By Lance Boos, MHS Malcolm and Mildred Frieberg Short-Term Fellow and Ph.D. Candidate in History, Stony Brook University

I have been incredibly lucky to spend several weeks during the summer and autumn of 2019 doing research at the Massachusetts Historical Society for my dissertation on the musical marketplace of Revolutionary and Early National America. In course of my work, I came across an unusual request in a 1769 letter from three Boston wardens (Thomas Walley, John Joy, and Henry Hill) to Colonel Alexander Mackey, commanding officer of the British troops stationed in the city. Following what they described as a “Gross affront & insult” toward a citizen of Boston, they urged Mackey to forbid his troops from performing music during the Sunday morning changing of the guard.¹

The incident that sparked the request had occurred on the previous Sunday, when, as the the letter described it:

a Young Gentleman an Inhabitant of the Town, appeared at ye relieving of ye Main Guard who being desired by one of ye Wardens to retire showed a willingness to Comply, but Capt. Molesworth of ye 29th Regiment, who was Capt. of ye Guard that was to be relieved, & an other officer Came to him & Insisted upon his tarrying to hear the Musick, Saying he would protect him, & Immediately ordered the fifes to play (in derision, as we Suppose,) what by them is Commonly Called ye Yankee Tune.²

In this account, the soldiers doubly antagonized the young gentleman first by instructing him to leave, and then by summoning him back for an insulting musical performance of what was very likely “Yankee Doodle.” The etymology of “Yankee Doodle” and the origins of its melody have been extensively studied, but the lack of pre-Revolution documentation make definitive answers elusive. However, scholars generally agree that British soldiers used the tune to mock American colonists until Americans defiantly appropriated it during the Revolutionary War.³

The letter gives greater weight to the conclusion that it was deployed mockingly by the British, confirms that this dynamic had developed at least six years prior to Lexington and Concord, and adds an important dimension about the actual use of the song and how the colonists initially responded to that derision. The writers couched their complaint in supplication, both opening and closing the letter by appealing to Mackey’s politeness and magnanimity. They went on to note that it was the music “which draws great Numbers of persons together,” thus alarming or annoying the soldiers. This point frames their request not solely as a concession to the Bostonians, but as a practical method of easing tensions and preventing further disruption. Yet they return to imploring Mackey to “protect us from any Insults from ye officers or soldiers,” reminding him of his soldiers’ antagonistic conduct.

If the letter genuinely sought to quell growing hostilities between Bostonians and soldiers, it simultaneously advanced an argument against military occupation and deflected attention away from the possibility that the soldiers’ behavior had been provoked by unruly Bostonians. Less than a year before the Boston Massacre, this possibility can not be discounted. The letter is, of course, a one-side account of the incident, and while the writers detailed the soldiers’ offenses right down to the song, they provided no information about what precipitated the initial order for the “young gentleman” to depart.

By calling for the cessation of all music during the Sunday morning guard change rather than just banning “Yankee Doodle,” the writers reveal that this was about more than a single song. They very likely understood the importance of the fife and drum to military formalities, and may have seen this as a means of undermining the military’s stature in the city by curtailing its ability to use music as a performance of its authority, tool of insult and intimidation, or vehicle for militaristic sentiment. I have not yet found any sources indicating how, or even if, Mackey responded, although it is unlikely that he acquiesced. He returned to England two months later, and maintained that the troops had been treated quite poorly by the Americans.⁴

This incident shows that tension between the soldiers and the people of Boston was clearly palpable, and “Yankee Doodle” was an obvious point of discord. Music, more than just the song itself, was a venue of contestation through which Bostonians and royal officials debated the role and behavior of soldiers in the city, and more broadly the relationship between colonial citizens and the empire.

 

¹ Letter to Col. Alexander Mackey [manuscript copy], 17 June 1769. Misc. Bd. 1769 June 17

² ibid.

³ The turning point for the song was likely the British retreat from Lexington and Concord in 1775. However, J.A. Leo Lemay makes a convincing argument that despite its subsequent derisive use by British soldiers, the song was American rather than British in origin and likely dates from the 1740s. See Oscar Sonneck, Report on “The Star-Spangled Banner,” “Hail Columbia,” “America,” “Yankee Doodle” (Washington, DC : Government Printing Office, 1909), 79-156;  S. Foster Damon, Yankee Doodle (Providence: Brown University Library, 1959); J.A. Leo Lemay, “The American Origins of ‘Yankee Doodle.’” The William and Mary Quarterly 33 no. 3 (1976): 435-464; Kenneth Silverman, A Cultural History of the American Revolution: Painting, Music, Literature, and the Theater in the Colonies and the United States from the Treaty of Paris to the Inauguration of George Washington, 1763-1789 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), 140-144, 275-290; and Henry Abelove, “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” Massachusetts Review 49, no. 1/2 (2008): 13-21.

⁴ Edith Lady Haden-Guest, “MACKAY, Hon. Alexander (1717-89), of Strathtongue, Sutherland.” The History of Parliament Online. http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/member/mackay-hon-alexander-1717-89  (Accessed 07 December 2019.

By Florentina Gutierrez, Library Assistant

Hello!

My name is Florentina and I am a Library Assistant at the Massachusetts Historical Society. This is my first blog post and I want to start off by sharing a little bit about myself.

During my undergraduate career, the focus of my studies was Classical Civilizations, particularly ancient Rome. My junior year of college, I was very lucky to have the opportunity to travel abroad not only to volunteer at an excavation of a Roman bath but to take classes in Rome and visit archaeological sites. Maybe it was because it was my first trip outside of North America, by myself, and with limited knowledge of Italian, but I had some of my most memorable experiences there and I have hoped to be able to visit again ever since. As such, I have attempted to satisfy my wanderlust by studying Italian on my own and reading Italian travel blogs and diaries.

Now, you may ask why I am talking about Italy on the Society’s blog. Well, one day as I was browsing through Abigail, the Society’s online catalog, I wondered if there was any chance that we held materials related to Italy. Surprise- we do! Among what we have available are travel diaries, architectural sketches, photographs, handbooks for travelers dating from the mid to late 19th century, and historical works. If you do a quick search of “Italy” as a subject, you can find a list of related Italian subjects and the associated resources.

Of the resources I have looked at, one that caught my eye is the book titled Italian scenery: from drawings made in 1817 by Elizabeth Frances Batty (1791-1875), published by Rodwell & Martin in 1820. I really admire art that is composed of intricate details and this book is filled with etchings of beautiful Italian scenes based on a journey that Batty took with her father in 1817.

Even though these etchings are the only known works by Elizabeth Frances Batty, she clearly had well-developed artistic skills when she created them. According to Frances Allitt, from the Antiques Trade Gazette, her drawings suggest that she studied under the artists John Glover due to her use of the “split brush technique”, whereby she made two strokes at once to add more detail to her work (see below for an example of Glover’s work from the Metropolitan Museum of Art). Batty may have also used a camera obscura for some of her more accurate and detailed drawings.

Below is an example of Batty’s work included in the book.

Accompanying the drawing of the Colosseum, is a three-page description (as there is with every other image in the book). We learn from a note at the beginning of the book that the writing was done by a friend of the publisher, although we are not told who that was.

The Colosseum’s section starts off with:

“Passing by the arch of Titus, seen in the preceding view, a little to the left, we come to the Flavian amphiteatre, now called the Coliseum, erected by Vespasian out of materials and upon part of the site of the golden house of Nero, which was then deemed to sumptuous even for a Roman emperor” (p.75-76).

