CHAPTER VI. 



THE " OUONAHASSIT" PIONEERS. 



THE first white man known to have entered our 

 harbor was Captain John Smith, of Pocahontas fame, 

 with eight or nine English sailors, in the summer of 1614. 

 That was six years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, 

 and sixteen years before the Puritans were established at 

 Boston. 



The coming of that rowboat, with its European crew, 

 into the channel of Cohasset Harbor discovered a secret 

 hitherto held by nature and by its savage inhabitants. 



Great excitement was aroused by these intruders, as 

 though by instinct the savage heart felt the far-reaching 

 consequences of that visit. It is true that rumors of pale- 

 faced strangers upon their coast had floated for many years 

 from tribe to tribe among the Indians ; but to see these 

 mysterious strangers was an exciting experience. 



Ever since the year 1498, when John Cabot and his 

 son Sebastian explored the east coast of North America, 

 adventurous mariners had made occasional landfalls upon 

 the coast. 



In the year 1568, forty-six years before John Smith 

 appeared at Cohasset, an Englishman named David Ingram, 

 with nearly a hundred companions, had been abandoned by 

 Captain John Hawkins on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico. 

 David Ingram and two others made their way afoot along 

 the Indian trails for many tedious months, until they reached 

 the New England coast ; and Ingram was finally picked up 

 at the mouth of the St. John River (N. B.) by a French 

 ship. 



We shall never have the satisfaction of knowing whether 



