Jeremy Belknap, D.D

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. JEREMY BELKNAP JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1775

When, after the battle of Lexington and Concord, some units of the Dover, New Hampshire militia were sent to support the siege of Boston, the Reverend Jeremy Belknap accompanied them as their chaplain. He would remain with the troops during the following winter. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REV. JEREMY BELKNAP JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1779

The Reverend Jeremy Belknap began work on an American biographical dictionary. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REV. JEREMY BELKNAP JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1784

The initial volume of the Reverend Jeremy Belknap, D.D.’s 3-volume THE HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE. COMPREHENDING THE EVENTS OF ONE COMPLETE CENTURY AND SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS FROM THE DISCOVERY OF THE RIVER PASCATAQUA TO THE YEAR ONE THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED AND NINETY. The Reverend was elected to the American Philosophical Society, although initially his historical study would not receive adequate recognition. Eventually, however, the he would be characterized by Alexis de Tocqueville as America’s best native historian. NEW-HAMPSHIRE, I HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REV. JEREMY BELKNAP JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1786

The Reverend Jeremy Belknap was nominated to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Because of this, he would be asked to become the pastor of the Federal Street Church in Boston.

WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF

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

1787

The Reverend Jeremy Belknap became the pastor of the Federal Street Church in Boston.

The Reverend James Freeman was made “Rector, Minister, Priest, Pastor, and Ruling Elder” of Boston’s Stone Chapel.

A group of Episcopal clergymen in the area published a statement protesting “against the aforesaid proceedings, to the end that all those or our communion, wherever disposed, may be cautioned against receiving said Reader or Preacher (Mr. James Freeman) as a Clergyman of our Church, or holding any communion with him as such, and may be induced to look upon his congregation in the light, in which it ought to be looked upon, by all true Episcopalians.” A flurry of letters ensued, many of which were published in the local newspapers. One man even suggested that the “heretics” ought to be burned at the stake, as in the old days. The wardens of Stone Chapel, as well as the majority of the congregation, supported their new pastor in every way they could. Freeman himself kept aloof from the dispute and the controversy gradually subsided. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REV. JEREMY BELKNAP JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1791

The 2d volume of the Reverend Jeremy Belknap, D.D.’s 3-volume THE HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE. COMPREHENDING THE EVENTS OF ONE COMPLETE CENTURY AND SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS FROM THE DISCOVERY OF THE RIVER PASCATAQUA TO THE YEAR ONE THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED AND NINETY. NEW-HAMPSHIRE, I NEW-HAMPSHIRE, II

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

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

January 24, Monday: The Reverend Jeremy Belknap invited 9 friends with interests in local history to meet at his home. They agreed to create a repository for historical records. The result of this would be the Massachusetts Historical Society:

The Formation of Historical Societies

1791 Massachusetts Historical Society

1804 New-York Historical Society

1812 American Antiquarian Society

1820s Maine and Rhode Island Historical Societies

1830s Virginia, Vermont, Connecticut, and Georgia Historical Societies

1840s Maryland Historical Society

1845 New Jersey Historical Society

1849 Minnesota Historical Society

1850s South Carolina Historical Society

1859 Historical Society of the Territory of New Mexico

“The chief practical use of history is to deliver us from plausible historical analogies.” — James Bryce, 1888 HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REV. JEREMY BELKNAP JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

Here is what Henry Thoreau would make of this historical-society phenomenon:

