefly as follows : -
Nicolò Zeno, a Venetian of noble family and considerable wealth, started on a northern voyage-perhaps the not uncommon one to Flanders-late in the fourteenth century .? He was driven out of his course, and finally cast away on the island of Frislanda (Faroe Islands). Here he was rescued from the rude inhabitants by a chieftain named Zichmni,2 who received him into his service as pilot, and in time entertained a great regard for him. Nicolò sent a letter home to Venice, urging his brother Antonio to join him in Zichmni's dominions, which he did. Four years after his arrival Nicolò died, and ten years later Antonio returned to his native city.
Meantime the brothers had accompanied Zichmni in an attack on the Shetland Islands, on one of which, according to the narrative, Nicolò Zeno was left after the victory. The following summer he sailed from the island on a voyage of discovery toward the north, and reached a country called Engroneland (Greenland). A settlement which he discovered there, sup- posed to have been one founded many years before by the Northmen, is described at length in the story, with its monastery and church, its volcanic mountain, and hot springs whose waters served for all domestic purposes. The climate proved too severe for the Italian, and he returned to Frislanda, where he died.
The other brother, Antonio Zeno, was detained in the service of Zichmni, who desired to make use of his nautical skill and daring to ascertain the correctness of the stories of some fishermen who had reported the discovery of rich and populous countries in the west. The Zeni narrative gives the fishermen's story at some length. Twenty-six years before this time, four fishing boats had been driven helplessly for many days, and found them- selves, on the tempest abating, at an island a thousand miles west from Frislanda. This island they called ESTOTILAND. The fishermen were carried before the king of the island, who, after getting speech with them with difficulty through the medium of an interpreter who spoke Latin, com- manded them to remain in the country. They dwelt in Estotiland five years, and a description of it and of its inhabitants is preserved. From Estotiland they were sent in a southerly direction to a country called DROGEO, where they fared very badly. They were made slaves, and some of them were murdered by the natives, who were cannibals. The lives of the remainder were saved by their showing the savages how to take fish with the net. The chief of the fishermen became very famous in this occupation, and proved a bone of contention among the native kings. He was fought for, and transferred from one to another as the spoils of war,
1 The date given in the narrative is 1380, and this date, incompatible with some of the inci- cents of the story, has been a serious obstacle in the way of accepting the adventures of the Zeni. Mr. R. H. Major has shown, in his introduction to the Hakluyt Society's reprint of the Voyages,
pp. xlii .- xlviii., that a mistake of ten years has been made, and that Nicolò Zeno's journey took place in 1390.
2 Mr. Forster suggests, and Mr. Major ac- cepts the suggestion, that Zichmni was Henry Sinclair, Earl of Orkney and Caithness.
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THIE MEMORIAL IHISTORY OF BOSTON.
not less than twenty-five times in the thirteen years which he is supposed to have passed in Drogeo. In this way he saw much of the country, which he says became more refined in climate and in people as he travelled toward the southwest. At last the fisherman escaped back through the length of the land, and over the sea to Estotiland, where he amassed a fortune in trading, and whence he returned finally to Frislanda with his wonderful story.
The narrative goes on to tell how Antonio Zeno accompanied his patron Zichmni on a voyage of discovery to find Estotiland and Drogeo; how the fisherman, who was to have been their guide, died just as the expedition was ready to sail; how the vessels encountered a severe storm, and were driven to an island called Icaria,1 where they were refused shelter by the inhabit- ants. After six days' further sail westward the wind shifted to the southwest, and four days' journey with the wind aft brought the fleet to Greenland. Here Zichmni decided to establish a settlement, but some of his followers having become anxious to return home, he agreed to send them back under the charge of Antonio Zeno, who brought them safely to Frislanda.
I have given a full outline of the story of the Zeni, suppressing none of its exaggerations. The narrative was published with a map, on which much reliance is placed in the identification of places. The countries called Estotiland and Drogeo are supposed with some probability, if the story is not an absolute fabrication, to have been part of America. Dr. Kohl thinks the former Nova Scotia, and Drogco New England. Mr. Major prefers Newfoundland for Estotiland, and considers Drogeo, "subject to such sophistications as the word may have undergone in its perilous trans- mission from the tongues of Indians via the northern fisherman's repetition to the ear of the Venetian, and its subsequent transfer to paper," a native name for a large part of North America.2 Many historians reject the narrative entirely. The difficulties attending the identification of particular places are certainly great.
