$3.95 JOHN GILLEY One of the Forgotten Millions by Charles W. Eliot ISBN 0-934745-09-9 50395 9 "780934"745093 © JOHN GILLEY One of the Forgotten Millions by Charles W. Eliot ACADIA PRESS Bar Harbor, Maine Originally published in 1899 in The Century Magazine and in book form in 1904 by the American Unitarian Association under the title DEDICATION of John Gilley Maine Farmer and Fisherman. To the brave settlers who levelled forests cleared fields made paths by land and water Book design by Wendy E. Copson and Cover art by Arthur D. Gowie planted commonwealths To the brave women who in solitudes amid strange dangers ©1989 by Acadia Publishing Company and heavy toil reared families All rights reserved. No part of this book, including the and made homes cover illustration, may be reproduced or transmitted without permission in writing from the publisher. ISBN 0-934745-09-9 Library of Congress Card Number 89-6935 From the inscriptions on the water gate at the World's Fair, Chicago. MOUNT DESERT ISLAND MAINE Introduction Frenchman's Bay This edition of Charles Eliot's timeless book, Western published most recently under the title of John Bay Gilley of Baker's Island, has been given the title BAR HARBOR originally intended by the author. Charles W. Eliot, president of Harvard University for forty years, personally chose John Gilley to represent SOMESVILLE "one of the forgotten millions" and eloquently res- cued his simple life and quiet world from the ob- SOMES scurity that awaits the majority of us. SOUND The story of John Gilley is more than a liter- ary gem, more than the true chronicle of a Maine farmer and fisherman: it is the story of all those who struggle daily for minor joys and successes, NORTHEAST Seal HBR. only to face the eternal reality of perpetual obliv- Hbr. Norwood's Cove ion. SOUTHWEST Bear 7. Why did he choose Gilley? Perhaps because Greening 7. HBR. Sutton's 7. they both inhabited the same geographical space, Little but travelled in totally different cultural worlds. Bass Cranberry 7. Perhaps because both men had a deep love for the Hbr. Great coast of Maine and the islands that line its shores. Cranberry Baker 's 7. Eliot was a founder and long time member of the Northeast Harbor summer colony on Mount Des- ert Island, Maine. Two years after writing John N Gilley, President Eliot initiated the movement Little Duck 7. ATLANTIC which led to the creation of Acadia National Park. Today, his legacies, in words and deeds, thrill and W E OCEAN Great Duck 7. educate millions each year. June 1989 s Frank J. Matter JOHN GILLEY To be absolutely forgotten in a few years is the common fate of mankind. Isaac Watts did not exag- gerate when he wrote: Time, like an ever-rolling stream, Bears all its sons away: They fly forgotten, as a dream Dies at the opening day. With the rarest exceptions, the death of each human individual is followed in a short time by complete oblivion, so far as living human memo- ries are concerned. Even family recollection or trad- ition quickly becomes dim, and soon fades utterly away. Few of us have any clear transmitted impres- sion of our great-grandparents; some of us could not describe our grandparents. Even men accounted famous at their deaths slip from living memories JOHN GILLEY and become mere shadows or word-pictures-shad- 1822-1896 OWS or pictures which too often distort or misrep- resent the originals. Not one human being in ten million is really long remembered. For the mass of mankind absolute oblivion, like death, is sure. But what if it is? Should this indubitable fact affect injuriously the mortal life in this world of the ordinary human being? Not at all. For most men 9 and women the enjoyments, interests, and duties Stanley, a midwife. Baker's Island lies nearly four of this world are just as real and absorbing, at the miles from the island of Mount Desert. It is a roun- moment, as they would be if the enjoying, inter- dish island, a little more than half a mile long from ested, and dutiful individuals could imagine that north to south, and a little less than half a mile they were long to be remembered on this earthly wide from east to west. At low tide it is connected stage. A few unusually imaginative and ambitious with another much larger island, called Little persons are doubtless stimulated and supported by Cranberry, by a reef and bar about a mile long; the hope of undying fame- - a hope which in the but by half-tide this bar is entirely covered. immense majority of such cases proves to be a pure Almost all the coasting vessels which come from delusion. The fact is that forelooking is not a com- the westward, bound to the Bay of Fundy or to the mon occupation of the human mind. We all live, coast of Maine east of Frenchman's Bay, pass just as a rule, in the present and the past, and take outside of Baker's Island; and, as this island has very little thought for the future. Now, in estimat- some dangerous ledges near it, the United States ing the aggregate well-being and happiness of a built a lighthouse on its highest part in the year community or a nation, it is obviously the condi- 1828. The island has no good harbor; but in the tion of the obscure millions, who are sure to be summer small vessels find a safe anchorage on the absolutely forgotten, that it is most important to north side of it, except in easterly storms. The see and weigh aright; yet history and biography whole shore of the island is bare rock, and the vege- alike neglect these humble, speechless multitudes, tation does not approach the ordinary level of high and modern fiction finds it profitable to portray the water, the storm-waves keeping the rocks bare far most squalid and vicious sides of the life of these above and behind the smooth-water level of high millions rather than the best and the commonest. tide. There are many days in every year when it is Thus the facts about the life of the common multi- impossible to land on the island or to launch a boat tude go unobserved, or at least unrecorded, while from it. In the milder half of the year the island is fiction paints that life in false colors. of course a convenient stopping-place for offshore This little book describes with accuracy the fishermen, for it is several miles nearer the fishing- actual life of one of the to-be-forgotten millions. Is grounds than the harbors of Mount Desert proper. this life a true American type? If it is, there is good In the first years of this century the island was unin- habited, and was covered by a growth of good-sized hope for our country. trees, both evergreen and deciduous. John Gilley was born February 22, 1822, at the Fish Point on Great Cranberry Island, Maine, About the year 1812, William Gilley of Nor- whither his mother, who lived on Baker's Island, wood's Cove, at the foot of Somes Sound on its west side, and Hannah Lurvey, his wife, decided to had gone to be confined at the house of Mrs. 10 11 move on to Baker's Island with their three little dren of William and Hannah Gilley. The father of children and all their goods. Up to that time he Hannah served in the Revolutionary army as a boy. had got his living chiefly on fishing or coasting ves- He lived to the age of ninety-two, and had ten sels; but, like most young men of the region, he children and seventy-seven grandchildren. The was also something of a wood-cutter and farmer. Lurveys are therefore still