USA > New York > New York City > In olde New York; sketches of old times and places in both the state and the city > Part 9
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1 Written in 1883. Easthampton is now a fashionable and ex- clusive resort and the conditions here pictured no longer exist.
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its gables facing the street, and flanked by the wood- shed and mossy well-sweep and bucket. There are square, roomy, old-fashioned farmhouses, some newly painted, some dingy and moss-covered, with low stoops opening directly upon the street. There is a quaint old village academy, the first opened in the State. There are little shops that nobody knows the use of, an inn, a few summer villas, a fine old country-seat standing remote and grand behind a copse of maples and cedars, and at either end of the village street a windmill, - gaunt, weather-beaten structures, that at the merest suspicion of a breeze throw their long arms as wildly and creak and clatter as noisily as those that Don Quixote attacked. The old church, built in 1717, in whose turret hung a bell presented by Queen Anne, - one of the historical churches of the land, - was pulled down in 1872, its demolition marking an epoch in the town's existence. The churchyard, once under the wing of the church, is now set lonesomely in the midst of the main street, its white tombstones looked down upon by all the neighboring dwellings and con- stantly reminding the villagers of the virtues of their ancestors. Still, it is an interesting spot, with its fence of palings, its quaint old-fashioned stiles, and mossy stones, whose legends tell of wrecks upon the coast, and of brave young spirits drowned at sea, killed by falling from the masthead, crushed in the whale's jaws, or fever-stricken and buried in some tropical
MAIN STREET, EASTHAMPTON Looking southward. From a photograph by E. B. Muchmore
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island. In a place so remote, it is natural that the quaintness and pastoral simplicity of country life a hundred years ago should still prevail. At sunset and sunrise herds of sleek, matronly cows, with barefoot boys in attendance, wind through the street; scythes and sickles hang in the willows by the wayside; and every morning the mail-coach rattles into the village with a musical flourish of the driver's horn, stops at the post-office for the mail-bag, calls all along the street for bags, baskets, and parcels, and at last rumbles away toward the railway station, seven miles distant. Most truly rural are the orchard farmyards, which abut upon the street without concealment, in front perhaps set thickly with apple- and pear-trees, and behind these showing open spaces covered with a deep greensward, with cart, plow, stack, wood-pile, sheep, and poultry disposed in picturesque confusion.
Our village, in its two hundred years of existence, has gathered about it an atmosphere of legend and romance, and one may still see with the mind's eye some of the quaint figures and striking scenes of its early history. One can easily call up Parson James, the first minister ("Gent." he is styled in the old records), walking to church in wig and gown, - or Mistress Abigail Hedges riding down on her wedding-day to Sagg, four miles distant, and on the way counting thirteen whales sporting in the surf. An excited throng in the streets, and Parson James led away
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under arrest to New York for denouncing in the pulpit the exorbitant tax levied on "whale's oyle and fins" by the governor of the colony; a detachment of British troops in possession of the town, and Sir William Erskine, Governor Tryon, Lord Percy, Lord Cathcart, Major André, in brilliant uniforms, pacing under the village elms; the old Hunting tavern, in which the young officers made merry with the wits and roysterers of the village, even old "Sharper" the slave being admitted to add his shrewd pleasantries and unequaled powers of mimicry to the general hilarity; a drawing- room in the old Gardiner mansion, with Sir Henry Clinton present, and André at his request entertaining the company with a recital of his sparkling ballad of "Chevy Chase"; Parson Beecher on a Friday hieing away to the beaches for a day's shooting, forgetting the preparatory lecture, and, when reminded by the bell, hurrying to the church, setting down his gun in the porch, and preaching in his hunting-suit with an unction that never attended his written sermons; the old parsonage, and the parson in his study drawing strains from his beloved violin; Madam Beecher's pretty girl-pupils in the schoolroom above tapping their little feet in unison with the music, and at last breaking into the forbidden dancing step, causing the violin to cease with a doleful screech; a low-ceiled kitchen, with deep fireplace and smoky walls, in which John Howard Payne composed the song that has
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excelled all others in popularity, and wrote love-letters to one of the village maidens, - letters still preserved in rose and lavender; President Tyler riding in a grand sort of way up the street to woo and win a maiden in one of the village mansions: - these are but a few of the old-time scenes that pass in review before the eyes of the dreamer under the village elms. This charm of old associations combined with pastoral sim- plicity is evanescent, and will soon be gone. Already the railroad, rude iconoclast, is approaching, to destroy the relics of the past and change the whole aspect of the place. The limner, therefore, who succeeds in depicting such features as are best worth preserving will not have performed an unappreciated task.
