RECKONED ONLY A YEAR AT A TIME

I read an old saying that “Marblehead reckoned only a year at a time.” Exactly what that meant to early Marblehead is retold in many of its historical stories.

Alex de Tocqueville (1805-1859) said the Europeans navigated the oceans with prudence. They would set sail in good weather, put into port if there were any problems, roll-up a portion on canvas at night, and record sightings of land. However the Americans, as typified by the Flying Cloud out of Marblehead, were a different lot. Tocqueville felt that  “the American neglects these precautions and braves these dangers. He weighs anchor in the midst of tempestuous gales; by night and day he spreads his sheet to the winds; he repairs as he goes along such damage as his vessel may have sustained from the storm,.. The Americans are often shipwrecked, but no trader crosses the seas so rapidly.” He regarded the actions of these mariners as “a sort of heroism.” (Lord and Gamage, 1972).

However, early Marblehead was not an easy life. It was the ocean that gave it life, and the fishing them their living.  To cut the harshness the “keg’ was too often used for its healing powers.

This “healing” would clash with the public peace. Governor Winthrop would later record, “We kept a court.” And the Puritan tenets of the early court brought a quick and firm response for those who were seen to have abused the use of the “hot water” [beer].

Well, Thomas Gray was caught drinking to excess. The punishment of the court was severe. For his actions the court ordered in 1631 that his “house att Marble Harbor shalbe puld downe, & that noe Englishman shall here after give houseroome to him or entertaine him.”

It is told through town records that Thomas Gray may have been Marblehead’s first welfare recipient. Fortunately for many Marble headers, “empathy for a fellow townsman who was in trouble or wronged was as much a part of them as the swearing and brawling and cussed resistance to outside authority.” (Lord and Gamage, 1972).