Massachusetts -- Periodicals; New England -- Periodicals
Evidently, Peter was a lover of nature at the sea-side; but to show that
those who sojourned here forty years ago were not unexposed to ridicule,
the following extract is given from a letter written from Hull in 1846:
"The public and private houses at Nantasket are overrun with company,
chiefly from Boston. Some of our fashionable people, as the rich are
vulgarly called, will leave their airy, cool, well-appointed
establishments in Boston, with every luxury the market affords, in the
vain hope of finding comfort in such houses. They will leave their city
palaces, the large and convenient rooms, comfortable bedsteads and
mattresses, and all the delicacies of the season, and submit to being
stowed away on straw-beds or cots, even upon the floor, half-a-dozen in
a small chamber, or four deep in an entry, to be half-starved into the
bargain upon badly cooked fish and other equally cheap commodities, for
the mere sake of being able to think that they are enjoying the
sea-breeze." Had the writer of this satire lived to lodge for a night in
one of the palace hotels which now adorn Nantasket Beach he would have
sung another song.
The peninsula of Hull is graced by three gentle elevations,--Atlantic
Hill, a rocky eminence marking the southern limit of the beach; Sagamore
Hill, a little farther to the north; and Strawberry Hill, about midway
to Point Allerton. The last of these elevations is the most noted of
the three. On its summit is an old barn, which is not only a well-known
landmark for sea-voyagers, but a point of the triangulations of the
official harbor surveys. In 1775 a large barn, containing eighty tons
of hay, was burned on this spot by the Americans, that it might not be
secured by the British. The splendid scene which this fire must have
produced was doubtless applauded with even more enthusiasm than the
great illuminations which are now a part of each season's events at the
beach.
It is said that fierce conflicts among the savages used to often occur
on the plains extending toward Point Allerton, before these parts were
invaded by the white man. The theory has arisen from the finding of
large numbers of skulls, bones, arrows, tomahawks, and other relics in
this locality.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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