The bibliography of the controversy about the Zeni voyages is given by Mr. Winsor in the Bulletin of the Boston Public Library, No. 37, for April, 1876. The strongest opponent of the narrative has been perhaps Admiral Zahrtmann ; 3 its strongest upholders Cardinal Zurla, John Reinhold Forster,
I Icaria has been supposed to be some part of America, - Dr. Kohl thinks Newfoundland. Mr. Major, following Mr. Forster, identifies it with Kerry in Ireland, and gives some reasons for his opinion.
2 Voyages of the Zeni (llakluyt Society), p. xcv. Dr. Kohl's views are given in his Discovery of Maine, pp. 105, 106.
3 The following summary of Admiral Zahrt- mann's essay is taken from Mr. J. Winter Jones's introduction to the llakluyt Society's reprint of Hakluyt's Divers Voyages, pp. xciii, xciv. The admiral contends, -
" First. That there never existed an island of Frisland; but that what has been represented
by that name in the chart of the Zeni is the Feroe Islands.
"Second. That the said chart has been com- piled from hearsay information, and not by any seaman who had himself navigated in those seas for several years.
"Third. That the 'History of the Voyages of the Zeni,' -more particularly that part of it which relates to Nicolò, -is so replete with fiction that it cannot be looked to for any infor- mation whatever as to the state of the north at that time.
" Fourth. That both the history and the chart were most probably compiled by Nicolò, a de- scendant of the Zeni, from accounts which came
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EARLY EUROPEAN VOYAGERS IN MASS. BAY.
and Mr. Major. Nothing of importance has appeared, I think, since the Hakluyt Society of London reprinted the original narrative, with an English translation and an elaborate introduction by Mr. Major, in 1873. Mr. Major contributed a résumé of his editorial labors in this work to the Massachu- setts Historical Society, which is printed in their Proceedings for October, 1874. The original narrative, founded on a letter from Nicolò Zeno to his brother Antonio, and on subsequent letters from Antonio to a third brother, Carlo, is said to have been prepared by Antonio after his return to Venice. It was preserved in manuscript among the family papers until a descendant, also named Nicolò, while still a boy, partially destroyed it. From what escaped of the papers, this Nicolò Zeno the younger afterward rewrote the narrative, which with a map copied from one much decayed, found in the family palace, was published in 1558 by Francisco Marcolini at Venice. It is a small 12mo volume of sixty-three leaves, and contains, besides this narrative, the adventures of another member of the family, Caterino Zeno, who made a journey into Persia. It was reprinted in the third edition of the second volume of Ramusio's Collection of Voyages, Venice, 1574; and Hakluyt included a translation of this in his Divers Voyages, published in 1582.
The story of the voyages of the Cabots, which come next in the list of the early voyages, requires a different treatment from that pursued in con- sidering the stories of the Northmen and the Zeni. Instead of having to condense a detailed narrative, real or fictitious, I am called upon to con- struct, if possible, a connected story from very scanty and very scattered materials, - many of them of doubtful value. These voyages of the Cabots present great difficulties, and have given rise to much discussion. To recapitulate even a small part of this discussion would overrun the limits of my space. It is only within a few years, since the publication of the researches of Mr. Rawdon Brown and Mr. Bergenroth among the archives of Venice and of Spain, that positive evidence has been brought to light which enables the historian to settle beyond reasonable doubt even such fundamental points as the date of the voyage in which the main-land of America was discovered, and the name of the commander. To John Cabot this honor is due; and he saw the coast of North America, June 24, 1497, more than a year before Columbus reached the main-land.
John Cabot, a native of Genoa, or of some neighboring village,1 settled in Venice, where he obtained a grant of citizenship from the Senate, after a residence of fifteen years, March 29, 1476.2 He was a man of some acquirements in cosmography and the science of navigation, and had been a traveller in the East.3 He married in Venice, and there probably his 1 Letter of M. D'Avezac, 2 Maine Hist. Soc. Coll. i. 504.
to Italy in the middle of the sixteenth century, being the epoch when information respecting Greenland first reached that country, and when interest was awakened for the colony which had disappeared."
Mr. Winter Jones expresses his own convic- tion of the conclusiveness of the argument.
2 Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, 1202- 1509, P. 136.
