The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 | Page 8

all poor, and the inheritance was merely sufficient
to make a dissipated and drunken fellow of the only one of the old
General's sons who survived to middle age. The man's habits were as
bad as possible as long as he had any money; but when quite ruined, he
reformed. The daughter, the only survivor among Knox's children,
(herself childless,) is a mild, amiable woman, therein totally differing
from her mother. Knox, when he first visited his estate, arriving in a
vessel, was waited upon by a deputation of the squatters, who had

resolved to resist him to the death. He received them with genial
courtesy, made them dine with him aboard the vessel, and sent them
back to their constituents in great love and admiration of him. He used
to have a vessel running to Philadelphia, I think, and bringing him all
sorts of delicacies. His way of raising money was to give a mortgage on
his estate of a hundred thousand dollars at a time, and receive that
nominal amount in goods, which he would immediately sell at auction
for perhaps thirty thousand. He died by a chicken-bone. Near the house
are the remains of a covered way, by which the French once attempted
to gain admittance into the fort; but the work caved in and buried a
good many of them, and the rest gave up the siege. There was recently
an old inhabitant living, who remembered when the people used to
reside in the fort.
Owl's Head,--a watering-place, terminating a point of land, six or seven
miles from Thomaston. A long island shuts out the prospect of the sea.
Hither coasters and fishing-smacks run in when a storm is anticipated.
Two fat landlords, both young men, with something of a contrast in
their dispositions;--one of them being a brisk, lively, active, jesting fat
man; the other more heavy and inert, making jests sluggishly, if at all.
Aboard the steamboat, Professor Stuart of Andover, sitting on a sofa in
the saloon, generally in conversation with some person, resolving their
doubts on one point or another, speaking in a very audible voice; and
strangers standing or sitting around to hear him, as if he were an
ancient apostle or philosopher. He is a bulky man, with a large, massive
face, particularly calm in its expression, and mild enough to be pleasing.
When not otherwise occupied, he reads, without much notice of what is
going on around him. He speaks without effort, yet thoughtfully.
We got lost in a fog the morning after leaving Owl's Head. Fired a
brass cannon, rang bell, blew steam like a whale snorting. After one of
the reports of the cannon, we heard a horn blown at no great distance,
the sound coming soon after the report. Doubtful whether it came from
the shore or a vessel. Continued our ringing and snorting; and by and
by something was seen to mingle with the fog that obscured everything
beyond fifty yards from us. At first it seemed only like a denser wreath
of fog; it darkened still more, till it took the aspect of sails; then the hull

of a small schooner came beating down towards us, the wind laying her
over towards us, so that her gunwale was almost in the water, and we
could see the whole of her sloping deck.
"Schooner ahoy!" say we. "Halloo! Have you seen Boston Light this
morning?"
"Yes; it bears north-northwest, two miles distant."
"Very much obliged to you," cries our captain.
So the schooner vanishes into the mist behind. We get up our steam,
and soon enter the harbor, meeting vessels of every rig; and the fog,
clearing away, shows a cloudy sky. Aboard, an old one-eyed sailor,
who had lost one of his feet, and had walked on the stump from
Eastport to Bangor, thereby making a shocking ulcer.
Penobscot Bay is full of islands, close to which the steamboat is
continually passing. Some are large, with portions of forest and
portions of cleared land; some are mere rocks, with a little green or
none, and inhabited by sea-birds, which fly and flap about hoarsely.
Their eggs may be gathered by the bushel, and are good to eat. Other
islands have one house and barn on them, this sole family being lords
and rulers of all the land which the sea girds. The owner of such an
island must have a peculiar sense of property and lordship; he must feel
more like his own master and his own man than other people can. Other
islands, perhaps high, precipitous, black bluffs, are crowned with a
white light-house, whence, as evening comes on, twinkles a star across
the melancholy deep,--seen by vessels coming on the coast, seen from
the mainland, seen from island to island. Darkness descending, and
looking