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ARCELEOLOGIA AMERICANA.
TRANSACTIONS
AND
COLLECTIONS
OF THE
AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY.
VOLUME IV.
PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY.
1860.
NOTE.
The book is reprinted literally, except in the following items : —
Page 18, line 5, of the old edition, “ amphibius” is spelled right.
Page 28, line 16, “Fresh-water mullet” is brought into a line by itself, instead of
being made an apparent synonyme of the morse.
Page 32, line 6, one of the names of the yard-fish is omitted.
Page 47, line 15, “ Akrons,” where it occurs first, is corrected akorns.
Page 48, line 14, the same correction is made where “akrons” first occurs.
Page 54, line 5, “ Knavers ” is spelled knaves.
Page 58, line 18, “it” is printed its.
Page 61, line 2, comma omitted after blackish.
Page 86, line 21, “ Planets” is corrected to plants.
Page 101, line last, “ ones ” is corrected to one.
Page 104, line 4, “ Richards” is printed Richard; and, line 5, “ Water” is corrected to
Walter.
Page 104 to end, 11 Anno Dom .” is omitted from the old paging, but inserted in the new
paging instead.
In the list of Fishes (the book proposing to consider Neio-England Curiosities), all
those fishes which, according to the author, either in this book or the Voyages,
are found in New-Eugland waters, are distinguished from the rest by Italic letters.
New-E?tglands
RARITIES
Difcovered :
I N
Birds, Beajis, Fijhes, Serpents,
and Plants of that Country.
Together with
The Phyfical and Chyrurgical Reme-
dies wherewith the Natives con-
ftantly ufe to Cure their Distem-
pers, Wounds, and Sores.
also
A per fed: Dejcription of an Indian
SQUA, in all her Bravery ; with a
POEM not improperly conferr’d
upon her.
LASTLY
A CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
of the moil remarkable Paffages in that
Country amongft the English.
Illujtrated with CUTS.
By JOHN JOSSELTN , Gent.
London , Printed for G. Widdowes at the
Green Dragon in St. Pauls Church yard, 1672.
TO THE HIGHLY OBLIGING,
HIS HONORED FRIEND AND KINSMAN,
SAMUEL FORTREY, Esq.
Sir,
It was by your assistance (enabling me) that I commenc’d
a voyage into those remote parts of the world (known to us by the
painful discovery of that memorable gentleman, Sir Fran. Drake).
Your bounty, then and formerly, hath engaged a retribution of my
gratitude ; and, not knowing how to testifie the same unto you other-
ways, I have (although with some reluctancy) adventured to obtrude
upon you these rude and indigested eight years’ observations, wherein
whether I shall more shame my self, or injure your accurate judgment
and better employment in the perusal, is a question.
We read of kings and gods that kindly took
A pitcher fill’d with water from the brook.
The contemplation whereof (well knowing your noble and generous
disposition) hath confirm’d in me the hope that you will pardon my
presumption, and accept the tender of the fruits of my travel after
this homely manner, and my self as,
Sir,
Your highly obliged and most humble Servant,
JOHN JOSSELYN.
NEW-ENGLAND’S RARITIES
DISCOVERED.
In the year of our Lord, 1663, May 28, upon an invitation
from my only brother, I departed from London, and arrived
at Boston, the chief town in the Massachusets, a colony of
Englishmen in New England, the 28th of July following.
Boston (whose longitude is 315 deg., and 42 deg. 30 min.
of north latitude) is built on the south-west side of a bay
large enough for the anchorage of 500 sail of ships. The
buildings are handsome, joyning one to the other as in Lon-
don ; with many large streets, most of them paved with pebble
stone. In the high street towards the Common, there are
fair buildings, some of stone ; and, at the east end of the
[2] town, one amongst the rest, built by the shore by Mr.
Gibs, a merchant, being a stately edifice, which it is thought
will stand him in little less than £3,000 before it be fully
finished.1 The town is not divided into parishes ; yet they
1 This house was one Mr. Robert Gibbs’s, “ of an ancient family in Devonshire,”
says Farmer (Geneal. Reg., p. 120); and it stood on Fort Hill, the way leading to it
becoming afterwards known as Gibbs’s Lane, and a wharf at the waterside, belonging
to the property, as Gibbs’s Wharf. Mr. W. B. Trask, who obligingly examined for me
the early deeds concerning this estate in Suffolk Registry, furnishes a memorandum,
that on the 6th June, 1671, Robert Gibbs of Boston, merchant, conveys to Edward and
Elisha Hutchinson, in trust, for Elizabeth, wife of said Robert, during her life, and after
her decease to such child or children as he shall have by her, his land and house on
Fort Hill, with warehouse on wharf, ‘ which land was formerly my grandfather,
Henry Webb’s.’ The wife of said Robert Gibbs was daughter to Jacob Sheafe by
Margaret, daughter to Henry Webb, mercer. Sampson Sheafe, a Provincial councillor
of New Hampshire, and the ancestor of a family of long standing there, married
another daughter of Jacob Sheafe. Mr. Gibbs was father to the Rev. Henry Gibbs,
minister of Watertown, an 1 had other children; and the family continues to this
day.
18
138
ARCHJEOLOGIA AMERICANA.
have three fail' meeting-houses, or churches, which hardly
suffice to receive the inhabitants and strangers that come in
from all parts.2
Having refreshed myself here for some time, and opportune-
ly lighting upon a passage in a bark belonging to a friend of
my brother’s, and bound to the eastward, I put to sea again ;
and, on the fifteenth of August, I arrived at Black Point,
otherwise ’ called Scarborow, the habitation of my beloved
brother,3 4 being about an hundred leagues to the eastward of
Boston. Here I resided eight years, and made it my business
to discover, all along, the natural, physical, and chyrurgical
rarities of this new-found world.
New England is said to begin at 40, and to end at 46, of
northerly latitude ; that is, from De la Ware Bay to New-
foundland.
The sea-coasts are accounted wholsomest : the east and
south winds, coming [3] from sea, produceth warm weather ;
the north-west, coming over land, causeth extremity of cold,
and many times strikes the inhabitants, both English and
Indian, with that sad disease called there the “plague of the
back,” but with us empiemcc .i
2 Compare the author’s Voyages, pp. 19, 161, 173, for other notices of Boston, and
as to the first of these, which represents the town (in 1638) as “ rather a village, . . .
there being not above twenty or thirty houses,” see the note in Savage’s Winthrop,
edit. 1, vol. i. p. 267.
8 Mr. Henry Josselyn was probably living at Black Point in 1638, when his brother
first visited it (Voyages, p. 20). It was then the estate (by grant from the council at
Plymouth) and residence of Captain Thomas Cammock; but he, dying in 1643, be-
queathed it, except five hundred acres which were reserved to his wife, to Josselyn,
who, marrying the widow, succeeded to the whole property, which was described as
containing fifteen hundred acres (Willis, infra), but is called by Sullivan five thou-
sand (History of Maine, p. 128). In 1658, this and other adjoining tracts were erected
into a town by Massachusetts, under the name of Scarborough, which is thus further
noticed by our author in his Voyages, p. 201, as “the town of Black Point, consist-
ing of about fifty dwelling-houses, and a Magazine, or Doganne, scatteringly built.
They have store of neat and horses, of sheep near upon seven or eight hundred, much
arable and marsh, salt and fresh, and a corn-mill.” — Comp. Williamson’s Hist, of
Maine, vol. i. pp. 392, 666; Willis in Geneal, Register, vol. i. p. 202.
4 Empyema is a result of disease of the lungs. See Voyages, p. 121.
new-england’s rarities discovered.
139
The country generally is rocky and mountainous, and ex-
tremely overgrown with wood, yet here and there beautified
with large, rich valleys, wherein are lakes ten, twenty, yea
sixty miles in compass, out of which our great rivers have
their beginnings.5
Fourscore miles (upon a direct line) to the north-west of
Scarborow, a ridge of mountains run north-west and north-
east an hundred leagues, known by the name of the White
Mountains, upon which lieth snow all the year, and is a land-
mark twenty miles off at sea. It is rising ground from the
sea-shore to these hills, and they are inaccessible but by the
gullies which the dissolved snow hath made. In these gullies
grow saven bushes, which, being taken hold of, are a great
help to the climbing discoverer. Upon the top of the highest
of these mountains is a large level [4] or plain of a day’s
journey over, whereon nothing grows but moss. At the far-
ther end of this plain is another hill, called the Sugar Loaf ;
to outward appearance, a rude heap of massie stones, piled
one upon another ; and you may, as you ascend, step from one
stone to another, as if you were going up a pair of stairs ; but
winding still about the hill, till you come to the top; which
will require half a day’s time, and yet it is not above a mile ;
where there is also a level of about an acre of ground, with a
pond of clear water in the midst of it ; which you may hear
run down, — but how it ascends is a mystery. From this
rocky hill, you may see the whole country round about : it is
far above the lower clouds, and from hence we beheld a
vapour (like a great pillar) drawn up by the sunbeams out
of a great lake or pond into the air, where it was formed into
a cloud. The country beyond these hills northward is daunt-
5 Compare the accounts of the first appearance of the country by the Rev. Francis
Higginson and Mr. Thomas Graves, both well-qualified observers, in New-England’s
Plantation, London, 1630; reprinted in Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. i. p. 117. And see Wood’s
New England’s Prospect, a book which our author was probably acquainted with; as
compare p. 4 of Wood (edit. 1764) with the beginning of p. 3 of the Rarities, and some
other places in both.
140
ARCELEOLOGIA AMERICANA.
ing terrible, being full of rocky bills, as thick as mole-hills in
a meadow, and cloathed with infinite thick woods.6
New England is by some affirmed to be an island, bounded
on the north with the [5] river Canada, — so called from
Monsieur Cane ; on the south with the river Mohegan, or
Hudson’s River, - — so called because he Avas the first that dis-
covered it. Some Avill have America to be an island ; which,
out of question, must needs be, if there be a north-east pas-
6 The earliest ascents of the White Mountains were those made by Field and
others in 1642, of which we have some account in AYinthrop’s Journal (by Savage,
edit. 1, vol. ii. pp. 67, 89). Darby Field, “ an Irishman living about Pascataquack,” has
the honor of being the first European who set foot upon the summit of Mount Wash-
ington. He appears at Exeter in 1639, and was at Dover in 1645, and died there in
1649, leaving a widow, and, it is said, children (A. H. Quint, in N. E. Geneal. Reg.,
vol. vi. p. 38). It seems likely, from his account, that Field, on reaching the Indian
town in the Saco Valley, “at the foot of the hill” where the “two branches of Saco
river met,” pursued his way up the valley either of Rocky Branch or of Ellis River,
till he gradually attained to the region of dwarf firs, on what is known as Boott’s Spur,
which is between the “valley” called Oakes’s Gulf, in which the “ Mount Washing-
ton” branch of the Saco has its head, and the valley in which the Rocky Branch rises
(see G. P. Bond’s Map of the White Mountains). There is no other vray that shall fulfil
the conditions of the narrative except that over Boott’s Spur; but of the three streams,
that is, “ the two branches of Saco River,” which come together at or near the probable
site of the Indian town, the Rocky Branch is the shortest, and its valley the most as-
cending. Field repeated his visit, with some others, “ about a month after; ” and latex-,
in the same year, the mountains were visited by the worshipful Thomas Gorges, Esq.,
Deputy-Governor, and Richard Vines, Esq., Councillor of the Province of Maine, of
which Winthrop takes notice at p. 89. Whether Josselyn went up himself, or had his
account from otheixs, does not appeal-. But his calling the mountains “ inaccessible but
by the gullies,” leaves it at least supposable, that he, or the party from which he got
his information (pexhaps Gorges’s), instead of gradually ascending the long ridges, or
spurs, penetrated into one of the gulfs (as they ai-e there called), or ravines, of the east-
ern side; the walls of which are exceedingly steep, and literally inaccessible in many
parts, except by the gullies. The “ large level or plain of a day’s journey over, whereon
grows nothing but moss,” is noticed in Winthrop’s account of Gorges’s ascent, but not
in that of Field’s; and this plain — which doubtless includes what has since been
called “ Bigelow’s Lawn” (lying immediately under the south-eastei-n side of the summit
of Mount Washington), but understood also, in Gorges’s account, to extend northward
as far as the “Lake of the Clouds” — furnishes another ground for supposing that
the last-mentioned explorer, or, at least, Josselyn, may have penetrated the mountain
by one of its eastern ravines; several of which head in the great plain mentioned, while
that is i-ather remote from what we have taken for Field’s “ ridge.” Our author is the
only authority for the “pond of clear water in the midst of” the top of Mount Wash-
ington; though a somewhat capacious spring, which was well known there befoi'e the
putting-up of the house on the summit, may have been larger once; or he may rather
have mistaken, or misremembered, the position of the Lake of the Clouds.
NEW-ENGLAND S RARITIES DISCOVERED.
141
sage found out into the South Sea.* 7 It contains 1,152,400,000
acres. The discovery of the north-west passage, which lies
within the river of Canada, was undertaken with the help of
some Protestant Frenchmen, which left Canada and retired
to Boston about the year 1669. The north-east people of
America (i.e., New England, &c.) are judged to he Tartars,
called Samoades ; being alike in complexion, shape, habit,
and manners (see the Globe). Their language is very signifi-
cant, using but few words ; every word having a diverse
signification, which is exprest by their gesture : as, when
they hold their head of one side, the word signifieth one
thing ; holding their hand up when they pronounce it signi-
fieth another thing. Their speeches in their assemblies are
very gravely delivered, commonly in perfect liexamiter verse,
with great silence and attention ; and answered again ex tem-
pore, after the same manner.8
[6] Having given you some short notes concerning the coun-
try in general, I shall now enter upon the proposed discovery
of the natural, physical, and chyrurgical rarities ; and, that I
may methodically deliver them unto you, I shall cast them
into this form : 1. Birds ; 2. Beasts ; 3. Fishes ; 4. Serpents
and Insects; 5. Plants, — of these, first, such plants as are
common with us ; second, of such plants as are proper to the
country; third, of such plants as are proper to the country,
and have no name known to us ; fourth, of such plants as
have sprung up since the English planted and kept cattle
there ; fifth, of such garden herbs (amongst us) as do thrive
there, and of such as do not ; sixth, of stones, minerals, metals,
and earths.
1 Compare, as to the insulation of the tract understood bv Josselyn as New Eng-
land, Palfrey, Hist. N. E., vol. i. pp. 1, 2, and note, and the accompanying map.
8 See the author’s larger account of the natives in his Voyages, pp. 123-150.
142
ARCH-EOLOGIA AMERICANA.
FIRST, OF BIRDS.9
The Humming-Bird.
The humming-bird, the least of all birds, little bigger than
a dor ; of variable glittering colors. They feed upon honey,
which they suck out of blossoms [7] and flowers with their
long, needle-like bills. They sleep all winter, and are not to
be seen till the spring ; at which time they breed in little
nests, made up like a bottom of soft, silk-like matter ; their
eggs no bigger than a white pease. They hatch three or four
at a time, and are proper to this country.
The Troculus .10
The troculus, a small bird, black and white, no bigger
than a swallow ; the points of whose feathers are sharp,
which they stick into the sides of the chymney (to rest them-
selves, their legs being exceeding short), where they breed
in nests made like a swallow’s nest, but of a glewy substance ;
and which is not fastened to the chymney as a swallow’s nest,
but hangs down the chymney by a clew-like string a yard
long. They commonly have four or five young ones ; and
when they go away, which is much about the time that swal-
lows use to depart, they never fail to throw down one of
their young birds into the room by way of gratitude. I have
more than once observed, that, against the ruin of the family,
these birds will suddenly forsake the house, and come no
more.
9 There is a much fuller account — to be noticed again — of our birds, in the Voy-
ages, pp. 95-103. Wood’s (N. E. Prospect, chap, viii.) is also curious. In the notes
which immediately follow, on the birds, beasts, fishes, and reptiles, the oldest writers
on our natural history will be found often to explain or illustrate each other.
10 Chimney-swallow.
new-england’s rarities discovered.
143
[8] The Pilhannaiv.1
The pilhannaw, or meckquan, much like the description of
the Indian ruck ; a monstrous great bird ; a kind of hawk,
— some say an eagle ; four times as big as a goshawk ; white-
mailed ; having two or three purple feathers in her head, as
long as geeses’ feathers they make pens of. The quills of
these feathers are purple, as big as swans’ quills, and trans-
parent. Her head is as big as a child’s of a year old ; a very
princely bird. When she soars abroad, all sort of feathered
creatures hide themselves ; yet she never preys upon any of
them, but upon fawns and jaccals. She ayries in the woods
upon the high hills of Ossapy, and is very rarely or seldome
seen.
The Turkie2
The turkie, who is blacker than ours. I have heard several
credible persons affirm they have seen turkie-cocks that have
1 “ The pilhannaw is the king of birds of prey in New England. Some take him to
be a kind of eagle; others for the Indian ruck, — the biggest bird that is, except the
ostrich. One Mr. Hilton, living at Pascataway, had the hap to kill one of them. Being
by the sea-side, he perceived a great shadow over his head, the sun shining out clear.
Casting up his eyes, he saw a monstrous bird soaring aloft in the air; and, of a sudden,
all the ducks and geese (there being then a great many) dived under water, nothing
of them appearing but their heads, Mr. Hilton, having made readie his piece, shot
and. brought her down to the ground. How he disposed of her, I know not; but had he
taken her alive, and sent her over into England, neither Bartholomew nor Sturbridge
Fair could have produced such another sight.” — Josselyn's Voyages, p. 95. These
notices have been taken to be sufficient by some writers to show the probable exist-
ence of “ a bird of prey, very large and bold, on the back of some of our American
plantations.” But our author’s account indicates clearly a crested eagle, which we
cannot explain by any thing nearer home than the yzquautli, or crested vulture of Mexico
and the countries south of it (Falco Harpyja, Gmel.); two notices of which (cited by
Linnaeus) had been published some twenty years before Josselyn wrote, and may have
been supposed by him to be applicable to a large bird which he had heard of as inha-
biting mountains about Ossipee. The great heron — an inhabitant of the coast, and
so uncommon inland that “ one . . . shot in the upper parts of New Hampshire was
described to” Wilson “as a great curiosity” (Amer. Ornith., by Brewer, p. 555) — has
the size and the crest of Josselyn’s bird; and, if this last was only (as is possible) the
name of a confused conception made up from several accounts of large birds, the heron
may well be thought to have had a share in it.
2 “ Of these, sometimes there will be forty, threescore and a hundred, of a flock;
sometimes more, and sometimes less. Their feeding is acorns, hawes, and berries:
144
ARCHrEOLOGIA AMERICANA.
weighed forty, yea, sixty pound. But, out of my personal,
experimental knowledge, I can assure you that 1 have eaten
iny share of a turkie-cock, that, when he was pull’d and gar-
bidg’d, weighed thirty [9] pound ; and I have also seen three-
score broods of young turkies on the side of a marsh, sunning
of themselves in a morning betimes. But this was thirty
years since ; the English and the Indians having now de-
stroyed the breed, so that ’tis very rare to meet with a wild
turkie in the woods. But some of the English bring up great
store of the wild kind, which remain about their houses as
tame as ours in England.
The Goose?
The goose, of which there are three kinds, — the gray
goose, the white goose, and the brant. The goose will live a
long time. I once found in a white goose three hearts. She
was a very old one ; and so tuff, that we gladly gave her
over, although exceeding well roasted.
some of them get a haunt to frequent English corn. In winter, when the snow covers
the ground, they resort to the seashore to look for shrimps, and such small fishes, at
low tides. Such as love turkey-hunting must follow it in winter, after a new-fallen
snow, when he may follow them by their tracks. Some have killed ten or a dozen in
half a day. If they can be found towards an evening, and watched where they perch,
— if one come about ten or eleven of the clock, — he may shoot as often as he will:
they will sit, unless they be slenderly wounded. These turkies remain all the year
long. The price of a good turkey-cock is four shillings; and he is well worth it,- for
he may be in weight forty pounds: a hen, two shillings.” — Wood, N. Eng. Prospect,
chap. viii. See also Josselyn’s Voyages, p. 99.
3 “ The geese of the country be of three sorts. First, a brant goose ; which is a
goose almost like the wild goose in England. The price of one of these is sixpence.
The second kind is a white goose, almost as big as an English tame goose. These
come in great flocks about Michaelmas: sometimes there will be two or three thou-
sand in a flock. Those continue six weeks, and so fly to the southward; returning in
March, and staying six weeks more, returning to the northward. The price of one of
these is eightpence. The third kind of geese is a great grey goose, with a black neck,
and a black and white head; strong of flight: and these be a great deal bigger than
the ordinary geese of England; some very fat, and, in the spring, full of feathers, that
the shot can scarce pierce them. Most of these geese remain with us from Michaelmas
to April. They feed in the sea upon grass in the bays at low water, and gravel, and
in the woods of acorns; having, as other fowl have, their pass and repass to the north-
ward and southward. The accurate marksmen kill of these both flying and sitting.
The price of a grey goose is eighteen-pence.” — Wood, N. E. Prospect, l. c. The white
new-england’s rarities discovered.
145
The Bloody - Flux cured.
A friend of mine, of good quality, living some time in Vir-
ginia, was sore troubled, for a long time, with the bloody-flux.
Having tryed several remedies, by the advice of his friends,
without any good effect, at last was induced with a long-
ing desire to drink the fat-dripping [10] of a goose newly
taken from the fire ; which absolutely cured him, who was in
despair of ever recovering his health again.
The Gripe and Vulture.
The gripe, which is of two kinds, — the one with a white
head, the other with a black head : this we take for the vul-
ture. They are both cowardly kites,* * * 4 preying upon fish cast
goose here mentioned is probably the snow-goose; upon which compare Nuttall, Mass.
Ornith., Water-Birds, p. 344. Josselyn (Voyages, p. 100) says the brant and the gray
goose “are best meat; the white are lean and tough, and live a long time; whereupon
ttie proverb, ‘ Older than a white goose: ’ ” which is not supported by Wood or later
writers. The snow-goose has become much less frequent with us since the settlement
of the country. The great grey goose of Wood is our well-known Canada goose.
4 This was the best that our author could say of the eagles of New England. Wood
assists us once more here: “The eagles of the country be of two sorts, — one like the
eagles that be in England; the other is something bigger, with a great white head and
white tail. These be commonlr called gripes.” — New-Eng. Prospect , l. c. The first
spoken of by Wood — and perhaps, also, what Josselyn names last — may be the
common or ring-tailed eagle, now known to be the young of the golden eagle. The
second of Wood, and first of our author, is, without doubt, the bald eagle; the (so to
say) tyrannical habits of which bird are sufficiently well known, at least in the vivid
pages of Wilson. See the Voyages, p. 96; where we learn also that “ hawkes there
are of several kinds; as goshawks, falcons, laniers, sparrow-hawkes, and a little black
havvke highly prized by the Indians, who wear them on their heads, and is accounted
of worth sufficient to ransom a sagamour. They are so strangely couragious and
hardie, that nothing fheth in the air that they will not bind with. I have seen them
tower so high, that they have been so small that scarcely could they be taken bjr the
eye” (p. 95-6). Wood makes like mention of this little black hawk (New-Eng. Pro-
spect, l. c.); and R. Williams (Key into the Language of the Indians of N. E., in Hist.
Coll., vol. iii. p. 220) calls it “sachim, a little bird about the bigness of a swallow, or
less ; to which the Indians give that name, because of its sachem or prince-like courage
and command over greater birds: that a man shall often see this small bird pursue and
vanquish and put to flight the crow and other birds far bigger than itself.” This was
our well-known king-bird; and Josselyn, on the same page, tells us of “a small ash-
19
146
ARCH/EOLOGIA AMERICANA.
up on the shore. In the year 1668, there was a great mor-
tality of eels in Casco Bay : thither resorted, at the same
time, an infinite number of gripes; insomuch that, being shot
by the inhabitants, they fed their hogs with them for some
weeks. At other times, you shall seldom see above two or
three in a dozen miles’ travelling. The quill-feathers in their
wings make excellent text-pens, and the feathers of their tail
are highly esteemed by the Indians for their arrows. They
will not sing in flying. A gripe’s tail is worth a beaver’s skin,
up in the country.
A Remedy for the Coldness and Pain of the Stomach.
The skin of a gripe, drest with the doun on, is good to wear
upon the stomach, for the pain and coldness of it.
[11] The Osprey.
The osprey, which in this country is white-mail’d.
A Remedy for the Toothacli.
Their beaks excell for the toothach ; picking the gums
therewith till they bleed.
The Wobble ,* * * * 5
The wobble, an ill-shaped fowl ; having no long feathers in
their pinions, which is the reason they cannot fly ; not much
unlike the pengwin. They are in the spring very fat, or
rather oyly ; but pull’d and garbidg’d, and laid to the fire to
roast, they yield not one drop.
colour bird that is shaped like ahawke, with talons and beak, that falleth upon crowes;
mounting up into the air after them, and will beat them till they make them cry:”
which was, perhaps, the king-bird’s half-cousin, as Wilson calls him, — -the purple-
martin.
5 Nuttall (Manual, Water-Birds, p. 520) says that the young of the red-throated
diver is called cobble in England. Our author elsewhere (Voyages, p. 101) makes
mention of the “wobble” and the “wilmote” (that is, guillemot) as distinct; but
his wilmot was “ a kind of teal.”
new-england’s rarities discovered.
147
For Aches.
Our way (for they are very soveraign for aches) is to make
mummy of them ; that is, to salt them well, and dry them in
an earthen pot well glazed in an oven: or else (which is the
better way) to burn them under ground for a day or two ;
then quarter them, and stew them in a tin stewpan, with a
very little water.
[12] The Loone.
The loone is a water-fowl, alike in shape to the wobble, and
as virtual for aches ; which we order after the same manner.6
The Old.
The owl, Avis devia, which are of three kinds, ■ — - the great
gray owl with ears ; the little gray owl ; and the white owl,
which is no bigger than a thrush.7
The Turkie- Buzzard.
The turkie-buzzard, a kind of kite, but as big as a turkie ;
brown of color, and very good meat.8
What Birds are not to he found in New England.
Now, by what the country hath not, you may ghess at
what it hath. It hath no nightingals, nor larks, nor bul-
6 “ He maketh a noise sometimes like a sow-geider’s horn.” — N. Eng. Prospect, l. c.
t The first is the great-horned or cat-owl: the second, probably, the mottled or
little screech-owl, which Wood notices more fully as “small, speckled like a partridge j
with ears” (/. c .); and the third, the Acadian or little owl. There are hut two owls
reckoned in New-England’s Prospect; the second of which — “a great owl, almost as
big as an eagle; his body being as good meat as a partridge” (l. c.)— is, perhaps, the
snowy owl, which, according to Audubon, is good eating. — Peabody Report on Birds of
Mass., p. 275.
8 It is not clear what is meant here. The author merely mentions the bird again,
in Voyages, p. 96.
148
ARC'ILEOLOGIA AMERICANA.
finches, nor sparrows, nor blackbirds, nor mag[12]pies, nor
jackdawes, nor popinjays, nor rooks, nor pheasants, nor wood-
cocks, nor quails, nor robins, nor cuckoes, &c.9
SECONDLY, OF BEASTS.1
The Bear , ivhich are generally Black.2
The bear. They live four months in caves ; that is, all win-
ter. In the spring, they bring forth their young ones. They
9 So Wood : “ There ore no magpies, jackdaws, cuckoos, jays, &c.” — New-England' s
Prospect, l. c. Our author, in his Voyages, adds to the above list of New-England
birds the following: “The partridge is larger than ours; white-flesht, but very dry:
they are indeed a sort of partridges called grooses. The pidgeon, of which there are
millions of millions. . . . The snow-bird, like a chaf-finch, go in flocks, and are good
meat. . . . Thrushes, with red breasts, which will be very fat, and are good meat. . . .
