23 June 1856 – 29 June 1856

To New Bedford with Ricketson. In R.’s mowing, apparently lucerne, out some days. His son Walton showed me one of four perfectly white eggs taken from a hole in an apple tree eight feet from ground. I examined the hole. He had seen a bluebird there, and I saw a blue feather in it and apparently a bluebird’s nest. Were not these the eggs of a downy woodpecker laid in a bluebird’s nest? ‘They were all gone now. Bay-wings sang morning and evening about R.’s house, often sitting on a bean-pole and dropping down and running and singing on the bare ground amid the pota- toes. Its note somewhat like Come, here here, there there, — quick quick quick (fast), — or I’m gone. Prinos levigatus common and just begun to bloom behind R.’s house.

To Sassacowen Pond and to Long Pond. Common yellow thistle abundant about R.’s; open a good while. Maryland yellow-throats very common in bushes behind his house; nest with young. American holly now in prime. The light-colored masses of moun- tain laurel were visible across Sassacowen. A kingbird’s nest just completed in an apple tree. - Lunched by the spring on the Brady farm in Free- town, and there it occurred to me how to get clear water from a spring when the surface is covered with dust or insects. ‘Thrust your dipper down deep in the middle of the spring and lift it up quickly straight and square. This will heap up the water in the middle so that the scum will run off. We were surrounded by whiteweed. The week before roa I had seen it equally abundant in Worcester (in many fields the flowers placed in one plane would more than cover the surface), and here as there each flower had a dark ring of small black insects on its disk. Think of the many dense white fields between here and there, aye and for a thousand miles around, and then calculate the amount of insect life of one obscure species! Went off to Nelson’s Island (now Briggs’s) in Long Pond by a long, very narrow bar (fifty rods as I paced it), in some places the water over shoes and the sand com- monly only three or four feet wide. ‘This is a noble island, maybe of eight or ten acres, some thirty feet high and just enough wooded, with grass ground and grassy hollows. There was a beech wood at the west end, where R.’s son Walton found an arrowhead when they were here before, and the hemlocks resounded with the note of the tweezer-bird (Sylvia Americana). ‘There were many ephemerz half dead on the bushes. R. dreams of re- siding here.

An abundance of the handsome corn- cockle (Lychnis), apparently in prime, in midst of a rye-field, together with morning-glories by the Acushnet shore. Black-grass in bloom, partly done. A kind of rush (?) with terete leaves and a long spike of flowers, one to two feet high, somewhat like a loose plantain spike. It inclines to grow in circles a foot or more in diameter. Seaside plantain and rosemary, not long out. Veronica arvensis one foot high (!) on the shore there. Spergularia rubra var. marina. P. M.— Called at Thomas A. Greene’s in New Bedford, said to be best acquainted with the botany of this vicinity (also acquainted with shells, and some- what with geology). In answer to my question what were the rare or peculiar plants thereabouts, he looked over his botany deliberately and named the Aletris farinosa, or star-grass; the Hydrocotyle vulgaris (prob- ably interrupta of Gray), which he thought was now gone; Proserpinaca pectinacea, at the shallow pond in Westport where I went last fall with Ricketson; Panazx trifolium. ‘That chenopodium-like plant on the salt-marsh shore, with hastate leaves, mealy under sides, is Atriplex patula, not yet out. Brewer, in a communication to Audubon (as I read in his hundred(? )-dollar edition), makes two kinds of song sparrows, and says that Audubon has represented one, the most common about houses, with a spot in the centre of the breast, and Wilson the other, more uni- versally spotted on the breast. The latter’s nest will be two feet high in a bush and sometimes covered over and with an arched entrance and with six eggs (while the other has not more than five), larger and less pointed than the former’s and apparently almost wholly rusty- brown. This builds further from houses.’