numerous at South-West He and his wife had already accumulated a little Harbor and the vicinity. store of household goods and implements, and tools For William Gilley the enterprise of taking pos- for fishing and farming. They needed no money session of Baker's Island involved much heavy wherewith to buy Baker's Island. There it lay in labor, but few unaccustomed risks. For Hannah, his the sea, unoccupied and unclaimed; and they sim- wife, it was different. She already had three little ply took possession of it. children, and she was going to face for herself and William Gilley was a large, strong man, six feet her family a formidable isolation which was abso- tall, and weighing over two hundred pounds. His lute for considerable periods in the year. More- father is said to have come from Great Britain at over, she was going to take her share in the severe fourteen years of age. Hannah Gilley was a robust la bors of a pioneering family. Even to get a foot- woman, who had lived in Newburyport and Byfield, ing on this wooded island-to land lumber, live Massachusetts, until she was thirteen years old, and stock, provisions, and the implements of labor, and had there had much better schooling than was to to build the first shelter-was no easy task. A small, be had on the island of Mount Desert. She was rough beach of large stones was the only landing- able to teach all her children to read, write, and place, and just above the bare rocks of the shore cipher; and all her life she valued good reading, was the forest. However, health, strength, and for- and encouraged it in her family. Her father, Jacob titude were theirs; and in a few years they had esta- Lurvey, was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts and blished themselves on the island in considerable married Hannah Boynton of Byfield. The name comfort. Nine more children were born to them Lurvey is a good transliteration of the German there; so that they ultimately had a family of twelve Loewe, which is a common name among German children, of whom six were sons and six daughters. Jews; and there is a tradition in the Lurvey family All these children grew to maturity. Fortunately, that the first Lurvey, who emigrated to Massachu- the eldest child was a girl, for it was the mother setts in the seventeenth century, was of Jewish that most needed help. Three of the children are descent and came from Archangel in Russia. It is still (1899) living, two of them over eighty years noticeable that many of the Lurveys have Old of age and one over ninety. Nine of the twelve Testament names, such as Reuben, Levi, Samuel, children married, and to them were born fifty-eight Isaac, and Jacob, and that their noses tend to be children, of whom forty-five are still living. aquiline. This was the case with most of the chil- 12 13 John Gilley was the tenth child and also the Food at the island was habitually abundant. It youngest son, and when he was born the family was no trouble to get lobsters. No traps were had already been ten years on the island, and had needed; they could be picked up in the shallow transformed it into a tolerable farm. When he water along the rocky shore. Fresh fish were always began to look about him, his father was keeping to be easily procured, except in stormy weather and about six cows, a yoke of oxen, two or three your in cold and windy February and March. A lamb cattle, about fifty sheep, and three or four hogs. could be killed at any time in the summer. In the Several of the children were already contributing fall, in sorting the flock of sheep, the family killed by their labor to the support of the family. The from ten to fifteen sheep; and what they could not girls, by the time they were twelve years old, were use as fresh mutton they salted. Later in the sea- real helpers for the mother. They tended the poul- son, when the weather turned cold, they killed a try, made butter, and spun wool. The boys natu- "beefcritter," and sometimes two when the family rally helped in the work of the father. He, unaided grew large. Part of this beef was salted, but part except by his boys, had cleared a considerable por- was kept frozen throughout the winter to be used tion of the island, burning up in SO doing a fine fresh. Sea-birds added to their store of food. Shoot- growth of trees spruce, fir, birch, and beech. With ing them made sport for the boys. Ducks and other his oxen he had broken up the cleared land, hauled seafowl were SO abundant in the fall that the gun- off part of the stones and piled them on the protru- ners had to throw away the bodies of the birds, ding ledges, and gradually made fields for grass and after picking off all the feathers. The family never other crops. In the earlier years, before flour began bought any salt pork, but every winter made a year's to be cheap at the Mount Desert "stores", he had supply. Although codfish were easily accessible, the even raised a little wheat on the island; but the family made no use of salt cod. They preferred main crops besides hay were potatoes and other mackerel, which were to be taken in the near vegetables for the use of the family and cattle. The waters in some month of every year. They had a son is still living who carried a boat-load of wheat few nets, but they also caught mackerel on the to Somesville, had it ground and sifted into three hook. During the summer and early autumn the grades, and carried all three back to the island for family had plenty of fresh vegetables. winter use. The potato-bug and potato-rot were For clothing the family depended mostly on then unknown, and the island yielded any wished- wool from their own sheep. They used very little for amount of potatoes. The family often dug from cotton. There were spinning-wheels and looms in two to three hundred bushels of potatoes in a sea- the house, and the mother both spun and wove. son, and fed what they did not want to their cattle Flax they raised on the island, and from it made a and hogs. coarse kind of linen, chiefly for towels. They did, 14 15 however, buy a cotton warp, and filled it with wool, thus making a comfortable sort of sheet for winter smoked herring could be sold in New York, which was the best market for them, at from seventy-five use or light blanket for summer. The wool of at cents to one dollar and ten cents a box, each box least fifty sheep was used every year in the house- hold, when the family had grown large. The chil- holding half a bushel. The herring were caught, for dren all went barefoot the greater part of the year; the most part, in gill-nets; for there were then no weirs and no seines. The family had their own but in the winter they wore shoes or boots, the smoke-house, and made the boxes themselves from eldest brother having learned enough of the shoe- lumber which was sawed for them at the Somesville maker's art to keep the family supplied with foot- or the Duck Brook saw-mill. Each of these saw- wear in winter. At that time there were no such mills was at least nine miles distant from Baker's things as rubber boots, and the family did not ex- pect to have dry feet. Island; SO that it was a serious undertaking, requir- ing favorable weather, to boat the lumber from the Their uses for money were few; but some essen- mill and land it safely at the rough home beach. tials to comfort they must procure at the store, The family nailed the boxes