By Susan Martin, Senior Processing Archivist

Last year, the MHS acquired a small collection of account books attributed to John Henry Clifford of New Bedford, Mass. Clifford was a lawyer who served in the Massachusetts legislature and as attorney general and governor of Massachusetts. This acquisition supplemented a large collection of Clifford’s papers that we already held.

But when I started to catalog the collection, I noticed something odd. Six of the seven account books are tiny booklets measuring about 2 x 3.5 inches with accounts written out in a neat list, “receipts” on the left and “expenditures” on the right. These booklets date from 1847 to 1873.

The seventh account book, however, is kind of an ugly duckling. It’s much larger (5 x 8 inches) and consists of hand-sewn signatures of mismatched paper containing miscellaneous accounts from 1845 to 1865. Not only is the handwriting different, but the accounts all run together in one big block of text.

The account books were clearly kept by two different people. The six small volumes are definitely Clifford’s (I confirmed this by checking his papers for a handwriting sample), but who kept the seventh?

It seemed logical to assume the volume belonged to another member of the family, perhaps his wife Frances, and had been misattributed to John. This frequently happens with unsigned manuscripts in collections of family papers. But a closer reading revealed the accounts were definitely kept by a man. Included are records of joint expenses for him “& wife.”  And when I compared entries for specific dates to those in Clifford’s, the accounts didn’t correspond. Sometimes our unknown individual was traveling to New York when Clifford was still in New Bedford.

A brother or son, then? Well, the handwriting didn’t match that of any other family member represented in the Clifford papers. So I abandoned that theory and started from scratch, digging into the content for clues.

This was easier said than done. Brief entries listing groceries and sundries purchased don’t exactly give you a lot of biographical details to latch onto. New Bedford is mentioned a few times, which probably explains the original misidentification. There are a few personal names, like Franklin, Sarah, and Dorah, but it was impossible to tell who was a family member and who was, say, a servant. I also saw the name Delano in several places.

Eventually a little more personal information emerged, like “my son Edward” and “my son Warren.” In fact, Warren makes many appearances throughout the volume. Well, John H. Clifford did have a son named Edward, but no Warren. Then I stumbled onto an unfamiliar proper noun that unlocked the whole mystery—Algonac.

If you’re an archivist or historian with expertise in a certain family, you may be ahead of me here. A quick online search revealed that Algonac was the home built by Warren Delano, Jr. in Newburgh, New York. This account book was kept, therefore, by none other than Warren Delano, Sr., who often traveled to visit his son and family. The clincher was the note Delano, Sr. wrote proudly marking his granddaughter Annie’s birthday.

Warren Delano, Sr. lived in Fairhaven, Mass., just across the Acushnet River from New Bedford. He died in 1866. He also happened to be the great-grandfather of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

If I were to extend my earlier metaphor, I’d say the ugly duckling turned out to be a swan. John H. Clifford was a conservative Whig who opposed the abolition movement and was called “pro-slavery” by his one-time servant Frederick Douglass. Warren Delano, on the other hand, supported abolition, aided those seeking freedom from enslavement, and subscribed to anti-slavery publications. Here are some of the relevant entries in his account book:

[27 August 1853] Donation to a Mother, to aid the redemption of a daughter, from the hands of a man thief 2 dolls.

[1 October 1856] Donation to suffering freemen in Kansas 25 dollars

[28 October 1856] For Liberator & A. S. [Anti-Slavery] Standard, & Bal. to the cause of freedom 10 dolls.

By Heather Rockwood, Communications Associate

Autumn is my favorite time of year; celebrating Halloween and all things gruesome, haunted, and scary. One of my favorite, and kind of gross, stories to tell people, especially in September on its anniversary, is the tale of Giles Corey, pressed to death during the Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692.

