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1901.] MARINE REVIEW. 17 "Come and help me dig some potatoes, boy," said he. "What?" exclaimed Peter, who, with the snow scarcely off the ground, knew that it was not the time to plant potatoes, much less dig them. "Come and help me dig some potatoes," repeated Moody, and seizing a hoe and an old tin pail he led the way to the top of the iron mountain adjoining. About half an acre upon its pinnacle had been partially cleared and planted to potatoes. The astonished Peter saw him open one or two hills and fill his pail with large and splendid potatoes. "T may as well get some parsnips and carrots for dinner while I'm about it," said Moody, and suiting the action to the word, he began to pull them up in great abundance before the eyes of the speechless Peter. This was the ordinary method adopted by pre-emptors to keep their vegetables sound and sweet over winter and not, as Peter thought for the nonce, the extraordinary perversity of nature. Graveraet set Peter to work clearing brush and kept him at it for a month. Thus he denuded the ore of its covering and prepared the way for those immense shipments which have since swung the pendulum of the world's manufacture of iron and steel west of the Alleghenies, It is need- less to say that Peter could not foresee the result of his handiwork. He did not know that he was making history. He cleared brush energetically, and incidentally fought black flies by day and mosquitos by night. The activity of these pests is so incessant that the surveyors in the Lake Su- perior region were forced to wear buckskin masks over their faces while running the lines. As the masks speedily became grimy with dirt the sight of the surveyors to the uninitiated was formidable and terrifying. On June 10, 1849, the work of clearing the brush was temporarily sus- pended and Graveraet and his party went down to the shore of the lake to welcome Harlow and his party from Worcester, whom he calculated: would arrive about this time with the machinery for the forge. They saw a little vessel in the bay and found that Mr. Harlow had arrived with quite a number of mechanics, and what was most interesting of all, a few <pglote ate oy oe GO 27 us ud. straightway forgot about it. It was a long time though before anyone had the hardihood to attempt the building of a dock again. Methods were primitive indeed. Boilers were plugged and thrown overboard and the other machinery was landed into the Mackinaw barge. Cattle and horses were invariably pitched overboard to swim ashore. Passengers and perishable freight were landed with small boats. Under the leadership of James Kelly, the head carpenter, who was from Boston, Peter assisted in building a log house for his particular party, and when it was finished it was called the Revere house, after the most fashionable hotel in Boston. This building stood and retained its name as late as 1860. : During the first week or so all labor was strictly manual. There was no horse to be had. No matter how heavy a log might be the men pulled and hauled it about as best they could. By some means, however, a horse that belonged to Silas Smith came into the possession of the party and - Peter was selected to drive him. The boy was immensely pleased with this task. The horse was a useful animal and catholic in its appetite. It would eat anything. Smith even warranted him to thrive on sawdust, provided it was from hardwood. A week or two later an old man named Ganson wandered into camp with a team of oxen, a cow and a calf. "Peter, can you drive oxen?" sang out some one. "I can," answered Peter bravely, but with some hesitation, Peter did not know whether he could drive oxen or not. He knew x i Ln ny Riya 5 o>Go e ~ THE FIRST MAP OF THE IRON BEARING COUNTRY--DRAWN BY WILLIAM IVES. of the gentler sex. Every one was excited and buoyant and the impulse to give rein to the imagination was irresistible. All were seized by the same thought--the founding of a great city. "Let me fell the first tree," cried Peter, giving voice to the common thought. He cut a tree at the point of rock on what is now Lake street at such an angle that it fell over the bank onto the lake shore. It was a young tree that Peter selected, but it was the first. Instantly all grasped axes and attacked the virgin forest. They decided to call the future city Wor- cester, in honor of Mr. Harlow's native home. With the trees that were felled they began the construction of a dock that very afternoon, because they expected the arrival of another vessel with more machinery in a few days. The trees were carried into the water whole and piled lengthwise and crosswise until the structure, thus created, was even with the surface of the water. Then they wheeled sand and gravel upon it and by the end of the second week the dock seemed both capacious and substantial. Its outer front was made of solid rock. The surface was corduroyed on the third week and it was then ready for the reception of freight. One morn- ing of the fourth week Peter White, who was always the first out of bed, was surprised to find that the dock had entirely disappeared. Not a trace of it remained. The sand of the beach was as clean, smooth and packed as it had been for centuries before. Peter could scarcely credit his senses, but in a moment the humor of the thing caught him and he merrily traced upon the sand: '"This is the' spot where Capt. Moody built his dock." Moody was wroth when he saw the havoc which the sea had made, and more wroth yet when he saw what Peter White had written. He oblit- erated the record and threatened to discharge the boy at the end of the month; but, as is the manner of impetuous and violent-tempered men, that "Haw" meant for the oxen to go one way and "Gee" the other, but he did not know which was which. He reasoned, however, that-if he did not know the oxen did, and taking the gad he drove them straight ahead until well out of sight of the camp, when he yelled '"Whoa!" The oxen stopped. : "Haw!" cried Peter. The oxen turned to the left.» Then Peter knew that "Gee" meant to the right. When he returned to camp and nonchalantly yelled '""Haw" everyone concluded that Peter had been driving oxen all his life. "Can you milk?" asked Mrs. Wheelock, the boarding-house keeper. "Yes," answered Peter unhesitatingly, for this he knew he could do. And so he was let into the graces of a very good and kind woman who volunteered to do his washing and mending and who invited him to eat at the second table, for all of which, indeed, he was truly grateful. Peter was proudly driving his oxen a week later when a stranger over- took him and demanded the cattle, claiming that they belonged to the Jackson Iron Co. Peter declined to surrender them and drove them back into camp. That night the cow and calf were stolen and it was re- ported on reliable authority that the directors and president of the Jackson Iron Co., who had just arrived at their mine, had had veal for dinner. More in sorrow than in anger, the Jackson company rebuked old Ganson for having sold the animals while he was in debt to the company for the. - freight on them up. The old man's heroic reply was that the Jackson. _ company owed everybody, but that he chose to reverse the order of things and owe the Jackson company. In that event, he said, there was a possi- bility that the debt might some day be paid. About this time Jim Presque Isle, whose real name was James Hil- liard, informed Capt. Moody that there was a large meadow a short dis- tance from Presque Isle covered with superb grass. The only trouble