Boston Harbor

“ The cordon of soldiers drew across the wharf and presented arms as their commanding officer came ashore, and the stars and stripes rose at the stern of the vessel, and she forged out toward the blue rim of the sea that is visible, even from the wharves, in Boston harbor. ”

“ June came; the farewells were said, we were railroaded to Boston, embarked on the Cunard steamship Niagara, Captain Leitch, and steamed out of Boston Harbor on a day of cloudlessness and calm. Incoming vessels, drifting in the smoothness, saluted us with their flags, and the idle seamen stared at us, leaning over their bulwarks. The last of the low headlands grew dim and vanished in the golden haze of the afternoon. "Go away, tiresome old land!" ”

“ It was Governor Winthrop who put into one of his official messages this chunk of wisdom: "The best part of a community is always the least, and of that part the wiser are still less." Anterior to the Revolution, Boston was the largest and most important American city, then having twenty-five thousand inhabitants.
Boston Harbor covers about seventy-five square miles, having various arms, such as South Boston Bay and Dorchester Bay, and the estuaries of the Charles, Mystic and Neponset Rivers, which enlarge the landing-spaces. ”

“ Every school child knows the answer by heart.
"I know," said John Adams, "that Great Britain has determined on her system, and that very fact determines me on mine. You know I have been constant and uniform in opposition to her measures; the die is now cast; I have passed the Rubicon; to swim or sink, live or die, survive or perish with my country, is my unalterable determination."
Meantime, on June 1st, the blockade of Boston Harbor was proclaimed, and the ruin and starvation of the city zealously undertaken. "I'll put Boston seventeen miles from the sea!" ”

“ On Sunday, the 17th of July, 1605, they left Boston harbor, threading their way among the islands, passing leisurely along the south shore, rounding Point Allerton on the peninsula of Nantasket, gliding along near Cohasset and Scituate, and finally cast anchor at Brant Point, upon the southern borders of Marshfield. When they left the harbor of Boston, the islands and mainland were swarming with the native population. The Indians were, naturally enough, intensely interested in this visit of the little French barque. It may have been the first that had ever made its appearance in the bay. ”

“ On the 1st of June, 1774, by order of Parliament and the King, Boston Harbor was closed and possessed by ships of the British navy. Nothing could enter or leave the port: wood as fuel could not be brought from the islands, or merchandise or lumber removed from wharf to wharf by water; nothing whatever could be water borne within a circle of sixty miles, either to arrive or depart. At the same time British troops held the town; and the government, such as it was, was removed to Salem, where the General Court reassembled on the 7th of June. ”

“ And the ship and the brig sailed down the harbor together before a fair wind. A fair wind is a wind that blows about the way the vessel is going. But the Augusta Ramsay was just ahead, going down the harbor, for the wharf that she started from was a little nearer to the channel than Captain Jonathan's and Captain Jacob's wharf; and the channel that led out of Boston Harbor was even more crooked and narrow than it is now. So the Industry couldn't pass the Augusta Ramsay, while they were in the channel and setting all those many sails, and Captain Sol didn't try it. ”

“ The trip to Nantasket from Boston by boat on a summer day is most delightful, affording a sail of an hour among the most interesting objects of Boston harbor. The point of departure is at Rowe's wharf, near the foot of Broad street, where the passenger steps on board one of the well-equipped steamers of the Boston and Hingham Steamboat Company. ”

“ At the inward, western extremity of the harbor is the pear-shaped Shawmut peninsula of Boston, having water ways almost all around it. Upon the one side is South Boston and upon the other Charlestown, the comparatively narrow intervening water courses of Fort Point Channel and Charles River being in parts nearly roofed over with bridges, that grudgingly open their draws to let through the vessels laden with lumber and coal. To the northeast, upon another peninsula, which formerly was an island, is East Boston, having Chelsea beyond to the northward. ”

