Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast

There is a pleasant ramble over the hill by the cemetery, with the same accompaniments of green turf, limpid bay, and cool breezes everywhere. Intermitting puffs, ruffling the water here and there, fill the sails of coasting craft, while others lie becalmed within a few cable-lengths of them. Near the north-west corner of the ground I discovered vestiges of another small battery.

Castine having assumed the functions of a town within a period comparatively recent, her cemetery shows few interesting stones. The ancients of the little Acadian hamlet lie in forgotten graves; no moss-covered tablets for the antiquary to kneel beside, and trace the time-worn course of the chisel, are there. Numbers of graves are indicated only by the significant heaving of the turf. In one part of the field is a large and rudely fashioned slate-stone standing at the head of a tumulus. A tablet with these lines is affixed:

IN MEMORY OF

CHARLES STEWART,

The earliest occupant of this Mansion of the Dead,

A Native of Scotland,

And 1st Lieut. Comm. of his B. M. 74th Regt. of foot, or Argyle Highlanders

Who died in this Town, while it was in possession of the Enemy,

March, A.D. 1783,

And was interred beneath this stone,

Æt. about 40 yrs

This Tablet was inserted

A.D. 1849

The tablet has a tale to tell. It runs that Stewart quarreled with a brother officer at the mess-table, and challenged him. Hearing of the intended duel, the commanding officer reprimanded the hot-blooded Scotsman in such terms that, stung to the quick, he fell, Roman-like, on his own sword.

Elsewhere I read the name of Captain Isaiah Skinner, who, as master of a packet plying to the opposite shore, "thirty thousand times braved the perils of our bay."

While I was in Castine I paid a visit to the factory in which lobsters are canned for market. A literally "smashing" business was carrying on, but with an uncleanness that for many months impaired my predilection for this delicate crustacean. The lobsters are brought in small vessels from the lower bay. They are then tossed, while living, into vats containing salt water boiling hot, where they receive a thorough steaming. They are next transferred to long tables, and, after cooling, are opened. Only the flesh of the larger claws and tail is used, the remainder being cast aside. The reserved portions are put into tin cans that, after being tightly soldered, are subjected to a new steaming of five and a half hours to keep them fresh.[44 - Isle au Haut is particularly renowned for the size and quality of these fish.]

In order to arrest the wholesale slaughter of the lobster, stringent laws have been made in Maine and Massachusetts. The fishery is prohibited during certain months, and a fine is imposed for every fish exposed for sale of less than a certain growth. Of a heap containing some eight hundred lobsters brought to the factory, not fifty were of this size; a large proportion were not eight inches long. Frequent boiling in the same water, with the slovenly appearance of the operatives, male and female, would suggest a doubt whether plain Penobscot lobster is as toothsome as is supposed. The whole process was in marked contrast with the scrupulous neatness with which similar operations are elsewhere conducted; nor was there particular scrutiny as to whether the lobsters were already dead when received from the vessels.

Wood, in the "New England Prospect," mentions that lobsters were so plenty and little esteemed they were seldom eaten. They were frequently, he says, of twenty pounds' weight. The Indians used lobsters to bait their hooks, and ate them when they could not get bass. I have seen an account of a lobster that weighed thirty-five pounds. Josselyn mentions that he saw one weighing twenty pounds, and that the Indians dried them for food as they did lampreys and oysters.

The first-comers into New England waters were not more puzzled to find the ancient city of Norumbega than I to reach the fabulous Down East of the moderns. In San Francisco the name is vaguely applied to the territory east of the Mississippi, though more frequently the rest of the republic is alluded to as "The States." South of the obliterated Mason and Dixon's line, the region east of the Alleghanies and north of the Potomac is Down East, and no mistake about it. In New York you are as far as ever from this terra incognita. In Connecticut they shrug their shoulders and point you about north-north-east. Down East, say Massachusetts people, is just across our eastern border. Arrived on the Penobscot, I fancied myself there at last.

"Whither bound?" I asked of a fisherman, getting up his foresail before loosing from the wharf.

"Sir, to you. Down East."

The evident determination to shift the responsibility forbade further pursuit of this fictitious land. Besides, Maine people are indisposed to accept without challenge the name so universally applied to them of Down Easters. We do not say down to the North Pole, and we do say down South. The higher latitude we make northwardly the farther down we get. Nevertheless, disposed as I avow myself to present the case fairly, the people of Maine uniformly say "up to the westward," when speaking of Massachusetts. Of one thing I am persuaded – Down East is nowhere in New England.

CHAPTER VI.

PEMAQUID POINT

"Love thou thy land, with love far-brought
From out the storied Past, and used
Within the Present, but transfused
Thro' future time by power of thought."