This book provides a nice historical overview of Italy but also serves as a visual travel guide (you could almost consider it an early version of a Rick Steve’s travel guide without the restaurant and hotel recommendations). Abbott and Holder Ltd. (an art gallery in London) says that “following the defeat of Napoleon in 1815 Europe had once again become accessible to British travelers, and as their numbers rose, so did interest in illustrated travel books. Accurate and evocative wash drawings made by those who actually made the journey…were the cornerstone of these publications, and on which their success depended.” It is unclear whether Elizabeth meant for the etchings to be personal keepsakes from her travels or if she sought for them to be published. The inside of the book, however, does have a dedication to her father that states:

“TO DOCTOR BATTY, M. D. F. L. S. OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, THESE VIEWS OF ITALIAN SCENERY ARE DEDICATED, AS A GRATEFUL TESTIMONIAL OF HIS UNVARIED KINDNESS, AND AS A TRIBUTARY TOKEN OF THE PLEASURE DERIVED FROM A TOUR MADE THROUGH THAT DELIGHTFUL COUNTRY IN 1917, BY HIS AFFECTIONATE DAUGHTER, ELIZABETH FRANCES BATTY. LONDON, APRIL, 1818.”

As an interesting side note, Abbott and Holder mentions that it was recently discovered that her etchings were used for a series of blueprinted earthenware by Enoch Woods & Sons, Staffordshire potters in the UK from 1818 to 1845, whose wares were for the greater part exported to America (see example below).

If you take anything from this post, besides my obsession with Italy, it should be that our collections cover a variety of subjects. It can be fun to delve into our catalog to see what’s available and you might even be surprised by what you find. There is also nothing else like being able to see and hold with your own hands a piece of history (of course, while following our handling guidelines!).

 

Citations:

Allitt, F. (2019). London gallery showcases rediscovered drawings that record an Italian journey in 1817. Retrieved from https://www.antiquestradegazette.com/print-edition/2019/may/2393/dealers-diary/london-gallery-showcases-rediscovered-drawings-that-record-an-italian-journey-in-1817/

Batty, E. F. (1820). Italian scenery: from drawings made in 1817. London, England: Rodwell.

Elizabeth Frances Batty (1791-1875): A rediscovery. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.abbottandholder-thelist.co.uk/batty-italy/

Kling, L. (2012). Wood’s Italian scenery [PDF]. Retrieved from https://www.transcollectorsclub.org/specinterest/Wood’sItalianScenery-Reduced.pdf

By Susan Martin, Processing Archivist & EAD Coordinator

Frederick Beck, whose papers form part of the Beck-Alleyne family papers here at the MHS, counted among his friends and acquaintances many eminent artists and intellectuals of 19th-century Massachusetts. His correspondence includes letters from artist Hammatt Billings, writers Ednah Dow Cheney and Kate Field, physician Nancy Elizabeth Clark, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, whom Beck greatly admired. The collection also contains a few letters from the charismatic young minister and lecturer, Thomas Starr King.

Standing about five feet tall, weighing only 120 pounds, and by all accounts looking even younger than his years, with little formal education, King may have seemed an unlikely celebrity, but that’s what he became. After preaching in Charlestown, Mass. for a short time in the 1840s, he took over the pulpit at Hollis Street Church in Boston. There he made a name for himself and gained recognition as a compelling orator, one of the best of his day. He joined the popular lyceum circuit, lecturing to audiences in New England and the Midwest on religious, literary, and social topics.

The Becks were friends of Thomas Starr King. According to a family history published in 1907, Frederick Beck said:

Thomas Starr King and my mother were great friends, for they were both very humorous and he used to come to our house a great deal. He was a brilliant talker; we went to his church, which is now the Hollis Street Theater. I saw a great deal of Starr King, and he used to tell us most amusing anecdotes. (p. 107)

King was an abolitionist, like many of his Boston contemporaries, and in his correspondence with Beck, he shared his feelings on the subject of slavery. In early 1859, Beck was traveling in St. Augustine, Florida, and sent King an advertisement for a local auction of enslaved people, or “barracoon bill of lading.” A disgusted King replied:

Your impassioned pages on Slavery stirred me thoroughly. I have always felt that presence at a slave-auction would crystallize me into a confederate of Parker Pillsbury. I never read the Liberator, because it makes my blood boil. I fear you are right in saying that only blood will atone for the horror & blasphemy that are rampant now in the slave-state customs & literature. The day of grace is doubtless sinned away.

In 1860, King moved to San Francisco and was soon drawn into the political arena. California had only been a state for ten years. With transplanted Southerners threatening secession, King delivered long, fiery speeches around the state aimed at keeping California in the Union. On George Washington’s birthday in 1861, King spoke to a packed house for 2 1/4 hours. He wrote to Beck ten days later:

This is the Fourth of March, inauguration day of the new President over the Crippled Union. I am afraid the wretches around the Gulf will get back again by some imbecile compromise. They ought to be pitched into the Gulf that Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom looked down into. I hope that our Abraham will make them feel where they are, & how comfortable a drop of water would be.

Our public is greatly exercised on Disunion & Pacific Republics. The Chivalry here began to pull the wires to divorce sympathies between California & the North, & we have pitched into them. […] Such a thing was never known in California before, & it makes the “Chivs” open their eyes, & wonder what century they live in. We have utterly crushed Disunion, Secessionism, & Pacific-Republic folly in the State.

This speech was just one of many. None other than Abraham Lincoln is said to have credited King with preventing the secession of California.

King was not all fire and brimstone, though. Beck described his friend as “humorous” and “amusing,” and King’s letters are often very funny. He complained that the San Francisco fleas were too “attentive.” And here’s what he had to say about a fellow clergyman:

Bellows has no principles. His impulses are the noblest, but he exhausts a subject, & feels it blaze, after one flaming exposition of it, & in the evening rights himself by taking the other side. I understand that his evening sermon […] was the antipodes of the morning. That’s the way he “comes full circle.” He is not an individual, so much as an incarnate debating-society.

Thomas Starr King died in 1864, at the age of 39, due to diphtheria and pneumonia reportedly brought on by exhaustion. He left a wife and two children. He is buried in San Francisco.

Laura Ingallinella, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Italian Studies & English, Wellesley College and Agnieszka Rec, Associate Editor, Publications, MHS

In her essay collection Ex Libris, Anne Fadiman suggests that every library contains an “Odd Shelf.” “On this shelf,” she writes, “rests a small, mysterious corpus of volumes whose subject matter is completely unrelated to the rest of the library, yet which, upon closer inspection reveals a good deal about its owner.”[i] While Fadiman’s own odd shelf holds books on polar exploration, the Massachusetts Historical Society’s arguably contains works of a noticeably older vintage.

Among the MHS’s hundreds and thousands of linear feet of family papers, rare books, and scholarly volumes are some two dozen medieval manuscript books and fragments, covering a range of topics from Spanish history to urine to the quest for the Holy Grail. [ii]

One particularly intriguing example is an unidentified medieval manuscript leaf in the Appleton Family Papers. Today, we’re happy to say: mystery solved! The fragment is in fact a late thirteenth-century excerpt of a text on procedural law, specifically the French translation of the Ordo judicarius by Tancred of Bologna (c. 1185–c. 1236).