“ All Boston knew we were going, and a large number of people were out upon the piers to see us start. So we ran up the Stars and Stripes to our peak, and gave a rousing salute with our guns, as we moved majestically down the harbor. We were soon out of it, and "the world was all before us," our path to choose. Taking the line of the southeast, we got all of the gale into our bellying sails, and bowled along gleefully, with a good lookout at the mast-head, to spy a prize, or sing out, if a cruiser hove in sight.
How could the Queer Fish even start to sea without something funny happening? ”

“ Its northern shore is rocky, the southern marshy and sandy, and both are irregular and indented by numerous large and small bays, forming the harbors of Gloucester, Salem, Marblehead, Lynn, and Boston. The bay contains a number of islands along the shores, especially in the entrance to Boston Harbor. ”

“ The first act was the Boston Port Bill. It closed the port to all commerce until the East India Company should be paid for its tea, and the king satisfied that the town was repentant. Nothing except food and fuel was to be brought to the town in boats; in fact, as Lord North promised the Commons, Boston was to be removed seventeen miles from the ocean. For Salem was made the port of entry, and there the governor and the collector, the surveyor and the comptroller, and all underlings were to go. It was planned to station war-ships in Boston Harbor to enforce the law. ”

“ Soundings—Sights from Home—Boston Harbor—Leaving the Ship Friday, Sept. 16th. Lat. 38 degrees N., long. 69 degrees 00′ W. A fine south-west wind; every hour carrying us nearer in toward land. All hands on deck at the dog watch, and nothing talked about, but our getting in; where we should make the land; whether we should arrive before Sunday; going to church; how Boston would look; friends; wages paid;—and the like. Every one was in the best of spirits ”

“ They’ve telegraphed me that up in Boston Harbor there won’t be a steamer leave the harbor to-day––it’s as stormy as that. There are two big ocean liners––and we’ve got word that they won’t leave––won’t dare to leave––not a steamer of any kind will leave Boston Harbor to-day. And outside a heavy sea running––with the wind fifty-four miles an hour, the weather bureau says. Fifty-four miles an hour. That’s not street corner talk––it’s official. And–––”
“Divil take it, does being official make it blow any harder?” asked O’Donnell.
“And I know the way you fishermen will try to carry on. ”

“ Excepting the medical profession, which represented nearly all scientific activity, hardly a man in Boston got his living either by science or art. When in the year 1793 the directors of the new Middlesex Canal Corporation, wishing to bring the Merrimac River to Boston Harbor, required a survey of an easy route not thirty miles long, they could find no competent civil engineer in Boston, and sent to Philadelphia for an Englishman named Weston, engaged on the Delaware and Schuylkill Canal. ”

“ Jim can tow the raft over to the bank, and those of you who are colonists must hurry across the bridge to the other side. We British will stay here and pile up the cargo of tea and sail the raft across the creek.
“When we sail into Boston harbor you must try to keep us out, and that is the way the fight will begin. Whichever side wins can take the raft, and cargo and sail it wherever they like,” explained George. ”

“ You take it for granted that I have particular intelligence of everything from others, but I have not. If any one wants a vote for a commission he vouchsafes me a letter, but tells me very little news. I have more particulars from you than any one else. Pray keep me constantly informed what ships are in the harbor and what fortifications [167] are going on. I am quite impatient to hear of more vigorous measures for fortifying Boston harbor: Not a moment should be neglected. Every man ought to go down, as they did after the battle of Lexington, and work until it is done. ”

“ And if we’re going back, we’d better be doing it. Our best port would be Hull, but I don’t like to look for it after dark. Come to think of it, I don’t know that I want to fuss around Boston Harbor at this time of night. Maybe, after all, we’d better put back to Marblehead or Lynn. Where’s that chart, Bob?”
It was found and spread out on the cabin roof. Tom 67 held the lantern and Nelson and Bob studied it for a moment.
“I think the best thing to do,” said Bob finally, “is to keep on for Cohasset. It isn’t much farther, and looks like an easy harbor.” ”