The summer phase of the village is almost entirely artistic. What painter first discovered it is a subject for speculation; but when discovered its possibilities in the way of art rapidly became known, and it has been for several years the summer home of many favorites of the public. Last season the little colony of artists had become fairly domiciled by the 1st of July: T- in a cottage on the main street, whose interior and antique furniture were to yield inspiration for several studies of the olden time; "Dante" and his young wife in the old village academy, which had long ceased to be an academic haunt; "the Count" and "the Doctor" in sweet proximity to a confectioner's shop; "Mozart" at the inn; and the others scattered
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about in the boarding-houses of the village. Two sketching-classes added a progressive feature, - one comprising several ladies of the Art Students' League of New York, who were domiciled at first in a cottage by the sea, and, later, in the village inn; while the other, also composed of ladies, met three times weekly in the former schoolroom of the academy. Dante alone achieved a studio. It was on the upper floor of the academy, and presented a medley of "studies," nets, rusty anchors, spoils of the sea, flowers, birds' nests, and trophies won from the village houses, - poke bonnets, stocks, perukes, faded gowns, arm- chairs, spinning-wheels, and other ancient furniture. This became a favorite gathering-place with members of the craft, and, during the summer, witnessed the reunions of many long-sundered friends. Besides the artists, a score or so of quiet families made the place their summer quarters; but its characteristic features remained the same, - in every quiet nook and coigne of vantage an artist with his easel, fair maidens trudg- ing afield with the attendant small boy bearing easel, color-box, and other impedimenta, sketching-classes setting out in great farm-wagons carpeted with straw, white-aproned nurse-maids, rosy babies, and pleasure- vehicles in the streets.
The routine for the summer was tolerably uniform. Out-door work was usually done in the soft light and shade of early morning or evening. In-door work
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occupied a part of the intervening hours if the artist was industrious. At eleven there was a gathering on the bathing-beach, and an hour's wild sporting with the surges of the Atlantic. There was tennis for those who cared for it, straw-parties and sailing-parties, moonlight rides to the beach, excursions to Sagg, Hardscrabble, Pantago, and Amagansett. The students of the sketching-classes were the most industrious, wandering about the village, selecting their sub- jects, sketching, painting, and returning to the inn at night with their spoils. Sometimes the great carryall carried them out to Tyler's for a day's sketching. Arrived there, one drew the quaint old dilapidated barn, another the farmyard, a third the mossy well- sweep, a fourth the crooked-necked duck leading her brood to water, a fifth the grain-fields, and so on, till all were supplied with subjects. At intervals the grave professor came to the inn and passed on the students' work with his pungent criticisms. There was a large wheat-field on the southern rim of the town, near the sea, that attracted many visitors and gave rise to more day-dreams than any palace of the genii. Its black mold closed on the white sand of the beach, and there was little interval between the bearded wheat and the coarse bunchgrass of the dunes. It seemed a novel sight, this.strong young daughter of the West drawing life and nourishment from the grizzled ocean. Such points of similarity as should
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exist between sire and daughter were often noted by imaginative visitors. When the wind blew, there were waves in the wheat as well as in the sea; argosies of cloud-shadows sailed over it, and it never lost a low, soft murmur, that seemed a faint refrain of the vast monotone of the sea. What weird imaginations and startling effects, to be elaborated in the studio on the return to the city, were suggested by it, cannot be told. The beach, with its broad reaches of sand and foaming surges, its wrecks, sand-storms, mirages, soft colors, and long line of sand dunes cut into every variety of fantastic shape by the winds, was equally prolific of wild fancies.
If this routine became at all prosaic or commonplace, it was soon broken by some ludicrous incident while at the easel, - the unearthing of a new character, or subjugation of a refractory model: all of which was sure to be related with gusto at the post-prandial re-unions in the "bird's-nest."
