[332] In the records of the Council for New England, under date of the 26th of November, 1635, or about the time that Morton was writing the New Canaan, is the following entry: “The Hawks brought over by Capt. Smart are to be presented to his Majesty on Saturday next, by the Lords of those Provinces. And the said Captain to be recommended to his Majestys service upon occasion of employments for his care and industry used to bring them over, and for other his services done in those parts.”
[333] The Cockchafer.
[334] I. e., like the Buzzard-Hawks of the genus Buteo, a sluggish tribe of Raptores.
[335] Properly of general application to the genus Falco; if used specifically here there is no clew to its precise meaning.
[336] Usually written tercel, and sometimes tiercel or tiërcel. The male of any hawk, so termed because he is a third smaller than the female, or, as some have thought, because it was believed that every third bird hatched was a male. The name, as used in falconry, almost always refers to the male Goshawk (Astur palumbarius), while with the addition of gentil, or gentle, it indicated the female or young of this species. The bird alluded to here is probably the American Goshawk (Astur atricapillus).
[337] The American Sparrow Hawk (Falco sparverius), a small and richly colored Falcon, would be likely to be used for such a purpose.
[338] If not applied to the male Goshawk (see note on “tassel gentles”), perhaps referring to Hawks of the genus Buteo, represented in New England by three species, Buteo borealis, B. lineatus and B. Pennsylvanicus.
[339] If Morton always uses tassel in its commonly accepted sense (see preceding notes), another application must be sought for the present name. The accompanying text may relate to the Marsh Hawk (Circus cyaneus Hudsonius), the adult male of which is our whitest New England Hawk, and the young or female perhaps the reddest. The Marsh Hawk does not prey on full-grown poultry, but it may have been credited with depredations committed by other species, a piece of injustice by no means uncommon at the present day.
[340] The Pigeon Hawk (Falco columbarius) is the New England representative of the European Merlin (Falco regulus).
[341] Probably the Crow Blackbird (Quiscalus purpureus æneus).
[342] The Sharp-shinned Hawk (Accipiter fuscus), a common New England species closely allied to the European Sparrow Hawk (Accipiter nisus). Our Cooper’s Hawk (Accipiter cooperi) also may be referred to under this name.
[343] The Ruby-throated Humming-bird (Trochilus colubris), our only New England species. The Humming-birds are peculiar to the New World; hence the wonder and interest with which they were regarded by the early explorers and colonists. There is a letter from Emanuel Downing to John Winthrop, Jr., of the 21st of November, 1632, in which is this paragraph: “You have a litle bird in your contrie that makes a humminge noyse, a little bigger then a bee, I pray send me one of them over, perfect in his fethers, in a little box.” (IV. Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. vi. p. 40e.) There are many descriptions of this bird in the earlier writers, though none that I have found so early as Downing’s letter. Wood says: “The Humbird is one of the wonders of the Countrey, being no bigger than a Hornet, yet hath all the dimensions of a Bird, as bill and wings, with quils, Spider-like legges, small clawes: For colour, shee is glorious as the Raine-bow; as shee flies, shee makes a little humming noise like a humble bee: wherefore she is called the Humbird.” (New England’s Prospect, p. 24.) Josselyn’s description is especially good: “The Humming Bird, the least of all Birds, little bigger than a Dor, of variable glittering Colours, they feed upon Honey, which they suck out of Blossoms and Flowers with their long Needle-like Bills; they sleep all Winter, and are not to be seen till the Spring, at which time they breed in little Nests, made up like a bottom of soft, Silk-like matter, their Eggs no bigger than a white Pease, they hatch three or four at a time, and are proper to this Country.” (New England’s Rarities, p. 6.) See also Clayton’s Letter, &c. (III. Force’s Tracts, No. 12, p. 33).
[344] For all the technical and scientific notes to this chapter I am indebted to Mr. Joel A. Allen, of the Museum of Comparative Zoölogy of Harvard College. To the matter contributed by him I have merely added, as in the immediately preceding chapters, extracts from other writers, more or less contemporaneous with Morton, which seemed to me to be illustrative of the text, or in the same spirit with it. This chapter of Morton’s is more complete, though probably of less value, than Wood’s and Josselyn’s chapters on the same subject.
