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 IX

IN OLD NEWBURYPORT

The Dignity, Quiet, and Beauty of the One-Time Busy Seaport

Salt marshes surround Newburyport with their level beauty and through them you must come to it. Through them, too, the sea comes to it, stretching long arms lovingly as if to clasp it and bear it away. Thus fondly but placidly the tides twice a day give the gentle old city a hug and then go about their business. It is no wonder that this corner of old Newbury knew it belonged to the ocean rather than to the land and was set off as a seaport long ago. In the heydey of their affection the town sent forth its splendid ships in great numbers to all seas, and the seas in return sent tribute of all distant climes to Newburyport. For more than a century shipmasters and sailors born on the long ridge south of the Merrimac knew Guade