yo 



MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



remained at Wessagussett (Wessaguscus of Morton, now Weymouth) until Octo- 

 ber wlnen he returned to England. He next came early in 1625 to settle at 

 Passonagessit, or Mount Wollaston, as it is now called, a headland of Quincy 

 Bay about two miles north of Wessagussett. " The two localities were feparated 

 from each other not only by the river [the Monatoquit River], which here widens 

 ' out into a tidal eftuary, but by a broad bafin which filled and emptied with every 

 tide, while around it were extenfive fait marfhes interfected by many creeks." ' 

 On this occasion Morton spent three consecutive years at Mount Wollaston, or 

 " Ma-re-Mount,"^ as he called it, consorting freely with the Indians and supply- 

 ing them with guns, ammunition and ' fire water ' in exchange for furs. By so 

 doing he interfered with the trade, as well as security, of the Plymouth colon-, 

 ists, whom he further offended by his conspicuously riotous and immoral manner 

 of life. They accordingly caused him to be arrested by Myles Standish in June, 

 1628, and he was sent back to England in a fishing vessel two or three months 

 later. He returned to " Ma-re-Mount " in August of the following year, and 

 remained there until September, 1630, when he was again arrested (this time by 

 order of Governor Winthrop) and, after an imprisonment of some four months, 

 banished once more to England. He reappeared at Plymouth in the summer of 

 1643 when "Capt Standish takes great offence .... that he [Morton] is so neer 

 him as Duxburrow [Duxbury], & goeth sometimes a fowling in his groimd," ^ 

 but this, of course, was after his book was published. He "feems to have gone 

 in June, 1644,"'' from Duxbury to Casco Bay, and to have died "poor and 

 despised " ^ at Acomenticus (now York, Maine), in 1645. 



Morton was a keen sportsman, trained to the use of a gun and also skilled 

 in the art of falconry which he apparently practised with some success soon after 

 settling in Massachusetts.^ We gather from his text that he devoted a generous 

 share of his time to the pursuit of the Geese, Ducks and wading birds of various 

 kinds, which, in his day, resorted to the waters and shores of Boston Harbor in 

 countless thousands. It is not improbable that some of his shooting excursions 

 extended as far as the Back Bay and the lower reaches of Charles River, 



1 C. F. Adams, Jr., Thomas Morton, New English Canaan, 18S3, 9. 



" Ibid,, 14, foot-note. 



'Edward Wmslow in Htt. to John Winthrop, Sept. 11, 1643, Massachusetts Historical Collec- 

 tions, fourth series, VI, 1863, 175. 



■* C. F. Adams, Jr., Thomas Morton, New English Canaan, 1883, 85. 



' John Winthrop, History of New England from 1630 to 1649, edited by James Savage, II, 

 1S26, 192. C. F. Adams, Jr., Thomas Morion, New English Canaan, 1883, 91. 



'He says : " at my firft arrivall in thofi; parts [I] practifed to take a Lannaret [no doubt a Duck 

 Hawk], which I reclaimed, trained, and made flying in a fortnight, the fame being a paffinger at 

 Michaelmas." (Thomas Morion, New English Canaan, 1637, 71. Ed. C. F. Adams, Jr., 1883, 195- 

 196.) 



