By Ashley Williams, Reader Services

As many of us are gearing up to indulge in summer fun, potentially beach or ocean related, it seems a more than appropriate time to delve into MHS collections related to real life swashbucklers. In an earlier post we discussed collections related to the Whydah pirates who were executed in Boston in 1717. Boston also boasts as the place of capture for the notorious Capt. William Kidd.

Kidd started out as a British privateer and was praised for defeating several French ships for England. In 1695, he received a commission from the King to take out pirates that were attacking East India Trading Company Ships. It was after setting sail to fulfill this commission that Kidd turned to piracy.

The most extensive document we have related to Kidd’s story is titled A Full Account of the Proceedings in Relation to Capt. Kidd… written in 1701 by “A person of quality.”

Leading up to Kidd’s trial in 1701 there were many rumors and great debate that he was framed by his benefactors, primarily the Earl of Bellemont. The Earl had been responsible for proposing the pirate-hunting commission from the king and was also responsible for helping fit Kidd with a ship and crew. This pamphlet was published by allies of the Earl and primarily serves to argue for the Earl’s ignorance in relation to Kidd’s intentions of piracy, discuss the details of Kidd’s commission, and call for a salvaging of the Earl’s reputation while also recounting a sort of origin story for Kidd that follows up until his trial in England.

In addition, there are The Dying Words of Capt. Kidd and Capt. Kidd: a noted pirate, who was hanged at Execution Dock, in England. Both documents appear to have the same information, but are housed in different formats, accompanied by different art, and are marked with different publishing dates.

Capt. Kidd : a noted pirate, who was hanged at Execution Dock, in England, pictured above, is a small broadside adorned with a drawing of a ship set in the center of the title. It is believed to have been published sometime between 1837 and 1841, but the publisher is unknown. Running vertically up the center of the document, there is writing that indicates this piece was once sold, “by L. Deming at the sign of the Barber’s Pole, Hanover Street, Boston, and at Middlebury, Vt.”

The Dying Words of Capt. Kidd, however, is held as microform and is marked in the upper left-hand corner with an illustration of a figure on a horse looking onward towards another figure hanging from gallows. The publisher for this piece is also unknown and the publishing date an uncertain “1800?” Either way, they seem to simply be two separate printings of the same song.

Yes, you read correctly, song. Both titles turning out to be incredibly misleading, the text in these works appear not to be Kidd’s words at all, but a sort of foreboding nursery rhyme. The painfully repetitive lyrics recount a remorseful and repentant Kidd warning other sailors not to follow his example and, “for the sake of gold, lose your souls.”

Regretfully, no melody for the tune can be provided from the text, but if you’re looking for suggestions, I would recommend “She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain.” Just give it a try.

It is difficult to imagine that Kidd actually felt or ever even said many of the lines recounted in this song himself, especially given that either of these were published a decent century after his execution. What isn’t difficult to imagine or observe is that religious leaders of the 17th and 18th century would often use pirate executions as an opportunity to draw the minds of their congregations to their own sins and need for repentance. This practice can be seen in action throughout several MHS collections, more notably by people like Cotton Mather who was also referenced in the earlier piratical blog post.

One example that can be given comes in a pamphlet from the Boston Society for the Moral and Religious Instruction of the Poor entitled An Address to the Spectator of the Awful Execution in Boston, referring to the execution of several pirates.

This brief pamphlet charges onlookers to pray for the pirates, reflect on their own sins, and to take initiative in dissuading their children and friends from sin. It ends with a hymn of repentance.

For more on pirates and guilt trips… I mean repentance:

Davis, William C., The Pirates Laffite: The Treacherous World Of The Corsairs Of The Gulf. 1st ed. Orlando, Fla.: Harcourt, 2005.

Kidd, William, Nicholas Churchill, and Don C Seitz., The Tryal Of Capt. William Kidd For Murder & Piracy Upon Six Several Indictments. New York: Printed for R.R. Wilson Inc., 1936.

Mather, Cotton, The Converted Sinner :… A Sermon Preached In Boston, May 31, 1724. In The Hearing And At The Desire Of Certain Pirates, A Little Before Their Execution, Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1724.

Tully, Samuel, The Last Words Of S. Tully : Who Was Executed For Piracy, At South Boston, December 10, 1812, Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1812.

By Susan Martin, Collections Services

The MHS recently acquired two fascinating letters related to a woman named Nancy Barron, and when cataloging the collection, I found a surprising connection. 