Born in Bologna and educated at the university there, Tancred was one of the leading authorities on ecclesiastical law in his day.[iii] After studying with renowned jurists Azo, John of Wales, and Lawrence of Spain, he taught canon law at his alma mater and often advised popes on legal and diplomatic matters. During his busy career as a teacher, writer, diplomat, consultant, and man of God, Tancred wrote many procedural texts, which he compiled into a complete manual, the Ordo judicarius, between 1214 and 1216.[iv]

The Ordo quickly became a standard reference manual for canon law and circulated widely over the centuries—it exists today in over a hundred manuscripts—and was also translated into French, German, and Portuguese.[v] The French translation, titled Li Ordinaires mestre Tancrés or more simply Ordinaire, was dedicated to a “noble Philip, king of France,” either Philip III (1270–85) or Philip IV (1285–1314). It seems to be a remarkably good translation: Frédéric Duval has noted that the translator tried his level best to turn Tancred’s dull and often repetitive legalese into a more lively vernacular text that could appeal to a “larger public” of law practitioners.[vi]

With the identification of the MHS fragment, the Ordinaire survives in ten manuscripts, five of which date before 1300.[vii] The script is a refined late thirteenth-century Gothic script (the so-called littera textualis) of better quality than other manuscripts of the Ordinaire produced in the same period (see, for example, Metz, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 1196). The page layout (or mise-en-page) of the manuscript, with two columns and paragraph marks in red and blue, resembles those of the earliest copies of the Ordinaire.

Like its Latin source, the Ordinaire is divided into four books, which deal, respectively, with judges; defendants and other parties; legal procedure; and sentencing. The MHS fragment is from book 3, chapter 13. That chapter discusses the so-called instrumenta, that is, the written evidence produced by the various parties involved in a trial. In an premodern age of handwritten documents, how could a judge trust that a piece of evidence was authentic? What were the telltale signs that an important document, such as a contract or a will, had been tampered with or even forged? Reading this fragment, we glimpse a legal system concerned with perjury, falsification, and ill intent, as well as a dogged pursuit of the “truth”—issues very relevant today.

So far our previously unidentified manuscript has a title, author, and approximate date, but what can we say about where it comes from? To answer that question, we turn to the language of the fragment. In this case, as with many manuscripts produced in France over the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, we can more conclusively say where it does not come from. We can exclude areas such as northern, northeastern, and southwestern France (namely, Picardy and Artois, Lorraine, and Gascony). The “neutral” spellings, word forms, and syntax found in this fragment normally suggest a provenance from the Île-de-France, that is, the environs of Paris, a major center of book production.[viii] Other important manuscripts of the Ordinaire (for example, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. 1073) were also produced there.[ix] It is also worth remembering that the Ordinaire had been written for the king of France, and Île-de-France would have been the first hub where a Parisian-born translation would circulate.

One final question remains: What is this medieval European manuscript doing among the MHS’s very American collections? This particular witness of Tancred’s Ordinaire entered the collections in 1864 as a gift from a W. Appleton Jr., likely William Joseph Warren Appleton (1825–1877), son of Rep. William Appleton (1786–1862). A library stamp is found in the lower left corner on one side of the leaf bears the name “W. Appleton Jr.” Seemingly something of a manuscript collector, William J. W. Appleton also donated several other manuscripts to the New England Historic Genealogical Society the same year as his donation to MHS.[x]

In our next post, we’ll delve further into the MHS’s premodern Odd Shelf and see what closer inspection might reveal about the historical society.

 

[i] Anne Fadiman, “My Odd Shelf,” Ex Libris, New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1998, 21.

[ii] The De Ricci-Bond census lists twenty-seven, but there may well be more among the MHS’s many family papers. Seymour de Ricci et al., Census of medieval and renaissance manuscripts in the United States and Canada, vol. 1. (HW Wilson, 1935), 937–41.

The manuscript referred to here are the Coronica del rey do Enrique el quarto de Castilla y de Leon by Diego Enriquez del Castillo; Liber Uricrisiarum by Daniel Henry; and fragments of Perceval in the Appleton Family Papers. Dan Hinchen discussed other medieval manuscripts in the MHS collections in earlier posts to this blog here (part 1 & part 2) and here.

[iii] Peter Landau, “The Development of Law,” The New Cambridge Medieval History, ed. David Luscombe and Jonathan Riley Smith, vol. 4/1. (Cambridge, UK, 1995), 113–47, at 136.

[iv] Friedrich Bergmann, ed., Pillii, Tancredi, Gratiae libri de iudiciorum ordine (Göttingen, 1842), 89–314.

[v] José Domingues and Pedro Pinto, “Um fragmento em português do Ordo iudiciarius de Tancredo,” Glossae: European Journal of Legal History 13 (2016): 207–42.

[vi] Frédéric Duval, “Ordo judicarius, Tancrède,” Miroir des classiques, http://elec.enc.sorbonne.fr/miroir_des_classiques/xml/manuscrits_juridiques/ordo_judicarius.xml (last accessed 11/27/2019).

[vii] Two other manuscripts were destroyed during World War II.

[viii] For the philologists among you, we can delve even futher into the language of fragment by considering how it fits into the stemma codicum recently constructed by Frédéric Duval. Essentially a manuscript’s family tree, a stemma codicum assesses the quality and relations of all the Ordinaire manuscripts. Duval’s stemma has two main branches θ and ε. Without any doubt, the MHS fragment does not belong to ε: where that branch presents an error of some sort, our fragment retains the correct reading in quite a few instances. For example, in the second column of the verso, our fragment cites a law by quoting its very first word in Latin, Iubemus (“we order”). The ε manuscripts, however, all mistake it for another similar one, Iubilemus (“we rejoice”). In other words, in this branch, a word typical of the Latin Christian liturgy made its way into a treatise on how to conduct a trial. Examples such as this one suggests that the MHS fragment might instead bear some affinity to or derivation from the θ branch of the Ordinaire.

[ix] See the descriptions in Duval, “Ordo judicarius.”

[x] These included the Book of Esther in Hebrew and a Koran in Arabic. The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 18 (Albany, 1864), 215.

By Anna Clutterbuck-Cook, Reader Services

Today, we return for the last time to the diary of George Hyland. If this is your first time encountering our 2019 diary series, catch up by reading the January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, and November 1919 installments first! Then join me in following George day-by-day through the final month of 1919.

* * *

PAGE 353 (cont’d)

Dec 1. In forenoon sawed and split wood 2 hours for Mrs. M.G. Seaverns — 60. In aft. worked 3 hours for Mr. James — mowing with lawn mower and raking grass and leaves and other work –Clear. cold. W.N.W. Played on the guitar 1 1/2 hours in eve.

2d. Worked 5 hours for Mrs. Bertie Barnes — diging [sic] parsnips, cleaning out part of barn, and harvesting turnips — 1.50. Had dinner there. Bought a pint of milk there — 7 cts. Milk is 17 cts. per qt. At N. Scituate. tem. To-day 28-50; W.S.W. fair. Eve. par. Clou., W.N.W. Played on the guitar 1 1/2 hours in eve. The parsnips I dug to-day were the largest I ever saw — some of them were 16 inches long.

3d. Clear. cold. tem. 14-34. W.N.W. did some work at home in forenoon. In aft. Went up to my home. Staid 1 1/2 hours — got some more of my cloths. Called at Uncle Samuel’s. Ellen gave me a quart of milk and some apples. Walked up and back. Called at Mrs. Bailey’s this forenoon to see about some work Edith C. Sargent wants me to do. Eve. cold. 11:15 P.M. tem. 18.

