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WHEN WASHINGTON TOURED NEW ENGLAND

(Seventh Paper.)

It

RRIVING in the pleasant old coast town of Portsmouth on the afternoon of Saturday, Oct. 31, 1789, the first President spent three interesting days as the guest of its inhabitants. Portsmouth was the eastern limit of his New England tour. was not only the largest town in New Hampshire, but the State capital, sharing with Exeter an honor of which it had the major part. As a shipping and shipbuilding port the place had prospered, and the homes of its chief citizens were among the finest in New England.

Portsmouth town was rich, even at that day, in the material of legends of human interest, while its people, a sturdy, hard-working, plain-spoken community, must have afforded Washington some instructive points of study. Intensely patriotic, they were still enough different from the people of his own South to furnish a striking example of the diversity of racial and temperamental traits to be found among the citizens of the infant republic.

That Washington studied the town and the people is indicated by his diary, recording his movements while there, and making note of some of the things he saw and people he met. His description of the town is interesting reading after one hundred and twenty-six years:

"Portsmouth, it is said, contains about five thousand inhabitants. There are some good houses (among which Col. Langdon's may be esteemed the first), but in general they are indifferent, and almost entirely of wood. On wondering at this, as the country is full of stone and good clay for bricks, I was told that on account of the fogs and damp, they deemed them wholesomer, and for that reason preferred wood buildings.

Lumber, fish and potash, with some provisions, compose the principal articles of export. Shipbuilding here and at Newburyport has been carried on to a considerable extent. During and for some time after the war there was an entire stagnation to it; but it is beginning now to revive again."

MISTAKEN FOR WASHINGTON

There is much color in the various descriptions that have been handed down to us of certain features of Washington's stay at Portsmouth. His reception on his arrival was quite the grandest demonstration the old town had ever seen. More than six hundred mounted men had escorted him into the town, besides infantry. There was a roar of guns and a great ringing of church bells, the singing of odes, a formal address, and many hearty cheers from the crowd of seven thousand that filled the streets and blackened the housetops.

Washington refers to this greeting in terms that show his gratification. One amusing incident, however, to which he makes no reference, occurred as he entered the town. Following his custom, he left his traveling carriage on the outskirts, and mounted a white horse, brought along from New York for such use, while his private secretary, Tobias Lear, rode in the carriage.

The crowd, which had been told that the President rode in a carriage, at first cheered the man seated in that conveyance, and paid no attention to the martial figure in uniform that rode before it on the snowy horse.

In due time their mistake was detected, for Mr. Lear was a native of Portsmouth, and a close view showed some of the townspeople whom they cheered; while others saw that the mounted man could be none other than Washington

The motor traveler today following the path of Washington into Portsmouth drives his car down Islington street and into Congress street which he follows to the busy triangle in the downtown center known as Market square.

It was here that Washington was officially received. In the center of the square stood the old State House, and on its west balcony the first President received the town's address of welcome and the plaudits of the patriots of Portsmouth.

One looks in vain today about the square for some trace of the old State House. Its site is an open street, crossed by many feet. Touch with sea life is felt in the square, though it is not in sight of the water, through the presence among the people there of many youths in the uniform of sailors of the United States Navy.

But the old State House, though long ago banished from the square was not quite demolished, and if the traveler is curious to see how it looked, he may gratify his wish by taking a walk a few blocks into Court street, where, near Water street one-half of the building, which was of wood, now stands. It is today a dwelling, and nothing about it indicates its former state. In another part of the town an iron balcony on the front of a private house is pointed out to the stranger as one of several that ornamented the Old State House. It conveys more strongly a sense of the old building's dignity than the surviving half of the building itself.

Within a stone's throw of the Old State House, on the south side of the Square, stood "Col. Brewster's Ta'n," as Washington noted it, the house in which quarters were set apart for the use of the President. Not much is known of the appearance of the house, which was burned in 1813. It was conducted as a boarding house of the better sort, and doubtless here the President had good bed and board and a degree of privacy he might not have had in some of the public houses of the town.

Washington spent his first day in Portsmouth by going to church twice and spending his afternoon writing letters, it having been his habit since youth to attend to his correspondence on Sunday.