together, out of the seven miles away, at South-West Harbor, in return sawed lumber in the early fall, and packed them for money or its equivalent. Their available resour- with the fragrant fish; and then some coasting ves- ces for procuring money were very much like those sel, usually a schooner owned in a neighboring of similar families to-day in the same neighborhood. island, carried the finished product to distant New They could sell or exchange butter and eggs at the York, and brought back, after a month or two, clear store, and they could sell in Boston dried fish and cash to pay for the winter's stores. feathers. One of John's elder brothers shot birds enough in a single year to yield over a hundred- In this large and united family the boys stayed weight of feathers, worth fifty cents a pound in at home and worked for their parents until they Boston. The family shipped their feathers to were twenty-one years of age, and the girls stayed Boston every year by a coasting vessel; and this at home until they were married and had homes of product represented men's labor, whereas the butter their own or had come of age. All the boys and and eggs represented chiefly the women's labor. The three of the girls were ultimately married. The three butter was far the best of the cash resources; and girls who did not marry went away from home to so it remains to this day in these islands. It sold in earn money by household labor, factory work, nurs- the vicinity at twelve and a half cents a pound. ing, or sewing. It was not all work for the children There was one other source of money, namely, on the island, or indeed, for the father and mother. smoked herring. The herring which abound in these In the long winter evenings they played checkers waters had at that time no value for bait; but and fox and geese; and the mother read to the family until the children grew old enough to take 16 17 their share in reading aloud. Out of doors they member of the Congregational Church; and in the played ball, and in winter coasted on the snow. The summer-time she took the eldest children nearly boys, as soon as they were ten or twelve years of every Sunday in mild weather to the church at age, were in and out of boats much of the time, South-West Harbor, going seven miles each way and so attained that quick, instinctive use of oar, in an open boat. To be sure, the minister taught sail, and tiller in which lies safety. When they grew that hell was paved with infants' skulls, and des- older they had the sport of gunning, with the added criptions of hell-fire and the undying worm formed interest of profit from the feathers. Their domestic an important part of every discourse. Some of the animals were a great interest as well as a great care. children supposed themselves to accept what they Then, they always had before them some of the heard at church; but the mother did not. She most splendid aspects of nature. From their sea-girt bought books and read for herself; and by the time dwelling they could see the entire hemisphere of she had borne half a dozen children she could no the sky; and to the north lay the grand hills of longer accept the old beliefs, and became a Univer- Mount Desert, with outline clear and sharp when salist, to which more cheerful faith she adhered till the northwest wind blew, but dim and soft when her death. southerly winds prevailed. In every storm a magni- It is obvious that this family on its island ficent surf dashed up on the rockbound isle. In win- domain was much more self-contained and inde- ter the low sun made the sea toward the south a pendent than any ordinary family is to-day, even sheet of shimmering silver; and all the year an end- under similar circumstances. They got their fuel, less variety of colors, shades, and textures played food, and clothing as products of their own skill over the surfaces of hills and sea. The delight in and labor, their supplies and resources being almost such visions is often but half conscious in persons all derived from the sea and from their own fields who have not the habit of reflection; but it is and woods. In these days of one crop on a farm, nevertheless a real source of happiness, which is one trade for a man, and factory labor for whole soon missed when one brought up amid such pure families, it is not probable that there exists a single and noble scenes is set down among the straitened, American family which is so little dependent on squalid, ugly sights of a city. On the whole, the exchange of products, or on supplies resulting from survivors of that isolated family look back on their the labor of others, as was the family of William childhood as a happy one; and they feel a strong and Hannah Gilley from 1812 to 1842. It should sense of obligation to the father and mother-parti- also be observed that sea-shore people have a con- cularly to the mother, because she was a person of siderable advantage in bringing up boys, because excellent faculties and an intellectual outlook. Like boys who become good boatmen must have had an most of her people for two generations, she was a admirable training in alertness, prompt decision, 18 19 resource in emergencies, and courageous steadiness of a house, and all the sperm-oil he could use in in difficulties and dangers. The shore fisherman or his household. He held this place until 1849, when, lobsterman on the coast of Maine, often going miles on the coming into power of the Whig party, he to sea alone in a half-decked boat, is liable to all was turned out and a Whig was appointed in his sorts of vexatious or formidable weather changes— place. Perhaps in recognition of his long service, it in summer to fog, calms, and squalls, in winter to was considerately suggested to him that he might low-lying icy vapor, blinding snow, and the sud- retain his position if he should see fit to join the den northwester at zero, against which he must beat dominant party; but to this overture he replied, with homeward with the flying spray freezing fast to hull, some expletives, that he would not change his poli- tical connection for all the lighthouses in the sails, and rigging. The youth who learns to wring United States. Now, three hundred and fifty dol- safety and success out of such adverse conditions lars a year in cash, besides house and light, was a has been taught by these struggles with nature to be vigilant, patient, self-reliant, and brave. In these fortune to any coast-of-Maine family seventy years ago, - indeed, it still is, - and William Gilley temperate regions the adverse forces of nature are undoubtedly was able to lay up some portion of it, not, as they sometimes are in the tropics, irresist- besides improving his buildings, live stock, boats, ible and overwhelming. They can be resisted and tools, and household furniture. From these savings overcome by man; and so they develop in succes- the father was able to furnish a little money to start sive generations some of the best human qualities. his sons each in his own career. This father was It resulted from the principles in which the chil- himself an irrepressible pioneer, always ready for a dren had been brought up that no one of the boys new enterprise. In 1837, long before he was turned began to save much of anything for himself until out of the lighthouse, he bought for three hundred he was twenty-one years of age. It was therefore