Thursday. In Loudon’s “ Encyclopedia of Agriculture” far (of the Romans) is translated Indian corn or zea! . According to Audubon’s and Wilson’s plates, the Fringilla passerina has a for the most part clear yel- lowish-white breast (vide May 28th), but the Savannah sparrow no conspicuous yellow on shoulder, a yellow brow, and white crown line. Rode to Sconticut Neck or Point in Fair Haven, five or six miles, and saw, apparently, the F’. savanna near their nests (my seringo note), restlessly flitting about me from rock to rock within a rod. Distinctly yellow-browed and spotted breast, not like plate of passerina. Audubon says that the eggs of the Savannah sparrow “are of a pale bluish color, softly mottled with purplish brown,” and those of the yellow-winged sparrow are “of a dingy white, sprinkled with brown spots.” The former is apparently my seringo’s egg of May 28th. Is not Nuttall mistaken when he describes the notes of the Savannah sparrow in March in Georgia as “very long, piping, and ele- vated” and says that they sometimes have a note like a cricket? Audubon refers to the last note only. Saw a farmer on the Neck with one of Palmer’s patent wooden legs. He went but little lame and said that -he did his own mowing and most of his ordinary farm work, though plowing in the present state of his limb, which had not yet healed, wrenched him some. He had lost a leg just below the knee, and was supported mainly on his thigh above the stump. The older houses about New Bedford, as on this neck (and one a hundred years old is an old one), have commonly stone chimneys, which are agreeable to my eye and built with more taste than brick ordi- narily, 7. e. more elaborately. Yet they are now pulled down and brick substituted, or else concealed with a coat of mortar! This neck, like the New Bedford country generally, is very flat to my eye, even as farinland as Middleborough. When R. decided to take another road home from the latter place, because it was less hilly, I said I had not observed a hill in all our ride. I found on the rocky and rather desolate extremity of this point the common Oxalis struta on the seashore, abundant, going to seed; apparently carrots (?) naturalized; atriplex not yet out; beach pea, still out and going to seed. An abundance of the small iris in the field near by. It was thick weather, after a drizzling forenoon, and we could just see across Buzzard’s Bay from the point to Falmouth. Matta- poisett was the point next above on this side. I had been expecting to find the aletris about New Bedford, and when taking our luncheon on this neck what should I see rising above the luncheon-box, between me and R., but what I knew must be the Aletris farinosa; not yet out, but one near by would open apparently in two or three days. I was struck by the number of quails thereabouts, and elsewhere in this vicinity. They keep up an inces- sant whistling these days, as also about R.’s house, within a stone’s throw of it; and I several times saw them in the middle of the road in front of his house, in coveys, and on the road fence there. Also saw cow- birds in flocks on the road there. Around R.’s shanty was heard an incessant whistling of quails, and, morning and evening, the strain of the bay-wing, and some rather feeble purple finches, young males without the purple, dark-colored. Talked with a farmer by name of Slocum, hoeing on the Neck, a rather dull and countrified fellow for our neighborhood, I should have said. Asked him, by chance, about getting to Cuttyhunk, if it was safe to cross the bay in a whale-boat. Yes, or “ Ye-e-s,” his boat was only some twelve feet long and went over two or three times a year. His relations lived there. Perhaps he understood navigating here. Well, he ’d been round the world considerably. “Have you been master of a whaler?” Yes; he ’d been to most all parts of the world. Heard of, and sought out, the hut of Martha Simons, the only pure-blooded Indian left about New Bedford. She lives alone on the narrowest point of the Neck, near the shore, in sight of New Bedford. Her hut stands some twenty-five rods from the road on a small tract of Indian land, now wholly hers. It was formerly ex- changed by a white man for some better land, then occu- pied by Indians, at Westport, which he wanted. So said a Quaker minister, her neighbor. The squaw was not at home when we first called. It was a little hut not so big as mine. Vide sketch by R., with the bay not far behind it. No garden; only some lettuce amid the thin grass in front, and a great white pile of clam and quahog shells one side. She ere long came in from the seaside, and we called again. We knocked and walked in, and she asked us to sit down. She had half an acre of the real tawny Indian face, broad with high cheek-bones, black eyes, and straight hair, originally black but now a little gray, parted in the middle. Her hands were sev- eral shades darker than her face. She had a peculiarly vacant expression, perhaps characteristic of the Indian, and answered our questions listlessly, without being interested or implicated, mostly in monosyllables, as if hardly present there. To judge from her physiognomy, she might have been King Philip’s own daughter. Yet she could not speak a word of Indian, and knew nothing of her race. Said she had lived with the whites, gone out to service to them when seven years old. Had lived part of her life at Squaw Betty’s Neck, Assawamp- sett Pond. Did she know Sampson’s? She ’d ought to; she ’d done work enough there. She said she was sixty years old, but was probably nearer seventy. She sat with her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands and that peculiar vacant stare, perhaps looking out the win- dow between us, not repelling us in the least, but per- fectly indifferent to our presence. She was born on that spot. Her grandfather also lived on the same spot, though not in the same house. He was the last of her race who could speak Indian. She had heard him pray in Indian, but could only under- stand “Jesus Christ.” Her only companion was a miserable tortoise-shell kitten which took no notice of us. She had a stone chimney, a small cooking-stove without fore legs, set up on bricks within it, and a bed covered with dirty bed-clothes. Said she hired out her field as pasture; better for her than to cultivate it. There were two young heifers in it. The question she answered with most interest was, “What do you call that plant?” and I reached her the aletris from my hat. She took it, looked at it a moment, and said, “That ’s husk-root. It’s good to put into bitters for a weak stomach.” The last year’s light-colored and withered leaves surround the present green star like a husk. This must be the origin of the name. Its root is described as intensely bitter. I ought to have had my hat full of plants. A conceited old Quaker minister, her neighbor, told me with a sanctified air, “I think that the Indians were human beings; dost thee not think so?” He only. convinced me of his doubt and narrowness.

