Rambles about Portsmouth. Sketches of persons, localities, and incidents of two centuries: principally from tradition and unpublished documents. By Charles W. Brewster.

ODIORNE'S POINT. 37
their libations from the ancient fountain of the first residents.
But where was the site of Mason's Hall? Come this
way, said Mr. Odiorne. And he led us through his spacious
and shady farm yard, and down about twenty or thirty rods,
in a southwest direction, from his house. Here, on a spot
now covered with cabbage plants, tradition says the first
house in New Hampshire was erected. Pieces of brick
are yet turned up in ploughing, a small piece of ancient
brown ware we picked up, and pieces of metal are here
sometimes found. Although no monument designates the
spot, yet here undoubtedly the Manor House stood. On
the south of this site, a few rods distant, is the old well of
the Manor; and eight or ten rods on the north is the resting place of those who first sank beneath the toils and privations incident to emigration to a new country.
This first cemetery of the white man in New Hampshire
occupies a space of perhaps 100 feet by 60, and is well
walled in. The western side is now used as a burial place
for the family, but two-thirds of it is filled with perhaps
forty graves, indicated by rough head and foot stones.
Who there rests no one now living knows. But the same
care is taken of their quiet beds as if they were of the proprietor's own family. Large trees have grown up thereone of them, an ancient walnut, springs from over one of
the graves. In 1631 Mason sent over about eighty emigrants, many of whom died in a few years, and here they
were probably buried. Here too doubtless rest the remains of several of those whose names stand conspicuous
in our early State records.
"' History numbers here
Swne names and scenes to long remembrance dear,
And summer verdure clothes the lowly breast
Of the small hillock where our fathers rest.
Theirs was the dauntless heart, the hand, the voice,
That bade the desert blossom and rejoice;