[345] The Elke here mentioned is the Moose (Alces malchis) of American writers; it is specifically the same as the elk of Northern Europe. From Wood’s account (New England’s Prospect, p. 18), it would seem that the moose in Morton’s time ranged into eastern Massachusetts, though not found now south of northern Maine. The moose has but a single fawn at a birth, not three as stated in the text.
Mr. Allen then adds to the above note: “I have met with no published record of the occurrence of the American Elk, or Wapiti Deer (Cervus Canadensis), in eastern Massachusetts. Since publishing a statement to this effect (Mem. Hist. Boston, vol. i. p. 10), however, I have learned through the kindness of a correspondent (Henry S. Nourse, Esq., of South Lancaster, Mass.,) that early in the eighteenth century sixteen elk were seen near a brook in South Lancaster, one of which was killed. The tradition is supported by the fact that the antlers of the individual killed were preserved in the family of the lucky hunter (Jonas Fairbanks) for a long period, and afterwards placed on the top of a guide-board, where they still remain, moss-grown and weather-worn by eighty years of sun and storm. Since the receipt of Mr. Nourse’s letter (dated Feb. 25, 1882), his account has been corroborated by information from another source. That the antlers mentioned belonged to an elk and not to a moose is beyond question.”
[346] “The English have some thoughts of keeping them tame, and to accustome them to the yoake, which will be a great commoditie: First, because they are so fruitfull, bringing forth three at a time, being likewise very uberous. Secondly, because they will live in Winter without any fodder. There be not many of these in the Massachusetts Bay, but forty miles to the Northeast there be great store of them.” (New England’s Prospect, p. 18.) There are very good descriptions of the Moose, and the methods pursued in hunting them, in Gorges’s Brief Relation (II. Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. ix. p. 18) and in Josselyn’s Two Voyages, (pp. 88, 137). See, also, New England’s Rarities, p. 19.
[347] The common Virginian Deer (Cariacus Virginianus), formerly more or less abundant throughout the eastern half of the United States.
[348] The number of fawns produced at a birth is commonly two, sometimes one, and still more rarely three; although three is stated to be the usual number in various seventeenth-century accounts of the natural productions of New England, Virginia, &c.
[349] Mourt, in his Relation (p. 8), records how Governor William Bradford, of Plymouth, was caught in one of these traps, and “horsed up by the leg,” when the first party from the Mayflower was exploring Cape Cod in November, 1620. Wood says: “An English Mare being strayed from her owner, and growne wild by her long sojourning in the woods ranging up and down with the wild crew, stumbled into one of these traps which stopt her speed, hanging her like Mahomet’s tombe, betwixt earth and heaven; the morning being come the Indians went to looke what good successe their Venison trapps had brought them, but seeing such a long scutted Deere, praunce in their Meritotter, they bade her good morrow, crying out, what cheere what cheere, Englishmans squaw horse; having no better epithete than to call her a woman horse, but being loath to kill her, and as fearefull to approach neere the friscadoes of her Iron heeles, they posted to the English to tell them how the case stood or hung with their squaw horse, who unhorsed their Mare, and brought her to her former tamenesse, which since hath brought many a good foale, and performed much good service.” (New England’s Prospect, p. 75.) Williams, in his Key (ch. xxvii.), describes how the deer caught in these traps were torn and devoured by wolves before the Indians came to secure them. See, also, Colonel Norwood’s Voyage to Virginia. (III. Force’s Tracts, No. 10, p. 39.)
[350] Wesil, obsolete for weasand.
[351] The “third sort of Deere,” of which the author evidently had no personal knowledge, is doubtless a myth, as the Virginia Deer is the only species of small deer found in the United States, south of New England, east of the Mississippi River. The statement that it is “lesse then the other” (i. e. Virginian Deer), together with the southern habitat assigned it, preclude reference to the Caribou of northern New England, which the name “rayne deare” otherwise suggests.
[352] “They desire to be neare the Sea, so that they may swimme to the Islands when they are chased by the Woolves.” (New England’s Prospect, p. 18.) Deer Island is consequently a very common name along the New England coast; and of the island bearing that name in Boston harbor, now the site of the city reformatory institutions, Wood says: “This Iland is so called, because of the Deare which often swimme thither from the Maine, when they are chased by the woolves: some have killed sixteene Deere in a day upon this Iland.” Young’s Chron. of Mass., p. 405. See, also, Shurtleff’s Description of Boston, p. 464.
