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4 AST week our article on “History and Tradition along 
© the North Shore” closed with an account of Beverly, 
‘the Garden City, and this week we are concerned with 
‘the various bits of story which are charmingly interwoven 
with the development of Beverly's outskirts, which are 
among the most popular and most beautiful of all the 
North Shore resorts. The first of these is Montserrat 
which within such a comparatively short time has been 
“built wp with pretty, modest little cottages that seem to 
grow out of he woods and rocks of Prospect Hill. The 
‘name, Montserrat, is very old, appearing in the biblical 
‘histories in its present form, as Mons Serratus in the 
‘Latin, as Monte Serrado in Spanish and as Montserrat in 
Switzerland and other mountainous countries of Europe. 
All of this gives a wealth of material from which to select 
“the origin of the name as it appears in New England and 
‘the most plausible, as well as the most interesting account 
takes ug back through the years of our early trade with 
‘the South, through the discoveries of Columbus to the 
period of religious fevor as early as 717. 
Tt-seems probable that in this instance the name, 
Montserrat, was borrowed at an unknown date from one 
of the islets of the Lesser Antilles from a group called 
‘Leeward Islands. One, which bears the name of Mont- 
 serrat, is about equally distant from Nevis, the birth-place 
ef Alexander Hamilton; from Antiqua, where our own 
“Governor Winthrop’s son, Samuel, lived and died as 
deputy-governor; from Guadaloupe and from other 
points where we have traded since earliest days. May 
not some hardy skipper, a man of no small respect in his 
own cotmmunity, who spent the summer in perilous fish- 
ing off.irand Menan and Georges Banks and the winter 
supplying the catholic tables of the Carribean with sa!t 
cod, bringing back to our New England distilleries the 
juice of the cane, have named his section Montserrat. 
Early trade between Beverly and the Sugar Islands is an 
established fact which seems to give some authority for 
this supposition. 
This one of the Leeward Islands, from which we be- 
lieve Montserrat to have been named, was discovered by 
Columbus just one year after his discovery of , America,” 
and. he called it Montserrat because its, towering, jaggel 
face to the East reminded him of a strongly fortified crag, 
called Monte Serrado, near Barcelona: in. the Mediter- 
ranean. Monte Serrado is a rocky elevation about 4000 
feet above sea levelvand at the hour of the Crucifixion it 
was cleft into pinnacles.and peaks of terrifying grandeur. 
On one of the loftest peaks Charles V spent the latter 
part of his life at the famous old Benedictine Abbey, 
which is visited by pilgrims from all parts of the world 
* on acount of the incomparable and wonderful old atlar 
a _ plate, candlesticks and vestments. It is*a.monastic shrine 
a of refuge dedicated to the Virgin and. it was the hiding 
place for the sacred ebon image of the Virgin from. the 
~. Moors in 717. In 1881 Pope Leo XIII blessed the image 
and honored it with a silver crown. : 
Manchester, Mass., Friday, June 11 
NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
Be AND REMINDER 
No. 24 
The North Shore in Colonial Days 
How Montserrat, Pride’s Crossing, Manchester, Etc., Obtained Their Names 
By HELENE SHERMAN 
E rE 
There is a brief, and rather sad story connected with 
Pride’s Crossing, where the most beautiful estates and 
homes the length of the North Shore are to be found. 
Years ago Peter Pride received the grant of an immense 
tract of land and built his home near the spot where the 
postoffice now stands. The grant was made to him on 
the condition that he direct all travellers passing by, and 
he did this for many years until the plaee came to be 
known as Pride’s Crossing. The property there passed 
from one Pride to another until the beginning of the 
haleyon days when the place was first developed as a 
summer resort. Perhaps the Pride who held the land at 
that time was less “canny” than the Prides that had gone 
before; at any rate he sold his birthright for a mere song 
and the story says that, being later overcome with re- 
morse, he hanged himself. 
Not far from Pride’s Crossing is a pretty little beac, 
which is called Mingo Beach, and there is a story about 
‘t and the man for whom it is named that is, perhaps, a 
little happier than the Pride's Crossing tradition. The 
beach is near the supposed site of tle humble cottage of 
one Robin Mingo, a negro slave, the property of Thomas 
Woodbury. Mingo married an Indian woman, Deborah 
Tailor, and they agreed to remain in the service of Mr. 
Woodbury until his death when they were to be released 
with only two suits of clothes suitable to such persons. 
Small recompense for a lifetime of faithful service, we 
think, but not so hard a bargain according to the times, 
perhaps. On July 15, 1722, Robin Mingo was baptised 
and admitted to the church in which faith he continued 
untill he died in 1773. His master, it 1s said, promised 
him that he should have his freedom when the ebbing 
tide should leave a dry passage between Mingo beach and 
the rocky island promontory called Becky’s Ridge. This 
has happened only once, on the day of his death, and 
Robin Mingo received, a truer freedom than any his 
earthly master could grant. 
Another part of Beverly that has even more import- 
ant a section of that city since losing its identity as a 
village in the summer resort is Beverly Farms, where 
beautiful West Beach is a favored rendezvous for fash- 
ionable folk from June until October. In the early days 
this place was first called the Farms because it was com- 
prised of two large farms, the property of John Black- 
leach, freeman, who received a grant of three hundred 
and more acres in 1635, later selling part of this land to 
John West of Ipswich. _West’s parcel of land extended 
from the Woodbury (or Paine) estate westerly to Jeffrey’s 
Creek, now known as Manchester. John West's name 
still lingers about Beverly Farms in the families of his 
descendants and in the beautiful beach which bears his 
name because it bordered on his property. 
Manchester, as has been suggested, was known as 
“Teofferye’s Creek” in colonial times. The place seems 
to have been named from a William Jeffreys, concerning 
whom surprisingly little is known, especially in considera- 
