Saturday, May 15th, for Bartholomew Gosnold was a day of disappointment, exhilaration, and decision.
Like a stallion corralled, the Concord sailed first to the east then to the west along the southern shore of Cape Cod Bay, looking for a way of escape through the encircling arm of the Cape to more southerly waters beyond. Having assumed that the Cape's northerly, outer arm was an island, Gosnold sailed easterly until shoaling water forced him to anchor. From the poop and from the masthead keen eyes scanned every yard of the shore, looking for the stream that would separate the northern part of the Cape from the mainland, making the former an island -- the stream that the Indians had probably tried to indicate on their chalk map. Nothing of the sort could be described.
In this vicinity, the white settlers of the next century did in fact cut off the northern part of the Cape by laboriously digging a boat cannel to connect the head waters of a creek emptying into the bay with a lagoon on the outer coast called Nauset Harbor. This canal, long since filled in, is well remembered in connection with a famous Massachusetts mariner, Captain Cyprian Southack, who made a chart of New England waters. On this chart he drew this passageway, somewhat exagerated in width, with the following note appended: "The place where I came through with a whale-boat, being ordered by the government to look after the pirate ship Whida, Bellame, commander, cast away the 26th of April, 1717, where I buried 102 men drowned." It was in the vicinity of this first "Cape Cod Canal", where the outer cape begins to narrow, that Gosnold in the previous century had hoped to find a natural waterway, although his search brought only disappointment.
The Concord then weighed anchor and sailed slowly to the west a league off shore, looking presumably for the other opening which the Indians had seemed to indicate. The voyagers observed, to their discouragement, that the further west they sailed, thie higher rose the wooded hills in the background, until having covered from eight to ten miles -- a matter of two hours sailing -- they were abreast of those which Brereton said were the "highest hills we saw." But more to the point, in Archer's words, they here "did preceive a large opening." It was the entrance to a shallow harbor known now as Barnstable Harbor. Hope reawakened. From a league off shore, this opening looked as though it might be the outlet of a stream that somehow came from inland around the hills, a navigable passageway to the supposed waters on the other side of the hills. When the Concord had anchored, a half-shallop was hoisted in haste out of the hold launched. Gosnold went ashore, with John Brereton and three others, on a tour of exploration.
When they entered the inlet, they found that it quickly shoaled to a depth scarely enough to float their landing craft. Archer reported that they called it "Shoal-Hope", a name probably originating with Archer, ever ready with a trenchant expression to record the experiences of the explorers. This particular name was a play on words ,for "Hope" at that time still had the meaning, since virtually forgotten, of "inlet, haven". Archer quite posibly meant that this haven had turned out to be a shallow hope indeed.
Gosnold, in no way dismayed by his second disappointment, proceeded to put into effect his alternative plan. He and his four companions made their way southward through the trackless forest, determined to reach the summit of the high hills that they had seen from off-shore. If there was an inland body of water beyond these hills, Gosnold anted a sight of it. He would know then how to go about a search for a southern entrance to it, such as Verrazzano had described, facing south at 41º40'.
They marched all that afternoon, Brereton reported, with their muskets "on their necks." Cut off from the prevailing southwest wind by the hills and trees, they found it to be one of those insufferably hot days that frequently occur in this region in the early spring. Nevertheless, they toiled up one slope after another until they reached the highest hilltop.
They marched without fear of the savages of the land, because they saw none. Surely, however, Indians of the Mattakeest (Barnstable) tribe stealthily followed the noisy Englishmen as they crashed through the woods and shouted to one another about their progress. Indians of this region and period, before their enmity had been aroused by wanton acts of Europeans, seldom attacked mysterious and awsome strangers who came ashore from the floating islands, unless they saw booty to be had without danger to themselves.
Indeed, if the Indians had contemplated an attack, it would have been made on the sailors guarding the landing-craft, for that was a prize which might have tempted a bellicose group of savages. These Indians of southeastern Massachusetts, however, were a fifferent breed from those of "Savage Rock", who were found in possession of a Basque shallop, and they were more inclined to deal peaceably with strangers. Furthermore, the Cape Cod Indians had doubtless learned from Maine tribesmen in contact with the French that the long black sticks which the white-men carried could belch forth deadly thunder. Nevertheless, Gosnold and his companions unwittingly -- or perhaps we should say courageously -- ran great risks in blundering about for five or six hours in the forests of the region well-populated with savages.