[353] The Beaver (Castor fiber). The account of the way “they draw the logg to the habitation appoynted” is a fanciful exaggeration, hardly less ridiculous than the preceding statement about the precaution the animal takes in winter to preserve his tail!
Cunny, mentioned in the first paragraph, is doubtless a seventeenth-century barbarism for cony, a name at this time commonly applied to the rabbit. The context, both here and in the account of the muskewashe, seems to imply this, although the word is correctly written cony in the paragraph relating to Hares. In some of the early accounts of Virginia, published in the first half of the seventeenth century, hares and cunnies are enumerated in the lists of animals, where the latter name evidently means cony or rabbit. Serat, in the same paragraph, is a term of much greater obscurity of application.
[354] “The tail, as I have said in another Treatise, is very fat and of a masculine vertue, as good as Eringo’s or Satyrion-Roots.” (Josselyn’s Two Voyages, p. 93.)
[355] Bradford, writing of the year 1636, gives the following prices: “The coat beaver usualy at 20s. per pound, and some at 24s.; the skin at 15 and sometimes 16. I doe not remember any under 14. It may be the last year might be something lower” (p. 346). In 1671 Josselyn says: “A black Bears Skin heretofore was worth forty shillings, now you may have one for ten.” (Rarities, p. 14.) The following prices were named as ruling in Virginia in 1650; (III. Force’s Tracts, No. 11, p. 52.)
“Sables, from 8s. the payre, to 20s. a payre.
“Otter skins, from 3s. to 5s. a piece.
“Luzernes, from 2s. to 10. a piece.
“Martins the best, 4s. a piece.
“Fox skins, 6d. a piece.
“Muske Rats skins, 2s. a dozen.
“Bever skins that are full growne, in season, are worth 7s. a piece.
“Bever skins, not in season, to allow two skins for one, and of the lesser, three for one.
“Old Bever skins in mantles, gloves or caps, the more worne the better, so they be full of fur, the pound weight is 6s.” See infra, 207, note 4, and also *80.
[356] The servant here referred to was probably Walter Bagnall, of Richmond Island, who was killed by Indians, Oct. 3, 1631. See infra, 218, note 1.
[357] The common Otter (Lutra Canadensis), now of rare occurrence in the more settled parts of southern New England.
[358] The Luseran, or Luseret, is the Bay Lynx, or Wild-cat (Lynx rufus).
“The Ounce or the wild Cat, is as big as a mungrell dogge; this creature is by nature feirce, and more dangerous to bee met withall than any other creature, not feering either dogge or man; he useth to kill Deere which he thus effecteth: Knowing the Deeres tracts, he will lie lurking in long weedes, the Deere passing by he suddenly leapes upon his backe, from thence gets to his necke, and scratcheth out his throate: he hath likewise a devise to get Geese, for being much of the colour of a Goose, he will place himselfe close by the water, holding up his bob taile, which is like a Goose necke; the Geese seeing this counterfeiting Goose, approch nigh to visit him, who with a sudden jerke apprehends his mistrustlesse prey.” (New England’s Prospect, pp. 19, 20.) Josselyn says: “I once found six whole Ducks in the belly of one I killed by a Pond side.” (Rarities, p. 16.)
[359] The Martin. Under this name are doubtless confounded the Marten (Mustela Americana) and the Fisher (M. Pennanti). The size, however, even in case the Fisher alone were referred to, is greatly overstated.
[360] The Racowne is the common well-known Raccoon (Procyon lotor).
[361] Josselyn says of the Raccoon: “their grease is soveraign for wounds with bruises, aches, streins, bruises; and to anoint after broken bones and dislocations.” (Two Voyages, p. 85.) A little further on (p. 92) he notes: “One Mr. Purchase cured himself of the Sciatica with Bears-greese, keeping some of it continually in his groine.”
[362] The Redd Fox is our common Red Fox (Vulpes vulgaris, var. Pennsylvanicus). The Gray Fox is doubtless the Virginian or Gray Fox (Urocyon cinereoargentatus) of the South and West, an animal formerly occurring in New England but long since nearly extirpated. This is inferred from Josselyn’s account of the Jaccal (New England’s Rarities, p. 22), rather than from any clew given in Morton’s text. The absence of strong scent referred to relates to the Gray Fox, a character mentioned by Josselyn in his brief but sufficiently explicit description of his Jaccal.