P. M. — Went with R. and his boys in the Steamer Eagle’s Wing, with a crowd and band of music, to the northeast end of Naushon, “ Woods Hole,” some fifteen miles from New Bedford; about two hours going. Talked with a Mr. Congdon, cashier of a bank and a vegetarian. Saw all the Elizabeth Isles, going and coming. ‘They are mostly bare, except the east end of Naushon. This island is some seven miles long, by one to two wide. I had some two and a half hours there. I was surprised to find such a noble primitive wood, chiefly beech, such as the English poets celebrate, and oak (black oak, I think), large and spreading like pas- ture oaks with us, though in a wood. The ground under the beeches was covered with the withered leaves and peculiarly free from vegetation. On the edge of a swamp I saw great tupelos running up particularly tall, without lower branches, two or three feet in diameter, with a rough light-colored bark. Noticed a thorn, perhaps cockspur, with an undivided leaf, gooseberries, stag- horn sumach, not in bloom. Most of the passengers expected to find strawberries. Saw a common wild grape-vine running over a beech, which was apparently flattened out by it, which vine measured, at six feet from ground, twenty-three inches in circumference. It was large below, where it had already forked. At five feet from ground it divided into three great branches. It did not rise directly, but with a great half-spiral sweep or anguish. No sight could be more primeval. It was partly or chiefly dead. ‘This was in the midst of the woods, by a path-side. Just beyond we started up two deer. I suppose the white gull I saw and heard (somewhat like the sound of the small mackerel gull of the Cape) at Naushon was the Sterna hirundo, or great tern, with long forked tail. A Mr. Wall, artist, at New Bedford, told me of a high pine wood or swamp some miles down Naushon with “ storks’ nests” (!) in the pines. Were they blue herons? Naushon is said to be part of the township of Chil- mark, Martha’s Vineyard, and to belong to Mr. Swain of New Bedford and Forbes of Boston; some say to Swain alone. Walton Ricketson went down in a schooner the next day again, and found the pond near Swain’s well stocked with pickerel, of which he caught many in a few hours. Returning, I caught sight of Gay Head and its light- house with my glass, between Pasque and Nashawena. This lighthouse, according to Congdon, who says he measured it trigonometrically, is not more than one hundred and fifty feet above the sea. The passages be- tween the islands are called “holes.”’ Quick’s is one. Cuttyhunk was very plain. Congdon said that he was there about thirty years ago, but could see no traces of Gosnold there, and does not believe there are any. Captain Slocum (of the day before), who has relations there, never saw any. Mr. Wall said that there was one old gentleman still alive, a Mr. Howland, who went on there with Belknap, who could tell all about it. The island is cultivated.

Lamium amplexicaule still out behind R.:’s shanty. I picked up two arrowheads amid oyster and clam shells by a rock at the head of the creek opposite R.’s. One was of peculiar form, quite blunt and small, thus: of quartz, apparently to knock over small game without breaking the skin. ( P. M.—I paddled up the Acushnet, about a mile above the paper-mill, as far as the ruined mill, in Wal- ton’s skiff with Arthur R. (Walton was named from I. Walton, the angler, and Arthur from Dana’s hero in “Sun not set yet,” etc.) I never saw such an abundance of peltandra as borders that sluggish and narrow stream, in bunches alternating with pickerel-weed; leaves of very various forms and sizes.

Sunday. P. M.— Bathed in the creek, which swarms with terrapins, as the boys called them. I find no account of them in Storer!! They put their heads out and floated about just like the Emys pvcta, and often approached and played (?) with each other. Some were apparently seven or eight inches long and of a yellowish color. A man by the riverside told us that he had two young ducks which he let out to seek their food along the riverside at low tide that morning. At length he noticed that one remained stationary amid the grass or salt weeds and something prevented its follow- ing the other. He went to its rescue and found its foot shut tightly in a quahog’s shell amid the grass which the tide had left. He took up all together, carried to his house, and his wife opened the shell with a knife, released the duck, and cooked the quahog. Bathed again near Dogfish Bar. It was warm and dirty water, muddy bottom. I probably found an Indian’s bone at Throgg’s Point,’ where their bodies have been dug up.