ove the distant horizon. Again we are drawn back to the
irresistible magnet of those mighty monitors. Yes, wherever one goes in
Milton, either on foot to-day or back through the chapters of three
centuries ago, the Blue Hills dominate every event, and the Great Blue
Hill floats above them all.

"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help,"
chants the psalmist. Ah, well, no one can say it better than
that--except the hills themselves, which, with gentle majesty, look down
affectionately upon the town at their feet.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER III

SHIPBUILDING AT QUINCY

[Illustration]

The first man-made craft which floated on the waters of what is now Fore
River was probably a little dugout, a crude boat made by an Indian, who
burned out the center of a pine log which he had felled by girdling with
fire. After he had burned out as much as he could, he scraped out the
rest with a stone tool called a "celt." The whole operation probably
took one Indian three weeks. The Rivadavia which slid down the ways of
the Fore River Shipbuilding Corporation in August, 1914, weighed 13,400
tons and had engaged the labor of 2000 men for fifty months.

Between these two extremes flutter all the great sisterhood of shallops,
sloops, pinks, schooners, snows, the almost obsolete batteau and
periagua, the gundelow with its picturesque lateen sail, and all the
winged host that are now merely names in New England's maritime history.

We may not give in this limited space an account of the various vessels
which have sailed down the green-sea aisles the last three hundred
years. But of the very first, "a great and strong shallop" built by the
Plymouth settlers for fishing, we must make brief mention, and of the
Blessing of the Bay, the first seaworthy native craft to be built and
launched on these shores--the pioneer of all New England commerce. Built
by Governor Winthrop, he notes of her in his journal on August 31, 1631,
that "the bark being of thirty tons went to sea." That is all he says,
but from that significant moment the building of ships went on
"gallantly," as was indeed to be expected in a country whose chief
industry was fishing and which was so admirably surrounded by natural
bays and harbors. In 1665 we hear of the Great and General Court of
Massachusetts--which distinctive term is still applied to the
Massachusetts Legislature--forbidding the cutting of any trees suitable
for masts. The bro