[363] “The Indians say they have black foxes, which they have often seen, but never could take any of them. They say they are Manittóoes, that is Gods, spirits, or divine powers, as they say of every thing which they cannot comprehend.” (Williams’s Key, ch. xvii.) The black fox-skin, Josselyn says (Rarities, p. 21), “heretofore was wont to be valued at fifty and sixty pound, but now you may have them for twenty shillings; indeed there is not any in New England that are perfectly black, but silver hair’d, that is sprinkled with gray hairs.” The black wolf’s skin, he says (ib. p. 16), “is worth a Beaver Skin among the Indians, being highly esteemed for helping old Aches in old people, worn as a Coat.” Of the foxes Wood remarks: “Some of these be blacke; their furre is of much esteeme.” (Prospect, p. 19.) Elsewhere he says that the fur of a black wolf was “worth five or sixe pounds Sterling.” (Ib. 20.)
See, also, supra, 205, note 2.
[364] The Wolf is the large Gray Wolf (Canis lupus), formerly abundant throughout New England, and well known to vary in color as mentioned by Morton.
[365] “They be made much like a Mungrell, being big boned, lanke paunched, deepe breasted, having a thicke necke and head, pricke eares, and long snoute, with dangerous teeth, long staring haire, and a great bush taile.... It is observed that they have no joynts from their head to the taile, which prevents them from leaping or sudden turning.” (New England’s Prospect, p. 20.) See Josselyn’s Rarities, p. 14, and Two Voyages, p. 83. He says: “They commonly go in routs, a rout of Wolves is 12 or more, sometimes by couples.” Of the Virginia species, Clayton says: “Wolves there are great store; you may hear a Company Hunting in an Evening, and yelping like a pack of Beagles; but they are very cowardly, and dare scarce venture on anything that faces them; yet if hungry will pull down a good large Sheep that flies from them. I never heard that any of them adventured to set on Man or Child.” (III. Force’s Tracts, No. 12, p. 37.) According to Strachey, these Virginia wolves were “not much bigger then English foxes.” (Historie, p. 125.) Wood, however, says that the Massachusetts wolves cared “no more for an ordinary Mastiffe, than an ordinary Mastiffe cares for a Curre; many good dogges have been spoyled by them.” Shortly after the landing from the Mayflower at Plymouth, John Goodman, one evening in January, “went abroad to use his lame feet, that were pitifully ill with the cold he had got, having a little spaniel with him. A little way from the plantation two great wolves ran after the dog; the dog ran to him and betwixt his legs for succour. He had nothing in his hand, but took up a stick and threw at one of them and hit him, and they presently ran both away, but came again. He got a pale-board in his hand; and they set both on their tails grinning at him a good while; and went their way and left him.” (Young’s Chron. of Pilg., p. 178.)
[367] The common Black Bear (Ursus Americanus).
[368] “For Beares they be common, being a great black kind of Beare, which be most fierce in Strawberry time, at which time they have young ones; at this time likewise they will goe upright like a man, and clime trees, and swim to the Islands: which if the Indians see, there will be more sportful Beare bayting than Paris Garden can afford. For seeing the Beares take water, an Indian will leape after him, where they goe to water cuffes for bloody noses, and scratched sides; in the end the man gets the victory, riding the Beare over the watery plaine till he can beare him no longer.” (New England’s Prospect, p. 17.) “He makes his Denn amongst thick Bushes, thrusting in here and there store of moss, which being covered with snow and melting in the daytime with heat of the Sun, in the night is frozen into a thick coat of Ice; the mouth of his Den is very narrow, here they lye single, never two in a Den all winter. The Indian as soon as he finds them, creeps in upon all four, seizes with his left hand upon the neck of the sleeping Bear, drags him to the mouth of the Den, where with a club or small hatchet in his right hand he knocks out his brains before he can open his eyes to see his enemy.” (Two Voyages, p. 91.) Wood adds that bear’s flesh was “accounted very good meete, esteemed of all men above Venison.” Clayton says that “their flesh is commended for a very rich sort of Pork.” (Virginia, III. Force’s Tracts No. 12, p. 37.) “Beares there be manie towardes the sea-coast, which the Indians hunt most greedily; for indeed they love them above all other their flesh, and therefore hardly sell any of them unto us, unles upon large proffers of copper, beads and hatchetts. We have eaten of them, and they are very toothsome sweet venison, as good to be eaten as the flesh of a calfe of two yeares old; howbeit they are very little in comparison of those of Muscovia and Tartaria.” (Strachey’s Historie, p. 123.) See, also, Josselyn’s New England’s Rarities, pp. 13-14, and Two Voyages, pp. 91-2.
