The history of Lynn - Lynn Massachusetts Genealogy Project

—HISTORY OF LYNN. 251Nahant is mncli visited by persons for the improvement ofhealth, and by parties of pleasure, from the neighgbouring towns,for whom it furnishes every accommodation. Two steam boatsare constantly running from Boston during the pleasant season,but a ride by land, over the beaches, is much more delightful.A spacious and elegant hotel has been erected, of stone, nearthe eastern extremity. It contains nearly a hundred rooms,and is surrounded by a double piazza, commanding the mostdelightful prospects.are situated in the village, andSeveral other hotels and boarding housesabout twenty beautiful cottages,the summer residence of gentlemen of fortune, are scatteredover the peninsula. There is also a neat stone building erectedfor a chapel, which serves for a library and school room.The air of Nahant is uncommonly pure and exhilarating ;and isgenerally regarded as conducive to the highest degree ofhealth. The whole scenery is delightful, and is worth going athousand miles to view. On the north is the beautiful town ofLynU; with its white houses, its green trees, and its hills of porphyry—thepleasant village of Swampscot, with its cluster ofslender masts, and its beach covered with boats—the high land ofMarblehead, streching far to the east—Baker's Island, with itslight house—and Egg Rock, standing alone, like a fortressin the sea. On the west is Bunker Hill, with its monument ofrock—the majestic dome and the lofty spires of Boston—thewhole range of towns along the coast,for more than forty milesthe beautiful green islands, with the forts and the lighthouses, inthe bay of Boston—and, far beyond all, the Blue Hills, softlymingling with the sky. On the southeast you have the Ocean,the vast, the deep, the interminable Ocean—stretching out inits endless magnificence.In a calm day, you may sit upon therocks, and watch the ground swell coming in for miles, slowlyupheaving the surface of the liquid plain, and then depressingit with as gentle an undulation, as if Ocean were indeed a livingthing slumbering with heavy breath. Far beyond, at the edgeof the blue horizon, you behold a long line of ships, widi theirwhite sails gleaming in the sun, tracing their path across the