A WEEK: Strictly speaking, the historical societies have not PEOPLE OF recovered one fact from oblivion, but are themselves, instead of the fact, that is lost. The researcher is more memorable than the A WEEK researched. The crowd stood admiring the mist and the dim outlines of the trees seen through it, when one of their number advanced to explore the phenomenon, and with fresh admiration all eyes were turned on his dimly retreating figure. It is astonishing with how little co-operation of the societies the past is remembered. Its story has indeed had another muse than has been assigned it. There is a good instance of the manner in which all history began, in Alwákidis’ Arabian Chronicle: “I was informed by Ahmed Almatin Aljorhami, who had it from Rephâa Ebn Kais Alámiri, who had it from Saiph Ebn Fabalah Alchâtquarmi, who had it from Thabet Ebn Alkamah, who said he was present at the action.” These fathers of history were not anxious to preserve, but to learn the fact; and hence it was not forgotten. Critical acumen is exerted in vain to uncover the past; the past cannot be presented; we cannot know what we are not. But one veil hangs over past, present, and future, and it is the province of the historian to find out, not what was, but what is.

SIMON OCKLEY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REV. JEREMY BELKNAP JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1792

The Reverend Jeremy Belknap, D.D. was made an overseer of Harvard University. In this year, also, the final volume appeared of the his 3-volume THE HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE. COMPREHENDING THE EVENTS OF ONE COMPLETE CENTURY AND SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS FROM THE DISCOVERY OF THE RIVER PASCATAQUA TO THE YEAR ONE THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED AND NINETY. NEW-HAMPSHIRE, I NEW-HAMPSHIRE, II NEW-HAMPSHIRE, III HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REV. JEREMY BELKNAP JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1794

The initial volume of the Reverend Jeremy Belknap, D.D.’s 2-volume AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY: OR, AN HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THOSE PERSONS WHO HAVE BEEN DISTINGUISHED IN AMERICA, AS ADVENTURERS, STATESMEN, PHILOSOPHERS, DIVINES, WARRIORS, AND OTHER REMARKABLE CHARACTERS: COMPREHENDING A RECITAL OF THE EVENTS CONNECTED WITH THEIR LIVES AND ACTIONS (Thomas, Andrews & Penniman; Thomas, Andrews & Butler). AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY, I HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REV. JEREMY BELKNAP JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1798

The final volume of the Reverend Jeremy Belknap, D.D.’s 2-volume AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY: OR, AN HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THOSE PERSONS WHO HAVE BEEN DISTINGUISHED IN AMERICA, AS ADVENTURERS, STATESMEN, PHILOSOPHERS, DIVINES, WARRIORS, AND OTHER REMARKABLE CHARACTERS: COMPREHENDING A RECITAL OF THE EVENTS CONNECTED WITH THEIR LIVES AND ACTIONS (Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer Turrell Andrews. Faust’s statue, no. 45, Newbury Street). A copy of this would find its way into the personal library of Henry Thoreau, and he would copy from it into his Canadian Notebook. AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY, I AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY, II HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REV. JEREMY BELKNAP JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

CAPE COD: It is remarkable that there is not in English any PEOPLE OF adequate or correct account of the French exploration of what is CAPE COD now the coast of New England, between 1604 and 1608, though it is conceded that they then made the first permanent European settlement on the continent of North America north of St. ÆSOP Augustine. If the lions had been the painters it would have been XENOPHANES otherwise. This omission is probably to be accounted for partly by the fact that the early edition of Champlain’s “Voyages” had CHAMPLAIN not been consulted for this purpose. This contains by far the most particular, and, I think, the most interesting chapter of what we may call the Ante-Pilgrim history of New England, extending to one hundred and sixty pages quarto; but appears to be unknown WEBSTER equally to the historian and the orator on Plymouth Rock. Bancroft BANCROFT does not mention Champlain at all among the authorities for De Monts’ expedition, nor does he say that he ever visited the coast of New England. Though he bore the title of pilot to De Monts, he was, in another sense, the leading spirit, as well as the historian of the expedition. Holmes, Hildreth, and Barry, and apparently all our historians who mention Champlain, refer to the edition of 1632, in which all the separate charts of our harbors, &c., and about one half the narrative, are omitted; for the author explored so many lands afterward that he could afford to forget a part of what he had done. Hildreth, speaking of De Monts’s HILDRETH expedition, says that “he looked into the Penobscot [in 1605], which Pring had discovered two years before,” saying nothing about Champlain’s extensive exploration of it for De Monts in 1604 (Holmes says 1608, and refers to Purchas); also that he followed HOLMES in the track of Pring along the coast “to Cape Cod, which he called Malabarre.” (Haliburton had made the same statement before HALIBURTON him in 1829. He called it Cap Blanc, and Malle Barre (the Bad Bar) was the name given to a harbor on the east side of the Cape.) Pring says nothing about a river there. Belknap says that Weymouth BELKNAP discovered it in 1605. Sir F. Gorges says, in his narration (Maine GORGES Hist. Coll., Vol. II. p. 19), 1658, that Pring in 1606 “made a perfect discovery of all the rivers and harbors.” This is the most I can find. Bancroft makes Champlain to have discovered more western rivers in Maine, not naming the Penobscot; he, however, must have been the discoverer of distances on this river (see Belknap, p. 147). Pring was absent from England only about six months, and sailed by this part of Cape Cod (Malebarre) because it yielded no sassafras, while the French, who probably had not heard of Pring, were patiently for years exploring the coast in search of a place of settlement, sounding and surveying its harbors. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REV. JEREMY BELKNAP JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