“ There are three vessels come into Boston harbor that have been out whaling and sealing in the South Seas for three or four years, and your son Matthew's name is down on the list of the crew.' 'I tell ye,' says gran'ther, 'I took that paper, and I got on my horse and put for home, and your grandmother she hailed me, and she said, "You've heard, haven't you?" ”

“ There was not a finer tavern than ours to the north of Boston, or better dressed men frequenting it. Men said in those days that we would be a great seaport; that the world would look more and more to that northern Massachusetts river mouth. They had spoken thus of many other harbor towns in the centuries that men have gone down to the sea. I think they have been wrong almost as often as they had predicted. The ships have ceased to sail over the bar. No one heeds the rotting planking of the wharves. ”

“ In five years there was a fleet of fifty fishing vessels. Ten years later we have note of ten foreign vessels in the harbor in a single week. And to-day, if the Pilgrim man and maid whom we joined at the beginning of our reminiscences could gaze out over the harbor, they would see it as full of masts as a cornfield is of stalks. Every kind of boat finds its way in and out; and not only pleasure craft: Plymouth Harbor is second only to Boston among the Massachusetts ports of entry, receiving annual foreign imports valued at over $7,000,000. ”

“ The seashore is a black, craggy lava rock, on which the surf is always beautifully dashing. The prospect through some of the streets is terminated by columns of white spray perpetually flying into the air, as the city is built directly on the open sea, and has no harbor except an artificial dock, about as large as the space between two of the common wharves in Boston. The soil of all the neighborhood is black, hard lava, which looks like cast iron; notwithstanding which the country is most beautiful, abounding in gardens, orchards, olive-groves, and everything rich and ornamental. ”

“ But we have lost nothing? Have we not? What about Grand Manan and Moose Island and the fisheries and our West Indian commerce?" So severely did Boston suffer that there were sixty vessels captured at the entrance to the harbor by one small fishing smack of Liverpool, Nova Scotia, cruising in Massachusetts Bay. ”

“ Boston capitalists are said to stand ready to advance the money for the railroad, but where, in the absence of State Government, to get the authority to build it, is the question; and General Gillmore tells me he was appealed to, the other day, to know if he couldn’t declare it a military necessity.
That these glowing anticipations of Port Royal greatness will be realized, at least in part, is unquestionable. The harbor is one of the very finest on the coast—incomparably superior to either Charleston or Savannah. ”

“ We could now still proceed; and we laid our course northwest to Boston. We arrived at the entrance of the harbor at noon, where we found a considerable rolling sea caused by the ebb tide and wind being against each other. There are about thirty islands here, not large ones, through which we sailed, and reached Boston at four o'clock in the afternoon, our captain running with his yacht quite up to his house in the Milk-ditch. [402]
The Lord be praised, who has continued in such a fatherly manner to conduct us, and given us so many proofs of His care over us ”

“ Boston is a second rate city despite all the efforts of the city planners only because its harbor is less efficient than New York's harbor and because Boston is not handily located geographically for the rest of the country. Even though Boston is closer to Europe than New York, it is cheaper to ship the goods a little farther by water, for they've got to be transshipped anyway, somewhere. For inland cities, both Detroit and Chicago are great because of their location ”

“ Everybody prayed and hoped. Firing was heard, but at such a distance from the harbor nothing could be decided.
The frontier losses had been depressing in the extreme. Boston had hung her flags at half-mast for the brave dead. But suddenly a report came that the Constitution had been victorious, and that the Guerriere after having been disabled beyond any power of restoration, had been sent to a watery grave. ”

“ The peninsula was a point of land projected into the harbor, with a narrow neck connecting it with the mainland, and another narrow [Pg 14] place in the vicinity of what is now Dock Square, which was once quite open to the harbor. In length from the south line at Roxbury, it was something less than three miles (two and three-fourths and two hundred and thirty-eight yards) . Its width at the widest point, between Wheelwright’s wharf (afterwards Rowe’s, and now Foster’s) to Barton’s Point, Leverett Street, was something over one mile, and its circumference about four miles. ”