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What is Marblehead? One historian states: "The Pilgrims came to Plymouth and the Puritans came to Boston that they might have freedom to worship God after the dictates of their own consciences, but the first settlers of Marblehead came to catch fish." Another relates: "In the days when Salem dominated the China trade, and when nearly every boy in his 'teens was familiar with a dozen ports in the Orient, it was still a hardy youth, who dared explore the bounds of Marblehead, which spiritually as well as geographically turned a stony back side to her neighboring port."
Only a few years ago, a member of Marble-head's Honorable Board of Selectmen, after listening to the legalistic and statutory arguments of one of Boston's most Brahmin barristers in a suit between the town and a socialite yacht club, disposed of the matter with the remark: "That's all right, but what in hell's the laws of Massachusetts got to do with Marble-head?" Unofficially an Attorney General of the State later indicated a certain sympathy with the Selectman's position.
"Smug!" Never. The painted Spirit of '76 hangs in Marblehead and the true Spirit of 1776 lives there. The U. S. Navy Department has officially recognized Marblehead as the birthplace of the American Navy and has erected a tablet stating this fact. General John Glover's amphibious regiment of fishermen rowed Washington across the Delaware. Marbleheaders manned Old Ironsides in her victorious voyages. In 1863, so many Marbleheaders were in the Union ranks, that the Governor of Massachusetts actually asked that no more of her men enlist, lest the breed become extinct. They didn't obey the Governor, but there are still sons and grandsons in plenty. . . .
ERNEST GREGORY
Darien, Conn.
All thanks to Marbleheader Gregory for an able footnote on his native town.—ED. Penmen