June 20, Wednesday: Jeremy Belknap died in Boston. (Although initially the body would be interred at The Granary Burial Ground, it would later be relocated to the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I don’t know why.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REV. JEREMY BELKNAP JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1813

Lewis Downing began the manufacture of coaches in Concord, New Hampshire. HISTORY OF CONCORD NH

7-year-old Joseph Smith, Jr. contracted typhoid fever and the infection settled in a leg, which required surgery. He would have a slight limp.

Salma Hale relocated from Walpole to Keene, New Hampshire.

Republication of the initial volume of the Reverend Jeremy Belknap, D.D.’s 3-volume THE HISTORY OF NEW- HAMPSHIRE. COMPREHENDING THE EVENTS OF ONE COMPLETE CENTURY AND SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS FROM THE DISCOVERY OF THE RIVER PASCATAQUA TO THE YEAR ONE THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED AND NINETY (Boston: Bradford and Read). A copy of this would find its way into the personal library of Henry David Thoreau, and he would copy from it into his Indian Notebook #11.3 NEW-HAMPSHIRE, I

3. The original notebooks are held by the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, as manuscripts #596 through #606. There are photocopies, made by Robert F. Sayre in the 1930s, in four boxes at the University of Iowa Libraries, accession number MsC 795. More recently, Bradley P. Dean, PhD and Paul Maher, Jr. have attempted to work over these materials. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REV. JEREMY BELKNAP JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

A WEEK: Unlike the Concord, the Merrimack is not a dead but a living stream, though it has less life within its waters and on its banks. It has a swift current, and, in this part of its course, a clayey bottom, almost no weeds, and comparatively few fishes. We looked down into its yellow water with the more curiosity, who were accustomed to the Nile-like blackness of the former river. Shad and alewives are taken here in their season, but salmon, though at one time more numerous than shad, are now more rare. Bass, also, are taken occasionally; but locks and dams have proved more or less destructive to the fisheries. The shad make their appearance early in May, at the same time with the blossoms of the pyrus, one of the most conspicuous early flowers, which is for this reason called the shad-blossom. An insect called the shad-fly also appears at the same time, covering the houses and fences. We are told that “their greatest run is when the apple-trees are in full blossom. The old shad return in August; the young, three or four inches long, in September. These are very fond of flies.” A rather picturesque and luxurious mode of fishing was formerly practised on the Connecticut, at Bellows Falls, where a large rock divides the stream. “On the steep sides of the island rock,” says Belknap, “hang several arm-chairs, fastened to BELKNAP ladders, and secured by a counterpoise, in which fishermen sit to catch salmon and shad with dipping nets.” The remains of Indian weirs, made of large stones, are still to be seen in the Winnipiseogee, one of the head-waters of this river. It cannot but affect our philosophy favorably to be reminded of these shoals of migratory fishes, of salmon, shad, alewives, marsh-bankers, and others, which penetrate up the innumerable rivers of our coast in the spring, even to the interior lakes, their scales gleaming in the sun; and again, of the fry which in still greater numbers wend their way downward to the sea. “And is it not pretty sport,” wrote Captain John Smith, who was on this coast as early as 1614, “to pull up twopence, sixpence, and twelvepence, as fast as you can haul and veer a line?” — “And what sport doth yield a more pleasing content, and less hurt or charge, than angling with a hook, and crossing the sweet air from isle to isle, over the silent streams of a calm sea.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REV. JEREMY BELKNAP JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1858

