72 



OLD PLYMOUTH TRAILS 



by its means, summoning the firemen to boxes by 

 numbers rung. Yet only a few years ago the 

 old tower was literally a watch-tower, occupied 

 always by one of three superannuated seamen 

 who watched for fires, and seeing one rang the 

 bell and shouted the location to the fire depart- 

 ment. One stood watch in the glassed-in oc- 

 tagon above. Two sat by the fire and smoked 

 in a room in the belfry below. If the wind was 

 in the east they put the stove pipe out of a hole 

 in the west side of the tower. If it blew from 

 the west the stove pipe was readily changed to a 

 windowpane on the east side. These watchmen 

 were paid $350 a year, practically a dollar a day, 

 and they seemed to have been as efficient as the 

 lately installed electrical appliance. 



From the crow's nest to the church roof this 

 old tower is pencilled and carved with the names 

 of Nantucketers, written in for the last hundred 

 years and many an otherwise forgotten man and 

 event is thus recorded for the use of future his- 

 torians. Yet it is safe to say that no man of all 

 the island dwellers ever did or ever will tread the 

 stairs or look from the octagonal windows with 

 a more intense individuality than that of Billy 

 Clark, Nantucket's towncrier, now lamentably 