dollars Great Duck Island, an uninhabited Island 1843 before John Gilley began to earn money on about five miles southwest of Baker's Island, and his own account. Good health, a strong body, skill even more difficult of access, his project being to as a sailor, and some knowledge of farming, stock- raise live stock there. Shortly after he ceased to be raising, and fishing, he had acquired. In what way light-keeper, when he was about sixty-three years should he now begin to use these acquisitions for old, and his youngest children were grown up, he his own advantage? A fortunate change in his went to live on Great Duck, and there remained father's occupation fifteen years before probably almost alone until he was nearly eighty years of facilitated John's entrance on a career of his own. age. His wife Hannah had become somewhat William Gilley had been appointed light-keeper in infirm, and was unable to do more than make him 1828, with a compensation of three hundred and occasional visits on Duck Island. She died at sixty- fifty dollars a year in money, the free occupation 21 20 nine, but he lived to be ninety-two. Each lived in When the dory was loaded, it had to be lifted off their declining years with one of their married sons, the beach by the men standing in the water, and Hannah on Little Cranberry and William on rowed out to the vessel; and there every single stone Baker's. Such is the natural mode of taking care of had to be picked up by hand and thrown on to old parents in a community where savings are the vessel. A hundred tons having been thus got necessarily small and only the able-bodied can aboard by sheer hard work of human muscle, the really earn their livelihood. old craft, which was not too seaworthy, was sailed to Boston, to be discharged at what was then called John Gilley's first venture was the purchase of the "Stone Wharf' in Charlestown. There the crew a part of a small coasting schooner called the threw the stones out of her hold on the wharf by Preference, which could carry about one hundred hand. They therefore lifted and threw these tons, and cost between eight and nine hundred dol- hundred tons of stone three times at least before lars. He became responsible for one-third of her they were deposited on the city's wharf. The cobble- value, paying down one or two hundred dollars, stones were the main freight of the vessel; but she which his father probably lent him. For the rest of also carried dried fish to Boston, and fetched back the third he obtained credit for a short time from goods to the island stores of the vicinity. Some of the seller of the vessel. The other two owners were the island people bought their flour, sugar, dry- men who belonged on Great Cranberry Island. The goods, and other family stores in Boston through owners proceeded to use their purchase during all the captain of the schooner. John Gilley soon the mild weather-perhaps six months of each began to go as captain, being sometimes accompa- year in carrying paving-stones to Boston. These nied by the other owners and sometimes by men stones, unlike the present rectangular granite blocks, on wages. He was noted among his neighbors for were smooth cobblestones picked up on the out- the care and good judgment with which he execu- side beaches of the neighboring islands. They of ted their various commissions, and he knew him- course were not found on any inland or smooth- self to be trusted by them. This business he fol- water beaches, but only where heavy waves rolled lowed for several years, paid off his debt to the seller the beach-stones up and down. The crew of the of the schooner, and began to lay up money. It Preference must therefore anchor her off an exposed was an immense satisfaction to him to feel himself beach, and then, with a large dory, boat off to her thus established in an honest business which he the stones which they picked up by hand. This understood, and in which he was making his way. work was possible only during moderate weather. There are few solider satisfactions to be won in this The stones must be of tolerably uniform size, nei- world by anybody, in any condition of life. The ther too large nor too small; and each one had to scale of the business-large or small-makes little be selected by the eye and picked up by the hand. difference in the measure of content. 22 23 At that time- about 1843 to 1850-there were his married brothers; but even in such periods of very few guides to navigation between Mount comparative repose he kept busy, and was always Desert and Boston compared with the numerous trying to make a little money. He was fond of gun- marks that the government now maintains. Charts ning, and liked it all the better because it yielded were lacking, and the government had issued no feathers for sale. In December, 1853, he was stay- coast-pilot. Blount's "Coast-Pilot" was the only ing with his brother Samuel Gilley on Little Cran- book in use among the coastwise navigators, and berry Island, and gunning as usual; but his brother its description of the coast of Maine, New Hamp- observed that he did not sell the feathers which shire, and Massachusetts was very incomplete, he assiduously collected. That winter there was a though tolerably accurate in the few most impor- schoolteacher from Sullivan on Little Cranberry, tant regions. It was often anxious business for the she seemed to be an intelligent and pleasing girl. young owners of an old, uninsured vessel to He made no remarks on the subject to his brother; encounter the various weather of the New England but that brother decided that John was looking for coast between the first of April and the first of a wife-or, as this brother expressed it at the age December. Their all and sometimes their lives were of eighty-two, "John was thinking of looking out at stake on their own prudence, knowledge, and for the woman; he saved his feathers- and actions skill. None of them had knowledge of navigation speak louder than words." Moreover, he sold his in the technical sense; they were coasting sailors vessel at Rockland, and found himself in posses- only, who found their way from point to point sion of nine or ten hundred dollars in money, the along the shore by practice, keen observation, and product of patient industry, and not the result of good memory for objects once seen and courses drawing a prize or two in the fishing lottery. In once safely steered. The young man who can do the following spring he went with six or seven other this work successfully has some good grounds for men, in a low priced fishing-vessel of about thirty- self-respect. At this business John Gilley laid up five tons which his brother Samuel and he had several hundred dollars. In a few years he was able bought, up the Bay of Fundy and to the banks be- to sell the Preference and buy half of a much better tween Mount Desert and Cape Sable, fishing for vessel called the Express. She was larger, younger, cod and haddock. Every fortnight or three weeks and a better sailer, and cost her purchasers between the brothers came home to land their fish and get fifteen and sixteen hundred dollars. He followed the supplies; but the schoolmistress had gone home to same business in the Express for several years more, Sullivan. During that spring John Gilley crossed laying her up in the late autumn and fitting her more than once to Sutton's Island, an