    Tennyson.
A very small fraction of the people of New England, I venture to say, know more of Pemaquid than that such a place once existed somewhere within her limits; yet it is scarcely possible to take up a book on New England in which the name does not occur with a frequency that is of itself a spur to inquiry. If a few volumes be consulted, the materials for history become abundant. After accumulating for two hundred years, or more, what belongs to the imperishable things of earth, this old outpost of English power has returned into second childhood, and become what it originally was, namely, a fishing-village.

But those who delight in ferreting through the chinks and crannies of an out-of-the-way locality, will be repaid by starting from Damariscotta on a coastwise voyage of discovery. In traveling by railway from Portland, with your face to the rising sun, you catch occasional glimpses of the ocean, and you receive imperfect impressions of the estuaries that indent her "hundred-harbored" shores; but from the window of a stage-coach journeying at six miles an hour the material and mental eye may receive and fix ideas more distinct and enduring.

I reached the little village of New Harbor, at Pemaquid Point, in time to see the sun crimson in setting, a cloudless sky, and an unruffled sea. Monhegan Island grew of a deep purple in the twilight shadows. The tower lamps were alight, and from neighboring islands other beacons twinkled pleasantly on the waters. Coasting vessels trimmed their sails to catch the land-breeze of evening. Then the moon arose.

The little harbor beneath me contained a few small fishing-vessels at anchor. One or two others were slowly working their way in. The cottages straggling by the shore were not numerous or noticeable. It was still some three miles to the light-house at the extremity of the point.

At Bristol Mills I had exchanged the stage for a beach-wagon. The driver was evidently a person of consequence here, as he usually becomes in such isolated neighborhoods out of the beaten paths of travel. His loquacity was marvelous. He had either a message or a missive for every one he met; and at the noise of our wheels house doors opened, and the noses and lips of youngsters were flattened in a whimsical manner against the window-panes. I observed that he invariably saluted the girls by their Christian names as they stood shyly peeping through half-opened doors; adding the middle name to the baptismal whenever one might be claimed, as Olive Ann, Matilda Jane, or Hannah Ann. I should have called some of them plain Olive, or Matilda, or Hannah. The men answered to such names as Dominicus, Jott, and 'Life (Eliphalet). Thus this brisk little fellow's passing was the great event over four miles of road.

I should have gone directly to the old settlement on the other side of the Neck, now known as "The Factory;" but here, for a wonder, were no hotels, and travelers are dependent upon private hospitality. "Do you think they will take me in over there?" I queried, pointing to the old mansion on the site of Fort Frederick. The driver shook his head.

"Are they quite full?"

"Solid," was his reply, given with an emphasis that conveyed the impression of sardines in a box. So I was fain to rest with a fisherman turned store-keeper.

The little rock-environed harbor on the side of Muscongus Bay is a mere roadstead, unfit for shipping in heavy easterly weather. This place, like many neighboring sea-coast hamlets, was busily engaged in the mackerel and menhaden fishery. The latter fish, usually called "porgee," is in demand at the factories along shore for its oil, and among Bank fishermen as bait. Some old cellars on the north side of New Harbor indicated the locale of a former generation of fishermen. On this side, too, there existed, not many years ago, remains of a fortification of ancient date.[45 - This work is on an old map of the Kennebec patent. It was about twenty rods square, a bastion. A house now stands in the space it formerly occupied.] Shot, household utensils, etc., have been excavated there. There is also by the shore what was either the lair of wild beasts, or a place of concealment frequented by savages. Mr. M'Farland, one of the oldest residents, mentioned that he had found an arrow-head in the den. Various coins and Indian implements, some of which I saw, have been turned up with the soil on this neck of land.

The visitor will not leave New Harbor without hearing of sharp work done there in the war of 1812. The enemy's cruisers kept the coast in perpetual alarm by their marauding excursions in defenseless harbors. One day a British frigate hove to in the Bay, and in a short time a number of barges were seen to push off, fully manned, for the shore. The small militia guard then stationed in Old Fort Frederick was notified, and the residents of New Harbor prepared for action. As the leading British barge entered the harbor, it was hailed by an aged fisherman, who warned the officer in charge not to attempt to land. "If a single gun is fired," replied the Briton, "the town shall be destroyed."

Not a single gun, but a deadly volley, answered the threat. The rocks were bristling with old queen's arms and ducking-guns, in the grasp of a score of resolute fellows. Every shot was well aimed. The barge drifted helplessly out with the tide, and the captain of the frigate had a sorry dispatch for the admiral at Halifax.