In 1692, Giles Corey was a successful farmer in Salem Village, the current location of Danvers, Mass., when a group of girls and young women started accusing locals of bewitching them with specters, pinches, and disease. Disliked personalities and large properties played a large part in who was accused of witchcraft during the trials.  Giles was a criminal and was not well-liked. In 1676, he was tried for the death of Isaac Goodale, an indentured servant, whom he beat with a stick for stealing some apples. He was found guilty, but was only fined since corporal punishment towards indentured servants was legal. Many community members witnessed the beating and testified against him. Giles was also accused of stealing several times and had such a reputation that when John Proctor’s house burned down a few years previous, he assumed Giles had burned it! Giles’s wife, Martha, also had a mixed reputation. She was adulterous during her previous marriage but when she and Giles married, the community remarked a distinct change for the good in them both. However, their loud bickering was witnessed often.

Giles attended some of the first trials that took place in a tavern, and Martha was quickly accused of witchcraft. At first he testified against his wife, believing the accusations, but then changed his mind and tried to recant his words. Abigail Hobbs, another accused of witchcraft, named Giles Corey as a wizard close in time to when he testified against his wife. Martha denied the accusations but Giles would not plead guilty or not guilty. Giles Corey may not a have been a good person but he was smart. He knew that if he plead and let the trial happen, his estate would be taken away from his family after his execution. To save his children’s inheritance, he would not plead. According to the law at the time, those who did not plead could not be tried. To try to get the accused to plead, the legal remedy was “peine forte et dure,” translating to “strong and hard pain.” It became the name for the torture of pressing.

WARNING: below this image is graphic language explaining the mechanics of torture.

In the MHS collection is the diary of Samuel Sewall, one of the judges of the Salem Witchcraft Trials.  Sewall kept a journal from 1673 until a few months before his death in 1730. His entry for 19 September 1692 reads:

“Monday; Sept-19th 1692. Abt noon, at Salem, Giles Corey was pressed to death for standing mute Much pains was used with him two days one after another by ye court & Capt. Gardner of Nantucket who had been his acquaintance: but all in vain. 20 Now I hear from Salem that abt 18 years agoe, he was suspected to have stamped and pressed a man to Death. But was cleared. twas not remembered till Ann Putnam was told of it by G Corey’s Specter ye Sabbath-Day night before ye Execution.”

After he would not plead, Giles was asked to strip naked and lay down, face up, on the ground. A wooden board was then placed on top of him, and on top of the board, one by one, Sheriff George Corwin placed large rocks. After two days of this torture, through which Giles had remained silent, never crying out, he was asked to plead. Giles did not want his property to be taken, so he never plead either way. On the third day 19 September 1692 he died from being pressed to death. His last words were “more weight.”

Giles plan did work, his estate passed to his two sons, however Sherriff Corwin successfully extorted money from Giles daughter who later pressed posthumous charges against the Sherriff for his crime. Sherriff Corwin died of a heart attack in 1696, and every Sherriff after him died or resigned of some kind of blood ailment until 1991 when the Sherriff’s office moved from Salem to Middleton, Mass. Some witnesses say that Giles Corey did not remain silent and had cursed the title of Sherriff: “Damn you, I curse you and Salem!” However, it is mostly agreed upon that “more weight” were his last words.

Giles Corey’s case is the only of its kind in New England, although other pressings happened in England. Martha was hung as a witch three days later. The gruesome and public torture of Giles Corey changed some of the minds of the community about supporting the witch trials.

Every year, the MHS selects one or more high school students for our John Winthrop Student Fellowship. This award encourages high school students to make use of the nationally significant collections of the MHS in a research project of their choosing. Applications for the 2022 Student Fellowships will open in November 2021. Learn more and apply!

This year, our 2021 John Winthrop Student Fellow Laasya Chiduruppa of Lexington High School has been researching the history of slavery and abolition in Massachusetts with the support of her teacher mentor Michael Egbert. Laasya has created an educational blog with articles on her research into the history of significant court cases on the road to ending slavery. Visit Abolition in Massachusetts to learn more and follow along with Laasya’s research!