island about out again every spring. The winters he generally a mile long, which lies between the Cranberry spent with his father and mother, or with one of Islands and the island of Mount Desert, with its 24 25 long axis lying nearly east and west. On this island began to fail. A wife's sickness, in the vast major- he bought, that season, a rough, neglected farm of ity of families, means first, the loss of her labor in about fifty acres, on which stood a house and barn. the care and support of the household, and sec- It was a great undertaking to put the buildings into ondly, the necessity of hiring some woman to do habitable condition and clear up and improve the the work which the wife cannot do. This necessity few arable fields. But John Gilley looked forward of hiring is a heavy burden in a family where little to the task with keen interest and a good hope, money is earned, although there may be great com- and he had the definite purpose of providing here fort so far as food, fire, and clothing are concerned. a permanent home for himself and a wife. His young wife continuing to grow worse, John When cold weather put an end to the fishing Gilley tried all means that were possible to him to season, John Gilley, having provided all necessary restore her health. He consulted the neighboring articles for his house, sailed over to Sullivan, dis- physicians, bought quantities of medicine in great tant about eighteen miles, in his fishing-vessel and variety, and tried in every way that love or duty brought back to Sutton's Island Harriet Bickford could suggest to avert the threatening blow. It was Wilkinson , the schoolmistress from Sullivan. The all in vain. Harriet Gilley lived only two years and grandfather of Harriet Wilkinson came to Sullivan a half after her marriage, dying in June, 1857. At from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1769, and this period, his expenses being large, and his earn- her mother's family came from York, Maine. The ing power reduced, John Gilley was forced to bor- marriage took place on December 25, 1854, when row a little money. The farm and the household John was thirty-two and Harriet was twenty-five; equipment had absorbed his whole capital. and both entered with joy upon married life at their On April 27, 1857, there came from Sullivan, own island farm. She was a pretty woman, but deli- to take care of Harriet, Mary Jane Wilkinson, her cate, belonging to a family which was thought to cousin. This cousin was only twenty-one years of have a tendency to consumption. In the summer age; but her father was dead, and her mother had of 1855 he spent about half his time on this same married again. She had helped her mother till she vessel which had brought home his wife, and made was almost twenty-one years of age, but now felt a fair profit on the fishing; and the next year he free. Until this cousin came, nieces and a sister of sometimes went on short trips of shore fishing, but John Gilley had helped him to take care of his that was the last of his going away from the farm. dying wife. The women relatives must always come Whatever fishing he did afterward he did in an to the aid of a family thus distressed. To help in open boat not far from home and he went coast- taking care of the farm and in fishing, John Gilley ing no more. A son was born to them, but lived habitually hired a man all through the season, and only seven months; and soon the wife's health this season of 1857 the hired man was his wife's 26 27 brother. When Harriet Gilley died, there was still send them to Boston. During the fishing season the the utmost need of a woman on the farm; so Mary husband frequently went for fish in an open boat Jane Wilkinson stayed during the summer and with one sail; but he no longer absented himself through the next winter, and before the end of that from home for weeks at a time. His labor on the winter she had promised to marry John Gilley. farm was incessant. On the crest of the island a There were at that time eight houses on Sutton's small field had been cleared by the former occu- Island, and more permanent residents than there pant of the house. With the help of a yoke of oxen are now. Mary Jane Wilkinson was fond of the care John Gilley proceeded to add to this field on the of animals and of farm duties in general. She found east and on the west. The piles of stones which he at the farm only twelve hens, a cow, and a calf, heaped up on the bare ledges remain to this day to and she set to work at once to increase the quan- testify to his industry. One of them is twenty-four tity of live stock; but in April, 1858, she returned feet long, fifteen feet wide, and five feet high. In to her mother's house at West Gouldsboro', that after years he was proud of these piles, regarding she might prepare her wardrobe and some articles them as monuments to his patient industry and of household linen. When, later in the season, John perseverance in the redemption, or rather creation, Gilley came after Mary Jane Wilkinson at Jones's of this precious mowing field. Cove, he had to transport to Sutton's Island, besides Mary Jane's personal possessions, a pair of In these labors three or four years passed away, young steers, a pig, and a cat. They were married when the Civil War broke out, and soon, linseed- at North-East Harbor by Squire Kimball, in the old oil becoming scarce, porgy-oil attained an unheard tavern on the west side of the harbor, in July, 1858; of value. Fortunately for the New England shore and then these two set about improving their con- people, the porgies arrived in shoals on the coast dition by unremitting industry and frugality, and in every season for rather more than ten years. At an intelligent use of every resource the place affor- various places along the shore from Long Island ded. The new wife gave her attention to the poul- Sound to the Bay of Fundy, large factories were try and made butter whenever the milk could not built for expressing the oil from these fish; but this be sold as such. The price of butter had greatly was an industry which could also be well conducted improved since John Gilley was a boy on Baker's on a small scale with a few nets, a big kettle, and Island. It could now be sold at from twenty to a screw-press worked by hand. For an enterprising twenty-five cents a pound. In summer Squire and energetic man here was a new chance of get- Kimball, at the tavern, bought their milk. All sum- ting profit from the sea. Accordingly, John Gilley, mer eggs could be sold at the stores on the neigh- like thousands of other fishermen along the New boring islands; but in the fall it was necessary to England coast, set up a small porgy-oil factory, and during the porgy season this was his most profit- 28 29 able form of industry. During the last part of the ther. It was characteristic of John Gilley that he war porgy-oil sold at a dollar or even a dollar and always took pains to have his things better than ten cents a gallon. The chum, or refuse from the anybody else's. He was careful and particular about press, was a valuable element in manure. All of all his work, and thoroughly believed in the good John Gilley's porgy-chum went to enrich his pre- results of this painstaking care. He was always confi- cious fields. We may be sure that this well-used dent that his milk, butter, eggs, fowls, porgy-oil, opportunity