Jeremy Belknap, D.D
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PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD AND A WEEK: 1 THE REVEREND JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY 1. He is credited with coining the piece of wisdom “Old habits die hard.” HDT WHAT? INDEX THE REV. JEREMY BELKNAP JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK A WEEK: Meanwhile, having passed the Horseshoe Interval in Tyngsborough, where the river makes a sudden bend to the northwest, — for our reflections have anticipated our progress somewhat, — we were advancing farther into the country and into the day, which last proved almost as golden as the preceding, though the slight bustle and activity of the Monday seemed to penetrate even to this scenery. Now and then we had to muster all our energy to get round a point, where the river broke rippling over rocks, and the maples trailed their branches in the stream, but there was generally a backwater or eddy on the side, of which we took advantage. The river was here about forty rods wide and fifteen feet deep. Occasionally one ran along the shore, examining the country, and visiting the nearest farm-houses, while the other followed the windings of the stream alone, to meet his companion at some distant point, and hear the report of his adventures; how the farmer praised the coolness of his well, and his wife offered the stranger a draught of milk, or the children quarrelled for the only transparency in the window that they might get sight of the man at the well. For though the country seemed so new, and no house was observed by us, shut in between the banks that sunny day, we did not have to travel far to find where men inhabited, like wild bees, and had sunk wells in the loose sand and loam of the Merrimack. There dwelt the subject of the Hebrew scriptures, and the Esprit des Lois, where a thin vaporous smoke curled up through the noon. All that is told of mankind, of the inhabitants of the Upper Nile, and the Sunderbunds, and Timbuctoo, and the Orinoko, was experience here. Every race and class of men was represented. According to Belknap, the historian BELKNAP of New Hampshire, who wrote sixty years ago, here too, perchance, dwelt “new lights,” and free thinking men even then. “The people in general throughout the State,” it is written, “are professors of the Christian religion in some form or other. There is, however, a sort of wise men who pretend to reject it; but they have not yet been able to substitute a better in its place.” HDT WHAT? INDEX THE REV. JEREMY BELKNAP JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK CAPE COD: Cape Cod is commonly said to have been discovered in 1602. PEOPLE OF We will consider at length under what circumstances, and with what CAPE COD observation and expectations, the first Englishmen whom history clearly discerns approached the coast of New England. According to the accounts of Archer and Brereton (both of whom accompanied JOHN BRERETON Gosnold), on the 26th of March, 1602, old style, Captain Bartholomew Gosnold set sail from Falmouth, England, for the North Part of Virginia, in a small bark called the Concord, they being in all, says one account, “thirty-two persons, whereof eight mariners and sailors, twelve purposing upon the discovery to return with the ship for England, the rest remain there for population.” This is regarded as “the first attempt of the English to make a settlement within the limits of New England.” Pursuing a new and a shorter course than the usual one by the Canaries, “the 14th of April following” they “had sight of Saint Mary’s, an island of the Azores.” As their sailors were few and “none of the best,” (I use their own phrases,) and they were “going upon an unknown coast,” they were not “over- bold to stand in with the shore but in open weather”; so they made their first discovery of land with the lead. The 23d of April the ocean appeared yellow, but on taking up some of the water in a bucket, “it altered not either in color or taste from the sea azure.” The 7th of May they saw divers birds whose names they knew, and many others in their “English tongue of no name.” The 8th of May “the water changed to a yellowish green, where at seventy fathoms” they “had ground.” The 9th, they had upon their lead “many glittering stones,” — “which might promise some mineral matter in the bottom.” The 10th, they were over a bank which they thought to be near the western end of St. John’s Island, and saw schools of fish. The 12th, they say, “continually passed fleeting by us sea- oare, which seemed to have their movable course towards the northeast.” On the 13th, they observed “great beds of weeds, much wood, and divers things else floating by,” and “had smelling of the shore much as from the southern Cape and Andalusia in Spain.” On Friday, the 14th, early in the morning they descried land on the north, in the latitude of forty-three degrees, apparently some part of the coast of Maine. Williamson (HISTORY OF MAINE) says it certainly could not have been south of the central Isle of Shoals. Belknap inclines to think it the south side of Cape Ann. Standing fair along BELKNAP by the shore, about twelve o’clock the same day, they came to anchor and were visited by eight savages, who came off to them “in a Biscay shallop, with sail and oars,” — “an iron grapple, and a kettle of copper.” These they at first mistook for “Christians distressed.” One of them was “apparelled with a waistcoat and breeches of black serge, made after our sea-fashion, hoes and shoes on his feet; all the rest (saving one that had a pair of breeches of blue cloth) were naked.” They appeared to have had dealings with “some Basques of St. John de Luz, and to understand much more than we,” say the English, “for want of language, could comprehend.” But they soon “set sail westward, leaving them and their coast.” (This was a remarkable discovery for discoverers.) HDT WHAT? INDEX THE REV. JEREMY BELKNAP JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1744 June 4, Monday (Old Style): Jeremy Belknap was born in Boston. His father was a tanner. He would be educated at the Boston Latin School and then Harvard College. NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT The Rev. Jeremy Belknap “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX THE REV. JEREMY BELKNAP JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1762 Elbridge Gerry graduated from Harvard College and joined his father and two brothers in the family business, exporting dried cod to Barbados (as slave food) and to Spain. Jeremy Belknap graduated from Harvard and would become a teacher and then a minister/historian. John Swift of Acton also graduated from Harvard and would study medicine. He would become the 1st physician to establish a practice in Acton: John Swift, only child of the Rev. John Swift, born 18th of November, 1741, graduated [at Harvard, like his father, in] 1762, and settled as a physician in Acton, where he died of the small-pox about 1775.2 2. Lemuel Shattuck’s 1835 A HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF CONCORD;.... Boston: Russell, Odiorne, and Company; Concord MA: John Stacy (On or about November 11, 1837 Henry Thoreau would indicate a familiarity with the contents of at least pages 2-3 and 6-9 of this historical study.) HDT WHAT? INDEX THE REV. JEREMY BELKNAP JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1764 Jeremy Belknap moved to Portsmouth, New Hampshire to teach school and to study theology under the Reverend Samuel Haven (Harvard College Class of 1749). LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project The Rev. Jeremy Belknap HDT WHAT? INDEX THE REV. JEREMY BELKNAP JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1767 Jeremy Belknap began his ministry in Dover, New Hampshire, where he would spend two decades at the Congregational Church. He married, and purchased a house in Dover. The 1st summer resort in America, the summer home of Royal Governor John Wentworth, was constructed at Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project The Rev. Jeremy Belknap HDT WHAT? INDEX THE REV. JEREMY BELKNAP JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1769 The Reverend Jeremy Belknap began to serve as a secretary to the convention of New Hampshire ministers. This would continue until 1787. THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project The Rev. Jeremy Belknap HDT WHAT? INDEX THE REV. JEREMY BELKNAP JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1772 The Reverend Jeremy Belknap began to write his history of New Hampshire. DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD. The Rev. Jeremy Belknap “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX THE REV.