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 Sketches of persons, localities, and incidents of two centuries: principally from tradition and unpublished documents.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

300 RAMBLES ABOUT PORTSMOUTH.
harbor of Piscataqua abounds in bays, great and little, in
creeks and inlets of all sizes. One. of these creeks, formerly deep enough for ship.building on its banks, was
turned into a tide-pond a hundred years ago, by the erection of Levis's mills, and on the shore-no, in the shore of
this pond, at its south eastern extremity, Toppin Maxwell
built his castle exactly at the point which sailors call " between wind and water." Small and frail it was at first, and
at every spring-tide, when the winds blew and the floods
came, the neighbors' eyes were turned that way to see it
go off; but it did not go, and from year to year, as
he threw out much tan from his pits, but sold none, his
land emerged from the tide, as Venus did from the sea.
Now and then a stray log, a waif from the waters came
along; it was moored, and very gradually but certainly
buried; and by a slow process, as some geologists describe
creation, dry land appeared, drier and drier, wider and
wider, till a goodly lot, like Boston on a small scale, had
emerged from the water, and none but the highest tides
dared show their heads above it. As land and money grew
in his hands, so did buildings rise. Addition upon addition, patch upon patch, were hitched together, incongruous
and inconvenient, but the owner was a conservative, and
would throw nothing away. He built stronger and stronger,
and always at some cost, till he had a large building.
Then all at once a new idea shot across the mind; he would
have a wind-mill to grind his bark. This he had done before by a horse, and sometimes hired it done at a watermill; but now, quoth he, "I'll have a wind-mill, and grind
for meself and for half the toon."
Big with this one idea, he took no counsel of flesh and
blood as to the expediency of the proposed measure, but
went about the work like a man determined to be "supreme over his accidents. Money would buy lumber, and
hire workmen. He bought and hired the best. But money