PAGE 354

Dec 4. Sawed, split and housed the last of my wood — heavy timber boards and etc. Clear. Cold. W.N.W. tem. 13-34. Played on the guitar 1 1/4 hours in eve. Eve. cold. tem. 18.

5th. In forenoon wkred 1 1/2 hours for Mrs. James — about 7 hours in all — 1.00. Also got some wood and and put it in my wood house late in aft. Went into woods S. of Conihasset […] to pick some pr. [sic] pine. Did not find much. Very light snow storm. Tem. to-day about 18-40; W.S. and N.W. aft. Clear. W.N.W. Cold. Played on the guitar 1 1/4 hours in eve.

6th. Clear. W.N. in forenoon, S.E. in aft. tem. About 27-45. In aft. Worked 3 3/4 hours for Miss Edith C. Sargent taking off window screens and putting on storm windows and carrying coal ashes out of cellar and wheeling it out to the swamp — 1.05. She gave me 18 good apples (R.I. Greening). Eve. clou. W.S.E. Played on the guitar 1 1/2 hours in eve. Snow storm late in eve. Turned to rain later.

7th. (Sun.) Light rain and fog. Eve. clear.

8th. Cloudy. Damp. W.N., S.E. Went to Scituate Cen. and Greenbush to pick some evergreen — got a bag full. Rode to Beaverdam Road with Willie Stockbridge and Lottie in automobile (they called here in morning) then walked to S. Cen. and Greenbush. Had lunch in the woods. Ret. came back on 4:12 tr. from Greenbush. Began to rain at 5 P.M. Light rain all eve. Played on the guitar 1 1/2 hours in eve.

9th. Light rain all day — W.N.E. wind light, did some work at home late in aft. Worked 1 hour for J.H. Vinal getting good from a freight car and putting them in the store — 30. Very light rain in eve. Foggy. Played on the guitar 1 1/4 hours in eve. Galen Watson called here in aft.

10th. Cloudy and warm in morning. Windy and dark — w. Changed to N.W. and began to clear about 9 A.M. Went up to Uncle Samuel’s — had dinner there. In aft. Went to Mr. Hope hill and picked a bag full of evergreens, pr. pine, and etc. […] got some wood, cloths, bedding, and other things in my house and Ellery B. Hyland brought them here in his auto. Cold and very windy after 9:30 A.M. Tem. to-day — 60-30. Clear soon after 10 A.M. Eve. windy and cold — tem. 25. Played on the guitar 1h. 25m. in eve.

11th. Clear. Cold. W.W.; tem. 16-30. Worked 3/4 hour for J.H. Vinal in forenoon — in the store — 25.In aft. picked some pr. pine. Went nearly to Mungoe’s Corner — came out on a road in the woods near a farm where a family of Finns live. Their place is a mile from any public street. I met a young lady (a Finn) about dark 1/2 mile from the main road (about 13 or 14) She asked me if I had been to her house — I said I just came into the road that leads to their farm. I showed her some of the pine I had in a bag. Eve. clear. Played on the guitar 1 1/2 hours in eve. 11:30 P.M., tem. 28; hazy.

12th. Worked 2 1/4 hours for J. H. Vinal unloading a load of flour and packing it in piles in store — also cleaned and washed a large meat grinder — 61. Got 1/4 lb. of meat in it — fried it for my dinner. Light rain all day. Warm. tem. 30-60. Eve. cloudy. W.N.W. cooler. Played on the guitar 1 1/4 hours in eve.

13th. Cloudy. Warm. Damp. tem. 58-60. Did some work at home — got the last of the wood from the spot where the laundry was torn down — wood very dirty and wet, prob. I have picked out 1/2 cord there in all. Bought 65 pounds of very nice straw (rye) at the Story Grain store house — 91 cts. The manager sent 70 pounds (sent 5 lbs. gratis) […] Cook brought it here. In aft. Worked 1/3 hour (in the Store) for J.H. Vinal — 10. Eve. clou. W.N.W. Played on the guitar 1h. 25m. In eve.

14th. (Sun.) Cold rain storm until noon; then snow storm until 2 P.M. Then clou. Eve. clear. Cold. tem. 26 W.N.W. Took the old hay out my bed and filled with new rye straw; also took the wool out of my mattress and filled it with straw — 70 pounds of straw in both — too much in both of them 30 pounds is enough to fill a bed. Prob. I put over 40 pounds in my largest one.

15th. Clear. Cold. Windy. N.W. In aft. Went up to my place to get a piece of stove pipe and a few

PAGE 355

other things. Called at Uncle Samuel’s. Ellen gave ma a piece of winter squash to boil and several apples. Walked up and back. Stopped at Mrs. Merritt’s and bought a quart of milk. Ethel got 2 pairs of scissors for me to sharpen. She met with an accident about 3 weeks ago — ran into a telephone pole while riding in her automobile and her back is still lame. Eve. clear. cold. tem. 20. Played on the guitar 1 1/4 hours in eve. 11:45 P.M. tem. 18.

16th. Cold weather — tem. 11-22; W.N.W.; Clear, made some wreaths in aft. Also got some […] vines to wind them on. Eve. cold. clear. Tem. 18. Played on the guitar 1 ½ hours in eve.

Sold some junk to Samuel Benson this A.M.

30 pounds of cotton — 30.

3 pds. rags — 3.

10 1/7 pds. of zinc — 25.

2 pds. of brass — 10.

2 pds. of rubber — 10.

30 pds. of iron — 10.

60 pds. of papers — 15. (total 1.03)

17th. Cold weather. Snows storm until about 10 A.M. aft. Clear. Windy. N.W. Snow blowing about. A water pipe in the bath room froze last [sic] in night and it burst about noon. I had to keep the the [sic] water from the floor because it began to leak down into the store. Kept a pail under the place where it leaked and emptied it often — this was all I could do to-day. I got all the water out of the toilet and box last night — worked on it until 1:30 (after mid). Scott Gannett here this eve. And turned off the water. Also took the water out of the copper boiler — connected with the stove. Played on the guitar 1 1/2 hours in eve. Cold night. 11:45 P.M. tem. 2 below zero. […]

18th. Made wreaths (in my front room — opp. the R.R. station) Very cold weather — tem 7 below zero to 12 above. W.N.W. Played on the guitar 1 1/2 hours in eve. Eve. cold. — tem 2.

19th. Worked on wreaths — also piled up wood in the woodhouse and carried wood into the house — 2 hours for Mrs. M.G. Seaverns — 60.Cold. par. Clou.; W.N.W. temp. 5-26. Played on the guitar 1 1/4 hours in eve. Eve. cloudy. 12 (mid) clear. Tem 24.

20th. Clear. Cold. W.N.W. tem. 10-26. Went up to Uncle Samuel’s had dinner there. Picked 3 bags of hemlock twigs […] went to my home and got my sled and brought it here only a little […] ground. Stopped at Wm. Clapp’s. Martha A. Clapp there. She engaged 3 wreaths (pr. pine) walked up and back. Sold 1 wreath to Mrs. Ethel Torrey — 25. Called at Mrs. Merritt’s to get some milk — had none. Eve. clear. Cold. tem 19. Made 5 wreaths in eve. Then played on the guitar 1 1/2 hours.