Thressels, . . . filladies, . . . small singing-birds; ninmurders, little yellow birds ; New-
England nightingales, painted with orient colours, — black, white, blew, yellow, green,
and scarlet, — and sing sweetly; wood-larks, wrens, swallows, who will sit upon trees;
and starlings, black as ravens, with scarlet pinions. Other sorts of birds there are; as
the troculus, wagtail or dish-water, which is here of a brown colour; titmouse, — two
or three sorts; the dunneck or hedge-sparrow, who is starke naked in his winter nest;
the golden or yellow hammer, — a bird about the bigness of a thrush, that is all over
as red as bloud; woodpeckers of two or three sorts, gloriously set out with variety of
glittering colours; the colibry, viemalin, or rising or walking-bird, — an emblem of the
resurrection, and the wonder of little birds. The water-fowl are these that follow:
Hookers, or wild swans; cranes; . . . four sorts of ducks, — a black duck, a brown
duck like our wild ducks, a grey duck, and a great black and white duck. These fre-
quent rivers and ponds. But, of ducks, there be many more sorts ; as hounds, old wives,
murres, doies, shell-drakes, shoulers or shoflers, widgeons, simps, teal, blew-wing'd
and green-wing’d didapers or dipchicks, fenduck, duckers or moorhens, coots, poch-
ards (a water-fowl like a duck), plungeons (a kind of water-fowl, with a long, reddish
bill), puets, plovers, smethes, wilmotes (a kind of teal), godwits, humilities, knotes,
red-sliankes, . . . gulls, white gulls or sea-cobbs, caudemandies, herons, grey bitterns,
ox-eyes, birds called oxen and keen, petterels, king’s fishers, . . . little birds that fre-
quent the sea-shore in flocks, called sauderlins. They are about the bigness of a spar-
row, and, in the fall of the leaf, will be all fat. When I was first in the countrie ” (that
is, in 1638; in which connection, what follows is not without its interest to us), “the
English cut them into small pieces to put into their puddings, instead of suet. I have
known twelve-score and above killed at two shots. . . . The cormorant, shape or
sharke” (pp. 99-103).
1 Compare the account given in the Voyages, pp. 82-95, which is much fuller; as
also New-England’s Prospect, chap. vi.
2 “ Most fierce in strawberry-time; at which time they have young ones; at which
time, likewise, they will go upright, like a man, and climb trees, and swim to the
NEW-ENGLAXD S RARITIES DISCOVERED.
149
seldome have above three cubbs in a litter; are very fat in
the fall of the leaf, with feeding npon acorns ; at which time
they are excellent venison. Their brains are venomous.
They feed much upon water-plantane in the spring' and sum-
mer, and berries, and also upon a shell-fish called a horse-
foot; and are never mankind — i.e., fierce — but in rutting-
time ; and then they walk the country, — twenty, thirty, forty,
in a company,- — -making a hideous noise with roaring, which
you may hear a mile or two before they come so near as to
endanger the traveller. About four years since, acorns being
very scarce up in the country, some numbers of them came
down [14] amongst the English plantations, which generally
are by the sea-side. At one town called Gorgiana, in the
Province of Meyn (called also New Sommersetshire), they
kill’d fourscore.
For Aches and Cold Swellings.
Their grease is very good for aches and cold swellings.
The Indians anoint themselves therewith from top to toe ;
which hardens them against the cold weather. A black bear’s
skin heretofore was worth forty shillings ; now you may have
one for ten : much used by the English for beds and cover-
lets, and by the Indians for coats.
For Pain and Lameness upon Cold.
One Edw. Andrews, being foxt,8 and falling backward cross
a thought4 in a shallop or fisher-boat, and taking cold upon
islands: which if the Indians see, there will be more sportful bear-baiting than Paris
garden can afford; for, seeing the bears take water, an Indian will leap after him;
where they go to water-cuffs for bloody noses and scratched sides. In the end, the
man gets the victory; riding the bear over the watery plain, till he can bear him no
longer. . . . There would be more of them, if it were not for the wolves which devour
them. A kennel of those ravening runagadoes, setting rrpon a poor, single bear, will
tear him as a dog will tear a kid.” — New-Eng. Prospect, l. c., which see farther; and
also Josselyn’s Voyages, pp. 91-2.
8 Stupefied with drink. — Webster, Eng. Diet.
4 Thwart.
150
ARCELEOLOGIA AMERICANA.
it, grew crooked, lame, and full of pain ; was cured, lying
one winter upon bears’ skins newly Head off, with some upon
him, so that he sweat every night.
The Wolf.5
The wolf, of. which there are two kinds, — one with a round-
ball’d foot, and [15] are in shape like mungrel mastiffs; the
other with a flat foot. These are liker greyhounds ; and are
called deer-wolfs, because they are accustomed to prey upon
deer. A wolf will eat a wolf new-dead : and so do bears, as
I suppose ; for their dead carkases are never found, neither
by the Indian nor English. They go a-clicketing twelve days,
and have as many whelps at a litter as a bitch. The Indian
dog6 is a creature begotten ’twixt a wolf and a fox; which
the Indians, lighting upon, bring up to hunt the deer with.
The wolf is very numerous, and go in companies, — sometimes
ten, twenty, more or fewer; and so cunning, that seldome
any are kill’d with guns or traps : but, of late, they have
invented a way to destroy them, by binding foui' maycril-
hooks a cross with a brown thread ; and then, wrapping some
wool about them, they dip them in melted tallow till it be
as round and as big as an egg. These (when any beast hath
been kill’d by the wolves) they scatter by the dead carkase,
5 “ The woolves be in some respect different from them in other countries. It was
never known yet that a wolf ever set upon a man or woman: neither do they trouble
horses or cows; but swine, goats, and red calves, which they take for deer, be often
destroyed by them; so that a red calf is cheaper than a black one, in that regard,
in some places. . . . They be made mugh like a mungrel ; being big-boned, lank-
paunched, deep-breasted; having a thick neck and head, prick ears and long snout,
with dangerous teeth ; long, staring hair, and a great bush-tail. It is thought by many
that our English mastiff might be too hard for them : but it is no such matter; for they
care no more for an ordinary mastiff than an ordinary mastiff cares for a cur. Many
good dogs have been spoiled by them. . . . There is little hope of their utter destruc-
tion; the country being so spacious, and they so numerous, travelling in the swamps
by kennels: sometimes ten or twelve are of a company. ... In a word, they be the
greatest inconveniency the country hath.” — New- England's Prospect, l. c.
6 Spoken of again in the Voyages, pp. 94 and 193; and in Hubbard, Hist. N. Eng-
land, p. 25. Josselyn’s may be compared with Lewis and Clark’s notice of the Indian
dog (Travels, vol. ii. p. 165).
new-england’s rarities discovered.
151
after they have beaten off the wolves. About midnight, the
wolves are sure to return again to the place where they left
the slaughtered beast; and the [16] first thing they venture
upon will be these balls of fat.
For Old Aches.
A black wolf’s skin is worth a beaver-skin among the In-
dians ; being highly esteemed for helping old aches in old
people ; worn as a coat. They are not mankind, as in Ireland
and other countries ; but do much harm by destroying of our
English cattle.
The Ounce.''
The ounce, or wild-cat, is about the bigness of two lusty
ram-cats : preys upon deer and our English poultrey. I once
found six whole ducks in the belly of one I killed by a pond-
side. Their flesh roasted is as good as lamb, and as white.
For Aches and Shrunk Sineivs.
Their grease is soveraign for all manner of aches and
shrunk sinews. Their skins are accounted good fur, but
somewhat course.
[17] The Raccoon .7 8
The raccoon liveth in hollow trees, and is about the size of
a gib-cat. They feed upon mass, and do infest our Indian-
7 Called also “lusern, or luceret,” in the Voyages, p. 85; the loup-cervier of Sa-
gard (Hist. Can., 1636, cit. Aud. and Bachm. Vivip. Quadr. N. A., p. 136); of Dobbs’s
Hudson’s Bay, &c. ; but more commonly called gray cat, or lynx, in New England.
Wood calls it “more dangerous to be met withal than any other creature; not fearing
either dog orman. He useth to kill deer. . . . He hath likewise a device to get geese:
for, being much of the colour of a goose, he will place himself close by the water;
holding up his bob-tail, which is like a goose-neck. The geese, seeing this counter-
feit goose, approach nigh to visit him; who, with a sudden jerk, apprehends his mis-
trustless prey. The English kill many of these, accounting them very good meat.” —
New-Eng. Prospect , l. c. Audubon and Bachman (l. c., p. 14) give a similar good ac-
count of the flesh of the bay-lynx, or common wild-cat.
8 The raccoon is, or has been, an inhabitant of all North America (Godman, Nat.
Hist., vol. i. p. 117), and was one of the first of our animals with which European
152
ARCH.EOLOGIA AMERICANA.
corn very much. They will be exceeding fat in autumn.
Their flesh is somewhat dark, but good food roasted.
For Bruises and Aches.
Their fat is excellent for bruises and aches. Their skins
are esteemed a good, deep fur ; but yet, as the wild-cats,
somewhat course.
The Porcupine.
The porcupine, in some parts of the countrey eastward
towards the French, are as big as an ordinary mungrel cur ;
a very angry creature, and dangerous,- — shooting a whole
shower of quills with a rowse at their enemies ; which are of
that nature, that, wherever they stick in the flesh, they will
work through in a short time, if not prevented by pulling of
them out. The Indians make use of their quills, which are
hardly a handful long, to adorn [18J the edges of their birchen
dishes; and weave (dying some of them red, others yellow
and blew) curious bags or pouches, in Avorks like Turkie-
work.* * * * * 9
The Beaver , Canis Ponticus Ampliibius.1
The beaver, whose old ones are as big as an otter, or rather
bigger ; a creature of a rare instinct, as may apparently be
seen in their artificial dam-heads to raise the water in the
ponds where they keep ; and their houses having three
stories ; which would be too large to discourse. They have
all of them four cods hanging outwardly betAveen their hinder
naturalists became acquainted. Linnaeus (Svst. Nat.) cites Conrad Gesner among
those who have illustrated or mentioned it. Wood says they are “as good meat as a
lamb;” and further, that, “in the moonshine night, they go to feed on clams at a low
tide, by the seaside, where the English hunt them with their dogs.” — New- Eng. Pro-
spect, l. c.
9 The author’s account of the Indian works in birch-bark and porcupine-quills is
much fuller in his Voyages, p. 143.
1 Wood’s account is far better. — New-Eng. Prospect , chap. vii. See page 53 of the
Rarities for mention of the musk quash.
new-england’s rarities discovered.
153
legs : two of them are soft or oyly, and two solid or hard.
The Indians say they are hermaphrodites.
For Wind in the Stomach.
Their solid cods are much used in physick. Our English
women in this country use the powder, grated — as much as
will lye upon a shilling — in a draught of Fiol wine, for wind
in the stomach and belly ; and venture many times, in such
cases, to give it to women with child. Their tails are flat,
and covered with scales, without hair ; [19] which, being flead
off, and the tail boiled, proves exceeding good meat; being
all fat, and as sweet as marrow.
The Moose-Beer .2
The moose-deer, which is a very goodly creature, — some of
them twelve foot high ; with exceeding fair horns, with broad
palms, — some of them two fathom from the tip of one horn
to the other. They commonly have three fawns at a time.
Their flesh is not dry, like deer’s flesh, but moist and lush-
ious ; somewhat like horse-flesh (as they judge that have
tasted of both), but very wholsome. The flesh of their
fawns is an incomparable dish ; beyond the flesh of an asses
foal, so highly esteemed by the Romans; or that of young
spaniel-puppies, so much cried up in our days in France and
England.
2 See Voyages, pp. 88-91. Called moos-soog (rendered “great-ox; or, rather, red
deer”) in R. Williams’s Key (Hist. Coll., vol. iii. p. 223): but this is rather the plural
form of moos ; as see the same, l. c. p. 222, and note, and Rasies’ Diet. Abnaki, in loco.
It is called mongsoa by the Cree Indians; and, it should seem, mongsoos by the Indians
of the neighborhood of Carlton House; as see Richardson, in Sabine’s Appendix to
Franklin’s Narrative of a Journey to the Polar Sea, pp. 665-6. “The English,” says
Wood, “have some thoughts of keeping him tame, and to accustome him to the yoke;
which will be a great commodity. . . . There be not many of these in the Massachu-
setts Bay; but, forty miles to the north-east, there be great store of them.” — New-
Eng. Prospect , l. c. On hunting the moose, as practised by the Indians, see Josselyn’s
Voyages, p. 136.
20
154
ARCILEOLOGIA AMERICANA.
Moose-horns better for Pliysick Use than Marts' -horns.
Their horns are far better, in my opinion, for physick, than
the horns of other deer, as being of a stronger nature. As
for their claws, which both Englishmen and French make use
of for elk, I cannot [20] approve so to be from the elfects ;
having had some trial of it. Besides, all that write of the
elk describe him with a tuft of hair on the left leg, behind,
a little above the. pastern joynt on the outside of the leg, —
not unlike the tuft (as I conceive) that groweth upon the
breast of a turkie-cock ; which I could never yet see upon the
leg of a moose, and I have seen some number of them.
For Children breeding Teeth.
The Indian webbes make use of the broad teeth of the
fawns to hang about their children’s neck, when they are
breeding of their teeth. The tongue of a grown moose,
dried in the smoak after the Indian manner, is a dish for a
sagamor.
The Maecarib.3
The maecarib, caribo, or pohano ; a kind of deer, as big as
a stag; round-hooved, smooth-hair’d, and soft as silk. Their
horns grow backwards along their backs to their rumps, and
turn again a handful beyond their nose ; having another horn
in the middle of their forehead, about half a yard long, —
very straight, but [21] wreathed like an unicorn’s horn, — of
a brown, jettie colour, and very smooth. The creature is no-
where to be found but upon Cape Sable, in the French quar-
ters ; and there, too, very rarely ; they being not numerous.
Some few of their skins and their streight horns are (but
very sparingly) brought to the English.
3 Wood (N. E. Prospect, l. c.) has but two kinds of deer: of which the first is the
moose; and the second, called “ ordinary deer,” and, in the vocabulary of Indian words,
oltucJc (compare altuck or noonatch , deer, — R. Williams, l. c. ; but atteylc, in the Cree
new-england’s rarities discovered.
155
The Fox}
The fox, which differeth not much from ours, but are some-
what less. A black-fox skin heretofore was wont to be valued
at fifty and sixty pound ; but now you may have them for
twenty shillings. Indeed, there is not any in New England
dialect, signifies a small sort of rein-deer, — Richardson, in Appendix to Franklin’s
Journey, p. 665 ; and it is observable that Rasies’ word for chevreuil is norice ), is our
American fallow-deer. R. Williams also appears to distinguish with clearness but two;
which are, perhaps, the same as Wood’s. Josselvn, in this book, passes quite over
the common, or fallow-deer: but, making up in the Voyages for the fallings-short of the
Rarities, he goes, in the former, quite the other way; reckoning the roe, buck, red deer,
rein-deer, elk, maurouse, and maccarib. What is further said of these animals, where
he speaks more at large, makes it appear likely that the second, third, and fourth
names, so far as they have any value, belong to a single kind, — the “ordinary deer”
of Wood (whose description possibly helped Josselyn’s), or our fallow-deer; to which
the “roe” is also to be referred: and the “elk” he himself explains as the moose.
But, beside these two kinds, Josselyn has the merit of indicating, with some distinct-
ness, one, or possibly two, others, — the maurov.se and the maccarib. The maurouse
■ — of which only the Voyages make mention — “is somewhat like a moose; but his
horns are but small, and himself about the size of a stag. These are the deer that the
flat-footed wolves hunt after.” — Voyages, p. 91. This is to be compared with the mau-
roos, rendered “ cerf," of Rasies’ Diet., 1. c., p. 382; and, in such connection, is hardly
referable to other than the caribou , or reindeer, — a well-known inhabitant of the north-
eastern parts of New England, and likely, therefore, to have come to the knowledge of
our author; while there seems to be no testimony to its ever having occurred in Mas-
sachusetts and southward, where Wood and Williams made their observations. The
last, or the maccarib , caribo , or pbha.no , of Josselyn, is described above ; and, in the
Voyages (p. 91), he only repeats that it “is not found, that ever I heard yet, but upon
Cape Sable, near to the French plantations.” The “round” hoofs of the maccarib
might lead us to take this for the caribou of Maine; the round track of which differs
much from that of the fallow-deer. But the former is more likely to have been the
American elk; so rare, it should seem, where it occurred, when our author wrote,
and so little known in the New-England settlements, that his fancy, fed by darkling
hearsay, could deck it with the honors of the “ unicorn.”
i “ There are two or three kinds of them, — one a great yellow fox; another grey,
who will climb up into trees. The black fox is of much esteem.” — Josselyn' s Voyages,
p. 82 ; where is also an account of the way of hunting foxes in New England. Wood
has nothing special, but that some of the foxes “ be black. Their furrs is of much
esteem” (l. c.). Williams ( l . c.) has “ mishquashim, a red fox; pequaums, a gray fox.
The Indians say they have black foxes, which they have often seen, but never could
take any of them. They say they are manittooes.” Beside the common red fox, or
mishquashim, we have in all these accounts — and also in Morell’s Nova Anglia, l. c.,
p. 129 — mention of a black fox; which may have been the true black or silver fox,
or, in part at least, the more, common cross-fox (Aud. and Bachm., Viv. Quadr. N. A.,
p. 45); the pelt of which is also in high esteem. For Williams’s gray fox, see the next
note. Josselyn’s climbing gray fox is perhaps the fisher ( Mustela Canadensis, Schreb.),
notwithstanding the color. According to Audubon (l. c., pp. 51, 310, 315), this is called
the black fox in New England and the northern couuties of New York. I have heard
'it more often called black cat in New Hampshire.
156
ARCHiEOLOGIA AMERICANA.
that are perfectly black, but silver-kair’d ; that is, sprinkled
with grey hairs.
The Jaccalh
The jaccal is a creature that hunts the lion’s prey, — a
shrew’d sign that there are lions upon the continent. There
are those that are yet living in the countrey that do con-
stantly affirm, that, about six or seven and thirty years since,
an Indian [22] shot a young lion,6 7 sleeping upon the body of
an oak blown up by the roots, with an arrow, not far from
Cape Anne, and sold the skin to the English. But, to say
something of the jaccal, they are ordinarily less than foxes,
of the colour of a gray rabbet, and do not scent nothing near
so strong as a fox. Some of the Indians will eat of them.
Their grease is good for all that fox-grease is good for, but
weaker. They are very numerous.
The Hare?
The hare, in New England, is no bigger than our English
rabbets ; of the same colour, but withall having yellow and
black strokes down the ribs. In winter they are milk-white ;
and, as the spring approacheth, they come to their colour
6 “ A creature much like a fox, but smaller.” — Voyages, p. 83. Probably the gray
fox, called peqziawus by R. Williams ( I ’wipes Virginianus, Schreb.); which has not the
rank smell of the red fox. — Aud. and Bachm., 1. c., p. 168.
6 “ They told me of a young lyon (not long before) kill’d at Piscataway by an In-
dian.”— Voyages, p. 23. Higginson says that lions “have been seen at Cape Anne.” —
New-Eng. Plantation, l. c., p. 119. “ Some affirm,” says Wood, “that they have seen a
lion at Cape Anne. . . . Besides, Plimouth men” (that is, men of old Plymouth, it is
likely) “ have traded for lion-skins in former times. But sure it is that there be lions
on that continent; for the Virginians saw an old lion in their plantation,” &c. — New-
Eng. Prospect, l. c. The animal here spoken of may well have been the puma or
cougar, or American lion.
7 “ The rabbits be much like ours in England. The hai'es be some of them white,
and a yard long. These two harmless creatures are glad to shelter themselves from
the harmful foxes in hollow trees; having a hole at the entrance no bigger than they
can creep in at.” — Wood, New-Eng. Prospect, l. c. Wood’s rabbit and Josselyn’s hare,
so far as the summer coloring goes, appear to be the gray rabbit (Lepus syloaticus , Aud.
and Bachm., l.c., p. 173); and the white hare of Wood — as also, probably, the hare,
“milk-white in winter,” of Josselyn — is doubtless the northern hare ( Lepus Ameri-
canus, Erxl., Aud. and Bachm., 1. c., p. 93).
new-england’s rarities discovered.
157
When the snow lies upon the ground, they are very bitter
with feeding upon the bark of spruce and the like.8
[23] THIRDLY, OF FISHES.9
Pliny and Isadore write, there are not above a hundred
and forty-four kinds of fishes ; but, to my knowledge, there
are nearer three hundred. I suppose America was not known
to Pliny and Isadore.
A Catalogue of Fish ; that is, of those that are to he seen be-
tween the English Coast and America, and those proper to the
Countrey.
Alderling. : Anchova, or sea-minnow.
Alize, alewife (because great-bel- j Aleport.
lied), olafle, oldwife, allow.1
8 The Voyages mention, beside the quadrupeds above named, also the skunk
( seganhoo of Rasies’ Diet., 1. c.); the musquash ( mooskooessno of Rasies, l. c.), for
which see also p. 53 of this; otter; marten, “as ours are in England, but blacker;”
sable, “ much of the size of a mattrise, perfect black, but ... I never saw but two of
them in eight years’ space ; ” the squirrel, “ three sorts, — the mouse-squirril, the gray
squirril, and the flying-squirril (called by the Indian assapanich).” Our author’s
mouse-squirrel, which he describes, is the ground or striped squirrel : probably the
“ anequus, a little coloured squirrel ” of R. Williams, l. c.; and the anikoosess (rendered
suisse) of Rasies, l. c. The mattrise of our author is, according to him, “ a creature
whose head and fore-parts is shaped somewhat like a lyon’s; not altogether so big as a
house-cat. They are innumerable up in the countrey, and are esteemed good furr.” —
Voyages, p. 87. The sable is compared with the mattrise, at least in size; and the name
is perhaps comparable with mallegooessoo of Rasies, l. c. ; but this is rendered lievre.
Wood adds to this list of our quadrupeds, mistakenly, the ferret; and R. Williams, the
“ ockquutchaun-nug, — a wild beast of a reddish hair, about the bigness of a pig, and
rooting like a pig;” which seems to answer, in name as well as habits, to our wood-
chuck, or ground-hog.
9 The author’s attempt here at a general catalogue of the fishes, mollusks, &c., of
the North- Atlantic Ocean, affords but a poor make-shift for such a list as we might
fairly have expected from him of the species known to the early fishermen in the
waters and seas of New England! and the account in his Voyages (pp. 104-15) is
again an improvement on the present, and is confined to the inhabitants of our waters.
I have printed the names of such species, in the following list, as the author (either in
this book or in his Voyages) attributes to New England, in Italics. Beyond this, the
present editor has little to offer in elucidation of the list; which indeed, in good part,
appears sufficiently intelligible. Compare Wood, New-Eng. Prospect, chap. x.
1 “ Like a herrin, but has a bigger bellie; therefore called an alewife.” — Voyages,
p. 107. The other names, alize and allow, are doubtless corruptions of the French
158
ARCH.ZEOLOGIA AMERICANA.
Albicore.'1 2
Barbie.
Barraclia.
Barracoutha, a fish peculiar to the
West Indies.3 4
Barsticle.
Basse.*
Sea-bishop, proper to the Norway
seas.
[24] River bleak or bley, a river-
swallow.
Sea bleak or bley, or sea-came-
lion.
Blew-fish, or hound-fish, two kinds,
— speckled hound-fish and blew
hound-fish (called horse-fish5).
Bonito, or dozada, or Spanish dol-
phin.6 *
River-bream.
Sea-bream ?
Cud-bream.
Bullhead , or Indian muscle.
River-bulls.
Bur-fish.
Burret.
Cackarel, or laxe.
Calemarie, or sea-clerk.
Catfish .8
Carp.
Chare, a fish proper to the river
Wimander in Lancashire.
Sea-chough.
Chub, or chevin.
Cony-fish.
Clam , or clamp.9
Sea-cob.
alose, also in use among London fishmongers to designate shad from certain waters. —
Rees's Cyc., in loco. The old Latin word alosa , supposed to have been always applied to
the fish just mentioned, is adopted by Cuvier for the genus which includes our shad,
alewife, and menhaden.
2 The tunny is so called on the coast of New England. — Stover's Report on the Fishes
of Mass., p. 48.
3 It is, notwithstanding, set down in the author’s list of fishes “ that are to be seen
and catch’d in the sea and fresh waters in New England.” — Voyages, p. 113. And
compare Storer, Synops. (Mem. Am. Acad., N. S., vol. ii. ), p. 300.
4 See Voyages, p. 108. The first settlers esteemed the bass above most other fish.
See Higginson’s New-England’s Plantation (Hist. Coll., vol. i. p. 120). Wood calls it
(New-Eng. Prospect, chap, ix.) “one of the best fish in the country; and though men
are soon wearied with other fish, yet are they never with bass. The Indians,” he says,
eat lobsters, “when they can get no bass.” The head was especially prized; as see
Wood, and also Roger Williams’s Key (Hist. Coll., vol. iii. p. 224). The fish is our
striped bass (Labrax lineatus, Cuv. ; Storer’s Report on Fishes of Mass., p. 7). Our
author, at p. 37, again mentions it as one of the eight fishes which “ the Indians have
in greatest request.”
8 See p. 96 as to the blue-fish, or horse-mackerel; and Storer, l. c., p. 57.
6 The bonito of our fishermen is the skipjack. — Storer, l. c., p. 49.
1 See p. 95.
8 See p. 96. Josselyn’s character of the fish as food is confirmed by Dr. Storer, l. c.,
p. 69.
9 The clam is one of the eight fishes mentioned at p. 37 as most prized by the
Indians. “ Sickishuog (clams). This is a sweet kind of shell-fish, which all Indians gene-
rally over the country, winter and summer, delight in; and, at low water, the women
dig for them. This fish, and the natural liquor of it, they boil; and it makes their
new-england’s rarities discovered.
159
CocJces or coccles, or coquil.* 1
Cook-fish.
Rock-cod.
Sea-cod, or sea-whiting.2
[25] Crab, divers kinds ; as, the
sea-crab, boat-fish, river-crab,
sea-lion, &c.
Sea-cucumber.
Cunger, or sea-eel.
Cunner, or sea-roach.
Cur.
Currier, post, or lacquey of the
sea.
Cramp-fish, or torpedo.
Cuttle, or sleeves, or sea-angler.
Clupea, the tunnie’s enemy.
Sea-cornet.
Cornuta, or horned fish.
Dace, dare or dart.
Sea-dart , javelins.
Dogfish, or tubarone.
Dolphin.
Dorce.
Dorrie (goldfish).
Golden-eye, gilt-pole or godline,
yellow-heads.
Sea-dragon, or sea-spider, quavi-
ner.
Drum, a fish frequent in the West
Indies.
Sea-emperour, or sword-fish.
Eel, of which divers kinds.3
Sea-elephant. The leather of this
fish will never rot ; excellent
for thongs.
Ears of the sea.
broth and their nasaump (which is a kind of thickened broth) and their bread seasona-
ble and savoury, instead of salt.” — Williams's Key, <f'C., 1. c., p. 224. “ These fishes
be in great plenty in most parts of the country : which is a great commodity for the
feeding of swine, both in winter and summer; for, being once used to those places,
they will repair to them as duly, every ebb, as if they were driven to them by keepers.”