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As an American aware of deep-rooted systemic racism and as someone interested in contributing to moving our nation towards social justice, I have a keen interest in educating myself and others on historic injustices. So, when I came upon the Massachusetts Historical Society, I was thrilled to read about the John Winthrop Student Fellowship, seeing the research opportunity as a venue to educate myself and others on the importance of representation of unheard voices and recognition of our country’s painful past. With the resources provided, I dove into research focused on the early court cases credited with abolishing slavery in Massachusetts, and I created an educational blog focusing on these historic milestones to equality.

During initial conversations with Kate Melchior, an MHS historian who guided me through this process, and Mr. Egbert, my history teacher, I highlighted how I was interested in anti-slavery movements in the local area, regardless of date, era, or the laws they were protesting. However, through my research and their guidance, I soon realized that I needed to focus my topic into a much more specific time period and theme, ending slavery in Massachusetts, in order to have the clearest narrative in the educational blog I wanted to create. It was through this guidance that I was able to narrow down my research to a series of court cases in the 1780s, legal action ultimately resulting in the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts.

Early on in my research journey, the collection of the notes from Judge William Cushing’s legal notebook, stood out to me. Cushing had presided over the series of cases known as the Quock Walker case, which had ultimately found that the existence of slavery contradicted with the Massachusetts Constitution, and therefore couldn’t be supported by Massachusetts state courts. Through the quickly written notes, I not only was able to find a clear narrative of testimony on both sides, especially during the criminal indictment of Quock Walker’s owner for battery, but was also able to see the beginnings of his thought process behind his ultimate decision and instruction to the jury.

In my research process, I struggled to narrow down my research into specific fields. Due to the plethora of documents and primary sources available in the MHS catalog, I often found myself diving into antislavery records written decades after the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts, or identifying historical ads from the Civil War era. Through the use of key words and case studies, I was able to keep my research focused. In the writing process for my blog, I also initially had difficulties with finding the correct tone to highlight what I had found. Ultimately, after reading through historical entries in the Beehive Blog, the MHS’s historical blogging website, I was able to hone in on a format which used historical documents and a casual tone to develop a narrative.

If you plan on taking on this research opportunity in the future, don’t go into it with a strict cemented vision of what your end product, or even your research, will look like. Start the process by diving into materials which are related to your focus and importantly, are genuinely interesting or fascinating to you. As you move along further in the research process, these documents will guide you to the ultimate direction your final project will take on. As I was in the earlier stages of my research process, I started with the list of documents which I had highlighted in my application, as well as the list of resources provided by the MHS historians working alongside me. I used these accounts as starting off points, narrowing my focus to key figures like Mumbet, Quock Walker, and Anthony Burns. I then used these case studies to identify key words and further my research, ultimately allowing me to narrow my research down into a clear narrative.

Also, take full advantage of the resources, both in the archives and over email, available to you. The MHS historians are so thoughtful in their guidance, and their suggestions. Check-ins were imperative in molding the final direction my project took on.

From the blog that I have written, I hope to teach my peers and fellow members of my community that the journey to equality was a long and difficult one, and one that didn’t start and end with the Civil War. I hope to highlight underrepresented and disenfranchised voices and underline the physical and legal struggles these direct actors faced. Most importantly, however, I hope that the research and writing that I have done encourages others to diversify their knowledge of local history and the struggles on the road to freedom.

By Susan Martin, Senior Processing Archivist

I think it’s fair to say that even the most seemingly mundane items here at the MHS tell an interesting story if you look at them closely enough. By way of illustration, I’d like to tell you about the Marian Lawrence Peabody record of wedding presents. This volume, given to the MHS earlier this year, complements our substantial collection of Marian Lawrence Peabody papers, the bulk of which came from Marian herself in 1969 and 1970. Visit the guide to that collection to learn more about her life and family.

The volume is hilariously titled The Book of the Bride Elect Designed by a Spinster (N.Y.: Brentano’s, 1902). In it, Marian listed all the wedding gifts she received when she married Harold Peabody on 8 May 1906.