21st (Sun.) Cloudy A.M. Clear after 11 A.M. W.N.W. tem. 16-32. Worked on my wreaths early in aft. Went up to Uncle Samuel’s. Irene there — she brought a loaf of bread there — Ellen gave me 1/2 of it also a large apple. Carried 3 pr. Pine wreaths to W.O. Clapp’s — for Martha — 75. Bought some milk at Mrs. Merritt’s. Rode 1 mile with a man in auto truck — some one who lives in Beechwoods — could not see who he was — too dark. Walked back in eve. Martha C. showed me a large grove filled with dif. kinds of green (wild) plants and red berries. Mrs. Clapp gave me 4 apples. Eve. clear. cold. tem. 15.

22d. Made wreaths (15) par. Clou. tem. About 15-42. W.N.W. eve. Clear. Tem. 28. Played on the guitar 1 1/4 hours in eve.

23d. Made wreaths until late in aft., then walked to Cohasset and carried 23 large hemlock wreaths. Sold none there, went to Hingham on 4:30 P.M. tr. from Cohasset. In eve. sold 12 wreaths there. Sold 4 to Mrs. Soule — 1.00. Sold 2 to a man opp. H.T.P. — 50. 2 to another man same place — 50. 2 to another man same place — 50. 2 to others — 50. Cloudy, wet, foggy to-day, W.N.W. Tem. about 30-42. Came back on 6:17 P.M. tr. Eve. very foggy, cold. Played on the guitar 1 1/4 hours in eve. I brought back 11 wreaths — the Conductor came and sat in a seat next to mine and took one and examined it, he said they were very handsome wreaths. I told him I got the hemlock in W. part of Scituate — where my place is — he belongs in Plymouth or Kingston.

24th. Made wreaths in forenoon. In aft. went to Hingham to sell wreaths — sold 4 to Prop. of Italian fruit store — 1.00. 2 to Thom. R. Studley — 50. 3 to man near R.R. Sta.– 75. 2 to a man near same place — 50. 1 to a man near same place — 25. Cloudy; W.N.W. tem. About 36-46. Wet and damp. Chilly. Began to rain over

PAGE 356

2:30 P.M. Light rain all. Cold. Met Henrietta, Ethel, and Frank on St. H. and E. are going to New London, Conn. to visit Lettie for 2 weeks — Frank was taking them to the R.R. Sta. in his auto: he bought 2 of my wreaths. Eve. dark. cold. Light rain. Played on the guitar 1 3/4 hours in eve.

Snow storm and mod. Gale late in night. Cold storm. Max. W. 35m. W.N.E.

25th. Christmas Day. Snowstorm until about 8 A.M. Par. clou. Until noon. Aft. clear. cold. Sold 2 of my wreaths to J. H. Vinal — 50. Late in aft. went up to Uncle Samuel’s — Had supper there and spent part of the eve. There. Carried all my wreaths (23) and put one on father’s and one on mother’s graves. One on the other end of the lot where Charlie’s little boy Edward, and little girl, Olive, are. One on each of Emeline’s little girls (Esther and Marion) graves, one on Aunt Emeline’s, the three are in Uncle Samuel’s lot. I put one on grandfather Hyland’s and grandmother Hyland’s — and on one my step-grandmother’s graves, and one on my great-grand-mother’s grave (Mrs. Lois Ellins). 10 in all. Left the rest at Uncle Samuel’s. Carried some rare kind of running evergreen to W.O. Clapp’s and gave it to Martha A.C. (also some pretty moss evergreen which I picked up near the North River. Called at Mrs. Merritt’s and bought some milk. Walked home in eve. Played (on the guitar) 1 h. 20 m. in eve. Eve. clear. cold. — tem. 21.

26th. Par. clou. W.S.W. tem. About 20-36. Late in aft. Went up to Uncle Samuel’s to get one of my wreaths — to put on Charlie’s new lot in Graveland Cem. — to put with a flag that was put there in honor of Fred. Fred did not come back with the 101st Machine Gun Battalion after the Great War ended. Eve. cloudy. W.N.W. Cold. Played on the guitar 1 1/2 hours in eve.

27th. Par. clou. W.W. tem. About 34-39. Mr. W.D. Gannett came here in forenoon and took the water pipes from the back of the stove (disconnected them from the copper boiler) and put a new grate in the stove — and cleaned out the stove. After he left here I took the stove out and cleaned it. Late in aft. went up to Uncle Samuel’s. Had supper there. Bought some milk at Mrs. Merritt’s. Ethel got it for me. She is nearly well again — got injured in automobile accident about a month ago. Rode 3/4 mile with Everett Marsh, and 1 mile with Robert Litchfield — in their autos. Walked back in eve. I went up to get some milk, but as I had a chance to ride to Uncle Samuel’s I did so. Received a Christ card in an envelope with a dollar bill from Henrietta — from New London, Conn. — she also sent me 2 […] chicks from Hingham — before she left there. Also rec. A Christmas card from Lottie several days ago. Eve. clou. Began to clear soon after I left Mrs. Merritt’s. Clear when I arr. back. Played on the guitar 1 h. 10 m. in eve. 11:30 P.M. tem. 32.

28th (Sun.) Clear. Tem about 25-38; W.N.W. eve. clear.

29th. Clear. Cold. tem. 15-35. Went up to Uncle Samuel’s late in forenoon. Had dinner there. In aft. cut wood in swamp for Uncle Samuel 3 3/4 hours. Had supper there. Walked back in eve. (also walked up there) Irene is there on a visit. Eve. clear. cold. Tem. at 11 P.M. 14. Fine weather in aft. W.E.S.S., W.N.W. in forenoon. Called at my home to get my saw horse and 4 ft measuring stick. Played on the guitar 1 h. 10 min. In eve.

30th. Light snowstorm all day. W.W.S.W. in forenoon, S.E. to E.N.E. in aft. tem. tem. [sic] 18-30. Cut wood 2 hours for Uncle Samuel — had dinner there, walked up and back. Called at Mrs. Merritt’s and bought some milk. Ethel got it — staid [sic] there 5 min. Eve. clear. cold. windy. W.N.W. Played on the guitar 1 h. 20 min. 11 P.M., tem. 23.

31st. Cut wood in swamp 4 1/2 hours for Uncle Samuel — had dinner there. Walked up and back — worked 20 min for Mrs. M.G. Seaverns — early in eve. Shoveling snow from path to street and clearing it from steps and […] — 15. Fine weather for the season. Clear. tem. 15-32. W.N.W. called at Eugene Brown

PAGE 357

To see if he has any potatoes to sell — Uncle Samuel wants to buy some. Eve. cloudy. tem. 32. Played on the guitar 1 h. 25 min in eve.

1919

[…] 3 cords and 1 ft. of hardwood in […] for Uncle Samuel — 7.50.

7 1/2 cords of hardwood for L.F. Hyland — 16.87. Hauled out 1/2 cord […] — 25.

Working for Uncle Samuel — mowing bushes — 75.

Working for L. F. Hyland — picking beans — 4.95.

Working for E. Jane Litchfield 9.60.

Hyman Coyne — 1.25.

Aaron Bates — 40.

Arthur E. Litchfield 4.30.

Wm. F. Carter — 7.72.

Mrs. Caroline Litchfield — 2.25.

Mason Litchfield — 5.00.

Peter W. Sharpe — 13.38.