— Wood, N. Eng. Prospect, l. c. The mollusk thus approved is the common clam (Mya
arenaria, L.); but the poquauhock, or quahog (Venus mercenaria, L.), “which the In-
dians wade deep and dive for” (R. Williams, l. c., p. 224), was also eaten by them, and
the black part of the shell used for making their suckauhock, or black money. Wood
speaks also of “ clams as big as a penny white loaf, which are great dainties amongst
the natives” (N. E. Prospect, l. c.); doubtless the giant clam ( Mactra solidissima,
Chemn.) of Gould (Report on Invertebr. of Mass., p. 51), which is still esteemed as
food.
1 See p. 36 ; by which it appears that the author has in view the meteauhock of the
Indians; “the periwinkle, of which they make their wompam, or white money, of half
the value of their suckauhock, or black money” (R. Williams, l. c.): supposed to be
Buccinum undatum, L. (Gould, l. c., p. 305); and possibly, also, one or two other allied
shell-fish.
2 “ Cod-fish in these seas” (that is, Massachusetts Bay) “are larger than in New-
foundland,— six or seven making a quintal; whereas they have fifteen to the same
weight.” — New-Eng. Prospect, l. c. Compare Storer, l. c., p. 121. Josselyn has an
entertaining account of the sea-fishery, in his Voyages, pp. 210-13.
3 See further of eels, and the author’s several ways of cooking them, in his Voy-
ages, p. 111. At p. 37 of the Rarities, eels are mentioned among the fishes most prized
by the Indians. “ These eels be not of so luscious a taste as they be in England, neither
are they so aguish; but are both wholesome for the body, and delightful for the taste.”
— Wood, New-Eng. Prospect, chap. ix.
1G0
ARCH2EOLOGIA AMERICANA.
Flayl-fish.
[26] Flownder, or flook : the
young ones are called dabs.
Sea-flownder, or flowre.
Sea-fox.
Frog-fish.
Frost-fish^
Frutola, a broad, plain fish, with
a tail like a half-moon.
Sea-fiea.
Gally-fish.
Grandpiss,4 5 or herring-hog. This,
as all fish of extraordinary size,
are accounted regal fishes.
Grayling.
Greedigut.
Groundling.
Gudgin.
Gulf.
Sea-grape.
Gull.
Gurnard.
Hake.
Haccle, or sticklebacks.
Haddock.
Horse-foot, or asses’-hoof.
Herring.
Hallihut, or sea-pheasant. Some
will have the turbut all one:
others distinguish [27] them;
calling the young fish of the
first, buttis ; and, of the other,
birt. There is no question to
be made of it but that they are
distinct kinds of fish.6
Sea-hare .7
Sea-hawk.
Hart-fish.
Sea-hermit.
Hen-fish.
Sea-hind.
Hornbeak, sea-ruff, and reeves.
Sea-horseman.
Hog or flying fish.
Sea-kite, or flying swallow.
Lampret, or lamprel.
Lampreys, or lamprones.8
Limpin.
Ling (sea-beef) : the smaller sort
is called cusk.
Sea-lantliorn.
Sea-liver.
Lobster .9
Sea-lizard.
4 See p. 37, where it is said to be one of the fishes which “ the Indians have in
greatest request.” — “ Poponaumsuog ” of R. Williams, l. c., p. 225. He says, “Some
call them frost-fish, from their coming up from the sea into fresh brooks in times of
frost and snow.”
6 “Grampoise; Fr . grandpoisson corrupted grampus. — Webster, Diet.
6 “ These hollibut be little set by while bass is in season.” — Wood, I. c., chap. ix.
1 “ The sea-hare is as big as grampus, or berrin-hog; and as white as a sheet. There
hath been of them in Black-Point Harbour, and some way up the river; but we could
never take any of them. Several have shot sluggs at them, but lost their labour.” —
Voyages, p. 105. The Lepus marinus of the old writers is a naked mollusk of the Me-
diterranean ; Laplysia depilans, L. : but Josselyn’s was a very different animal.
8 One of the fishes most valued by the Indians (p. 37); but “ not much set by” by
the English, according to Wood, l. c.
9 “I have seene some myselfe that have weighed 16 pound; but others have had,
divers times, so great lobsters as have weighed 25 pound, as they assure me.” — Big-
new-england’s rarities discovered.
161
Sea-locusts.
Lump, poddle, or sea-owl.
Lanter.
Lux, peculiar to the river Rhyne.
Sea-lights.
[28] Luna, a very small fish, but
exceeding beautiful ; broad-bo-
died, and blewish of colour.
When it swims, the fins make
a circle like the moon.
Maycril.
Maid.
Manatee.
Mola, a fish like a lump of flesh,
taken in the Venetian Sea.
Miller’s-thumb, mulcet or pollard.
Molefish.
Minnow, called likewise a pink.
The same name is given to
young salmon. It is called
also a witlin.
Monke-fish}
Morse , river or sea horse.2
Fresh-water mullet.
Sea-mullet. Botargo, or petargo,
is made of their spawn.
Muscle, divers kinds.3
Navel-fish.
Nunjish.
Needlefish.
Sea-nettie.
Oyster .* i
Occulata.
Perch, or river-partridge.
Pollack.
[29] Piper, or gave-fish.
Periwig.
Perriwincle, or sea - snail, or
whelk.
Pike, or fresh- water wolf, or river-
wolf (luce and lucerne), which
is an overgrown pike.
ginson's New-Eng. Plantation, l.c., p. 120; with which compare Gould’s Report, &c.,
p. 360. “ Their plenty makes them little esteemed, and seldom eaten.” — Wood, New-
Eng. Prospect, chap. ix. At p. 37, Josselyn counts them among the fishes, &c., most
esteemed by the Indians; but Wood (l.c.) qualifies this in a passage already cited.
The Indians, it seems, sometimes dried them, “as they do lampres and oysters; which
are delicate breakfast-meat so ordered.” — Josselyti's Voyages, p. 110. See the Indian
way of catching lobsters, in Voyages, p. 140.
1 “ Munk-fish, a flat-fish like scate; having a hood like a fryer’s cowl” (p. 96).
Lophius Americanus, Cuv., the sea-devil of Storer (Synops. of Amer. Fishes, in Mem.
Amer. Acad., N. S., vol. ii. p. 381), is called monk-fish in Maine. ^ Williamson, Hist.,
vol. i. p. 157.
2 See p. 97.
8 “ The muscle is of two sorts, — sea-muscles (in which they find pearl) and river-
muscles.” — Voyages, p. 110. See p. 37, of the present volume, for an account of “ the
scarlet muscle,” which . . . yieldeth a perfect purple or scarlet juice; dying linnen
so that no washing will wear it out,” &c. This could scarcely have been a purpura or
buccinum.
* See Voyages, p. 110. “The oysters be great ones,” says Wood; “in form of a
shoe-horn: some be a foot long. These breed on certain banks that are bare every
spring-tide.” — New-Eng. Prospect, chap. ix. This was in the waters of Massachusetts
Bay, where Higginson (New-Eng. Plantation, l. c., p. 120) also speaks of their being
found. The question whether the oyster is an indigenous inhabitant of our bay, or
only an introduced stranger, is considered by Dr. Gould (Report on Invert. Animals of
Mass., pp. 135, 365).
21
162
ARCHfEOLOGIA AMERICANA.
Pilchard. When they are dried,
as red herrings, they are called
fumadoes.
Pilot-fish.
Plaice , or sea-sparrow.
Polipe, or pour-contrel.
Porpuise, or porpiss, molebut, sea-
hog, Sus marinus, tursion.
Priest-fish, or sea-priest.
Prawn, or crangone.
Punger.
Patella.
Powt (the feathered fish), or fork-
fish.
River-powt.
Purse-fish, or Indian reversus, like
an eel ; having a skin on the
hinder part of her head like a
purse with strings, which will
open and shut.
Parrat-fish.
Purple-fish.
Porgee.
Remora, or suck-stone, or stop-
ship.
Sea-raven.
[30] Roch, or roach.
Rochet, or rouget.
Ruff, or pope.
Sea-ram.
Salmon ?
Sail-fish.
Scallope, or Venus-coccle.
Scate, or ray, or gristle-fish, of
which divers kinds ; as sharp-
snowted ray, rock-ray, See.
Shad.6
Shallow.
Sharpling.
Spurling.
Sculpin.
Sheep’s-head.7
Soles, or tongue-fish, or sea-capon,
or sea-partridge.
Seal, or soil, or zeal.8 9
Sea-calf, and (as some will have
it) molebut.
Sheath fish?
Sea-scales.
Sturgeon. Of the roe of this fish
they make caviare, or cavial-
tie.1
6 One of the fishes “in greatest request” among the Indians (p. 37). Wood says it
“is as good as it is in England, and in great plenty in some places.” — New-Eng. Pro-
spect, chap. ix.
6 “ The shads be bigger than the English shads, and fatter.” — Wood, l. c.
7 “ Taul-auog (sheep’s-heads).” So Roger Williams’s Key, l. c., p. 224. It is pro-
bable, therefore, that our author had the fish that we call tautog in his mind here.
What is now called sheep’s-head is not known in Massachusetts Bay and northward. —
Storer, l. c., p. 36.
8 See p. 34; and Wood, l. c., chap. ix.
9 See p. 96. It appears to be the mollusk, the shell of which is well known as the
razor-shell ( Solen ensis, L.). — Gould, Report, p. 28.
1 See p. 32. “The sturgeons be all over the country; but the best catching of
them is upon the shoals of Cape Cod and in the river of Merrimack, where much is,
taken, pickled, and brought to England. Some of these be 12, 14, and 18 feet long.” —
Wood, New- Eng. Prospect, chap. ix. R. Williams says that “the natives, for the
goodness and greatness of it, much prize it; and will neither furnish the English with
new-england’s rarities discovered.
163
Shark, or bunch ; several kinds.* 2
Smelt.
Snaccot.
[31] Shrimp.
Spy-fish.
Spite-fish.
Sprat.
Spunge-fish.
Squill.
Squid.3 4
Sun-fish.
Star-fish?
Sword-fish.
Tench.
Thornback, or Neptune’s beard.
Thunnie. They cut the fish in
pieces like shingles, and powder
it ; and this they call melan-
dria.
Sea-toad.
Tortoise, torteise, tortuga, tortisse,
turcle, or turtle , of divers
kinds.5 6 7
Trout?
Turbut?
Sea-tun.
Sea-tree.
Uraniscopus.
Ulatife, or sawfsh ; having a saw
in his forehead three foot long,
and very sharp.
Umber.
Sea-urchin. [ros.
[32] Sea-unicorn, or sea-monoce-
Whale, many kinds.8 9
Whiting, or merling. The young
ones are called weerlings and
mops.
Whore?
Yard-fish, or shame-fish.
so many, nor so cheap, that any great trade is like to be made of it, until the English
themselves are fit to follow the fishing.” — Key, l. c., p. 224. It is one of Josselyn’s
eight fish which are in “ greatest request” with the Indians (p. 37). . He calls “ Pechips-
cut” River, in Maine, “famous for multitudes of mighty large sturgeon.” — Voyages,
p. 204.
2 See Voyages, pp. 105-6.
3 “ This fish is much used for bait to catch a cod, hacke, polluck, and the like sea-
fish.” — Voyages, p. 107. It is still so used.
4 Described at p. 95.
6 See p. 34 of this, and p. 109 of the Voyages, where the author says, “ Of sea-
turtles, there are five sorts ; of land-turtles, three sorts, — one of which is a right land-
turtle, that seldom or never goes into the water ; the other two being the river-turtle
and the pond-turtle.” — See also the author’s observations on sea-turtles, at p. 39 of the
Voyages.
6 “Trouts there be good store in every brook; ordinarily two and twenty inches
long. Their grease is good for the piles and clifts.” — Voyages, p. 110.
7 See Storer’s Report, p. 146.
8 See p. 35; and Voyages, p. 104. “The natives cut them in several parcel, and
give and send them far and near for an acceptable present or dish.” — R. Williams,
Key, l. c., p. 224.
9 See Voyages, p. 110. This is the common sea-egg; Echinus granulaius, Say. —
Gould's Rep., p. 344.
164
ARCH/EOLOGIA AMERICANA.
The Sturgeon.
The sturgeon; of whose sounds is made isinglass, — a kind
of glew much used in physick. This fish is here in great
plenty, and in some rivers so numerous that it is hazardous
for canoes and the like small vessels to pass to and again ; as
in Pechipscut River to the eastward.
The Cod.
The cod, which is a staple commodity in the country.
To stop Fluxes of Blood.
In the head of this fish is found a stone, or rather a
bone, which, being pulveriz’d and drank in any convenient
liquor, will stop women’s overflowing courses notably. Like-
wise,— ■
[33] For the Stone.
There is a stone found in their bellies, in a bladder against
their navel ; which, being pulveriz’d and drank in white-wine
posset, or ale, is present remedy for the stone.
To heal a Green Cut.
About their fins you may find a kind of lowse, which heal-
eth a green cut in short time.
To restore them that have melted their Grease.
Their livers and sounds, eaten, is a good medicine for to
restore them that have melted their grease.
The Bog-fish.
The dog-fish, a ravenous fish.
For the Toothach.
Upon whose back grows a thorn, two or three inches long,
that helps the toothach ; scarifying the gums therewith.
Their skins are good to cover boxes and instrument-cases.
new-england’s rarities discovered.
165
[34] The Stingray.
The stingray, a large fish, of a rough skin; good to cover
boxes, and hafts of knives and rapier-sticks.
The Tortous.
The turtle, or tortous, of which there are three kinds.
1. The land-turtle: they are found in dry, sandy banks, under
old houses ; and never go into the water.
For the Ptisiek, Consumption, and Morbus Gallicus.
They are good for the ptisiek and consumptions, and, some
say, the morbus gallicus.
2. The river-turtle, which are venomous, and stink.
3. The turtle, that lives in lakes, and is called in Virginia
a terrapine.
The Soile.
The soile, or sea-calf, a creature that brings forth her young
ones upon dry land ; but, at other times, keeps in the sea,
preying upon fish.
[35] For Scalds and Burns, and for the Mother.
The oyl of it is much used by the Indians, who eat of it
with their fish, and anoint their limbs therewith, and their
wounds and sores. It is very good for scalds and burns ; and
the fume of it, being cast upon coals, will bring women out
of the mother-fits. The hair upon the young ones is white,
and as soft as silk. Their skins, with the hair on, are good
to make gloves for the winter.
The Sperma-ceti Whale.
The sperma-ceti whale differeth from the whales that yield
us whale-bones : for the first hath great and long teeth ; the
other is nothing but bones, with tassels hanging from their
jaws, with which they suck in their prey.
166
ARCH/EOLOGIA AMERICANA.
What Sperma-ceti is.
It is not long since a sperma-ceti wliale or two were cast
upon the shore, not far from Boston, in the Massachusetts
Bay ; which, being cut into small pieces and boiled in caul-
drons, yielded plenty of oyl. The oyl, put up into hogsheads
and stow’d into cellars for some time, candies at the [36] bot-
tom,— it may be one-quarter: then the oyl is drawn off; and
the candied stuff, put up into convenient vessels, is sold for
sperma-ceti, and is right sperma-ceti.
For Bruises and Aches.
The oyl that was drawn off candies again and again, if well
ordered ; and is admirable for bruises and aches.
Wliat Ambergreece is.
Now, you must understand this whale feeds upon amber-
greece ; as is apparent, finding it in the Avhale’s maw in great
quantity, but altered and excrementitious. I conceive that
ambergreece is no other than a kind of mushroom, growing
at the bottom of some seas. I was once shewed, by a ma-
riner, a piece of ambergreece, having a root to it like that of
the land mushroom ; which the whale breaking up, some scape
his devouring paunch, and is afterwards cast upon shore.
The Cocele.1
A kind of coccle, of whose shell the Indians make their
beads called wompampeag and mohaicks. The first are
white; the other, blew: both orient, and beau[37]tified with
a purple vein. The white beads are very good to stanch
blood.
1 See p. 24 and note.
new-england’s rarities discovered.
1G7
The Scarlet Muscle.
The scarlet muscle. At Paschataway (a plantation about
fifty leagues by sea eastward from Boston), in a small cove
called Baker’s Cove, there is found this kind of muscle, which
hath a purple vein ; which, being prickt with a needle, yield-
eth a perfect purple or scarlet juice ; dying linnen so that no
washing will wear it out, but keeps its lustre many years.
We mark our handkerchiefs and shirts with it.2
Fish of greatest Esteem in the West Indies.
The Indians of Peru esteem of three fishes more than any
other ; viz., the sea-torteise, the tubaron, and the manate,3 or
sea-cow : but, in New England, the Indians have in greatest
request the bass, the sturgeon, the salmon, the lamprey, the
eel, the frost-fish, the lobster, and the clam.
2 Our author’s account of the fishes of New England may take this of old Wood
(N. E. Prospect, l. c.) for a tail-piece. “ The chief fish for trade,” says he, “is a cod;
but, for the use of the country, there is all manner of fish, as followeth: —
“ The king of waters, — the sea-shouldering Whale ;
The snuffing Grampus, with the oily seal ;
The storm-presaging Porpus, Herring-hog;
Line-shearing Shark, the Cat-fish, and Sea-dog;
The scale-fenced Sturgeon; wry-mouthed Hollibut;
The flouncing Salmon, Codfish, Greedigut;
Cole, Haddick, Hake, the Thornback, and the Scate,
(Whose slimy outside makes him seld' in date;)
The stately Bass, old Neptune’s fleeting post,
That tides it out and in from sea to coast;
Consorting Herrings, and the bony Shad;
Big-bellied Ale wives; Mackrels richly clad
With rainbow-colour, the Frost-fish and the Smelt,
As good as ever Lady Gustus felt;
The spotted Lamprons; Eels; the Lamperies,
That seek fresh-water brooks with Argus-eyes :
These watery villagers, with thousands more,
Do pass and repass near the verdant shore.”
8 See p. 97.
168
ARCHJGOLOGIA AMERICANA.
[38] FOURTHLY, OF SERPENTS AND INSECTS.4 * 6
The Pond-Frog?
The pond-frog, which chirp in the spring like sparows, and
croke like toads in autumn. Some of these, when they set
upon their breech, are a foot high. The Indians will tell you,
that, up in the country, there are pond-frogs as big as a child
of a year old.
For Burns , Scalds, and Inflammations.
They are of a glistering brass colour, and very fat ; which
is excellent for burns and scaldings, to take out the fire and
heal them, leaving no scar ; and is also very good to take
away any inflammation.
The Battle- Snake?
The rattle-snake, who poysons with a vapour that comes
thorough two crooked fangs in their mouth. The hollow of
these fangs are as black as ink. The Indians, when weary
4 The account in the Voyages (pp. 114-23) is better; and Wood’s, in New-England’s
Prospect, chap. xi. (to which last, Josselyn was possibly indebted), far better.
6 See “ the generating of these creatures,” in Voyages, p. 119. “ Here, likewise,”
says Wood, “be great store of frogs, which, in the spring, do chirp and whistle like a
bird; and, at the latter end of summer, croak like our English frogs.” — N. Eng. Pro-
specl , l.c. In his Voyages, Josselyn speaks (as Wood had done) of the tree-toad, and
also of another kind of toad; and of “the eft, or swift, ... a most beautiful creature
to look upon; being larger than ours, and painted with glorious colours: but I lik’d
him never the better for it” (p. 119).
6 Wood’s account (New-Eng. Prospect, l.c.) is worth comparing with Higginson’s
(New-England’s Plantation, l. c.) and with Josselyn’s, both here and at pp. 23 and 114
of the Voyages. Wood justly says of this “most poisonous and dangerods creature,”
that it is “nothing so bad as the report goes of him. ... He is naturally,” he con-
tinues, “the most sleepy and unnimble creature that lives; never offering to leap or
bite any man, if he be not trodden on first: and it is their desire, in hot weather, to lie
in paths where the sun may shine on them; where they will sleep so soundly, that I
have known four men stride over them, and never awake her. . . . Five or six men,”
he adds, “have been bitten by them; which, by using of snake-weed” (compare the
preface to this, p. 119), “ were all cured; never any yet losing his life by them. Cows
new-england’s rarities discovered. 169
with travelling, will [39] take them up with their hare hands ;
laying hold with one hand behind their head, with the other
taking hold of their tail ; and, with their teeth, tear off the
skin of their backs, and feed upon them alive ; which, they
say, refresheth them.
For Frozen Limbs , Aches , and Bruises.
They have leafs of fat in their bellies ; which is excellent
to annoint frozen limbs, and, for aches and bruises, wondrous
soveraign. Their hearts, swallowed fresh, is a good antidote
against their venome ; and their liver (the gall taken out),
bruised and applied to their bitings, is a present remedy.
have been bitten ; but, being out in divers places, and this weed thrust into their flesh,
were cured. I never heard of any beast that was yet lost by any of them, saving one
mare” ( l . c.). Of other serpents, Wood mentions the black snake; and Josselyn,in his
Voyages (l. c.), speaks of “infinite numbers, of various colours;” and especially of
“ one sort that exceeds all the rest; and that is the checkquered snake, having as many
colours within the checkquers shadowing one another as there are in a rainbow.”
He says again, “ The water-snake will be as big about the belly as the calf of a man’s
leg;” which is, perhaps, the water-adder. Josselyn adds, “I never heard of any mis-
chief that snakes did " (l. c.) ; and so Wood: “ Neither doth any other kind of snakes”
(the rattle-snake always excepted, as no doubt dangerous when trodden on) “molest
either man or beast.” There are perhaps no worse prejudices, in common life, than
those which breed cruelty. In the Voyages (p. 23), our author makes mention “of a
sea-serpent, or snake, that lay quoiled up like a cable upon a rock at Cape Ann. A
boat passing by with English aboard, and two Indians, they would have shot the ser-
pent: but the Indians disswaded them; saying, that, if he were not kill’d outright, they
would be all in danger of their lives.” This was from “ some neighbouring gentlemen
in our house, who came to welcome me into the countrey;” and it seems, that,
“ amongst variety of discourse, they told me also of a young lyon (not long before)
killed at Piscataway by an Indian;” which, indeed, was possibly not without founda-
tion. And as to the serpent, compare a Report of a Committee of the Linnsean Society
of New England relative to a large marine animal, supposed to be a serpent, seen near
Cape Ann, Mass., in August, 1817 (Boston, 1817); which contains also a full account
of a smaller animal — supposed not to differ, even in species, from the large — which
was taken on the rocks of Cape Ann. — See also Storer, Report on the Reptiles of
Mass.; Supplement, p. 410.
22
170
ARCHiEOLOGIA AMERICANA.
OF INSECTS.7
A Bug.
There is a certain kind of bug like a beetle, but of a glis-
tering brass colour, with four strong, tinsel wings. Their
bodies are full of corruption, or white matter like a maggot.
Being dead, and kept awhile, they will stench odiously.
They beat the humming-birds from the flowers.
[40] The Wasp.
The wasps in this countrey are pied ; black and white ;
breed in hives made like a great pine-apple. Their entrance
is at the lower end. The whole hive is of an ash colour ; but
of what matter it’s made, no man knows. Wax it is not:
neither will it melt nor fry ; but will take fire suddenly, like
tinder. This they fasten to a bow, or build it round about a
low bush, a foot from the ground.
The Flying Gloworm.
The flying gloworm ; flying, in dark summer nights, like
sparks of fire in great number. They are common, liewise,
in Palestina.
7 The author continues his entomological observations, in his Voyages, p. 115; and
the account is fuller than Wood’s; New-England’s Prospect , chap. xi.
new-england’s rarities discovered.
171
[41] FIFTHLY, OF PLANTS.
And, 1. Of such Plants as are Common with us in England.
Hedgehog grass.8
Mattweed.9
Cat’s-tail.1
Stichwort, commonly taken here, by ignorant people, for
eye-bright. It blows in June.2
Blew Flower-de-luce. The roots are not knobby, but long
and streight, and very white ; with a multitude of strings.3
To provoke Vomit, and for Bruises.
It is excellent for to provoke vomiting, and for bruises on
the feet or face. They flower in June, and grow upon dry,
sandy hills, as well as in low, wet grounds.
8 Gerard by Johnson, p. 17, — Carex flava, L.; the first species of this genus
indicated in North America, and common also to Europe. There is no doubt of the
reference, taking Josselyn’s name to be meant for specific, and to refer to Gerard’s first
figure with the same name. But it is certainly possible that our author had in view
only a general reference to Gerard’s fourteenth chapter, “ Of Hedgehog Grasse,” which
brings together plants of very different genera; and, in this case, his name is of little
account. Cutler (Account of Indig. Veg., 1. c., 1785) mentions three genera of Cypera-
cece , but not Carex; nor did he ever publish that description of our true Graminece
“ and other native grasses,” which, he says (l. c., p. 407), “may be the subject of another
paper.” The first edition of Bigelow’s Florula Bostoniensis (1814) has seven species
of Carex , which are increased to seventeen in the second edition (1824); the list em-
bracing the most common and conspicuous forms. The genus has since been made
an object of special study, and the number of our species, in consequence, greatly
increased. A list of Carices of the neighborhood of Boston, published by the present
writer in 1841 (Hovey’s Mag. Hort.), gives forty-seven species; and Professor Dewey’s
Report on the Herbaceous Plants of Massachusetts, in 1840, reckons ninety-one species
within the limits of his work.
9 Johnson’s Gerard, p. 42, — English matweed, or helme (the other species being
excluded, as not English, by our author’s caption); which I take to be Oilamagroslis
arenaria. (L.) Roth, of Gray, Man., p. 548; called sea-matvveed in England, and com-
mon to Europe and America. But if the author only intended to refer to Gerard's
“ Chapter 34, of Mat-weed,” — which is perhaps, on the whole, unlikely, — his name
is of no value.
1 Gerard, p. 46, — Typha laiifulia, L., — common to America and Europe.
2 Gerard, p. 47, — Stellaria graminea, L.; for which our author mistook, as did
Cutler a century after, the nearly akin iS. longifolia, Muhl.
8 Appears not to be meant for a specific reference to any of Gerard’s species; but
only an indication of the genus, with the single distinguishing character of color, which
172
ARCH.EOLOGIA AMERICANA.
Yellow-bastard daffodil. It floweretli in May. The green
leaves are spotted with black spots.* * 4
Dogstones, a kind of satyrion ; whereof there are several
kinds groweth in our salt-marshes.5
[42] To procure Love.
I once took notice of a wanton woman’s compounding the
solid roots of this plant with wine, for an amorous cup ; which
wrought the desired effect.
Watercresses.6
Red lillies grow all over the country innumerably amongst
the small bushes, and flower in June.7
Wild sorrel.8
Adder’s-tongue comes not up till June. I have found it
upon dry, hilly grounds, — in places where the water hath
stood all winter, — in August; and did then make oyntment
of the herb new gathered. The fairest leaves grow amongst
was enough to separate the New-England plants from the only British one referred by
Gerard to Iris. Both of our blue-flags are peculiar to the country.
4 Not one of Gerard’s bastard daffodils, but his dog’s-tooth, p. 204 ( Erylhronium ,
L.). Our common dog’s-tooth was at first taken for a variety of the European, but is
now reckoned distinct.
6 Gerard, p. 205, — Orchis , L., etc. It is here clear that the name is used only in a
general way. The second name (Satyrion), perhaps, however, makes our author’s no-
tion a little more definite, and permits us to refer the plants he had probably in view
to species of Platanthera , Rich. (Gray, Man., p. 444), of which only one is certainly-
known to be common to us and Europe.
