Canada -- Description and travel; United States -- Description and travel
The region beyond Lynn and Nahant is the famous Massachusetts "North
Shore," stretching to the extremity of Cape Ann, a domain of villas
and summer homes, pleasant sea-beaches, and brisk towns with
interesting past history, now devoted largely to shoemaking and the
fisheries. From Boston State House to the extremity of the Cape at
Halibut Point, or the Land's End, is thirty-one miles, and Lucy Larcom
thus attractively describes the route along the shore:
"You may ride in an hour or two, if you will,
From Halibut Point to Beacon Hill,
With the sea beside you all the way,
Through pleasant places that skirt the bay;
By Gloucester harbor and Beverley beach,
Salem's old steeples, Nahant's long reach,
Blue-bordered Swampscott, and Chelsea's wide
Marshes laid bare to the drenching tide,
With a glimpse of Saugus' spire in the west,
And Malden Hills in their dreamy rest."
Saugus, Lynn, Nahant, Swampscott, Salem and Marblehead were originally
the Indian domains of Saugus, Naumkeag and Massabequash. Beyond Lynn,
most of the coast has undergone a modern evolution from fishery
stations to smart summer resorts; and here, around the swamps and
marshes, abounding crags protrude, with many fine villas in another
fashionable Boston suburb, Swampscott, as populous and almost as
famous as Nahant, with huge hotels down by the seaside. Swampscott
merges into Clifton, and then an uneven backbone of granite covering
about six square miles is thrust into the ocean in the direction of
Cape Ann, and is hedged about with rocky islets. On one side this
granite peninsula forms Salem harbor, while on the other a miniature
haven is made by a craggy appendage to the southeastward, attached to
the main peninsula by a ligature of sand and shingle. The quaint old
town of Marblehead occupies most of the surface, and the appendage is
the modern yachtsmen's headquarters, Marblehead Neck. This is a very
ancient place, dating back to the early seventeenth century, and was
once pre-eminently nautical and the second port in Massachusetts; but
the sailors and fishermen are missing, excepting those who man the
summer yacht fleets, and the people, like so many other Massachusetts
communities, have gone largely into shoemaking, the big shoe-factories
being scattered about. The crooked narrow streets run in all
directions among and over the rocks, which appear everywhere and have
gained the mastery. When George Whitefield, the preacher, visited
Marblehead, he gazed in astonishment upon these superabundant rocks,
and asked, in surprise, "Where do they bury their dead?" Out on the
headland is the superannuated little Fort Sewall, once protecting the
port and commanding both harbors, and though the walls are decaying,
it is preserved as a memento of the past. Fine villas are all about,
and the numerous islands add picturesqueness to the sea-view. Elbridge
Gerry, of "Gerrymander" fame, was a native of Marblehead, and its
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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