The high hill which Gosnold and his party climbed -- easily identified on a topographical map as Shootflying Hill, with an elevation of 200 feet -- gave them a exhilarating view for which they were looking. Just below them, to the south, began the great expanse of water known as Nantucket Sound, cheering Gosnold for the day with the thought that he had actually found the great bay described by Verrazzano. Although the islands that border the Sound on the south, Nantucket, Tuckernuck and Muskegt, are below the horizon, even from that altitude, the waters had the look of an inland sea -- present-day observers agree on this. Far to the east the waters of the great "bay" met the skyline, which seemed to Gosnold to be the end, as Archer later reported, the inland waters. As Gosnold's eyes followed it from east to west, it seemed to extend in all about thirty miles -- a reasonably close estimate, as the actual length of Nantucket Sound is about twenty-five-miles.
In the near foreground, on the Cape itself, the men must have seen a beautiful lake studded with islands, although no one mentioned it. Close by the shore of the Cape, a small island stood out which is actually a peninsula now called Point Gammon, or Great Island. Across the Sound they made out a single peak above the horizon, the highland of Cape Poge on the northern end of the island called Chappaquiddick, adjacent to the eastern end of Martha's Vineyard. These indications that there were islands both on the near and on the farther side of this body of water justified Brereton in reporting that there were "sundry islands lying almost round about the Cape." The explorers' interest in these arose from the report of Verrazzano that there were five small islands in the great bay of his discovery.
The view to the west from this hill is an amazing one, quite unlike anything anyone might guess from looking at a map of the region. Brereton's first sentence by way of report when they had reached this vantage point read, "at length we perceived this headland to be parcell of the Maine [mainland]." In fact, there was nothing to be seen in the west except a vast verdure-covered land mass, with what seemed to be a river emerging from it and flowing into the bay south of them. The divergence between that which the explorers saw, or thought they saw, and that which is seen on the map, needs clarification.
The East Chop at the northeast corner of Martha's Vineyard lies about six miles from the mailand and marks the division point between Nantucket Sound and Vineyard Sound -- the latter lying between Martha's Vineyard and the Elizabeth Islands. This stretch of water between the island and the mainland, for those looking at it from the summit of Shootflying Hill, is at the extreme limit of vision; nothing of the great sound beyond it to the west can be seen. Fruthermore, intervening hills of the Cape narrow this stretch of water so that it seems to be a narrow silver thread emerging into Nantucket Sound from between hills. The high, background hills of the Vineyard, visible because of their elevation, seem to be a part of the mainland. Buzzards Bay, the great body of water lying to the west of Cape Cod, is completely cut off by intervening hills, and there is nothing whatever to suggest its presence to the observer. The low-lying Elizabeth Islands are, of course, well below the horizon.
This senic effect, which may be observed by any who take the trouble to follow Gosnold to the top of Shootflying Hill, leads to the following conclusion. On this day, and for a week thereafter, until he was disillusioned by sailing the length of Vineyard Sound -- no river, but an arm of the sea -- Gosnold believed that he had seen the outlet of the great River of Norumbega, or the River Dee, as Dr. Dee had called it, flowing into the upper part of the great bay discovered by Verrazzano.
Turning his eyes northward, and gazing out over the protected waters through which he had come to reach this shore of the Cape, gosnold saw what he must do. Retracing his course, he must round the northern tip of the Cape and follow the outer coast southward until he was beyond the islands enclosing the great bay that he believed to be his destination. confidently, he expected that somewhere along their southern shores he would then find the entrance which Verrazzano had described.
Returning to their landing-place in such haste as they could, Gosnold's party found that several things had happened during their fiver or six hours' absence.
The other half-shallop had been launched, rowed ashore, and "set together with the first half, making a craft capable of transporting twenty-five men -- as is learned from a later pasage in Archer's account. These divided shallops were an ingenious and practical invention, apparently in common use at that time. They had the advantage of being capable of instant launching. It was otherwise with the one carried by the Mayflower, described in this account by Governor Bradford:
Being thus arrived at Cape-Cod ye 11 November, and necessitie calling them to looke out a place for habitation (as well as the maisters & mariners importunite) they have brought a large shalop with them out of England, stowed in quarters in ye ship, they now gott her out & sett their carpenters to worke to trime her up; but being much brused & shatered in ye shipe with foule weather, they saw she would be long in mending . . .
It turned out that the Mayflower's carpenters had to work on the boat for two weeks or more before it was serviceable.