gave him great satisfaction. and herring were better than the common, and The farm, like most farms on the Maine shore, were worth a higher price; and he could often in- not sufficing for the comfortable support of his fam- duce purchasers to think so, too. ily, John Gilley was always looking for another Of the second marriage there came three girls, industry by which he could add to his annual who all grew to maturity, and two of whom were income. He found such an industry in the manu- married in due season; but when John Gilley was facture of smoked herring. This was at that time seventy-four years old he had but two grand- practised in two ways among the island people. children, of whom the elder was only eight years Fresh herring were caught near home, and were old, his fate in this respect being far less fortunate immediately corned and smoked; and salted her- than that of his father. Late marriage caused him ring brought from the Magdalen Islands were to miss some of the most exquisite of natural bought by the vessel-load, soaked in fresh water to human delights. He could not witness the coming remove a part of the salt, and then smoked. John of grandchildren to maturity. He had the natural, Gilley built a large smoke-house on his shore close animal fondness- so to speak- for children, the to a safe and convenient anchorage, and there pur- economic liking for them as helpers, and the real sued the herring business in both forms, whenever love for them as affectionate comrades and friends. supplies of herring could be obtained. This is an The daughters were disposed to help in the sup- industry in which women can bear a part. They port of the family and the care of the farm. The can pull out the gills and string the wet fish on eldest went through the whole course of the the sticks by which they are hung up in the Normal School at Castine, and became a teacher. smoke-house; and they can pack the dried fish into The youngest was best at household and farm work, the boxes in which they are marketed. So the wife having her father's head for business. The other and the eldest daughter, as time went on, took a daughter was married early, but had already gone hand in this herring work. The sawed lumber for from her father's house to Little Cranberry Island the boxes was all brought from the saw-mill at the as a helper in the family of the principal storekeeper head of Somes Sound, eight miles away. The men on that island. Since the household needed the as- did that transportation, and nailed the boxes toge- sistance of another male, it was their custom to 30 31 ily were sitting at supper, a neighbor, who had been hire a well-grown boy or a man during the better calling there and had gone out, rushed back, part of the year, the wages for such services being exclaiming, "Your smoke-house is all afire!" So not more than from fifteen to twenty dollars a indeed it was; and in a few minutes John Gilley's month in addition to board and lodging. chief investment and all his summer's work went Although the island lay much nearer to the up in flames. The whole family ran to the scene, shores of Mount Desert than Baker's Island did, the but it was too late to do more than save the fish- family had hardly more intercourse with the main house which stood near. John opened the door of island than William Gilley's family on Baker's the smoke-house and succeeded in rescuing a pair Island had had a generation before. They found of oiled trousers and his precious compass, which their pleasures chiefly at home. In the winter eve- stood on a shelf by the door. Everything else was nings they read aloud to one another, thus carry- burned up clean. John said but little at the ing down to another generation the habit which moment, and looked calmly on at the quick destruc- Hannah Lurvey Gilley had established in her fam- tion; but when he went to bed that night, he broke ily. The same good habit has been transmitted to down and bewailed his loss with tears and sobs. the family of one of John Gilley's married daugh- He had lost not only a sum of money which was ters, where it is now in force. large for him,- perhaps five hundred dollars,-but, In the early autumn of 1874 a serous disaster what was more, he had lost an object of interest befell this industrious and thriving family. One eve- and affection, and a means of livelihood which rep- ning Mr. and Mrs. Gilley were walking along the resented years of patient labor. It was as if a mill- southern shore of the island toward a neighbor's owner had lost his mill without insurance, or the house, when John suggested that it was time for owner of a noble vessel had seen her go down Mary Jane to get the supper, and for him to attend within sight of home. This was the only time in to the fire in the smoke-house, which was full of all their married life that his wife ever saw him herring hung up to smoke, and also contained on overcome by such emotion. In consequence of this the floor a large quantity of packed herring, the disaster, it was necessary for John Gilley, in order fruit of the entire summer's work on herring. The to buy stores enough for the ensuing winter, to sell smoke-house was large, and at one end there stood part of the live stock off his farm. This fact shows a carpenter's bench with a good many tools. It was how close may be the margin of livelihood for a also used as a place of storage for rigging, anchors, family on the New England coast which really owns blocks, and other seamen's gear. Mrs. Gilley went a good deal of property and is justly held by its home and made ready the supper. John Gilley neighbors to be well off. If the cash proceeds of a arranged the fire as usual in the smoke-house, and season's work are lost or destroyed, extraordinary went up to the house from the shore. As the fam- 33 32 and undesirable means have to be taken to carry whatever that might be. It was even reported that over the family to another season. This may hap- one of these pioneers had landed on the western pen to a healthy, industrious, frugal household. end of Sutton's Island and walked the length of Much worse, of course, may happen in consequence the island. The news was intensely interesting to of sudden disaster in an unthrifty or sickly family. all the inhabitants. They had heard of the fabu- The investments of poor men are apt to be very lous prices of land at Bar Harbor, and their imagi- hazardous. They put their all into farming-tools or nations began to play over their own pastures and live stock; they risk everything they have on an wood-lots. John Gilley went steadily on his labori- old vessel or on a single crop, and therefore on the ous and thrifty way. He served the town in various weather of a single season; with their small savings capacities, such as selectman and collector of taxes. they build a barn or a smoke-house, which may be He was one of the school committee for several reduced to ashes with all its contents in fifteen years, and later one of the board of health. He was minutes. Insurance they can seldom afford. If the also road surveyor on the island- there being but investments of the rich were as hazardous as are one road, and that grass-grown. As a town officer those of the poor, theirs would be a lot even more John Gilley exhibited the same uprightness and worrisome than it is now. frugality which he showed in all his