There were still remaining a few representatives of the old families,
who were treated with much reverence by the rest of the townspeople,
although they were, like the conies of Scripture, a feeble folk.

Deephaven is utterly out of fashion. It never recovered from the effects
of the embargo of 1807, and a sand-bar has been steadily filling in the
mouth of the harbor. Though the fishing gives what occupation there is
for the inhabitants of the place, it is by no means sufficient to draw
recruits from abroad. But nobody in Deephaven cares for excitement, and
if some one once in a while has the low taste to prefer a more active
life, he is obliged to go elsewhere in search of it, and is spoken of
afterward with kind pity. I well remember the Widow Moses said to me, in
speaking of a certain misguided nephew of hers, "I never could see what
could 'a' sot him out to leave so many privileges and go way off to
Lynn, with all them children too. Why, they lived here no more than a
cable's length from the meetin'-house!"

There were two schooners owned in town, and 'Bijah Mauley and Jo Sands
owned a trawl. There were some schooners and a small brig slowly going
to pieces by the wharves, and indeed all Deephaven looked more or less
out of repair. All along shore one might see dories and wherries and
whale-boats, which had been left to die a lingering death. There is
something piteous to me in the sight of an old boat. If one I had used
much and cared for were past its usefulness, I should say good by to it,
and have it towed out to sea and sunk; it never should be left to fall
to pieces above high-water mark.

Even the commonest fishermen felt a satisfaction, and seemed to realize
their privilege, in being residents of Deephaven; but among the nobility
and gentry there lingered a fierce pride in their family and town