Leaving New Harbor, I crossed a by-path that conducted to the factory road. Here and elsewhere I had listened to the story of the destruction of the menhaden, from the fishermen's point of view. They apprehend nothing less than the total disappearance of this fish at no distant day. "What are we poor fellows going to do when they catch up all the porgees?" asked one. The fishery, as conducted by the factories, is regarded by the fishermen proper as the introduction of improved machinery that dispenses with labor is looked upon by the operative. Although the oil factories purchase the catch that is brought in, the owners are considered intruders, and experience many petty vexations. As men of capital, possessed of all needful appliances for their business, they are really independent of the resident population, to whom, on the other hand, they disburse money and give employment. The question with which the political economist will have to deal is the expected extinction of the menhaden.

I went through the factory at Pemaquid Point, and was persuaded the fish could not long support the drain upon them. The porgee begins to frequent these waters in June. The first-comers are lean, and will make only a gallon of oil to the barrel; those of September yield four gallons. A fleet of propellers, as well as sailing-craft of forty to fifty tons burden, are kept constantly employed.

At Pemaquid harbor, the fish cargoes are transferred from the steamer to an elevated tank of the capacity of four thousand barrels. Underneath the tank a tram-way, conducting by an inclined plane to the second story of the factory, is laid upon the wharf. In the bottom of the tank is a trap-door that, upon being opened, quickly fills a car placed below. The fish are then taken into the factory and dumped into other tanks, containing each three car-loads, or about sixty barrels. Here steam is introduced, rapidly converting the fish into unsavory chowder, or "mash." As many as a dozen of these vats were in constant use. The oil and water being drawn off into other vats, the product is obtained through the simplest of machinery, and the well-known principle that in an admixture with water oil will rise to the surface. The residuum from the first process is shoveled into perforated iron cylinders, by men standing up to their knees in the steaming mass. It is then subjected to hydraulic pressure, and, after the extraction of every drop of oil, is carefully housed, to be converted into phosphates. The water is passed from tank to tank until completely free of oil. Nothing is lost.

This factory had a capacity of three thousand barrels per day, though not of the largest class. Others were working day and night through the season, which continues for about three months.

I walked afterward by the side of a seine two hundred fathoms in length, spread upon the grass in order to contract the meshes. One of them frequently costs above a thousand dollars, and is sometimes destroyed at the first casting by being caught on the ledges in shallow water.

An old hand can easily tell the difference between a school of mackerel and one of menhaden. The former rush in a body on the top of the water, while the shoal of porgees merely ripples the surface, as is sometimes seen when a moving body of water impinges against a counter-current. The mackerel takes the hook, while the porgee and herring never do.

The talk was more fishy here than in any place I have visited. Here they call a school, or shoal, "a pod of fish;" "we sot round a pod" being a common expression. The small vessels are called seiners. When they approach a school, the seine is carried out in boats, one end being attached to the vessel, except when a bad sea is running. I have seen the men standing up to the middle among the fish they were hauling in; and they are sometimes obliged to abandon half their draught.

The whole process of rendering menhaden into oil is less offensive to the olfactories than might be supposed. The works at Pemaquid Point are owned by Judson, Tarr, and Co., of Rockport, Massachusetts. As against the generally received opinion that they were destroying fish faster than the losses could be repaired, the unusual abundance of mackerel the last year was cited. Mackerel, however, are not ground up at the rate of many thousand barrels per day. It is easy to conjecture that present profit is more looked to than future scarcity. The product of menhaden is chiefly used in the adulteration of linseed-oil. This fish is probably the same called by the French "gasparot," and found by them in great abundance on the coasts of Acadia.

Some account of the habits of the mackerel, as given by veteran fishermen, is of interest to such as esteem this valuable fish – and the number is legion – if not in explanation of the seemingly purposeless drifting of the mackerel fleet along shore, which is, nevertheless, guided by calculation.

In early spring the old breeding fish come into the bays and rivers to spawn. They then return northward. These mackerel are not apt to take the hook, but are caught in weirs and seines, a practice tending to inevitable scarcity in the future. The parent fish come back, in September, to the localities where they have spawned, and, taking their young in charge, proceed to the warmer waters west and south. Few if any mackerel spawn south of Cape Cod.

By the time this migration occurs, the young fish have grown to six or seven inches in length, and are called "tinkers." They frequently take the bait with avidity, but are too small for market. When this school comes along, the fishermen prepare to follow, saying, "The mackerel are bound west, and we must work west with them." These first-comers are usually followed by a second school of better size and quality. I have often seen numbers of young mackerel, of three to four inches in length, left in shallow pools upon the flats by the tide in midsummer.

In the midst of a "biting school" no sport could be more exciting or satisfying. At such times the mackerel resemble famished wolves, snapping and crowding for the bait, rather than harmless fishes. This unexampled voracity makes them an easy prey, and they are taken as fast as the line can be thrown over. It not unfrequently happens that the school will either sink or suddenly refuse the bait, even while swarming about the sides of the vessels. This is vexatious, but there is no help for it. The fleet must lie idle until the capricious or overfed fish is hungry.