While Gosnold and his party were off exploring, or perhaps just about the time that they returned, a young Indian appeared on the shore, fearlessly mingling with the visiting strangers. Brereton described him as "a young man, of proper ["good"] stature, and of a pleasing countenance." Archer wrote that he was "armed with his Bow and Arrowes, and had certain plates of Copper hanging at his Eares." Archer further reported that "hee shweed a willingness to helpe us in our occasions [needs]," -- no doubt in the gathering of the cypress, birch, witch-hazel and beech, mentioned by Archer as sorts of wood obtained for firewood.
From the courageous demeanor and copper ornaments of the young Indian, it may safely be assumed that he was some chief's son, one of the "privileged" who were rigorously trained from childhood to meet all the crises of savage life with fortitude. Without disparaging his courage, it may also be assumed that his tribesmen were lurking behind the nearest cover, ready to send a showeer of arrows at the strangers if they threatened any harm to the lone lad. As expected of a chief's son, he was at the forefront in an effort to determine the intentions of the ship's company.
This young Indian recalls the chief of these same Barnstable Indians whom the Pilgrims encountered eighteen years later, and dound him to be "a very personable, gentle, courteous and fair conditioned savage, indeed not like a savage, save for his attire." The marvel of the incident is that this young man, obviously a brave of "rang" should deign to assist in the gathering of firewood and the bringing of water, tasks ordinarily performed by squaws. Obviously he regarded the strangers as some sort of superior beings whom it was an honor to serve.
On returning to the ship, Gosnold and his companions found that the others "had pestered our ship so with Cod fish, that we threw numbers of them over-boord againe:, as Brereton put it. "Surely I am persuaded that in the months of March, April, and May, there is upon this coast, better fishing, and in as great plentie as in Newfound-land." He summed up the advantage of the Cape Cod region over Newfoundland in general:
. . . The schools of Mackerell, herrings, Cod, and other fish, that we daily saw as we went and came from the shore, were wooderfull; and besides, the places where we tooke these Cods (and might in a few daies have laden our ship) were but in seven fadome water, and with lesse than a league of the shore; where, in Newfound-land they fish in fortie or fiftie fadome water, and farre off.
An interesting commentary on this report by Brereton, is an "Eldridge" chart of Cape Cod Bay, published early in this century, one of an excellent series of practical charts for local coasting vessels and fisherman. On this chart, the precise locality off the shore of Barnstable were the Concord did its fishing is marked "Fishing Grounds", and in the soundings for this vicinity seven fathoms predominates -- the depth recorded by Brereton.
Why, in Gosnold's generation, Brereton's report did not send a rush of fishing vessels to the bay inside of "the mighty headland" is more or less inexplicable. Possibly there were fishing voyages to this bay which were not recorded. Captain Argall had sailed in 1610 into the shoals seaward of the Cape in search of the cod and nearly lost his vessel in doing so. Why did Argall not go into the bay so plainly described by Brereton in 1602 and fish in safe and protected waters?
The only sound reason for this would seem to be the lack of a shore base from which to operate. Newfoundland continued to attact the fishing-fleets because such bases existed. Those really interested in the Cape Cod fishing-grounds held back until bases were extablished, which took longer than anyone might reasonably have expected.
Brereton, it may be noted, did not mention the bestowal of the name Cape Cod on this "mighty headland", as he called it. Knowlege of the naming comes from a rather confused sentence in Archer: "The fifteenth day . . . we did perceive a large opening. We called it Shole-hope. Neere this Cape [at the west end thereof] we came to Anchor in fifteene fadome, where wee tooke great store of Cod-fish, for which we altered the name and called it Cape Cod."
Although the test seems to have been pared down somewhat here, it is evident that Archer's name, Shoal Hope, was finally considered too limited in scope and rather meaningless in view of subsequent discoveries, so that he eventually acquiesced in the decision to call the whole cape by the more significant name, "Cape Cod". Who made the decision? Without doubt it was Gosnold. He wanted to tell all England that he had found a new source of wealth from fisheries. That would be a good barganing point when it came to final plans for a permanent colony.
Another lacuna in Archer's narrative must be filled in, if possible. On May 15, Archer was the Concord placed at the west end of the bottom of the sound between the cape and the mainland. On the 16th the scene is abruptly shifted, with the statement that they "trended the Coast Southerly, which was all champaine [open country] and full of grass, but the islands somewhat wooded." This he follows immediately with the story of events that happened twelve leagues, or thirty-six miles, beyond the Cape. When and how did the Concord get from the bottom of Cape Cod Bay to the outer coast? How did the Concord fare in the shoals?
