The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-01-31
MARsLEHEAD ON THE BAY.
Quaint Ways and Forms of Speech in
the Old Town.

From the New York Sun.
IN a first visit to Marblehead one
is directly impressed by the broad wa
terscape and bold coast and headlands,'
said a pilgrim from the West. who
came to the old Massachusetts fishing
town last summer. Passing through
the new part of the town, with its shoe
factories and modern residences, he
finds in the narrow STREETS which lead
up from the waterside quaint old frame
houses, hugging the Wayside so closely
that their projecting upper stories in
some cases jut above the sidewalk.
All this tallies with his preconceived
notions of the historic town and salts
fies his antiquarian taste. 1t is when
he listens for the dialect, the burning
speech and quaint words and phrases
for which the Marblehead folk from
earliest days have been noted that he
finds himself at fault. If he come with
introductions to old residents he is like
ly to get little help from them in trac-
ing up to this peculiar form of speech,
and the chances are that they will deny
that it exists-or say rather, that they
have never heard of it, This dialect
has been so exploited, not always re-
spectfully, in prose and verse that the
townspeople are touchy about it, and
have certain suspicion, which the
stranger must take pains to remove,
that he thinks them outlandish, and has
come to laugh at them.
ITO find the. old speech, the visitor
must go exploring on his own account
down at the wharves where the fishing
craft lie, and among the people of num-
BILE sphere in the queer by-streets and
tumble-down houses by the water side.
Here he will catch fragments of the
Marblehead dialect in the talk he )ver-
hears, and when he has overcome the
distrust of the stranger and gained a
standing among the oracles of the
neighborhood he will find in the talk
of some picturesquely illiterate man or
woman or child the ancient speech in
all its quaintness. Whittier caught it
truly in his rhyme of the tarring and
feathering of Floyd Ireson. in the re-
frain which he ascribes to the Marble
head women.
Here's FLUID Orson furr his horrd
HART,
Tarr'd and futherr'd and CORD in a
cOrrt
By the women of Morrbl'ead'
"a Marblehead man of the old stock
tells you not that he is cold, but that
he is 'crimmy.' If the daughter do her
sewing carelessly her mother will prob
ably reprove her for making 'froach.'
or If in cooking she prepares the food
improperly will call her to account for
the 'cautch' she has made. Under the
reproof the daughter may get 'piXi-
lated which means confused or beWil-
dered, or turn grouty' and sulk In the
dialect a ceiling is 'planchment and
crumb is a 'grummet.' To stone a
man or animal is to squale i'm up and
of an unpopular person it is not I'M
common to say that he ought to be
'squaled,' meaning stoned.
..Vaarc ,.,ha "a ri
the accepted language of people of all
degrees in the ancient town, a court
trial was in progress in Lynn to which
a number of Marblehead citizens had
been called as witnesses When the
time came to open the testimony the
court crier stepped forth and called out
the first name in the list:
Capt. Edwin Crowninshield.'
mo one responded. The Marblehead
men, sitting all together, looked curl
ously around the court room to see who
was meant, and none of them was more
at a loss in the matter than sturdy,
Sray-haired mariner that sat among
them in the front row of seats. Again,
and a third time, the crier called for
Capt. Edward CroWninshield, but no
one answered.
The witness is not present, your
honor he said to the presiding judge.
Enter lne against EdWifu
Crowninshield for attendance the
judge said to the court clerk. Let the
next witness be called
IF your honor please I think the
first witness is here said the clerk
who was a native of Marblehead. BY
your leave I will call him. and rising
he sung out:
Skipper Crunshell.'
"'Ay, ay. sir came in a voice like q
foghorn as the grayhaired mariner ir
the front seat rose to his feet. II was
Capt. Edward Crowninshield who ha6