6 Gerard, em. p. 257, — Nasturtium officinale, L. Reckoned also by Cutler, and
indeed naturalized in some parts of the country (Gray, Man., p. 30); but our author
had probably N. palustre , DC. (marsh-cress), if any thing of this genus, and not
rather Cardamine liirsuta, L. (hairy lady’s smock), in his mind. Both the last are
common to us and Europe. — Gray, l. c.
7 Gerard, p. 192. Lilium bulbiferum (the garden red lily) is meant; for which our
author mistook our own red lily (L. Philadelphkum, L. ).
8 Of the two plants, — either of which may possibly have been in view of the
author here, — the sorrell du bois, or white wood-sorrel of Gerard, p. 1101 ( Oxalis
acetosdla, L.), which is truly common to Europe and America, and the sheep’s son-el
(Gerard, p. 397, — Rumex acetosella, L. ), which inhabits, indeed, the whole northern
hemisphere, but is taken by Dr. Gray to be a naturalized weed here, I incline to
think the latter less likely to have escaped Josselyn’s attention than the former, and
to be what he means to say appeared to him as native, in 1671. For the yellow wood-
sorrel, see farther on.
new-england’s rarities discovered.
173
short hawthorn-bushes, that are plentifully growing in such
hollow places.9
One-blade.* 1
Lilly convallie, with the yellow flowers, grows upon rocky
banks by the sea.2
Water-plantane, here called water-suck leaves.3
For Burns and Scalds, and to draw Water out of Swell' d, Legs.
It is much used for burns and scalds, and to draw water
out of swell’d legs. Bears feed much upon this plant ; so do
the moose-deer.
[43] Sea-plantane, three kinds.4
Small-water archer.5
Autumn bell-flower.6
White hellibore, which is the first plant that springs up in
this country, and the first that withers. It grows in deep,
black mould and wet, in such abundance that you may, in a
small compass, gather whole cart-loads of it.7
Wounds and Aches cured by the Indians. For the Toothach.
For Herpes Milliares (sic).
The Indians cure their wounds with it ; annointing the
wound first with raccoon’s greese or wild-cat’s greese, and
9 Gerard, em., p. 404, — Ophiogbssum mlgatum, L.; common to us and Europe.
1 Gerard, em., p. 409, — Smilacina bifolia (L.), Ker; common to us and Europe.
2 Gerard, em., p. 410. A mistake of our author’s, which can hardly be set right.
The station is against the plant’s having been Smilacina trifolia (L.), Desf.
3 Alisma plantago, L., common to Europe and America; “called, in New England,
water suck-leaves and scurvie-leaves. You must lay them whole to the leggs to draw
out water between the skin and the flesh.” — Josselyn’s Voyages , p. 80. As to its medi-
cinal properties, see Gerard, p. 419; and Wood and Bache, Dispens., p. 1298.
4 Plantago maritima, L. (Gerard, p. 423), a native of Europe and America, is our
only sea-plantain. One of the others was probably Trigbchin.
6 Sagiltaria sagiltifolia, L. (now called arrowhead), common to Europe and Ame-
rica; though here passing into some varieties which are unknown in the European
Floras.
6 Gentiana saponaria, L., peculiar to America, but nearly akin to the European
G. pneumonanthe, L., which our author intended. — Johnson's Gerard , edit, cit., p. 438.
7 The plant is green hellebore (Veratrum viride, Ait.); so near, indeed, to the
white hellebore ( V. album , L.) of Europe, that it was taken for it by Michaux. In his
174
ARCELEOLOGIA AMERICANA.
strewing upon it the powder of the roots : and, for aches,
they scarifie the grieved part, and annoint it with one of the
foresaid oyls ; then strew upon it the powder. The powder
of the root, put into a hollow tooth, is good for the toothach.
The root, sliced thin and boyled in vineagar, is very good
against herpes milliaris.
Arsmart, both kinds.8
Spurge-time. It grows upon dry, sandy sea-banks ; and is
very like to rupter-wort. It is full of milk.9
Rupter-wort, with the white flower.* 1
Jagged rose-penny-wort.2
[44] Soda bariglia, or massacote (the ashes of soda), of
which they make glasses.
Glass-wort, here called berrelia. It grows abundantly in
salt marshes.3
Voyages, the author, after speaking of the use of opium by the Turks, says, “ The
English in New England take white hellebore, which operates as fairly with them as
with the Indians,” &c. (p. 60); and see p. 76, further.
8 Polygonum lapathifolium , L. ( Hydropiper of Gerard, p. 445), — for which, perhaps,
P. hydropiper , L ., was mistaken, — and P. Persicaria , L. ( Persicaria maculosa of Gerard,
l. c.), are what the author means; being the two sorts figured by Gerard himself. The
third, added by Johnson, is unknown in this country; and the fourth belongs to a very
different genus. P. Persicaria is marked as introduced in the late Mr. Oakes’s cata-
logue of the plants of Vermont; and both this and P. hydropiper are considered to be
naturalized weeds by Dr. Gray (Man., p. 373). Josselyn’s testimony as to the former,
as appearing to him to be native in 1671, is therefore not without interest; and possibly
it is not quite worthless as to the latter.
» Chamcesyce , or spurge-time, of Gerard (edit, cit., p. 504), is Euphorbia chamcesyce,
L., a species belonging to the Eastern continent; for which Sloane (cit. L. Sp. pi. in
loco ) appears to have mistaken our Euphorbia maculata , L. ; while Plukenet (Aim. 372,
cit. L.) recognizes the affinity of the same plants, calling the latter Chamcesyce altera
Virginiana. Josselyn’s spurge-time may be E. maculata ; but quite possibly, taking
the station which he gives into the account, E. polygonifolia, L.
1 There are “several sorts of spurge,” according to the Voyages (p. 78); of which
this, which I cannot specifically refer, is possibly one.
2 To this species of Saxifraga , L., unknown to our Flora (Gerard, p. 528), our
author, with little doubt, referred the pretty 8. Virginiensis, Michx. — See p. 58 of
this, note.
8 Gerard, em., p. 535, — Salicornia herbacea, L. But Linnasus referred one of Clay-
ton’s Virginia specimens (the rest he did not distinguish from S. herbacea) to a variety,
/3. Virginica (which he took to be also European; Sp. PI), and afterwards raised this
to a species, as S. Virginica, Syst. Nat., vol. ii. p. 52, Willd. Sp. PL, vol. i. p. 25. To
this the more common glass wort of our salt marshes is to be referred; and we pos-
new-england’s rarities discovered.
175
St. John’s-wort.* * * 4
St. Peter’s-wort.5
Speedwell chick-weed.6
Male fluellin, or speedwell.7
Upright peniroyal.8
Wild mint.9
U Cat-mint.1
Egrimony.2
V The lesser clot-bur.3
sess, beside, a still better representative of the European plant in 5. mucronata, Bigel.
(FI. Bost., edit. 2, p. 2), which may perhaps best be taken for a peculiar variety (S.
herbacea, fi. mucronata , articulorum dentibus squamisque mucronatis, Enum. FI. Cantab.,
Ms. ; and S. Virginica may well be another) of a species common to us and Europe.
It is certain that we have plants strictly common to American and European Floras,
in which the differences referable to difference of atmospheric and other like conditions
are either not apparent or of no account; and it is possible that there are yet other
species, now considered peculiar to America, which only differ from older European
species in those characters — whether of exuberance mostly, or also of impoverish-
ment— in which an American variety of a plant, common to America and Europe,
might beforehand be expected to differ from an European state of the same. “ Lin-
naeus ut Tournefortii errores corrigeret, varietates nimis contraxit.” — Link, Phil. Bot.,
p. 222.
4 Hypericum perforatum, L. (“ Hypericum, S. John's-wort; in shops, P erf errata." —
Gerard, edit, cit., p. 539). The species is considered to have been introduced, by most
American authors ; and it is possible that Josselyn had H. corymbosum, Muhl., in his
mind.
5 Hypericum quadrangulum, L. (Gerard, p. 542) ; for which our author doubtless mis-
took H. mutilum, L. (H. parviflorum, Willd.), a species peculiar to America; to which
Cutler’s H. quadrangulum (Account of Indig. Veg., 1. c., p. 474) is probably also to be
referred.
6 Veronica arvensis, L. (Gerard, p. 613), — a native, at present, of Europe, Asia,
Northern Africa, and North America (Benth., in DC. Prodr., vol. x. p. 482); but con-
sidered to have been introduced here.
7 Veronica, L. The species is perhaps V. officinalis, L.; which, together with V.
serpyllifolia, L., is considered by Prof. Gray to be both indigenous and introduced here.
— Man. Bot., pp. 200-1.
8 Hedeoma pulegioicles (L.) Pers. (American pennyroyal), is doubtless meant. The
specific name indicates its resemblance — in smell and taste particularly — to Mentha
pulegium, L.; for which our author and Cutler ( l . c., p. 461) mistook it. But the for-
mer is peculiar to America.
9 Mentha aquatica , L. Sp. PI. (Gerard, p. 684); for which it is likely our author
(and also Cutler, l. c., p. 460) mistook M. Canadensis, L., Gray.
1 Nepeta cataria, L. (Gerard, em., p. 682); considered by American botanists to
have been introduced from Europe.
2 Agrimonia Eupatoria, L. (Gerard, em., p. 712); common to America and Europe.
8 Xanthium strumarium, L., Gray (Gerard, p. 809); common, as a species, to both
continents; but in part, also, introduced. — Gray, Man., p. 212.
170
ARCHJEOLOGTA AMERICANA.
Water-lilly, witli yellow flowers.4 The Indians eat the
roots, which are long a-boiling. They tast like the liver of a
sheep. The moose-deer feed much upon them ; at which time
the Indians kill them, when their heads are under water.
Dragons. Their leaves differ from all the kinds with us.
They come up in June.5
Violets, of three kinds, — the white violet, which is sweet,
but not so strong as our blew violets ; blew violets, without
sent ; and a reddish violet, without sent. They do not blow
till June.6
[45] For Swell' d Legs.
Woodbine, good for hot swellings of the legs ; fomenting
with the decoction, and applying the feces in the form of a
cataplasme.7
Salomon’s seal, of which there is three kinds : the first,
common in England ; the second, Virginia Salomon’s seal ; and
the third, differing from both, is called treacle-berries, — hav-
ing the perfect taste of treacle when they are ripe, — and
will keep good a long while. Certainly a very wholesome
berry, and medicinal.8
4 Nupliar advena, Ait., — the common American species, — is meant; and this,
though resembling N. lutea , Sin., of Europe, is distinct from it.
5 Arum, L. (Gerard, p. 381). The New-England species “differ,” as our author
says, “from all the kinds” in the Old World.
6 None of the species, presumably here meant, are common to America and Europe.
Our author’s white violet is Viola hlanda , Willd.
7 All our true honeysuckles (“ woodbinde, or honisuckles,” — Gerard, p. 891 ; Ca-
pr folium, Juss.) are distinct from those of Europe; but what the author meant here
is uncertain.
8 Convallaria, L. ; Polygonatum, Tourn.; Smilacina, Desf. Many botanists have
referred our smaller Solomon’s seal to the nearly akin C. muliiflora of Europe; but
Dr. Gray (Manual, p. 466) pronounces the former a distinct American species. The
second of Josselyn’s species is the “ Polygonatum Virginianum, or Virginian’s Salomon’s
seale” of Johnson’s Gerard (p. 905), and also of Morison (Hist., cil. L.), and earliest
described and figured hv Cornuti as P. Canadense, cf c., which is Smilacina slellata,
(L.) Desf.; peculiar to America. The third is set down by our author, at p. 56, among
the “plants proper to the country;” and Wood (New-Eng. Prospect, chap, v.) mentions
it among eatable wild fruits, by the same name. It is probably Smilacina racemosa ,
( L . ) Desf., — a suggestion which I owe to my friend Rev. J. L. Russell’s notes upon
Josselyn’s plants, in Hovey’s Magazine (March, April, and May, 1858); papers which
were published after the manuscript of this edition had passed from the hands of the
editor, — and is also confined to this continent.
new-england’s rarities discovered.
177
Dove’s-foot.9
Herb Robert.9
Knobby crane’s-bill.9
For Agues.
Raven’s-claw, which flowers in May, and is admirable for
agues.9
Cink-foil.* 1
Tormentile.1
Avens, with the leaf of mountane-avens, the flower and
root of English avens.2 3 * * * *
Strawberries.8
9 Geranium, L. The first is G. Caroliniamm , L., which nearly resembles Gerard’s
dove’s-foot (p. 938); the second is G. Robertianum , L., common to us and Europe;
and the third (Gerard, p. 940) — which cannot be G. dissectum — was meant, it is likely
to be taken for synonymous with the fourth, or raven’s-claw, — doubtless our lovely
G. maculaium, L., which belongs to that group of species which the old botanists dis-
tinguished by the common name Geranium batrachioides, or crow-foot geranium, which
flowers in May, and is of well-known value in medicine; and the “knobby” root,
attributed to Josselyn’s third kind, favors this opinion.
1 The genus Potentilla, L., in general, is perhaps intended by cinque-foil; and al-
though our author probably confounded the common and variable Potentilla Canadensis,
L., with the nearly akin P. replans and P. verna, L., of Europe, yet the larger part of
our New-England species are, with little doubt, common to both continents. What
Josselyn referred to Tormentilla, L., — a genus not now separated from Potentilla, —
was probably a state of P. Canadensis, which resembles P. reptans, L., as remarked
above (and was, indeed, mistaken for it by Cutler, — l. c., p. 453), as this does Tormen-
tilla replans, L.
2 Geum strictum, Ait., — not found in England, but European (Gray, Man., p. 116),
— is indicated by the author’s phrase; and see the Voyages, p. 78, for his opinion of
its medicinal virtue.
3 Fragaria vesca, L. (the common wood-strawberry of Europe), is native here,
according to Oakes (Catal. Verm., p. 12), “ especially on mountains;” and I have even
gathered it, but possibly naturalized, on the woody banks of Fresh Pond in Cam-
bridge. Our more common strawberry was not separated from the European by Lin-
naeus, but is now reckoned a distinct species. “ There is likewise strawberries in
abundance,” says Wood (New-England’s Prospect, l. c. ), — very large ones; some being
two inches about. One may gather half a bushel in a forenoon.” — “ This berry,” says
Roger Williams (Key, in Hist. Coll., vol. iii. p. 221), “ is the wonder of all the fruits grow-
ing naturally in those parts. It is of itself excellent; so that one of the chiefest doc-
tors of England was wont to say, that God could have made, but God never did make,
a better berry. In some parts, where the natives have planted, I have many times seen
as many as would fill a good ship, within few miles’ compass. The Indians bruise them
in a mortar, and mix them with meal, and make strawberry-bread.” Gookin also
speaks of Indian-bread. — Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. i. p. 150.
23
178
ARCHzEOLOGIA AMERICANA.
Wild angelica, majoris and minoris.4
Alexanders, which grow upon rocks by the seashore.5
[46] Yarrow, with the white flower.6
Columbines, of a flesh-colour ; growing upon rocks.7
Oak of Hierusalem.8
Achariston is an excellent medicine for stopping of the
lungs upon cold, ptisick, Ac.
Oak of Cappadocia.8 Both much of a nature : but oak of
Hierusalem is stronger in operation ; excellent for stuffing
of the lungs upon colds, shortness of wind, and the ptisick, —
maladies that the natives are often troubled with. I helped
several of the Indians with a drink made of two gallons of
molosses-wort (for, in that part of the country where I abode,
we made our beer of molosses, water, bran, chips of sassafras-
root, and a little wormwood, well boiled) ; into which I put,
of oak of Hierusalem, cat-mint, sow-thistle, of each one hand-
ful ; of Enulci campana root, one ounce ; liquorice, scrap’d,
brused, and cut in peices, one ounce ; sassafras-root, cut into
4 The two plants here intended, and supposed by the author to correspond with the
“wild angelica” and “great wilde angelica” of Gerard (pp. 999-1000), may perhaps
he taken for the same which Cornuti ( Canad. PI. Ilist., pp. 196-200), thirty years before,
had designated as new, — Josselyn’s Angelica sylvestris minor being Angelica lucida
Canadensis of Cornuti, which is A. lucida , L. (and probably, as the French botanist
describes the fruit as “minus foliacea vulgaribus,” also Archangelica peregrina, Nutt.);
and his Angelica sylvestris major being A. atropurpurea Canadensis of Cornuti, or A.
atropurpurea, L.
6 Smyrnium aureum , L. (golden Alexanders), now separated from that genus, was
mistaken, it is quite likely, for S. olusalrum , L. (true Alexanders), to which it bears a
considerable resemblance. — Gerard , p. 1019.
6 Achillea millefolium, L. Oakes has marked this as introduced (Catal. Vermont,
p. 17): but it appeared to our author, in 1672, to be indigenous; and Dr. Gray reckons
it among plants common to both hemispheres. — Statistics of Amer. Flora , in Am. Jour.
Sci., vol. xxiii. p. 70. The author’s reference is to common yarrow. — Gerard,
p. 1072.
7 Aquilegia Canadensis, L. As elsewhere, the author probably means here only
that the genus is common to both continents.
8 At p. 56, both of these are set down among the “ plants proper to the country.”
The first, to follow Gerard (p. 1108), is Chenopodium hotrys, L., — a native of the south
of Europe, and considered as an introduced species here. It has reputation in diseases
of the chest. — Wood & Bache, Dispens.,p. 213. Josselyn’s oak of Cappadocia (Gerard,
p. 1108) is an American species, — Ambrosia elatior, L. Cutler says of it (l. c., p. 489),
“ It has somewhat the smell of camphire. It is used in antiseptick fomentations.”
new-england’s rarities discovered.
179
thin chips, one ounce ; anny-seed and sweet-fennel seed, of
each one spoonful, bruised. Boil these in a close pot, upon
a soft fire, to the consumption of one gallon ; then take it off,
and stir it gently. You may, if you will, [47] boil the
streined liquor with sugar to a syrup : then, when it is cold,
put it up into glass bottles, and take thereof three or four
spoonfuls at a time ; letting it run down your throat as lea-
surely as possibly you can. Do thus in the morning, in the
afternoon, and at night going to bed.
Goose-grass, or clivers.9
Fearn.* 1 2
Brakes.1
Wood-sorrel, with the yellow flower.1
Elm.3
Line-tree, both kinds.4
A Way to draw out Oyl of Akorns, or the like, d:c.
Majfle. Of the ashes of this tree the Indians make a lye,
with which they force out oyl from oak-akorns, that is highly
esteemed by the Indians.5
Dew-grass.6
9 Galium aparine, L. (Gerard, edit, cit., p. 1122), common to America and Europe. —
Compare Gray, Man., p. 170.
1 The “Filix mas, or male feme,” of Gerard, edit, cit., p. 1128 (for, says he, of the
“ divers sorts of feme . . . there be two sorts, according to the old writers, — the male
and the female; and these be properly called feme: the others have their proper
names”), is the collective designation of four species of Aspidium; of which all, ac-
cording to Pursh, and certainly three, are natives of both continents, — AA. cristatum,
Filix mas, Filix foemina, and aculeatum, W illd. “ Filix fosmina (female feme, or brakes,”
of Gerard, l. c.) is Pteris aquilina, L. ; also common to us and Europe. The other Filices
mentioned by our author are Ophioglossum vulgatum , L. (p. 42); and Adiantum pedatum,
L. (p. 55).
2 Oxalis corniculata, L. (Gerard, em., p. 1202), common to Europe and America.
3 TJlmus , L. There are no species common to America and Europe.
4 See the Voyages, p. 69, where the author has it “the line-tree, with long nuts:
the other kind I could never find.” The former was Tilia Americana, L., — a species
peculiar to America.
5 See p. 48; and Voyages, p. 69. None of our species are found in Europe.
6 The plant intended is doubtless the same with that spoken of in the Voyages,
p. 80, — “ Rosa soils, sundew, moor-grass. This plant I have seen more of than ever I
180
ARCHHDOLOGIA AMERICANA.
Earth-nut, which are of divers kinds, — one bearing very
beautiful flowers.* * 7
Fuss-balls, very large.8
Mushrooms ; some long, and no bigger than one’s finger ;
others jagged, flat, round : none like our great mushrooms
in England. Of these, some are of a scarlet colour ; others,
a deep yellow, &c.8
[48] Blew-flowered pimpernel.9
Noble liverwort ; one sort with white flowers, the other
with blew.1
Blackberry.2
Dewberry.2
Raspberry, here called mulberiy.2
saw in my whole life before in England,” &c. Both our common New-England species
of Drosera are also natives of Europe.
7 “ Differing much from those in England. One sort of them bears a most beauti-
ful flower” (p. 56, where it is rightly placed among plants “proper to the country ”).
The author refers here, doubtless, to Apios tuberosa, Moench. (ground-nut of New
England), which was raised at Paris, from American seeds, by Vespasian Robin, and
figured from his specimens by Cornuti (Canad., p. 200) in 1635; but it was' celebrated,
ten years earlier, in “Nova Anglia,” — a curious poem by the Rev. William Morrell,
who came over with Capt. Robert Gorges in 1623, and spent about a year at Wey-
mouth and Plymouth, publishing his book in 1625 (repr. Hist. Coll., vol. i. p. 125, &c.),
— as follows : —
“ Vimine gramineo nux subterranea suavis
Serpit humi, tenui flavo sub cortice, piugui
Et placido nucleo nivei candoris ab iutra,
Melliflua parcos hilarans dulcedine gustus,
Donee in asstivum Phoebus conscenderit axem.
His nucleis laute versutus vescitur Indus:
His exempta fames segnis nostratibus omnis
Dulcibus his vires revocantur victibus almae.”
.8 See p. 52 and Voyages (pp. 70, 81) for other notices of Fungi; and Voyages,
p. 81, for the only mention of Algae.
9 Female pimpernell ( Gerard, em., p. 617), — Anagallis arvensis, y, Sm. ; A. ecerulea ,
Schreb., — but scarcely differing, except in color, from the scarlet pimpernel, which
has long (“in clayey ground,” — Cutler , l. c., 1785) been an inhabitant of the coasts of
Massachusetts Bay, though doubtless introduced.
1 Hepatica triloba , Chaix. (Anemone hepalica, L.), common to Europe and America;
occurring occasionally with white flowers. — Gerard , em., p. 1203.
2 Rubus, L. The red raspberry of this country is hardly other than an American
variety of the European ( R . Idaeus , var. strigosus, caule petiolis pedunculis ealyeeque
aculento-hispidissimis, Enum. PI. Agri Cantab, 1843, Ms.); upon which see Gray (Man.,
p. 121; and Statistics, &c., 1. c., p. 81). 11. trijlorus, Richards., is also very near to,
and was once considered the same as, the European R. saxalilis , L. The rest of our
new-england’s rarities discoyered.
181
Gooseberries, of a deep-red colour.* * 3
Hawthorn ; the haws being as big as services, and very
good to eat, and not so stringent as the haws in England.4
Toad-flax.5 *
Pellamount, or mountain-time.6
Mouse-ear minor.7
The Making of Oyl of Ahorns. To strengthen weak Members.
For scalVd Heads.
There is oak of three kinds, — white, red, and black. The
white is excellent to make canoes of, — shallopes, ships, and
other vessels, for the sea ; and for claw-board and pipe-staves.
The black is good to make waynscot of : and out of the white-
New-England raspberries and blackberries appear to be specifically distinct from those
of Europe. The cloud-berry, mentioned at p. 60, is there set down among plants proper
to the country; and may therefore not be the true cloud-berry (Gerard, p. 1273), or
Rubus chamoemorus, L., which is common to both continents.
3 The New-England gooseberries are peculiar to this country. The author no
doubt intends Ribes hirlellum , Michx. (Gray, Man., p. 137); as see further his Voyages,
p. 72.
4 Crataegus , L. But the species are peculiar to this country, as Josselvn implies
with respect to the haws which he notices. These, no doubt, included C. lomentosa , L.,
Gray; and perhaps, also, C. coccima , L. Wood says, “The white thorn affords hawes
as big as an English cherry; which is esteemed above a cherry for his goodness and
pleasantness to the taste.” — New-England' s Prospect, chap. v. At page 72 of his Voy-
ages, the author mentions “ a small shrub, which is very common ; growing sometimes
to the height of elder; bearing a berry like in shape to the fruit of the white thorn; of
a pale, yellow colour at first, then red (when it is ripe, of a deep purple); of a deli-
cate, aromatical tast, but somewhat stiptick, — which is Pyrus arbutifolia , L. Higgin-
son (New-England’s Plantation, l. c., p. 119) speaks of our haws almost as highly as
Wood.
5 Great toad-flax (Gerard, em., p. 550); Linaria vulgaris, Moench. Compare De
Candolle (Geog. Bot., vol. ii. p. 716) for a sketch of the American history of this now-
familiar plant, which the learned author cannot trace before Bigelow’s date ( FI. Bost.,
edit. 1) of 1814. But it is certainly Cutler’s “snapdragon; . . . blossoms yellow, with
a mixture of scarlet; common by roadsides in Lynn and Cambridge” (l. c., 1785):
though he strangely prefixes the Linncean phrase for Antirrhinum Canadense, L. ; and
there seems no reason to doubt that Josselyn may very well have seen it in 1671.
6 Gerard, p. 653 ( Teucrium , L.). The author may have intended to reckon the
genus only. Our species is peculiar to this continent.
7 The designation is uncertain. The old botanists gave the name Auricula muris ,
or mouse-ear, to species of Myosotis , Draba, Eieracium, and Gnaphalium. Josselyn’s
plant may most probably be Antennaria plantaginifolia, Hook, (mouse-ear of New
England), which is very near to A. dioica of Europe. — Gray, Statistics , cf-e., 1. c.,
p. 81.
182
ARCHRUOLOGIA AMERICANA.
oak acorns (which is the acorn bears delight to feed upon),
the natives draw an oyl ; taking the rottenest maple-wood,
which, being burnt to ashes, they make a strong lye there-
with, whirein they boyl their white-oak acorns until the oyl
swim on the top in great quantity. This [49] they fleet off,
and put into bladders, to annoint their naked limbs ; which
corroborates them exceedingly. They eat it, likewise, with
their meat. It is an excellent, clear, and sweet oyl. Of the
moss that grows at the roots of the white oak, the Indesses
make a strong decoction, with which they help their papouses
or young children’s scall’d heads.8
Juniper, which, Cardanus saith, is cedar in hot countries,
and juniper in cold countries. It is here very dwarfish and
shrubby ; growing, for the most part, by the sea-side.9
Willow.* 1
Spurge-lawrel, called here poyson -berry. It kills the
English cattle, if they chance to feed upon it ; especially
calves.2
Gaul, or noble mirtle.3
Elder.4
8 Quercus alba, L.; Q. rubra , L.; and Q. tinctoria, Bartr. Wood’s account of the
oaks (New-England’s Prospect, chap, v.) is similar. In his Voyages, p. 61, Josselyn
gives us “ the ordering of red oake for wainscot. When they have cut it down and
clear’d it from the branches, they pitch the body of the tree in a muddy place in a
river, with the head downward, for some time. Afterwards they draw it out; and,
when it is seasoned sufficiently, they saw it into boards for wainscot; and it will
branch out into curious works.”
9 Juniperus communis , L.; common to both continents. But the author did not pro-
bably distinguish from it J. Virginiana , L. ; which is frequent, and often dwarfish, near
the sea.
1 Salix, L. ; the genus only meant here, it is likely.
2 Daphne Laureola, L. (Gerard, p. 1404), with which Josselyn may have considered
Kalmia anguslifolia, L., in some sort, allied. The latter has long been known in New
England as dwarf or low laurel.
