76 BULLETIN OF THE ESSEX INSTITUTE. 



islands in the sea about two leagues from the main. 

 Upon these islands, I neither could see one good timber 

 tree, nor so much good ground as to make a garden."' 

 From here he journeyed and settled at York, where he 

 says : " I have obtained a place of habitation in New 

 England where I have built a house and fortified it in a 

 reasonable good fashion, strong enough against such 

 enemies as are these savage people. And to say some- 

 thing of the country," and here is a bit of sarcasm, " I 

 will not do therein as some have done to my knowledge, 

 speak more than is true : I will not tell you that you may 

 smell the cornfields before you see the land, neither must 

 men think corn doth grow naturally (or on trees) nor 

 will the deer come when they are called, or stand still and 

 look upon a man until he shoot him, not knowing a man 

 from a beast ; nor the fish leap into the kettle nor on the 

 dry land, neither are they so plentiful that you may dip 

 them up in baskets, nor take cod in nets to make a voy- 

 age, which is no truer than that the fowls will present 

 themselves to you with spits through them. But certain- 

 ly there is fowl, deer and fish enough for taking if men 

 be diligent ; there be also vines, plum trees, strawberries, 

 gooseberries and rasps, walnuts, chestnuts and small nuts, 

 of each great plenty ; there is also great store of parsley 



1 Celia Thaxter seems to have demonstrated that this was an error. She made 

 a very famous garden there. Perhaps the soil of it vras carried to the island 

 from the main land. 



The early records are tilled with orders for tlie protection and disposal of tho 

 timber growing on these shore islands. They do not indicate the nature of the 

 wood, but it seems to have been valued for ship-building. The " Miseries " were 

 " Moulton's Miseries," and got the name from Robert Moulton, the chief ship- 

 wright here in 1629. Probably when Governor Endecott asked for and obtained 

 a grant of Catta Island (now Lowell Island) in 1G55, he was moved by a consider- 

 ation of the value of its growing timber. When the larger islands became Ijare 

 and denuded of shade, as we see them, has not been stated, but Catta Island 

 was a wooded island in 1735, and was strijjped of its trees by the British sloop- 

 of-war Merlin, while enforcing the Boston Port Bill on the night of January 6-7, 

 1776, probably to secure a l)etter view into Salem and l\Iarl)lehead harliors. 

 —Editor. 