July 2, Friday: Henry Thoreau, Ellery Channing, and Edward Sherman Hoar left for the White Mountains.

They took a carriage to New Hampshire, and traveled while there in a hired wagon, eating in inns and sleeping in hotels. Thoreau would sprain his ankle while climbing Mount Washington4 and be laid up in tent for several days.

July 2: A.M.–Start for White Mountains in a private carriage with Edward Hoar. Notice in a shallow pool on a rock on a hilltop, in road in North Chelmsford, a rather peculiar-looking Ali~ma Plantago, with long reddish petioles, just budded. Spent the noon close by the old Dunstable graveyard, by a small stream north of it. Red lilies were abundantly in bloom in the burying-ground and by the river. Mr. Weld’s monument is a large, thick, naturally flat rock, lying flat over the grave. Noticed the monument of Josiah Willard, Esq., “Captain of Fort Dummer.” Died 1750, aged 58. 4.Agiocochook, that he and his brother John had first climbed in 1839. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REV. JEREMY BELKNAP JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

Walked to and along the river and bathed in it. There were harebells, well out, and much Apocynuqn cannabinum, well out, apparently like ours, prevailing along the steep sandy and stony shore. A marked peculiarity in this species is that the upper branches rise above the lowers. Also get the A. andro~7nifoliu1n, quite downy beneath. The S7nilaaina stellata going to seed, quite common in the copse on top of the bank. What a relief and expansion of my thoughts when I come out from that inland position by the graveyard to this broad river’s shore! This vista was incredible there. Suddenly I see a broad reach of blue beneath, with its curves and headlands, liberating me from the more terrene earth. What a difference it makes whether I spend my four hours’ nooning between the hills by yonder roadside, or on the brink of this fair river, within a quarter of a mile of that! Here the earth is fluid to my thought, the sky is reflected from beneath, and around yonder cape is the highway to other continents. This current allies me to all the world. Be careful to sit in an elevating and inspiring place. There my thoughts were confined and trivial, and I hid myself from the gaze of travellers. Here they are expanded and elevated, and I am charmed by the beautiful river-reach. It is equal to a different season and country and creates a different mood. As you travel northward from Concord, probably the reaches of the Merrimack River, looking up or down them from the bank, will be the first inspiring sight. There is something in the scenery of a broad river equivalent to culture and civilization. Its channel conducts our thoughts as well as bodies to classic and famous ports, and allies us to all that is fair and great. I like to remember that at the end of half a day’s walk I can stand on the bank of the Merrimack. It is just wide enough to interrupt the land and lead my eye and thoughts down its channel to the sea. A river is superior to a lake in its liberating influence. It has motion and indefinite length. A river touching the back of a town is like a wing, it may be unused as yet, but ready to waft it over the world. With its rapid current it is a slightly fluttering wing. River towns are winged towns. I returned through the grass up the winding channel of our little brook to the camp again. Along the brook, in the rank grass and weeds, grew abundantly a slender umbelliferous plant mostly just out of bloom, one and a half to four feet high. Either Thaspium aureum or Cryptotnia Canadensis (Sison).l Saw also the scouring-rush, apparently just beginning to bloom! In the southern part of Merrimack, passed a singular “Horseshoe Pond” between the road and the river on the interval. Belknap says in his History, speaking of the changes in river-courses, “In some places these ancient BELKNAP channels are converted into ponds, which, from their curved form, are called horseshoe ponds.” Put up at tavern in Merrimack, some miles after passing over a pretty high, flat-topped hill in road, whence we saw the mountains (with a steep descent to the interval on right). 7 P.M.–I walked by a path through the wood northeast to the Merrimack, crossing two branches of Babboosuck Brook, on which were handsome rocky falls in the woods. The wood thrush sings almost wherever I go, eternally reconsecrating the world, morning and evening, for us. And again it seems habitable and more than habitable to us.

