ter,
Hingham, and other towns, when hungering for a sniff of unalloyed
sea-breeze, or a repast of the genuine clam-chowder, were in the habit
of resorting to this beach, where they could pitch their tents, or
find accommodations in the rather humble cottages which were already
beginning to dot the shore. That the delights of the beach were
appreciated then is evinced by the habitual visits of many noted men of
the time, among them Daniel Webster, who often came here for recreation,
usually bringing his gun with him that he might indulge his sporting
proclivities; and, according to his biographer, "he was a keen
sportsman. Until past the age of sixty-five he was a capital shot; and
the feathered game in his neighborhood was, of course, purely wild. He
used to say, after he had been in England, that shooting in 'preserves'
seemed to him very much like going out and murdering the barn-door
fowl. His shooting was of the woodcock, the wild-duck, and the various
marsh-birds that frequent the coast of New England.... Nor would he
unmoor his dory with his 'bob and line and sinker,' for a haul of cod or
hake or haddock, without having Ovid, or Agricola, or Pharsalia, in the
pocket of his old gray overcoat, for the 'still and silent hour' upon
the deep."

Another frequent visitor--Peter Peregrine--wrote: "The Nantasket Beach
is the most beautiful I ever saw. It sweeps around in a majestic curve,
which, if it were continued so as to complete the circle, would of
itself embrace a small sea. There was a gentle breeze upon the water,
and the sluggish waves rolled inward with a languid movement, and broke
with a low murmur of music in long lines of foam against the opposite
sands. The surface of the sea was, in every direction, thickly dotted
with sails; the air was of a delicious temperature, and altogether it
was a scene to detain one for hours."

Evidently, Peter was a lover of nature at the sea-side; but to show that
those who sojourned here forty years ago were not unexposed to ridicule,
the following extract is given from a letter written from Hull in 1846:
"The public and private houses at Nantasket are overrun with company,
chiefly from Boston. Some of our fashionable people, as the rich are
vulgarly called, will leave their airy, cool, well-appointed
establishments in Boston, with every luxury the market affords, in the
vain hope of finding comfort in such houses. They will leave their city
palaces, the large and convenient