182 THE ISLAND OF NANTUCKET. 



acted as surveyor of land." Query: does it require 

 any more intelligence to superintend the grinding of 

 corn than the cultivation before and the eating it after 

 the grinding? The writer desires in no way to detract 

 from the credit due Mr. Folger for his really valuable 

 services; but let us have the whole truth. While Mr. 

 Folger was surveying the land, superintending the 

 grinding of the corn, or talking with the Indians, the 

 rest of the settlers were planting the corn, cultivating 

 the ground, building houses and barns, and establish- 

 ing a settled form of government. Mr. Starbuck again 

 says: " Peter Folger was an able and a good man. His 

 occupation as a surveyor made him a valuable man, 

 and his services as interpreter (an acquirement 

 gained by a long residence among the Indians at 

 Martha's Vineyard) not to be despised. But that all 

 the learning, all the ability, all the wisdom of the 

 island was concentrated in his person, is a tale fit to 

 be laid carefully away with the religious l persecu- 

 tion ' story, or the ridiculous narrative of the three 

 daughters, Martha, Elizabeth, and Nancy." 



The direct descendants of the first settlers boast of 

 their ancestors, — and why should they not? The 

 blood that flowed in the veins of those men was just as 

 "blue" and just as patrician as that of those old 

 Dutch burghers, the Stuyvesants, Knickerbockers, Van 

 Kensselaers, Tan Cortlandts, Van Twillers, and the 

 rest, who wore their high-peaked hats, smoked long 

 clay pipes, and drank schnapps on the island of Man- 

 hattan in its early days. 