3 M. D'Avezac's letter, 1. 505. He cites an Italian authority without giving the name.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
second son Sebastian was born.1 John Cabot emigrated with his family from Venice to England, where he settled in Bristol, then, next to London, the most flourishing seaport of the kingdom and a great resort for mer- chants and navigators. It was already possessed of a trade with Iceland, and was favorably situated for exploring voyages in search of Kathay.2 The date of this removal to England is uncertain, but it was probably about the year 1477,3 when Sebastian Cabot, if born at all, was a very young child. The object of the removal is supposed to have been the embarking in mercantile pursuits, in which many foreigners were then engaged in Bristol.4
That voyages from Bristol toward the west in search of new countries or of a new route to Kathay were not unusual, and that John Cabot was a mov- ing spirit in some of these voyages, appear from a despatch of the Span- ish ambassador in England to his sovereigns. Under date of July 25, 1498, he writes : " The people of Bristol have, for the last seven years, sent out every year two, three, or four light ships (caravelas) in search of the island of Brazil and the Seven Cities, according to the fancy of the Genoese."5
Possibly some encouraging result was obtained in one of these pre- liminary voyages, if I may call them by that name. It is certain that application was made to King Henry VII. for aid, and that a patent was issued to John Cabot and his three sons by name, bearing date March 5, 1496, by which they were authorized to discover new lands for the king, to set up his ensigns therein, and they were granted, under restrictions, some control over future trade with such new countries.6 By this patent the Cabots were to bear all the expenses of the voyage; and this may have caused the delay of a year in the sailing of the expedition, which did not leave Bristol until the following spring. The name of one vessel, the " Matthew," has come down to us. With this vessel John Cabot, accompanied by Sebastian, reached some point in America, most probably Cape Breton, on June 24, 1497." No long stay could have been made ; for the " Matthew,"
1 M. D'Avezac's letter, p. 505. Sebastian Cabot is said to have made contradictory state- ments as to the place of his birth, having told Eden (Decades, p. 255) that he was born in Bristol, and Contarini (Letter in Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, 1520-1526, p. 293) that he was a Venetian. The date of his birth can be only approximated. IJe accompanied his father on the voyage of 1497, and assisted a "good olde gentleman " at wishing God-speed to Stephen Burrough in the "Search-thrift " in 1556. See Hakluyt's Principal Navigations (1599), i. 274.
2 Dr. Kohl, Discovery of Maine, ch. iii .; Corry, Hist. of Bristol, i. ch. v.
3 M. D'Avezac (Letter, p. 505) says 1477 ; Dr. Kohl (Discovery of Maine, p. 123) says prob- ably before 1490.
4 Nicholls, Life of Sebastian Cabot, p. IS.
5 This letter is published, from the English State Paper Calendars, in the Proceedings of the
American Antiquarian Society, October, 1865, p. 25. [These islands belong to the myths which puzzled the early cartographers. Brazil or Bresil was usually represented as lying two or three hundred miles off the coast of Ireland. It is said not to have disappeared from the British Admiralty charts till within ten years. The Seven Cities had a floating station, but was usually put down farther to the south. - ED.]
6 The patent, in Latin and English, is in Hakluyt's Divers l'oyages (reprinted by the Ilakluyt Society in IS50). It is also in his Principal Navigations, ed. 1589, pp. 509, 510, and again in the 1599-1600 edition, iii. 4, 5. If has been reprinted by Hazard and others.
7 There is some difference of opinion as to the landfall of the Cabots, but the best evidence points to Cape Breton. See J. C. Brevoort's article in the Historical Magasine, March, 1868; F. Kidder's contribution to the New England
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EARLY EUROPEAN VOYAGERS IN MASS. BAY.
after sailing along the coast three hundred leagues, was back in Bristol early in August, as appears from a letter of a Venetian gentleman, and from the entry in the privy-purse expenses of a payment of £10 "to him that found the new isle." 1
A second patent or license was issued to John Cabot the next year (Fcb. 3, 1498), in which he was authorized to impress six vessels, and "them convey and lead to the land and isles of late found by the said John in our name and by our commandment."2 John Cabot does not appear to have profited by this license. He is said to disappear from history at this point.3 He is supposed to have died soon after the grant was made. Sebastian Cabot sailed in 1498 under this license, the king having been at the charge of one vessel of the fleet. He is supposed to have taken out at least three hundred men, and to have entertained some plan of a colony or settlement.4 What the exact events of this voyage were, - how much of the coast of North America was explored, -yet remain uncertain. There is no contemporary account of the voyage, and what we find which may possibly relate to it presents many difficulties, and is, in part at least, of doubtful character. It is probable that Cabot reached in this voyage a high degree of latitude, seeking always a passage through the land to Kathay. It is possible that, as Dr. Kohl suggests, finding the coast trend to the East at the modern Cumberland, which answers to the highest latitude which any of the stories state him, to have attained, and finding also his way blocked by heavy icc, he may have turned and run down the American coast to the south. The farthest point in this direction which he is supposed to have reached was in the latitude of the Straits of Gibraltar, - 36° north.5
Historical and Genealogical Register, October, 1878; H. Stevens's Sebastian Cabot - John Cabot = 0; and Mr. Deane's paper on Cabot's " Mappe Monde" in the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society for April, 1867, where the earliest suggestion of Cape Breton (drawn from the map) is made.
