Sunday at Sea

On the second day of his voyage, GH drops some hints about himself. He refers to Lexington as though it is his home town with the statement that he “fancied how affairs were going on at Lexington”. (Lexington Massachusetts is only about 14 miles from Boston). An 1853 map of Lexington shows several Robinson homesites; C Robinson in the northeast, Robinson to the northwest of Lexington Village, GW Robinson only slightly northwest of the Village and J Robinson in the East Lexington downtown area. GH writes about how he customarily takes a Sunday morning walk about the farm so we can probably rule out the J Robinson home since it doesn’t appear to be rural enough. He also mentions hearing “the peal of the church-bell” which probably rules out the C Robinson family since they are so far from downtown. GW Robinson’s land is approximately 5-6 miles from the nearest church as far as I can tell from the map and the Robinson property is a bit farther still, past the Poor House.
We can also deduce that he is a passenger, not part of the crew, from page 1 and his reference to “Mr. Scudder (another passenger)”. The author also comments on when meals are served and that there is “Plenty of Claret Wine and Cognac on board”.
The future research plan is to see what I can find using Census records.

See map courtesy of lexingtonma.gov

           

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