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"Lynn and Surroundings"
by Clarence W. Hobbs

Transcribed and submitted
by Shaun Cook

To help transcribe or submit information, please e-mail Shaun Cook.

PREFACE, pg 7

     IN dedicating this book to those very dear friends, the reading public, a few words of explanation and acknowledgement may be in order.
     The aim has not been to produce a new history of Lynn, for the work of Lewis, Newhall, and others in that line, in point of completeness, leaves very little to be desired. Neither is this work designed as a guide book, though possibly it might serve a stranger tolerably well in that capacity.
     The writer has simply sought to reproduce in as attractive garb as possible, the impressions received by him in his endeavor to become acquainted with our Lynn and her Surroundings, her people and her history; and the book is commended to its readers in the hope that they may share in the interest and pleasure which the work of preparation has brought to him.
     Nothing is claimed on the score of originality. All sources of information have been remorselessly drawn upon, so that it is simply -

               "A handful of culled flowers I bring,
               With nothing of my own, except the string
                                That binds them."

     Acknowledgments are therefore due in many quarters. To make them in order would be tedious; consequently all must be expressed in a single comprehensive bow.
     In selecting the subjects for illustration an effort has been made to so distribute them that they might serve not only to illumine the text, but also to enable the person examining them, perchance an absent son of Lynn, to obtain something of an idea of the appearance of the city, and to this end the List of Illustrations will be found of especial usefulness.
     The work has been made as complete as its limits would allow. One is, however, strongly impressed with the transitory nature of things by the fact that the changes wrought by the spirit of progress and improvement, and by death, since this work was undertaken, have already transformed some pages of this record of to-day into history. No attempt will be made to point these out, neither to correct some slight errata; some will surely find them out, and those who do not will be quite as happy, not knowing.

High Rock, pg 11

OVERLOOKING the town of Lynn,
So far above that the city's din
Mingles and blends with the heavy roar
Of the breakers along the curving shore;
Scarred and furrowed and glacier-seamed
Back in the ages so long ago
The boldest philosopher never dreamed
To count the centuries' ebb and flow;
Stands a rock, with its gray old face
Eastward ever turned, to the place
Where first the rim of the sun is seen,
Whenever the morning sky is bright,
Cleaving the glistening, glancing sheen
Of the sea with a disc of insufferable light.
Down in the earth its roots strike deep;
Up to his breast the houses creep,
Climbing e'en to his rugged face,
Or nestling lovingly at his base.

Stand on his forehead, bare and brown;
Send your gaze o'er the roofs of the town
Away to the line, so faint and dim,
Where the sky stoops down to the crystal rim
Of the broad Atlantic, whose billows toss,
Wrestling and weltering and hurrying on
With awful fury, whenever across
His broad, bright surface, with howl and moan,
The tempest whirls, with black wing bowed
To the yielding waters which fly to the cloud,
Or hurry along, with thunderous shocks,
To break on the ragged and riven rocks.
When the tide comes in on a sunny day,

You can see the waves break back in pray
From the splintered spurs of Phillips' Head;
Or, tripping along with dainty tread,
As of a million glancing feet,
Shake out the light in a quick retreat;
Or along the smooth curve of the beach,
Snowy and curling, in long lines reach
An islet, anchored and held to land
By a glistening, foam-fringed ribbon of sand
That is Nahant, and that hoary ledge
To the left is Egg Rock, like a blunted wedge
Cleaving the restless ocean's breast,
And bearing the light-house on its crest.

- ELIZABETH F. MERRILL.