July 19, Monday: Henry Thoreau returned to Concord after his trip to Mt. Washington.

July 19: Get home at noon. For such an excursion as the above, carry and wear:– Three strong check shirts. Two pairs socks. Neck ribbon and handkerchief. Three pocket-handkerchiefs.One thick waistcoat. one thin (or half-thick) coat. One thick coat (for mountain). A large, broad india-rubber knapsack, with a broad flap. A flannel shirt. India-rubber coat. Three bosoms (to go and come in). A napkin. Pins, needles, thread. A blanket. A cap to lie in at night. Tent (or a large simple piece of india-rubber cloth for the mountain tops?). HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REV. JEREMY BELKNAP JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

Veil and gloves (or enough millinet to cover all at night). Map and compass. Plant book and paper. Paper and stamps. Botany, spy-glass, microscope. Tape, insect-boxes. Jack-knife and clasp-knife. Fish-line and hooks. Matches. Soap and dish-cloths. Waste-paper and twine. Iron spoon. Pint dipper with a pail-handle added (not to put out the fire), and perhaps a bag to carry water in. Frying-pan, only if you ride. Hatchet (sharp), if you ride, and perhaps in any case on mountain, with a sheath to it. Hard-bread (sweet crackers good); a moist, sweet plum cake very good and lasting; pork, corned beef or tongue, sugar, tea or coffee, and a little salt.

As I remember, those dwarf firs on the mountains grew up straight three or four feet without diminishing much if any, and then sent forth every way very stout branches, like bulls’ horns or shorter, horizontally four or five feet each way. They were stout because they grew so slowly. Apparently they were kept flat-topped by the snow and wind. But when the surrounding trees rose above them, they, being sheltered a little, apparently sent up shoots from the horizontal limbs, which also were again more or less bent, and this added to the horn-like appearance. We might easily have built us a shed of spruce bark at the foot of Tuckerman’s Ravine. I thought that I might in a few moments strip off the bark of a spruce a little bigger than myself and seven feet long, letting it curve as it naturally would, then crawl into it and be protected against any rain. Wentworth said that he had sometimes stripped off birch bark two feet wide, and put his head through a slit in the middle, letting the ends fall down before and behind, as he walked. The slides in Tuckerman’s Ravine appeared to be a series of deep gullies side by side, where sometimes it appeared as if a very large rock had slid down without turning over, plowing this deep furrow all the way, only a few rods wide. Some of the slides were streams of rocks, a rod or more in diameter each. In some cases which I noticed, the ravine-side had evidently been undermined by water on the lower side. It is surprising how much more bewildering is a mountain-top than a level area of the same extent. Its ridges and shelves and ravines add greatly to its apparent extent and diversity. You may be separated from your party by only stepping a rod or two out of the path. We turned off three or four rods to the pond on our way up Lafayette, knowing that Hoar was behind, but so we lost him for three quarters of an hour and did not see him again till we reached the summit. One walking a few rods more to the right or left is not seen over the ridge of the summit, and, other things being equal, this is truer the nearer you are to the apex. If you take one side of a rock, and your companion another, it is enough to separate you sometimes for the rest of the ascent. On these mountain-summits, or near them, you find small and almost uninhabited ponds, apparently without fish, sources of rivers, still and cold, strange as condensed clouds, weird-like, –of which nevertheless you make tea!– surrounded by dryish bogs, in which, perchance, you may detect traces of the bear or loupe cervier. We got the best views of the mountains from Conway, Jefferson, Bethlehem, and Campton. Conway combines the Italian (?) level and softness with Alpine peaks around. Jefferson offers the completest view of the range a dozen or more miles distant; the place from which to behold the manifold varying lights of departing day on the summits. Bethlehem also afforded a complete but generally more distant view of the range, and, with respect to the highest summits, more diagonal. Campton afforded a fine distant view of the pyramidal Franconia Mountains with the lumpish Profile Mountain. The last view, with its smaller intervals and partial view of the great range far in the north, was somewhat like the view from Conway. Belknap in his “History of New Hampshire,” third volume, page 33, says: “On some mountains we find a BELKNAP shrubbery of hemlock [Here Thoreau inserted a question mark] and spruce, whose branches are knit together so as to be impenetrable. The snow lodges on their tops, and a cavity is formed underneath. These are called by the Indians, Hakmantaks.” Willey quotes some one5 as saying of the White Mountains, “Above this hedge of dwarf trees, which is about HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REV. JEREMY BELKNAP JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