[369] The well-known Muskrat or Musquash (Fiber zibethicus) of our ponds. The “stones” are the oder glands. In respect to Cunny, see supra 204, note 2.
[370] The Porcupine is the Canadian Porcupine (Erethizon dorsatus).
[371] The Hedgehogg is the same as the Porcupine, the author being in error in regarding it as “of the like nature to our English Hedgehoggs.” The English Hedgehog belongs to a very different order of mammals, and has no representative in America.
[372] The Conyes are Hares, the small ones of the “Southerne parts” being the little Gray Hare or Wood Rabbit (Lepus sylvaticus) of southern New England. Those of “the North” are the Varying Hare (Lepus Americanus), or White Rabbit, which is brown in summer and white in winter. The reference to black ones is an error, wild black hares being unknown except in cases of Melanism, which are of extremely rare occurrence. We have no species of hare which is black. Rabbit, it may be added, is a name not strictly applicable to any indigenous mammal of America, it being the vernacular specific designation of an Old World species of hare.
[373] The “Squirils of three sorts” are (1) the Gray Squirrel (Sciurus Carolinensis); (2) the Red Squirrel, or Chickaree (S. Hudsonius); (3) the Flying Squirrel (Sciuropterus volucellus). A fourth kind, the Striped Squirrel, or Chipmunk (Tamias striatus) is not mentioned. The “batlike winges” are of course neither batlike, nor even wings at all, but merely a narrow furred membrane extending along the sides of the body, from the fore to the hind limbs.
[375] “1639. May, which fell out to be extream hot and foggie, about the middle of May, I kill’d within a stones throw of our house, above four score Snakes, some of them as big as the small of my leg, black of colour, and three yards long, with a sharp horn on the tip of their tail two inches in length.” (Josselyn’s Two Voyages, pp. 22-3.)
[376] Mr. J. H. Trumbull writes: “Morton’s ascowke is Eliot’s askook, R. Williams’s askùg, ‘a snake.’ In Zeifberger’s Delaware, achgook; whence (through Heckewelder) Cooper’s Chingachgook, ‘the Great Serpent,’ in the Last of the Mohicans.”
[377] Williams, in his Key, gives the name as Sések. See, also, Mr. Trumbull’s note in his edition of the Key (p. 130), in the publications of the Narragansett Society. Wood gives it as seasicke. (Prospect, p. 86.)
[378] The stories first told in Europe of the Rattlesnake (Crotalus durissus) were of the most exaggerated kind. He was described as a reptile of prodigious size, which could fly, and which poisoned by its breath. (New England’s Prospect, p. 39.) The first mention of this snake in Massachusetts is found in Higginson’s New England’s Plantation [1630]. It is as follows: “This country being very full of woods and wildernesses, doth also much abound with snakes and serpents, of strange colors and huge greatness. Yea, there are some serpents, called rattlesnakes, that have rattles in their tails, that will not fly from a man as others will, but will fly upon him and sting him so mortally that he will die within a quarter of an hour after, except the party stinged have about him some of the root of an herb called snake-weed to bite on, and then he shall receive no harm.” (Young’s Chron. of Mass., p. 255.) Wood gives an admirable description of the rattlesnake (Prospect, pp. 38-9), and also speaks of “the Antidote to expel the poyson, which is a root caled Snake weede, which must be champed, the spittle swallowed, and the roote applied to the sore.... Five or six men have been bitten by them, which by using of snakeweede were all cured, never any yet losing his life by them.” Josselyn, in his Rarities (p. 39), says: “The Indians when weary with travelling, will take them up with their bare hands, laying hold with one hand behind their Head, with the other taking hold of their Tail, and with their teeth tear off the Skin of their backs, and feed upon them alive; which they say refresheth them.” He further says that the heart of the rattlesnake “swallowed fresh” (Rarities, p. 39), or “dried and pulverized and drunk with wine or beer” (Voyages, p. 114), is an antidote against its poison. In Clayton’s Virginia (III. Force’s Tracts, No. 12, p. 39), there is a very entertaining passage, too long to extract, on Rattlesnakes, and the use of East India snake-stones “that were sent [to Virginia] by King James the Second, the Queen, and some of the Nobility, purposely to try their Virtue and Efficacy,” at curing the bite of vipers, &c.