Mrs. Emma F. Sargent — 5.85.

Charles Bailey — 1.50.

Mrs. Edna T. Bailey — 6.00

Miss Edith C. Sargent — 1.55

Fred T. Bailey — 5.60

Mrs. Salome Litchfield — 5.77

7. O. Clapp — 7.00

Mrs. Bertie Barnes — 7.50

Mrs. Vera Wilder — 13.60.

Herbert Bates and Mrs. Mary Wilder — 45.

Mrs. Mary Wilder — 35.

Mrs. Hazel Dimond — 1.65 […]

Joseph W. Morris — 2.10

George Crosby — 17.97

Mrs. Christine Ellis and Mr. Bullard — 8.78

2. Bruce Fletcher — 2.25

Mrs. Cora Bailey — 20.

Repaired and sharpened 1 pr. of scissors for Mrs. Henrietta Merritt — 15. Sharpened 2 prs. […] for Mrs. M — 12.

Working for S.T. Speare — 16.00

Margaret Speare — 5.70

Mrs. Ethel Torrey — 10.90

26. Frank Clapp — 26.50

Mrs. M.G. Seaverns — 26.55

6. H. Vinal — 6.41

Charles James — 2.00

Sold plants (from my garden at home) to Mrs. M. G. Seaverns — 1.00

Sold vegetables from my garden on the James place — 61. 35 boxes of currants 4.32 and 1/2 box of raspberries — 10 cts.

Sold the grass on my place — 1.00

Sold 1 1/2 feet of cedar wood — 1.50 (sawed into firewood)

Sold junk to Samuel Berson — 3.11

Made 54 wreaths (in Dec.) Sold 31 of them — 7.75

Assisting the Auctioneer at the auction at Henrietta’s — 5.00

Housing furniture and taking it out again for Mr. Smith after the auction — 1.00

Working for Henrietta (taking down buildings (in Nov.) — 2.00

$283.06.

* * *

If you are interested in viewing the diary in person in our library or have other questions about the collection, please visit the library or contact a member of the library staff for further assistance.

And stay tuned for our serialized diary from 1920; the first post will appear on January 3rd!

*Please note that the diary transcription is a rough-and-ready version, not an authoritative transcript. Researchers wishing to use the diary in the course of their own work should verify the version found here with the manuscript original. The catalog record for the George Hyland’s diary may be found here. Hyland’s diary came to us as part of a collection of records related to Hingham, Massachusetts, the catalog record for this larger collection may be found here.

Ian Saxine, Bridgewater State University, W.B.H. Dowse Short-Term Research Fellow at the MHS

Three years into a costly and unsuccessful war with the Wabanaki Confederacy on their “Eastern Frontier,” in 1725 Massachusetts leaders sent a commission to speak to their Indigenous foes and enquire “what was the Occasion of the war which the English…hardly knew.”[1] Most readers would find it hard to believe this ignorance over the causes of a conflict sparked by Bay Colony leaders’ consistent misreading of Indian treaties was genuine. So did I, when I started research on what will be the first book length treatment of a sprawling regional war between Massachusetts and the Wabanaki Confederacy during the 1720s that threatened to draw in numerous other unwilling colonies and tribes. The conflict went by many names (Dummer’s War, after the acting Massachusetts governor, is the most common), none suitable or often remembered. Marked less by battlefield drama than by small-scale ambushes and endless, fumbling negotiations, the conflict stands out to me for what it reveals about the invisible constraints on imperial ambitions in the early modern world. Most New England colonies agreed with Wabanaki critiques of Massachusetts’ unreasonable conduct towards them, and so refused to aid their beleaguered neighbor.

The details of one of the Bay Colony’s ensuing fact-finding missions survives in the MHS collections in a slender, unassuming booklet written by Captain John Penhallow, a militia officer posted on the Maine coast in the summer of 1725. Likely intended for his superiors, Penhallow’s “Journal in the three years War” detailed a month of diplomatic sausage-making. Unlike the better known records of formal treaties that punctuate colonial history, Penhallow’s account is stripped of ceremony. Instead, readers will encounter fumbling efforts to communicate in French, English, and Abenaki, a rare mention of Wabanaki writing symbols (“a few lines in Indian…[colonial translators] Could not interpret” and a detailed description of Indigenous property boundaries, also a rare find in any eighteenth-century collection.

This item, catalogued as the John Penhallow Diary, is an unpolished manuscript, and was perhaps intended as the draft of a more formal report. In that respect the piece represents a way in which MHS collections from this period tend to shine—as an excellent repository of the private writings of public figures, whose official correspondence can be found down the road at the State Archives. John was the son of Samuel Penhallow, a superior court judge and prominent figure in colonial politics who wrote a book about the wars on the Maine frontier in 1726, and this item probably remained in Penhallow family collections before ending up at MHS.[2] (Similar, although much less illuminating reports of less well-connected militia officers can be found in abundance in the State Archives.)

Its unassuming appearance and lack of any headings give no indication that this document contains rare insights into Wabanaki politics and culture. Penhallow recorded candid Wabanaki statements about their land use practices, boundaries between groups, and internal political divides that seldom make it into official accounts of treaties published by Massachusetts.

This manuscript is one of the most powerful examples in my own experience of important findings coming from unexpected places. Penhallow’s account is probably mentioning a form of hieroglyphs used by the Wabanakis’ Mi’kmaq relatives. That, and its equally rare description of Indigenous property boundaries, makes it an invaluable resource for ethnohistorians interested in either of these understudied phenomena.

 

[1]  All quotations from 15 July, 1725  John Penhallow Diary, n.p.

[2] Samuel Penhallow, History of the Wars of New-England. Boston, 1726. 1796 Lib. 31.21

By Judith Maas, Library Assistant

December 22, 1873

This morning we took the early train at Alexandria that we might get to a fine view of the Pyramids by daylight. We are to see them before reaching Cairo. The way is charming. Palm trees, camels, laborers in flowing robes, buffaloes ploughing and sometimes yoked with a camel; and all cultivated ground [1].

So begins Sarah Freeman Clarke’s account of an Egyptian journey, during which she traveled by foot, train, boat, and donkey and explored pyramids, bazaars, tombs, and temples. Her sensitivity throughout the diary to color, light, and form and her receptiveness toward all she encountered reflect her vocation as an artist. Whenever she had the opportunity on the trip, she sketched people and landscapes. If lack of time prevented her from making a drawing, she would describe in her diary an image that she wished she could have captured in her sketchbook. The journal, entitled “Notes of a Nile Voyage,” is now part of the Perry-Clarke collection at the MHS.

At about 2 o’clock V. shouted “Pyramid” and we all looked…and as it seemed on the edge of the horizon were two faint spectral images, which would have been taken for mountains but for their symmetrical form. This is the most imposing view that one gets of these structures….when you are quite close they lose all their dignity and become ugly masses of broken and ill put together stonework [2].

Amidst many family responsibilities, Clarke (1808-1896) led an adventurous life, filled with learning and eclectic accomplishment. Born in Dorchester, she came of age during the intellectual and artistic ferment of antebellum Boston. Her first teacher was her paternal step-grandfather, Dr. James Freeman (1759-1835), minister of King’s Chapel in Boston. Under his guidance, Sarah and her brothers studied mathematics and ancient languages and literature. As her brother James recalled in his autobiography, Dr. Freeman’s aim as a teacher was to elicit his pupils’ interest in a subject rather than to pursue “mental discipline”[1] as an end in itself; study became a form of exploration for the children rather than a chore.