Wonderfully numerous and varied are the "charac- ters" of the village; and this adds largely to its artistic value. Old farmers with their homely saws, grizzled whalemen, fishermen, and wreckers and life-saving men, may all be met here. There are "originals," indigenous to the soil. No one who has ever sum- mered in Barbison will forget the Remuslike face of Uncle Pete, the childlike and bland countenance of "Old Zeb," the sly twinkle in the eye of Sam Green,
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the village joker, or the grim smile that rests on the face of "Old Hominy" in the midst of his cutest trick.
To give a perfect idea of the artistic features of our village, one must speak somewhat in detail of the relations of the artists with these characters. Uncle Pete, the village octogenarian, is the favorite and most troublesome model. The old man lives alone, in a little bunk of a cottage, on the outskirts of Free- town, - a settlement of colored people about a mile north of the village. Having made five whaling- voyages in his youth, Uncle Pete has acquired a store of reminiscences, which he has a Remuslike fondness for retailing to his numerous callers. His tall, almost majestic figure, and black, shrewd, quizzical face looking out from a mass of snow-white wool, tickle the artistic fancy, and his lineaments have been preserved on more canvases than those of the most popular model in the Latin quarter. This popularity has made him extremely coy and uncertain; and the artist who would engage him, in addition to the offer of golden shekels, must often have recourse to personal blandish- ments. The old man generally prefers to pose in the doorway of his little cottage: for ten minutes he sits quietly, and his outlines begin to appear under the pencil; then he grows restless, and begins to fidget, whereupon his employer, scenting trouble, blandly asks for a story. Uncle Pete readily complies, enter- taining his auditor with a graphic account of his
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descent into the whale's jaws once upon a time in Delagoa Bay, his countenance meanwhile assuming an animated and expressive cast. The tale concluded the sitter again becomes restless, and is asked for another story, which he readily narrates. A third or fourth perhaps will be required before the sitting is finished. Old Zeb, another model, is what the villagers call a "natural," although he has wit enough to gain a living without much labor. He is a great favorite with the ladies, and, being quite susceptible, has made several propositions of a matrimonial nature to engag- ing damsels visiting the village, which are understood to be under consideration. At sunset on pleasant evenings, when his fair friends are sure to be found on the front porches, Zeb is seen wending his way through the street with a rose in his button-hole, roses in his hand, and a basket on his arm. The ladies greet him graciously, and in their sweetest tones beg for a song. Zeb complies, seated on the ground, nursing his knees with his hands, and chanting in a weird monotone some hymn or ballad of the olden time. The song ended, his fair patrons bestow small coins, and, murmuring his thanks in a fine feminine voice, he moves on to another coterie. It generally happens, however, that, while the song is in progress, some deft knight of the brush has transferred his lineaments to the sketch-book for future use. Often a party goes down to Zeb's cottage at the "Harbor" to sketch him
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at his weekly "shave." The old fellow is very proud of his smoothly-shaven face, and takes great pride in its preservation. His Saturaday "shave" is a marvel of the tonsorial art. While it is in progress he is seated in the doorway of his cottage, with a little hand look- ing-glass before him, and a great Mambrino's helmet of a wash-hand-basin filled with hot water by his side. His razor, "borrerd " for the occasion, has been through several whaling-voyages. Having honed it on the door- sill, he assaults his stubby beard vigorously, grubbing and grubbing with an expression on his face that con- vulses the spectators. He explains "that it don't take hold well, somehow," and stops to sharpen his instrument on the grindstone. The entire operation is enlivened by a running fire of comments and queries from the spectators, to which Zeb returns the most amusing and innocent replies. Pat's "childers" are desirable but most refractory models. There are several of them running wild about the street, little Patseys and Bridgets, red-haired, freckled, snub- nosed, barefooted, so humorously and grimly defiant that they tickle the artistic fancy and are much coveted as models. Mrs. Pat, however, when approached on the subject, discovers a feminine quality which has time and again brought the artist into difficulties. "Be- gorra," she declares, "ef yez artises are after the childer, it's not in thim dirty clothes they'll be tooken. If the'r picters are tooken at all, it must be in the'r Sundays
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best." This is entirely inadmissible, and the painter is obliged to waylay his models as they run, and induce them to sit by a liberal supply of taffy and pop-corn.
