Salt Marsh Destiny is a work of fiction woven through a bit of seventeenth-century history. All incidents and dialogue, and all the significant characters and incidents, are products of the author’s imagination. Where real-life historical or public figures and places are referred to, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons and places are entirely fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2017 by Stephen Clarkson

All rights reserved

Published by

Great Life Press

Rye, New Hampshire 03870

greatlifepress.com

Book design: Grace Peirce

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-938394-30-0

Softcover ISBN: 978-1-938394-28-7

Library of Congress Control Number:

2017953079

Cover photo: Carol Weatherby

Stephen Clarkson

15 Fairway Drive

Rye Beach, NH 03871

clarksonstb@aol.com

Salt Marsh Destiny

The 1635 Voyage of the Thistle

The longest journey

Is the journey inwards

Of him who has chosen his destiny.

—Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings (1964)

In memory of my parents,

Albert Batchelder Clarkson
and Elsie Eden Clarkson

 

And for

 

Alan, Claire, Will,

Matthew, Kyle, Taylor,

Mae, Grace Ann, and Troy

Preface

The small town of Rye, New Hampshire was settled by English venturers, at a spot now called Odiorne’s Point near the mouth of the Piscataqua river, in 1623. The subsequent history of this attractive seaside place is assumedly well documented.

But there is another story, which cannot be verified.

A few early settlers, and even some of today’s old-timers, have mentioned a rarely talked about second expedition to the area. They say that in 1635 another group, Scottish separatists traveling to the New World to govern themselves and find religious freedom, also found their way to Rye. It is told that their leader was a physician, a man named Iain Macgregor.

Salt Marsh Destiny preserves the tale.