[379] The Mice, which our author found in “good store,” belong chiefly to three species,—namely, the common short-tailed Meadow Mouse (Arvicola riparius), the White-footed Mouse, or Deer Mouse (Hesperomys leucopus), and the Long-tailed Jumping Mouse, or Kangaroo Mouse (Zapus Hudsonius). The common House Mouse (Mus musculus) is an exotic pest, which doubtless had not at that time made its appearance. Morton is quite right in stating: “but for Rats, the Country by Nature is troubled with none.” The Black Rat (Mus rattus) was quite early introduced, but the Gray, Wharf, or Norway Rat (Mus decumanus) probably did not make its appearance till fully a century after Morton wrote his New English Canaan.
[380] Morton, as was natural for a keen sportsman who had himself been in the tropics, was wiser on the subject of Lions than other Englishmen in New England. From the first landing at Plymouth, when John Goodman and Peter Browne, getting lost in the woods, heard “two lions roaring exceedingly,” down to 1639, when Josselyn heard “of a young Lyon (not long before) kill’d at Pascataway by an Indian,” there were vague stories of these animals having been either seen or heard in the New England woods. Josselyn argued on the great probability that there were lions because there were jackals (Rarities, p. 21); and Wood said that “the Virginians saw an old Lyon in their Plantation, who having lost his Iackall, which was wont to hunt his prey, was brought so poore that he could goe no further.” (Prospect, p. 17.) Strachey speaks of having found the skins and claws of lions in the hands of the Indians. (Historie, p. 124.) The animal referred to in all these cases was doubtless the Panther or Catamount (Felis concolor). On this subject see also Young’s Chron. of Pilg., p. 176, note; Tuckerman’s New England’s Rarities, p. 57, note; and the Mem. History of Boston, vol. i. p. 9.
[381] For the scientific and technical notes to this chapter I am indebted to Professor N. S. Shaler of Harvard University. As in the three preceding chapters, certain other notes of my own have been added, which are of a wholly different character, and will readily be distinguished from Professor Shaler’s.
[382] The marble of Marble Harbor, or Marblehead, is not, in the present sense of the word, a marble at all, but is, in fact, a porphyry. In the old sense of the word it designated any smooth-striped or spotted stones, such as are found there.
[383] No limestone, good or bad, is known to exist on the Monatoquit now; the nearest limestone is at Bear (or Bare) Hill, in Stoneham.
[384] There is a locality in East Braintree, included in the Wainwright estate, at the foot of Wyman’s Hill and facing the Weymouth Fore-river, into which the Monatoquit flows, where is a quarry from which stone bearing some external resemblance to limestone was formerly taken for ballast. This place has always been locally called the Quaw, though the origin and meaning of the name have never been known. It would seem that this must be the place referred to in the text, and that Quaw, or Quor, is a corruption of the Indian Attaquatock.
[385] There are no “chalke stones” at Squanto’s Chapelle, i.e., Squantum, or anywhere else in this part of the world. Morton may possibly have mistaken pebbles of decayed felspar for chalk.
[386] There is some slate in Quincy and Weymouth that might be used for roofing, and a quarry of it was long worked for material for gravestones, &c., on Squantum Bay, a mile or so from Mount Wollaston; but it is slate of a very poor sort. The nearest workable slate is in Vermont and Maine.
[387] This passage is more than usually confused, even for Morton. It is difficult to say whether he is perpetrating a clumsy joke, or indulging in a malicious insinuation. John Billington was hanged at Plymouth in September, 1630, being apparently the second person so executed in what is now Massachusetts, the first having been executed at Weymouth during the winter of 1622-3. (Infra, *108-10.) The man shot by Billington, and for whose murder he was hung, was John New-comin (Bradford, p. 277), whence Morton’s play upon the name. Billington had two sons, but he was by no means “beloved.” As Bradford, writing about him as early as 1625, said, “he is a knave,” adding prophetically “and so will live and die.” (Savage’s Winthrop, vol. i. p. *36). Why Morton should have called him “Ould Woodman” is not clear. From his immediately going on to talk of the “woodden prospect,” and the wish of its author to secure for himself a monopoly of the Richmond Island whetstones, which “Ould Woodman labored to get a patent of,” it would seem as if he had intended to convey the idea that William Wood, the author of the New England’s Prospect, was one of the “many sonnes” of “Old Woodman,” who had been hanged at Plymouth. That such was Morton’s intention, however, is not clear. The passage is muddled, but not necessarily malicious.