4000 feet above the level of the sea, the scattered fir and spruce bushes, shrinking from the cold mountain wind, and clinging to the ground in sheltered hollows by the sides of the rocks, with a few similar bushes of white and yellow [Here Thoreau inserted a question mark] birch, reach almost a thousand feet high.” Willey says that “the tops of the mountains are covered with snow from the last of October to the end of May;” that the alpine flowers spring up under the shelter of high rocks. Probably, then, they are most abundant on the southeast sides? To sum up (omitting sedges, etc.), plants prevailed thus on Mt. Washington:–

1st. For three quarters of a mile: Black (?) spruce, yellow birch, hemlock, beech, canoe birch, rock maple, fir, mountain maple, red cherry, striped maple, etc.

2d. At one and three quarters miles: Spruce prevails, with fir, canoe and yellow birch. Rock maple, beech, and hemlock disappear. (On Lafayette, lambkill, Viburnum nudum, nemopanthes, mountain-ash.) Hardwoods in bottom of ravines, above and below.

3d. At three miles, or limit of trees (colliers’ shanty and Ravine Camp): Fir prevails, with some spruce and canoe birch; mountain-ash, Alnus viridis (in moist ravines), red cherry, mountain maple, Salix (humilis-like and Torreyana-like, etc.), Vaccinium Canadense, Ribes lacustre, prostratum, and floridum (?), rhodora, Amelanchier oligocarpa, tree-cranberry, chiogenes, Cornus Canadensis, Oxalis Acetosella, clintonia, gold- thread, Listera cordata, Smilacina bifolia, Solidago thyrsoidea, Ranunculus abortivus, Platanthera obtusata and dilatata, Oxyria digyna, Viola blanda, Aster prenanthes (?), A. acuminatus, Aralia nudicaulis, Polystichum aculeatum(?), wool-grass, etc. 4th. Limit of trees to within one mile of top, or as far as dwarf firs: Dwarf fir, spruce, and some canoe birch, Vaccinium uliginosum and Vitis-Idœa, Salix Uva-ursi, ledum, Empetrum nigrum, Oxalis Acetosella, Linnæa borealis, Cornus Canadensis, Alsine Grœnlandica, Diapensia Lapponica, gold-thread, epigæa, sorrel, Geum radiatum var. Peckii, Solidago Virgaurea var. alpina, S. thyrsoidea (not so high as last), hellebore, oldenlandia, clintonia, Viola palustris, trientalis, a little Vaccinium angustifolium (?), ditto of Vaccinium caespitosum,6 Phyllodoce taxifolia, Uvularia grandiflora, Loiseleuria procumbens, Cassiope hypnoides, Rubus triflorus, Heracleum lanatum, archangelica, Rhododendron Lapponicum, Arctostaphylos alpina, Salix herbacea, Polygonum viviparum, Veronica alpina, Nabalus Boottii, Epilobium alpinum, Platanthera dilatata, common rue, Castilleja septentrionalis, Arnica mollis, Spiræa salicifolia, Salix repens,7 Solidago thyrsoidea, raspberry (Hoar), Lycopodium annotinum and Selago, small fern, grass, sedges, moss and lichens.8 (On Lafayette, Vaccinium Oxycoccus, Smilacina trifolia, Kalmia glauca, Andromeda calyculata, red cherry, yellow (water) lily, Eriophorum vaginatum.) 