The Sea Lions | Page 6

in reasonably affluent circumstances; many were placed
altogether at their ease, and more were made humbly comfortable. A
farm in America is well enough for the foundation of family support,
but it rarely suffices for all the growing wants of these days of
indulgence, and of a desire to enjoy so much of that which was
formerly left to the undisputed possession of the unquestionably rich. A
farm, with a few hundreds _per annum,_ derived from other sources,
makes a good base of comfort and if the hundreds are converted into
thousands, your farmer, or agriculturalist, becomes a man not only at
his ease, but a proprietor of some importance. The farms on Oyster
Pond were neither very extensive, nor had they owners of large
incomes to support them; on the contrary, most of them were made to
support their owners; a thing that is possible, even in America, with
industry, frugality and judgment. In order, however, that the names of
places we may have occasion to use shall be understood, it may be well
to be a little more particular in our preliminary explanations.
The reader knows that we are now writing of Suffolk County, Long
Island, New York. He also knows that our opening scene is to be on the
shorter, or most northern of the two prongs of that fork, which divides
the eastern end of this island, giving it what are properly two capes.
The smallest territorial division that is known to the laws of New York,
in rural districts, is the 'township,' as it is called. These townships are
usually larger than the English parish, corresponding more properly
with the French canton. They vary, however, greatly in size, some
containing as much as a hundred square miles, which is the largest size,
while others do not contain more than a tenth of that surface.
The township in which the northern prong, or point of Long Island, lies,
is named Southold, and includes not only all of the long, low, narrow
land that then went by the common names of Oyster Pond, Sterling,
&c., but several islands, also, which stretch off in the Sound, as well as
a broader piece of territory, near Riverhead. Oyster Pond, which is the
portion of the township that lies on the 'point,' is, or was, for we write
of a remote period in the galloping history of the state, only a part of
Southold, and probably was not then a name known in the laws, at all.

We have a wish, also, that this name should be pronounced properly. It
is not called Oyster Pond, as the uninitiated would be very apt to get it,
but Oyster Pùnd, the last word having a sound similar to that of the
cockney's 'pound,' in his "two pùnd two." This discrepancy between the
spelling and the pronunciation of proper names is agreeable to us, for it
shows that a people are not put in leading strings by pedagogues, and
that they make use of their own, in their own way. We remember how
great was our satisfaction once, on entering Holmes' Hole, a
well-known bay in this very vicinity, in our youth, to hear a boatman
call the port, 'Hum'ses Hull.' It is getting to be so rare to meet with an
American, below the higher classes, who will consent to cast this
species of veil before his school-day acquisitions, that we acknowledge
it gives us pleasure to hear such good, homely, old-fashioned English
as "Gar'ner's Island," "Hum'ses Hull," and "Oyster Pund."
This plainness of speech was not the only proof of the simplicity of
former days that was to be found in Suffolk, in the first quarter of the
century. The eastern end of Long Island lies so much out of the track of
the rest of the world, that even the new railroad cannot make much
impression on its inhabitants, who get their pigs and poultry, butter and
eggs, a little earlier to market, than in the days of the stage-wagons, it is
true, but they fortunately, as yet, bring little back except it be the dross
that sets every thing in motion, whether it be by rail, or through the
sands, in the former toilsome mode.
The season, at the precise moment when we desire to take the reader
with us to Oyster Pond, was in the delightful month of September,
when the earlier promises of the year are fast maturing into
performance. Although Suffolk, as a whole, can scarcely be deemed a
productive county, being generally of a thin, light soil, and still covered
with a growth of small wood, it possesses, nevertheless, spots of
exceeding fertility. A considerable portion of the northern prong of the
fork has this latter character, and Oyster Pond is a sort of garden
compared