An old weather-beaten dwelling at the upper end of the village street has been so often sketched and painted that it is a witticism of the guild when a new artist comes to town that Dominy's is going onto the canvas. Its clapboards are warped by over a century's exposure, a few bricks are missing from the chimney, some of the window-panes are gone, but all such dis- figurements are hidden by a luxuriant growth of climb- ing plants. Two workshops, one flanking each side of the cottage, present curious interiors, - low ceilings, dusty, cobwebbed windows, tools of various callings disposed on the walls or in cribs in the ceiling, and a medley of articles scattered about,- old-fashioned clocks in long cases, a photographer's camera, a Da- mascus blade, with gold-inlaid hilt, fashioned into a chisel, nets, spears, lances, harpoons, and similar paraphernalia. In this dwelling lives one of the marked characters of the village, a universal genius, a master of all trades. He is the village miller, a farmer, a carpenter, a shipwright, a clock-maker, a tooth- puller, a photographer, a whaleman, a fisherman, and an office-holder. With the artists he is a prime favorite, and generally accompanies them as courier and guide in their sketching-excursions, whether by land or water. His shop is a favorite lounging-place of the
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guild. The old man receives his visitors with a queer mixture of fatherly kindness, assumed carelessness, and "chaff." "You fellers," he observes, "git a thou- sand dollars in York for a picter of my back door, and I git nothin'." To the modest request for leave to paint his shop he replies that "there's been paint enough wasted on it a'ready to ha' painted it inside and out," but gives a grudging permission. Some- times he "fixes it up" for the artist. Sometimes he poses; again it is his dog Jack, the ugliest of canines, or his boy Zi, that is in request. A thousand tales of our hero's adventures and eccentricities are current in the studios, in not a few of which the narrators were the actors, and in some the victims. To turn the laugh on his protégés is the height of the old man's ambition: not infrequently the artist, sketching his shop, on returning from dinner finds every article in it removed to a different position, and some even hung outside. His fishing-trip to Napeague last summer with a party of artists is embalmed among the traditions of the colony. Question the old man on the subject, and his only reply is a chuckle. The victims when approached manifest extreme reticence: it is known, however, that they caught no fish, that they rowed instead of sailing, owing to a dead calm, and that re- turning they reached the inn at one in the morn- ing and forced a surreptitious entry through one of its windows, the grand finale discovering the
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hungry tramps in a fierce attack on the pies of the pantry.
A town meeting is sure to bring a rich harvest of "studies" into the village, especially if the questions to be discussed are of a broad public interest, such, for instance, as the pasturage of cattle in the village streets, or the extension of farmlands into the wide highway; these questions concern the commonalty, and there is a general hegira of the male portion of the outlying districts to the village. They come on foot, on horseback and muleback, in buckboards and in great farm-wagons with a capacity of ten or more. Some are barefoot, some attired only in check shirt and corduroys, with heavy sombreros for head-gear. At these gatherings, as in all popular assemblies, the two great orders - patrician and plebeian - are repre- sented; and while the leaders gather in the old town- hall to discuss the matter, the rank and file are deposed about on the church steps, under the elms, in the stores, smoking, spitting, lounging in a thousand picturesque attitudes. From this repose they are routed by their respective leaders and hurried into the hall whenever a vote is to be taken.
The annual spring meet on Montauk was the occa- sion of another influx of strangers into the town. This "meet" was held usually on the 20th of June, to enable the owners to select from the herds the cattle intended for fattening, which were then turned into
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the fattening-fields. Barbison was the rendezvous for the "proprietors" of all the districts to the westward, and, as they came riding in in detachments, but for the diverse regimentals one might have fancied that André's regulars had reappeared to storm the town.
