Medford Historical Society Papers, Volume 7.

[p. 26] in a delightful valley at Nantasket, and desired to bring his little daughter to America to be nurtured by his excellent and pious lady under his own roof. At the age of four years, Susanna, with her father and affectionate nurse, embarked in October, 1766, at Deal, on board a brig bound for Boston. The voyage was long and perilous; having been driven to and fro by wintry storms for many weeks, and enduring the pangs of famine to the last extremity, their hearts were overwhelmed with joy when the cry of ‘land ahead’ was afternoon of January 28, 1767. But a severe trial yet awaited them; the wind arose suddenly, the brig became unmanageable, drifting hopelessly in amongst the rocks and breakers.

The good brig held together, and when the tide receded in the morning, the kind people of the island wading into the sea, and placing a ladder against the side of the vessel, received the passengers, conducting them safely to land. Lieutenant Haswell, not daring to risk his little daughter on the icy ladder, fastened a strong cord round her waist and swung her out over the bulwarks of the brig into the arms of a stout old sailor standing up to his waist in the water to receive her.

Amid such scenes of peril Miss Susanna Haswell was introduced to our American shores. On the day succeeding the shipwreck at Lovell's Island, Lieutenant Haswell and his little daughter reached their home at Nantasket, a large one-story wooden building with a huge chimney in the centre. This house was standing in 1870, styled the Parsonage. It was in this house that Miss Haswell passed the days of her girlhood. Here her mind received its shape and coloring.

Endowed by nature with a lively fancy and a vigorous constitution, she spent most of her young life in sports and rambles over the hills and valleys of Nantasket.

She collected shells and flowers, of which she was most passionately fond. Lieutenant Haswell was a man of liberal culture; his