private deal- The smoke-house was never rebuilt. At first the ings. To be chosen to responsible office by his fel- money to rebuild was lacking, and later a new pros- low-townsmen, every one of whom knew him perso- pect opened before the family. After the fire John nally, was to him a source of rational gratifica- Gilley went more into COWS and less into fat oxen. tion; and in each of his offices he had occasion Hitherto he had always kept a good yoke of oxen to enlarge his knowledge and to undertake new and some steers, and he had been accustomed to responsibilities. do their hauling and plowing for all the families In 1884 the extreme western point of Sutton's on the island. Thereafter he generally had as many Island was sold to a "Westerner," a professor in as five cows, but often only a single young OX to Harvard College, and shortly after a second sale in do the hauling for the island. He always trained the same neighborhood was effected; but it was not his oxen himself, and had pleasure in the company until 1886 that John Gilley made his first sale of of these patient and serviceable creatures. land for summering purposes. In the next year he In 1880 the Gilleys on Sutton's Island heard made another sale, and in 1894 a third. The prices that three "Westerners," or "rusticators," had bought he obtained, though moderate compared with the land at North-East Harbor. One was said to be a prices charged at Bar Harbor or North-East bishop, another the president of a college, and the Harbor, were forty or fifty times any price which third and earliest buyer a landscape-gardener- had ever been put on his farm by the acre. Being 34 35 thus provided with what was for him a consider- extended his trips to the western side of North- able amount of ready money, he did what all his East Harbor, where he found a much larger market like do when they come into possession of ready for his goods than he had found thirty-five years money- he first gave himself and his family the before, when he first delivered milk at Squire pleasure of enlarging and improving his house and Kimball's tavern. This business involved what was other buildings, and then lent the balance on small new work for John Gilley, namely, the raising of mortgages on village real estate. Suddenly he fresh vegetables in much larger variety and quan- became a prosperous man, at ease, and a leader in tity than he was accustomed to. He entered on this his world. Up to this time he had merely earned a new work with interest and intelligence, but was comfortable livelihood by means of diversified of course sometimes defeated in his plans by wet industry; since his second marriage now he had a weather in spring, a drought in summer, or by the secured capital in additon to his farm and its build- worms and insects which unexpectedly attacked his ings. Now, at last, he was highly content, but never- crops. On the whole he was decidedly successful in theless ready as ever for new undertakings. His mind this enterprise undertaken at seventy-one. Those was active, and his eye and hand were steady. who bought of him liked to deal with him, and he When three cottages had stood for several years found in the business fresh interest and pleasure. on the eastern foreside of North-East Harbor,-the Not many men take up a new out-of-door business nearest point of the shore of Mount Desert to at seventy, and carry it on successfully by their own Sutton's Island,-John Gilley, at the age of sev- brains and muscles. It was one of the sources of his enty-one, undertook to deliver at these houses milk, satisfaction that he thus supplied the two daugh- eggs, and fresh vegetables every day, and chickens ters who still lived at his house with a profitable and fowls when they were wanted. This undertak- outlet for their energies. One of these-the school- ing involved his rowing in all weathers nearly two teacher-was an excellent laundress, and the other miles from his cove to the landings of these houses, was devoted to the work of the house and the farm, and back again, across bay waters which are pro- and was helpful in her father's new business. John tected indeed from the heavy ocean swells, but are Gilley transported the washes from North-East still able to produce what the natives call "a big Harbor and back again in his rowboat, and under chop." Every morning he arrived with the utmost the new conditions of the place washing and iron- punctuality, in rain or shine, calm or blow, and ing proved to be more profitable than school-keep- alone, unless it blew heavily from the northwest (a ing. head wind from Sutton's), or his little grandson- In the fall of 1896 the family which had occu- his mate, as he called the boy-wanted to pied that summer one of the houses John Gilley accompany him on a fine, still morning. Soon he was in the habit of supplying with milk, eggs, and 36 37 vegetables, and which had a young child depend- to the boat and climbed on to her bottom. She ent on the milk, lingered after the other summer drifted away before the wind and sea toward South- households had departed. He consented to continue West Harbor. The oversetting of the boat had been his daily trips a few days into October that the seen from both Bear Island and Sutton's Island; but child's milk might not be changed, although it was it was nearly three quarters of an hour before the perfectly clear that his labor could not be adequate- rescuers could reach the floating boat, and then the ly recompensed. On the last morning but one that young man, though unconscious, was still clinging he was to come across from the island to the har- to the boat's keel, but the old man, chilled by the bor a strong northeast wind was blowing, and some cold water and stunned by the waves which beat sea was running through the deep passage between about his head, had lost his hold and sunk into Sutton's Island and Bear Island, which he had to the sea. In half an hour John Gilley had passed cross on his way to and fro. He took with him in from a hearty and successful old age in this world, his boat the young man who had been working for full of its legitimate interests and satisfactions, into him on the farm the few weeks past. They deliv- the voiceless mystery of death. No trace of his body ered the milk, crossed to the western side of North- was ever found. It disappeared into the waters on East Harbor, did some errands, there, and started which he had played and worked as boy and man cheerfully for home, as John Gilley had done from all his long and fortunate life. He left his family that shore hundreds of times before. The boy rowed well provided for, and full of gratitude and praise from a seat near the bow, and the old man sat on for his honorable career and his sterling character. the thwart near the stern, facing the bow, and push- This is the life of one of the forgotten millions. ing his oars from him. They had no thought of dan- It contains no material for distinction, fame, or long ger; but to ease the rowing they kept to windward remembrance; but it does contain the material and under Bear Island, and then pushed across the deep present the scene for a normal human development channel, south by west, for the western point of through mingled joy and sorrow, labor and rest, Sutton's Island. They were more than half-way adversity and success, and through the tender loves across