* M A R B L E H E A D
* H A R B O R *
Marblehead, Massachusetts
Let's go for a sail! The wind's up, there's not a cloud in the sky, and our friends and rivals are coming down to the dock with their duffel bags. More than 2,000 sailboats jam the busy harbor of Marblehead, Mass. at midsummer. The historic harbor, some 2 miles long and nearly half a mile wide, has been at the center of the town's history since its founding in 1636. Fishing, shipbuilding and the "Triangle Trade" made Marblehead the sixth biggest town in the British colonies at the time of independence. Fishing and later yachting (as in racing sailboats) have continued the maritime tradition over the last 200 years. In this photo by Larry Neilson, taken from Marblehead Neck, yachts swing to their moorings. Across the harbor, the magnificent weathervane on Abbot Hall's clock tower registers fair winds. Only 15 miles north of Boston, Marblehead claims the title "Yachting Capitol of America."
Photo copyright © 1989 by Larry Neilson.
*Triangle Trade: Rum, timber and cod to Europe; slaves from Africa to the West Indies; finished goods from Europe and molasses from the West Indies back to the colonies: molasses was there distilled into rum. There is an evident history of slavery and free blacks in Marblehead, including slave quarters at the King Hooper Mansion, and the former tavern of Joseph Brown, a freeman who fought in the Revolutionary War and settled down to saloonkeeping with his Jamaican wife, Aunt Treece. Their house still stands on the banks of Black Joe's Pond. In Boston, smuggled goods found their way up the Muddy River to Jamaica Pond. Since this was the pay-off point for smugglers, it became a hangout for low-lives: the neighborhood got its name from their habit of not drinking their rum diluted into genteel grog, but guzzling it straight up: in the parlance of the time, "taking their Jamaica plain."