New England

Dear Dad,

Mom took me and G3 on a mini-vacation—one last hurrah before we must return to work and school. Initially, we wanted to go the the Outer Banks, but between moving and mom’s concern regarding possible hurricanes, we felt the need to change our plans. I knew Mom wanted to go to the beach, and G3 did a bit of research and found out that Franklin Pierce’s house was in Southern New Hampshire, so I suggested that we go to Portsmouth for a few days. So that we could get an early start on Sunday morning, G3 and I drove to Mom’s on Saturday afternoon.

On Sunday, we woke up early and were in the car by 6:45. G3 was tired and slept most of the way. Since neither Mom nor I were hungry, I drove straight to Hillsboro, New Hampshire. When we arrived we stopped in a diner for breakfast. The food was good—typical diner food—but nothing special. G3 ate a huge breakfast. He had french toast and biscuits and gravy. Lately, his stomach is a bottomless pit. 

Mom enjoyed the tour of Pierce’s house. I think you would have enjoyed it as well. Franklin moved into the house when he was a baby. The house in which he was born is now located somewhere beneath Pierce Lake. Franklin’s father, Benjamin, built the house in 1804. Benjamin had a rough childhood. His father died when he was young. When his mother remarried, her new husband didn’t want to raise another man’s son. His mother sent him to live with his uncle in Massachusetts. Since his uncle didn’t want him either, he took him in reluctantly and used him as a farm hand. As a seventeen year old, he was working in the field when he heard the call to arms. It was the battle of Lexington and Concord. He raced off to join the fight, but he didn’t get there in time. It didn’t deter him completely. He still joined the Continental Army and fought at Bunker Hill. It always bothered him that he was not educated. Despite being practically illiterate, he still served two terms as Governor of New Hampshire.

Pierce is one of the forgotten presidents. He’s rarely, if ever, mentioned in schools. I would wager that many Americans have never heard of him. He is ranked by many historians as one of America’s worse Presidents. He served only one term in the early 1850s. Since the states were on the verge of war, it was a tumultuous time to be president. Pierce may have been a northerner, but he was also a democrat. According to the tour guide, he thought slavery was reprehensible. However, he deemed it a moral issue, and he claimed the Constitution was not a moral document, its purpose was not to provide a moral compass. Anti-abolitionists irked him. He deemed them a serious threat to the union. Pushing the issue of slavery too far, he felt would result in a serious fracture which he desperately wanted to avoid. One of the most memorable pieces of legislation he signed was the Kansas-Nebraska Act which essentially overturned the Missouri Compromise and led to Bleeding Kansas.

Franklin’s presidency began in tragedy. He married late—for that time period. He and his wife were both thirty-years-old. They had three sons. The first died hours after his birth. The second died at four from typhoid The third child, Bennie, was eleven-years-old two months before the inauguration when he and his parents were traveling home by train from Massachusetts. The train got into an accident and Bennie died. His parents watched as the back of his skull was torn off. His mother never recovered emotionally. I can’t blame her. It would have destroyed me too. She wore black for the rest of her life. The white house was in mourning for two years.

Even though his presidency was shrouded in personal pain, Pierce was the first president to celebrate Christmas at the White House and the first to have a tree. Rufus King was Pierce’s Vice President and the only Vice President not to be sworn-in in the United States. He was living in Cuba because he had TB. A special act of Congress allowed him to be sworn in there. Sadly, he died a month later. Jefferson Davis served as Pierce’s Secretary of War. Less than a decade later, he’d be President of the Confederacy. 

Following our tour, we headed over to Portsmouth and went directly to the John Paul Jones house. John Paul Jones was a naval captain in the Continental Navy. He never owned the house, nor did he live there long. He was merely a boarder while waiting to take command of a ship being built in Portsmouth Shipyard.

Jones was born in Scotland. He did not come from money, so at a young age he decided to go to sea. For two years, he worked on ships involved in the slave trade. He found it distasteful. Next, he worked in the West Indies. Luck shone down on him when the master and first mate of his ship died of a fever. Their deaths made him a master. However, playing well with others was never his strength. To prevent a mutiny, he killed a mutinous crew member. To avoid a trial, he fled to Virginia where he altered his name, tacking on Jones.

When the Revolutionary War broke out he enlisted in hopes of gaining glory and making some money. He was a smart tactician and defeated the HMS Serapis. At the time, England’s navy was the best in the world. Jones was also the only person who attacked England on her home soil. Unfortunately, for Jones, after the war the US Navy disbanded for several years. Still wanting a life of high seas adventures, he joined the Russian navy. His time there ended in scandal when he was accused of raping a young girl. 

In 1892, Washington and his Secretary of State, Jefferson granted Jones US citizenship and appointed him as the American Consul in Algeria. Sadly, by the time news reached Paris, where he had been living, he was dead. That probably would have been the end of his story and the end of our memory of him had it not been for Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt held him up as a hero of the navy and had his ambassador to France locate his grave. It took years, but eventually his body was found an reinterred in Annapolis, Maryland.

What I found most interesting—and I think you would have also—the treaty ending the Russo-Japanese War was negotiated and signed in Portsmouth. When you took us to Teddy Roosevelt’s house back when G3 first got interested in Presidents, we learned that Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for brokering the peace, but that was it. No details accompanied that information. There was an entire room at the John Paul Jones museum dedicated to the Russo-Japanese peace treaty. The war, which ended in 1905, was in some ways the first modern war; the first war to use the telegraph, telephone, machine guns and barbed wire. The conflict lasted eighteen months and was fought in Korea and China. When Roosevelt convinced them to talk, they wanted a neutral location and, initially, suggested Washington, D.C. But Washington, in the summer, is uncomfortably hot. Since New Hampshire wanted to boost tourism, they suggested Portsmouth. 