[388] The words quoted are not Ovid’s, but Virgil’s. Eclogues, viii. 43.
[390] Josselyn, in his Two Voyages (p. 202), speaks of the “excellent whetstones” then (1670) found at Richmond Island.
“There is a species of slate quite abundant on Richmond’s Island, and some other Islands in Casco Bay, which has been used for oil-stones. Josselyn, in his Voyages, says that ‘tables of slate could be got out long enough for a dozen men to sit at.’” See a communication on this passage of the New Canaan, signed J. P. B., in the Portland Press of January 2, 1883. Professor Shaler adds: “It is interesting to note the fact that Morton saw that whetstones could be made the basis for trade. Stones suitable for this purpose are rare in Europe, and to-day a New Hampshire company ships large quantities to Europe and even to Australia.”
[391] Richmond Island lies directly south-east of Cape Elizabeth and close to it. From what Morton says in the next chapter and elsewhere (infra, *149), it would seem that before his arrest by Standish in June, 1628,—that is, in the summer of 1627,—he had a fur station on the coast of Maine. (Supra, 23.) Winthrop, writing under date of October 22, 1631, mentions the murder of “Walter Bagnall, called Great Watt, and one John P—— who kept with him,” by the Indians at Richmond Island. He adds: “This Bagnall was sometimes servant to one in the bay, and these three years had dwelt alone in the said isle, and had gotten about £400 most in goods. He was a wicked fellow, and had much wronged the Indians.” (Winthrop, vol. i. p. *63). Bagnall would, from this, appear to have been one of Morton’s servants at Mount Wollaston, as he alone in “the bay,” at that time, had any number of servants, or was engaged in trade on the Maine coast. As Bagnall was killed in 1631, and had then lived alone at Richmond Island three years, he seems to have taken up his abode there in 1628, the time of the breaking up of the company at Mount Wollaston by Standish and Endicott, and the settlement at Richmond Island was thus the Maine offshoot of that at Merry-mount. Bagnall was probably that one of Morton’s servants who, he says, was reputed, when he died, to have made a thousand pounds in the fur trade in five years, “whatsoever became of it.” (Supra, *78). Morton’s expression here of “five years” agrees with Winthrop’s “three years,” and confirms this surmise. Bagnall had died in 1631. Morton had gotten control at Mount Wollaston in 1626. (Supra, 15.) Bagnall had remained there as his servant two years, until 1628; then had been frightened away and gone to Richmond Island, where he had lived three years more, as Winthrop says,—making in all Morton’s five years. In his phrase “whatsoever became of it” Morton characteristically throws out an insinuation in regard to Bagnall’s possessions. He probably meant to imply some underhand proceeding to get hold of them on the part of the Massachusetts Bay people. Recently a theory has been advanced in the Maine press, that Bagnall was an Episcopalian, and competitor in trade of the Massachusetts Company; and that Winthrop and his associates, not being able otherwise to get rid of him, compassed his death by indirect means. (See a letter of S. P. Mayberry in Portland Press of Jan. 9, 1883.) Winthrop says that most of the possessions in question were in goods. A portion would naturally be in the form of money, and it was left for the present generation to form a most plausible surmise as to “whatsoever became” of some of this money. On May 11, 1855, an old stone pot was turned up by the ploughshare, on Richmond Island, containing fifty-two coins; and Mr. Willis, the historian of Portland, then took occasion, in a letter to the Massachusetts Historical Society (Proceedings, May 1857, pp. 183-8), to “express the belief that the money [was] connected with the fate of Walter Bagnall, who was killed by Sagamore Squidraket and his party, Oct. 3, 1631.” There was nothing to show that any of the coins were of a later date than 1631. A patent for Richmond Island, together with fifteen hundred acres on the main land, was issued to Bagnall by the Council for New England, Dec. 2, 1631, just three months after his death. (Records of the Council, pp. 51-2.) Morton was then in England, and unquestionably in communication with Gorges. (Supra, 49.)