when, through some inattention or lack of of childhood, maturity, and age. We cannot but skill on the part of the young man in the bow, a believe that it is just for countless quiet, simple lives sea higher or swifter than the rest threw a good like this that God made and upholds this earth. deal of water into the boat. John Gilley immedi- ately began to bail, and told the rower to keep her head to the waves. The overweighted boat was less manageable than before, and in a moment another roller turned her completely over. Both men clung 38 39 AFTERWORD President Eliot and the "Life of John Gilley" By William Otis Sawtelle The Harvard Alumni Bulletin of November 10th, 1921, contains a reference to a small book, the "Life of John Gilley," written many years ago by President Eliot. To the people of Mount Desert this book has long been known as the most remark- able delineation of the pioneer life on the Coast of Maine that has ever been published. New inter- est in its pages has now been awakened, since Professor Alexander J. Inglis, in introducing President Eliot as one of the speakers at a recep- tion given to the students of the Harvard Gradu- ate School of Education, spoke of the book as con- taining "an educational gem." President Eliot, in the course of his remarks, told some interesting anecdotes concerning his "Life of John Gilley," which should be made accessible to those interested in the family history of our Mount Desert pioneers. For this reason I asked per- mission of the Harvard Bulletin to republish its report of that portion of President Eliot's speech relative to the "Life of John Gilley," together with the editorial comment. This request was courteously granted by the editor, Mr. John D. Merrill. Here is what President Eliot said about "John Gilley." 41 "I remember that one of my classmates, who was a member of a family of a dozen Professor Adams Sherman Hill, who taught long children, all of whom grew up strong, vig- here, told me one day that the best thing I had orous, honest people, but I am glad to ever written, and the thing that would last longest have put into words the moral of his life. as literature, was the "Life of John Gilley." I also It is a moral that applies to the entire remember that the almoner for many years of John American people." D. Rockefeller, Sr., Mr. Frederick Gates, took me home after a seven hour meeting of the General The Harvard Bulletin's editorial on President Eliot Board of Education to his home in Montclair. I by and John Gilley is given in full. no means wished to go, I wanted to go home, but "Those who read President Eliot's remarks at I had to accept his urgent invitation. We sat down the reception to members of the Graduate School at the table together, a family meeting of ten per- of Education, which are printed in this issue of the sons, and Mr. Gates sat in the middle of the long BULLETIN, will naturally wonder what it was side and I sat at the other end, as far as possible about the final paragraph of his memoir of 'John from him. We got on very quietly at the table, talk- Gilley, Maine Farmer and Fisherman' that so deeply ing mostly to our neighbors, of course, when sud- impressed his host at Montclair, New Jersey. The denly my host, Mr. Gates, said: 'Mr. Eliot, did you paragraph itself provides the best answer: write the "Life of John Gilley" on purpose to get at the end of your last paragraph? Did you really This is the life of one of the forgotten millions. It contains no material for dis- write that paragraph first and then concoct the sketch of John Gilley to precede it?' I said that that tinction, fame, or long remembrance; but was exactly the opposite of what I did. First I wrote it does contain the material and present the life of John Gilley as accurately and vividly as the scene of a normal human development I could, the life of a farmer and fisherman and through mingled joy and sorrow, labor and coastwise trader in his own vessel. And when I had rest, adversity and success, and through finished his life, it seemed to me that it needed a the tender loves of childhood, maturity moral, as at the end of any story worth while tell- and age. We cannot but believe that it is ing, you need a moral; and so I wrote that last para- just for countless quiet, simple lives like this that God made and upholds this graph. earth. I have by no means forgotten that I "If the reader will take the trouble to look at wrote the life of John Gilley. I am glad I the little volume which ends with these words he did it, not only for the sake of John Gilley, will find that it begins with a longer paragraph quite 42 43 as striking, but needing the fulfillment which the final paragraph separated from the first by the simple story of John Gilley's life, provides. Indeed we can imagine a teacher of English pointing his pupils not only to one of these paragraphs but to both of them as capital illustrations of structure in composition. President Eliot, suddenly confronted at a dinner-table with the necessity of explaining a portion of this piece of writing, made the natural answer to a somewhat disconcerting question. At the moment he may well have been unconscious of the art which made this beginning and ending just what they were. It is the same art which has marked with a singular unity and completeness the mural inscriptions which have proceeded from the same hands. "It is a happy, if fortuitous, circumstance that 'John Gilley' has been freshly brought forward in connection with the school of Education. Members of the teaching profession are among those who need most to realize that clear thinking is indis- pensable to clear expression, and, besides, that the foremost figure of their profession pins his faith for the future of mankind on those sound and funda- mental qualities of human nature which the Maine fisherman and farmer depicted by him so notably embodied." 44 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Charles William Eliot was born in Boston on March 20, 1834. He received his education at the Boston Latin School and Harvard College and travelled to Europe to study chemistry and peda- gogy. As an educator he taught mathematics and chemistry at Harvard and analytical chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1869 he was appointed president of Harvard and held this position for forty years. During this time he transformed Harvard from a provincial col- lege with a few professional schools into a great university. He was also chairman of a national com- mitee on secondary school studies. As a leader in education he helped to change curriculum standards and school programs toward improved educational opportunity systems. Eliot was editor of the Harvard Cassics, a fifty volume set of the literature of the world often called 'Dr. Eliot's Five-Foot Shelf of Books,' a symbol of self-education to Americans at the turn-of-the century. In 1911 he travelled around the world on a mis- sion sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. An impressive public speaker and courageous administrator, he was a staunch CHARLES W. ELIOT advocator of the Eighteenth (Prohibition) Amend- 1834-1926 ment to the constitution and of the League of Nations. A member of the Unitarian church, he wrote extensively on his views about life and christianity. Eliot was married twice and died at the of 92 in Northeast Harbor, Maine. 47