Now it is four o’clock, and when the lights are becoming most beautiful on these venerable objects, we must go for the days are short…. as we looked back to the pyramids they lost their… sordid aspect which they wear when you are too near to them and grow fairer and fairer at every step of distance gained [7].

Upon the death of her father in 1830, Clarke and her mother made ends meet by opening a boardinghouse in Boston. As her brothers left the city to pursue new ventures, Clarke began to extend her interests, taking advantage of city life. She gave art lessons to boardinghouse guests, attended lyceum lectures, and engaged in local philanthropic activities. The boardinghouse itself served as a makeshift school for Clarke, as it grew into a gathering place for budding educators, philosophers, and reformers. Among the visitors were her brother James, now a Harvard divinity student, and his friend and confidante Margaret Fuller, with whom he shared a devotion to German romantic literature.

During the 1830s and 1840s, Clarke became a student of the Romantic artist Washington Allston and formed friendships with Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the Peabody sisters. Emerson described her as “a true & high-minded person,” but noted that she “has her full proportion of our native frost.”[2] Her reserve, perhaps, was a hidden strength, allowing her to listen and learn as much as she could from these friends and teachers. Emerson’s precept, to “satisfy the wants of your own soul…[despite] the prejudices of society,”[3] she said, had helped inspire her to pursue her art. “His discourses,” to her, were like “diamonds.”[4]

After lunch drove to the tombs of the Caliphs….The first we entered was an old mosque attached to a Sultan’s tomb. It was a lovely place, open to the sky, with white doves flying about the minarets, which rose, carved and beautiful, above the … upper edges of the walls of the inner court…. Another day when we return to Cairo I must come and paint a bit of the mosque and sky….The other tombs scattered around were beautiful. One had … a good view of the desert and the numerous domes, some in light and some in shadow made a charming picture with their pearly tints [21].

Clarke is worth getting to know not only for the distinguished company she kept, but as someone who found her own distinct path: as a landscape artist who exhibited her paintings at the Boston Athenaeum and whose drawings illustrated Fuller’s first book, Summer on the Lakes; as a participant in Fuller’s “Conversations” for women; as a teacher at Bronson Alcott’s Temple School; as a student of Dante, contributing a poem on the poet to first issue of the Dial and two studies to the Century magazine; and as founder of the Marietta, Georgia, town library.

We crossed the river in our small boat and took the donkeys on the other side … The sunlight coming from behind the … leaves and piercing them with its arrows and the play of color as well as light in this novel combination bewitched me, and I hoped to return and get a sketch of it at the same hour on another day [41].

Clarke was a veteran traveler by the time she made her Egyptian excursion, her interest sparked perhaps by the example of Allston, who had studied art in London, Paris, and Rome, following his graduation from Harvard in 1800. In 1843, after inheriting family money, Clarke, her brother James, and Fuller embarked on a western tour that covered Niagara Falls and the Great Lakes Region. The journey brought the travelers up close to places, people, and ways of life far removed from their everyday lives in Boston: native American encampments, wide open prairie, remote settlers’ cabins. As she would on all her later excursions, Clarke recorded her impressions in her sketchbook, much to Fuller’s delight. In a letter dated September 1843, Fuller wrote: “Sarah Clarke has made many sketches from the magnificent and lovely scenes we have visited. She has, in this way, quite a good journal of our summer.”[5]

Every part of this…temple, inside walls and outside, all over the pillars, pilasters,…and in every possible spot are sculptures. They are the history of the time—its newspapers, its records, its libraries, and its schools, for no doubt teachers brought here their pupils to be instructed in history [50].

In 1844, Clarke made the first of several trips to Italy, where she absorbed the landscape and art and drew outdoors. By the mid-nineteenth century, Italy was becoming a destination of choice for artists; Allston had described Rome as “the great University of Art.”[6] In the late 1860s, after inheriting most of her mother’s estate, she toured northern Italy to sketch the towns and landscapes that Dante would have known.

The ride through this valley is most impressive….It is a valley of stones. Walls of stones hem you in, your road is a bed of stones where once the Nile may or must have flowed….The glare of the sun on all this rock is most unpleasant, but the blue of the sky above, the yellow, red, and black rocks, every line melted by the … sunshine, the flowing outlines which show where the force of the water pressed and molded and rounded the rocks into the masses which we see, all bring before you the mighty force of a great river. It was impossible to stop to sketch in that glare but I would if I could so much was I impressed with the spirit of the place [68].

The Egyptian voyage would be Clarke’s last great expedition. In words and pictures, she had made many worlds her own. In later years, she settled in Marietta, Georgia, to be closer to family. Here she discovered yet another role for herself, that of making her books available to neighbors and family. Her collection became the basis for Marietta’s town library, founded with Clarke’s support, in 1893.

During her final years, Clarke, no longer able to travel, spent time with family and followed the news, taking a special interest in the 1896 presidential election between William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan. A letter she wrote to her sister-in-law suggests that her imagination and curiosity remained undiminished: “How I should have liked to take a flying machine, and fly from city to city, all over the country, to see the great crowds on election day!”[7]

Sources

Capper, Charles, Margaret Fuller: an American Romantic Life, v. 1, the private years. Oxford University Press, 1994.

Clarke, James Freeman, Autobiography, diary and correspondence, edited by Edward Everett Hale, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1891.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Journals and miscellaneous notebooks, Volume 7, edited by William H. Gilman and others, Harvard University Press, 1960.

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller, Volume I, 1817-38, and Volume III, 1842-44, edited by Robert N. Hudspeth, Cornell University Press, 1983.

Kopp, Joan Alice. Sarah Freeman Clarke, 1808-1896: a woman of the nineteenth century. Marietta, Ga: Cobb Landmarks & Historical Society, 1993.

Marshall, Megan. Margaret Fuller: a new American life. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013.

Marshall, Megan. The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005.

Myerson, Joel. “A True and High-Minded Person: Transcendentalist Sarah Clarke. Southwest Review, Spring 1974, 163-172.

Stebbins, Theodore E. , Jr. The Lure of Italy: American artists and the Italian experience, 1760-1914. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in association with Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers.

 

[1] Clarke, 17.

[2] Emerson, 395.

[3] Quoted in Capper, 215.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Fuller, vol. III, 147.

[6] Stebbins, 39.

[7] Quoted in Kopp, 95.

by Susan Martin, Processing Archivist & EAD Coordinator

Today (20 November) marks the 199th anniversary of a tragic day for the whaling ship Essex. The Essex had sailed from Nantucket, Mass. on 12 August 1819, traveling from the North Atlantic to the South Atlantic, around Cape Horn, and up the west coast of South America. But 15 months into the journey, on 20 November 1820, while hunting in the Pacific Ocean, the ship was rammed by a very angry and very large sperm whale.

If this sounds familiar, it may be because this event served as an inspiration for Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. But as historian Nathaniel Philbrick explains in his 2000 book In the Heart of the Sea, “the point at which Melville’s novel ends—the sinking of the ship—was merely the starting point for the story of the real-life Essex disaster” (p. xiii). The 20 crew members who fled in the ship’s whaleboats would spend three months stranded at sea, their number eventually dwindling to eight.