8 Myrica Gale , L. (Gerard, p. 1414); common to Europe and America.
4 Sambucus , L. Our S. Canadensis , L., differs very little from the common elder of
Europe, except, as our author in his Voyages says (p. 71), in being “shrubbio,” and in
not having “a smell so strong.” — Cf DC. Prodr., vol. ii. p. 322; Gerard , p. 1421
The other North-American elder ( S . pubens, Michx.) is at least equally near to the
European & racemosa, L., according to Prof. Gray.
new-england's rarities discovered.
183
v Dwarf-elder.5
For a Cut with a Bruse.
Alder. An Indian, bruising and cutting of his knee with a
fall, used no other remedy than alder-bark, chewed fasting,
and laid to it ; which did soon heal it.6
To take Fire out of a Burn.
The decoction is also excellent to take [50] the fire out of
a burn or scald.
For Wounds and Cuts.
For wounds and cuts, make a strong decoction of bark of
alder : pour of it into the wound, and drink thereof.
Basel.7
For sore Mouths , Falling of the Pallat.
Filberd, both with hairy husks upon the nuts, and setting
hollow from the nut, and fill’d with a kind of water of an
astringent taste. It is very good for sore mouths, and falling
of the pallat ; as is the whole green nut, before it comes to
kernel, burnt and pulverized. The kernels are seldom with-
out maggots in them.7
5 “ There is a sort of dwarf-elder, that grows by the sea-side, that hath a red pith.
The berries of both” — that is, of this and of the true elder mentioned above — “are
smaller than English elder; not round, but corner’d.” — Voyages, p. 71. Gerard’s
dwarf-elder (p. 1425) is Sambucus ebulus, L. Josselyn’s may have been a Viburnum;
for this genus was confused with Sambucus by the elder botanists. Wood (New-Eng-
land Prospect, chap, v.) speaks of —
“ Small elder n, by the Indian fletchers sought; ” —
which was perhaps arrow-wood, or Viburnum dentatum , L.
6 Alnus, Tourn. One of the three New-England species (.4. incana, Willd.) is
common to Europe and America. Another (A. serrulala, Willd.) “bears so great a
resemblance,” says F. A. Michaux, to the common European alder (A. glutinosa, Willd.)
“ in its flowers, its seeds, its leaves, its wood, and its bark, as to render a separate
figure unnecessary; the only difference observable between them” being “that the
European species is larger, and has smaller leaves.” — Sylva, vol. ii. p. 114. Compare
Gray, Statistics, &c., 1. c., p. 83. A. viridis, our third species, is common to Europe
and this country.
i Corylus, L. Our species, which are peculiar to America, are both indicated:
the “filberd, . . . with hairy husks upon the nuts,” being C. rostrala, Ait. (beaked
hazel); and that “setting hollow from the nut,” — that is, larger than the nut, — C.
Americana. Wangenh. (common hazel).
184
ARCELEOLOGIA AMERICANA.
The Figure op the Walnut.
Walnut. The nuts differ much from
ours in Europe ; they being smooth, —
much like a nutmeg in shape, and not
much bigger : some three-cornered ; all
of them but thinly replenished with
kernels.8
[51] Chestnuts; very sweet in taste, and may be (as they
usually are) eaten raw. The Indians sell them to the English
for twelve pence the bushel.9
Beech.1
8 Carya , Nutt. In the Voyages, p. 69, the author speaks of the “ walnut, which is
divers: some bearing square nuts; others like ours, but smaller. There is likewise
black walnut, of precious use for tables, cabinets, and the like” ( Juglans nigra, L.).
“The walnut-tree,” continues Josselyn, “is the toughest wood in the countrie, and
therefore made use of for hoops and bowes; there being no yews there growing. In
England, they made their bowes usually of witch-hasel” (that is, witch-elm, — Ulmus
montana, Bauh., Lindl. ; as see Gerard, p. 1481: but Carpinus , “in Essex', is called
witch-hasell,” — ib.), ash, yew, the best of outlandish elm ; but the Indians make theirs
of walnut.” This was hickory, and what Wood says belongs doubtless to the same.
He calls it “ something different from the English walnut; being a great deal more tough
and more serviceable, and altogether heavy. And whereas our guns, that are stocked
with English walnut, are soon broken and cracked in frost, — being a brittle wood, —
we are driven to stock them new with the country walnut, which will endure all blows
and weather ; lasting time out of mind.” After speaking favorably of the fruit, he adds
(New-Eng. Prospect, chap, vi.), “ There is likewise a tree, in some parts of the country,
that bears a nut as big as a pear,” — the butternut, doubtless (Juglans cinerea, L.).
Josselyn has told us (p. 48) of the oil which the Indians managed to get from the acorns
of the white oak. Roger Williams (Key, l. c., p. 220) says our native Americans made
“ of these walnuts ... an excellent oil, good for many uses, but especially for the
anointing of their heads.” Michaux ( Sylva , vol. i. p. 163) says the Indians used the
oil of the butternut, and also (p. 185) of the shag-bark, “ to season their aliments.”
Williams adds ( l . c.), “Of the chips of the walnut-tree — the bark taken off — some
English in the country make excellent beer, both for taste, strength, colour, and inof-
fensive opening operation.”
9 Castanea vesca, Gaertn. ; common to Europe and America. Our chestnut is con-
sidered to differ from the European only as an American variety of a species common to
both continents might be expected to. “ The Indians have an art of drying their chest-
nuts, and so to preserve them in their barns for a dainty all the year.” — R. Williams, l. c.
1 Neither Wood nor R. Williams makes mention of it. The younger Michaux con-
sidered our beech distinct from the European; but Mr. Nuttall makes it only a variety
of it; while Prof. Gray puts both trees in his list of “ very close representative species.”
— Statistics, <f-c., 1. c., p. 81.
new-england’s rarities discovered.
Ash.2
Quick-beam, or wild ash.3
185
Coals of Birch, pulverized and wrought ivith the white of an
Egg to a Salve, is a gallant Remedy for dry Scurfy-sores
upon the Shins, and for bruised Wounds and Cuts.
Birch, white and black. The bark of birch is used by the
Indians for bruised wounds and cuts, — boyled very tender,
and stampt betwixt two stones to a plaister, and the decoction
thereof poured into the wound ; and also to fetch the fire
out of burns and scalds.4
Poplar, but differing in leaf.5
Plumb-tree, several kinds ; bearing, some long, round, white,
yellow, red, and black plums, — all differing in their fruit
from those in England.6
Wild purcelane.7
2 Fraxinus, L. Our species are peculiar to this continent. I cannot account for
Wood’s saying, “It is different from the ash of England; being brittle and good for lit-
tle, so that walnut is used for it.” — New-Eng. Prospect , chap. vi.
8 Sorbus , L. (Gerard, p. 1473). Our mountain-ash (S. Americana, Willd.) is quite
near to the quicken, or mountain-ash of the north of Europe ( S . aucuparia, L.); but
hardly, perhaps, to be reduced to an American variety of it, as the elder Michaux
(FI. Amer., vol. i. p. 290) proposed. Compare Gray, Statistics, &c., 1. c., p. 82.
4 Except the small white birch (B. populifolia , Ait.), which Mr. Spach reduces to a
variety of the European B. alba, L., — in which he is sustained by Prof. Gray (Man.,
p. 411), — and the dwarf-birch (B. nana, L.) of our alpine regions, all our species are
peculiar to this continent. — See the author’s Voyages, p. 69, for another mention of
the birches.
6 Populus , L. Our species are peculiar to the country, as the author’s remark sug-
gests. Wood ( l . c.) notices “ the ever-trembling asps.”
6 “ The plumbs of the country be better for plumbs than the cherries be for cher-
ries. They be black and yellow; about the bigness of damsons; of a reasonable good
taste.” — New-Eng. Prospect, chap. v. Primus maritima, Wangenh. (beech-plum), and
P. Americana, Marsh, (wild yellow plum), are no doubt here intended; as also, it is
likely, by Josselyn, who, it is evident, in this place had only the genus in mind as
“common with us in England.” — See p. 61 for the author’s mention of the “wild
cherry.”
7 Portulaca oleracea, L. (Gerard, p. 521). “In cornfields. It is eaten as a pot-herb,
and esteemed by some as little inferior to asparagus.” — Cutler ; Account of Indigenous
Vegetables (1785), l. c., p. 447. Considered to have been introduced here; but our
author enables us to carry back the date of its introduction, without reasonable doubt,
to the first settlement of the country. Mr. Nuttall regarded the species as indigenous
24
186
ARCEL-EOLOGIA AMERICANA.
Wood-wax, wherewith they dye many pretty colours.* * * 8
Red and black currans.9
[52] For the Gout, or any Ach.
Spunck, an excrescence growing out of black birch. The
Indians use it for touchwood; and therewith they help the
sciatica, or gout of the hip, or any great ach, — burning
the patient with it in two or three places upon the thigh,
and upon certain veins.1
on the plains of the Missouri; but this plant, “too closely resembling the common
purslane,” according to Prof. Gray (Man., p. 64), has been separated as specifically
distinct by Dr. Engelmann.
8 Genista tinctoria , L. ( Genistella tinctoria , — greenweed, or dyers’ weed; Gerard,
p. 1316). “ We shall not need to speake of the use that diers make thereof,” says the
latter. Our author could hardly have been mistaken about so well-known a plant as
this; which he probably met with in one of his visits to the neighborhood of Boston, —
long the only American station for it. There is a tradition that it was introduced here
by Gov. Endicott; which may have been some forty years before Josselyn finished his
herborizing, — enough to account for its naturalization then. It was long confined to
Salem (“pastures between New Mills and Salem,” — Cutler , l. c., 1785); but occurred
to me sparingly, in 1841, on the shores of Cambridge Bay, and also on roadsides in
Old Cambridge. “ Woad-seed” is set down, in a memorandum of the Governor and
Company of Massachusetts Bay, before February, 1628, to be sent to New England
(Mass. Col. Rec., vol. i. p. 24); and though Isalis tinctoria , L., is true woad, Reseda
luteola, L. (wold, or weld), and our Genista (woadwaxen), have, it is said (Rees’s Cycl.,
in loco), been known “in English herbals under that name.”
9 “ Current-bushes are of two kinds, — red and black. The black currents, which
are larger than the red, . . . are reasonable pleasant in eating.” — Voyages , p. 72. Our
black currant is Ribes Jloridum, Herit., — considered by Linnaeus (Sp. PL, p. 291) only a
variety of R. nigrum, L., the true black currant of the gardens; and our red currant,
which I have gathered in the White Mountains, — far below the region of R. rigens,
Michx., the more common red currant there, — appears to be undistinguishable from
R. rubrum, L. (the red currant of gardens); unless, possibly, as an American variety
of it. This is probably R. alhinermum, Michx. (FI., vol. i. p. 110; Pursh, FI., vol. i.
p. 163).
1 Polyporus, Mich., sp. — In his Voyages, p. 70, the author speaks of “a stately
tree, growing here and there in valleys, not like to any trees in Europe; having a
smooth bark, of a dark-brown colour, the leaves like great maple, in England called
sycamor; but larger,” — which may be Platanus occidenlalis, L. (buttonwood). And
Wood enables us to add one more to this early account of the genera of plants, which
we possess, common to the Old World. He tells us (New-England’s Prospect, chap, v.)
“ the hornbound tree is a tough kind of wood, that requires so much pains in riving as
is almost incredible; being the best to make bowls and dishes, not being subject to
crack or leak. This tree growing with broad-spread arms, the vines twist their curl-
ing branches about them; which vines afford great store of grapes,” &c. This was
new-england’s rarities discovered.
187
2. Of such Plants as are proper to the Country.
To ripen any Impostume or Swelling. For sore Mouths. The
New-England standing Dish.
Indian wheat, of which there is three sorts, — yellow, red,
and blew. The blew is commonly ripe before the other, a
month. Five or six grains of Indian wheat hath produced,
in one year, six hundred. It is hotter than our wheat, and
clammy ; excellent in cataplasms, to ripen any swelling or im-
postume. The decoction of the blew corn is good to wash
sore mouths with. It is light of digestion ; and the English
make a kind of loblolly of it [53] to eat with milk, which
they call sampe. They beat it in a morter, and sift the flower
out of it. The remainder they call homminey, which they
put into a pot of two or three gallons, with water, and boyl
it upon a gentle fire till it be like a hasty pudden. They
put of this into milk, and so eat it. Their bread also they
make of the homminey so boiled, and mix their -flower with it ;
cast it into a deep bason, in which they form the loaf ; and
then turn it out upon the peel, and presently put it into the
oven before it spreads abroad. The flower makes excellent
puddens.* 2
our American hornbeam (Carpinus Americana, L.). And the same author again alludes
to it, in verse, as —
“The horn-bound tree, that to be cloven scorns;
Which from the tender vine oft takes his spouse,
Who twines embracing arms about his boughs.”
A pleasant enough illustration of what taught classical husbandry, — “ ulmis adjungere
vites." — Georg., i. 2.
2 See also the Voyages, p. 73. “It is almost incredible,” says Higginson (New-
England’s Plantation, l. c., p. 118), “what great gaine some of our English planters
have had by our Indian corne. Credible persons have assured me, — and the partie
himselfe avouched the truth of it to me, — that, of the setting of thirteen gallons of
corne, hee hath had encrease of it 52 hogsheads; every hogshead holding seven bushels,
of London measure: and every bushell was by him sold and trusted to the Indians for
so much beaver as was worth 18 shillings. And so, of this 13 gallons of corne, which
was worth 6 shillings 8 pence, he made about 327 pounds of it the yeere following, as
by reckoning will appeare; where you may see how God blessed husbandry in this
188
ARCHJGOLOGIA AMERICANA.
Bastard Calamus aromaticus agrees with the description,
but is not barren. They flower in July, and grow in wet
places ; as about the brinks of ponds.* * 3
To keep the Feet ivarm.
The English make use of the leaves to keep their feet warm.
There is a little beast called a muskquash, that liveth in small
houses in the ponds, like mole-hills, that feed upon these
plants. Their cods sent as sweet and as strong as musk ; and
will last a long time, handsomly wrap’d up in cotton-wool.
They are very good to lay amongst cloaths. May is the best
[54] time to kill them ; for then their cods sent strongest.
Wild leekes, which the Indians use much to eat with their
fish.4
A plant like knaves’-mustard, called New-England mustard.5
Mountain-lillies, bearing many yellow flowers, turning up
their leaves like the martigon, or Turk’s-cap ; spotted with
small spots as deep as safforn. They flower in July.6
land. There is not such create and plentifull eaves of covne, I suppose, any where else
to bee found but in this countrey; because, also, of varietie of colours, — as red, blew,
and yellow, &c.: and of one come there springeth four or five hundred.” Roger Wil-
liams (Key, l. c., pp. 208, 221) has some interesting particulars of the Indian use of
their corn. According to him, the Indian msicJcquatash (that is, succotash, as we call
it now) was “boiled corn whole,” and “ nawsaump, a kind of meal pottage unparched.
From this the English call their samp; which is the Indian corn beaten and boiled, and
eaten, hot or cold; with milk or butter, — which are mercies beyond the natives’ plain
water, and which is a dish exceeding wholesome for the English bodies.”
3 Acorus Calamus , L.; common to Europe and America. In his Voyages, p. 77, the
author drops properly, in mentioning this, the injurious prefix. It seems that our New-
England forefathers used the leaves to cover their cold floors, as they had used rushes
at home; and, according to Sir W. J. Hooker (Br. FI., vol. i. p. 159), the pleasant smell
of the plant has recommended it, in like manner, “ for strewing on the floor of the
cathedral at Norwich, on festival days.”
4 Allium Canadense , L., probably. — See also p. 55, note 4.
6 “Knaves’-mustard (for that it is too bad for honest men).” — Gerard , p. 262.
The “ New-England mustard,” which was like it, may be Lepidium Virginicum, L. ;
which, having “a taste like common garden-cress, or peppergrass” (Bigel., FI. Bost.,
in loco ), perhaps attracted the first settlers.
6 The “many flowers,” with reflexed sepals, perhaps refer this to our noble Ameri-
can Turk’s-cap ( Lilium superbum , L.), rather than to the yellow lily (L. Canadense , L.).
new-england’s rarities discovered.
189
One-berry, or herb true-love. See the figure.7
Tobacco. There is not much of it planted in New Eng-
land. The Indians make use of a small kind, with short, round
leaves, called joooke .8
For Burns and Scalds.
With a strong decoction of tobacco, they cure burns and
scalds ; boiling it in water from a quart to a pint, then wash
the sore therewith, and strew on the powder of dryed to-
bacco.
7 See p. 81.
8 “ They take their vmttammauog , — that is, a weak tobacco, — which the men
plant themselves, very frequently. Yet I never see any take so excessively as I have
seen men in Europe ; and yet excess were more tolerable in them, because they want
the refreshing of beer and wine, which God had vouchsafed Europe.” — R. Williams,
Key, l. c., p. 213. And, in another place, the same writer says that tobacco is “com-
monly the only plant which men labour in” (he is speaking of the Indians); “the
women managing all the rest” (p. 208). Wood, in his list of Indian words (New-Eng-
Prospect, ad nit.), spells the Indian word, above given, otiommaocke, — (perhaps both are
comparable with “ wuttahimneash, strawberries ” (Williams, l. c., p. 220), and “ weeti -
moquat, it smells sweet ” (Vocab. of Narraganset Lang., in Hist. Coll., vol. v. p. S2) ; og,
ock, and ash, being all plural terminations; between which and “the noun in the sin-
gular one or more consonants or vowels are frequently interspersed” (ibid., vol. iii.
p. 222, note); and oquat, from the context, the verbal; and the root appearing possibly
the same), — and also defines it as tobacco. There is much other testimony that the
New-England savages were found using “tobacco” (as Mourt’s Relation, l. c., p. 230;
and Winslow’s Relation, l.c., p. 253); but our author’s text, above, appears to distin-
guish the true herb, “ not much planted,” from “ a small kind called q woke," which
“ the Indians make use of.” And again, more clearly, in his Voyages, we have to the
same effect: “The Indians in New England use a small, round-leafed tobacco, called
by them or the fishermen poke. It is odious to the English. ... Of marchantable . . .
tobacco, . . . there is little of it planted in New England; neither have they” (both
clauses appear to refer to the English) “learned the right way of curing of it.” This
“marchantable tobacco” was no doubt mainly Nicotiana tabacum, L.; but the other
kind, the weak tobacco,”— -cultivated, as Williams tells us, by the Indians, and recog-
nized as tobacco by the English, — was not, as Wood says (N. E. Prospect, l. c. ), colt’s-
foot, but Nicotiana ruslica, L. (the yellow henbane of Gerard’s Herbal, p. 356), well
known to have been long in cultivation among the American savages, and now a natu-
ralized relic of that cultivation in various parts of the United States. The name,
poke, or pooke, — if it be, as is supposable, the same with '■'•puck, smoke,” of the Nar-
raganset vocabulary of R. Williams (Hist. Coll., vol. v. p. 84), — was perhaps always
indefinite, and, since Cutler’s day, has been applied in New England to the green hem-
lock ( Veralrum viride, Ait.) ; but this was not, it is evident, the poke of the first settlers.
The name is also given to Phytolacca decandra, L. (the skoke of Cutler), and the helle-
bore apparently distinguished from this as Indian poke; but the application of the
name to the former, at least, probably had its origin among the whites.
190
ARCELEOLOGIA AMERICANA.
Hollow-leaved lavendei' is a plant that grows in salt-marshes
overgrown with moss; with one straight stalk about the big-
ness of an oat-straw, better than a cubit high. Upon the top
standeth one [55] fantastical flower. The leaves grow close
from the root, in shape like a tankard; hollow, tough, and
alwayes full of water. The root is made up of many small
strings, growing only in the moss, and not in the earth. The
whole plant comes to its perfection in August, and then it
has leaves, stalks, and flowers, as red as blood ; excepting the
I
new-england’s rarities discovered. 191
flower, which hath some yellow aclmixt. I wonder where
the knowledge of this plant hath slept all this while ; i.e.,
above forty years.
For all Manner of Fluxes.
It is excellent for all manner of fluxes.
Live-for-ever, a kind of cud-weed.9
Tree-primerose, taken by the ignorant for scabious.* 1
A solar plant, as some will have it.
Maiden-hair, or Cappellus veneris verus, which ordinarily is
half a yard in height. The apothecaries, for shame, now will
substitute wall-rue no more for maiden-hair, since it grows
in abundance in New England, from whence they may have
good store.2
9 “ Live-for-ever. It is a kind of cud-weed. ... It growes now plentifully in our
English gardens. . . . The fishermen, when they want” (that is, lack) “ tobacco, take
this herb; being cut and dryed.” — Voyages , p. 78; where the author adds the peculiar
medicinal virtues of the plant, which are the same as those assigned by Gerard (p. 644)
to the genus. Compare, as to this, Wood and Bache, Dispens., p. 1334. The species
intended by Josselyn is our everlasting ( Antennaria margaritacea (L.) Br.), described
by Gerard, and figured by Johnson in his edition of the former (p. 641), and first pub-
lished by Clusius ( Gnaphalium Americanum, Rar. PI. Hist., vol. i. p. 327) in 1601.
Clusius had it from England, says Johnson. The dried herb, used by the fishermen
instead of tobacco, and no doubt called by them poke, may have been mistaken by
Wood for colt’s-foot, the leaves of which were “smoked by the ancients in pulmonary
complaints; . . . and, in some parts of Germany, are at the present time said to be
substituted for tobacco.” — Wood and Bache, Disj)ens., p. 1401. Cornas sericea, L., —
“ called by the natives squaw-bush” (Williamson’s Hist. Maine, vol. i. p. 125), and by
the western Indians kinnikinnik (Gray, Man., p. 161); furnished, in its inner bark (on
the medicinal properties of which, see especially Rees’s Cycl., Amer. ed., in loco), a sub-
stitute for Nicotiana, — very widely approved among the native Americans. The
name, Indian tobacco, given to Lobelia inflata, L. (the emetic-weed of Cutler, l. c.,
p. 484; who “first attracted to it the attention of the profession”), by the whites, is
in some connections confusing, and might well be displaced by wild tobacco, which
is also in popular use.
1 CEnotliera biennis, L. (Johnson’s Gerard, p. 475), — known to Europeans, accord-
ing to Linnaeus (Sp. PI., p. 493), as early as 1614; but first described and figured by
Prosper Alpinus, in his posthumous De PL Exoticis, p. 325, t. 324, cit. L. Johnson
says that Parkinson gave it the English name of tree-primrose, which it still keeps. It
is “vulgarly known by the name of scabish (a corruption, probably, of scabious)” in
the country. — Bigel. FI. Bost., in loco. Josselyn describes the plant in his Voyages, p. 78.
2 Adiantum pedatum, L. — The European A. Capillus veneris, L., long used as a
pectoral (the sirop de capillaire of French shops being made of it), is, according to
Messrs. Wood and Bache (Dispens., p. 1290), “feebler” than our species, which Josse-
lyn recommends.
192
ARCHA30L0GIA AMERICANA.
Pirola, two kinds (see the figures) ; both of them excellent
wound-herbs.8
Homer’s Molley.* 4
[56] Lysimachus, or loose-strife. It grows in dry grounds
in the open sun, four foot high ; flowers from the middle of
the plant to the top ; the flowers purple, standing upon a
small sheath, or cod, which, when it is ripe, breaks, and puts
forth a white silken doun. The stalk is red, and as big as
one’s finger.5
Mary gold of Peru, of which there are two kinds, — one
bearing black seeds ; the other black and white streak’d.
This beareth the fairest flowers, — commonly but one, — upon
the very top of the stalk.6
Treacle-berries (see, before, Salomon’s seal).
Oak of Idierusalem (see before).
Oak of Cappadocia (see before).
Earth-nuts, differing much from those in England. One
sort of them bears a most beautiful flower.7 8
For the Scurvy and Drojosie.
Sea-tears. They grow upon the sea-banks in abundance.
They are good for the scurvy and dropsie ; boiled and eaten
as a sallade, and the broth drunk with it.8
* See pp. 67, 68.
4 Johnson’s Gerard, p. 183: which is perhaps Allium magicum, L.; for which our
A. tricoccum, Ait., may have been mistaken. — See also p. 54 of this; note.
5 Epilobium angustifolium, L. (rosebay willow-herbe of Gerard by Johnson); which
last figures it at p. 477: common to Europe and America; but some botanists have,
like Josseiyn, reckoned the American plant “ proper to the country-.”
6 Eelianthus, L. (Gerard, p. 751), a genus peculiar to America; called “American
marygold” in the Voy-ages (p. 59), where it is set down among the more striking of our
New-England flowers. At p. 82 of this book, the author gives a cut of the “ marygold
of America,” which he describes. It is probably the second one above mentioned, and
perhaps H. strumosus, L., Gray. The other kind, with “black seeds,” was probably
H, divaricatus, L.
7 See p. 47. The earth-nuts of Gerard (p. 1064) are species of Bulbocastanum of
authors.
8 Not clear to me. But, taking the alleged virtues and the station into account, our
author may mean here the rather striking American sea-rocket ( Cakile Americana,
Nutt.); which, it is likely, occurred to him. Spurge-time (p. 43) also grows on “sea-
banks.”
NEW-ENGLAWS RARITIES DISCOVERED.
193
Indian Beans , better for Physick-TJse than other Beans.
Indian beans, falsly called French beans, are better for
physick and chyrurgery [57] than our garden-beans. Pro-
bat um est?
Squashes, but more truly squontersquashes ; a kind of mel-
lon, or rather gourd ; for they oftentimes degenerate into
gourds. Some of these are green; some yellow; some long-
ish, like a gourd ; others round, like an apple : all of them
pleasant food, boyled and buttered, and season’d with spice.
But the yellow squash — called an apple-squash (because like
an apple), and about the bigness of a pome-water — is the
best kind.* 1 They are much eaten by the Indians and Eng-
lish ; yet they breed the small white worms (which physi-
tians call ascarides) in the long gut, that vex the fundament
with a perpetual itching, and a desire to go to stool.
Water-mellon. It is a large fruit, but nothing near so big
as a pompion ; colour smoother, and of a sad grass-green ;
9 “French beans; or, rather, American beans. The herbalists call them kidney-
beans, from their shape and effects; for they strengthen the kidneys. They are varie-
gated much, — some being bigger, a great deal, than others; some white, black, red,
yellow, blue, spotted : besides your Bonivis, and Calavances, and the kidney-bean that
is proper to Ronoake. But these are brought into the country: the other are natural
to the climate.” — Josselyn's Voyages , p. 73-4. R. Williams (Key, l. c., p. 208) gives
manusquussedash as the Indian word for beans. Cornuti (whose book, indeed, is not
confined to Canadian plants; though, on the other hand, he was sometimes ill informed
of the true locality of his specimens; as in the case of Asclepias Cornuti, Decsne, which
he published as A. Syriaca) figures and describes, at pp. 184-5, Phaseolus mxdtiflorus,
L.; and this may possibly have been raised from seeds procured by French missiona-
ries from the Canadian savages: but P. vulgaris , L., our well-known bush-bean, is
doubtless what Josselyn has mainly in view, as cultivated by the native Americans.
1 “ Askutasquash, — their vine-apples, — which the English, from them, call
squashes: about the bigness of apples of several colours.” — R. Williams, Key, §c.,
1. c., p. 222. “ In summer, when their corn is spent, isquotersquaslies is their best
bread; a fruit much like a pumpion.” — Wood, New-Eng. Prospect, part 2, chap. vi.