1 The patents issued to John Cabot ; the de- spatch of the Spanish Ambassador quoted above ; the letter of the Venetian gentleman Lorenzo Pasqualigo ( Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, 1202-1509, p. 262, and reprinted with other doc- uments in Proceedings Amer. Antiq. Society, October, 1865) ; and Cabot's " Mappe Monde," published by M. Jomard, are ample evidence for the truth of the voyage of 1497. The map should be examined with the aid of Mr. Deane's learned comments on it, made to the meeting of the Anti- quarian Society in April, 1867, and of his careful note to the Hakluyt Discourse on Western Plant- ing (Mame Ilist. Soc., 2d series, ii. 223-227) ; and Mr. Major's contribution to the Archeologia, xliii. 17-42, on the " True date of the English Discovery of the American Continent under John and Sebastian Cabot." M. D'Avezac adhered to his early belief in a voyage of 1494.
See his letter in Dr. Kohl's Discovery of Maine, PP. 502-514.
2 Biddle, Memoir of Sebastian Cabot, p. 76.
3 Unless the Spanish Ambassador's despatch gives trace of him : " I have seen the map which the discoverer has made ; who is another Genoese, like Columbus. . . . The Genoese has continued his voyage." The date of the despatch is July 25, 1498, and Sebastian Cabot is supposed to have sailed on the second voyage early in the spring. But dates and all other particulars of this voyage are uncertain. That the expedition had started before the despatch was written is certain from the despatch itself, and from the passage in the Cotton MSS. See Mr. llale's paper in the Antiquarian Society's Proceedings, April, 1860, 1). 37.
4 Biddle, Cabot, p. S7.
5 From the scanty original authorities for the voyages of Sebastian Cabot many elaborate ac- counts have been built. Mr. Biddle, in his valu- able MMemoir, gives an account of a third voyage in 1517, and M. D'Avezac agrees with him. Dr. Kohl thinks that this voyage never took place, and he is followed by other critics. The reader must be referred to Kohl's Discovery of Maine.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
The voyages of the Cabots were barren of immediate results. The claim of England to her North American territory rested upon them finally, but no present advantage accrued to their commander. Sebastian Cabot's subsequent career does not fall within the scope of this chapter. It is known that he lived for many years after his discoveries, serving successively Spain and England. He entered the service of the former in 1512,1 and was advanced to the dignity of Grand Pilot in 1518. In this capacity he presided at the celebrated Congress of Badajos in 1524. Two years later he sailed for the Moluccas in command of an expedition which did not result successfully. He returned to England about 1548, and was granted a pension by Edward VI. the next year. He became Governor of the new Company of Merchant Adventurers, who opened the trade to Russia. The date of his death is uncertain and the place of his burial unknown.2
I must pass over, without relating their stories, the voyages of the Cor- tereals in 1500 and 1501. Mr. Biddle thinks that Gaspar Cortereal's landfall was in New England,3 but Dr. Kohl, who has made a careful study of these voyages, places it to the north of Cape Race. The interested reader will find in the fifth chapter of Dr. Kohl's Discovery of Maine the fullest and latest information regarding the Cortereal voyages.
I approach next the voyage of Verrazano, whose narrative is said to contain the earliest particular description of the eastern coast of North America.4 Giovanni Verrazano, an Italian in the service of Francis I. of France, had made for that monarch some predatory voyages with a view to Spanish Indian commerce, and possibly one or more voyages in search of new countries.5 On his return from one of these latter voyages he wrote to the King from Dieppe, July 8, 1524, an account of his discovery and exploration of a new country. His letter relates that with one ship, the "Dauphine," well manned and equipped, he sailed westward from the Ma- deira Islands about June 17 (27), 1524. He encountered a severe tempest, from which he escaped with difficulty, and at length, after a voyage of forty- nine days, he came in sight of a land hitherto unknown to navigators.6 First he coasted to the south in search of a harbor, but finding none he turned about, and running beyond the point of his landfall, anchored and sent a boat ashore. Continuing northward along the coast, a second landing was attempted, and a youth who was cast upon the shore in the attempt was kindly received and cared for by the natives.8 Their kindness was
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