We Rowed Up Far Enough
Into The Meadows Which Border It To Learn Its Piscatorial History
From A Haymaker On Its Banks.
He told us that the silver eel was
formerly abundant here, and pointed to some sunken creels at its
mouth.
This man's memory and imagination were fertile in
fishermen's tales of floating isles in bottomless ponds, and of
lakes mysteriously stocked with fishes, and would have kept us
till nightfall to listen, but we could not afford to loiter in
this roadstead, and so stood out to our sea again. Though we
never trod in those meadows, but only touched their margin with
our hands, we still retain a pleasant memory of them.
Salmon Brook, whose name is said to be a translation from the
Indian, was a favorite haunt of the aborigines. Here, too, the
first white settlers of Nashua planted, and some dents in the
earth where their houses stood and the wrecks of ancient
apple-trees are still visible. About one mile up this stream
stood the house of old John Lovewell, who was an ensign in the
army of Oliver Cromwell, and the father of "famous Captain
Lovewell." He settled here before 1690, and died about 1754, at
the age of one hundred and twenty years. He is thought to have
been engaged in the famous Narragansett swamp fight, which took
place in 1675, before he came here. The Indians are said to have
spared him in succeeding wars on account of his kindness to them.
Even in 1700 he was so old and gray-headed that his scalp was
worth nothing, since the French Governor offered no bounty for
such.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 170 of 422
Words from 46539 to 46815
of 116321