His church-going was apportioned by policy, as he did not wish to favor one principal place of worship to the exclusion of the other. In the forenoon he attended the Episcopal Church, going in more state than was his custom, for the "President" of New Hampshire, Gen. John Sullivan, attended him, besides Hon. John Langdon, United States Senator, and the United States Marshal of the district, Col. Parker, who was officially responsible for the comfort of the distinguished guest while he was in New Hampshire.

Washington was preceded up the aisle by two church-wardens carrying their staves of office. No record remains of any incidents attending the service.

In the afternoon, at the Congregational Church, Washington was seated in the pew of William Whipple, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. The pew adjoined the pulpit, and therefore was in view of the entire congregation. Washington thus was obliged to sustain the scrutiny of a large and highly curious crowd, while listening to an exceedingly frank eulogy of himself, by Rev. Joseph Buckminster, D.D.,

the pastor, who referred to him as "the savior of his country," and “the benevolent conqueror in the cause of Liberty."

After this ordeal we may assume that Washington sat down to his afternoon of letter writing with a sense of relief.

Neither church that Washington attended stands today.

WASHINGTON GOES FISHING

Washington's second day in Portsmouth was devoted to a tour of the harbor and a fishing trip. This is the only instance on record of the first President casting a line in the waters of New England, though he had made an excursion down New York Harbor to fish for bass off Sandy Hook.

The Father of his Country was fond of fishing from his youth, when he fished the waters of the Potomac, near his home. In his later rare periods of recreation at Mount Vernon he again went fishing on the Potomac, while the commercial fisheries of the river, in which he was a proprietor, always interested him. He was also fond of a fish diet. When at Cambridge, in the siege of Boston, he made many a meal on the New England staple of salt codfish.

The President's harbor trip was made the occasion of no little display. A barge was specially fitted and decorated for him, rowed by seamen in white frocks and steered by a local captain. Two barges followed, one bearing the French consul and Washington's two secretaries -this was rowed by sailors in blue, "with round hats and ribbons❞— and one carrying a band.

An inspection of the harbor was first made, Washington making careful note of the excellent anchorage, the docks and the shipyards. Doubtless the spot was pointed out to him where Paul Jones' famous little Ranger and the ship of the line America-which Jones hoped to command, but which Congress gave to the King of France-were built.

A landing was made, wrote Washington, at "a place called Kittery, in the Province of Maine"-the only spot where Washington ever set foot on the soil of the present State of Maine-but at what house, if any, in the old village by the river the party halted history is silent.

Thence the barges proceeded to the harbor mouth, where they were saluted with thirteen guns, from the old fort, and so on to the open sea.

A COD FOR A PRESIDENT

Washington made this entry in his diary concerning his fishing trip:

"Having lines, we proceeded to the Fishing banks a little without the Harbour, and fished for Cod; but it not being the proper time of tide, we caught only two, with w'ch, about 1 o'clock, we returned to Town."

This brief entry does not tell the whole story of Washington's adventures on his codfishing trip, if local tradition is to be credited. From this source we learn that the President's party would have taken but one fish but for the kindly aid of a shrewd if not sportsmanlike fisher

man.

The presence of three decorated barges, one carrying a band, could not fail to attract from afar the attention of the fishermen in those waters Among them was one Zebulon Willey of Portsmouth, who was so fortunate as to find himself in close company with the distinguished fishing party.

As Willey sawed his line gently back and forth, he was rewarded with bites that seemed denied the less experienced fishermen near him. Though he watched the party closely, he saw but one cod hauled into the President's boat, while Washington got not a solitary bite.

As Zebulon Willey hooked a good cod, a happy idea struck him. Feeling that his cod was firmly hooked, Willey took a couple of turns with his line, around a thole-pin, hauled in his "killick," and rowed over to the Presidential barge.

Remarking that he had a good one on-we may assume-he handed his line to Washington, with a request that the President pull the fish in. The President did so, and having landed the cod, handed the perspicacious Zebulon a silver dollar.

Thereafter to the end of his days, Zebulon Willey had a fish story to tell that none could duplicate.