After leaving the John Paul Jones House, we checked into the hotel and the went out for dinner. The woman at the hotel recommended a Mexican place across the border in Maine. G3 loves Mexican food—correction, he loves queso—so we went there. But while Mom and I really liked the queso—we thought it was better than any queso we’ve had before—G3 didn’t like it. It was melted and stringy, not simply a dipping sauce.

Back in Portsmouth, we took a stroll through downtown. Mom had ice cream and G3 got fudge; I was too full from dinner for dessert. Reading the signs hanging from the lampposts, we learned that this year Portsmouth is celebrating its 400th anniversary.

On Monday, we finally got to the ocean. My brother recommended that we take a day trip up to Ogunquit, Maine. He said it was reminiscent of Provincetown in Cape Cod. We took his advice and we were glad we did. It was lovely and we had a fantastic time. We arrived early—you know me, vacation is not a time to sleep in—and we took a walk along Marginal Way which runs along the coast. It was pretty. You would have loved it. The smell of salt, the crash of the waves, the breeze on our faces. I need to live by the sea. It would bring me a great deal of happiness. If only I could find an agent who would fall in love with my writing.

We ate a filling breakfast. Mom and G3 had Belgium waffles and I had eggs Florentine. Then we headed over to the beach to go swimming. It was windy and chilly and the water was cold, but the sun was out. Still, G3 and I went swimming. We had to go swimming. Only one week of summer remains, there was no way I wasn’t going in. G3 had fun on his boogie board until the cold got to him. Mom didn’t go in the water, but I think she enjoyed being at the beach. We tried to play frisbee, but the wind made it difficult.

After a day in the water we were famished. Mom took me out for an early birthday dinner. Since we were in Maine there was only one thing to eat—lobster. We headed over to Perkins Cove and ate at The Lobster Shack. We reminisced about the last time you took me out for lobster in Mattituck. As always, you grumbled, all in jest, about how slowly I ate when it came to lobster. But it’s so good, how can I not savor it. G3 also remembered how I broke two nut crackers trying to crack open the claws. The shell was far more brittle this evening and I didn’t need the nut cracker at all. When we finished eating we strolled through the Cove and wandered into several gift shops. G3 found a sweatshirt he liked and he wanted to get matching ones. But they didn’t have my size. I got him the sweatshirt anyway. In another store, I found another sweatshirt that I like more and Mom bought it for me. They are different colors, different designs, but they both say “Maine.”

Tuesday, I had planned for us to go to a state park in New Hampshire to go swimming, but my brother spoke highly of Portland, and Mom wanted to go there, so we did. None of us were enthralled, but I think we may have had a different opinion if we walked around the city. Mom wanted to walk the Back Cove trail, but after ten minutes, she was ready to turn around. It wasn’t that exciting. 

So, we headed over to Cape Elizabeth to see Portland Head Lighthouse. The coast was really pretty. We walked along the Cliff Walk for awhile until Mom was ready to turn around. She commented several time how gorgeous it was. You would have enjoyed the walk as well. G3, however, grumbled and complained that he’s seen so many lighthouses that it was boring. He’s complained a great deal on this trip. He only wants to do what he wants and has no patience for anyone else and their desires. 

We did get to the ocean at Higgins Beach in Scarborough. The water was cold, but G3 and I went swimming. G3 had a fantastic time boogie boarding. Despite the cold, he was in the water for almost two hours. 

For dinner, Mom took us the the Lobster Cove, a seafood restaurant in York, Maine. G3 had clam strips. Mom and I had lobster rolls. It was a first for both of us. Mom said she had been wanting to try one for years, but wanted to eat it first in Maine because she thought it would be more authentic. We both enjoyed them. But, after dinner, I did some research and learned that it is likely the lobster roll was ‘invented’ in Connecticut. When I told Mom, she was very disappointed. She could have had one years ago—during one of the many times you and she went out to eat—in Long Island.

Wednesday, our last day, we got up early and headed to Lowell National Historical Park in Massachusetts for a brief visit. Lowell was built to be an industrial city. In the early 1800s, it was a textile mill and factory. Women worked long, tedious hours running the machines that wove cloth. They were paid poorly, and if they made even the slightest mistakes their bosses docked their pay. The mill girls lived in tight quarters, dormitories, where they slept two to a bed. When conditions got so bad that the woman petitioned for better pay and less hours, of course, the factory responded by hiring immigrants instead—immigrants who were willing to work for less, desperate for a chance to make it in America. 

Interestingly, as the mill production increased, it raised the demand for cotton. So while northerners were screaming about the ills of slavery and creating abolition societies, they were also, in buying the cotton, supporting the institution of slavery. That’s something the history text books often leave out or gloss over in their push to paint the north as being better—more moral. And yeah, the mills paid their workers, but they paid them so poorly, one could argue they were slave wages. Poor treatment, poor hours, little pay. The bottom line, as always in a capitalistic society, is not morality or treating works fairly, it’s about the bosses, the employers making the most money they can while spending as little as possible, and not caring who they hurt or slight in the process.

After leaving Lowell, we stopped in Connecticut so Mom could visit her niece. I then battled the bridges—traffic is always horrific—going into the city to drop Mom home, where we ate a quick dinner, and I battled the bridges back into New Jersey. I think Mom enjoyed the vacation—I know I did. She was happy to get away for a few days.

Sadly, this marks the end of my summer. I return to work on Tuesday.

I miss you!