The first letter, addressed to Dr. “Hayward” of Concord, Mass., was written on 20 July 1827 by R. Barron, Nancy’s mother. The Barrons lived in Boston. The letter begins:

Sir I sent a letter to you since Mr Stow was here but have receaved no answer. I take the liberty to state my curcumstances to you and hope that you will concider my case. My daughter is sick more or less all of the time. As for myself I cannot do any work of any consequence. Nancy can do some work all though not capable of takeing care of herself.

R. Barron asked the doctor for help with their rent, which was two months overdue, and explained that she and her daughter couldn’t come to Concord “as it would make Nancy as bad as she was before.” The family received some charity, but it wasn’t enough.

The only other letter in the collection was written almost a year later, this time to Dr. “Haywood.” The writer, D. Patten of Boston, pleaded on behalf of the Barrons, for whom circumstances had deteriorated. Mrs. Barron was “verry much afflicted with ill health,” and the family suffered “poverty and want in a great degree.” Adding to these troubles was Nancy’s “derangement of Mind […] which of late has become much worse.”

Just identifying the correspondents in this small collection was challenging. The two letters were clearly written to the same person, but spelled his name differently. I started with him, assuming he’d be the easiest to find. It took some digging, and through trial and error, I finally stumbled on Dr. Abiel Heywood (1759-1839). Neither Barron nor Patten had spelled the name right.

According to a biography of Heywood published in Memoirs of Members of the Social Circle in Concord (pp. 228-33), he began practicing in Concord in 1790, though he soon left medicine to serve in a series of public positions, including town clerk, selectman, tax assessor, justice of the peace, and Middlesex County judge. He was a very eminent member of the community in 1827, when Mrs. Barron appealed to him.

I never did identify the writer of the second letter, D. Patten. I also don’t know the first name of Nancy’s mother. But when I started looking for Nancy, I found more than I expected. A Google search turned up her name in, of all places, the journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

The relevant journal entry is dated 24 June 1840. By this time, Nancy was living at the Concord Asylum, an almshouse just 200 yards behind Emerson’s home, across the Mill Brook. The reference to her is unexpected and startling. Emerson wrote:

Now for near five years I have been indulged by the gracious Heaven in my long holiday in this goodly house of mine, entertaining and entertained by so many worthy and gifted friends, and all this time poor Nancy Barron, the mad-woman, has been screaming herself hoarse at the Poor-house across the brook and I still hear her whenever I open my window.

Ralph L. Rusk, who edited the published volumes of Emerson’s letters beginning in 1939, included citations for a few letters related to Nancy, but he misread her last name as “Bacon.” The error was corrected in an annotation in volume 7 (p. 336) by subsequent editor Eleanor M. Tilton. Apparently, between 1839 and 1843, Emerson corresponded with a Mary Mason about Nancy’s case; these letters are currently on deposit at Harvard’s Houghton Library. It seems Emerson and others provided financial support for Nancy’s care, which would account for how he knew her name.

Like his neighbor Abiel Heywood (the land adjacent to Emerson’s home is still called Heywood Meadow), Emerson belonged to the Social Circle in Concord, a private club for illustrious men of the town. Also among its members was Cyrus Stow—undoubtedly the man R. Barron mentioned in her letter. According to the Memoirs (pp. 295-301), Stow contracted with the town “to take charge of its poor for the use of the Cargill Farm.” Concord Asylum was located on Cargill Farm, probably near where the police and fire department building stands now. Stow was the last piece of the puzzle.

The only other result of my search for Nancy was a single line in the register of births,  marriages, and deaths in Concord: “Nancy Barron aged 46 years died March 29, 1843” (p. 355). Emerson acknowledged her death in his correspondence with Mary Mason.

The striking juxtaposition of Nancy Barron and Ralph Waldo Emerson, with just 200 yards and a narrow brook between them, may have been the kind of thing Henry David Thoreau had in mind when he wrote the following passage in Walden (p. 172):

But how do the poor minority fare? Perhaps it will be found, that just in proportion as some have been placed in outward circumstances above the savage, others have been degraded below him. The luxury of one class is counterbalanced by the indigence of another. On the one side is the palace, on the other are the almshouse and “silent poor.”

By Susan Martin, Collections Services

This is the seventh and final post in a series about the wartime experience of Charles Cornish Pearson. Go back and read Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, and Part VI for the full story.