5th: Within one mile of top: Potentilla tridentata, a very little fir, spruce, and canoe birch, one mountain-ash, Alsine Grœnlandica, diapensia, Vaccinium Vitis-Idœa, gold-thread, Lycopodium annotinum and Selago, sorrel, Silene acaulis, Solidago Virgaurea var. alpina, hellebore, oldenlandia, Lonicera cœrulea, clintonia, Viola palustris, trientalis, Vaccinium angustifolium (?), a little fern, Geum radiatum var. Peckii, sedges, rush, moss, and lichens, and probably more of the last list. 6th. At apex: Sedge, moss, and lichens, and a little alsine, diapensia, Solidago Virgaurea var. alpina (?), etc. The 2d may be called the Spruce Zone; 3d, the Fir Zone; 4th, the Shrub, or Berry, Zone; 5th, the Cinquefoil, or Sedge, Zone; 6th, the Lichen, or Cloud, Zone. Durand in Kane (page 444, 2d vol.) thinks that plants suffer more in alpine regions than in the polar zone. Among authorities on northern plants, names E. Meyer’s “Plantæ Labradoricæ” (1830) and Giesecke’s list of Greenland plants in Brewster’s Edinburgh Encyclopedia (1832). It is remarkable that what you may call trees on the White Mountains, i.e. the forests, cease abruptly with those about a dozen feet high, and then succeeds a distinct kind of growth, quite dwarfish and flattened and confined almost entirely to fir and spruce, as if it marked the limit of al1nost perpetual snow, as if it indicated a zone where the trees were peculiarly oppressed by the snow, cold, wind, etc. The transition from these flattened firs and spruces to shrubless rock is not nearly so abrupt as from upright or slender trees to these dwarfed thickets.

5. This is Oakes in his “Scenery,” etc. 6. Vide June 14,1859. 7. And apparently S. phylicifolia (?). Vide September 21. 8. Vide September 21. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REV. JEREMY BELKNAP JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1862

The Reverend Jeremy Belknap (1744-1798)’s THE HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE. BY JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. FROM A COPY OF THE ORIGINAL ED., HAVING THE AUTHOR’S LAST CORRECTIONS. TO WHICH ARE ADDED NOTES, CONTAINING VARIOUS CORRECTIONS AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE TEXT, AND ADDITIONAL FACTS AND NOTICES OF PERSONS AND EVENTS THEREIN MENTIONED. BY JOHN FARMER (1789-1838). Dover NH: G. Wadleigh (A copy of the edition of 1831, with new title-page added). HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REV. JEREMY BELKNAP JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

1998

Russell M Lawson’s THE AMERICAN PLUTARCH: JEREMY BELKNAP AND THE HISTORIAN’S DIALOGUE WITH THE PAST (Praeger).

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FABULATION, HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

“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

COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2014. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at .

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

Prepared: May 23, 2014 HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REV. JEREMY BELKNAP JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REV. JEREMY BELKNAP JEREMY BELKNAP, D.D. PEOPLE MENTIONED IN CAPE COD PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK

Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button.

Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with . Arrgh.