There is not so much as a single phrase to suggest the answers to these questions, except that Brereton, in his parallel account, reports in typical landsman's fashion:
From this place, we sailed round aabout this headland, almost all the points of the compasse, the shore very bolde: but as no coast is free from dangers, so I am persuaded, this is as free as any. The land somewhat lowe, full of goodly woods, but in some places plaine.
Others following Gosnold who got into the shoals had breath-taking tales to tell of their hairbreadth escapes from destruction; the list includes the mate of Huydson's Half Moon, Waymouth, Argall, captain John Smith, and the Pilgrims. Why did Archer and Brereton lead their readers to conclude that Gosnold encountered no dangers as he sailed down the outer coast of Cape Cod?
In the first place, literary critics with an eye on the map will agree that Archer's narrative is too jusjointed at this point to have been originally written in this form. Someone was most probably Richard Hakluyt. What, then, was Hakluyt's motive behind his deletions?
At the time Archer gave him his story of what happened, complementing Brereton's, Hakluyt was busy collecting documents, possibly for another edition of his Voyages. There is evidence that Hakluyt sometimes edited his material to fit in with promotion ventures which his clients had under way. Archer's narrative turned up at a time when those interested in establishing a colony in the "north part" of Virginia -- New England -- still logically wanted to keep something of their discoveries under cover. It remained for Captain John Smith, a dozen years later, yet still before the publication of Archer's narrative, to "release" detailed information about the shoals and the general lie of the coast.
Towards the South and Wouthwest of this Cape [Cod], is found a long and dangerous shoale of sands and rocks. But so farre as I encircled it, I found thirtie fadom water aboard the shore, and a strong current; which makes mee thinke there is a Channell about this shoale: where is the best and greatest fish to be had, Winter and Summer, in all the Countrie. But the Salvages say there is no Channell; but that the shoales beginne from the maine at Pawmet, to the Ile of Nausit; and so extends beyond their knowledge into the Sea.
The next to this Capawack [Martha's Vineyard], and those abounding Countries of copper, corne, people, mineralls: which I went to discover [explore] this last yeare [1515]; but because I miscarried by the way, I will leave them, till God please I have better qcquaintance with them.
But, to return to the story, not content with Arche's shift of the concord mysteriously from the southermost part of Cape Cod Bay to the ocean off Nauset outside the Cape, it is to be assumed that on the evening of the 15th, as soon as the lalves of the shallop were safely stowed again in the hold, Gosnold weighed anchor and made a night run around the northern tip of the Cape. This assumption is necessary because of the time-element: a greater distance was sailed before the evening of the 16th than could be covered in the hours of daylight. The assumption is furthermore resonable, since Gosnold had sailed throughout the previous night southward from the coast of Maine, and he knew the waters of Cape Cod Bay to be safe, because he had just traversed them.
It hardly needs to be said that Gosnold passed through or around the shoals safely, else nothing more would have been heard of the Concord and Captain Bartholomew Gosnold. Probably, like Waymouth, in the words of Waymouth's Chronicler, James Rosier, Gosnold exclaimed, "God so blessed us, that we had weather and winde as faire as poore men could wish, in this distresse, whereby we both perfectly dicerned every breach, and with the winde were able to turne, where we was most hope of safest passage."
One thing is quite certain. Gosnold did not attempt, as some historians have assumed, to turn into Nantucket Sound past Monomoy Point, the end of the long sandy strip running southwards from the main part of the Cape at its southeastern corner. Nor did he attempt an entrance into this sound by using the channel which Captain John Smith later quite rightly thought that he detected flowing out of it, and which seamen in these days of navigationas aids have long regarded as the course to be followed in rounding the Cape into these southerly inland waters. (The cutting through of the Cape Cod Canal between Buzzards Bay and Cape Cod Bay has given coastwise shipping through any part of the shoals.) Gosnold was much too intent on finding a southern entrance into the great bay that he had seen from the Cape Cod hills even to consider a risky entrance form the east.
Five days later, on Friday, May 21st, Gosnold was again coasting along the shore of Cape Cod. But this time he eas in the quiet waters of Nantucket Sound on his way to his most notable discoveries, searching for a southern entrance to the sound.