The late Dr. T. W. Harris made the ill-understood edible gourds a special object of
study, and devoted particular attention to the ascertaining of the kinds cultivated by
the American savages; but his papers have not as yet seen the light. The warted
squash ( Cucurbita verrucosa , L.) and the orange-gourd ( C. aurantium, Willd.) — the fruit
of which last is of the size and color of an orange, and “ more tender than the common
pompion” (Loudon, Encycl. PI.) — are perhaps, in part, intended by our author.
25
194
ARCH2E0L0GIA AMERICANA.
rounder, or, more rightly, sap-green ; with some yellowness
achnixt when ripe. The seeds are black; the flesh, or pulpe,
exceeding juicy.2 3 * * * *
For Heat and Thirst in Feavers.
It is often given to those sick of feavers, and other hot dis-
eases, with good success.
[58] New-England daysie, or primrose, is the second kind
of navel-wort in Johnson upon Gerard. It flowers in May,
and grows amongst moss upon hilly grounds and rocks that
are shady.8
For Burns and Scalds.
It is very good for burns and scalds.
2 “ Pompions and water-mellons, too, they have good store,” says our author
(Voyages, p. 130); and again, at p. 74 of the same, “The water-melon is proper to the
countrie. The flesh of it is of a flesh-colour; a rare cooler of feavers, and excellent
against the stone.” The water-melon ( Cucurbita citrullus, L.) is “the only medecine
the common people use in ardent fevers,” in Egypt (Loudon, l. c.). Cucurbita pepo, L.
(Gr. nenuv ; Low Dutch, pepoen, pompoen; Fr., pompone ), is our English pompion, or
pumpkin. At p. 91, Josselyn speaks of pompions “proper to the country.” Compare
Gerard’s chapter “of melons, or pompions” (Johnson’s Gerard, p. 918), where are two
Virginian sorts ; and see “ the ancient New-England standing dish,” at p. 91 of this book.
The evidence appears to be sufficient, that our savages had in cultivation, together
with their corn and tobacco, — and, like these, derived originally from tropical regions,
— several sorts of what we call squashes, some kinds of pompion, and also water-
melons; and, Graves’s letter (New-England Plantation, l. e., p. 124) adds, musk-melons.
See further, especially, Champlain (Voy. de la Nouv. France, passim ) and L’Escarbot
(Hist, de la Nouv. France, vol. ii. p. 836). Mr. A. De Candolle (Geogr. Bot., vol. ii.
pp. 899, 904) disputes the American origin of the edible gourds, hut does not appear to
have examined all the early authorities for their cultivation by the savages before the
settlement of this country. Such cultivation appears to be made out, and to indicate
that these vegetables have probably been known, from very remote antiquity, in the
warmer parts of America. But this does not touch the difficult question of origin; and
it may still appear that the gourds are equally ancient in Europe, and derived, both
here and there, from Asia (De Cand., 1. c.); such derivation being explainable, in the
case of America, by old migrations from Asia through Polynesia. — Pickering, Paces of
Man, chap. 17.
3 Johnson’s Gerard, p. 528; where the same plant is also called “jagged or rose
penniwoort,” and is probably what our author intends at p. 43 of this. It was no doubt
our pretty Saxifraga Virginiensis, Michx., which Josselyn had in view. In his Voy-
ages, p. 80, he assigns to it the medicinal virtues which Gerard attributes to the great
navel-wort, or wall-pennywort ( Cotyledon umbilicus, Iluds.)
NEW-ENGLAND’S EABITIES DISCOYEEED.
195
Ail Achariston, or Medicine deserving Thanks.
An Indian, whose thumb was swell’d and very much in-
flamed, and full of pain, increasing and creeping along to
the wrist ; with little black spots under the thumb, against the
nail : I cured it with this Umbilicus veneris (root and all), the
yolk of an egg, and wheat-flower (f. cataplasme).
Briony of Peru (we call it, though its grown hear) ; or,
rather, scammony. Some take it for mechoacan. The green
juice is absolutely poyson ; yet the root, when dry, may safely
be given to strong bodies.4
Bed and black currence (see before).
Wild damask roses, single, but very large and sweet, but
stiptick.5
Sweet fern.6 The roots run one within another, like a net ;
being very long, and spreading abroad under the upper crust
of [59] the earth : sweet in taste, but withal astringent.
Much hunted after by our swine. The Scotchmen that are in
New England have told me that it grows in Scotland.
For Fluxes.
The people boyl the tender tops in molosses-beer, and in
possets for fluxes ; for which it is excellent.
4 Convolvulus sepium, L. (great bind-weed) is exceedingly like to C. Scammonia , L.,
the inspissated juice of which is the officinal scammony; and is common to Europe
and North America. Gerard’s bryony of Peru (p. 872-3), to which Josselyn refers, is,
whatever it be, not found here. Compare Cutler’s remarks on C. sepium (Account of
Veg., &e., 1. c., p. 416). Mechoacan , “called . . . Indian briony, or briony, or scam-
mony of America,” from the Caribbee Islands, &c., is described in Hughes, Amer.
Physitian (1672), p. 94; and see Wood and Bache, Dispens., p. 424, note.
5 Rosa Carolina , L. (Carolina rose), probably. — See Cutler’s observations, l. c.,
p. 451. Higginson also notices “ single damaske roses, verie sweete.” — New-Eng.
Plantation, l. c., p. 119. Our Carolina rose is said to be common in English shrub-
beries.
6 See also Voyages, p. 72. Our author is the earliest authority that I have met
with for this name ; and his plant, which is placed among those “ proper to the coun-
try,” may very well be what has long been called sweet-fern in New England, — Comp-
tonia asplenifolia (L.) Ait.; still used in “molasses beer,” and medicinal in the way
mentioned. — Emerson , Trees and Shrubs of Mass., p. 226.
196
ARCHiEOLOGIA AMERICANA.
Sarsaparilia, a plant not yet sufficiently known by the Eng-
lish. Some say it is a kind of bind-weed. We have, in New
England, two plants that go under the name of sarsaparilia :
the one, not above a foot in height, without thorns ; the other
having the same leaf, but is a shrub as high as a gooseberry-
bush, and full of sharp thorns. This I esteem as the right,
by the shape and savour of the roots ; but rather by the
effects answerable to that we have from other parts of the
world. It groweth upon dry, sandy banks' by the sea-side ;
and upon the banks of rivers, so far as the salt water flows ;
and within land up in the country, as some have reported.7
Bill-berries, two kinds; — black, and sky-coloured, which is
more frequent.8
[60] To cool the Heat of Feavers, and quench Thirst.
They are very good to allay the burning heat of feavers
and hot agues, either in syrup or conserve.
A most excellent Summer Dish.
They usually eat of them, put into a bason, with milk, and
sweetned a little more Avith sugar and spice ; or for cold
7 See Josselyn’s Voyages, p. 77. The first of the two plants which the author
mentions here is probably Aralia nudicaulis, L. (wild sarsaparilla); and the other,
A. hispida, Michx. The last, which is what is spoken of in the Voyages, has beeh
recommended for medicinal properties by Prof. Peck. — Wood and Bache, Dispens.,
p. 116.
8 “ Atiitaash (whortleberries), of which there are divers sorts; sweet, like currants;
some opening, some of a binding nature. Sautaash are these currants dried by the
natives, and so preserved all the year; which they beat to powder, and mingle it with
their parched meal, and make a delicate dish which they call sautauthig , which is as
sweet to them as plum or spice cake to the English.” — R. Williams , Key, §c., 1. c.,
p. 221. The fruitful and wholesome American whortleberries, or bilberries, were, it is
likely, a very pleasant discovery to our forefathers. It was, no doubt, those species
that we call blueberries which they made most of, and particularly the low blueberry
(Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum, Lam.) and the swamp-blueberry ( V. corymbosum, L.).
Prom these the common black whortleberry ( Gaylussacia resinosa, Torr. and Gray) dif-
fers no less in quality than in structure. SaHe (compare sautaasli , above), in Rasies
Diet, of the Abnaki Language, l. c., p. 450, is rendered “ frais , sans etre secs; lorsq'ils
s't secs, silcisa‘tar .”
new-england’s rarities discovered.
197
stomachs, in sack. The Indians dry them in the sun, and sell
them to the English by the bushell ; who make use of them
instead of currence, — putting of them into puddens, both
boyled and baked, and into water-gruel.
Knot-berry, or clowde-berry ; seldom ripe.9
Sumach, differing from all that I did ever see in the her-
balists. Our English cattle devour it most abominably,
leaving neither leaf nor branch ; yet it sprouts again next
spring.* 1
For Colds.
The English use to boyl it in beer, and drink it for colds ;
and so do the Indians, from whom the English had the medi-
cine.
Wild cherry. They grow in clusters, like [61] grapes; of
the same bigness ; blackish-red, when ripe ; and of a harsh
taste.2
For Fluxes.
They are also good for fluxes.
Transplanted and manured, they grow exceeding fair.
9 The cloud-berry — Rubus chamcemorus , L. (Gerard, p. 1420) — is found in some
parts of the subalpine region of the White Mountains; and Mr. Oakes detected it at
Lubec, on the coast of Maine. It is common to both continents ; and perhaps, there-
fore, as our author gives his cloud-berry a place in this division of his book, he may
have meant something else.
1 Rhus, L.; the species differing, as our author repeats in his Voyages (p. 71), “from
all the kinds set down in our English herbals.” Wood (N. Eng. Prospect, chap, v.)
calls it “ the dear shumach.” Josselyn’s account of the virtues of our species, here,
and especially in the Voyages (l. c.), agrees so well with what Gerard says of the pro-
perties of the European tanner’s sumach (R. coriavia, L. ), that the latter may very
likely have, in part, suggested the former. But see Cutler, (. c., p. 427.
2 “ The cherry-trees yield great store of cherries, which grow on clusters like
grapes. They be much smaller than our English cherry; nothing near so good, if they
be not fully ripe. They so furr the mouth, that the tongue will cleave to the roof, and
the throat wax hoarse with swallowing those red bullies (as I may call them); being
little better in taste ” (that is, than buRaces). “ English ordering may bring them to
an English cherry; but they are as wild as the Indians.” — New- England' s Prospect,
chap. v. The choke-cherry ( Cerasus Virginiana (L.) DC.) and the wild cherry (C.
serolina (Ehrh.) DC.) are meant.
198
ARCHiEOLOGIA AMERICANA.
Board-pine is a very large tree, two or three fadom about.3
For Wounds.
It yields a very soveraign turpentine for the curing of des-
perate wounds.
For Stabbs.
The Indians make use of the moss, boiled in spring water,
for stabbs; pouring in the liquor, and applying the boiled
moss, well stamp’d or beaten betwixt two stones.
For Burning and Scalding.
And, for burning and scalding, they first take out the fire
with a strong decoction of alder-bark ; then they lay upon it
a playster of the bark of board-pine, first boyled tender, and
beat to a playster betwixt two stones.
I
To take Fire out of a Burn.
One Christopher Luxe, a fisherman, having burnt his knee-
pan, was healed [62] again by an Indian webb, or wife (for
so they call those women that have husbands). She first
made a strong decoction of alder-bark, witli which she took
out the fire by imbrocation, or letting of it drop upon the
sore, which would smoak notably with it. Then she plays-
tered it with the bark of board-pine or hemlock-tree, boyled
soft, and stampt betwixt two stones till it was as thin as
brown paper, and of the same colour. She annointed the
playster with soyles oyl, and the sore likewise ; then she laid
it on warm; and sometimes she made use of the bark of the
larch-tree.
8 Pinus Slrobus, L. (white pine). “ Of the body the English make large canows of
20 foot long, and two foot and a half over; hollowing of them with an adds, and shaping
of the outside like a boat.” — Josselyn's Voyages , p. 64; where is more concerning the
use of this tree in medicine. “I have seen,” says Wood, “of these stately, high-grown
trees, ten miles together, close by the river-side ; from whence, by shipping, they might
be conveyed to any desired port.” — Neus-Eng. P rospect, chap. v.
new-england’s rarities discovered.
199
To eat out proud Flesh in a Sore.
And, to eat out the proud flesh, they take a kind of earth-
nut, boyled and stamped ; and, last of all, they apply to the
sore the roots of water-lillies, boiled and stamped betwixt
two stones to a playster.
For Stitches.
The firr-tree, or pitch-tree.4 The tar that is made of all
sorts of pitch-wood is an excellent thing to take away those
desperate stitches of the sides which perpetually afflicteth
those poor people that are [63] sti'icken with the plague of
the back.
Note. — You must make a large toast, or cake, slit and dip
it in the tar, and bind it warm to the side.
The most common Diseases in New England.
The black-pox, the spotted-feaver, the griping of the guts,
the dropsie, and the sciatica, are the killing diseases in New
England.
The larch-tree, which is the only tree of all the pines that
sheds his leaves before winter ; the other remaining green all
the year. This is the tree from which we gather that useful
purging excrense, agarick.5
4 Abies balsamea (L.) Marsh, (balsam-fir). “The firr-tree is a large tree, too; but
seldom so big as the pine. The bark is smooth, with knobs, or blisters, in which lyeth
clear liquid turpentine, — very good to be put into salves and oyntments. The leaves,
or cones, boiled in beer, are good for the sourvie. The young buds are excellent to put
into epithemes for warts and corns. The rosen is altogether as good as frankincense.
. . . The knots of this tree and fat-pine are used by the English instead of candles ;
and it will burn a long time : but it makes the people pale ” (Josselyn’s Voyages, p. 66) ;
besides being, as Wood says {l. c., speaking of the pine), “something sluttish.” But
Higginson says they “ are very usefull in a house, and . . . burne as cleere as a torch.”
— New-Eng. Plantation , l. c., p. 122.
5 Larix Americana, Michx. (Larch; “ taccamahac,” Cutler; tamarack; hackmatack.)
“ Groundsels, made of larch-tree, will never rot; and the longer it lyes, the harder it
growes, that you may almost drive a nail into a bar of iron as easily as into that.” —
Josselyn's Voyages , p. 68. “ The turpentine that issueth from the cones of the larch-tree
(which comes nearest of any to the right turpentine) is singularly good to heal wounds,
200
ARCHyEOLOGIA AMERICANA.
For Wounds and Cuts.
The leaves and gum are both very good to heal wounds
and cuts.
For Wounds with Bruises.
I cured once a desperate bruise with a cut upon the knee-
pan, with an ungent made with the leaves of the larch-tree,
and hog’s grease ; but the gum is best.
Spruce is a goodly tree ; of which they make masts for
ships, and sail-yards. It is generally conceived, by those that
have [64] skill in building of ships, that here is absolutely
the best trees in the world ; many of them being three fathom
about, and of great length.0
An Achariston for the Scurvy.
The tops of green spruce-boughs, boiled in bear, and drunk,
is assuredly one of the best remedies for the scurvy ; restor-
ing the infected party in a short time. They also make a
lotion of some of the decoction ; adding honey and allum.
Hemlock-tree, a kind of spruce. The bark of this tree
serves to dye tawny. The fishers tan their sails and nets
with it.* * 6 7
and to draw out the malice (or thorn, as Helmont phrases it) of any ach; rubbing the
place therewith, and throwing upon it the powder of sage-leaves.” — Ibid., p. 66.
6 Abies nigra, Poir. (black or double spruce), and probably also A. alba, Michx.
(white or single spruce). At Pascataway there is now a spruce-tree, brought down to
the water-side by our mass-men, of an incredible bigness, and so long that no skipper
durst ever yet adventure to ship it; but there it lyes and rots.” — Josselyn's Voyages,
p. 67.
7 Abies Canadensis (L.), Michx. (hemlock spruce). Beside the coniferous trees here
set down, our author mentions in his Voyages (p. 67) “the white cedar, ... a stately
tree, and is taken by some to be tamarisk.” This, which is probably our white cedar
(Cupressus thyvides , L.), he says “the English saw into boards to floor their rooms; for
which purpose it is excellent, long-lasting, and wears very smooth and white. Like-
wise they make shingles to cover their houses with, instead of tyle. It will never
warp.” Wood (New-Eng. Prospect, chap, v.) makes mention of a “cedar-tree, . . .
a tree of no great growth; not bearing above a foot and a half, at the most; neither is
it very high. . . . This wood is more desired for ornament than substance; being of
colour red and white, like eugh; smelling as sweet as juniper. It is commonly used
for ceiling of houses, and making of chests, boxes, and staves.” This seems likely to
new-england’s rarities discovered.
201
To break Sore or Swelling.
The Indians break and heal their swellings and sores with
it ; boyling the inner bark of young hemlock very well ; then
knocking of it betwixt two stones to a playster ; and, annoint-
ing or soaking it in soyls’ oyl, they apply it to the sore. It
will break a sore swelling speedily.
One-berry, ITerba Paris , or true-love.* * * 8
Sassafras, or ague-tree.9
[65] For Heat in Feavers.
The chips of the root, boyled in beer, is excellent to allay
the hot rage of feavers ; being drunk.
For Bruises and dry Blowes.
The leaves of the same tree are very good, made into an
oyntment, for bruises and dry blows. The bark of the root
we use instead of cinamon ; and it is sold at the Barbadoes
for two shillings the pound.
And why may not this be the bark the Jesuit’s powder was
made of, that was so famous, not long since, in England, for
agues ?
Cranberry, or bearberry (because bears use much to feed
upon them), is a small, trayling plant, that grows in salt-
marshes that are overgrown with moss. The tender branches,
which are reddish, run out in great length, lying flat on the
ground ; where, at distances, they take root, overspreading
sometimes half a score acres, sometimes in small patches of
have been the American Arbor vile e ( Thya occidentalis, L.); also called white-cedar. —
Compare Emerson, Trees and Shrubs of Mass., pp. 96, 100. For mention of the juni-
per, see ante, p. 49.
8 See p. 81; and ante, p. 54.
9 Sassafras officinale, Nees. “ This tree growes not beyond Black Point, eastward.”
— Josselyn's Voyages , p. 68. Michaux (Sylva, vol. ii. p. 144) says, “ The neighbourhood
of Portsmouth . . . may be assumed as one of the extreme points at which it is found
towards the north-east;” but, according to Mr. Emerson (Trees and Shrubs of Mass.,
p. 322), it is “ found as far north as Canada,” though ..." there a small tree.”
26
202
ARCELEOLOGIA AMERICANA,
about a rood or the like. The leaves are like box, but greener,
— thick and glistering. The blossoms are very like the
flowers of [66] our English night-shade ; after which succeed
the berries, hanging by long, small foot-stalks, no bigger than
a hair. At first, they are of a pale-yellow colour ; afterwards
red, and as big as a cherry : some perfectly round, others
oval ; all of them hollow ; of a sower, astringent taste. They
are ripe in August and September.1
For the Scurvy.
They are excellent against the scurvy.
For the Heat in Feavers.
They are also good to allay the fervour of hot diseases.
The Indians and English use them much, boyling them
with sugar for sauce to eat with their meat ; and it is a deli-
cate sauce, especially for roasted mutton. Some make tarts
with them as with gooseberries.
Vine, much differing in the fruit ; all of them very fleshy :
some reasonably pleasant ; others have a taste of gunpowder,
— and these grow in swamps, and low, wet grounds.2
1 Vaccinium macrocarpum , Ait. Our author seems not to have known the European
cranberry ( V. oxycoccus, L., the marish-wortes, or fenne-berries, of Gerard, p. 1419);
which is also found in our cold bogs, especially upon mountains. This is called by
Sir W. J. Hooker (Br. FI., vol. i. p. 178), “ far superior to the foreign V. macrocarpori ; ”
but, from Gerard’s account, it should appear that it was formerly much less thought
of in England than was ours (according to Josselyn) here, by both Indians and English.
Linnaeus speaks of the European fruit in much the same way, in 1737, in his Flora of
Lapland, where he says, “ Baccae hoe a Lapponibus in usum cibarium non vocantw , nec
facile ah aliis nationibus, cum nimis acidce sint" (FI. Lapp., p. 145): but corrects this in
a paper on the esculent plants of Sweden, in 1752; asking, not without animation,
“ Harum vero cum saccharo jn-ceparata gelalina , quid in mensis noslris jucwndius ? ”
(Amaen. Acad., t. iii. p. 86.) Our American cranberry was probably the “ sasemineash
— another sharp, cooling fruit, growing in fresh waters all the winter; excellent in con-
serve against fevers ” — of R. Williams, Key, l. c., p. 221. — Compare Masimin, rendered
[fruits] “ rouges petits." — Rasies' Diet., Abnaki, l. c., p. 460.
2 Wood says the “ vines afford great store of grapes, which are very big, both for
the grape and cluster; sweet and good. These be of two sorts, — red and white. There
is likewise a smaller kind of grape which groweth in the islands” (that is, of Massa-
chusetts Bay), “ which is sooner ripe, and more delectable: so that there is no known
new-england’s rarities discovered.
203
[67] 3. Of such Plants as are 'proper to the Country , and have
no Name.
(10
Pirola, or winter-green. That kind which grows with us
in England is common in New England.3 But there is another
plant which I judge to be a kind of pirola, and proper to this
country ; a very beautiful plant. The shape of the leaf, and
the just bigness of it, you may see in the figure.
The Deaf of the Plant judged to be a kind of Pirola.
The ground whereof is a sap-green; embroydered, as it
were, with many pale-yellow ribs. The whole plant, in shape,
is [68] like Semper vivum , but far less ; being not above a
handful high ; with one slender stalk, adorned with small,
pale-yellow flowers, like the other pirola. It groweth not
everywhere, but in some certain small spots overgrown with
reason why as good wine may not be made in those parts, as well as Bordeaux in France ;
being under the same degree.” — New-Enrj. Prosjiect, chap. v. “Vines,” says Mr.
Graves (in New-Eng. Plantation, Hist. Coll., vol. i. p. 124) “doe grow here, plentifully
laden with the biggest grapes that ever I saw. Some I have seene foure inches about.”
— “Our Governour,” adds Higginson, “hath already planted a vineyard, with great
hope of encrease.” — New-England’s Plantation , l.c., p. 119. Vitis Labrusca, L. (fox-
grape), — for some principal varieties of which, see Emerson, l. c., p. 468, — furnished,
probably, most of the sorts known favorably to the first settlers ; but F. aestivalis, Michx.
(summer grape), also occurs on our seaboard.
3 Pyrola, L., emend. (Gerard, p. 408). All but one of our species are common also
to Europe.
204
ARCHA30L0GIA AMERICANA.
moss, close by swamps, and shady. They are green both
summer and winter.4
For Wounds.
They are excellent wound-herbs ; but this I judge to be the
better by far. Probatum est.
This plant was brought to me by a neighbour, who, wander-
ing in the woods to find out his strayed cattle, lost himself
[69] for two dayes ; being, as he ghessed, eight or ten miles
from the seaside. The root was pretty thick, and black ; hav-
ing a number of small black strings growing from it : the
stalks of the leaves about a handful long. The leaves were
round, and as big as a silver five-shilling piece ; of a sap or
dark-green colour ; with a line, or ribb, as black as jeat, round
the circumference ; from whence came black lines, or ribs, at
equal distance, — all of them meeting in a black spot in the
center.5 * * 8 If I had staid longer in the country, I should have
4 Goodyera pubescens ( Willd.), R. Br., is plainly meant by the author; and the com-
mon name of the plant — rattlesnake plantain — still preserves the memory of its
supposed virtues as a wound-herb. It seems, by the next page, that Josselyn tried to
carry living specimens to England; but they “perished at sea.” The putting this
among the Pyrolce (as if by some confusion of Goodyera with Chimophila maculala) was
a bad mistake.
8 See p. 55; where the author refers to his figures of two kinds of “ Pyrola,” of
which this must be one. The Voyages (p. 202) also make mention of an adventure
new-england’s rarities discovered.
205
purposely made a journey into those parts where it was ga-
thered, to discover, if possible, the stalk and flower. But now
I shall refer it to those that are younger, and better able to
undergo the pains and trouble of finding it out : for I under-
stood by the natives, that it is not common, • — that is, every-
where to be found, — no more than the embroydered pirola;
which also is a most elegant plant, and which I did endeavour
to bring over ; but it perished at sea.
For Wounds.
Clowne’s all-heal of New England is another wound-herb
not inferiour to [70] ours, but rather beyond it. Some of our
English practitioners take it for vervene, and use it for the
same ; wherein they are grossly mistaken.
The leaf is like a nettle-leaf, but narrower and longer ;
the stalk about the bigness of a nettle-stalk, — champhered
and hollow, and of a dusky-red colour. The flowers are blew,
small, and many, — growing in spoky tufts at the top, — and
are not hooded, but having only four round leaves ; after
which followeth an infinite of small, longish, light-brown
seed. The roots are knotty, and matted together with an
infinite number of small white strings. The whole plant is
commonly two cubits high ; bitter in taste, with a rosenie
savour.6
of a neighbor of Josselyn’s, who, “ rashly wandering out after some stray’d cattle, lost
his way; and coming, as we conceived by his Relation, near to the head-spring of some
of the branches of Black-Point River or Saco River, light into a tract of land, for God
knows how many miles, full of delfes and dingles and dangerous precipices, rocks, and
inextricable difficulties, which did justly daunt, yea, quite deter him from endeavour-
ing to pass any further.” And this account may quite possibly relate to the same
occasion of our author’s getting acquainted with his “ elegant plant.” Plukenet
(Amalth., p. 94; Phytogr., tab. 287, f. 5) mistakenly refers Josselyn’s “sufficiently
unhappy figure” to his Filix Hemionitis dicta Maderensis; which is Adiantum r mi-
forme, L.
6 “ There is a plant, likewise, — called, for want of a name, clowne’s wound-wort,
by the English ; though it be not the same, — that will heal a green wound in 24 hours,
if a wise man have the ordering of it.” — Voyages, p. 60. Verbena hastala, L. (blue
206
ARCHA30L0GIA AMERICANA.
(3.)
This plant is one of the first that springs up, after white
hellibore, in the like wet and black grounds, commonly by hel-
libore; with a sheath, or hood, like dragons: but the pestle
[71]
vervain), is perhaps, notwithstanding the author’s disclaimer, what he had in view.
This is certainly different from the common, once officinal, vervain of Europe ( V. offici-
nalis, L. ), — on the virtues of which, as a wound-herb, see Gerard, p. 718; but yet more
so from true clown’s all-heal (Gerard, p. 1005), which is Slachys paluslris, L. As to
other medicinal properties of our vervains, compare Cutler, l. c., p. 405, — where they
are said to have been used by the surgeons of our army in the Revolutionary War, —
and Wood and Bache, Dispens., p. 1403.
new-england’s rarities discovered.
207
is of another shape ; that is, having a round purple ball on the
top of it, beset (as it were) with burs. The hood shoots forth
immediately from the root, before any leaf appears ; having a
green [72] sprig growing fast by it, like the smaller horse-tayl.
About the latter end of April, the hood and sprig wither
away ; and there comes forth in the room a bud, like the
bud of the walnut-tree, but bigger. The top of it is of a
pale-green colour ; covered with brown skins, like an onion ;
white underneath the leaves, which spread, in time, out of
the bud, grow from the root with a stalk a foot long, and are
as big as the great burdock-leaves, and of the colour. The
roots are many, and of the bigness of the steel of a tobacco-
pipe, and very white. The whole plant sents as strong as a
fox. It continues till August.7
[74] (4.)
This plant the humming-bird feedeth upon. It groweth
likewise in wet grounds, and is not at its full growth till July;
and then it is two cubits high, and better. The leaves are
thin, and of a pale-green colour ; some of them as big as a
nettle-leaf. It spreads into many branches, — knotty at the
setting-on, and of a purple colour, and garnished on the top
with many hollow, dangling flowers, of a bright-yellow colour ;
speckled with a deeper yellow, as it were shadowed. The
n/
7 Symplocarpus fcetidus (L.) Salisb. (skunk-cabbage). Our author’s appears to be
the first figure and account of this curious plant, which he rightly places among such
“ as are proper to the country, and have no name.” Cutler’s description, in 1785 (Ac-
count of Indig. Veg., l.c., pp. 407-9), — which is followed by the remark, that “the
fructification so essentially differs from all the genera of this order, it must undoubt-
edly be considered as a new genus,” — was the next contribution of importance, and so
continued till Dr. Bigelow’s elaborate history ; — Amer. Med. Hot., vol. ii. p. 41, pi. xxiv.