When I searched our catalog for more information, I found that the MHS holds books on this subject published between 1999 and 2016, as well as a pamphlet called Loss of the Essex, Destroyed by a Whale, written in 1884 by Robert Bennet Forbes. Forbes was a merchant, sailor, and scion of a famous Boston family. He started his pamphlet with this eye-catching sentence: “Now that the word ‘cannibalism’ is forced upon our notice so unnecessarily, it seems a good time to make a few notes on the fate of the crew of the Essex.”

Wow, I didn’t see that coming.

Forbes’ pamphlet was clearly published in response to some provocation, but I couldn’t determine what that was. Sixty-four years had passed since the ship’s fateful voyage, and most of its crewmen were dead. (Several writers count Thomas Nickerson as the last survivor, but Seth Weeks died in 1887.) Moreover, the darker parts of the story had never been a secret. First mate Owen Chase had published his version of events in 1821. It was called Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex and included explicit details.

It’s possible that Nickerson’s death in 1883 had revived interest and prompted Forbes’ reply, but I can’t be sure. In any case, Forbes explained, unemotionally, the facts of the matter. Yes, the crew had resorted to cannibalism to survive their three grueling months at sea, but similar incidents had been known to occur throughout history. Forbes’ purpose was evidently to provide context and defend the decisions made by the desperate crew. In fact, the subtitle of his pamphlet is: With an Account of the Sufferings of the Crew, Who Were Driven to Extreme Measures to Sustain Life.

Forbes largely relied on Owen Chase as a source. Other fragmentary versions of the story existed, but Chase got to print first, so his became the dominant one. As first mate, Chase had been responsible for the men in one of the three whaleboats, and he undoubtedly felt the need to defend his actions both during the initial whale hunt and in the months after.

In 1960, a mysterious manuscript was found in an attic in New York. This manuscript was later authenticated as the work of Thomas Nickerson, cabin boy on the Essex, who’d been only 14 when the ship sailed out of Nantucket. In 1876, he wrote down his memories of the voyage and even drew sketches of scenes as he remembered them. (Our friends at the Nantucket Historical Association now hold this manuscript.) Nathaniel Philbrick and others have discussed the ways these two accounts differ.

Some elements of the Essex tragedy are particularly fraught. First, while most of the men who died succumbed to starvation, one did not; 18-year-old Owen Coffin was shot after the drawing of lots. Second, a disproportionate number of the earliest crew members to die were men of color.

All in all, the story of the Essex is a haunting reminder of the dark but undeniable parts of American history.

Speaking of Moby Dick, the MHS collections include a 1930 hardback edition of Melville’s classic novel with beautiful illustrations by Rockwell Kent. I couldn’t resist using Kent’s illustrations in this post, although they depict the Pequod instead of the Essex.

Sources at the MHS:

Dowling, David O. Surviving the Essex: The Afterlife of America’s Most Storied Shipwreck. Hanover, N.H.: ForeEdge, an imprint of University Press of New England, 2016.

Forbes, R. B. Loss of the Essex, Destroyed by a Whale: With an Account of the Sufferings of the Crew, Who Were Driven to Extreme Measures to Sustain Life. Cambridge, Mass.: John Wilson and Son, 1884.

Haverstick, Iola and Betty Shepard, eds. The Wreck of the Whaleship Essex: A Narrative Account by Owen Chase, First Mate. San Diego: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1999.

Melville, Herman. Moby Dick, or the Whale. New York: Random House, 1930.

Philbrick, Nathaniel. In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. New York: Viking, 2000.

by Molly Laas, MHS Short Term Fellow an dACLS/Mellon Public Fellow & Editor at Data & Society

One of the least exciting archival holdings I was set to check out at the Massachusetts Historical Society was a copy of Edward Atkinson’s 1892 book The Science of Nutrition. I am writing a history of the formation of nutrition science in the U.S., and Atkinson, a Boston businessman and self-taught economist, was very interested in food and diet. He cultivated close ties with both the newly minted home economics movement and the chemists and physiologists who were framing the central questions of nutrition science. Despite Atkinson’s proximity to the development of nutrition science in the U.S., his book merited only a quick glance from me because I had already read it, and found it bizarre and tedious. The book was not about science at all, but instead extolled the virtues of the Aladdin oven, a slow cooker of Atkinson’s own design, that purportedly would help workers live within their means by allowing them to stew dry beans and cheap, tough cuts of meat to palatable tenderness. If workers could control their own cost of living, boom, there would be no need for them to agitate for higher wages, and the labor problem would be solved.

However, The Science of Nutrition became more interesting to me as I sat in the MHS reading room to examine the circumstances of its launch into the world. Labor advocates, economists, and scientists of the day issued scathing critiques of Atkinson’s notion that controlling food costs would allow workers to live on a shockingly low salary, as little as $500 a year. Yet The Science of Nutrition can be found in nearly every academic library in the United States. Andrew Carnegie was a strong supporter of Atkinson’s diet and cost of living theories, and provided the funds to send copies to thousands of U.S. libraries.[1] The book’s prevalence got me thinking about how a science of daily life, like nutrition, is defined in the public mind.

At the turn of the century, professional scientists had a different view than Atkinson did about the purpose of nutrition science and what it could and could not achieve. One scientist, W.O. Atwater, thought of nutrition science as a means for improving health, and part of his aim was to set a high dietary standard that was ample enough to facilitate better health and strength for laborers. He took a dim view of the Aladdin oven and was far more cautious than Atkinson was about the question of wages and diet, noting in an 1886 letter to Atkinson that “there are a Scylla of labor agitation and a Charybdis of physiological considerations to sail between.”[2] Atkinson, as was his wont, powered his boat straight ahead into the controversy, with a series of incendiary speeches before labor unions about how they could live well on pennies using his oven.[3]

The controversy over The Science of Nutrition lays bare a central tension in the history of nutrition, between professional scientists and lay diet teachers of all stripes. Nutrition is not just a laboratory science producing a one-way flow of facts about diet; popular demands upon nutrition science deeply influence the kinds of questions scientists ask. In addition, professional scientists are just one, not always very loud or authoritative, voice in a raucous public discussion about diet and health.[4]

Which leads me, slowly and warmly, back to Atkinson’s The Science of Nutrition. What does its ubiquity in archives and libraries tell us about the way the public understood nutrition science in the late nineteenth century? For one thing, Atkinson’s lively public persona and taste for notoriety was an excellent way to spread his ideas. The public pushback that Atwater received from labor advocates cemented the notion that nutrition was a science of parsimony and limited diets, rather than one that aimed at ample nutrition and a high standard of living. One worker summed up this view in an open letter to Atkinson, writing that Atkinsons’s “cantankerous” state of mind was caused by his “great disappointment in seeing the laboring and producing classes suddenly rise up in a body and refuse to be starved.”[5]

[1] Atkinson to Theodore A. Havermeyer, Nov 20 1895, Atkinson to Thomas Egleston, March 9 1896, MHS archives.

[2] W.O. Atwater to Atkinson, Nov 6 1886. MHS.

[3] Atkinson, Addresses Upon the Labor Question (Boston: Franklin Press: Rand, Avery & Company, 1886). MHS.

[4] Rima D. Apple, Vitamania: Vitamins in American Culture (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1996); Corinna Treitel, Eating Nature in Modern Germany: Food, Agriculture, and Environment, c.1870 to 2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).

[5] W.H. McLaughlin, “An Open Letter to Mr. Edward Atkinson,” Boston Daily Globe (1872-1922), September 3, 1896.