In Many Of The
Neighborhoods, Back Of Those Houses Which Present So Respectable An
Aspect, Are Buildings Rising Close To Each Other, Inhabited By The Poorer
Class, Whose Families Are Huddled Together Without Sufficient Space And
Air, And Here It Is That Boston Poverty Hides Itself.
You are more
fortunate on your island, that your population can extend itself
horizontally, instead of heaping itself up, as we have begun to do here."
The first place which we could call pleasant after leaving Boston was
Andover, where Stuart and Woods, now venerable with years, instruct the
young orthodox ministers and missionaries of New England. It is prettily
situated among green declivities. A little beyond, at North Andover, we
came in sight of the roofs and spires of the new city of Lawrence, which
already begin to show proudly on the sandy and sterile banks of the
Merrimac, a rapid and shallow river. A year ago last February, the
building of the city was begun; it has now five or six thousand
inhabitants, and new colonists are daily thronging in. Brick kilns are
smoking all over the country to supply materials for the walls of the
dwellings. The place, I was told, astonishes visitors with its bustle and
confusion. The streets are encumbered with heaps of fresh earth, and
piles of stone, brick, beams, and boards, and people can with difficulty
hear each other speak, for the constant thundering of hammers, and the
shouts of cartmen and wagoners urging their oxen and horses with their
loads through the deep sand of the ways. "Before the last shower," said a
passenger, "you could hardly see the city from this spot, on account of
the cloud of dust that hung perpetually over it."
"Rome," says the old adage, "was not built in a day," but here is a city
which, in respect of its growth, puts Rome to shame. The Romulus of this
new city, who like the Latian of old, gives his name to the community of
which he is the founder, is Mr. Abbot Lawrence, of Boston, a rich
manufacturer, money-making and munificent, and more fortunate in building
cities and endowing schools, than in foretelling political events. He is
the modern Amphion, to the sound of whose music, the pleasant chink of
dollars gathered in many a goodly dividend, all the stones which form the
foundation of this Thebes dance into their places,
"And half the mountain rolls into a wall."
Beyond Lawrence, in the state of New Hampshire, the train stopped a moment
at Exeter, which those who delight in such comparisons might call the Eton
of New England. It is celebrated for its academy, where Bancroft, Everett,
and I know not how many more of the New England scholars and men of
letters, received the first rudiments of their education. It lies in a
gentle depression of the surface of the country, not deep enough to be
called a valley, on the banks of a little stream, and has a pleasant
retired aspect. At Durham, some ten miles further on, we found a long
train of freight-cars crowded with the children of a Sunday-school, just
ready to set out on a pic-nic party, the boys shouting, and the girls, of
whom the number was prodigious, showing us their smiling faces. A few
middle-aged men, and a still greater number of matrons, were dispersed
among them to keep them in order. At Dover, where are several cotton
mills, we saw a similar train, with a still larger crowd, and when we
crossed the boundary of New Hampshire and entered South Berwick in Maine,
we passed through a solitary forest of oaks, where long tables and benches
had been erected for their reception, and the birds were twittering in the
branches over them.
At length the sight of numerous groups gathering blue-berries, in an
extensive tract of shrubby pasture, indicated that we were approaching a
town, and in a few minutes we had arrived at Portland. The conductor, whom
we found intelligent and communicative, recommended that we should take
quarters, during our stay, at a place called the Veranda, or Oak Grove, on
the water, about two miles from the town, and we followed his advice. We
drove through Portland, which is nobly situated on an eminence overlooking
Casco Bay, its maze of channels, and almost innumerable islands, with
their green slopes, cultivated fields, and rocky shores. We passed one
arm of the sea after another on bridges, and at length found ourselves on
a fine bold promontory, between Presumpscot river and the waters of Casco
Bay. Here a house of entertainment has just been opened - the beginning of
a new watering-place, which I am sure will become a favorite one in the
hot months of our summers. The surrounding country is so intersected with
straits, that, let the wind come from what quarter it may, it breathes
cool over the waters; and the tide, rising twelve feet, can not ebb and
flow without pushing forward the air and drawing it back again, and thus
causing a motion of the atmosphere in the stillest weather.
We passed twenty-four hours in this pleasant retreat, among the oaks of
its grove, and along its rocky shores, enjoying the agreeable coolness of
the fresh and bracing atmosphere. To tell the truth we have found it quite
cool enough ever since we reached Boston, five days ago; sometimes, in
fact, a little too cool for the thin garments we are accustomed to wear at
this season. Returning to Portland, we took passage in the steamer
Huntress, for Augusta, up the Kennebeck. I thought to give you, in this
letter, an amount of this part of my journey, but I find I must reserve it
for my next.
Letter XLI.
The Kennebeck.
Keene, New Hampshire, _August 11, 1847_.
We left Portland early in the afternoon, on board the steamer Huntress,
and swept out of the harbor, among the numerous green islands which here
break the swell of the Atlantic, and keep the water almost as smooth as
that of the Hudson.
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