Lynn and Surroundings, pgs. 13-16

     Lynn is like no other New England city. Both in situation and surroundings, she has a beauty and a charm all her own, and in her natural physical characteristics is displayed a marked individuality. All the varied scenes of town, sea-shore and country are found within her borders. "The farmer drives his team afield" not far from the stirring mart, and the fisherman mends his nets in sight of the towering, smoke-wreathed chimneys of the large factories. But a short distance northward from the City Hall are bosky dells between the hills where one may hide, and many peaceful lakes where the wanderer may catch the reflection of wooded shore and shadowy cloud; while nearer still, in the opposite direction, is the smooth beach, where one may walk the shining sand, plunge beneath the curling breakers, or from the neighboring cliff count the sails and watch the mighty pulsations of the restless heart of ocean, as with ceaseless throbs she sends the wavelets hurrying toward the shore. Or, better still, if one has but an hour for sight-seeing, let him climb the stairs to the top of the rugged observatory built by nature, ages before man built the town, and a wondrous panorama unfolds before his eyes. At his feet lie the city and the shore; on the landward side the view is limited only by the dark background of evergreen-clad hills, while toward the sea the scene dies away in the purple haze which hangs like a veil over the bosom of the ocean. No point of view on the Atlantic gives a larger return for so little effort, and no other city of the New World can boast of such an endless variety of landscape and sea-view, hill and valley, lake and river, cottage-crowned cliff and rock-bound shore, with the bright waters of the bay dimpling and sparkling in the sunlight. On a clear day the scene is full of life and light. and is inspiring and exhilarating in a high degree. But when the storm cloud hangs over the waters, and the huge waves seem to gather their forces for a final assault upon the opposing rocks, and the spray flies in clouds far up on the shore, the scene is full of grandeur.
     Let us together visit High Rock, and see these things for ourselves. One hundred and seventy feet to the top; and approached from the northward, the ascent is gradual and easy; but on the seaward side both wind and limb get well tested, though the climb is now facilitated by successive flights of steps set in an iron frame-work upon the face of the cliff.
     There was once a wooden tower on the summit of the rock, but one night it disappeared in smoke; and now we take our stand upon the bare rock, or lean against the flag-staff. The eye naturally turns first toward the sea. At the left is the village of Swampscott, with its cluster of fishing-boats and white beach covered with dories and fishing-nets spread out to dry. Further out is Baker's Island, with its light, the white towers of Marblehead, and on a clear day is seen the distant headland of Cape Ann. Off to the right are the dark brown monument of Bunker Hill and the gilded dome on Beacon Hill. Further to the north we get a glimpse of Wachusett rising above the succession of lesser hills, and to the south the Blue Hills of Milton lie misty in the distance. Nearer stretches out the graceful curve of Crescent Beach, and directly in front of us is the harbor, its bounds determined on the one hand by the Point of Pine, and on the other by the dark rocks of the Nahants - those twin gems of the North Shore, connected with the mainland only by a narrow neck of sand -

" A snowy ribbon, fringed with foam."

     Lying low in the waters of the hay, seemingly no larger than a fisherman's dory, is Egg Rock, with its white light-house, for thirty years a faithful sentinel on a dangerous coast. Around to the northeast are seen the hills and plains of Danvers and Peabody, while through a gap in the hills we catch a glimpse of our near neighbor, Salem. Back from the town stretch a ledgy range of hills - of which High Rock is the most easterly - their sides clothed with dark green trees, save where these have given way to beautiful cottages, and occasionally a more stately residence; and each of them has its name: Lover's Leap, a steep cliff one hundred feet high from its base, and one hundred and thirty from the sea level; Pine Hill, two hundred and twenty-four feet high, at the southwestern extremity of which is Saddler's Rock, one hundred and sixty feet high; and among them are the Pirates' Cave, Dungeon Rock, Glen Lewis, and many other beautiful spots made doubly interesting by the halo of legend and romance which surrounds their names.
     At our feet lies the city, circling around on either side and climbing the sides of the hill until many of its houses nestle under the very edge of the rock on which we stand. Northeast of us lie the pretty villages of Wyoma and Glenmere, and the once beautiful lake, bearing the musical name of the Indian maiden, Wenuchus. In its waters our foremothers rotted their flax, whence came its more practical and homely name. Now the useful but prosaic icehouse sadly mars the symmetry of its shores. Further to the east Gold-fish Pond lies like a gem in the sunlight, while crowning the eminence which overlooks the bay are hundreds of beautiful residences, half hid among the leafy branches of the elms and maples. Directly to the southwest between us and the harbor, is the manufacturing district. At this distance we hear little of the noise of the city, but we can see the busy life as it pours up and down the streets. The buildings have a substantial and prosperous appearance, and are admirably adapted to the great industry of the city. What a contrast between these solid structures of brick and the low wooden shops in which the shoe business of Lynn was transacted before the trade of shoemaking had been evolved into a science! As we turn toward the west, we see that the circus-field of our boyhood has become thickly populous; and over the thick-leaved trees of thc Common, which, from this standpoint, hide the shape thereof - so appropriate to the City of Shoes - we can see the white-walled homes of West Lynn stretching far out toward the Saugus River; and beyond, as the sun is setting, we catch a glimpse of the shadowy hills and salty flats of the towns beyond. In our sweep we have counted the spires of the churchcs and the towers of the school-houses, admired the proportions of the City Hall, and marked where the two roads stretch their converging lines of rails toward Boston. We can dimly see the gray stones in the old Burying Ground, where sleep the worthies of the colonial days, and to the north, gleaming fair, the white monuments of the more modern but equally silent city of the dead.
     There is little in this busy modern city to remind us that it has a history, and that the white man first trod the Spot where we stand, more than two centuries and a half ago. The city of the fathers is no more-gone out as completly and permanently as the ways and methods of the cordwainers who first plied their trade in her little shops. The makers of the labor-saving machines made over the somewhat scattered and straggling town of Lynn into a thriving and prosperous city, which refuses to believe the census-taker who says we have not yet fifty thousand inhabitants.

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