No features of Barbison the past season were more pleasant than the impromptu receptions - artistic séances in the best sense of the word - held in Dante's studio. Artists, scholars, and journalists met here on common ground. The discussions, however, were brilliant rather than profound, and the reminiscences generally of a light and humorous character. Many of them detailed the ludicrous incidents and adventures met with on sketching-excursions. H- had a truly bucolic experience. He was in a wide field, putting in the sheep, daisies, and a particularly fine clump of maples, when, as he had nearly finished his work, he was suddenly prostrated by the old ram of the flock, who had evidently tired of the artist's presence in his demesnes. H- picked himself up, and, seeing the ram still warlike, made a quick retreat to the fence, which he succeeded in reaching only to witness Aries march back to the easel and trample painting, brushes, and etceteras into the dust. C-, while walking along a country lane with his color-box in hand, had met a native who took him for a spectacle-vender and inquired the price of his wares. "I am out of spec- tacles," replied the artist, and went his way. Next
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day, returning to finish his sketch, he met the same man, and was again asked the price of "glasses." "The fact is, friend," said he, "I don't sell spectacles." -"What dew yeou sell, then ?" queried the rustic. By way of reply, the artist opened his box and showed the neatly-ranged vials of color. The querist gave but a look, and exclaimed, in inimitable tones of dis- gust, "Homepathy doctor, by thunder!" D- called at a farmhouse one morning and asked per- mission to make a picture in the yard. "Yes, sir," replied the farmer; "go in. The's fifteen in there a'ready; but I tell 'em all I keer for is a drift-way." G- claimed the honor of having sketched a queen. She was scrubbing the floor of the village grocery at the time, and as the sketch was completed a negro lounged in with the news that King Pharaoh of the Montauk tribe was dead. "That makes me queen!" exclaimed the woman, who proved to be the old king's widow; and, straightening up, she discarded mop and brush and at once set out for her new kingdom amid the wastes of Montauk.
Such is Barbison in summer. As the season ad- vances, however, its aspect rapidly changes. Visitors depart with the first chill winds of autumn. The forests of scrub take on their autumnal tints, the grass withers, loads of golden corn and rich-yellow pumpkins rattle up to the farmhouse doors. The life-saving men leave their snug homes in the village and take
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their places in the stations, which are opened, warmed, and furnished in readiness for the possible shipwrecked mariner. Every night the patrols keep their lonely vigils along shore. By and by it is seen that a storm is imminent: the sun sets behind a mass of gray, watery va por, the ocean chafes, a strong wind, damp and rheumy, comes murmuring up from the southeast. At midnight, perhaps, the tempest breaks, howling down the chimneys, rattling the panes, swaying the little willows till they snap like a farmer's whip, and sending great waves up the beach to the base of the sand-dunes. Not infrequently on such nights the villagers are startled by the booming of a gun, telling that a wreck is on the bar.
In old times this was a signal for the most active preparations. The church bell was rung and a great horn blown to rally the surfmen to the beach. The housewives built fires, made coffee, and prepared stores of lint, comfortables, and flannels. If the surf permitted, the men rowed out to the ship and rescued the shipwrecked seamen, who were brought half dead to the village homes and tenderly cared for; but too often this was impossible, and windrows of dead bodies were gathered on the beach in the morning and laid stark and stiff in the coroner's office to be prepared for burial. As might be expected, some grewsome tales ,of the sea are to be heard in the village. A storm or wreck brings out a flood of such reminiscences. There
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are stories of similar incidents, of pirates and hidden treasures, of false lights set on the headlands; but quite as often the tales turn on wreckage and the flotsam and jetsam of the sea,- how a stately East-Indiaman would lay her ribs on the beach and spill her precious cargo of silks, cashmeres, pearls, teas, spices, and sandal-wood in the surf, a part of it, at least, to be gathered up by the daring wreckers. When a full- freighted whaleman came ashore, great cakes of pure white spermaceti were thrown far up the strand, and the whole country-side hurried to the scene with carts, wagons, sledges, and hand-barrows, to remove the precious product before it should melt. Sometimes it was coals from a lumbering collier that the men gathered up, sometimes lumber from a Maine bark, and again the ivory and gold-dust of Africa.
CHAPTER XVI
AN EASTHAMPTON CHURCHYARD IN THE EIGHTIES
O NE who has had occasion to visit many rural churchyards must surely have been impressed by the great number of eminent Americans entombed in them. In the old world one seeks the tombs of the great beneath the most magnificent fanes, but our great men seem to have preferred rural solitudes for their last long sleep. There is an old unpretentious burial-ground in Litchfield, Connecticut, filled with quaint tombstsones of slate or sandstone so mossy and old that one with difficulty deciphers the names in- scribed upon them; yet to write the biographies of the sleepers beneath them would be to write the history of the American nation itself. There is another at Leba- non, Connecticut, one at Quincy, Massachusetts, a fourth at Northampton, Massachusetts.
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