Josselyn’s “sprig” of a horse-tail might perhaps be added to his Filices, at p. 47,
note 2, 3.
208
ARCHJEOLOGIA AMERICANA.
[73] A Branch of the Humming-Bird Tree.
stalkes are as hollow as a kix ; and so are the roots, which are
transparent, very tender, and full of a yellowish juice.8
8 Impatiens fulva, Nutt, (touch-me-not; balsam). Wilson says this plant “is the
greatest favorite with the humming-bird of all our other flowers. In some places where
these plants abound, you may see at one time ten or twelve humming-birds dart-
ing about, and fighting with and pursuing each other.” — Amer. Ornithol., by Brewer,
p. 120. As to Josselyn’s note on its use in medicine by the Indians, compare Wood
and Bache, Disp., p. 1345. A kix, or kex, or kexy, — used in the expression, “hollow
new-england’s baeities discoyeeed.
209
For Bruises and Aches upon stroalcs.
The Indians make use of it for aches ; being bruised be-
tween two stones, and laid to, cold. But, made (after the
English manner) into an unguent, with hog’s grease, there is
not a more soveraign remedy for bruises, of what kind soever ;
and for aches upon stroaks.
In August, 1670, in a swamp amongst alders, I found a sort
of tree sow-thistle ; the stalks of some, two or three inches
[75] about; as hollow as a kix, and very brittle. The leaves
were smooth, and, in shape, like Sonchus Icevis, — that is,
hare’s-lettice, — but longer; some about a foot. These grow
at a distance one from another, almost to the top ; where it
begins to put forth flowers between the leaves and the stalk.
The top of the stalk runs out into a spike, beset about with
flowers like sow-thistle, of a blew or azure colour. I brought
home one of the plants, which was between twelve and thir-
teen foot in length. I wondered at it the more, for that so
large and tall a plant should grow from so small a root, con-
sisting of slender, white strings, little bigger than bents, and
not many of them, and none above a finger long, spreading-
under the upper crust of the earth. The -whole plant is full
of milk, and of a strong savour.9
as a kix,” — is a provincialism, in various parts of England, for hemlock; “the dry,
hollow stalks of hemlock ” (whence Webster’s query, — Fr„ cique; Lat., cicuta); and
also of cow-parsley, according to Holloway (Diet, of Provincialisms): that is to say,
secondarily, any hollow-stemmed plant like hemlock. Gerard’s figure of Impatievs
noli langere, L., the European balsam, — of which the earlier botanists considered our
species to be varieties, — is so poor, and the plant so rare in Britain, that it is perhaps
little wonder that our author took the showy American balsam to be quite new.
9 Mulgedium hucophoeum , DC, (Gray, Manual, p, 341). This fine plant is peculiar
to America.
27
210
ARCHH30L0GIA AMERICANA.
(5.)
This plant I found in a gloomy, dry wood, under an oak,
1670, the 18th of August. Afterwards I found it in open
champain grounds, but yet somewhat scarce. The root
is about the bigness of a French walnut. The bark thereof is
[76] The Plant when it springs up first.
brown and rugged ; within, of a yellowish colour : from whence
ariseth a slender stalk, no bigger than an oat-straw ; about
two cubits in height. Somewhat better than a handful above
the root shooteth out one leaf, of a grass-green colour ; and,
an inch or two above that, another leaf ; and so four or five,
at a greater distance one from another, till they come within
a handful of the top, where, upon slender foot-stalks, grow
the flowers, — four or five, more or fewer, — clustering to-
gether in pale, long, green husks, milk-white ; consisting of
ten small leaves, snipt a little on the edges ; with purple hair
threads in the midst. The whole plant is of a brakish fast.
When it is at its full growth, the stalks are as red as blood.1
1 Nabalus albus (L.) Hook, (snake-weed): the genus peculiar to America.
njew-england’s rarities discoyered.
211
[77] The Figure of the Plant, when it is at Full Growth.
[79] (6.)
This plant flowers in August, and grows in wet ground. It
is about three or four foot in height ; having a square, slen-
der stalk, chamfered, hollow, and tuff. The leaves grow at
certain distances, one against another ; of the colour of egri-
mony leaves ; sharpe-pointed ; broadest in the midst about
an inch and half, and three or four inches in length ; snipt
about the edges, like a nettle-leaf ; at the top of the stalk, for
four or five inches, thick-set with pale-green husks, out of
which the flowers grow ; consisting of one leaf, shaped like
the head of a serpent, opening at the top like a mouth, and
hollow throughout, containing four crooked pointels ; and, on
the top of every pointel, a small, glistering, green button,
covered with a little white, woolly matter, by which they are,
212
ARCHiEOLOGIA AMERICANA.
with the pointels, fastened close together, and shore up the
tip of the upper chap. The crooked pointels are very stiff
and hard from the bottom of the husks, wherein the flower
stands. From the top of the seed-vessel shoots out a white
thread, which runs in at the bottom of the flower, and so [80]
out at the mouth. The whole flower is milk-Avhite ; the inside
of the chaps reddish. The root I did not observe.2
2 Chelone glabra , L. (snake-head). Plukenet quotes this figurq under Digitalis Ver-
besinw fuliis, &c. (Atnalth., p. 71; Mant., p. 64); which is referred by Linnaeus to
Gerardia pedicularis , L. Plukenet has himself figured our plant, and but little better
than Josselyn, in Phytogr., t. 348, fig. 3. The genus is peculiar to America.
nbw-england’s rarities discovered.
213
This plant I take for a variegated Herb Paris (true-love or
one-berry, or rather one-flower), which is milk-white, and made
up with four leaves, with many black threads in the middle.
Upon every thread grows a berry (when the leaves of the
flower are fallen), as big as a white pease, of a light-red col-
our when they are ripe, and clustering together in a round
form as big as a pullet’s egg, which at distance shows but as
one berry ; very pleasant in taste, and not unwholesome. The
root, leaf, and flower differ not from our English kind ; and
their time of blooming and ripening agree ; and therefore,
doubtless, a kind of Herba Paris?
3 Upon this figure, Plukenet founds his Solarium, quadrifolium Nov' Anglicanum, jlore
lacteo polycoccum (Amalth., p. 195); clearly taking the plant, as Josselyn did, for “a
214
ARCHiEOLOGIA AMERICANA.
[82] The small Sunflower, or Marigold, of America.
[84] (8.)
This plant is taken by our simplists to be a kind of golden-
rod ; by others, for Sarazens Consound. I judge it to be a
kind of Herba Paris ” ( Paris quadrifolia , L.), which is Solarium quadrifolium bacciferum
of Bauhin (Pin., p. 167, cit. L.). The plant is doubtless Cornus Canadensis , L. (dwarf-
cornel; bunch-berry); and it certainly resembles the figure of Herb Paris, given by
Gerard (p. 405), much more than that of Cornus suecica, L. (European dwarf-cornel,
p. 1296), — a shrub ill understood by the old botanists.
new-england’s rarities discovered.
215
kind of small sun-flower, or marygold of the West Indies.
The root is brown and slender, a foot and half in length, run-
ning a slope under the upper face of the earth ; with some
strings here and there : the stalk as big as the steal of a to-
bacco-pipe ; full of pith ; commonly brownish, sometimes pur-
ple ; three or four foot high. The leaves grow at a distance
one against another ; rough ; hard ; green above, and gray
underneath; slightly snipt; and the ribs appear most on the
back side of the leaf. The flower is of a bright yellow, with
216
ARCHiEOLOGIA AMERICANA.
little yellow cups in the midst, as in the marygold of Peru ;
with black threads in them, with yellow pointels. The flower
spreads itself abroad out of a cup made up of many green
beards, not unlike a thistle. Within a handful of the top of
the stalk, when the flower is fallen, growes an excrense, or
knob, as big as a walnut ; which, being broken, yieldeth a
kind of turpentine, or rather rosen.4
[85] What Cutchenele is.
The stalk beneath and above the knob covered with a mul-
titude of small bugs, about the bigness of a great flea ; which
I pi’esume will make good cutchenele, — ordered, as they
should be, before they come to have wings. They make a
perfect scarlet colour to paint with, and durable.
4. Of such Plants as have sprung up since the English planted
and kept Cattle in New England .5
Couch-grass.6
Shepherd’s-purse.7
Dandelion.8
* Belianlhus , L., sp. (sun-flower); a genus peculiar to America, The species is
perhaps H. slrumosus , L. (Gray, Man., p. 218). — See p. 56 of this book; note.
6 The importance of this list has been already spoken of. Its value depends on its
having been drawn up by a person of familiarity with some of the botanical writers
of his day, as part of a botanical treatise; and the (in this case) not unfair presumption
that the names cited are meant to be accurate. Mr. A. De Candolle ( Geogr . Bolanique,
vol.il. p.746) appears to be unacquainted with any authority for the naturalized plants
of the Northern States earlier than the first edition of the Florula of Dr. Bigelow, in
1814. The treatise of Cutler extends this limit to 1785; and that of Josselyn, so far
as it goes, to 1673.
6 Doubtful. Gerard’s couch-grass, p. 23, appears to be Eolcus mollis , L., — "the
true couch-grass of sandy soils” in England; and English agricultural writers reckon
yet other grasses Gf this name, beside the well-known Triticum repens, L.
7 Gerard, p. 276, — Capsella Bursa Pastoris (L.), Moench. “ Cornfields, and about
barns,” — Culler (1785), l. c. Naturalized.
8 Gerard, p. 290, — - Taraxacum Dens Leonis, Desf. ; looked, to our author, like a new-
comer. Dr. Gray (Man., p. 239; and comp. Torr. and Gray, FI., vol. ii. p. 494) regards
it as “ probably indigenous in the north,” but only naturalized in other regions. “ Grass-
land,” — Cutler (1785), l. c.
new-england’s rarities discovered.
217
Groundsel.9
Sow-thistle.* 1
Wild arrach.2
Night-shade, with the white flower.3
Nettles stinging, which was the first plant taken notice
of.4
Mallowes.5
[86] Plantain, which the Indians call Englishman’s foot; as
though produced by their treading.6
9 Gerard, p. 278, — Senecio vulgaris, L. ; one of the adventive naturalized plants, as
defined by Mr. De Candolle (1. c., vol. ii. p. 688; and Gray, Man. Bot., pref., p. viii.),
according to the evidence of Dr. Darlington (FI. Cestr., p. 152), and Gray, l. c. But it
has long been a common weed in eastern New England; and may possibly have had,
here and there, a continuous existence from the first settlement.
1 Sonchus, L. S. oleraceus, L., as understood by Linnaeus, was no doubt intended:
but this is now taken to include two species, both recognized in this country (Gray,
l. c., p. 241); between which there is no evidence to authorize a decision.
2 The genera Chenopodium, L., and Atriplex, L., were much confused in Josselyn’s
day; and his wild orach may belong to either. Gerard’s wild orach is in part Atriplex
patula , L. (p. 326); but the first species to which he gives this name (p. 325) is Cheno-
podium polyspermum, L. The latter is a rare, adventive member of our Flora (Gray, l. c.,
p. 363); and the former is, according to Bigelow (FI. Bost., ed. 3, p. 401), the well-
known orach of our salt-marshes: but Dr. Gray now refers this (Man., p. 365) to the
nearly allied A. haslata, L. This plant, in either case, is reckoned truly common to
both continents. It is possible that Josselyn intended it.
3 Garden nightshade (Gerard, p. 339); Solanum nigrum , L. “ Common among rub-
bish,” — Cutler (1785), l. c. Naturalized.
4 Common stinging-nettle, or great nettle (Gerard, p. 706), — Urtica dioica , L.
5 Field-mallow (Gerard, p. 930), Malva sylvestris, L., and wild dwarf-mallow (ibid.),
M. rotundifolia, L., are the only sorts likely to have been in view. The latter was, I
doubt not, intended ; and the former, adventive only with us, may also have occurred at
any period after the settlement.
6 “ It is but one sort, and that is broad-leaved plantain ” (Josselyn’s Voyages, p. 188).
Broad-leaved plantain (Gerard, p. 419), — Plantago major , L. ; one of the most anciently
and widely known of plants, and inhabiting, at present, all the great divisions of the
earth. An account, similar to our author’s, of the name given to it by the American
savages, is found in Kalm’s Travels. “ Mr. Bartram had found this plant in many
places on his travels; but he did not know whether it was an original American plant,
or whether the Europeans had brought it over. This doubt had its rise from the sav-
ages (who always had an extensive knowledge of the plants of the country) pretending
that this plant never grew here before the arrival of the Europeans. They therefore
gave it a name which signifies the Englishman’s foot; for they say, that, where a
European had walked, there this plant grew in his footsteps.” — Kalm's Travels into
North America, by Forster, vol. i. p. 92. But Dr. Pickering considers it possible, that,
in North-west America at least, the plantain was introduced by the aborigines (Races
of Man, pp. 317, 320): and, uncertain as this is admitted to be, the old vulgar names of
28
218
ARCHiEOLOGIA AMERICANA.
Black henbane.* * * * * * 7
Wormwood.8
Sharp-pointed dock.9
Patience.1
Bloodwort.2
the plant in Northern languages — as Wegerich and Wegetritt of the German,. Weegblad
and Weegbree of the Dutch, Veibred of the Danish, and Weybred of old English, all
pointing to the plantain’s growing on ways trodden by man — suggest, perhaps, a far
older supposed relation between this plant and the human foot than that mentioned
above ; and thus favor the derivation of the original Latin name (as old as Pliny, H. N.,
vol. xxxv. § 539) from planta , the sole of the foot, — whether because the plantain is
always trodden on, or, taking the termination go in planlago, as some philologists take
it, to signify likeness (as doubtless in lappago , mollugo , asperugo; but this signification
does not appear so clear in some other words with the like ending), because its leaves
resemble the sole of the foot iu flatness, breadth, marking, and so on. The possible
derivation from planta, a plant, “ per excellenliam , quasi plantam prwstantissimam ”
(Tournef., Inst., vol. i. p. 128), though less open to question than that of Linnaeus
(“ planta tangenda ,” Phil. Bot., § 234), is certainly less significant than the other;
which, with the statements (independent, so far as appears, of each other) of Josse-
lyn and Kalm, if these may be relied on, seems to point to a very ancient co-incidence
of thought, not unworthy of attention. Something else of the same sort is to be found
in R. Williams, where he says (Key, l. c., p. 218) that the Massachusetts Indians called
the constellation of the Great Bear mask, or pawlcunnawaw ; that is, the bear.
7 Gerard, p. 353, — Hyoscyamus niger, L. Advenlive only: having “escaped from
gardens to roadsides,” according to Dr. Gray (Man., p. 340); but “common amongst
rubbish and by roadsides” in 1785 (Cutler, l. c.), and perhaps long naturalized on the
coasts of Massachusetts Bay.
8 Broad-leaved wormwood, “our common and best-knowne wormwood” (Gerard,
p. 1096), — Artemisia absyn/hium , L. “ Roadsides and amongst rubbish,” 1785, — Cutler ,
l. c. Omitted by Bigelow, and not very frequent.
9 Gerard, p. 388. If this is to be taken for liumex aculus, Sm. (FI. Brit.), which
seems not to be certain, it is now referable to R. conglomeratus , Murr., which is “spar-
ingly introduced ” with us, according to Gray (Man., p. 377). But it is more likely th.at
Josselvn had R. crispus , L. (curled dock), in view: which is, I suppose, the “varietie”
of sharp-pointed dock, “ with crisped or curled leaves,” of Johnson’s Gerard, p. 387 ;
and is the only mention of the species by those authors.
1 Gerard, p. 389, — Rumex Patientia, L. This and the next were garden pot-herbs
of repute: and, at p. 90, our author brings them in again as such; telling us that
bloodwort grows “ but sorrily,” but patience “ very pleasantly.” This may very likely
have crept out of some garden: but the great water-dock (R. Bydrolapathum, Huds.)
is, says Gerard, “not unlike to the garden patience” (p. 390); and Dr. Gray says the
same of the American variety of the former. — Man., p. 377.
2 Gerard, p. 390,. — Rumex sanguineus, L., “sown for a pot-herb in most gardens”
(Gerard); and so our author, p. 90. Linnaeus took it to be originally American: but
it is common in Europe; and Dr. Gray marks the American plant as naturalized. Dr.
Torrey indicated the species as occurring about New York in 1819 (Oatal. PI., N.Y.);
but New-England botanists do not appear to have recognized it. Josselyn’s plant was
perhaps the offcast of some garden.
new-england’s rarities discovered.
219
And, I suspect, adder’s-tongue.8
Knot-grass.* * 4
Cheek-weed.5
Compherie, with the white flower.6
May-weed ; excellent for the mother. Some of our English
housewives call it iron-wort, and make a good unguent for old
sores.7 8
The great clot-bur.8
Mullin, with the white flower.9
Q. What became of the influence of those planets that pro-
duce and govern these plants before this time ?
I have now done with such plants as grow wild in the
country in great plenty, although I have not mentioned all.
8 Gerard, p. 404. — Compare p. 42 of this ; where our author more correctly reckons
it among plants truly common to Europe and America.
4 “ Common knot-grasse” (Gerard, p. 565), — Polygonum aviculare , L. Common to
all the great divisions of the earth, and reckoned indigenous in America. — Do Cand.,
Geogr. Bot ., vol. i. p. 577 ; Gray , Man., p. 373.
5 There are many chickweeds in Gerard ; but that most likely to have been in the
author’s view here is the universally known common chickweed, — the middle or small
chickweed of Gerard, p. 611. This was “ common in gardens and rich cultivated
ground” in 1785. — Cutler, l.c. Few plants have spread so widely over the earth as
Stellaria media.
6 Great comfrey (Gerard, p. 806), — Symphytum officinale, L.: also in the list of
garden herbs at p. 90. “Sometimes found growing wild,” — Cutler (1786), l. c. Not
admitted by Dr. Bigelow (FI. Bost.), but included by Dr. Gray as an adventive. — Man.,
p. 320.
1 Gerard, p. 757, — Maruta cotula ( L. ), DC.; a naturalized member of our Flora,
now become a very common ornament of roadsides; where Cutler notices it, also, in
1785.
8 “Great burre-docke, or clott-burre” (Gerard, p. 809), — Lappa major, Gaertn.
“About barns,” — Cutler (1785), l.c.
9 “White-floured mullein” (Gerard, p. 773), — perhaps Verbascum Lyclinitis, L.;
which is adventive in some parts of the United States (Gray, Man., p. 283), but is not
otherwise known to have made its appearance in New England. Great mullein ( V.
Thapsus L.) was “common” in Cutler’s time. The moth-mullein ( V. Blattaria, L.)
he only knew “ by roadsides in Lynn ” ( l . c., p. 419). Other plants referable to this list
of naturalized weeds are “ wild sorrel,” p. 42; Polygonum Persicaria , p. 43; St. John’s
wort, speedwell, chickweed, male fluellin, catmint, and clot-bur, p. 44; yarrow, and
oak of Jerusalem, p. 46; pimpernel, and toadflax, p. 48; and wild purslain, and woad-
waxen, p. 51. See also spearmint, and ground-ivy, p. 89 ; and elecampane, celandine,
and tansy, p. 90.
220
ARCHrEOLOGIA AMERICANA.
I shall now, in the fifth place, give you to under [8 7] stand
what English herbs we have growing in our gardens, that
prosper there as well as in their proper soil ; and of such as
do not ; and also of such as will not grow there at all.
5. Of such Garden-Herbs amongst us as do thrive there, and of
such as do not.1
Cabbidge growes there exceeding well.
Lettice.
1 The earliest, almost the only account that we have of the gardens of our fathers,
after they had settled themselves in their New England, and had tamed its nigged
coasts to obedience to English husbandry. What with their garden beans, and Indian
beans, and pease (“as good as ever I eat in England,” says Higginson in 1629); their
beets, parsnips, turnips, and carrots (“ our turnips, parsnips, and carrots are both bigger
and sweeter than is ordinary to be found in England,” says the same reverend writer);
their cabbages and asparagus, — both thriving, we are told, exceedingly; their radishes
and lettuce; their sorrel, parsley, chervil, and marigold, for pot-herbs; and their sage,
thyme, savory of both kinds, clary, anise, fennel, coriander, spearmint, and pennyroyal,
for sweet herbs, — not to mention the Indian pompions and melons and squanter-
squashes, “and other odde fruits of the country,” — the first-named of which had got to
be so well approved among the settlers, when Josselyn wrote in 1672, that what he calls
“ the ancient New-England standing dish” (we may well call it so now!) was made of
them ; and, finally, their pleasant, familiar flowers, lavender-cotton and hollyhocks and
satin (“we call this herbe, in Norfolke, sattin,” says Gerard; “and, among our women,
it is called honestie”) and gillyflowers, which meant pinks as well, and dear English
roses, and eglantine, — yes, possibly, hedges of eglantine (p. 90, note), — surely the gar-
dens of New England, fifty years after the settlement of the country, were as well
stocked as they were a hundred and fifty years after. Nor were the first planters long
behindhand in fruit. Even at his first visit, in 1639, our author was treated with “ half
a score very fair pippins,” from the Governor’s Island in Boston Harbor; though there
was then, he says (Voyages, p. 29), “ not one apple tree nor pear planted yet in no part
of the countrey but upon that island.” But he has a much better account to give in
1671: “The quinces, cherries, damsons, set the dames a work. Marmalad and pre-
served damsons is to be met with in every house. Our fruit-trees prosper abundantly,
— apple-trees, pear-trees, quince-trees, cherry-trees, plum-trees, barberry-trees. I have
observed, with admiration, that the kernels sown, or the succors planted, produce as
fair and good fruit, without graffing, as the tree from whence they were taken. The
countrey is replenished with fair and large orchards. It was affirmed by one Mr. IVool-
cut (a magistrate in Connecticut Colony), at the Captain’s messe (of which I was),
aboard the ship I came home in, that he made five hundred hogsheads of syder out of
his own orchard in one year.” — Voyages , p. 189-90. Our barberry-bushes, now so
familiar inhabitants of the hedgerows of Eastern New England, should seem from this
to have come, with the eglantines, from the gardens of the first settlers. Barberries
“ are planted in most of our English gardens,” says Gerard.
new-england’s rarities discovered.
221
Sorrel.
Parsley.
Mary gold.
French mallowes.
Chervel.
Burnet.
Winter savory.
Summer savory.
Time.
Sage.
Carrats.
Parsnips, of a prodigious size.
Red beetes.
[88] Radishes.
Turnips.
Purslain.2 3
Wheat.8
Rye.
Barley, which commonly degenerates into oats.
Oats.
Pease of all sorts, and the best in the world. I never heard
of, nor did see in eight years’ time, one worm-eaten pea.
Garden beans.4
Naked oats5 6 * (there called silpee) ; an excellent grain, used
instead of oat-meal. They dry it in an oven, or in a pan upon
the fire ; then beat it small in a morter.
2 Portulaca oleracea , L. ; /3. sativa, L. (garden purslain). The wild variety is also
reckoned by our author, in his list of plants, common to us and the Old World (p. 51).
3 See .Tosselyn’s Voyages, p. 188.
4 Vicia Faba, Willd., of which the Windsor bean is a variety. The author compares
it, at p. 56, with kidney-beans ( Phaseolus vulgaris , L. ), called Indian beans by the first
settlers, who had them from the savages, to the advantage of the last-mentioned sort;
which probably soon drove the other out of our gardens. — Compare Cobbett’s Ameri-
can Gardener, p. 105.
6 Gerard, p. 75, — Arena nuda , L.; derived from common oats (A. sativa , L.) accord-
ing to Link; and also (in Gerard’s time, and even later) in cultivation. It was called
pillcorn, or peelcorn, because the grains, when ripe, drop naked from the husks. But
222
ARCH.EOLOGIA AMERICANA.
Another standing Disli in New England.
And, when the milk is ready to boil, they put into a pottle
of milk about ten or twelve spoonfuls of this meal : so boil it
leasurely ; stirring of it, every foot, least it burn too. When
it is almost boiled enough, they hang the kettle up higher,
and let it stew only. In short time, it will thicken like a cus-
tard. They season it [89] with a little sugar and spice, and
so serve it to the table in deep basons ; and it is altogether
as good as a white-pot.
For People ivealcened icitli long Sickness.
It exceedingly nourisheth and strengthens people weak-
ened with long sickness.
Sometimes they make water-gruel with it ; and sometimes
thicken their flesh-broth either with this, or homminey, if it
be for servants.
Spear-mint.* * * * * 6
Rew will hardly grow.
Fetherfew prospereth exceedingly.
Southern wood is no plant for this country ; nor
Rosemary ; nor
Bayes.7
is it not possible that our author’s Silpee (comparable with apee, a leaf; toopee, a root;
ahpee, a bow, in the Micmac language, — Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. vi., pp. 20, 24) was really
the American name of the well-known water-oats, or Canada rice, — Zizania aqua-
tica, L.; the deciduous grains of which are said to afford “a very good meal” (Loudon,
Encych, p. 788), with the qualities of rice? — See Bigel., FI. Bosl., edit. 3, p. 369. This
has long been used by our savages ; but I have not met with any mention of it in the
early writers. The “standing dish in New England” has its interest, if it were really
made of Canada rice.
6 Gerard, p. 680, — Mentha viridis, L. It perhaps soon became naturalized. “In
moist ground” (1785). — Culler , l. c.
1 Perhaps only an inference of the author’s, from the southern origin of these three
shrubs. Lavender also belongs naturally to a warmer climate.
new-england’s rarities discovered.
223
White satten groweth pretty well ; so cloth
Lavender-cotton.8 But
Lavender is not for the climate.
Pennyroyal.
Smalledge.
Ground-ivy, or ale-hoof.9
Gilly-flowers will continue two years.* 1
[90] Fennel must be taken up, and kept in a warm cellar
all winter.
Housleek prosperetk notably.
Hollyhocks.
Enula Campagna. In two years’ time, the roots rot..2
Comferie, with white flowers.
Coriander and
Hill and
Annis thrive exceedingly ; but annis-seed, as also the seed
of fennel, seldom come to maturity. The seed of annis is
commonly eaten with a fly.
Clary never lasts but one summer. The roots rot with the
frost.
Sparagus thrives exceedingly ; so does
Garden-sorrel, and
Sweet-bryer, or eglantine.3
8 Gerard, p. 1109, — Santolina Chamce Cyparissus, L.
9 Gerard, p. 856. — Gleclioma hederacea, L. ; once of great medicinal repute : which
accounts for our author’s finding it, as it should seem, among garden-herbs. It has
become naturalized and very familiar in New England. Cutler finds it wild in 1785.
Mr. Bentham refers it to Nepeta, hut substitutes a new specific name for that given
by Linnaeus, which is based on the anoient names, and has at least the right of
priority.
1 “ Gilliflowers thrive exceedingly there, and are very large. The collibuy, or
humming-bird, is much pleased with them.” — Josselyn's Voyages, p. 188.
2 Elecampane (Gerard, p. 793), — Inula Selenium, L. “Roadsides” (1785), — Cut-
ler, l. c. ; and now extensively naturalized in New England.
3 Gerard, p. 1272, — Rosa rubiginosa, L. ; and R. micrantha, Sm. Since naturalized,
especially in Eastern New England, and not uncommon on roadsides and in pastures.