Marian and her husband received a total of 375 wedding gifts, primarily things like dishes, silverware, candlesticks, tea sets, and vases, as well as furniture, rugs, clocks, jewelry, and books. The volume also contains a list of the over 100 presents the couple received, mostly flowers, when their engagement was announced.

Many of the wedding gifts were lavish. Endicott Peabody gave the couple a “run-about carriage” and another Mr. Peabody (possibly her father-in-law) gave them $1,000 cash, which online historical currency calculators tell me would be the equivalent of about $30,000 today. John S. Lawrence’s gift was a tiger-skin rug. Also included are several Tiffany and Wedgewood items. Some of the presents sound like they must have been beautiful, like the “Japanese drawing framed in teak,” the “tortoise-shell & silver paper cutter,” and a pearl and garnet pendant.

The list of donors is equally impressive, a veritable who’s who of the turn-of-the-century elite. The Archbishop of Canterbury gave the couple, quite aptly, a copy of Pilgrim’s Progress. President Theodore and First Lady Edith Roosevelt sent a box of roses and carnations. Other donors included Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt; Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, the great-grandson of Thomas Jefferson; and Henry Francis du Pont of Winterthur, Delaware. Needless to say, Marian ran in very privileged circles.

The entry for each gift includes the name of the donor(s), their address, and where the item was purchased (if known), but also what happened to it afterwards. This last column was filled out, in some cases, many years later, and it’s here that we see what was regifted, exchanged, lost, worn out, broken, or sold.

A silver and glass fruit dish from Benjamin Vaughan and his wife is followed by the wistful note: “In 1934 gave to Katharine Lawrence King – regret it.” Many other items were unfortunately lost in a fire that ravaged Marian’s home at Bar Harbor, Maine, in 1947. These included two salt spoons and two salt cellars from Rev. Glenn Tilley Morse (“lost in fire & they were lovely”). Other gifts were distributed throughout Marian’s home at 302 Berkeley Street in Boston or safely ensconced at the State Street Trust building.

The works of Jane Austen were apparently a popular wedding gift that year. The Peabodys received three sets: one from Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, which they gave away; one from Roger Pierce, which they “changed for Victor Hugo”; and one from “Harold’s old nurse,” which they kept.

Particularly intriguing was one gift, a pair of binoculars given to the Peabodys by Robert Winsor, Jr. A unique wedding gift, to be sure, but so was the note that followed it: “Rented to the Navy thru’ the war for $1.00 / Then gave to Tony Parker my godson who let them fall overboard.”

I was curious what Marian wrote in her diaries during this time, so I consulted her papers. Her diary entry for 24 January 1906 refers to The Book of the Bride Elect, the very volume in my hands, which Marian called “the most useful present from Sally.” The entry describing her wedding goes on for an enthusiastic seven pages. She mentioned one gift in particular: “A large box of flowers arrived in the midst of all the excitement with ‘White House’ written all over it, & inside Pres. & Mrs Roosevelts cards & good wishes.”

Sixty years later, Marian published an autobiography called To Be Young Was Very Heaven (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967), which consists primarily of her diary entries up to her wedding day. But there are significant discrepancies between the original and printed versions. For example, about the Roosevelts’ present, she incorrectly quoted her own diary this way: “Also a box came from the White House—but it was roses and we certainly had enough of those. Presidents should send something solid so it can be kept as a memento.”

Marian was in her 90s when her autobiography was published, and she engaged in some self-reflection, stepping back to comment on her former self with the wisdom of many decades. On her wedding day, the young woman may have gushed, but the older woman editorialized, “I did not half appreciate all that was done for me. I had been spoilt and still wanted everything the way I wanted it.”

Everything didn’t turn out the way she wanted it, however. Her marriage proved to be an unhappy one, and the couple lived apart for many years. Marian died in Milton in 1974 at the age of 98.