Note 427 — Chapter II · (continued 3)

The act is printed and a description of the stamps is given in the N. E. Hist. and Gen. Reg., July, 1860, p. 267. One of the stamps shows a schooner, another a cod-fish, and a third a pine-tree,—all proper emblems of Massachusetts. The vessel with a schooner rig was a Massachusetts invention, being devised at Gloucester in 1714, and the story goes that her name came from some one exclaiming, “How she schoons!” as she was launched from the ways. Cf. Babson’s Gloucester, p. 251; Mag. of Amer. Hist., Nov., 1884, p. 474, and (by Admiral Preble), Feb., 1885, p. 207; and United Service (also by Preble), Jan., 1884, p. 101. The earliest mention of the fish as an emblem I find in Parkman’s statement (Frontenac, p. 199, referring to Colden’s Five Nations) that one was sent to the Iroquois in 1690 as a token of alliance. A figure of a cod now hangs in the chamber of the Mass. House of Representatives, and the legislative records first note it in 1784, but lead one to infer that it had been used earlier. Cf. Essex Inst. Hist. Coll., Sept., 1866; Hist. Mag., x. 197. The pine-tree appeared on the coined shilling piece in 1652, which is known by its name. Cf. Hist. Mag., i. 225, iii. 197, 317; Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., xi. 293; Mem. Hist. Boston, i. 354, with references; Amer. Jour. of Numismatics; Coin Collector’s Journal, etc.