First indicated as a member of our Flora by Bigelow in 1824. — FI. Bost., in loc.
“ Eglantine, or sweet-bryer, is best sowen with juniper-berries, — two or three to one
2f24
ARCELEOLOGIA AMERICANA.
Bloodwort but sorrily ; but
Patience* * * 4 and
Eng-lish roses very pleasantly.5
Celandine (by the west-countrymen called kenningwort)
grows but slowly.6
Musckata, as well as in England.
Dittander, or pepperwort, flourisheth notably ; and so doth
Tansie.7
Musk-mellons are better than our English, and
[91] Cucumbers.
Pompions there be of several kinds ; some proper to the
country.8 They are dryer than our English pompions, and
better tasted. You may eat them green.
eglantine-beiTy, put into a hole made with a stick. The next year, separate and re-
move them to your banks. In three years’ time, they will make a hedge as high as a
man; which you may keep thick and handsome with cutting.”- — Josselyn's Voyages,
p. 188. And what next goes before seems to show that the author picked up this infor-
mation here ; which is not uninteresting.
4 See p. 86. .
6 Brier-rose, or hep-tree (Gerard, p. 1270); “also called Rosa canina, which is a
plant so common and well knowne, that it were to small purpose to use many words
in the description thereof: for even children with great delight eat the berries thereof,
when they be ripe, — make chaines and other prettie gewgawes of the fruit; cookes
and gentlewomen make tarts, and such like dishes, for pleasure thereof,” &c. (Gerard,
l. c.). Rosa canina, L., was once the collective name of what are now understood as many
distinct species; but that which still retains the name of dog-rose is reckoned the finest
of native English roses. This familiar plant may well have been reared with tender
interest in some New-England gardens of Josselyn’s day; but it did not make a new
home here, like the eglantine. Cutler gives the name of dog-rose to the Carolina rose, —
R. Carolina, L., — which it has not kept; and he also makes it equivalent to the offici-
nal R. canina. Our Flora will possibly one day include one or two other garden-roses.
A damask rose is well established and spreading rapidly in mowing-land of the writer’s,
and elsewhere on roadsides of this county; and that general favorite, the cinnamon-
rose, which is now naturalized in England, may yet become wild with us.
6 Great celandine (Gerard, p. 1069), as the west-country name of kenning-wort —
that is, sight- wort — makes manifest; the juice being once thought to he “good to
sharpen the sight,” — Chdidonium majus, L. Small celandine ( Ranunculus Ficaria, L.)
was quite another thing. The former had got to be “ common by fences and amongst
rubbish ” in 1785 (Cutler, l. c.), and is now naturalized in Eastern New England.
7 Gerard, p. 650, — Tanacetum vulgare, L. In “pastures” (1785). — Cutler, l. c.
Now widely naturalized in New England.
8 See p. 57, note. “The ancient New-England standing dish” was doubtless far
better than Gerard's fried pompions (p. 921), and has more than held its own.
new-england’s rarities discovered.
225
The ancient New-England standing Dish.
But the houswives’ manner is to slice them when ripe,
and cut them into dice, and so fill a pot with them of two or
three gallons, and stew them upon a gentle fire a whole day ;
and, as they sink, they fill again with fresh pompions, not
putting any liquor to them ; and, when it is stew’d enough,
it will look like bak’d apples. This they dish ; putting butter
to it, and a little vinegar (with some spice, as ginger, &c.) ;
which makes it tart, like an apple ; and so serve it up, to be
eaten with fish or flesh. It provokes urin extfeamly, and is
very windy.
[92] Sixthly and lastly, of Stones, Minerals, Metals, and
Earths }
As, first, the emrald ; which grows in flat rocks, and is very
good.
Rubies, which here are very watry.
1 “For such commodities as lie under ground, I cannot, out of mine own experi-
ence or knowledge, say much; having taken no great notice of such things: but it is
certainly reported that there is iron-stone ; and the Indians informed us that they can
lead us to the mountains of black-lead; and have shown us lead-ore, if our small judg-
ment in such things does not deceive us; and though nobody dare confidently con-
clude, yet dare they not utterly deny, but that the Spaniard’s-bliss may lie hid in the
barren mountains. Such as have coasted the country affirm that they know where to
fetch sea-coal, if wood were scarce. There is plenty of stone, both rough and smooth,
useful for many things ; with quarries of slate, out of which they get coverings for houses ;
with good clay, whereof they make tiles and bricks and pavements for their necessary
uses. For the country it is well watered as any land under the sun; every family,
or every two families, having a spring of sweet water betwixt them ; which is far dif-
ferent from the waters of England, being not so sharp, but of a fatter substance, and of
a more jetty colour. . . . Those that drink it be as healthful, fresh, and lusty as they
that drink beer.” — Wood , New-Eng. Prospect, chap. v. “ The humour and justness of”
this writer’s “account recommend him,” says the editor of 1764, “to every candid
mind.” There is certainly no view of New England, as it was at its settlement, that
surpasses Wood’s in understanding, and homebom English truth, not always without
beauty. What he says in this place of “ quarries of slate ” points to a very early dis-
29
226
ARCHiEOLOGIA AMERICANA.
I have heard a story of an Indian that found a stone, up in
the country (by a great pond), as big as an egg, that, in a
dark night, would give a light to read by. But I take it to
be but a story.
Diamond, which are very brittle, and therefore of little
worth.
Crystal (called, by our west-countrymen, the kenning-stone),
by Sebebug Pond, is found in considerable quantity. Not far
from thence is a rock of crystal, called the moose-rock, be-
cause in shape like a moose ; and
Muscovy-gl'ass, both white and purple, of reasonable content.
Black-lead.* 2
Bole-armoniack.
[93] Red and yellow oker.
Terra sigilla.
Vitriol.
Antimony.
Arsnick, too much.
Lead.3
covery. Iligginson says, in 1629 (New-Eng. Plantation, l. c., p. 118), “Here is plenty
of slates at the Isle of Slate in Masathulets Bay:” and there is a court order of
July 2, 1633, granting “to Tho: Lambe, of slate in Slate Ileand, 10 poole towards the
water-side, and 5 poole into the land, for three yeares; payeing the yearely rent of
ijs. vjd.” — Mass. Col. Rec., vol. i. p. 106. There are other later grants of the same
island, which “lies between Bumkin Island and Weymouth River.” — Pemberton , Desc.
Bust., Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. iii. p. 297. Josselyn, in his Voyages, p. 46, says that tables
of slate could be got out (he does not tell us where), “long enough for a dozen men to
sit at.” Argillaceous slate is, according to Dr. Hitchcock, “the predominating rock
on the outermost of these islands;” and he adds, that “there can be but little doubt
that the peninsula of Boston has a foundation ” of this rock. — Report on Geol. of Mass.,
p. 270.
2 “ Mr. John Winthrope, jun., is granted ye hill at Tantousq, about 60 miles west-
ward, in which the black-leade is ; and liberty to purchase some land there of the In-
dians ” (13th November, 1644). — Mass. Col. Rec., vol. ii. p. 82 ; and Savage, in Winthrop,
N. E., vol. ii. p. 213, note. The place mentioned is what is now Sturbridge; which is
called “ the most important locality ” of black-lead in Massachusetts, by Dr. Hitchcock.
— Geol., pp. 47, 395.
3 “ The mountains and rocky hills are richly furnished with mines of lead, silver,
copper, tin, and divers sorts of minerals, branching out even to their summits; where,
in small crannies, you may meet with threds of perfect silver: yet have the English
no maw to open any of them;” and so forth. — Josselyn' s Voyages, p. 44.
NEW-ENGLAND’S RARITIES DISCOVERED.
227
Tin.
Tin-glass.
Silver.
Iron, in abundance ; and as good bog-iron as any in the
world.
Copper. It is reported that the French have a copper
mine, at Port Royal, that yieldeth them twelve ounces of pure
copper out of a pound of oar.
I shall conclude this section with a strange cure effected
upon a drummer’s wife, much afflicted with a wolf in her
breast. The poor woman lived with her husband at a town
called, by the Indians, Casco ; but, by the English, Famouth ;
where, for some time, she swaged the pain of her sore by
bathing it with strong malt-beer, which it would [94] suck in
greedily, as if some living creature. When she could come
by no more beer (for it was brought from Boston, along the
coasts, by merchants), she made use of rhum, — a strong water
drawn from sugar-canes, — with which it was lull’d asleep.
At last, to be rid of it altogether, she put a quantity of
arsnick to the rhum ; and, bathing of it as formerly, she utterly
destroyed it, and cured herself. But her kind husband, who
sucked out the poyson as the sore was healing, lost all his
teeth, but without further danger or inconvenience.
228
ARCHiEOLOGIA AMERICANA.
[95] AN ADDITION OF SOME RARITIES OVERSLIPT.
The star-fish,4 having fine points like a star; the whole fish
no bigger than the palm of a man’s hand ; of a tough sub-
stance like leather, and about an inch in thickness; whitish
undeimeath, and of the colour of a cucumber above, and some-
what ruff. When it is warm in one’s hand, you may perceive
a stiff motion, turning down one point, and thrusting up an-
other. It is taken to be poysonous. They are very common,
and found thrown up on the rocks by the seaside.
Sea-bream, which are plentifully taken upon the seacoasts.
Their eyes are accounted rare meat: whereupon the prover-
bial comparison, “ It is worth a sea-bream’s eye.”5
[96] Blew-fisb, or horse. I did never see any of them in
England. They are big, usually, as the salmon, and better
meat by far. It is common in New England, and esteemed
the best sort of fish next to rock-cod.
Cat-fish, having a round head, and great, glaring eyes, like
a cat. They lye, for the most part, in holes of rocks, and are
discovered by their eyes. It is an excelling fish.
Munk-fish, a flat-fish like scate ; having a hood like a fryer’s
cowl.
Clam, or clamp; a kind of shell-fish, — a white muscle.
An Achariston for Pin and Web.
Sheath-fish, which are there very plentiful ; a delicate fish,
as good as a prawn ; covered with a thin shell, like the sheath
of a knife, and of the colour of a muscle.
Which shell, calcin’d and pulveriz’d, is excellent to take off
a pin and web, or [97] any kind of filme growing over the eye.
4 Asterias rubens , L.^ — Gould , Report on Invert ., p. 345.
5 See the chapter on Fishes, p. 23, for this and the others here spoken of.
new-england’s rarities discovered.
229
Morse, or sea-horse, having a great head ; wide jaws, armed
with tushes as white as ivory ; of body as big as a cow, pro-
portioned like a hog; of brownish-bay; smooth-skinned, and
impenetrable. They are frequent at the Isle of Sables. Their
teeth are worth eight groats the pound, the best ivory being
sold but for half the money.6
For Poyson.
It is very good against poyson.
For the Cramp.
As also for the cramp ; made into rings.
For the Piles.
And a secret for the piles, if a wise man have the ordering
of it.
The manaty, a fish as big as a wine-pipe ; most excellent
meat; bred in the rivers of Hispaniola, in the West Indies.
It hath teats, and nourisheth its young ones with milk. It is
of a green colour, and tasteth like veal.
[98] For the Stone-collick.
There is a stone, taken out of the head, that is rare for the
stone and collect.
To provoke Urine.
Their bones, beat to a powder and drank with convenient
liquors, is a gallant urin-provoking medicine.
6 “Numerous about the Isle of Sables; i.e., the Sandy Isle.” — Voyages , p. 106.
“ Mr. Graves ” (year 1635) “ in the ‘James,’ and Mr. Hodges in the ‘ Rebecka,’ set sail
for the Isle of Sable for sea-horse, which are there in great number,” &c. — Winthrop's
N. E., by Savage , vol. i. p. 162. And I cite one other mention of this pursuit: “East-
ward is the Isle of Sables; whither one John Webb, alias Evered (an active man), with
his companjf, are gone, with commission from the Bay to get sea-horse teeth and oyle.”
— Ledford's Newes from New England ( 1642), Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. iii. 3d series, p. 100.
The Magdalen Islands, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, are the most southern habitat of
the animal spoken of by Godman. — Amer. Nat. Hist., vol. i. p. 249.
230
ARCHJEOLOGIA AMERICANA.
For Wound and Bruise.
An Indian, whose knee was bruised with a fall, and the skin
and flesh strip’d down to the middle of the calf of his leg,
cured himself with water-lilly roots, boyled and stamped.7
For Swellings of the Foot.
An Indian webb, her foot being very much swell’d and
inflamed, asswaged the swelling, and too'k away the inflama-
tion, with our garden, or English patience ; the roots roasted,
- — f. catajplas. Anno 1670, June 28.
To dissolve a scirrhous Tumour.
An Indian dissolv’d a scirrhous tumour in the arm and hip
with a fomentation of tobacco ; applying afterwards the herb,
stamp’d betwixt two stones.
[99] A DESCRIPTION OF AN INDIAN SQYA.8
Now, gentle reader, having trespassed upon your patience
a long while in the perusing of these rude observations, I
7 Compare Cutler (Account of Indig. Veg., 1. c., p. 456) and Wood and Bache
(Dispens., p. 1369).
8 The author has something to the same effect in his Voyages, p. 124; but Wood’s
account of the Indian women (New-England’s Prospect, part ii. chap, xx.) is far bet-
ter worth reading. Both appreciated, in one way or another, their savage neighbors.
Wood has a pleasant touch at the last. “ These women,” he says, “ resort often to
the English houses, where pares cum paribus congregatce, — in sex, I mean, — they do
somewhat ease their misery by complaining, and seldom part without a relief. If her
husband come to seek for his squaw, and begin to bluster, the English woman betakes
her to her arms, which are the warlike ladle and the scalding liquors, threatning blis-
tering to the naked runaway, who is soon expelled by such liquid comminations. In
a word, to conclude this woman’s history, their love to the English hath deserved no
small esteem ; ever presenting them something that is either rare or desired, — as straw-
berries, hurtleberries, rasberries, gooseberries, cherries, plumbs, fish, and other such
gifts as their poor treasury yields them” (l. c.). And, if Lechford’s Newes from New
England [l. c., p. 103) can be trusted, the savages became “much the kinder to their
wives by the example of the English.”
new-england’s rarities discovered.
231
shall, to make you amends, present you, by way of divertise-
ment or recreation, with a coppy of verses, made some time
since, upon the picture of a young and handsome Gypsie, not
improperly transferred upon the Indian squa, or female In-
dian, trick’d up in all her bravery.
The men are somewhat horse-fac’d, and generally faucious,
— i.e., without beards: but the women, many of them, [100]
have very good features ; seldome without a come-to-me, or
cos amoris, in their countenance ; all of them black-eyed ; hav-
ing even, short teeth, and very white ; their hair black, thick,
and long ; broad-breasted ; handsome, streight bodies, and
slender, considering their constant loose habit ; their limbs
cleanly, straight, and of a convenient stature, — generally as
plump as partridges ; and, saving here and there one, of a
modest deportment.
Their garments are a pair of sleeves, of deer or moose skin
drest, and drawn with lines of several colours into Asiatick
works, with buskins of the same ; a short mantle of trading-
cloath, either blew or red, fastened with a knot under the
chin, and girt about the middle with a zone, wrought with
white and blew beads into pretty works. Of these beads
they have bracelets for their neck and arms, and links to hang
in their ears ; and a fair table, curiously made up with beads
likewise, to wear before their breast. Their hair they combe
backward, and tye it up short with a border, about two hand-
bills broad, [101] wrought in works, as the other, with their
beads. But enough of this.
232
ARCHA30L0GIA AMERICANA.
THE POE M.
Whether white or black be best,
Call your senses to the quest ;
And your touch shall quickly tell,
The black in softness doth excel,
And in smoothness : but the ear —
What ! can that a colour hear ?
No ; but ’tis your black one’s wit
That doth catch and captive it.
And, if slut and fair be one,
Sweet and fair there can be none ;
Nor can ought so please the tast
As what’s brown and lovely drest.
And who’ll say that that is best
To please one sense, displease the rest?
[102] Maugre, then, all that can be sed
In flattery of white and red :
Those flatterers themselves must say
That darkness was before the day ;
And such perfection here appears,
It neither wind nor sunshine fears.
new-england’s rarities discovered.
233
[103] A CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
OF THE
Most remarkable Passages in that Part of America known to
us by the Name of New England ,9
Anno Dom.
1492. Christ. Columbus discovered America.
1516. The voyage of Sir Thomas Pert, Vice-Admiral of
England, and Sir Sebastian Cabota, to Brazile, &c.
1527. Newfoundland discovered by the English.
1577. Sir Francis Drake began his voyage about the
world.
[104] 1585. Nova Albion discovered by Sir Francis Drake,
and by him so named.
1585, April 9. Sir Richard Greenevile was sent by Sir
Walter Rawleigh with a fleet of seven sail to Virginia, and
was stiled the General of Virginia.
1586. Capt. Thomas Candish, a Suffolk gentleman, began
his voyage round about the world, with three ships, past the
Streights of Magellan ; burn’d and ransack’d in the entry of
Chile, Peru, and New Spain, near the great island California,
in the South Sea ; and returned to Plymouth with a precious
booty, Anno Dom. 1588, September the 8th ; being the third
since Magellan that circuited the earth.
1588. Sir Walter Rawleigh first discovered Virginia, by
him so named in honour of our Virgin Queen.
1595. Sir Walter Rawleigh discovered Guiana.
9 In the author’s Voyages, this chronological table is greatly extended; beginning
■with “ Anno Mundi , 3720,” and ending with A.D. 1674.
30
234
ARCHiEOLOGIA AMERICANA.
[105] 1G06. A collony sent to Virginia.
1614. Bermudas planted.
1618. The blazing star. Then Plymouth Plantation began
in New England.1
1628. The Massachusets Colony planted, and Salem the
first town therein built.2
1629. The first church gathered in this Colony was at
Salem ; from which year to this present year is 43 years.
In the compass of these years, in this Colony, there hath
been gathered fourty churches and 120 towns built in all the
Colonies of New England.
The church of Christ at Plymouth was planted in New
England eight years before others.
1630. The Governour and assistants [106] arrived, with
their pattent for the Massachusets.
1630. The Lady Arabella in New England.
1 Set right by the author in Voyages, p. 248.
2 The author, in the “chronological observations” appended to his Voyages, en-
larges this, but confounds Conant’s Plantation at Cape Ann, and Endicott’s, as follows:
“ 1628. Mr. John Endicot arrived in Ne*w England with some number of people, and
set down first by Cape Ann, at a place called afterwards Gloster; but their abiding-
place was at Salem, where they built the first town in the Massachusets Patent. . . .
1629. Three ships arrived at Salem, bringing a great number of passengers from Eng-
land. . . . Mr. Endicot chosen Governour.” The next year, Josselyn continues as fol-
lows: “ 1630. The 10th of July, John Winthorp, Esq., and the Assistants, arrived in
New England with the patent for the Massachusetts. . . . John Winthorp, Esq., chosen
Governour for the remainder of the year; Mr. Thomas Dudley, Deputy-Governour;
Mr. Simon Broadstreet, Secretary.” — Voyages , p. 252. The title of Governor was
used anciently, as it still is elsewhere, in a looser sense than has been usual in New
England; and derived all the dignity that it had from the character and considerable-
ness of the government. Conant and Endicott were directors or governors of settle-
ments in the Massachusetts Bay before Winthrop’s arrival; but when the Massachusetts
Company in London proceeded, on the 20th October, 1629, to carry into effect their
resolution to transfer their government to this country, — and chose accordingly Win-
throp to be their Governor; Humphrey, their Deputy-Governor; and Endicot and others,
Assistants (Young, Chron. of Mass., p. 102), — the record appears sufficient evidence
that they had in view something quite different from the fishing plantation which Co-
nant had had charge of at Cape Ann, or the little society (“ in all, not much above fifty
or sixty persons,” says White’s Relation in Young, Chron., p. 13; which the editor,
from Higginson’s narrative, raises to “about a hundred”) “of which Master Endecott
was sent out Governour” (White, l. c.) at Naumkeak.
NEW- ENGLAND'S RARITIES DISCOVERED.
235
1630. When the government was established, they planted
on Noddle’s Island.3
1631. Capt. John Smith, Governour of Virginia and Ad-
miral of New England, dyed.
1631. Mr. Mavericke, minister at Dorchester in New Eng-
land.4
1631. John Winthorpe, Esq., chosen the first time Gov-
ernour. He was eleven times Governour, — some say nineteen
times, — eleven years together ; the other years by intermis-
sion.
1631. John Wilson, pastor of Charles Town.4
[107] 1631. Sir R. Saltingstall, at Water Town, came into
New England.4
1631. Mr. Rog. Harlackinden was a majestrate, and a leader
of their military forces.5
Dr. Wilson gave 1000Z. to New- England; with which they
stored themselves with great guns.6
1633. Mr. Thomas Hooker, Mr. Haynes, and Mr. John Cot-
ton, came over together in one ship.
1631. The country was really placed in a posture of war,
to be in readiness at all times.
1635. Hugh Peters went over for New England.
1636. Connecticut Colony planted.
[108] 1637. The Pequites’ wars, in which were slain five
or six hundred Indians.
Ministers that have come from England, chiefly in the ten
first years, ninety-four ; of which returned, twenty-seven ; dyed
in the country, thirty-six ; yet alive in the country, thirty-one.
3 That is, Noddle’s Island was already planted on (by Mr. Maverick) when the
government was established. — Compare Johnson, cited by Prince, N. E. Chronol.,
edit. 2, p. 308, note.
4 The date set right in Prince, N. E. Chronol., p. 367.
5 The date corrected in Prince, N. E. Chronol., edit. 2, p. 367.
6 Compare Prince, p. 367, and Mass. Col. Rec., vol. i. p. 128. “ The will,” says Dr.
Mather, “ because it bequeathed a thousand pounds to New England, gave satisfaction
unto our Mr. Wilson; though it was otherwise injurious to himself.” — Magnalia ,
vol. iii. p. 45, cit. Davis, in Morton's Memorial , p. 334, note.
236
ABCELEOLOGIA AMERICANA.
The number of ships that transported passengers to New
England in these times was 298 ; supposed. Men, women,
and children, as near as can be ghessed, 21,200.
1637. The first synod at Cambridge in New England,
where the Antinomian and Famalistical errors were confuted.
Eighty errors now amongst the Massachusets.
1638. New-Haven Colony began.
Mrs. Hutchinson and her erronious companions banished
the Massachusets Colony.
[109] A terrible earthquake throughout the country.7
Mr. John Harvard, the founder of Harvard College (at
Cambridge in New England), deceased, gave 700k to the
erecting of it.
1639. First printing at Cambridge in New England.
1639. A very sharp winter in New England.
1612. Harvard College founded with a publick library.
Ministers bred in New England and (excepting about 10)
in Harvard College, 132: of which, dyed in the country, 10;
now living, 81 ; removed to England, 41.
1613. The first combination of the four united Colonies ;
viz., Plymouth, Massachusets, Connecticut, and New Haven.
[110] 1616. The second synod at Cambridge, touching
the duty and power of majestrates in matters of religion;
secondly, the nature and power of synods.
Mr. Eliot first preached to the Indians in their native lan-
guage.
1617. Mr. Thomas Hooker died.
1618. The third synod at Cambridge publishing the Plat-
form of Discipline.
1619. Mr. John Winthorpe, Governour, now died.
This year a strange multitude of caterpillers in New Eng-
land.8
7 Compare Winthrop, N.E., vol. i. p. 265; Johnson’s Wonder-working Prov., lib. ii.
e. 12, cit. Savage; and Morton’s Memorial, by Davis, p. 209, and note, p. 289.
8 Morton’s Memorial, by Davis, p. 244.
new-england’s rarities discovered.
237
Thrice seven years after the planting of the English in
New England, the Indians of Massachusets, being 30,000
able men, were brought to 300.
1651. Hugh Peters and Mr. Wells came for England.
[111] 1652. Mr. John Cotton dyed.
1653. The great fire in Boston in New England.
Mr. Thomas Dudley, Governour of the Massachusets, dyed
this year.
1654. Major Gibbons died in New England.
1655. Jamaica taken by the English.
1657. The Quakers arrived in New England, at Plymouth.
1659. Mr. Henry Dunster, the first President of Harvard
College, now dyed.
1661. Major Atherton dyed in New England.
1663. Mr. John Norton, pastor of Boston in New England,
dyed suddenly.
[112] Mr. Samuel Stone, teacher of Hartford Church, dyed
this year.
1664. The whole Bible, printed in the Indian language,
finished.
The Manadaes, called New Amsterdam (now called New
York), surrendered up to his Majestie’s Commissioners for
the settling of the respective Colonies in New England (viz.,
Sir Robert Carr, Collonel Nicols, Collonel Cartwright, and Mr.
Samuel Mavericke) in September, — after thirteen dayes, the
fort of Arania, now Albania ; twelve dayes after that, the fort
Awsapha; then De la Ware Castle, man’d with Dutch and
Swedes ; the three first forts and towns being built upon the
great river Mohegan, otherwise called Hudson’s River.
In September appeared a great comet for the space of three
months.9
9 1664, “ December, a great and dreadful comet, or blazing star, appeared in the
south-east in New England for the space of three moneths; which was accompanied
with many sad effects, — great mildews blasting in the countrey the next summer.” —
Josselyn's Voyages , Chronol. Obs., p. 273 ; and see p. 245 of the same for a fuller account.
— Compare Morton’s Memorial, by Davis, p. 304. As to the blasting and mildew of
1665, see the same, p. 317 ; and that of 1664, p. 309.
238
ARCH2E0L0GIA AMERICANA.
1665. Mr. John Indicot, Governour of the Massachusets,
dyed.
[113] A thousand foot sent this year, by the French king,
to Canada.
Capt. Davenport killed with lightning at the Castle by Bos-
ton in New England, and several wounded.
1666. The small-pox at Boston; seven slain by lightning,
and divers burnt. This year, also, New England had cast
away and taken 31 vessels, and some in 1667.
1667. Mr. John Wilson, pastor of Boston, dyed, aged 79
years.
1670. At a place called Kenibunck, which is in the Pro-
vince of Meyne (a Colony belonging to the heir of that
honourable knight, Sir Ferdinando Gorges), not far from the
river-side, a piece of clay ground was thrown up by a mineral
vapour (as we supposed), over the tops of high oaks that
grew between it and the river, into the river, stopping the
course thereof, and leaving a hole two yards square, wherein
were thousands of [114] clay bullets as big as musquet-bullets,
and pieces of clay in shape like the barrel of a musquet.1
1671. Elder Penn dyed at Boston.
1672. Mr. Richard Bellingham, Governour of the Massa-
chusets in New England.2
FINIS.
1 See Josselvn’s Voyages, p. 204 and p. 277, where the “ hole ” is said to have been,
not 11 two,” but “ forty, yards square: ” and we are farther told that “ the like accident
fell out at Casco, one and twenty miles from it to the eastward, much about the same
time; aud fish, in some ponds in the countrey, thrown up dead upon the banks, — sup-
posed likewise to be kill’d with mineral vapours.” Hubbard (Hist. N.E., chap. 75)
tells this, partly in the same words with the account in the Voyages, and adds, “ All
the whole town of Wells are witnesses of the truth of this relation; and many others
have seen sundry of these clay pellets, which the inhabitants have shown to their
neighbours of other towns.” And compare also the following, at p. 189 of the Voyages:
“In 1669, the pond that lyeth between Watertown and Cambridge cast its fish dead
upon the shore; forc’t by a mineral vapour, as was conjectured.”
2 It is proper to add here, that a few other errors of the press, beside those of which
a list has already been given, have been found during the printing, and corrected.
.
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