We’ve come to the conclusion of the story of Sgt. Charles Cornish Pearson and his service with the 101st Machine Gun Battalion during World War I. We pick up after the Battle of Saint-Mihiel in September 1918, a success for the Allies, who forced the German line back and captured thousands of prisoners and hundreds of guns. Loved ones back in the States were thrilled by the news. Charles wrote to his Aunt Florence:

Suppose the news in the paper the past few weeks has cheered up the people at home a good deal. Certainly is quite a set back to the Hun but guess they need a lot of licking yet before they see the error of their ways in the proper light. One doesn’t appreciate the havoc & needless vandalism they have carried on until one has travelled over this part of the country & then one hasn’t taken into consideration the slavery the civilian population has had to undergo the past four years. They sure have a lot to pay for if they ever can.

Despite rumors that the war was winding down, Charles knew his “next trick” would come soon, and he was right. Less than a month after Saint-Mihiel, on 8 October 1918, his battalion moved to the outskirts of Verdun to prepare for its part in the brutal Meuse-Argonne Offensive. Philip S. Wainwright points out, in his History of the 101st Machine Gun Battalion, that from this position the men could see the infamous Mort-Homme, the site of terrible losses in the Battle of Verdun two years before. Another soldier described the feeling of being surrounded by “numberless French graves” (p. 124).

From 23-31 October, the guns of the 101st were used to support an attack by the 26th Yankee Division at the Bois de Brabant-sur-Meuse. According to Wainwright, it was the hardest fight the battalion had ever faced, with “continuous shell-fire” and “gas attacks every night” (p. 52). Charles agreed. On 1 November, after a gap of 17 days, he wrote to his parents from a reserve position at Marre, and his usual breezy style was muted.

One doesn’t feel much in the mood for letter writing. […] Things have been happening pretty swiftly lately and I feel pretty lucky to be able to scribble you a line & say O.K. […] Suppose I could write you a great deal about what we have been doing the past days but am only too glad to be out of it for the time beginning [sic] & just say that war is h–l & let it go at that.

He told his brother Bill, in a bemused tone, “I often wonder how they all missed me and the others. Fate I guess with good dodging is the answer.” In a letter to his sister Jean, he included some very vivid details of the battle—huddling in a trench as shells flew overhead, the spray of dirt as “whiz bangs” hit the hill opposite, the hardness of the ground. He also switched seamlessly to the present tense and second-person pronouns, making his story even more visceral: “You try to sleep saying to yourself well you are pretty safe unless they make a direct hit…” But as for the worst of his experiences, he explained, “I am getting so now I try to forget all about them as soon as they are over and sometimes that is no easy thing to do.”

Rumors of peace were coming in fast and furious now. As one soldier put it, “this war is all over but the shooting” (Wainwright, p. 131). Sure enough, at 11 a.m. on 11 November 1918, the armistice went into effect. This description of that moment doesn’t come from Charles, but from another soldier quoted by Wainwright:

Suddenly there is a queer silence—we don’t know what to think or do. It is true—but no one wants to shout or laugh. We just cannot realize the significance of it. Here we were, only a few moments ago, ready to jump into our cars and go out and shoot up the Boche, or get shot up. What will happen, and where are we going now? (p. 132)

Charles, like others, was both stunned and relieved that the war was over. He wrote to his parents the following day, “It seems too good to be true & one wanders around in a daze. It sure has been h–l at times but guess it has been worth it all.” And he signed off another letter with the words: “Finis la Guerre.”

Charles looked forward to getting back into civilian clothes, rejoining the commercial paper business, and doing “as I damn please for awhile.” He even asked his sister if she knew any single girls who would be interested in a “perfectly harmless veteran.” But he would have a long and frustrating wait of several months before the 101st Machine Gun Battalion finally sailed for home in the Agamemnon on 31 March 1919. Charles was discharged on 29 April 1919.

Charles married Edith Irene Carrier in 1925. He died on 19 May 1973 at the age of 83, survived by his wife, three children, six grandchildren, and one great-granddaughter.

In spite of his humble protestations, Charles was a very compelling correspondent, and I hope you’ve enjoyed this deep dive into his papers as much as I have. I’ll finish with an excerpt from a letter to his sister, written from France after the war:

Glad you have appreciated or rather enjoyed my letters written over here. Am afraid you over exaggerate as I never was much of a hand at letter writing and my power of description etc is sadly lacking, still if they gave you some idea of what we have been doing over here why I am satisfied.